Jiang Le shot him a cold glance and slammed the door shut with a clang, the door nearly slamming into the man’s face. Several seconds later, Jiang Le could still sense the man pressed tightly against the door, his gaze peering through the narrow crack as if trying to cling to him.

Jiang Le turned on his flashlight, and the room was suddenly bathed in a soft glow; the peering gaze from outside the door recoiled instantly, as if scorched.

If it had been a zombie or a mutant outside the door, Jiang Le could have killed it without a second thought—but that wasn’t the case. Even with superpower users like Liu Jianhua and Old Li, their transformations had only resulted in a regression of their abilities, not any other kind of mutation.

The fungus growing on their skin seemed to act as some kind of medium for absorbing energy; as long as their own energy hadn’t been completely depleted, every infected person remained human.

To draw an analogy, every infected person in Base No. 1 right now is like a clone controlled by the Matrix—their consciousness is compromised, and their actions are involuntary. Everything their eyes see and everything their ears hear is shared among them and transmitted to the Matrix.

Jiang Le’s mind was suddenly flooded with a flashback of Liu Jianhua’s words. Realizing that Liu Tianyang’s situation was likely dire at that moment, he hesitated for only a second before opening the window and leaping silently from the second floor.

The base seemed to come alive in the darkness, teeming with people and filled with the sound of whispered conversations everywhere. Jiang Le avoided the crowded areas and, guided by his memory and the cover of night, made his way to the area where Liu Tianyang had been hiding earlier that day.

In the moonlight, the alleys between the old, unevenly arranged houses looked like a maze from above. Jiang Le moved silently along the rooftops, her senses on high alert, picking up scents and voices in the air.

Before he even got close, Jiang Le heard Liu Tianyang’s agonized screams.

“Get away, get away! Dad, what are you doing? Ugh! Ugh!”

Having pinpointed the exact location, Jiang Le changed direction and soon spotted Liu Tianyang in the corner of a small courtyard belonging to an abandoned house, surrounded by three or four people, including Liu Jianhua.

Liu Jianhua was tearing mushrooms off his own body and forcefully trying to stuff them into Liu Tianyang’s mouth. Unable to resist, Liu Tianyang had several mushrooms shoved down his throat; he turned his head and spat them out as he struggled.

Until a voice abruptly interrupted this somewhat nauseating scene.

“Hey, this isn’t the way to deal with a picky eater,” Jiang Le called out from above, his flashlight illuminating Liu Tianyang’s face before slowly sweeping across the faces of those around him.

Liu Tianyang’s cheeks were already flushed bright red with sheer terror and despair. Hearing Jiang Le’s voice out of the blue and seeing his calm expression, he felt as if he’d spotted a savior. Instantly, he began struggling again, shouting, “Brother, brother, save me! Our dad’s gone crazy!”

Jiang Le’s flashlight caused Liu Jianhua and the others to instinctively raise their hands to shield their eyes. Liu Tianyang took advantage of this moment to thrash wildly, and actually managed to crawl and kneel his way out of the pinned position. He dashed like a flash to the eaves where Jiang Le was standing and began hopping, trying to climb up.

The men behind him tried to follow and grab Liu Tianyang, but were blocked by the beam of light from the flashlight between them and were unable to do so.

Liu Jianhua and the others glared furiously at Jiang Le, no longer able to pretend to be a loving father. They cursed at him, shouting, “You unfilial little bastard! Ever since you were a kid, you’ve been causing me nothing but trouble alongside your mother, and you’re still at it now. Just wait—I’ll teach you a lesson first.”

Liu Jianhua raised his hand and channeled a jet of water. The jet lingered in his palm for a moment before suddenly shooting toward Jiang Le with enough force to knock an ordinary person off their feet.

However, with a clatter, the water jet knocked several roof tiles off the roof, yet Jiang Le—who should have been standing right there—was nowhere to be seen. Liu Jianhua tried to unleash a second attack, but he was unable to muster the strength.

On the other side, Liu Tianyang—who hadn’t had time to react—suddenly felt something tighten around his waist. Instantly, he was lifted into the air. Looking down, he saw that he was being held by a green vine as thick as a hemp rope—the same one that had lifted him up.

Although Liu Tianyang had lost quite a bit of weight, he still weighed about 130 to 140 jin, yet when the vine lifted him, he felt as light as a feather. Turning his head again, Liu Tianyang realized the vine was actually extending from Jiang Le’s wrist. A chill ran down his spine once more, and he screamed,

“Dad’s a mushroom spirit—Jiang Le, you little rascal, you haven’t turned into some kind of tentacle monster too, have you?!”

