CHAPTER 12

Li Haohao kept raising her fingers to turn on the lights. Tired, we stopped in front of the initial "Root vegetables" sign. She bent her fingers to turn off the lights and rested her head on my chest.

"No direction." she said.

When we came in, we were facing the sign. In theory, as long as the sign stayed in our field of view, continuously retreating, we would eventually hit a wall or a door. But we tried walking.

Regardless of whether there was light or not, once we stepped out of a certain range, it was pitch black all around. Walking backward, we couldn't reach the end. As we walked, we didn't know if we were walking in a straight line. The path beneath our feet extended infinitely, with no end in sight.

Getting lost within my own outpost - saying that out loud would be embarrassing. Standing still, I thought it over, Li Haohao rubbed her tired and sore arms against me, and no one made a sound.

Then, faint sounds began to emerge from the room:

"One... two... three... one... two... three..."

It sounded like singing, unusually cheerful. Accompanied by a rustling sound, like shoes stepping on sandy ground.

"One... two... three..."

The sound grew closer. Li Haohao raised her right hand, and I held onto her finger.

This is a polluted area. Li Haohao's entry has led us astray.

But I am a staff member of this outpost.

Taking a deep breath, I called, "Logistics officer."

I couldn't remember his name.

"One... two..."

The sound stopped abruptly. Li Haohao raised her hand, and the light bulb illuminated. A blood-red shadow floated beside us and suddenly flickered to the side in the moment the light turned on.

Li Haohao reached out, but she didn't catch anything. Frowning, she jumped up and squatted on the cultivation rack, her head against her light bulb, looking around with a furrowed brow.

"What was it?" I asked.

"I can't see it anymore. Just now, it seemed like it was coming towards me, trying to grab me."

I remembered Zhao Xinyan's work log. It bled when I flipped through it and was completely destroyed on the scene after Li Haohao passed by. The work log was completely ruined.

Was she going to reveal her own strangeness in front of me?

I looked up, and she was just crouching on the trembling rack, looking around. Then she jumped down. "It ran away."

"What did it look like just now?"

"A red person."

"Was it humanoid?" Was the logistics officer still here?

"Like a person, but not quite."

I fell silent for a moment.

I decided to bring Li Haohao here because I wanted to activate the greenhouse. This was also my first time entering, and I didn't know what was inside.

I forced myself to recall information about the greenhouse.

The voice was counting to three.

What was he counting?

For me, being here didn't mean real terror. I paid attention to Li Haohao's movements. She was the real terror for me, with her light bulb resembling a harmless spirit. But it didn't mean that she wouldn't unleash her power within this space.

What was her ability? What exactly is she? I wanted to know, but I was also afraid to delve into it.

"Does he have a work log?" Li Haohao suddenly said.

With the light bulb, she became much smarter. I also thought about it, and indeed, the logistics officer had his own work log. I hadn't seen it, but it was probably in the greenhouse.

"Do you know how to read?" I asked.

"I know." she replied, without getting angry at my insinuation that she was illiterate.

Turning back, she furrowed her brow again. "There's something in your eyes."

That thing grew again in my eyes? I slightly bent my knees, bringing my face closer to Li Haohao. Suddenly, I saw a blood-red hand behind her, reaching for her light bulb.

It grabbed the light bulb!

Li Haohao didn't move. The hand was dripping with blood-red bugs, as if exerting force.

Completely motionless.

The hand immediately withdrew, but I had already drawn my gun.

Bang!

I shot through the arm, and it fell to the ground, oozing blood and bugs.

Of course, some fell on Li Haohao's shoulder. I brushed the bugs off with my sleeve, some of them getting crushed, leaving mottled bloodstains on her clothes.

She remained completely still.

"Li Haohao?" I waved my hand in front of her eyes, one hand supporting her shoulder to look at the bloodstains on the ground, and the other hand holding the gun, ready to reach out at any moment.

Li Haohao didn't move, as if she was rooted to the spot.

"Li Haohao!" I shouted again, and her eyes flickered as if she had just regained consciousness. She grabbed my arm.

"My legs... can't move."

She's not wearing shoes? She had them on today, as usual, indoor slippers. I crouched down to take a look, and she struggled to lift her toes, only for them to fall heavily back down.

There was something blood-red growing on the soles of her feet, thread-like, resembling both blood vessels and earthworms.

Suddenly, I remembered the cultivation rack she had just stepped on.

The faint light illuminated it, and the blood-red bugs in the compartments were gone.

"Logistics officer!" His name was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't recall it.

After calling out, I heard the rustling sound again.

