Following the directions Old Li had given him earlier, Jiang Le didn’t take long to find the market at Base No. 1. He didn’t have anything specific he needed to buy, but the market was always a mixed bag of people—making it the best place to quickly get a sense of the base’s layout.

Candles and oil lamps were sparsely dotted along the base’s main street, where a steady stream of people came and went, half-hidden in the darkness amid the afterglow of the setting sun.

The market sold a wide variety of goods, not much different in variety from Hope Base, though the selection was slightly more extensive. What was particularly notable, however, was that every few stalls, there was one selling mushrooms.

The varieties of mushrooms ranged from common to rare, including dried and fresh ones, and some vendors even sold ready-to-eat dishes—boiled or stir-fried.

Jiang Le observed that these mushroom stalls attracted quite a few customers; in fact, a crowd of superpower users had even gathered in front of a snack stall selling fried mushrooms. The mushrooms, coated in batter, were tossed in hot oil; the aroma of the mushrooms, blended with the scent of the oil, was fully released, and the fragrance could be smelled from a distance.

Within seconds of being scooped out of the hot oil, the piping-hot fried mushrooms would be snatched up by someone, who would eagerly stuff them straight into their mouth. The crispy exterior crunched between their teeth, and the aroma, mingled with the grease dripping from their lips, wafted into the air, drawing yet another customer.

People kept eating until they reached into their pockets and found no more “nucleus crystals,” then reluctantly got up and left. Stalls selling ordinary food, on the other hand, weren’t nearly as busy.

Apart from those, the stalls where people lingered the most were the ones selling clothes. As the weather turned colder, many who didn’t have a supply of warm clothes needed to stock up.

As Jiang Le walked past one of the stalls, the owner noticed his thin jacket and immediately called out to him: “Come take a look at our padded jackets—they’re all new arrivals—we’ve got hooded ones, long ones, and even separate hats and gloves. Feel free to take a look.”

The owner himself was wearing a hat and gloves, looking quite cold.

Jiang Le stopped in his tracks and browsed through the items on the table. The gloves were of good quality and didn’t look secondhand. But he couldn’t help asking, “Sir, did you eat those fried mushrooms too?”

A strong mushroom odor had been wafting from the shop owner behind the counter the whole time, making it impossible for Jiang Le to ignore. The shop owner kept scratching his face every now and then, as if it were itchy: “No, I didn’t.” He shot Jiang Le a sidelong glance: “Are you going to buy anything? If not, stop rummaging through them—you’re making them dirty.”

Sensing the sudden hostility, Jiang Le pulled his hand back. “Sorry.”

With that, he turned and walked away.

It took him about half an hour to walk the entire length of the street from end to end. By then, the colors of the sunset had been completely swallowed up by night. Yet, standing at the far end and looking back, he saw that not many more streetlights had come on, and the crowd in the darkness seemed perfectly at ease.

There were no strict class distinctions like those at Hope Base, and there were no obvious boundaries between superpower users and ordinary people. Sometimes Jiang Le could even see slogans promoting civility on the streets; judging by their content, they had all been written after the apocalypse.

Judging by various details, the leaders of Base No. 1 were indeed seriously committed to managing and developing the base.

But a strange feeling kept lingering in Jiang Le’s mind—there were far too many mushrooms here, so many that it seemed abnormal.

Under cover of darkness, Jiang Le kept a low profile, bypassing the bustling main street and heading toward the less-trafficked area where superpower users gathered. He discovered that it was actually even darker here than on the main street—not even a single scattered light was visible—a stark contrast to Hope Base, where superpower users could still use electricity as usual.

No matter how frugal Base No. 1’s lifestyle might be, it shouldn’t be so dark that not a single light was visible. Ruling out the possibility that they couldn’t afford electricity, the only remaining explanations were that they didn’t want to or simply didn’t like it.

Jiang Le walked a little further. The buildings ahead began to thin out, giving way to vast expanses of farmland, most of which were now covered by greenhouses, making it impossible to see what was growing inside.

Jiang Le couldn’t go any further, as the entrance to every greenhouse was guarded by one or two superpower users. They took turns patrolling every path through the fields to prevent any intruders. The area was wide open, with no buildings to hide in.

