Chapter 128: Mother

Two hours after Lao Zhao's support team vanished into the night, Su Yu was still standing in front of the communications console. The hope grass on the windowsill glowed an anxious yellow, its leaves slightly curled, as if sensing her unease.

The Deep Space Monitoring Station reported new data: the seven lights of the orbital array began to flash in sync, their frequency matching the Pure Land's stardust energy fluctuations exactly— they are imitating more precisely, as if learning.

"Learning what?" Su Yu asked Lin Wei on the other end of the communicator.

"Uncertain," the young technician said, confused, "but the imitation accuracy is improving. Initially the similarity was 99.7%, now it's 99.92%. Each time they receive our signal, they adjust their output, becoming more like us."

"What happens when they become similar enough?"

"Theoretically... they could disguise themselves as us," Lin Wei paused, "or make us mistake them for one of our devices."

Disguise. Su Yu recalled the Reaper's warning: 【The Reaper will track the Starfire signal and come】.

If the orbital array is a Reaper reconnaissance unit, then their purpose in mimicking the stardust signal is clear: to confuse perception, preventing humans from distinguishing friend from foe, or... to provoke humans to initiate contact.

"Cease all proactive outbound communications," Su Yu ordered, "Receive only, do not transmit. Reduce the Purification Tower's signal output to the minimal maintenance level."

"What about the rescue team..."

"Maintain one-way reception. They may transmit, we do not reply," Su Yu clenched her fist, "until we figure out what those things are."

After the order was issued, Pure Land fell into a strange silence. Previously, the communication channels were always filled with various sounds—patrol reports, engineering coordination, agricultural zone queries about technical details. Now all sounds had vanished, only essential internal communications continued in low whispers.

Su Yu stepped outside and looked up at the night sky. The naked eye still saw nothing, but she knew seven pairs of eyes were watching her.

At the same time, 87 kilometers away.

The industrial park resembled a steel grave. Towering smokestacks leaned and collapsed, and the factory walls were overrun with dark‑red vines—not plants, but fleshy tendrils that pulsed rhythmically on the surface, as if breathing.

Han Qing's rescue team was trapped inside a three‑story office building. The first‑floor doors and windows had been temporarily reinforced with desks, filing cabinets, and a stardust energy field, yet the pounding from outside continued unabated.

"It's the seventh wave," Wang Hu leaned against the wall, swapping the energy core of the "Dawn's Thorn." His left arm was bandaged, the gauze oozing blood— a wound from three hours earlier when a mutant had clawed him; Aili had treated it, but the healing was slow.

Makusi, positioned at a second‑floor window with a heavy rifle, aimed downward: "They're learning. The first charge was chaotic; now they provide mutual cover."

On the open ground below, a dozen or so new‑type mutants moved in the shadows. They truly resembled plant‑animal hybrids: the upper body retained a roughly humanoid shape, but the skin was woody with bark‑like patterns; the lower half consisted of vine‑like tendrils that slithered like snakes; the head lacked facial features, bearing only a continuously opening and closing "flower" whose core was packed with dense, sharp teeth.

"Human‑plant hybrids," Kaiwen looked up from his portable analyzer, data streams reflecting off his lenses, "not shadow contamination, but another kind of... symbiotic infection. Stardust energy has limited effect on them; they aren't 'darkness', they're 'twisted life'."

Aili tended to the wounded in a corner—not teammates, but survivors of the settlement. When they arrived, the settlement's original forty‑three inhabitants had dwindled to nineteen alive; the rest had either been dragged away by mutants or had already become those things.

Among the nineteen, seven were critically injured, five lightly wounded, and only seven could barely move. The gravest case was an elder named Lao Liang, whose abdomen had been pierced by tendrils; Aili exhausted all medical means to temporarily stabilize him, but he needs surgery, a sterile environment, everything this place lacks.

"How much longer can he hold on?" Han Qing asked softly.

"Lao Liang... at most twelve hours," Aili's voice was weary yet calm, "the others, if their wounds don't become infected, can survive. But the infection risk is high; spores drift everywhere here."

The air indeed floated with tiny luminous spores, like dust, each pulsing slowly. Kaiwen's measurements showed that inhaling excess spores induces hallucinations, then gradual petrification—starting in the lungs, slowly turning into those things outside.

"We must get them out," Li Xiaofeng said, as he and Liu Yan reinforced the first‑floor defenses, "but the mutants outside won't let us leave."

Han Qing looked out the window. The sky was lightening; dawn was near. According to plan, Lao Zhao's support team should arrive around sunrise, but they themselves were trapped here, and the support team's arrival would be a death sentence.

"We need a plan," he said, "at sunrise the mutants' activity will wane. Kaiwen, have you noticed any pattern?"