The next second, another vine whipped over and wrapped itself around Liu Tianyang’s mouth twice, silencing him completely.

Jiang Le stopped at a corner. He looked back at Liu Tianyang, who was being slowly lowered by the blood vine, and whispered, “If you don’t want to get captured by them again, don’t make a sound.”

Liu Tianyang nodded in terror. While being dragged along, he’d already seen clearly that the vines weren’t growing out of Jiang Le’s body. Feeling the vine around his mouth slowly loosen, Liu Tianyang was finally able to gasp for air.

Jiang Le tossed him the flashlight and went out to lure Liu Jianhua and the others away.

Liu Tianyang huddled in the corner, clutching the flashlight. After waiting about five or six minutes, Jiang Le finally returned. His silent appearance startled Liu Tianyang, who immediately turned on the flashlight and shone it in the figure’s face. Fortunately, he quickly recognized Jiang Le, and the scream that was about to escape his lips was stifled once more.

Jiang Le led Liu Tianyang through the base. As they moved through the expanding area, many pairs of eyes soon noticed their presence. However, aside from a hint of hostility in their gazes, most people chose not to approach them.

The extent of each person’s infection varied, as did the degree to which their behavior was being controlled.

He took Liu Tianyang back to his own quarters for the time being. The man in the room next door seemed to be away; through the open window, Jiang Le could only see the woman lying motionless on the bed, her heartbeat so slow that at first he mistook her for being dead.

But if they couldn’t identify the source of this infection and sever the energy-draining link, death would be inevitable—not just for that woman, but for every infected person in the entire base.

The fact that a mushroom could bring down a base of thousands overnight was nothing short of a dark joke. Liu Tianyang’s voice interrupted Jiang Le’s train of thought. “Bro, do you have anything to eat here? I’m starving.”

Jiang Le turned around, his face expressionless. “Don’t call me ‘bro.’”

Liu Tianyang, thick-skinned as ever, held his hands up in a begging gesture and immediately changed his tone: “Hey, handsome Jiang, give me something to eat.” A dozen or so seconds later, Liu Tianyang had successfully snagged a few steamed buns and a bottle of Coke, and he sat in the corner devouring them in big bites.

“Stay here. I’m going out for a bit,” Jiang Le said, letting Xiao Lang out and standing by the window as he addressed Liu Tianyang. “Make sure to lock the door yourself.”

Liu Tianyang said with a hint of concern, “Jiang Le, you can’t just run off on your own. Be sure to come back and pick me up…”

He had originally wanted to say that, after all, they were half-brothers, but he was afraid that saying so would only annoy Jiang Le even more, so he held back.

Jiang Le’s gaze held little warmth; he truly felt no brotherly affection toward Liu Tianyang, and his decision to rescue him stemmed solely from treating him as an ordinary person in distress. He didn’t answer, but a moment later, he removed a vine from his wrist. “You watch over him.”

If any danger arose, the blood vine would sense it, allowing Jiang Le to return in time.

After saying that, he left through the window once more.

For any mutated species, where there is an offspring, there is a mother. The mother usually doesn’t stray too far from her offspring; otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to control it. Since they’d confirmed the mother wasn’t inside the base, she must be somewhere outside it.

Taking advantage of the cover of night, Jiang Le scaled the base’s high walls. He and Xiao Lang split up, conducting a cursory search of the area within a five-kilometer radius of the base throughout the night. While they sent many mutated creatures scattering in panic, they did not discover any high-level mutants in the vicinity.

A mutated fungus that extracts energy from a base of over five thousand people—countless ordinary people and superpower users alike—could hardly be of a low grade. Unless, of course, the fungus itself doesn’t actually possess that energy.

That brings us back to the root of the matter: the person who introduced this fungus into the base suddenly becomes a prime suspect.

Chen Qing, a plant-type superpower user and the head of Base No. 1, is at least a Level 4 superpower user. He possesses both the capability and the authority to manipulate a mutated organism to achieve his goal of gaining power by any means necessary. Could it be him?

In the early morning light, Jiang Le returned to the base.

At the entrance to Base No. 1, the security gate was open. Although it was early in the morning, there were already some people waiting in line. The security personnel, hidden in the shadows, conducted their checks half-heartedly—even more laxly than when they had inspected Jiang Le that day.

