Chapter 179: Meeting an Old Friend by the Calm Lake

Liu Mu had never, in this life—no, even counting her previous one—felt such a sense of horror at hearing someone call out to her.

"You... who?" The pause between the two words was not hesitation, but a trembling that came from the soul.

Yet, Liu Mu was who she was; the more afraid she was, the straighter she stood, and the more she had to act indifferent—she absolutely could not show weakness. Besides, she had just acquired the Space Jump ability; at worst, she could just jump a few more times and escape.

"It's me."

That voice seemed to sigh, then continued with a hint of hesitation, "I'll come out, but I can't stay away from the Mother Nest for too long right now."

And so, Liu Mu watched as a slit gradually cracked open beneath that ball-field-sized head. The slit was covered in a valve, and accompanied by the flow of mucus, a tall, thin man emerged.

Why was it obvious at a glance that he was a man? Because the other party wasn't wearing any clothes.

Liu Mu silently looked away, cursed this bald man in her heart, and then asked, "Lv Ping, how did you end up like this?"

"It's a long story. Can you let me grab a bite first?" The person who had emerged was drooling—the kind where it was literally gushing from the corners of his mouth.

Liu Mu was shocked; what on earth had this person been through? "Fine, eat first."

Giving him the most basic human respect, Liu Mu tossed him a blanket. "Lv Ge, wrap yourself up; it's cold."

"You're a good girl, haha," Lv Ping said, as if he hadn't interacted with anyone in a long time. "I really didn't expect to see you again."

Wrapped in the blanket, Lv Ping sat before the fire and, without any inhibition, picked up a bottle of beer.

Liu Mu noticed a white, fleshy tube behind him, connecting him to the inside of the giant octopus's head, with some kind of liquid constantly exchanging between the two.

Lv Ping's height hadn't changed, but his previously robust physique had withered to the point of being almost unrecognizable; if Liu Mu hadn't known him well enough, she wouldn't have been able to identify him so quickly.

That tube was as thick as a calf and connected to his thin, protruding spine; it looked quite terrifying.

But Liu Mu didn't ask. The two ate and drank, yet they remained exceptionally silent.

"Delicious, damn it, things on land are just delicious!"

After two bottles of beer, Lv Ping put the bottle down with regret. "What a pity, I can't drink alcohol now, damn it!"

As he spoke, the man sat by the fire and wept. The tears were actually a deep blue, smelling of the sea, and just like his drool earlier, they gushed out.

Liu Mu was worried he would douse the fire, but it was said that a man's tears don't fall easily; this was a moment of true sorrow, so she didn't stop him.

Still, she had to ask what needed to be asked; she couldn't let it go in her heart either.

"Lv Ge, what exactly happened back then? And you, this is...?"

"Are the Captain and the others all gone? That Red Mist was so massive, I couldn't save them, I'm useless, I couldn't save them!" Lv Ping stopped, but because of the lack of facial fat, his eyes looked even larger and brighter, burning with a gaze that stirred pity in others.

"They're gone. No one could have saved them after inhaling that level of Red Mist," Liu Mu said matter-of-factly. "I checked later; it was the Tiankui Snake's bomb that destroyed the laboratory they had buried underground, causing the Red Mist to leak. You don't need to blame yourself too much; even if I had been there, I couldn't have saved them."

"No, girl, it's not like that. If I had risked my life, I should have been able to carry Tan out. I just... I just wanted to get out first and go back to save them once my body adapted a bit. Who knew..."

"You inhaled the Red Mist too, didn't you?" From the moment she saw Lv Ping in this state, Liu Mu had basically guessed the sequence of events. "The human body simply can't withstand Red Mist. At the very least, you saved your life; our Special Operations Team still has you as a Survivor."

"What am I worth? Tan, he... how could he just die like that?"

Half a year had passed, but ever since Lv Ping regained consciousness, he had been filled with constant regret. Sometimes the Mutation was too painful, and he couldn't help but go mad, often losing consciousness for long periods, only to continue regretting it after waking up.

Soldiers who came off the battlefield all had some degree of psychological trauma, for reasons that were nothing more than those: killing their own kind, getting injured, failing to save comrades...

Liu Mu had only learned this after the Special Operations Team incident, when she received counseling from the Barrier's psychologists. The Lv Ping before her was likely still trapped in that kind of trauma.

"Tan and the others have all been laid to rest. I brought them back myself, and Sister-in-law Zhuo Qing led a team to receive them personally. Don't worry, they were all heroes who contributed to the country and the people, and they all received commendations. By the way..."

Liu Mu took her medal out from her space. "Look, I have one too. You have one as well; every one of your names is on the Barrier's Hero Monument."

To have one's name left on the Hero Monument was the dream of many soldiers; one could sacrifice oneself, but not in vain.

They had originally been prepared to die in battle and be forgotten under a nameless grave, but now that they could be publicly honored and have their names preserved, wasn't this another way of fulfilling that dream?