The technician nodded, "They fear light. Not sunlight, but intense light. Last night when I shone a powerful flashlight on them, they retreated. But the effect lasted only briefly; after adapting they came back up."

"Then we'll blaze a path with light," Han Qing checked the remaining gear, "we have six bright‑light grenades and twelve illumination sticks. Concentrate them toward the breakout direction to create a temporary light corridor."

"Where does the corridor lead?" Wang Hu asked.

Han Qing unfolded a hand‑drawn map—provided by the settlement survivors—marking several relatively safe nearby points: "Here, three hundred meters away, there's an entrance to an underground garage. If the structure remains intact, it can serve as a temporary shelter. We'll establish a defensive line there and await support."

"Three hundred meters," Makusi estimated, "normally thirty seconds. Dragging a wounded person, at least two minutes. The bright‑light grenades last at most forty seconds."

"Then split it into two phases," Han Qing began assigning tasks, "First phase: Wang Hu, Makusi, and I will clear the first 150 meters with bright‑light grenades. Second phase: Kaiwen, Aili, Xiaofeng, and Liu Yan will escort the wounded, extending the corridor with illumination sticks. Once we reach the garage, seal the entrance immediately."

"Then how will the three of you get in?" Aili looked up.

"We'll hold the rear," Han Qing said, tone unquestionable, "it's the only plan that can save the majority of people."

No one objected. In the apocalypse, everyone had learned to accept necessary sacrifice.

Just as they were preparing the gear, a weak voice sounded: "Wait..."

It was Lao Liang. The old man struggled to lift his upper body; blood seeped from his abdominal bandage again.

"Don't move!" Aili tried to hold him down.

"Listen to me..." Lao Liang's eyes were clouded, but his gaze was clear, "Those things... they're not monsters... they're our people..."

Everyone froze.

"In the second year of the disaster," Lao Liang gasped, "some of us tried to cultivate food... found some seeds in the ruins... planted them in the factory... but those seeds were contaminated... what grew released spores... inhaling too much makes people slowly change..."

Kaiwen suddenly recalled something: "Starfire knowledge mentions certain pre‑civilization experiments on 'ecological weapons'—modifying plants to coexist with animals, creating soldiers adapted to harsh environments..."

"We didn't know..." Lao Liang coughed, "by the time we discovered it... it was too late... the infected retain consciousness... trapped inside those plant bodies... unable to escape..."

So when those mutants charged, their movements bore human shadows. That's why they coordinated tactically. In short... they were once human.

"Then why attack you?" Han Qing asked.

"It's not an attack..." Lao Liang's tears fell, "it's a plea for help... they want to seize us... take us to that factory... there lies the Mother... the Mother wants everyone to become like that... saying that way we can survive..."

Mother. The word sent a chill down everyone's spines.

"Where is the factory?" Kaiwen asked.

Lao Liang pointed eastward outside the window, at the largest building: "There... but don't go... the Mother... it's no longer human... it remembers everything... yet it chooses to forget that it is human..."

When the first ray of dawn pierced the horizon, engine roars echoed through the industrial park.

Not one, but three—Lao Zhao's support team not only brought the troop carrier, but also found two old trucks still operable along the way. The three vehicles burst through the morning mist, smashing the outer fence of the industrial park.

"What are they doing?" Makusi saw from the window, "they just barreled in!"

Han Qing grabbed the communicator: "Lao Zhao! Stop! There's a trap here!"

"Seen. So you have to come in. Listen, I've observed the mutants' pattern on the road—they're weakest at dawn because they need photosynthesis to replenish energy. Now most of them should be gathered in sunny spots, so we're actually safe here."

Sure enough, the mutants besieging the office building began to stir, some turning toward the direction of the arriving vehicles, but their movements were sluggish, as if half‑asleep.

"We have a fifteen‑minute window," Lao Zhao continued, "bring the wounded down, load them onto the vehicles. After we rendezvous, we'll charge straight out of the park, not retrace our steps, but head north—I've scouted that side; mutant density is lowest there."

Han Qing looked at the team; everyone nodded.

"Action."

The next twelve minutes were like a precise operation. Wang Hu and Makusi cleared a passage with flashbangs, Aili and Kaiwen organized the wounded who could walk to go first, Li Xiaofeng and Liu Yan carried the seriously wounded on makeshift stretchers. Han Qing brought up the rear, using the "Dawn's Thorn" to repel any mutants that tried to approach.

The mutants indeed became sluggish at dawn. Their movements were half a beat slower, and their reaction to light was stronger. But there were too many of them—from every corner of the factory area, more wooden silhouettes were appearing, like a forest awakened.

Lao Zhao's convoy stopped fifty meters from the office building, doors open. When the last wounded was lifted onto the vehicle, fourteen minutes had passed.

"Get moving!" Lao Zhao waved from the lead vehicle.

But just then, the door of the largest factory building on the east side opened.

