Ch 192: The Cannon Fodder Won’t Play Along Anymore [QT]

Mu Xing saw Xu Hui in the hospital.

After five years, he looked more worn than before.

Of course—Xu Hui had always been a few years older than Mu Xing, busy day and night in the workplace, his fatigue obvious to the naked eye.

By contrast, Mu Xing looked almost no different from five years ago.
Maybe it was because his life was peaceful, his mindset steady. Or maybe it was thanks to his plant-based ability. Xu Hui even thought he looked in better shape than when they’d worked together.

“Mu Xing.” Xu Hui lay on the hospital bed, surprised that Mu Xing had really come—and so quickly at that.

Half-joking, half-complaining, he said, “You heartless brat. Back then you just left like that, and you didn’t even tell me about awakening an ability—such a huge deal! You just ran off to the capital and never came back.”

Mu Xing set the fruit basket he was carrying aside, sat down, and said, “I thought, senior, that you’d be glad I left.”

Xu Hui’s heart gave a little jolt, but he forced a smile. “How could I be?”

Mu Xing gave a faint smile and asked, “Senior, I heard after you woke up you kept asking for me. What is it?”

Xu Hui coughed, his gaze intent on Mu Xing. “You’re working at the Agricultural Institute now, right? I saw the government announcement about your research results. Forget the rest—just that potato-wheat hybrid alone is enough to win you the highest prize. You know, back when we worked together, I looked after you a lot. Don’t you think you could use your connections to give me a hand?”

So that was it.

Mu Xing instantly lost interest. He had wondered what Xu Hui was plotting. But really, wasn’t this how people were? Everything came back to profit and gain.

He refused: “No. Do you know what kind of place the Agricultural Institute is? It’s full of real experts. Senior, what do you think you could actually do there?”

Xu Hui was unwilling: “Then what about the Base? I saw online that you call the shots there. They all call you Instructor Mu. You could just find me some easy job—something steady, a guaranteed paycheck. The salary doesn’t even have to be high…”

Mu Xing: “…”

He thought the man must have lost his mind.

He stood up, rummaged through the fruit basket, and pulled out a peach, handing it to Xu Hui.

Xu Hui’s face darkened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Mu Xing said, “Senior, it’s better to be straightforward. To be honest, I didn’t come here to repay you for anything. I only wanted to ask you one question.”

“Five years ago, at the bar—did you tell two foreigners about the abnormalities in me?”

So much time had passed that Xu Hui should have forgotten. But back then, Mu Xing had left only a couple of days later, and Xu Hui had been thrilled to lose a powerful rival. He remembered it very clearly.

“Why are you asking that?” he asked warily.

Mu Xing told him: “Those two were members of Zero Organization, infamous internationally. You might not have known, but they had countless murders on their hands and carried out human experiments. The night after you told them, they came for me.”

Xu Hui’s eyes widened.

Mu Xing calmly met his gaze. “If I hadn’t realized in time and called the police, they would have taken me. I might never have had the chance to stand here again.”

For some reason, even though Mu Xing’s expression was calm, Xu Hui felt an overwhelming pressure.

He swallowed hard and tried to argue: “But nothing happened, right? Just a false alarm.”

Mu Xing looked at him with an unreadable expression. “It was only by the smallest margin. That night, I was lying in bed. They were outside my door, prying it open. They had already stepped into my room.”

“Senior, if I had been taken, if I had died—would you have felt guilty?”

In broad daylight, Xu Hui felt a chill down his back.

He shifted uncomfortably. The anesthesia from surgery was wearing off, and sharp pain broke into sweat on his forehead.

He forced a laugh. “If you don’t want to help me, then fine, but why bring up these old things?”

Mu Xing rose to his feet. “You may call them old things. But to me, they are unforgettable for life.”

“I remember you once looked after me. I also remember you secretly throwing away my important materials out of jealousy. And I remember your ‘careless mistake’…”—the one that, in the original story, condemned this body to endless suffering.

Xu Hui’s face went pale. He had been careful. How could Mu Xing know?

“So, senior, don’t come looking for me again. Don’t think of getting anything from me. The fact that I haven’t taken revenge is already the last bit of mercy I’ll show you.”

Xu Hui collapsed weakly against the bed, staring blankly as Mu Xing left.

*

Later, Xu Hui quit his job, moved to another city, married, and had children.

With his degree and credentials, he found decent work, though it was exhausting.

Under pressure, he would drown himself in bars, and once drunk, he lost control. He paid the price more than once, and only grew more restrained as he aged.

Every so often he would see livestream videos from the Agricultural Institute. Sometimes Mu Xing appeared in them, wearing a straw hat, smiling in the sunlight as he introduced a new product he had developed.

Mu Xing was farther and farther beyond his reach.

One day, he overheard his wife and daughter talking about Mu Xing, praising how amazing he was.

He couldn’t help but say: “Mu Xing? I know him. He was my direct junior. When he’d just graduated and joined my company, I even looked after him back then.”

His wife just rolled her eyes at him. “You don’t have much ability yourself, but you sure know how to brag!”

*

Nearly twenty years after the Great Awakening, it seemed that only then did foreign ability-users and ordinary people reach a brief consensus: to stop trying to annihilate each other and begin coexisting peacefully.

Some foreign experts grumbled bitterly: “China found the correct path twenty years ago, yet never once shared it with their neighbors.”

Netizens mocked them: “Take the same beast-type abilities as an example. In our country, ability-users work in amusement parks, spreading their wings and letting children experience the joy of real flight. Yours stand in churches pretending to be angels, deceiving believers. We never hid anything from you—you just didn’t want to learn.”

Mu Xing was no longer an instructor, because by then, awakening abilities had become ordinary, everyday occurrences. When an awakening happened, one simply went to the relevant department to register and then waited safely at home for it to settle.

Afterward, a more detailed record would be made at the bureau.

This marked the complete integration of ability-users into ordinary society—no different from any other citizen.

Mu Xing spent his whole life happily nestled in the agricultural institute, researching and producing countless new varieties: flowers, vegetables, staple crops.

He was honored online as the “Shennong of the Modern Age.”

He lived more than a hundred years, and even in his later days, his spirit remained sharp and youthful, his demeanor more vigorous than his true age.

On the afternoon of his passing, he had a faint premonition but told no one. He brewed himself a pot of tea as usual, reclined on the balcony chair, and leisurely basked in the sunlight.

The old man lying there with his eyes closed seemed only to have dozed off.

When his caretaker came over with afternoon tea and called to him, he did not respond. Alarmed, she hurried closer—and saw that on the elder’s chest, a flower had begun to grow.

More precisely, a plant, slender and graceful in form, its branches and leaves unfolding elegantly. At its tip was a jade-white bud, half open, half closed.

Before her astonished eyes, Mu Xing’s body gradually became translucent and then vanished, leaving only the flower behind.

The bud slowly blossomed, falling lightly onto the empty lounge chair.

The caretaker instinctively bent to pick it up. When her fingers touched it, it felt like ice. A moment later, the ice melted—

Turning into drifting stardust, scattering into the golden sunlight of the afternoon.

❣╰(⸝⸝⸝꒳⸝⸝⸝)╯❣