Josie’s hand trembled as he held the genetic report, then he pulled at the corner of his mouth, looked at him, and gave a smile: “I... I’m so excited, I never thought you’d come back.”

He placed the genetic report on the table, leaned toward Adam Carter, even the muscles at the ends of his brows twitching slightly, his expression tinged with excitement: “How much... have you forgotten?”

Adam Carter took a step back.

“I’ve forgotten everything,” he said. “Please don’t disturb my life.”

“You don’t remember who I am either?” Josie’s voice dropped a little: “We grew up together.”

“Thank you.” Adam Carter: “Can you leave now?”

“I—” The Josie across from him clearly hadn’t expected to be treated this way, and was stunned for a moment, then said, “You weren’t like this before.”

But after a moment, his attitude softened again: “I won’t bother you. Get some rest. I’ll come see you tomorrow. I’m just so happy. Aaron Carter, we are the closest people in the world.”

Adam Carter remained silent, not saying a word, until Josie turned and left, gently closing the door for him.

That Josie could let him go so easily and leave the room didn’t seem realistic to him, but maybe Josie was just too guilty and fled in a panic.

The room returned to silence. Adam Carter slowly leaned back onto the bed, hugging the pillow. He felt a kind of faint, smoky discomfort. This discomfort wasn’t for himself, but for Aaron Carter.

Agreements between humans are probably just this fragile. Josie would no longer be Aaron Carter’s closest person. Once he recovered the spore, he would return to the abyss, find that quiet cave, take root beside Aaron Carter’s snow-white bones, and spend the rest of his life as a mushroom.

...The spore.

Outside the window, night had deepened, the aurora swirling across the pitch-black sky as always. Adam Carter sat at the desk and turned on the lamp.

First, he needed to find a job so he wouldn’t starve. At the same time, he had to search for information about the spore—the only clue was that brass-colored shell casing.

Thinking of this, Adam Carter anxiously reached into his pocket. He was always afraid of losing this thing—fortunately, it was still there. A mushroom could hide it inside its body, but a human could not. It was so small, it seemed it could slip out of his pocket at any moment.

In the end, Adam Carter found a thin black leather cord in the room’s drawer and hung the shell casing around his neck.

There was also a small black device in the drawer. He carefully examined its exterior details, and finally recalled some information from his memory: it was a communicator. Everyone’s ID number was their communication number. Humans used communicators to communicate over long distances, but only within the base—because there was no signal outside.

He charged the communicator—even though he didn’t need to, the act of “having power” seemed to bring humans great joy.

After finishing all this, he finally felt at ease and began to look over the desk.

In the notebook on the desk were things Aaron Carter had written, the handwriting very beautiful. And on the side near the wall stood more than twenty books, probably all ones Aaron Carter used to love reading. Adam Carter glanced over the titles on the spines, then reached out and picked up a simply bound gray book titled “Base Manual.”

He opened it. The title page had only one sentence.

The interests of humanity are above all else.

Adam Carter instinctively pressed his lips together and continued flipping through. The second page was the table of contents. The entire manual was divided into four sections: base laws, base daily routines, an introduction to functional areas, and a map.

Adam Carter skipped the laws section. He knew he was a law-abiding mushroom, and a law-abiding mushroom would never violate the laws of any species. The daily routines section detailed the schedule for the residential area. Every morning at six, there was one hour of electricity, water, and food supply; at noon, another hour at twelve; and dinner started at six in the evening, with the electricity supply lasting a bit longer, not cutting off until nine at night. Each residential area had a tall alarm tower, with three types of alarms: “assembly,” “evacuation,” and “emergency shelter.” The assembly alarm was a short, high-frequency sound; the evacuation alarm was a wave-like, gradually changing sound signal; the shelter alarm was a sharp, long sound. Base residents had to follow the daily routines and the alarm tower’s instructions; other aspects of life could be arranged freely.

At this point, Adam Carter was a little puzzled. He thought that under such rules, everyone could just lie in their rooms and go eat and drink at the scheduled times—but he soon realized the base’s intention.

Although everyone could live freely, life in the base came at a cost—it required payment. To obtain the currency used in the base, people had to go out and find work, or become mercenaries, collecting valuable materials from outside and handing them over to the base in exchange for payment.

But... in that case, everyone could just go to the least dangerous places, pick up whatever, and meet their needs for food and water.

Adam Carter continued flipping to the next section: the introduction to functional areas.