danmei lines

Little Mushroom

The artificial magnetic field had for a few days and disappeared. As early as the Lighthouse was still active, he heard scientists predict that this year's climate would be extremely unusual and winter would come atleast three months early.

– The winter of his life is coming.

The moment the spore had matured, the instructions from his life instincts flashed and he received the instructions from fate. Just as he never saw the mushroom from the moment he landed on the ground, he was doomed to fail to protect his mature spore.

The outside was dry and hurricanes were blowing all the time. Monsters were scary and in the Abyss, there were rodent and arthropod monsters. The spore might be accidentally trampled on by giant monsters or be affected by fighting. At the last moment, An Zhe could only choose to believe in Lu Feng.

It was because An Zhe was going to die.

The life of a mushroom wasn't very long. He was already considered one of the longest. Everyone had a mission and once he finished it, he completed the meaning of being alive. For a mushroom, raising the spore was the only mission.

An Zhe shook slightly in the cold wind and he hugged his arms. There was no more need to feel.
He was crumbling. He had seen dead mushrooms before. When their spore fell, their cap would gradually break, curl then whither. Finally, all the tissues, the mycelium, the stem and the roots on the soil, they would all melt into a black pool of liquid. Then they would be eaten up by everything else in the soil.

He would start to experience the process he had witnessed countless times. He didn't know how long this process would take but it must be soon, before humanity was destroyed. Previously, he really wanted to return to the base with Lu Feng, no matter what happened next.

However, let Lu Feng think that he was still alive in the wilderness. The Judge had seen to many deaths.
_______________

The Judge wasn't interested and didn't pay attention to how a biologist's cognitive system was destroyed. He held this soft spore in his hand and wondered, “How did An Zhe disappoint you?”

“He doesn't have any infectiousness worth mentioning.” The doctor sighed. “You have slept together yet you are still a person and showed no signs of infection. Your will hasn't been affected by him and you haven't become kind af all. He and his spore can't affect people.”

Lu Feng glanced at him lightly, seemingly thinking about something. Just as the doctor thought he was going to say something worthwhile, the colonel told him, “I haven't slept with him.”

The doctor stared straight at him. “Then you disappoint me more than An Zhe.”
_______________

At least, from the moment when Lu Feng put his gun on An Zhe's backpack, in this one second out of billion years–in the second the Judge left his gun to a heterogeneous, he betrayed his life's faith to love him.

Then like the fairytales in children's textbooks, the midnight bell rang. One returned to the Abyss and one returned to the base.

Like a sandstorm that was gradually ending, in the bells, fhe dust settled. An Zhe's heart return to it's ordinary frequency little by little. He had received an unimaginable gift but he was completely calm instead.

He felt it was enough, everything was enough.

“If one day, humans are safe and you see him..” He requested of Polly. “Please... please don't tell him that I've been here.”

“No one can lie to a judge.”

“Then tell him that I was here then left. I've gone far away and might be anywhere in the world.”

Polly gazed at him with a gentle and sad expression. “I really hope God will take care of you.”

An Zhe slowly shook his head.

“I can't love him, nor he can love me.” An Zhe spoke these words gently.

Unless—unless it is the day when humans fall. However, I hope that day never comes.” In this moment, calm enveloped him.

In the gap between the aurora and the clouds, there were countless, translucent white debris. They were falling down and the quiet mountains and night were alive because of these things. It was snowing.

An Zhe held out a hand and the hexagonal snowflake fell on his finger. The beautiful shape was gradually lost due to tbe temperature of his skin and became crystal droplets.

“I have only known you for three months but this is my lifetime.”

The wind blew louder and thousands of snowflakes fell into the grey corridor, like catkins rising in the spring breeze. An Zhe raised his head, thinking that everything he had forgotten was spread before his eyes, drifting in shimmering fragments.

The stormy waves subsided and the dark tide stopped surging altogether. He wasn't happy or sad, he just felt that the snow was very beautiful. The joy and sorrow of his life, the encounter and parting, the birth and death of all tangible things in this world—they were like fleeting snowflakes.

“Is it cold?”

“It isn't cold anymore.”

An Zhe remembered the shape of the snowflake and in that second, he got eternity.