CHAPTER 23

Li Haohao sat at the table, covering her six eyes. One of the three screens faced her, while the other two displayed the same image. There was no sound, only flickering lights. I tugged at Li Haohao to make her sit back in the chair.

Finally, Li Haohao whispered, persistently warning me, "He Ran, you're going to die."

I asked if it was happening now. This time she hesitated for a moment and said it wasn't, but she didn't know when it would happen.

I suggested we continue watching the movie.

Before the war, my current mindset of avoidance and pretending as if nothing was happening would not have been admired. But at this moment, there was no other way. I couldn't turn around and eat her, shoot her dead, like dealing with that worm, using my weapon to poke a big hole in her throat.

All things considered, what I was doing was the best I could do. In the post-war world, maintaining order was a difficult task. Whether it was normal or abnormal, as long as there was still order, it was considered normal.

When Li Haohao said that I was going to die, I recalled the movements of Zhan Yicheng, Lin Buxiu's words, and even the research director. They all warned me unanimously that there was something dangerous in this outpost, and that was Li Haohao, whom I personally brought back.

But it didn't matter. Survival of the fittest was also a form of order. It was normal. It was easier for me to accept being eaten by a monster than being eaten by Li Haohao. At least, it would be beneficial, beneficial to Li Haohao.

Suddenly, I didn't know which key I pressed, and the sound improved. The sound slowly played along with the images on the screen. A once-famous beautiful actress from before the war was performing a vulgar flower seller role in a clumsy tone.

Li Haohao exclaimed, "I don't understand."

I began to read the subtitles to her and explain the background of the story. But it seemed that due to the cultural barrier, she didn't quite grasp it. However, there weren't many other movies available here. After a moment of silence, she said to me, "My eyes always want to open."

Her head rested on my chest, and my left hand went around her face, covering her front eyes, as I explained, "He fell in love with her, but he refused to admit it."

Li Haohao grinned, "Like the comic book."

She began to tell me the plot of the comic book that I had repeatedly forbidden her to read before. "A girl lives in a small house. Every day, she eats bread and goes to a big house where other people sit. They all have their own tables and chairs, and someone stands on top to make them do things."

"This girl has many friends, and they all do things together. Then, a new boy arrives at the big house. He is handsome, but he doesn't have any friends. The girl takes the initiative to play with him."

"Later, the girl went to the boy's house, which was even bigger than the biggest house. There were many servants, and the food was delicious. The boy offered her the best things to eat, but the girl angrily left and returned to her small house. When they were all in the big house, the boy ignored the girl."

"Then there were some things that I couldn't understand. Later, the girl went to the boy's house again, scolded his father, and took the boy away. They did things together. After that, the boy stopped coming to the big house to do things. The girl was unhappy, but one day, the boy suddenly came, and there were only the two of them in the house."

From Li Haohao's explanation, I couldn't understand what story she was telling. Coming back to my senses, perhaps for her, the movie I was explaining was also wishful thinking, and she didn't quite understand it either.

I turned off the movie, and Li Haohao said she was hungry.

The eyes in the corridor were tightly closed. I touched the back of my head and used one hand to cover it as I opened the cold storage door.

Before, I didn't allow Li Haohao to come down because I thought if she saw this inventory, she would thoughtlessly eat it all in one day. But now it didn't matter. Li Haohao wouldn't do anything wrong. She was just hungry, and I hadn't been able to feed her enough. She had been trying hard to restrain herself.

As soon as the cold storage door opened, we bumped into something. I let go of Li Haohao to feel it, realizing it was a corpse. I couldn't tell if it was Lin Buxiu or Zhao Xinyan. I pushed it aside and grabbed Li Haohao's arm.

"So cold!"

"It's the cold storage room"

"Oh..." She stopped and tried to step back, but I insisted on holding her. Li Haohao said, "The more I know, the easier it is to devour the outpost."

"Then stay here and wait."

"Okay."

I went in and grabbed beef, instant noodles, tomatoes, canned meat sauce. Fortunately, they all had different shapes, so I could easily identify them by touch. But there were too many items, and I couldn't hold them all with one hand. I turned around to get a bucket.