I tried to pick at the veins on Li Haohao's feet, but she weakly uttered, "It hurts."

So I refrained from removing them and walked into the darkness with my eyes closed.

It was relatively easy to feel my way from the first cultivation rack to the second.

The rustling sound followed closely behind me.

"One... two..." I counted as I felt my way, and without the need for light, I easily found the third cultivation rack, "Three."

The rustling sound was right in front of me.

"He Ran," it was the logistics officer's voice.

With my eyes still closed, I felt like he was right in front of me, his face against mine. Worms crawled from his face, onto mine, vigorously trying to lift my eyelids and crawl inside.

"Zhan Yicheng," I remembered. The logistics officer's name was Zhan Yicheng. "I recall that I buried all of you."

"What a waste." he said.

"When did you come back?"

"I haven't grown the potatoes yet. I can't leave." Zhan Yicheng said.

"How's the result so far?" I felt my hand trembling, but I had to pretend to engage in casual conversation, as if Zhan Yicheng and I were standing here, just like before, alive and well.

"I couldn't grow them... there's no nutrients... but now there's nutrients, I can grow them." His voice sounded happy, and when he was happy, he had a sincere and straightforward demeanor. He grabbed my hand tightly, and I felt my palm getting wet, the rough sensation of moist soil, and worms continuously crawling into my hand.

He pulled me back, dragging his feet on the ground. I remembered that the floor of our greenhouse wasn't as rough, but it was for him, rustle, rustle...

"One... two... three." He held my hand and felt his way along rows of shelves.

"I can grow them." he repeated.

"Where are the nutrients coming from?"

"From here." That deformed hand grabbed my wrist, and I could hardly break free.

Then, I felt Li Haohao's face.

And her light bulb.

With my eyes closed, she allowed my hand to touch her, without any movement at all.

I began to tremble, and Zhan Yicheng was very happy. "I can grow them. Look, these are potatoes."

His happiness was contagious, and I wanted to open my eyes and look at him.

I remembered the Zhan Yicheng from before, who would cook a lot of meals. He had a stocky figure and used to be a cook in the military. He had a short face and thick fingers, but he could make dumplings with various patterns. He had the best interpersonal skills, and he would always organize our birthday parties and events, always full of joy.

Even though we didn't think he would succeed in vegetable cultivation, he would stubbornly joke with us and remain cheerful.

Li Haohao suddenly said, "Don't open your eyes."

A chill swept over me, and Zhan Yicheng fell silent.

After a while, he pleaded in a sorrowful tone, "Please, just look at the potatoes I've grown."

Li Haohao was right beside me, and I reached out to touch her face. She clearly hadn't moved, and her lips remained closed.

She spoke again as she did at the beginning, without opening her mouth, her voice directly entering my mind.

Zhan Yicheng, seeing that I kept my eyes closed, sounded deeply saddened. "He Ran, you don't believe in me either?"

I wanted to explain that I did, but Li Haohao said, "Don't open your eyes."

"Where are your potatoes?" I kept my eyes closed, and Zhan Yicheng held me tightly with both hands, pressing against my face, his nose touching mine.

"Right here, why won't you look?" He seemed to be crying all along, and there was a constant dripping of liquid on me. "I worked so hard to grow them."

Both hands were clasped, and I said, "I'll come and see them next time."

Zhan Yicheng tightly held my hand, remained silent for a moment, and then suddenly let go and laughed a little. "Okay."

As his hands loosened, I reached out with my right hand and grabbed something, but it wasn't Li Haohao's arm. It was a leaf?

I rubbed it again, and indeed, it was a leaf.

"I'll continue growing potatoes then." He suddenly pushed my arm urgently and pulled me away. In my haste, I pulled off a leaf and clenched it in my hand.

Zhan Yicheng pushed my back with one hand and held my arm with the other, as if playing a game of escorting a prisoner, pushing me outward.

Thud.

I bumped into a wall, no, it was a door.

Zhan Yicheng stood behind me, and the sticky worms gradually crawled away from my body. I grabbed the door and walked out.

I suddenly opened my eyes and looked back.

I saw a person made up of long, blood-red worms. Veins wrapped around their hands, spreading out like spiderwebs, covering the sign that said "Root vegetables" on the shelf.

Underneath my feet, sticky veins burrowed into the ground.

He stared at me, and from his hollow eye sockets, two blood-red potatoes fell out.

The potatoes rolled in front of my eyes and stopped at the doorway.