Jiang Le glanced up at the moon, now hidden behind the clouds. Instead of approaching recklessly, he raised his wrist and pulled a section of blood vine out of the planting dish. After communicating with it in a low voice, countless vine nodes broke off, forming a thin strand about the size of an earthworm. Dozens of them immediately burrowed into the nearby soil and set off toward the various greenhouses.

Jiang Le didn’t wait there; instead, he returned to his rented apartment first.

As he unlocked the door, he noticed through his neighbor’s window that the woman who had been lying in bed when he left was now sitting on the edge of the bed. Sensing Jiang Le passing by the doorway, she slowly turned her head to look at him.

However, before she could fully turn her head, Jiang Le had already entered the room and closed the door. It was late at night, and all was quiet.

In a corner where no one was watching, a small group of vine segments was huffing and puffing as they burrowed their way out of the soil, sniffing out the scent of their mother plant to find their way home.

While dodging the crowd, he sneaked along the wall, hopping and skipping his way across half the compound until he came to a stop by the window of a small two-story building.

The gaps in the old wooden window were wide enough for a vine to slip quietly out from the second-floor window. It slid silently down the wall, and upon meeting the vine node protruding from the ground, the two instantly joined together, then retracted silently and suddenly before anyone could pass by.

Jiang Le was a light sleeper; a gentle poke on his face from the vine was enough to wake him. He set aside Xiao Lang—which had somehow crawled into his arms and was now sleeping, sprawled out, taking full advantage of its smaller size—and sat up to look at the vine segment on the ground.

The vine segments kept shifting their positions on the ground, presenting Jiang Le with simple sketches of what was being grown in the greenhouses they had surveyed. Vegetables, root crops, staple foods, and even basic livestock farming—the quantities and scale were both substantial.

But after the tour was complete, not a single greenhouse was growing mushrooms.

“So there aren’t any mushrooms at all, right?” Jiang Le asked.

Blood Vine reformed into a vine, and the vine stood upright, nodding slightly at Jiang Le.

That made it even stranger. Jiang Le’s hand unconsciously stroked the wolf’s head in his arms. A base that could be said to be running smoothly in every respect didn’t grow mushrooms, yet suddenly began producing them on a large scale.

Thinking of Base No. 1 from his previous life—which had been destroyed overnight—Jiang Le couldn’t help but connect these anomalies, giving him one more reason to stay here.

The next day, Jiang Le woke up a little later than usual and didn’t leave his room until it was fully light out. Perhaps because of yesterday’s experience of curling up against Jiang Le’s chest, Xiao Lang automatically burrowed into the collar of his shirt the moment he got out of bed, and Jiang Le let it be.

It was a sunny day, and the warm sunlight went some way toward dispelling the winter chill.

Stepping back onto the main street, the thoroughfare that had been practically shoulder-to-shoulder with people the night before was now nearly deserted, though there were still a few stalls though there weren’t many customers.

The vegetable market set up by the base was open and drew the largest crowd. Jiang Le went inside to take a look. Most of the fruits and vegetables were much smaller in size and shape than before the apocalypse, but they were quite fresh. They appeared to be produced by the base itself. Even the prices—while not exactly cheap—were still affordable enough for ordinary people to manage if they tightened their belts a bit; they weren’t reserved exclusively for superpower users.

In the shade of the alleys outside the market, a few people were setting up stalls, selling steamed buns, baozi, and various snacks, but the most eye-catching were two stalls selling mushrooms.

All sorts of mushrooms were mixed together in a pile, all fresh and moist.

The vendor was bundled up in a thick cotton coat, wearing a high-neck sweater and a hat, with sheepskin gloves on both hands. At the slightest breeze, he would hunch his shoulders, looking as though he was very sensitive to the cold.

Jiang Le crouched down slightly. “Weigh me some,” he said.

He picked up a few mushrooms with his hand and gently rubbed their surfaces with his fingertips. He felt the moisture spread across his fingertips, but other than that, he didn’t sense anything unusual—no supernatural energy fluctuations. They seemed to be perfectly ordinary mushrooms.

