Little Mushroom

—An Zhe as well. Thus, he said, "Thank you, Colonel."

"No need for thanks. Go ask for leave in the afternoon."

"…Eh?"

Lu Feng squinted casually and spoke lightly, "Follow me to the Lighthouse."

"What are we going to do?"

Lu Feng explained, "Dr Ji has something to ask you."

An Zhe doubted the truth of this sentence. Why would Dr Ji be looking for him?

For a moment, he suspected that Lu Feng wanted to arrest him for entering Eden. However, he felt that his performance this morning was perfect and even Seraing took the initiative to speak for him.

An Zhe, "…"

He suddenly realized that he didn\'t seem very smart in Seraing\'s eyes. Still, even if he wasn\'t a smart human, he was a sane mushroom. Going to the Lighthouse was something he really wanted.

He said, "Okay."

Lu Feng gave a faint hum and turned to leave.

***

As the children were being trained by the military instructor, An Zhe saw on a bench beside them. He would be called over if the instructor needed help with things like timing or scoring. There was nothing to do and the office didn\'t have any books he was interested in. He could only take a guide on the operation of various weapons.

Rather than sitting with him, Colin sat on the bench next to him. Colin had made a new friend who was a boy in his 20s and a teacher of language and literature for the next door class.

At this time, the book open in An Zhe\'s hand explained in detail a large fighter plane called \'PL1109\'. This was a masterpiece of human technology in the year of the magnetic field chaos. It used the base\'s independent cruise system to accurately locate the path in the absence of magnetic fields. It sounded great but An Zhe had no interest in it. Since he hadn\'t slept all night, he started to faintly doze off.

On his right side, Colin\'s greetings with the language teacher were over. They exchanged names and started to talk, the content of their conversation entering An Zhe\'s ears.

"Do you like the main city?" Colin asked. An Zhe was keenly aware that Colin was going to start preaching again.

"Why don\'t I like it?" The boy replied. "The main city has given us a secure life."

He also seemed to be a talkative person. The moment this sentence ended, the boy added, "We have been in the main city for a month. What do you think of it?"

"I don\'t like it," Colin declared.

"Why?" The boy wondered. "I don\'t have to be a mercenary and go out and die. I never thought about it before but I thank my mother every day for forcing me to finish the three courses. Although she mainly wanted me to finish the language and economy courses before going to the supply station. This way, she wouldn\'t have to go out to the wild to make a living."

Colin was silent for a moment before asking, "Where is your mother?"

"She died in the wild. It was only a few years since they adopted me. My father didn\'t come back and then she didn\'t come back."

"I\'m sorry."

"It\'s fine." The boy smiled. "I\'m used to it. What about you?"

"My mother was killed by the Judge. My father… he stayed in District 6 when we went to the main city."

"I\'m sorry," the boy also said.

The exchange of experiences seemed to rapidly pull the relationship between the two of them closer. There was a brief silence as the boy looked at the children on the training ground. He placed his arms behind his head and sighed. "I have been in the outer city for so long that I forgot we all came out of the main city when we were young."

"I remember quite clearly." Colin stated. "I wanted to be a biologist when I was five or six years old. I did well but I didn\'t get to stay in the main city."

"I wanted to be an officer when I was a child," the boy muttered. "I fell down at the final assessment and the military didn\'t want me."

"Fate is fickle."

"Our qualifications weren\'t enough. Even if we stayed, it would\'ve been hard." The boy sighed. "It might not necessarily be happy to stay in the main city. I heard that some people wanted to study the human archives. As a result, they had excellent mathematical talent and could only calculate trajectories in the Lighthouse for the rest of their lives. If you think about it, you wanted to be a biologist. As a result, the base feels you are more suitable for you to be a linguist. How hard would it be for you to translate documents? If I was you then I would suddenly die."

"This is why I don\'t like the base," Colin stated. "It is like a cold-blooded machine."

"You have to think of yourself as a small part. Your genes are the model and determine what place you work in."

Colin gave a rare smile. "You\'re fun."

The boy said, "We learn to use metaphors when learning language."

"However, people aren\'t parts. The base does everything in the name of serving human interests but we have been losing our humanity."

"What else can we do? We can\'t eat the base\'s rice for free and need to have some value." The boy stood up and stared at the children in front of him.

"I really like kids." The boy suddenly smiled in a very happy manner. "I love this job so much. Maybe one day, I will teach a child who is a once-in-a-lifetime genius who will save the world."

Then he talked to himself, "I have to prepare for my lessons."

An Zhe looked at him curiously before glancing back at Colin. Colin didn\'t speak anymore. An Zhe thought that Colin wouldn\'t find his comrade this time.

In the outer city, Colin had protested against the judges. What banner would he raise in the main city? An Zhe thought it might be things like \'Against the classification of humans\' or \'we want freedom.\'

An Zhe\'s mind gradually became confused and more sleepy. He tried to concentrate by looking at the military illustrations. He hurriedly turned over the fighter plane page and looked at the weapons section. There were different types of bombs, such as the uranium bomb or hydrogen bomb, that could blast a mushroom to pieces. However, he wasn\'t afraid. Humans were different from the monsters in the Abyss. Humans were regular creatures. As long as he obeyed the rules, he could live.

He spent the morning like this. At noon, the children finished training. Several children gathered together. Some felt the training was too difficult and didn\'t want to go eat so they surrounded him on the bench.

An Zhe gently applied a band-aid to a child while comforting a short-haired girl who felt the training was too difficult. "Have strength. You can be an officer after training."

The girl wondered, "Can\'t I just be eliminated?"

An Zhe told her, "No."

He thought that even if the child didn\'t stay in the main city, she should train well. Otherwise, once they grew up and if the outer city had resumed operating, the children with too poor physical fitness wouldn\'t be adopted and no mercenary team would be willing to take them. If they couldn\'t be admitted to the city affairs office or the supply station, they could only go to the third underground floor, regardless of whether they were male or female.

He had stayed there for a month and knew the people there weren\'t doing well. Therefore, he said, "All of you have to train well."

The girl held his arm and complained, "However, I will need to train every day even if I become an office."

An Zhe touched her hair and thought about it. "Still, there is a nice uniform."

A boy looked at the soldiers on the training ground and stated, "Ugly."

"Their rank isn\'t high enough," An Zhe told him seriously. "Wait for you to upgrade to… a colonel. They look good."\'

"Really?" The child asked.

"Is it that man over there who looks good?" Another child wondered.

"Who?"

The child pointed behind him.

An Zhe turned around. Two or three metres away from here, the colonel in a black uniform was leaning against a telephone pole. He was so close and the children weren\'t afraid of him. Perhaps it was because at this time, Lu Feng was looking at An Zhe with slightly raised eyebrows, some happiness in his expression.

An Zhe, "…"

The words he said just now were probably heard.