Jiang Le recalled what Old Li had said last night—hadn’t he mentioned that the base was going to close and stop accepting new arrivals? Yet right now, it didn’t look like that at all.

But come to think of it, consuming more energy is an instinct of biological evolution—and even more so, the nature of a predator. Continuing to take in new arrivals to secure more energy sources is the logical choice; on the contrary, an order to stop intake would go against the nature of a being that has been parasitized.

In any case, Jiang Le decided to go look for Chen Qing first.

Although the layout inside Base No. 1 wasn’t complicated, there was no clear boundary separating the residences of superpower users from those of ordinary people. Pinpointing the base commander among several thousand people was no easy task.

Fortunately, it was daytime, and there were even fewer people on the base streets than yesterday, so there was virtually nothing to hinder Jiang Le. After searching several places he thought might be possible without success, Jiang Le recalled what Old Li had once said.

The leader of Base No. 1 is devoted to gardening.

Jiang Le changed direction as he made his way through the residential area, heading toward the place where someone who loved farming was most likely to be found.

Unlike the scene Jiang Le had witnessed on his first night, there were hardly any superpower users patrolling outside the base’s cultivation areas at this hour. Even if there were any, they were wearing hats and thick cotton coats, wrapped tightly in layers of cover, huddled in the corners of the greenhouses, doing their best to avoid direct sunlight.

It was easy to avoid their gaze, and Jiang Le’s eyes quickly settled on a simple dwelling in the middle of the greenhouses. It looked quite old, as if it had once been a tool shed where villagers stored their tools.

Jiang Le stopped at the doorway and sensed faint energy fluctuations emanating from inside, confirming that someone was there. The door wasn’t locked; it swung open with a gentle push.

Along the walls inside were numerous farming tools, and in the corner stood a makeshift bed where a person lay with their back to Jiang Le. Wrapped in a quilt, the figure appeared bloated. Sensing movement behind them, the person slowly turned to face Jiang Le.

Although only his hair and eyes were visible, the sight of him after he turned was enough to send a chill down one’s spine.

The man’s hair had almost completely fallen out; his scalp, cheeks, and even the sockets of his eyes were overrun with mushrooms of every color and variety, growing in every available crevice. It made one wonder whether what lay beneath that bulky quilt was actually his body, or a dense mass of mushrooms straining to break free from their confinement.

Faced with such a severe infection, Jiang Le whispered the man’s name: “Chen Qing.”

“Who… are you?” Chen Qing’s voice was hoarse, as if mushrooms had grown in his throat. His clouded gaze fixed on Jiang Le, his thoughts scattered. “Why aren’t you eating the mushrooms? I went to such trouble to bring them back…”

“Where did you find those mushrooms?” Jiang Le asked. “Tell me where the mother plant is, or everyone in the base will be in danger.”

The moment he saw Chen Qing’s condition, Jiang Le knew Chen Qing wasn’t the mastermind behind all this. This man, who had once single-handedly kept Base No. 1 running, now had his superpowers degraded to Level 1—he was practically on the brink of death.

“The mother plant, the mother plant,” Chen Qing repeated the two words with great effort, his parched lips curving into a smile. “The base isn’t in danger. Everyone has plenty to eat and drink—how could there be any danger? Could it be that there aren’t enough mushrooms out there? I still have some here. Eat them, go ahead, eat them.”

As he spoke, Chen Qing raised his hand to lift the cotton quilt covering him. In an instant, the mushrooms that had been pressed beneath it gushed out, bursting open before Jiang Le’s eyes as if they were his very life.

Closing the door, Jiang Le stepped out of the small hut. Looking up, he saw the sky was overcast with dark clouds; the daylight from moments ago had been completely obscured by gloom. Thunder rumbled in the distance, as if a torrential downpour were about to break out at any moment.

He felt a paw tap his chin. Looking down, he met Xiao Lang’s gaze and only then realized, through the wolf’s eyes, just how grim his own expression was at that moment.

“I’m fine,” Jiang Le said.

He just didn’t want to stand by and watch Base 1 repeat the fate of his previous life.

“Hey, what are you doing there?” a voice rang out from nearby—it belonged to a superpower user on patrol at the base.

The voice rang out like a bugle call, suddenly startling people from all directions and rousing the entire base. The weather changed abruptly, and raindrops began to fall. The base’s superpower users seemed to pop up like mushrooms from every corner; through telepathic synchronization, their gazes locked onto Jiang Le, as if they were staring at some kind of heretic.