Zhan Yicheng, covered in blood, walked up to me. He looked at me with empty eye sockets, his mouth split open, and I saw tender leaves growing from the wriggling worms inside his mouth.

"He Ran, I've grown potatoes. I'll give you potatoes to eat today."

He smiled eagerly, squatting down to pick up the blood-red potato and offer it to me.

Separated by the door, veins resembling spiderwebs entangled inside, I saw Li Haohao from his shoulder. Her body was covered in veins.

But the light bulb was still on.

I gritted my teeth and took the potato from Zhan Yicheng.

The potato turned over by itself, and Zhan Yicheng's head shrunk to the size of a potato, lying quietly in my hand.

His short hair, closed eyes, and the corners of his mouth curved in a satisfied smile.

"Zhan Yicheng," I looked at the blood person in front of me, hesitating whether to draw my gun, but he happily pointed at the potato in my hand and explained, "When you cut the potato into pieces, what grows out of it is a complete potato... You see, as long as you cut it and leave a sprout--"

In my hand, Zhan Yicheng's head was cut into four pieces, and blood dripped through the gaps in my fingers.

"As long as we have soil and fertilizer, we will have a constant supply of potatoes..."

He took the potato from my hand and walked to the cultivation rack.

"One... Two... Three..."

He planted them in three different racks.

There was one-fourth remaining, and he anxiously "looked" at it, suddenly had a brilliant idea, and stuffed it into his own eye socket.

The door slowly closed before my eyes.

I wanted to call out for Li Haohao, grasping the leaves in my hand, fearing that she might turn into--

I open my eyes, and in my hand was a piece of her bead string.

I closed my eyes and took a step forward, using my shoulder to block the closing door.

"Zhan Yicheng, let me see your work log."

"He Ran, is the commander not here?" he asked.

Only the commander and the research director had the authority to request others to submit their logs.

The door pressed tightly against my chest.

I exhaled, "Li Haohao? Can you respond to me? We should leave."

Zhan Yicheng's face suddenly came close to mine.

"Who is Li Haohao? Have you been polluted?"

I tried to speak to Zhan Yicheng as calmly as possible, as if he were just an ordinary logistics staff and I were just an ordinary researcher.

"It was me..."

I wanted to say that I found it, but it didn't comply with the proper procedures. I went out alone, I found an unknown object, and I didn't follow the containment protocol... These are not good.

The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them back gently. "A relative's child."

Zhan Yicheng's breath wriggled like worms, crawling into his nostrils. I covered my mouth and nose, trying to explain as normally as possible. "This child can be careless and step on your... potatoes. She's young and doesn't know any better."

"So, you have relatives? Is the child grown up now? Did they become a researcher too? But that doesn't seem to comply with the regulations. Relatives shouldn't be in the same unit."

Just like a regular conversation between colleagues.

"She's clumsy, if she stays here any longer she might ruin your potatoes." I said.

Zhan Yicheng replied, "No, she won't. She's well-behaved. She's helping me plant potatoes. Her name is Li Haohao, right? Such a good child."

There was laughter in his voice, and I didn't know what else to say. In my mind, Li Haohao's voice resurfaced.

"I'm helping him plant potatoes."

A moment of silence.

"Then I'll go outside for now, but remember to let her come down and have a meal."

I took a step back, and the door closed before my eyes. When I opened them again, some blood-red worms fell out from my eyes. I tightly clenched Li Haohao's golden bead string in my hand and crushed the worms with the tip of my shoe.

Li Haohao's golden armlet and bracelet were nested together, exquisitely crafted, with a classical design, like something from centuries ago.

I put them in my pocket, took a few steps back, and sat at the doorway.

"He Ran, I'm in pain," I heard Li Haohao's voice. "He asked me to help him plant potatoes... He's using me to plant potatoes."

I stood up and pulled the door. Li Haohao's voice came again, "He's trying to take my light bulb. He says light helps plants grow... but he can't take it away."

"I'm helping him plant potatoes. He has planted so many, and the ground beneath us is filled, but none of them have grown properly."

"He's your colleague, and I'm been very polite to him."

She spoke these words with her mouth.

She pushed the door open and walked out, quickly closing it again. Holding her chest as if still frightened, she said to me, "Your colleague is really cruel. I don't want to go back in there. That greenhouse can't grow any vegetables... Let's eat french fries instead! You said we would eat french fries!"

In that moment when she opened the door, I saw that the entire floor had been turned over.

I saw numerous severed halves of Zhan Yicheng's head, rotten in the soil, connected to a dense network of blood-red roots, dug up from deep within the floor, mouths wide open.