Seeing a customer, the shopkeeper smiled and agreed. With one hand holding the bag and the other moving swiftly, he packed the mushrooms for Jiang Le, filling half the bag in no time. After weighing them, he told Jiang Le the price. Jiang Le paid and left the alley, carrying the mushrooms.

According to what Old Li had said yesterday, mushrooms were an important supplement to the base’s food supply—so important, in fact, that it was only because of them that the base was able to take in new residents again.

Yet the base had no greenhouses for growing mushrooms, and their selling price was even higher than that of ordinary food. As Jiang Le pondered these inconsistencies, a hand suddenly reached out from beside him, trying to grab him.

Jiang Le instinctively stepped back, creating a safe distance between himself and the other person. Only then did he look up—to his surprise, it was Liu Tianyang. The illegitimate younger brother born to Jiang Le’s unfaithful father.

“Jiang Le, it’s—it’s really you!” Liu Tianyang’s greatly gaunt face couldn’t hide his excitement.

In his previous life, after the apocalypse, Jiang Le hadn’t seen a single member of the Liu family—he never would have expected Liu Tianyang to show up in Hai City.

“What are you doing here?” Jiang Le asked.

Liu Tianyang glanced around, then motioned for Jiang Le to follow him to a quieter spot further back.

Jiang Le found his behavior strange, but after a moment’s thought, he set off to follow him. Liu Tianyang led Jiang Le through a series of twists and turns, as if trying to avoid someone, until they rounded a dilapidated building where hardly anyone passed by. Only then did Liu Tianyang stop and briefly explain to Jiang Le why he had ended up at Base No. 1.

It turned out that before the apocalypse, to celebrate their upcoming relocation, the family of three had come to Hai City for a vacation. They never expected chaos to break out—they couldn’t even buy train tickets home. Later, when a large-scale zombie outbreak erupted in Hai City, they were forced to retreat with an official organization to Base No. 1.

During this ordeal, Liu Tianyang’s mother turned into a zombie, while that jerk Liu Jianhua unexpectedly awakened a water-manipulation ability. With Liu Jianhua around, even though Liu Tianyang hadn’t awakened any abilities himself, at least he didn’t go hungry.

“But lately, Dad’s been acting weirder and weirder,” Liu Tianyang told Jiang Le with deep concern. “I asked him to buy some meat and noodles so we could make dumplings, but he wouldn’t listen. All day long, he’s bringing mushrooms home and insisting I eat them too. I’ve hated mushrooms since I was a kid. I told him I wouldn’t eat them, but he still got mad at me.”

“I snuck some nucleus crystals out of the house—I haven’t been back for two days. Do you have any food on you? I’m starving.” Liu Tianyang stood on tiptoe to get a better look at the backpack behind Jiang Le.

Jiang Le held up the mushrooms in her hand. “Want some?”

But when Liu Tianyang saw them, he took a step back. “Holy crap, you bought some too? You’re eating them now?”

His gaze toward Jiang Le suddenly turned suspicious.

“What’s the matter? Can’t I eat them?” Jiang Le asked.

Liu Tianyang looked him up and down, concluding that Jiang Le probably hadn’t eaten any yet. After a moment’s thought, he decided to lower his voice and warn Jiang Le: “If you haven’t eaten any yet, I strongly advise you not to. These mushrooms seem to be addictive. If you eat too many, you’ll start acting weirder and weirder—and even…”

Liu Tianyang paused, as if remembering something; his face betrayed fear and unease. “It seems like mushrooms actually grow out of your body. The day I ran away from home was because I saw what looked like mushrooms growing out of my dad’s body.”

“How could mushrooms possibly grow on a person?”

“It’s true!” Liu Tianyang exclaimed anxiously. “There was a dark, black growth on his neck that looked like wood ear mushrooms.”

Even now, recalling the scene from back then, Liu Tianyang still looked visibly shaken.

“Where is he now?” Jiang Le asked.

Based on what Liu Tianyang had said, Jiang Le was now curious to see exactly what Liu Jianhua’s condition was like. If what Liu Tianyang said was true and the mushrooms at Base No. 1 were indeed growing on people’s bodies, then it would make sense that he couldn’t find the cultivation site.