Lv Ping knew his emotional regulation was failing. For a moment, regret and excitement pulled at him from both sides. After a long while, he finally stopped crying and fell into a state of uncontrollable agitation.

"I'm not normal, girl. Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you."

As he spoke, he suddenly stood up and left, striding toward the inside of the giant octopus. "Wait here, I'll be back in a moment. I'm afraid I won't be able to control myself."

Liu Mu didn't stop him. When she was in the Barrier, she had also nearly killed those inspectors; she understood this kind of complex emotion that needed to be vented.

No one had helped Lv Ping process his emotions, and coupled with the torture of the Mutation—which no ordinary person could endure—it was already quite remarkable that he could maintain even a portion of his human sanity.

For the next half-day, Liu Mu watched as a giant octopus stirred the massive lake area into a mess, turning the clear water murky.

She had eaten most of the tens of pounds of octopus, and feeling bored after finishing, Liu Mu stood up and walked along the lake, picking up fish as she went.

Having learned the lesson from yesterday about not being able to store fish directly, this time she partitioned a five-hundred-square-meter grid in her space, injected two-thirds murky water and one-third air, and that was that.

Any fish that had been scared into fleeing by the giant octopus were tossed into the space as soon as she picked them up.

What? How could live fish be considered waste?

Plucking off a few scales or tearing a fin—did that count? Not to mention they were all somewhat injured from fleeing.

If it didn't count, it had to count anyway!

In any case, Heitao A had never been able to win an argument against Liu Mu, its host, from the very beginning, let alone now that a large part of the space could be arranged by Liu Mu herself after the upgrade.

After picking up fish for a long time, Liu Mu sighed, "I'll build a kitchen when I get back; otherwise, I can't go on living like this."

Heitao A teased, 【There are more than ten thousand things that make your life impossible to go on.】

"That's true. If you can blame others, don't make things hard for yourself; no one has it easy living." Liu Mu didn't think there was any problem with that at all.

Man-machine bickering was a daily routine, but the fish-picking activity was something Heitao A couldn't object to. This time, it even took the initiative to ask if she wanted it to analyze the information on these fish.

"Beating a child on a rainy day—you're idle anyway. But let's get this straight: you're the one who volunteered to analyze this, don't send me a bill!"

【Host, could your friend's emotional instability be related to the water quality here?】

"Hmph," Liu Mu wouldn't be fooled. How far away was Hongwu Valley from here? How could the Mutation have happened in the lake?

Looking at Octopus-Lv Ping's current state, it was clear he hadn't been sick for just a day or two; it must be a long-term, chronic illness.

Soon, Heitao A gave the results: neither the sampled fish nor the water contained the substances it suspected, and then it began scanning every single fish Liu Mu had picked up.

Liu Mu ignored it. By this time, Lv Ping, having finished his madness, had come back ashore.

The fire was lit again, this time with grilled eel, seasoned with spices—fatty, fresh, and fragrant. The best part was that it didn't cost a cent, something unthinkable before the disaster.

"Lv Ge, if we're not doing well, how about we find a psychiatrist to talk to? I won't lie to you, I saw a doctor for a while after that incident, and the results were actually quite good."

Lv Ping did not ask for more wine, but he asked Liu Mu for a pair of pants to put on. "It's useless; our squad used to have specialized psychological counseling, and I tried all those methods. But being able to talk to you today and learning about everyone's situation is good enough."

Since that was the case, the issue could be put aside, and Liu Mu began the core purpose of her visit while gnawing on meat.

"By the way, how did you find your way to this lake area? Did you arrive when I was killing the Da Manyu Wang?"

"No, I had only just arrived when I saw you yesterday. Those two women and a lizard suddenly attacked me. I smelled your scent and thought they had harmed you. If you hadn't appeared in time, I would have killed them right then. Damn it, Sky Viper!"

When Lv Ping said this, a trace of being out of control surged into his eyes again.

Liu Mu could not wait for half a day longer and quickly said, "They were pressed into the Laboratory by Xing Tianyang for Modification, and now they work for me. I got a little hurt killing those two fish yesterday. Never mind, let's not talk about that for now; how did you get here?"

"I swam over from the river mouth. The mutated animals and plants in the sea are too fierce now; I originally intended to find a place to stabilize myself first." After Lv Ping came up this time, a layer of membrane had grown between his ten fingers; he seemed to have mutated a bit more.

But this did not affect him recounting his intentions.

He had indeed been attracted by something in the lake area, which was why he had ventured so far inland.

"It has already been eaten by me, otherwise I could have shown it to you. It was a transparent sphere. I don't know its specific function yet, I just felt it was very fragrant. How should I put it? You know when we used to lurk in the rainforest, we would often be hungry for several days; it was the feeling of suddenly encountering a rack of grilled fish during such extreme hunger—I simply couldn't resist."

