For the first time, An Zhe saw Lu Feng smile—although they had only met once and the smile was minimal. It was just that in this minuscule smile, An Zhe saw that the Judge was slightly looking for something today. Then the little smile disappeared and Lu Feng’s expression face returned. Only his long, white fingers played with his dark gun, the action completely dangerous.
An Zhe wondered, “Can I go now?”
Lu Feng was still expressionless as he asked, “What are you doing here?”
An Zhe answered truthfully, “I work here.”
“First or second floor?”
“…Third floor.”
“Oh.”
There was a long silence until the sound of the young judge’s recording stopped. Then the young judge said, “There are no abnormalities in the language while being interrogated. This corroborates the judgment that the person on trial is human.”
An Zhe saw Lu Feng glance at the young judge but it didn’t look like a compliment.
He asked again, “Can I—”
Lu Feng interrupted. “You can go.”
“Thank you.” An Zhe turned quickly and returned to the entrance, sitting down at the store selling potato soup. He really wanted to drink it today.
The price of the base-supplied potato soup in the residential area was 0.3R while the price here was 1R. The difference between the two was very obvious. Here, the concentration of soup had increased by at least three times. In addition to the potatoes that were almost completely boiled and melted, the soup had minced meat and perhaps a little bit of milk. The sweet aroma floated in the air.
The spoon was white. An Zhe picked up the spoon and scooped up the soup. He blew the white steam and then put it in his mouth, swallowing it. In the midst of the dense water vapor, he squinted while eating in a satisfied manner. It would’ve been better if there was no Judge present. An Zhe ate slowly, serious and quiet, without making any noise. After approximately 20 minutes, he finished eating and began to adjust his mindset, ready to pass by the Judge and leave here.
The moment he left his seat and turned to the door, there was a shrill sound from Lu Feng’s transmitter. An Zhe passed by this person and could hear Lu Feng speak coldly toward the correspondent, “Trash.”
An Zhe was in a state of shock as he left the black market.
At this moment, it was evening and the sun had sunk. The western sky was a grey blue and the wind was becoming cold. After another two hours, the base would lose power. The supply station opposite the black market was closing and there was a steady stream of people leaving.
The supply station, the black market and the train station formed a triangle with a wide square in the middle. People came from all directions, like migrating ants, and filled the square and train platforms.
The train ran from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. at every hour. It always arrived on time. The time on the schedule was approaching and there was a slight roar in the distance that gradually became louder. After a short and violent shaking, the train stopped on the tracks like a silver snake. The doors on one side open and a dozen carriage doors slid open. People on the train poured down. Some of them were returning from other parts of the city to their living areas while some had just returned from the wilderness.
At this moment, a soft mechanical female voice was broadcasted. “Passengers, due to an equipment failure, please get off immediately and wait. Waiting passengers, temporarily don’t board the train and wait.”
“Passengers, due to an equipment failure, please get off immediately and wait.”
The mechanical instructions played in a loop. The people who first heard it were confused before they quickly rushed to the periphery. This action infected other people and within three minutes, an atmosphere of panic spread across the station. Everyone hurried to the square.
An Zhe was waiting to get on the train when he was suddenly in the midst of a chaotic crowd. Although he didn’t know what happened, he knew the rules of human life. He turned around and intended to follow the crowd.
However, the crowd pushed each other and he was caught. Someone bumped into his back and there was the sound of high heels. An Zhe turned back, smelled a familiar scent and found it was Du Sai, the master of the underground third floor. She looked like she had just got off the train. Once their eyes met, Du Sai also recognized him. It seemed to be a subconscious gesture as she grabbed his wrist without speaking and pulled him to run.
In the square, there was the sound of people falling and being trampled on. However, Du Sai pulled him through the crowd, so quickly it was like she had experienced this thousands of times. It wasn’t until they followed the fast-running man in the front to the edge of the square that they stopped.
A row of black armored vehicles was neatly parked at the edge of square, one every 10 metres. The body had a silver shield logo painted on it. An Zhe had read the base manual and knew that it represented the city’s defense station. The full name was the Outer City Defense Station. AT this time, soldiers with live ammunition were getting off the vehicles in turn, blocking all the exits.
An Zhe still didn’t know what was happening. He had been running too fast just now and was a bit out of breath. Meanwhile, Du Sai bent over, gasping violently and coughing a few times.
An Zhe reached out and patted her shoulder. Half a minute later, Du Sai seemed to barely be recovering. At this moment, there was still chaos in the square. People ran to the edge of the square and were stopped by a wall made up of soldiers.
An Zhe helped Du Sai to a corner with slightly less people.
He asked, “What happened?”
“This used to happen often.” Du Sai straightened up and looked at the crowd in the square. “There is a heterogenous type mixed in.”
She took a breath and continued, “There must’ve been a heterogenous on the train. The time it took to check the train carriages was too long. The heterogenous attacked and there were deaths in a few carriages. They must be spreading out to check.”