“What are you doing? Are you actually going to look for him? Be careful—he might force you to eat mushrooms too,” Liu Tianyang muttered. Only then did his gaze fall on the dog’s head pinned to Jiang Le’s chest, and his expression shifted. “Holy crap, you’re keeping a dog now?”

Jiang Le didn’t waste words with him; instead, he reached into his backpack and pulled out a meat bun. Seeing this, Liu Tianyang reached out to take it, but Jiang Le raised his hand to block him. “Tell me where Liu Jianhua is first.”

Jiang Le emerged alone from the alley. Liu Tianyang refused to show him the way, telling him only the general area where they lived and the distinctive features of the house. At the very end, he didn’t forget to warn Jiang Le to just throw away the mushrooms he’d bought—under no circumstances should he eat them.

Jiang Le took note of the details but didn’t go there right away; instead, he carried the mushrooms back to his rented apartment.

The tenants here were just as listless as they had been the day before. The man from the next room was hanging laundry on the balcony. As Jiang Le walked past him, he expected them to ignore each other just as they had the day before, but to his surprise, a man’s voice suddenly came from behind him.

“These mushrooms are actually pretty tasty.”

Hearing this, Jiang Le turned around and saw the man’s gaze fixed intently on the bag of mushrooms he was carrying. When the man looked up at him, there was even a hint of enthusiasm among kindred spirits in his eyes: “You’ll know once you try them.”

Jiang Le nodded slightly, then closed the door, blocking the man’s gaze from following him inside.

The bag of mushrooms was placed on the table, giving off a faint, earthy scent. Jiang Le stared at it for a moment, confirming that there was indeed no trace of supernatural energy on it, then picked up the bag and entered the spatial pocket.

He fetched a pot from the warehouse, poured all the mushrooms into it, added water, and brought it to a boil. As the water boiled, the mushrooms slowly wilted, but under the continuous boiling, their scent persisted, never fading.

Eventually, Jiang Le poured the pot of mushroom broth into the compost bin. To his surprise, the compost bin—which usually accepted almost anything—processed the broth for a while. Although it disposed of the liquid, a message popped up on the top of the bin: “This substance contains no nutrients and cannot be converted into fertilizer.”

It wasn’t until nightfall that Jiang Le left the room again. Following the directions Liu Tianyang had given him, he found the place where Liu Jianhua was currently living. After confirming someone was inside, Jiang Le approached and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” Liu Jianhua’s voice came from inside, sounding both impatient and hoarse. Then the sound of slippers shuffling toward the door could be heard.

The door opened from the inside, and Liu Jianhua’s face peered out. He was wrapped in a thick cotton coat, and his expression—which had been slightly furrowed with impatience—froze for a moment upon seeing Jiang Le. “Lele, why is it you?”

Jiang Le followed Liu Jianhua into the room. It was larger than the one Jiang Le rented, but still modest in size. The room was already dark, and with the curtains drawn tightly, it was pitch black—so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

But Liu Jianhua seemed accustomed to this kind of environment; his pace didn’t slow. As for Jiang Le, his senses were naturally heightened, so even in such darkness, he could still see his surroundings clearly. He could make out that every surface in the room—the bed, the table, and the bench—was covered with various kinds of mushrooms.

Liu Jianhua would occasionally scratch his back a couple of times.

“Have you seen Tianyang? That little brat hasn’t been home for days. Where is he now?” 

“I don’t know. I just got here and am not familiar with the area yet.”

“It’s okay,” Liu Jianhua said, taking two more steps forward before suddenly smiling and whispering, “I know where he is.”

Jiang Le stared at Liu Jianhua’s back. A superpower user who had just reached Level 2—that rank was far too low. According to Liu Tianyang’s description, Liu Jianhua’s superpower had been sufficient to support both of them for so long; it was impossible that he was still only at Level 2.

Liu Jianhua, who had never been one to get up early unless there was something in it for him and had never shown Jiang Le any genuine concern, was now displaying unusual warmth toward him in this post-apocalyptic world where resources were scarce. “Then come live with Dad. We’ll make sure you’re well-fed and well-watered! And if you see Tianyang again, bring him back too.”

Jiang Le didn’t answer. He pulled a flashlight from his coat and simply said, “It’s really dark in here.”

