Little Mushroom

The cave is dark and dank, illuminated by faint fluorescent lights from plants.

The stone walls are entangled with vines, dark green, deep purple, thick black, like large groups of entangled snakes.

A black flying insect stumbled in. It had six hard wings and three mouthparts.

In the next second, a huge dark purple bulge suddenly appeared among the entangled vines. It split open quickly, as if opening a mouth, and closed instantly in the next moment, swallowing the flying insects into its stomach.

The group of vines slowly squirmed, and the bulging part gradually recovered, returning to its original state.

There was a sound like wings flapping in the cave. A drop of mucus dragged translucent filaments down from the top of the cave, and fell into the sticky moss on the ground with a thud. Absorbed completely, disappeared on the ground.

Corners – corners illuminated by fluorescent light from green fungi.From the gap between the rock and the soil, white gushed out like a tide, covering a large area, it was snow-white mycelium.It grows, spreads, stretches out hundreds of millions of tentacles, and finally creeps towards the center, closes, gathers, elongates, and a shape appears.One foot stepped on thick, soft moss, and the moss sank and swallowed it, leaving only the white ankle exposed.

An Zhe looked at his ankles—human limbs, limbs supported by skeletons, muscles, and blood vessels. The joints can move, but they are not flexible due to bone limitations.The cuticle forms the nail, which is round and transparent, and is a product of degeneration, which comes from the sharp claws of beasts.

He raised his leg and took a step. The moss, which had been dented by stepping on it before, was wet and elastic, and after he left, it gathered up again, like erect earthworms.

This time, he stepped on something else, the arm of a human skeleton.

In the dark, An Zhe looked at the skeleton.

Fungi and vines have already taken root deep in its bones, dark green vines are entwined around the hip bones and leg bones, and small brightly colored mushrooms grow on the ribs, like blooming flowers.

Fluorescent mushrooms emerged from its hollow eye sockets and sparse teeth. The green light was like fine quicksand, which was blurred in the fog of the cave.

An Zhe looked at it for a long time, and finally he bent down and picked up a backpack made of animal skin beside the skeleton.The items stored inside the backpack have not been contaminated by moisture. They are a few pieces of clothing, food and water for humans, and a blue chip half the size of a palm. The number is engraved on the chip: 3261170514.

Three days ago, the skeleton was a living human.

"3261170514," the young human's voice was hoarse and intermittent, his face illuminated by the dark green fluorescent light in the cave, "my ID number. This is my ID card. Only with it can I return to the human base."

An Zhe asked, "Can I help you go back?"

The human smiled, and the fingers of his right hand hung limply by his side. The chip rolled out of his hand and disappeared into the thick and low moss.He leaned his back against the mountain wall, raised his head, and pressed his left hand on his chest—there was a huge wound, gray-white bone spurs pierced his back from his chest, and the surrounding skin was festered, part of it was gray and fluffy. The flesh and blood covered the surface of the bony spur, while the other part showed a dark green color, dripping gray-black turbid liquid continuously with the rhythm of breathing.

He took a few breaths and said softly, "I can't go back, little mushroom."

His shirt was stained, his skin was pale, his lips were chapped, and his body was shaking erratically.

An Zhe looked at him, not knowing what to say, and finally just muttered the young human's name: "An Ze?"

"You almost learned the human language." The human looked down at his body.

Apart from pus, blood, and white hyphae, this body was part of An Zhe's body.Mycelium grows meanderingly, and is tightly attached to the wounds of Anze's limbs and torso. The original intention of the mushroom is to stop the bleeding of this dying human being, but out of instinct, the mycelium also absorbs and digests the blood that flows out. of fresh blood.

"Can you learn so many things by eating my genes? The pollution index in this place is really high." Human said.

Fragments of knowledge unfolded in An Zhe's mind. After five seconds of conversion, he knew that the pollution index meant the speed of gene transformation.Now, genes from humans are flowing into Anze's body along his blood.