“This hasn’t happened in a long time,” she said. “Didn’t the Judge see it?”
An Zhe told her, “He was on patrol today.”
Not only that, An Zhe heard Lu Feng receive a message and coldly reply ‘Trash.’ Now that he thought about it, Lu Feng should’ve received the news of a heterogeneous mixing into the base. At this time, An Zhe felt her hand grasping his tremble slightly.
“Is he here?”
An Zhe hummed in reply.
As if to confirm his words, the next moment, there was a dull bang and something white flew through the air. It shot down from a height, like dazzling lightning cutting through the evening sky and fell straight through the shoulder of a person not far away from An Zhe and Du Sai.
An Zhe turned his head and looked at the place where the light came from. He saw that on top of the grey-white building that was the black market, a slender figure stood. At this moment, the figure was slowly lowering the black weapon in his right hand. The binoculars held in his left hand were passed to the young judge following him.
“The magnesium flare has marked the position!” The next moment, there was a short command from the city’s defense. “Ready!”
The moment the order was given, a sharp noise erupted from an armored vehicle in the vicinity. There was a shrill scream and a combustion bomb with thick smoke hit the positions indicated by the magnesium flare.
All of this happened in a flash. There was the pungent smell of burning and bodies in the crowd fell heavily to the ground. Smoke rose from his body and screams rang out through the square at once.
Du Sai’s grip on him suddenly tightened. She said, “That man was sitting right behind me.”
“However, he didn’t attack people. I’m fine.” She seemed relieved. “That was a white phosphorus bomb. He should be dead.”
She looked at the top of the black market building. Lu Feng’s figure had disappeared from the top of the building but she still stared over there. An Zhe watched her. In the twilight, Ms Du’s mature face suddenly showed an unusual serenity.
After a minute, the screams around them gradually faded. On the ground where people retreated from, the black and twisted limbs stopped convulsing and remained motionless. The others in the square seemed relieved but the blockade of the city defense station wasn’t loosened.
“The colonel saved me once five years ago.” An Zhe heard Du Sai suddenly speak. “IT was at the city gates and it is almost the same as it is now.”
An Zhe didn’t speak as he felt the atmosphere gradually calm down. That day at the gate, he understood why some people hated Lu Feng. Today, he understood why some people didn’t hate him.
Three minutes later, the soldiers of the city defense station forcibly separated a path in the crowd and Lu Feng took people over to look at the four corpses. Due to their location, An Zhe and Du Sai were very close.
He put on snow-white gloves, knelt on one knee, pulled out the corpse in the centre and ordered briefly, “Knife.”
The judge by his side handed over a sharp knife. Immediately after, he saw Lu Feng cut the belly open with no expression. The charred body had a pungent smell but the interior of the exposed abdominal cavity didn’t have the organs that humans should have. Instead, there were dense, small and multi-coloured, yellowish transparent things in the thousands or millions.
An Zhe stared and felt like it was insect larvae, something like spiders, and squirmed slightly. He saw Lu Feng frown and the knife cut sharply, opening up the esophagus and throat of the body. Similar things were constantly falling out.
“The parasitic type and highly prone to spread.” Lu Feng got up, took off his gloves and threw them on the body. Another judge immediately handed him new ones.
Then he ordered, “Check everyone.”
Du Sai’s body suddenly softened and she fell forward. An Zhe was sharply reminded of what she had said a few minutes earlier. She said the man was sitting right behind her. He tried to support Du Sai’s body but her movement was too large. Lu Feng’s eyes glanced over to this side.
Lu Feng’s eyes were stopped on her cheek and An Zhe followed his gaze. In the chaos just now, he hadn’t looked at her face carefully. Now that he did, he saw that on her forehead, there was a small blister-like thing. It was shining brightly and something in it seemed to slightly squirm.
“I…” As if feeling something, Du Sai slowly reached out and touched the place. She trembled and as she stared at Lu Feng, two streams of tears immediately as she took a few steps towards him.
There was the first time An Zhe had seen such an expression on a human face. He couldn’t tell if Du Sai’s expression was love or hate. Perhaps despair occupied most of it.
A shot rang out.
She fell forward. An Zhe failed to catch her and there was a dull sound as the human body fell to the ground.
At this moment, An Zhe was only a short distance from Lu Feng and he glanced at the other person. Those cold green eyes suddenly to have nothing in them.
Lu Feng suddenly reached out to him. An Zhe flinched. The Judge didn’t pull the trigger. This wasn’t the hand holding the gun. Rather, his fingers fell on An Zhe’s face and paused briefly. An Zhe remembered the moment when Du Sai was shot. Part of her blood had splashed on his face. It was hot at first and soon became cold.
The cold liquid was wiped off, bright red staining the snow-white gloves, the warmth of the touch briefly staying on his cheek.
An Zhe shivered and closed his eyes.
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