There was a bucket, I remembered it wasn't filled with garbage. Finally, I found it and reached inside. I touched a face, obviously smaller than the one I encountered when opening the door.

Oh, I understood now. The one I encountered when opening the door was Zhao Xinyan, and the one in the bucket was Lin Buxiu.

I pulled my hand back to touch another one, and finally found an empty bucket. I filled it with the canned meat and chunks of beef.

After sealing the bucket, because it was filled with so many things, I could only push it out the door with my hands on my shoulders. Li Haohao felt it and with a thud, it lay horizontally on the ground.

Thud, it seemed like Li Haohao was kicking it, and then there was the sound of the bucket rolling on the ground. I pulled her forward and took a few steps. This time, my toe bumped into the bucket, so I gave it a kick.

Rolling, rumbling.

The bucket spun forward, hit the stairs, and then stopped.

Li Haohao couldn't help me in any way. I struggled to move this large bucket filled with food to the first floor and sat down on the ground, exhausted. Li Haohao remained in a huddled position, leaning closer to me, and I could feel her elbow pressing against my stomach.

"What should we eat?"

"Hot pot." I said.

Eating hot pot when neither of us could see well wasn't very wise, and I didn't really know how to make a proper hot pot. In the end, it was just a hodgepodge.

Only my left hand was working hard. I found the tomatoes and rinsed them. Since they were frozen, it required a careful balance between thawing and cutting them, otherwise they would turn into a pot of mush or remain uncuttable.

Opening the cans was also difficult. I squatted down and held the can between my knees.

Surprisingly, beef was the easiest thing to handle. After thawing it slightly, it could be quickly sliced. I soaked it in water.

Tomato meat sauce, instant noodles, oatmeal porridge, tomato beef hot pot—the beef inside was almost overflowing, but I couldn't see it. I could only judge the amount of beef by the splashes of water when I put the beef in.

I covered the pot and started with the easiest option, the instant noodles. Li Haohao had both hands covering her face, and I couldn't see her.

I could only find a fork with my left hand and clumsily stirred the meat sauce noodles. I tried not to think about the mess that must be on the table. Shaking, I lifted the fork, Li Haohao opened her mouth, and after groping for a while, she finally took the first bite.

"It's delicious." she said, then she took the fork from my hand.

I placed the plate on the table, and Li Haohao lowered her head to sniff. She ended up using her mouth to pick up the food like a dog.

The beef was hot. After it was cooked, I took it out piece by piece and put it on the plate. I put one piece, and Li Haohao pressed another piece into her mouth. We finished a whole day's worth of meals in one sitting.

After eating, Li Haohao, who would usually wash the dishes, couldn't do it this time. However, she insisted on brushing her teeth.

I found her toothbrush and awkwardly squeezed toothpaste onto it. She rested her head on my chest to make it easier for me, and then I inserted the toothbrush into her mouth and brushed randomly. She also cooperated by grinning.

When she needed to spit, she bumped me, and I pulled out the toothbrush.

After brushing her teeth, Li Haohao opened her mouth wide, and I extended my finger inside. There was no realm of battle, no hidden inhabitants, no sticky corpses, and no weapons attacking me. She passed.

Finally, we rinsed our mouths. She said she wanted to go back to sleep.

I agreed and said that tomorrow I would make rice with crispy rice for her to eat.

"I don't want to eat you."

"I'm talking about crispy rice."

"When I'm hungry, I'll sleep. I'll just sleep more."

"Go to sleep then."

I fumbled to escort her back to her men's changing room. I lifted the blanket, she sat down, took off her shoes, and slouched. I touched the blanket and covered her with it.

"Why, at the beginning, did you not lock the door and allow me into your room?" she murmured.

"Do you admit that you always come into my room?"

She reflexively pursed her lips, and I could clearly hear a faint "um" sound.

After a while, she admitted, "Yeah."

"The first time I saw you, you weren't wearing protective suit, lying alone in the wilderness."

Li Haohao: "You have a lot of words, I feel sad after listening to them."

"At that time, I had already decided not to go back to the outpost because everyone was dead, but... at that time, I didn't know what I was thinking. I knew you were dangerous, but I still walked over."