"Maybe...after I die, you can eat my whole body...and you will get a lot of things." Anze looked at the top of the cave and held the corner of his mouth: "Then I seem to have done something meaningful. Although I don't know whether it is good or bad for you."

An Zhe didn't speak, and his whole body moved towards Anze. He hugged Anze's shoulder with his newly grown human arms. A large number of hyphae rushed over and piled up beside Anze, supporting his crumbling body. .

In the silent cave, there was only the panting sound of dying humans.

After a long time, Anze finally spoke again: "I am a person whose life is meaningless."

"...There is no outstanding place, so it is normal for them to abandon me. In fact, I am very happy not to return to the human base. It is the same as the wild place. It is a place where...only valuable people can live .I've wanted to die for a long time, but I didn't expect to meet a gentle creature like you, little mushroom."

An Zhe didn't know the meaning of those nouns, such as value, such as death, he just captured the noun again, human base.

He leaned on Anze's shoulder and said, "I want to go to the human base."

Anze: "Why?"

An Zhe raised his left arm slightly, and waved his fingers in the air, as if trying to catch a piece of empty air, but he didn't catch anything.

like his body.

His body is empty.

A huge void emerged from the deepest part of his body, and there was no way to fill it, no way to heal it, followed by boundless emptiness and panic, these things haunted him day after day.

He organized the human language, and slowly said: "I lost... my spores."

"spore?"

"My...seed." He didn't know how to explain.

Every mushroom will have spores in its lifetime, some have countless, some have only one.Spores are the seeds of mushrooms.It will grow from the gills, scatter to any place in the jungle with the wind, take root on the ground, and become a new mushroom. Then, this mushroom will gradually grow up and have its own spores.Raising spores to maturity is the only mission of a mushroom in its life, but it lost its only spore when it was far from mature.

An Ze turned his head slowly, An Zhe could hear the crackling sound of his bones turning, like an old human machine.

"Don't go there," the human voice was hoarse, and the speed of speech accelerated, "you will die."

An Zhe read the word again: "...Death?"

"Only humans can enter the human base. You can't escape the eyes of the judge." Anze coughed a few times, and then took a hard breath: "Don't go... little mushroom."

An Zhe said blankly, "I..."

The human's hand grabbed An Zhe's mycelium violently. He used a lot of strength, and his panting became more and more rapid.

"Be obedient." After trembling and panting violently, Anze slowly closed his eyes, his voice was very low, "You have no attack power and no defense, you are just... a very small mushroom."

Sometimes, An Zhe regretted telling Anze that he was going to the human base.

If he hadn't told Anze, Anze would not have spent his last time stopping him.He might still be able to listen to Anze tell a story, and he might be able to take him out of this dark cave to see the changing aurora in the sky for the last time.But Anze's eyes would not open again.

The short-term memory dissipated in the air, just like An Ze's life suddenly disappeared in this world, An Zhe still only had a snow-white skeleton in front of him.

However, he still had to go against Anze's wishes.

——He slowly spread his five fingers.

On the delicate skin and light lines in the palm, lay a brass-colored, metal-made round tube-shaped bullet case, which was very heavy. I found it in that place after the spores, and I haven't let it go since I got it.

If there is still a one-in-ten-thousand chance that he can retrieve his spores, then the one-in-ten-thousand chance is pinned on this bullet casing, and it is a human creation.

Sighing softly, he put the bullet casings into the animal skin backpack Anze left behind, bent down, and picked up the clothes that Anze had worn on his body.Blood-stained off-white long-sleeved shirt, black hard overalls, and black leather boots.

After doing all this, he walked out of the cave.The slightly loose clothes rubbed against his skin while walking, and the tiny electric current was transmitted from the nerve endings buried in the skin to the central nervous system. An Zhe, who was using a human body for the first time, was not used to it.He frowned and rolled up the sleeves of his loose shirt.

The cave was long and tortuous, and vines piled up on the cave wall. They pushed each other, and when An Zhe passed by here, the tide receded, entrenched at the top of the cave.