Liu Mu hurriedly asked what was inside the sphere, where exactly it was discovered, and what changes he felt now.

Lv Ping did not keep his guard up against Liu Mu; he had not left the military for long, so like Tan Ziyan, he knew a lot of inside information.

Naturally, he knew the authorities had been actively conducting research in this area, so he did not hide it.

The transparent sphere was about three meters in diameter; from a distance, it looked like a crystal ball, but it was soft.

Although it was said to be soft, the giant octopus's countless sharp teeth could not bite into it. After swallowing it whole, the various negative emotions and pain he had been tortured by for a long time due to the Red Mist were immediately alleviated.

"More than half of it is gone now. If I continue to digest it, my state should be able to stabilize."

Liu Mu expressed her happiness at this and asked if anything could be seen inside that sphere.

Lv Ping replied that there were some small cloud-like things, and those things would move, as if they were alive.

"I think these little clouds are what took effect," he even proactively suggested, "I will give you some samples of my body, blood is fine too. You take them back and let the Doctor study them properly; it might be able to help."

The sphere had already been eaten; Liu Mu could not dissect the giant octopus. If she did that, Lv Ping would not only fight her to the death, but he would also lose his life.

The only survivor left from that mission could not be killed.

Liu Mu considered herself to be a person who valued friendship, but Heitao A believed she only found a reason to talk about friendship because she saw the huge benefits Lv Ping could bring her in the future.

This could be seen from the fact that Liu Mu had been calculating for half a day, thinking about how to bring up asking about the resources in the sea, and Liu Mu herself did not deny it.

But compared to obtaining huge benefits, she had even longer-term plans.

The sampling ended quickly. Liu Mu did not avoid using her space in front of Lv Ping; after all, several acquaintances from the Former Special Operations Team knew of this skill of hers.

But there was one more point that Lv Ping cared about even more: "Sister Liu Mu, there is something I have always wanted to ask you, or perhaps things happened too suddenly at the time and I saw it wrong."

Liu Mu's eyes flickered slightly, as if she knew what he wanted to ask: "Go ahead, with the friendship we've shared through life and death, there is nothing that cannot be asked."

"Did you die? When Base 18 exploded, I wasn't far from you, and I saw... you were blown to death."

Sure enough, when Liu Mu survived from the ruins back then, it was too sudden, and she hadn't bothered to keep it a secret.

"Yes," she stared into Lv Ping's eyes. Those eyes seemed to have been washed by seawater—moist, bright, and holding a trace of surprise, yet not much shock. "My Mutation is a bit different from yours. Sigh, now that it's come to this, you are honest with me, so I will be honest with you. Actually, I died once again yesterday, but I can, how should I put it, I can come back to life."

"It's not that I can come back to life whenever I die. If certain conditions are met, such as being buried in the soil, having a strong will to survive before dying, and preferably having a long interval between the two times, I can recover."

Seeing that Liu Mu had confessed such a secret, Lv Ping felt even more that the two of them had a friendship forged in life and death, and he trusted the girl in front of him even more.

"Is it that the body cannot be completely destroyed? Or, destroyed by a certain percentage?"

As a former human who had received an education, he naturally did not believe that a life form could appear out of thin air from nothing.

He had also witnessed the danger of Liu Mu's Mutation opportunity with his own eyes. He felt a bit ashamed that he hadn't been the first to rush into that rubble-filled canyon to save her at the time.

Liu Mu hesitated for a moment and nodded quite solemnly: "Although I haven't tried it, it should be like that. If I encounter something that vaporizes me instantly, leaving nothing behind, I reckon I would really be dead for good."

"It's a good thing the impact of that explosion didn't..." Lv Ping remembered Liu Mu's body being instantly blown into fragments and was unwilling to say more. "Then you must also be careful. Don't risk your life for everything; it's not like you really can't die."

"Okay, unless it's an absolute last resort, I cherish my own life." Liu Mu was telling the truth; she really cherished her life. Without being certain that she could be resurrected, it was impossible for her to risk her life.

The topic gradually became more relaxed. Liu Mu told Lv Ping about the recent situation at the Barrier, including her being interrogated after returning, the series of attacks, and Yang Shuo being seriously injured, with Zhuo Qing and others sending him back to the General Command.

Perhaps it was because he had just gone through a bout of madness, but Lv Ping's emotions were quite stable this time, and he also chatted with Liu Mu about the details of the Mutation he experienced after being swept away by the flood.

This chat lasted until dark. In between, they roasted big fish several more times; the two of them had stomachs like bottomless pits and simply didn't feel full.

Meeting an old friend by the flat lake, the moon is bright and the sky is ink-blue.

Seeing that there was nothing left to talk about, Lv Ping remembered another matter: "Have you noticed a drop in temperature on the shore?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Mu's eyelids twitched: "What do you mean?"