“Grab him!”

“Don’t let him go hungry!”

All manner of psychic abilities assailed Jiang Le, but he was unable to fight back and could only focus on evasion. He made his way from the base’s farming area all the way to the vicinity of the residential district, yet he could never effectively shake off the pursuit behind him; on the contrary, new members kept joining the hunt for Jiang Le.

The rain grew heavier, lashing every corner of the base and bringing a bone-chilling cold, yet the fervor of the hunt filled the hearts of everyone at Base No. 1. Driven by an inexplicable excitement, they scaled the perimeter walls, darted through alleys, climbed onto rooftops, and pounced on Jiang Le wherever he passed.

Xiao Lang had no patience for mercy toward other humans. He tried to attack several times, but Jiang Le stopped him each time; finally, Jiang Le simply sealed Xiao Lang away in the farm space.

These people posed no real threat to Jiang Le, and he had no desire to harm those under the influence of the infection—their actions at that moment were not of their own free will. Jiang Le was merely biding his time here, hoping to find a way to solve the problem.

There’s no situation without a solution—there has to be one. There has to be one.

Jiang Le’s footsteps cut through the rain, sending droplets flying high into the air before splashing back to the ground. Suddenly, a voice—intermixed with a cough—rang out ahead of him: “Follow me.”

Not far away, leaning against a wall, stood a middle-aged man who seemed to have been waiting for him for quite some time. The man still possessed a Level 3 psychic ability, though it had likely been higher before the infection.

Jiang Le hesitated for only a moment before quickly following the man, passing by the door just as the pursuers behind him rushed past.

“The defenses are weakest on the east side of the base. Go that way—and don’t come back,” the man said, coughing as he pointed out a rough escape route to Jiang Le.

Mushrooms had already begun to sprout from his ears, yet his mind was surprisingly lucid. However, this lucidity came and went; Jiang Le could sense that the man’s gaze toward him was at times harmless, and at other times filled with malice.

Jiang Le said, “You were the one who gave the order to seal off the base, weren’t you? Tell me where the mushroom mother strain you brought back to the base is.” An Jin struggled to suppress the chaos and explosive pain in his mind, as two conflicting thoughts clashed relentlessly within his head.

Let this young man go!

No, keep him here—the base can offer him shelter and keep him fed!

Jiang Le’s face blurred and then came into focus again in his vision; at that moment, countless infected beings simultaneously saw Jiang Le’s face through his eyes. The departing footsteps turned back, but when countless people pushed open the tightly closed door, only An Jin and one other person remained inside.

Following the coordinates An Jin had given him, Jiang Le found a location about one kilometer from Base No. 1. There were some abandoned houses there, most of which had been so severely damaged by mutated plants that they were uninhabitable, with bricks and tiles teetering on the verge of collapse.

Jiang Le had been to this spot before, but having detected no psychic fluctuations from any high-level mutants, he had left after a quick inspection.

Returning here, Jiang Le’s first thought was whether An Jin had deliberately given him the wrong coordinates under the Mother Plant’s control.

That was until Jiang Le pushed open an unremarkable door and saw the scene behind it.

This not-particularly-large room was dominated by a massive fungus spreading from the corner of the wall. Its body was densely covered—much like a lotus pod encasing lotus seeds—with countless nucleus crystals protruding from the top, numbering in the thousands.

The encased nucleus crystals varied in size; some were about to detach from the mother organism and fall, while others remained tightly wrapped within it.

Dozens of nucleus crystals lay scattered on the floor, ranging from ordinary Level 1 to Level 2; among those that hadn’t fallen off were even Level 3 nucleus crystals. Yet the mother plant itself, serving as the container, was surprisingly only a Level 1 mutant—no wonder the psychic energy fluctuations it emitted were negligible.

This scene left Jiang Le stunned.

He had considered many possibilities—he’d imagined mutant species invading the base to seize energy to sustain themselves, and he’d imagined the base’s high-ranking leaders, blinded by greed, taking control of the mother plant—but he had never once imagined that someone else had schemed against the entire innocent base, using the mutant species as a medium in an attempt to siphon off the base’s energy for their own use.

Jiang Le picked up a nucleus crystal from the ground, along with a fragment of a mushroom-shaped nucleus crystal lying nearby. The nucleus crystal’s luster was dim; it no longer resonated with any living being. The moment the nucleus crystal was severed from the Mother Plant was likely the very second the host, from which energy had been drained, met its end.