It wasn't blown open by the wind; it was pushed open from inside by countless vines. The vines surged out like a tide, gathering in the open space and forming a humanoid shape—no, a colossal entity made of dozens of human forms fused together. It stood three meters tall, its body twisted and entwined from dozens of semi-wooden human corpses, its head a gigantic blooming man-eating flower, with dozens of human eyes in the stamens simultaneously opening to gaze at the convoy.

The Mother Body.

"We can't get away..." the driver muttered.

The Mother Body emitted a vibration that wasn't sound—a low-frequency wave that directly struck consciousness. Everyone felt their heads about to split, and even the vehicle's engine began to shake unstably.

"It wants us to stay..." Kaiwen covered his ears, "a psychic attack..."

Han Qing gritted his teeth against the headache and raised the "Dawn's Thorn". The golden light at the spear's tip was faint in the dawn, but his will was steadfast—the will to protect everyone and bring them home.

The golden light intensified.

All of the Mother Body's eyes turned toward him at once, their gaze complex: longing, sorrow, anger, and... envy.

Envy that they could still maintain human form.

Envy that they could still choose to leave.

Envy that they still had a "self".

Lao Zhao jumped down from the vehicle, holding not a weapon but an entrenching tool. He walked over to Han Qing's side, staring at the monster formed from their fellow countrymen.

"Old Liang said you still have consciousness," he shouted, "If you can still hear, stop. Let us take away those who can still be saved. You... we will also try to save you."

The Mother Body paused.

Among the dozens of eyes, some began to tear—not water, but thick sap. The arms formed of vines lifted, not to attack, but to point toward the depths of the factory, then toward the sky, and finally toward its own chest.

One motion, repeated three times.

"What is it saying?" Wang Hu asked.

Kaiwen stared at the analyzer: "Motion translation... 'here'... 'above'... 'pain'... put together possibly..."

"Is it painful here?" Aili guessed.

"No," Han Qing understood, "it means 'above here, something is causing us pain'."

Everyone looked up. The sky was beginning to whiten, the clouds thin. At a height invisible to the naked eye, the seven light points of the orbital array were flashing in sync.

The Mother Body emitted a second wave of psychic impact, but this time it was not an attack, it was a transmission—fragmented images surged directly into everyone's consciousness:

Seven years ago, a meteorite fell—not naturally, but was shot down. What shot it down was something in orbit. The spores carried inside the meteorite were experimental samples. The fall was an accident, but the thing in orbit did not retrieve it; instead, it... observed. It observed how the spores infected humanity, how they reshaped ecology, how they created new species.

The Mother Body was one of the first infected. She remembered being human, remembered how she struggled, how she ultimately chose to abandon humanity and become the "mother" of a new people, because only that way could more people survive—in another form.

But she had not fully submitted. Deep in her core, a fragment of human consciousness remained. She had been sending weak signals toward the sky—not a plea for help, but a question: why?

Now the orbital array responded. Not an answer, but a more precise observation—like a scientist adjusting a microscope's focus.

"They're not harvesters," Kaiwen's voice trembled, "they're 'experimenters'. We... are experimental specimens."

The Mother Body pointed at the convoy's wounded, then at herself, then at the sky. The gesture meant: "Take them, heal them. I will hold back the eyes above. But you must promise... if you find a way, come back to save us."

Han Qing looked at Lao Zhao, at all the team members, at the dying survivors on the vehicle.

"We promise." he said.

All of the Mother Body's eyes closed at once. Then it began to split—not disintegrate, but actively disperse into dozens of smaller entities, each a semi-wooden human corpse. They turned to face the factory and began releasing dense spore mist, shrouding the entire area.

"It's creating a barrier," Kaiwen said, "interfering with orbital observation. Move out!"

As the convoy burst out of the industrial park, the sun had fully risen. In the rearview mirror, the spore mist looked like a gray-white wall, enveloping the entire factory area. Within the mist, vague human-shaped figures that were once people could be seen, standing in place, heads tilted upward toward the sky.

Like a group of prisoners awaiting judgment.

Also like a group of warriors challenging the gods.

"Pure Land" Deep Space Monitoring Station, Lin Wei stared at the sudden large area of energy interference, the coordinates exactly the industrial park.

"The orbital array is reacting," she reported, "the seven light points are beginning to move, converging on the interference zone. Wait... they're not attacking, they're... scanning? Like recording data."

Su Yu watched the screen; those seven light points formed a dense observation array aimed at the spore mist below, continuously scanning.

"They're collecting experimental data," she whispered, "we really are specimens."

The hope grass on the windowsill, its leaves shifting from yellow to deep blue—the color of sorrow.

But within that deep blue, a new green shoot was sprouting from the side of the stem.

Even in sorrow, life continues to seek the direction of growth.