After three turns, the wind came in and it was wet.The mushroom pushed aside the dead vines hanging from the hole.Mushrooms, his kind, are endless in the field of vision, from near to far.They seemed to be as high as the sky, and everything was still, silent.Under the cover of the umbrella, the dim light of the sky came in. The sky was gray, with some messy green luster shining.An Zhe smelled the smell of rain, mist, snake slough and decaying plants.

It was still evening, and he sat down under the canopy of the gray-white mushroom tree closest to the entrance of the cave, and took out a dark yellow map from his backpack. There were blocks of different shades of color on the map, marking the degree of danger in different areas. .Anze once pointed out to An Zhe the approximate location of the cave they were in. This is the darkest part of the entire map, which means the area with a six-star danger level and a six-star pollution level. It is called "Abyss".On the map, the area where the abyss is located is also marked with many strange symbols. An Zhe followed the index in the lower right corner of the map to check one by one. Those symbols mean that there are extremely dense mushrooms, man-eating vines, food Human bushes, simple mammalian monsters, hybrid mammalian monsters, normal reptile monsters, poisonous reptile monsters, winged monsters, amphibious monsters, hybrid polymorphic monsters, humanoid monsters...these things.At the same time, there are canyons, hills, mountains, human abandoned cities, and road ruins in the abyss.

Going north and south, his gaze went all the way up. At the upper right of this mottled map, there was a pure white area marked by a bright red five-pointed star. The name of this area was written on the right side of the five-pointed star: northern base.

The green light in the sky became more and more intense, and the background color gradually became darker and darker.At midnight, An Zhe could barely make out the traces of the stars in the sky. He knew that the brightest one was called Polaris, which could indicate the direction.

So he aimed the upward arrow in the upper left corner of the map in the direction of Polaris, stepped on the rotten wood, fallen leaves, mycelium and soil on the ground, and walked out step by step.

The night is not dark. In the sky, those changing green rays of light—humans call it the aurora. The aurora illuminates everything in front of them. There are only mushrooms in An Zhe's field of vision.

Yellow, red, and brown mushrooms with large canopies.

Small, densely packed mushrooms on rocks.

The round fungus bags are scattered on the ground, and when they mature, they emit spores like mist and rain.

The spores fall to the ground and begin to divide in the moist leaf litter, growing into spherical fungi identical to their parent.

There are also mushrooms without canopies, just white or yellow tentacles, clustered together, or separated radially, floating in the air like seaweed.

But this is not a world of mushrooms, vines, moss, shrubs, man-eating flowers and grotesque trees, quietly lurking in the night.In the jungle of plants, some dark shadows, some strange shapes, beasts, or a mixture of humans and beasts, running, howling, fighting in the jungle, animals fighting animals, animals fighting plants, or plants and plants .High and low howls hit An Zhe's tympanic membranes, and the stones and soil were mixed with fresh blood. He witnessed a pine tree bend down its trunk and swallow a long snake with black scales and two tails. Also saw a toad - a huge toad, sticking out a long bright red tongue and wrapping around a bat with human arms on its back, 5 minutes after swallowing the bat, a pair of black wings covered with bumps and slime The spine grows out, curled up softly, this is only a ten-thousandth sight of the mushroom, he has long been used to it.

At this moment, a gray beast came over. It had four eyes, and its body was covered with scales, feathers and down. Its head was like a crocodile or a huge wolf, with seven teeth sticking out of its lips. It approached An Zhe, his blood-red nose was sniffing at him.

An Zhe didn't move, quietly leaning against a mushroom, breathing evenly until his whole body was smelled.

The huge monster seemed to have found nothing, and turned away with heavy steps.

An Zhe realized that nothing would notice him, even if he used a human body—maybe because mushrooms can be seen everywhere here, they are not nutritious, not aggressive, and sometimes poisonous.So he and them seem to be creatures of two worlds, living in peace.

Perhaps, as Anze said, he is just a tiny mushroom.