At the exit, two simply dressed soldiers were waiting for him with a corpse covered by a white sheet.

Adam Carter knew it was Victor Harris.

His vision blurred. He took a step forward, wanting to lift the white sheet and see Victor Harris's face one more time, but was stopped by the soldiers.

One of the soldiers reached out and handed him a blue chip, his tone steady: “AR1147 mercenary team confirms no survivors. Equipment and supplies will be reclaimed by the base. Spoils have been converted to currency and combined with the compensation, already issued to the family. Please claim the personal effects.”

Adam Carter asked, “Where are you taking him?”

The soldier replied, “The incinerator.”

He trembled slightly, hesitating to take the ID card.

Brian Clark's voice sounded: “Don’t you want it?”

Adam Carter didn’t speak. After a long while, he looked up at Brian Clark: “He really... wasn’t injured.”

In those cold green eyes, he saw his own reflection—eyes slightly widened, a calm sorrow.

Brian Clark still showed no expression. Just as Adam Carter thought he was about to turn and leave, he instead stepped forward.

The black gunstock lifted the edge of the white sheet, revealing Victor Harris's right hand.

Adam Carter half-knelt to look. On the tip of the ring finger, there was a tiny red dot, like the most insignificant prick, yet at the edge of the red dot, an ominous drop of gray-black turbid liquid was slowly oozing out.

He froze. In an instant, those scenes surfaced in his mind.

There was human blood on the ant’s carapace—on that day, Victor Harris had told him that some people hide the truth about their injuries because in areas with low contamination, there’s still a chance of not being infected after being hurt, and that person wanted to go home.

So, so—the one pricked by the ant’s carapace wasn’t Anthony Carter, it was Victor Harris.

Adam Carter found it hard to breathe, his fingers trembling. He took Victor Harris's ID card and put it in his inner pocket, turned to look at Brian Clark, but found the space beside him empty.

He stood up and looked outside, seeing a tall, black figure gradually receding under the gray sky at the city gate.

A moment later, a sudden commotion sounded behind him. He turned to see the woman whose companion had just been killed. She stumbled out, only to be stopped by the soldiers.

“Brian Clark! Judge—!” She struggled desperately, lunging forward, waving her arms in the air, her voice hoarse and shrill: “You’ll die a terrible death—!”

Her raspy, piercing cries kept bursting from her chest, echoing through the building, but she didn’t even get a backward glance from the judge.

Gradually, silence returned. The two bodies were carried away one after another. In the empty corridor, only the woman’s intermittent sobs remained.

Chapter 6

It was a long time before the woman by the wall finally stopped sobbing. Her eyes were red, hair disheveled, leaning against the wall and staring into the distant sky, silent, like a drop of water on a leaf, ready to shatter at the slightest touch.

Adam Carter asked gently, “Aren’t you leaving?”

She shook her head, her voice hoarse: “The one who died—what was he to you?”

Adam Carter took a long time to find the right words in his memory: “My... friend. He saved me.”

“My man saved me too.” After saying this, she bowed her head deeply, her shoulders and back trembling, occasionally letting out a sob-like breath, and said nothing more.

Adam Carter gripped Victor Harris's ID card tightly in his hand. In his heart—the heart that belonged to a human—there was a heavy feeling he had never experienced when he was just a pure mushroom.

When that feeling finally eased a little, he found the strength to follow the flow of people in the distance, lifting his legs and walking toward the exit of the passage.

At the end of the city gate passage was a row of mechanical turnstiles. Adam Carter chose the one on the far left. As he approached, a gentle mechanical female voice sounded: “Please present your ID card and look at the camera.”

Adam Carter placed Aaron Carter's ID card on the white-lit platform at the right end of the turnstile, then looked up at the black camera ahead.

“ID3261170514, Name: Aaron Carter. Place of origin: Outer City District 6. Time away from the city: 27 days.”

The camera made a faint sound, and the white light turned green.

“Facial recognition successful. Welcome home.”

With a ding, the turnstile rose, and Adam Carter walked out.

The dazzling morning sunlight made him squint. It took him thirty seconds to adjust. When the blurry world became clear again, a vast gray city appeared before his eyes.

Beside him was a large empty area, with the words “Buffer Zone” painted in glaring green on the ground. Looking ahead, human constructions rose from the earth—tall concrete buildings stretching as far as the eye could see, more massive than any plant Adam Carter had ever seen, as if they might topple at any moment. They stood there, crowded and layered, blocking his view. He looked up. Half of the orange-red sun was hidden behind the tallest building, the other half exposed, like a drop of diluted blood, about to trickle down the wall in the next moment.