He found himself lying next to the rose bed. He looked up and saw green leaves swaying and shards of glass flickering. A dark shadow passed over his eyes, making him look up again. The hole in the dome that could only accommodate the queen bee’s size had become larger and occupied nearly three-quarters of the dome. Its broken edge was shining with light and a bee as long as a human arm was flying through it.

The fluctuations had disappeared and there were no traces of the queen bee in the doom. However, the glass had been shattered and outside, artillery fire exploded like fireworks. It was the human army fighting. He wondered if they had killed the queen bee but it was difficult to hit a bee in the vast sky at night. An Zhe saw a small bee flying high and disappearing under the silver light of the moon.

Then there were a few dark shadows, accompanied by the buzzing of wings as five, ten, countless bees swarmed from all directions. Some bees still had white cloth fragments on their bodies. An Zhe turned to the direction they came from. The 22nd floor was empty and no one could be seen at all. They had all turned into bees.

Bees—

Another erratic memory appeared in An Zhe’s mind.

It was a bee, a normal flowering bee who didn’t eat people.

It was summer, the season when bees reproduced. However, it mistakenly flew into the human city. This city was inaccessible and people’s doors and windows were closed. It wanted to find edible pollen but it wasn’t possible.

Then it saw it. Behind the glass was a bright red, blooming rose.

A woman was taking care of this flower. She stood by the window, looking at the rose with a smile. Then she stared at the sky outside for a long time. She seemed to want to open the window and touch the sky outside.

The bee waited a long time, waiting as the woman left and came back, waited until she looked outside and shed a tear. She seemed to have finally made a decision and pushed open the window. The wind outside poured in and she closed her eyes like she was flying with the wind.

The bee had been hungry for a long time. It attached itself to the rose’s stamen and pollen covered its furry hind limbs. It probed its slender mouthpiece into the centre of this flower. However, it was soon discovered.

The woman reached for it, fingers shaking and eyes quivering with slight madness. It was as if this was the first time she had seen such life. She was slow and didn’t seem like she was going to dust it off, but the bee’s instincts meant that what happened next was bound to occur.

Once her finger was only a few millimetres away and about to touch it, the bee subconsciously stung her.