This is a very small room. It’s even smaller than the cave he once lived in, but compared to the lounge inside the armored vehicle, it’s much more spacious and bright. Against the wall stands a wooden desk, with a stack of over a dozen old books on top, and papers and notebooks piled on the other side. The desk faces a single bed, with a cabinet at the head holding a cup, a mirror, and some odds and ends, and a wardrobe taller than a person pressed against the foot of the bed.

The window is on the other side of the bed, with gray curtains half drawn. Sunlight streams in, shining on the matching gray quilt, carrying a dry, fragrant scent that reminds him of Aaron Carter’s smell.

He walks to the bedside and reaches for the palm-sized mirror, seeing his own face reflected in it.

He looks like Aaron Carter—soft black hair, eyes of the same color, many features are similar, but there are some subtle differences. Also, he doesn’t have the same gentle and calm expression as Aaron Carter.

Back then, Aaron Carter said to him, “It’s like I suddenly have another little brother. Let me give you a name, little mushroom.”

“Do you have any vivid memories, little mushroom?”

In his limited memory, only two things stand out: one is the lost spore, the other happened when he was very small—probably when he was only as long as a human’s pinky finger.

During that rainy season when mushrooms grow, he was struck on his slender stem by a slanting raindrop and snapped in half.

Then, like any wounded creature, he tried desperately to grow back, to survive.

Later, he gradually developed a faint sense of self, and he healed.

From then on, he seemed different from his kind. He could control his own mycelium, move through jungles and open fields, and sense sounds and movements from the outside world. He became a free mushroom.

“Poor thing.” At that time, Aaron Carter stroked his hair. “Did it hurt when you broke?”

“I forgot.”

Aaron Carter said, then I’ll call you Adam Carter.

He said, okay.

Thinking of this, Adam Carter smiled at the mirror.

When the person in the mirror smiled, it was as if he saw a shadow of Aaron Carter again.

“Thank you,” he said to the mirror.

After putting down the mirror, Adam Carter sat at the desk.

What should he do next?

After thinking for a moment, Adam Carter stretched out his left hand, gazing at his fingertips in the light.

Snow-white mycelium quietly spread out from his fingertip, then solidified into a physical form. He picked up a knife and sliced off a thin piece.

Then, he picked it up with his right hand, brought it to his mouth, gently pushed it in, and bit down with his teeth—he decided to investigate whether he was poisonous.

Soft, sweet, and delicious—that was his first impression.

The next second, the world in front of his eyes swayed.

Chapter 7

Immediately, he felt lighter, floating up and down in the air. The sunlight streaming in from the window turned into a vast ocean, and the papers and notebooks on the desk were soaked into a blurry white mass.

Adam Carter blinked. He didn’t feel uncomfortable, just that every movement became extremely, extremely slow and floaty. He couldn’t control his body, as if he was flying, or about to fall.

And then—the world before his eyes gradually went black, and he completely lost consciousness.

He woke up from the cold—when he opened his eyes, he found that the endless gray buildings outside the window were all bathed in the golden-red afterglow of sunset. It had been at least seven or eight hours since he fell asleep—or passed out. So, the toxin in his mycelium simply caused people to fall into a deep sleep.

Evening was much colder than daytime. Adam Carter lay back on the bed, wrapped himself in the quilt, and only then regained his warmth. But after the numbness from the cold faded, he was hungry again.

Adam Carter would have preferred to absorb nutrients the way mushrooms do, but along the way, he hadn’t found even a patch of damp soil in the entire base. He could only eat food. Humans are such troublesome creatures, he frowned.

Fortunately, the memories left by Aaron Carter told him where to go for meals. The base was divided into eight zones; zones 6, 7, and 8 were the main residential areas. Here, each building was a community, with a hall on the first floor where water and food were provided at set times every day. Children under sixteen had a free quota, while adults over sixteen had to swipe a card to pay with base currency, the unit being the letter R.

There weren’t many people in the hall, about fifty or so at a glance. There were only two food windows: one served a mushy food made from some kind of plant tuber, the other… the same plant tuber cooked into a soup. Searching his memory, he vaguely recalled this plant was called a potato.

Adam Carter swiped his card to pay.

Mashed potatoes, price 0.5, balance 9.5.

Potato soup, price 0.3, balance 9.2.

Adam Carter stared at the number representing his card balance, realizing that in a few days he would be on the verge of starving to death. It felt like a mushroom rooted in dry soil, facing death at any moment.

—This feeling became even more pronounced when, after eating and returning to the fifth floor, he spent 0.1R to get water in the communal washroom.

So, he added another item to his to-do list: find a source of income.