Sharing these inner thoughts with Li Haohao made me feel hypocritical. I had previously agreed that we wouldn't pry into each other's lives, but the course of events never goes as planned. Unconsciously, I had already become so close to Li Haohao.

"I'm hungry, He Ran, I want to sleep." she suddenly interrupted my narrative, as if she had rolled over.

I agreed and turned to go upstairs.

I lay down with my eyes covered by the rope tied around the back of my head, and the door remained open.

The walls around me made strange noises. It was a very noisy night, with the sound of the circulation system incessantly buzzing. I could always hear someone's crying and laughter, but I didn't know whose.

I was still connected to the outpost, but it felt different from before, as if something was being revived.

I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that the eyes on the back of my head were gone. I opened my eyes and walked to the corridor. All the doors I had locked were being opened one by one. The circulation system was running in excess, all the lights were on, and the broadcast emitted a crackling electrical sound. Footsteps and conversations filled the air.

Suddenly, the door next to me pushed open, and Zhao Xinyan's face flashed by, then it closed tightly.

I went downstairs, but the door to the men's changing room was tightly shut.

I surveyed the first floor, washed the dishes from last night, and cleared away the mess of beef and broken noodles on the table.

I went to the basement, and the door to the meeting room was closed. The eyes on the walls had disappeared. In the trash bin of the cold storage, Zhao Xinyan and Lin Buxiu lay quietly, head to toe.

I returned to the first floor and tried pushing the door of the men's changing room, realizing it wasn't locked.

I saw a cocoon, bulging high under the blanket.

Had she turned into a cocoon? I looked at the threads of blood on the cocoon, as if I could feel a heartbeat through them.

I left the changing room. I didn't know what the cocoon needed to eat, so I could only cook some oatmeal porridge and ate it myself.

The lights were still on. After eating my meal, I cleaned up.

Before, the cycle for Li Haohao to produce strange things was seven days. So I waited for seven days, opened the door, but Li Haohao didn't show me the newly grown thing right away.

She was still a cocoon.

But fortunately, she was still there. I touched the cocoon, which was as smooth as silk. The threads of blood turned into blood vessels, arranged on the cocoon like a spider's web, and I could feel the heartbeat with my fingertips.

Seven days passed, and the cocoon was still alive.

I knocked on Zhao Xinyan's door, and it opened, but he looked at me with great fear. I remembered that I had killed him, so it was understandable that he was afraid of me. I stepped back.

Lin Buxiu's door was open, but she wasn't there. I remembered that she was either in the men's changing room or in the basement. It was best not to disturb her.

However, there were also some rooms where no one responded no matter how much I knocked. Those were the rooms I had previously locked.

In the greenhouse, Zhan Yicheng had grown a lot of potatoes. When I saw him, he held a bunch of them and eagerly chased after me, saying, "I've grown them, hurry up and eat, hurry up..."

In the circulation system, the research director was deeply immersed in the heart of the system. I had almost forgotten her face, but now, as I observed carefully, I remembered that she was the first to arrive, followed by the commander. The research director recruited us, and her attachment to the outpost should be deeper than ours.

Zhan Yicheng was planting potatoes, and she returned to the heart of the circulation system, the most important part that kept the outpost running.

It was also a kind of order, and I felt calm.

My daily routine was like this:

In the morning, I would wake up and confirm that there was still a heartbeat in Li Haohao's cocoon, then I would cook oatmeal porridge for myself. When the weather was good, I would go out to collect samples, repair the fences and wire mesh, and when the weather was bad, I would organize files.

I still put Li Haohao's sample box back. Perhaps when it was sent back to the human stronghold, they would consider it as extremely dangerous and bomb the outpost. At least it could prevent the spread of pollution.

Days passed like this.

One evening, it started raining. I set up the rainwater collector. Since I was the only one using it, I hadn't gone out to fetch water for a while, but it was still sufficient. I took out the mechanical repair manual and sat in the kitchen, drinking instant coffee while reading.

Suddenly, I heard a horn outside. I put on my protective suit and went to open the door.

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