She grabbed my arm, and there were cracks on the light bulb, dimming the room.

"Let's eat french fries! You won't deny me that, will you?"

"We'll eat, but just now..."

"I was helping your colleague plant potatoes. What's wrong with that? Isn't it that normal?" She spoke rapidly, staring at me.

"It's normal. Since he's cruel... we won't go next time." I realized I was trembling a bit and handed her the bead string armlet from my pocket.

Her arms returned to their original state. She examined the armlet for a moment, then lifted her foot and the shoes disappeared. She walked out barefoot, leaving bloody footprints behind.

Because I was there, she couldn't do much, but she did show me something.

I asked her if there was anything in my eyes, and Li Haohao turned her head to stare at me, deliberately raising her finger to illuminate it. "You have eye boogers."

"How annoying." I rubbed my eyes, and Li Haohao stuck out her tongue and made a funny face.

Her tongue was intact.

"You said I'm a relative's child. What kind of relative?"

"I made it up. They won't ask for details."

"What is a relative?" She asked a question I didn't expect.

"It means having a blood relationship, but not being very familiar. I just call them 'relatives.'"

"Are you close with your relative's child?"

"A relative's child is still a relative."

"So that means not very close, right?"

She was quite clever. I looked at her and said, "Yes."

She got a bit angry. "I feel like we're quite close."

"But you're not a relative's child."

"Then what am I?"

I thought to myself that I didn't really know what she was, how should I respond? But I couldn't dwell on it too much because thinking too deeply would breed fear, and fear would make me lose control.

I could only vaguely say, "Right now, it feels a bit like being colleagues."

She did understand the concept of "colleagues" and agreed at this moment, "Okay, then do you have other colleagues?"

Other colleagues.

She counted on her fingers, "You, Zhao Xinyan, Zhan Yicheng... There are nine rooms on the third floor, and there are six more. Who are they?"

"Just because there are nine rooms on the third floor, you think there are nine people?"

"The bulletin board on the first floor."

Ah, I remembered now.

On the first floor, on one side of the protective suit, there was a small bulletin board posted on the wall.

But everyone's faces and names were scratched off, and it was so tattered now, I almost didn't notice it.

Li Haohao didn't show curiosity about this before, so I flicked her light bulb with my finger.

The faint cracks on it made me curious, but I didn't have the courage to squeeze it and see if it would burst.

Li Haohao pointed at it calmly, "It almost turned into a potato just now."

I let out a soft "Ah" and didn't allow myself to think too much.

"It's about to die, and the light bulb cracked. Luckily, you suddenly pushed the door open and came in."

"But I didn't help you with anything at all."

"I stood there thinking it would be fine even if I turned into a potato. Your colleague was speaking so enthusiastically, I got excited too, and I felt a bit like a potato."

"You trampled on their plants, so that's why... hmm."

"It was him who tried to snatch my light bulb... I was really angry, but I couldn't kill... I couldn't be rude to your colleague."

I heard the word she had swallowed back.

"Is he okay?"

"I helped him dig up all the potatoes. He failed, couldn't grow good potatoes."

"Don't turn into a potato next week, okay?" I warned.

"I already said I can't control it." She raised her voice in frustration and lightly hit my arm to express her discontent.

"Just saying, I'll make mashed potatoes for you today."

"Okay." She was happy, but her enthusiasm wasn't that high.

When I came up from the basement carrying a bag of frozen french fries, she had a pensive expression on her face.

Before the war, when teenagers of her age had this expression, it was a bit difficult for parents to handle. You didn't know if she was heartbroken, struggling with her studies, or facing other troubling problems, and she didn't seem eager to communicate with you either.

But this was after the war, and I shook the bag of fries in front of her.

Li Haohao's eyes lit up, her gaze following the fries, but she still had a somewhat sad expression.

I couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong?"

"If you hadn't come in, I would've really turned into a potato." She emphasized each word.

"But you didn't."

Li Haohao pondered for a moment and finally found the right words, "I was really scared."

"Hm."

"This is your place, and I can't... I can't do much here."

"You can do things, just like Zhao Xinyan."

Unable to conceal the past, unable to feign ignorance, we began discussing the true situation of this outpost.

For example, briefly acknowledging that I am a pollutant.

"Zhao Xinyan's true self isn't there, so I can..." She squinted slightly, looking up at me, "But Zhan Yicheng is there, that is his most painful place."

I didn't say anything, and Li Haohao thought for a long time, "I'm very hungry..."

"I'll cook the french fries." I started unpacking the plastic bag.

The vagueness of the past was fading away.

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