Even having endured the cruelties of the apocalypse, witnessing such a brutal slaughter firsthand—seeing fellow beings treated as mere chaff and reduced to tools for personal advancement—still sent a chill down Jiang Le’s spine.

Human nature could actually be this hideous and monstrous.

Footsteps approached the small hut, carrying the unhurried composure of the perpetrator.

Soon, Jiang Le heard a surprised voice behind him: “Oh my, what do we have here—a guest today?”

The voice carried a light-hearted tone of teasing, showing no panic at having their secret discovered.

Jiang Le turned to look at the arrivals. Standing at the doorway were two men, one tall and one short, both around Jiang Le’s age—both were Level 3 superpower users on the verge of advancing to Level 4. The tall man had already raised the ball of fire in his hand, intending to burn Jiang Le to death on the spot, but the moment he saw Jiang Le’s face, he couldn’t help but withdraw the flame.

Jiang Le had fair skin; drenched by the rain, his features seemed to be outlined by a misty haze, making him incredibly handsome. The raindrops continuously trickling down his soaked body added a touch of vulnerability, as if he were a poor little thing who’d accidentally stumbled in to escape the rain—harmless and in need of protection.

All sorts of thoughts surged through the tall man’s mind, and every single one made him feel it would be a shame to kill Jiang Le right now. He was just an ordinary person, posing no threat whatsoever—which naturally made one let down one’s guard.

“Where are you from?” he asked Jiang Le.

Seeing that Jiang Le didn’t react, but just stared back at him, he didn’t feel offended; if anything, it made him feel a little more intrigued.

The short man saw right through his thoughts and snorted derisively, but even he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of romantic longing when looking at Jiang Le’s face. However, he remembered there was something more important at hand. “Put the nucleus crystals away first.”

He took another careful look at the mother plant’s condition. “If we wait here one more night, we should be able to harvest them all.”

The tall man followed him as they picked up a few more nucleus crystals. Noticing that Jiang Le still had one in his hand, he reached out, parted Jiang Le’s fingers, and took the nucleus crystal away. Seeing a piece of mushroom fall out, the tall man asked Jiang Le, “You haven’t eaten this mushroom, have you?”

Jiang Le fixed his gaze on him and slowly shook his head.

“Good, you didn’t eat it,” the tall man said with a sly grin, adding suggestively, “In a little while, I’ll treat you to some other kind of mushroom.”

The shorter man chuckled upon hearing this.

Ever since a moment ago, Jiang Le had been thinking about how to kill them. The image of those mushrooms growing out of people’s bodies lingered in his mind, making him feel that simply killing these two would be far too easy on them.

It wasn’t until that moment that Jiang Le suddenly had an idea.

“Let me treat you to something, too.”

The tall and short men heard Jiang Le speak—as expected, a handsome man even had a pleasant voice. They looked up and saw Jiang Le holding two cucumbers in his hands.

“They’re delicious.”

The cucumbers were indeed fresh and crisp, giving off a rich, cucumbery scent that cut through the stifling post-rain air and tickled their noses.

The two exchanged a glance and, not wanting to refuse Jiang Le’s gesture of goodwill, took the cucumbers and bit into them. The sweet, crisp flavor of cucumber spread across their lips and teeth, making them unable to resist taking another bite.

Then they heard Jiang Le ask, “Who told you to come here and use this method to obtain the nucleus crystals?”

Their smiles froze. They looked up at Jiang Le again, only to find nothing but icy, deadly intent in his gaze. The taller one, on high alert, summoned a ball of fire. “You—”

But before he could finish, excruciating pain surged through his entire body—from his ribs to his back, from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. As Jiang Le’s gaze shifted, it felt as if something was violently trying to burst through his skin.

It wasn’t until they saw that their accomplice’s body had actually sprouted numerous young plants that the tall and short men, overcome by fear and pain, let out agonized screams.

The “Cultivation Level” reward: when seeds are in a nutrient-rich environment and have accumulated sufficient energy, the farmer can instantly trigger their growth, commanding them to sprout, grow, and bear fruit.

It was these people’s cruel actions that indirectly reminded Jiang Le that a nutrient-rich environment isn’t limited to soil—it can also be the human body.

In just over ten seconds, the cucumber seedlings—which had previously only sprouted tender shoots—had grown several dozen centimeters. Obeying the farmer’s will and ignoring the screams of the other humans, they frantically drew nutrients from the human bodies beneath them.