Chapter 42: Chapter 39: You Can Ask
After Gu Xi finished her check-up, she said goodbye to Mr. Zhao and headed back with Wei Heng.
Shen Yue trailed slowly behind her.
Gu Xi couldn’t help but look back at him with a strange expression. "Something just happened last night. Isn’t it a bad idea for you to just abandon your post so openly?"
Right now, even Qi Xiang had been roped into helping out at the experimental field. Shen Yue was the field’s security officer; was it really appropriate for him to leave so casually?
Shen Yue said with perfect justification, "It’s almost time for lunch, and I haven’t even had breakfast yet." He’d paid his food fees in full; he couldn’t let them shortchange him.
Besides...
"The two professors have been busy all night, too. Even if I can handle it, they can’t. Hey, you, cook a few extra sweet potatoes later. I need to bring some back for the professors’ brunch..."
Gu Xi: "..."
Wei Heng: "..."
Fortunately, there really was a lot to do at the experimental field today, so Shen Yue just grabbed a bag of steamed sweet potatoes and left.
After Shen Yue left, Wei Heng thought for a moment before finally taking out the small handful of rice he treasured. He was planning to secretly make some porridge for Gu Xi to help her recover.
Gu Xi thought about it and decided to bring out a lounge chair. She sunbathed and listened to the radio while watching Wei Heng start a fire to cook the porridge.
Wei Heng seemed a little down.
That morning at the experimental field, several members of the Special Service Team had looked at Wei Heng with barely concealed emotion. A few of them even had red-rimmed eyes.
Gu Xi was lost in thought.
The afternoon sun was perfect.
Wei Heng silently tended the fire for the porridge.
After a while, Gu Xi closed the dictionary in her hands and tilted her head to look at him.
"Gu Xiaoxi," Wei Heng suddenly said, "you’ve probably already guessed, haven’t you? I used to be... a member of the Special Service Team."
Gu Xi nodded.
Wei Heng suddenly let out a self-deprecating laugh.
He extinguished the fire in the stove and stood up. "Forget it. There’s nothing worth talking about from the past."
’Actually, I’d quite like to hear about it,’ Gu Xi thought.
Of course, it wasn’t that she was a gossip. It was just... being around Wei Heng so much lately had influenced her a little.
Wei Heng brought the cooked porridge to Gu Xi, then turned back to clean the stove.
Gu Xi stirred the steaming hot porridge in her bowl idly with a spoon.
The announcer’s sweet voice drifted from the old radio...
The afternoon sun was perfect, and neither of them spoke.
After a long silence, Gu Xi suddenly spoke. "Wei Heng, tonight... can you go and catch up with your old comrades?"
It was a strange question.
Because being able to do something and wanting to do something have always been two different things.
Wei Heng looked up at her.
Gu Xi pushed the half-bowl of porridge she had portioned out in front of him—as a leader, she had never been one to eat alone.
Wei Heng looked down at the half-bowl of white rice porridge before him, remaining silent.
After a moment, he looked up at Gu Xi. "Okay."
Gu Xi stirred the remaining porridge in her bowl, meeting his gaze calmly. "Wei Heng, aren’t you going to ask why?"
"No need to ask." Wei Heng picked up his own bowl of porridge and took a sip.
The unique fragrance of rice lingered on his lips and teeth. This porridge was a delicacy he had never tasted before...
’If those people knew this porridge existed,’ Wei Heng thought, ’they would surely go mad, scrambling to seize it at all costs, desperate for an endless supply!’
After a long silence, Wei Heng looked up and stared intently at Gu Xi.
’What a good girl,’ he thought. ’She knows what kind of covetousness her ability will attract, yet she still chooses to be open and honest with me...’
’And all that military food sent to the front lines... She could have refused. She could have chosen to just look out for herself.’
’But she didn’t.’
’So, how could I have the heart to let such a good person go through the same... hurt that I once suffered?’
Wei Heng smiled and drank the rest of the porridge in one go. The expression on his face suddenly relaxed a little.
He looked up at Gu Xi, his gaze firm. "Gu Xiaoxi, you don’t have to think about how to explain it to me..."
"Wei Heng," Gu Xi interrupted him calmly, her expression serious. "You can ask."
Wei Heng watched her in silence.
After a moment, he said gently but firmly, "Gu Xiaoxi, I know you have secrets. I do too... Some things, if they’re hard for you to explain, you don’t have to."
But Gu Xi had no intention of hiding it from him.
In the apocalypse, it was right to be vigilant, but Wei Heng was the first friend she had made since waking up, and someone she already considered a teammate in her heart.
When it came to her teammates, she could choose to hide some things, but she shouldn’t deceive or use them.
"Wei Heng." Gu Xi put down her porridge and looked up toward the forest on the back mountain. "Tonight, I want to go into the woods..."
The matter of the Mutated Locust Tree had to be resolved tonight.
And the people currently guarding that Mutated Locust Tree in the forest were from the Special Service Team.
They were also Wei Heng’s... former comrades.
...
In the middle of the night, Ye Junhan suddenly received a message from a team member, reporting that the Mutated Locust Tree in the forest had, for some unknown reason, suddenly begun to wither at an extremely rapid pace.
By the time he arrived with Ye Nan, the Mutated Locust Tree was completely dead and already showing signs of decay.
Ye Nan’s expression changed slightly at the sight. Without a word, she rushed forward with her equipment to take samples...
To the side, Ye Junhan found the team member on guard duty for the night and asked him a few quiet questions.
After learning that Wei Heng had come by to deliver dinner and stayed for a while, for some reason, the image of that girl from earlier in the day, squatting by the high wall and idly pulling at weeds, suddenly flashed through his mind...
Although he had personally checked afterward and found nothing unusual about the weeds.
But Ye Junhan just had a nagging feeling that something was wrong.
The handsome young man stood in the darkness of the night, his eyes lowered in deep thought.
After a moment, he glanced deeper into the woods, then walked over to Ye Nan.
"How is it?"
The man’s voice was indifferent and calm. Here in the depths of the dense, ghost-haunted forest, it was somehow reassuring.
Ye Nan shook her head, her expression grim. "This Mutated Locust Tree is completely dead. But it’s strange. I’ve tested samples from several parts, but I can no longer detect that energy from before..."
That miraculous energy, the one suspected of being able to Purify mutant plants, seemed to have... vanished into thin air.
Ye Junhan’s eyes narrowed slightly. After a moment, he suddenly asked, "What about the Mutated Locust Tree’s own energy?"
Ye Nan froze for a second. She hadn’t expected Ye Junhan to suddenly ask about that. It was common knowledge that once a plant completely withered and decayed, the X Energy within its body would also disappear...
As for where that energy went in the end? No one knew.
Just as no one knew where that eerie energy came from in the first place.
This was common sense; there was no way Jun Han didn’t know.
And this Mutated Locust Tree before them was already completely withered and dead, and had entered the decay stage. Logically, the eerie energy inside it should have...
Ye Nan’s expression changed as she was suddenly struck by a thought.
She glanced at Ye Junhan and, without a word, quickly pulled another set of instruments from her backpack...
Ye Junhan stood motionless, his narrow eyes scanning the surroundings, his gaze finally landing on one particular spot...
A breeze rustled past.
The man’s fingertips, which had been lightly tapping the scabbard at his waist, paused for a fraction of a second.