The moment the flashlight turned on, its beam instantly illuminated Liu Jianhua. Though the light wasn’t particularly bright, it seemed to startle him greatly; he immediately ducked behind a cabinet, his tone suddenly frenzied. “Why did you turn on the light? Turn it off right now!”

Though it was only for an instant, it was enough for Jiang Le to get a clear look at Liu Jianhua’s skin—everywhere except his face. His neck was densely covered with an unknown type of fungus, arranged in neat layers that grew downward and then slanted upward like fish scales. Even the spaces between his exposed fingers were packed with umbrella-shaped mushroom caps of varying sizes.

Jiang Le turned off the flashlight as instructed, her tone so calm it was as if she hadn’t even noticed Liu Jianhua’s current state: “I won’t be staying with you. I have something to do—I’ll be going now.”

Once the flashlight was turned off, Liu Jianhua’s voice and demeanor returned to normal. But given the recent incident with the flashlight, he didn’t try to make Jiang Le stay. Instead, he quickly packed a bag of mushrooms. “Well, take these home to eat. When you’re done, come back to Dad’s place to get more.”

After consuming a certain amount of mushrooms, individuals begin to produce mushrooms from their bodies, accompanied by symptoms of photophobia and sensitivity to cold. They become eager to spread the mushrooms to others through consumption, making eating a crucial link in this chain of transmission.

Jiang Le briefly organized the information in his mind. After leaving Liu Jianhua’s place, he didn’t go straight home but headed to Old Li’s residence; he needed to gather some more useful information.

Old Li was resting at home and greeted Jiang Le quite warmly. However, just one day later, Old Li’s condition had changed somewhat.

Jiang Le remembered that when he saw him yesterday, Old Li’s energy bar was clearly fuller than it was now; it had actually regressed. Glancing at the half-eaten plate of stir-fried mushrooms on Old Li’s table, Jiang Le became even more certain that this was inextricably linked to the mushrooms.

But according to the composting machine’s prompt, these mushrooms themselves didn’t contain any residual energy—so where had all that missing energy gone? Jiang Le pulled two fresh apples from his bag as payment for the information. Old Li took the hint and fetched a bench for Jiang Le to sit on. Jiang Le chose his words carefully and asked, “Brother Li, who was the first to discover these precious mushrooms?”

This wasn’t a sensitive question, so Old Li replied, “It was the head of our base, Chen Qing. He’s always out and about, racking his brain to find more edible food for the people at the base. He said that one day, he ran into a superpower user from another base who told him about a type of mutated mushroom that was highly edible and non-aggressive. So Chen Qing took a team out into the wild to look for it—and they actually found it! So he brought this treasure back and started cultivating them here at the base.”

As Old Li spoke, his gaze fell on the bag of mushrooms Jiang Le was holding, and he added, “This is a token of your father’s goodwill—don’t waste it. Once you try them, you’ll know just how good they taste.”

As he spoke, he picked up a pair of chopsticks and popped some mushrooms into his mouth, half-closing his eyes as if lost in thought.

Jiang Le’s eyebrows twitched almost imperceptibly, lost in the darkness, revealing no visible emotional ripples.

Old Li’s words might not have meant much, but ever since Jiang Le had walked in, he hadn’t mentioned Liu Jianhua once, let alone the origin of these mushrooms. How did he know these mushrooms were a gift from his father?

For the time being, he pretended not to notice this oddity.

“What’s it like?” Jiang Le asked in a low voice.

“The taste of becoming part of the collective…” Old Li stopped mid-sentence, as if suddenly snapping back to reality, and added, “You’re a lucky kid—you caught the last chance to get into our base. Starting tomorrow, it’s closing again.”

Jiang Le gave a faint smile. “Is that so? Then I really am lucky.” He stood up. “I’ve got to go now. Take your time eating.”

Jiang Le made his way through the darkness back to the small courtyard where he rented a room. Before he even reached the stairs, he heard another fit of violent coughing. As he climbed the stairs, the door next door—which had been tightly shut—suddenly swung open, and a hunched-over man emerged, as if he’d been waiting for Jiang Le the whole time.

“You didn’t eat the mushrooms at lunch,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Why didn’t you eat them?”

The man’s expression in the darkness betrayed undisguised malice.