Little Mushroom - Chap 13
“At 7 p.m. on May 17th, a parasitic monster invaded the Outer City’s supply station square with a new parasitic method. The Trial Court has supplemented the trial rules for this new parasitic method. At present, the danger in the base has been ruled put. Please rest assured while travelling.”
“In order to improve the accuracy of the trial and ensure that the judges are fully present, the opening time of the city gates will be shortened to 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 2 to 6 p.m. Please pay attention to the time when returning to the city.”
“According to the observations of the Lighthouse, the breeding season for arthropods and parasitic monsters has begun early. IN order to prevent an air invasion, the base’s ultrasonic disperser has increased the working intensity to level 3. In addition, the danger levels of the Second Plains, the Sixth Basin and the Southwest Canyon have been updated to four stars. Please pay attention to outdoor safety and have full body protection. The same message has been released to all the teams in the wilderness.”
“At 7 p.m. on May 17th, a parasitic monster…”
The radio repeated three times before Boss Shaw raised his hand to turn it off, bowing his head to continue grinding the mold.
An Zhe was still doing eyebrows in the corner but this time, they weren’t ordinary eyebrows. Boss Shaw had drawn the specific shape and direction on the doll’s blank face with grey pen. An Zhe was practicing the eyebrows for the Judge doll.
Du Sai was dead but the order introduced by Du Sai had to continue. Boss Shaw had already received half the price as a deposit and the negotiated delivery time was one month later. The store would have to deliver it to the door and the location was Room A in Building 13 of District 6. At that time, the customer would pay the other half.
Lu Feng’s eyebrows, like his hair, was pure black. It was a very distinct colour. The long eyebrows were slightly slanted, formed a sharp eyebrow peak and then gradually narrowed. The ends were folded into a thin and sharp tail. The eyebrows alone took Boss Shaw an hour to draw. After receiving the head of the doll, An Zhe not only strictly followed the template of the eyebrows, he would also occasionally raise his head to look at the photos of Lu Feng on the tablet in front of him to check for errors.
The tablet was delivered at seven this morning by a young man in black who tried to sell him the phone. He said it was a gift from Mr Hubbard to Boss Shaw. After giving the gift, he glanced at An Zhe. “Well, you’ve found a good job. Do you have money to buy a phone from me?”
An Zhe was sorry. His salary was only enough to drink potato soup. He had to refuse and the young man sighed with disappointment before leaving.
He had sent a tablet with several close up photos of Lu Feng. Most of them looked like yesterday when he was patrolling the black market. The angle was very reasonable and An Zhe was in one of them. However, the focus of the photo was Lu Feng and the other places were very blurred. He was just a white shadow in a corner of the photo, a bowl of potato soup in front of him.
Boss Shaw exclaimed, “Hubbard really has many hands in the black market. It isn’t a small matter to get photos of the Judge. Although there isn’t any specific data, the photos are well taken and it can be around the same.”
Saying this, he moved the photo back and forth several times. “This face really drives a woman crazy. Do you like it?”
According to the physical sex of human beings, An Zhe wasn’t a female so he didn’t go crazy. He just felt uncomfortable. He had a bit of a physical fear of the Judge. In this human base, only Lu Feng suspected that he wasn’t human. An Zhe thought that if he one day died in the human base, it would be because he was shot and executed by the Judge.
An Zhe replied, “I don’t like him.”
“Then you’re in the opposition party,” Boss Shaw said. “I hate the opposition party the most. My last apprentice was one.”
An Zhe wondered, “Why?”
“He took my salary and had the face to ask for a half day’s rest every week to go protest.”
An Zhe, “……”
“I’m not the opposition party either.”
Boss Shaw told him, “I’m don’t care if you’re in the opposition party or the supporter party.”
“I… won’t ask for leave.”
Facing Boss Shaw’s kind smile after hearing this, An Zhe tentatively asked, “Can I live here?”
Based on his observations over the past few days, Boss Shaw’s store wasn’t small. There were a few empty containers in a corner and one person could stay in these containers.
Boss Shaw asked, “What’s the matter?”
An Zhe knew that people in the base generally didn’t move easily since they were assigned a unified residence from an early age. Of course, living there was another thing. Most mercenaries spent most of their lives in the wilderness and the men and women on the third underground floor rarely returned to their homes. However, he really didn’t want to go back to Building 117. Josie’s entanglement was making him tired.
“My neighbour.” He explained to Boss Shaw. “He’s always…”
Before he could figure out the right wording, he saw Boss Shaw raise his eyebrows. “He wants to sleep with you?”
An Zhe confirmed that there was only one thing on Scott Shaw’s mind.
“No, that’s not it.” An Zhe denied it. “He just keeps trying to get close to me.”
“There is a difference between this and wanting to sleep with you?”
“Yes,” An Zhe replied. “We used to be good friends.” He carefully recalled what Josie had done. There was no way to tell Boss Shaw some things so he could only replace An Ze’s name with ‘I.’
“I grew up with him and we are neighbours. I contributed to the newspapers of the city for a small fee and he worked outside as a mercenary. Sometimes I wouldn’t have money or he wouldn’t have money. We took care of each other.” An Zhe started the story.
“Then I wanted to take the test for the supply station. He didn’t want me to take the test. He said… it was too hard. I should go out with him to do some easy work.”
Here, Scott Shaw sneered. An Zhe glanced at Boss Shaw, wanting his comments. An Zhe couldn’t understand why Josie would say this to An Ze. “Why did he want to do this?”
Boss Shaw held a doll arm and used a small tweezer to polish it while saying, “If you pass the test of the supply station, you will no longer be a civilian and your status will become higher. What can he do? He will be an ordinary mercenary all of his life. Will you be with him?”
Here, Boss Shaw looked up at An Zhe. “Maybe you will go in and get hooked by a senior officer of the supply station and your friend won’t be able to hold you.”
However, An Ze wouldn’t.
“I won’t.”
“Even if you won’t, he thinks you will do so.” Boss Shaw finished polishing one nail and sprayed varnish. Then he turned to the next nail. “Who can say? People are so ugly.”
“Thus, don’t mingle with such unpromising people—”
An Zhe lowered his eyes. He felt that Boss Shaw was indeed a good person, an elder who would provide life guidance to young people. Occasionally, some monsters in the Abyss would also behave like this.
Then he heard Boss Shaw’s next words. “How about you pay attention to the third floor and find the leader of a large mercenary team on Hubbard’s level. Keep him and let your friend see you walk around with him. If your friend dares to find you then you can call on your man to beat him up. The female captain of AR1104 will definitely like you but she looks like an orangutan.”
An Zhe told him, “The Judge’s fingers are longer than this.”
Boss Shaw was shocked. He cursed and started to get back to work. He now had no time to give An Zhe life guidance. Looking at the hard-working Boss Shaw, An Zhe couldn’t help smiling.
Thus, he lived on the third underground floor.
Without Josie, the world was much cleaner. An Zhe paid in advance and bought a fold-out bed, living between two empty shelves in a corner of the store. At night, with the lights off, the doll limbs, eyes and head would accompany him to sleep. Occasionally, he would be stopped by mercenaries asking for his price when he went out but Boss Shaw taught him a useful phrase, ‘I have someone.’ These words could handle almost all mercenaries. According to Boss Shaw, the reason this sentence could deal with them wasn’t because these people had the virtue.
At that time, Boss Shaw had held a cigarette and said, “Your appearance is very good. You look like you would have a powerful person. Hey, I have to quickly find you one.”
An Zhe didn’t speak. In fact, all he had was the doll that hadn’t been fully formed yet, The doll was being made day after day and grew to look more like Lu Feng.
