An Zhe returned the paper to the boy. “I’ll give this back to you.”

“No need!” The boy returned the paper to his hands. “Remember to come again next week. We are meeting in Building 1!”

Thus, An Zhe stacked the ‘resist the tyranny of the judges’ paper together with the genetic report sheet. He held it in his arms as he left these strange young people and walked in the direction indicated.

As he walked, he felt the surrounding environment become familiar. The memories in his mind that originally belonged to An Ze were awakened and he followed his intuition to turn a few corners, smoothly arriving in front of the building labelled ‘117.’ This was a rectangular building that was 10 stories high and was very wide. He entered Unit 0 and climbed the steep stairs to the fifth floor. He entered a dark corridor and found room 14.

A white seal was pasted on the door. An Zhe gently tore it open and revealed the sensing area below. He stuck the ID card on it and the door lock popped open as he went inside.

This was a very small room. It was smaller than the cave where he once lived but it was more spacious and brighter than the rest area in the armoured vehicle. There was a wooden desk with a dozen old books against the wall, paper and notebooks stacked to one side. The desk was facing a single bed with a cabinet at the end. There was a glass of water, a mirror and some clutter. In addition, there was a one-person wardrobe at the end of the bed.

The window was on the other side of the bed and the grey curtains were half open. The sun shone in and the quilt was shining with the same colour. There was a dry fragrance that reminded him of An Ze’s smell.

He went to the bed and reached for the big mirror that showed his face. He looked like An Ze, with soft black hair and eyes of the same colour. Many places were similar but there were some different details. Moreover, he didn’t have An Ze’s gentle and calm look.

At that time, An Ze had said to him, “I feel like I have one more brother. I’ll give you a name, little mushroom.”

“Do you have a deep impression of anything, little mushroom?”

There were only two things in his limited memories that were profound. One was when he lost his spore and the other happened when he was very young, probably when he was as long as a human finger.

During the mushroom growing rainy season, he was hit on his slender stem by a splash of rain and his waist folded. Then, like any injured creature, try to grow back and live. Gradually, there was a vague consciousness and he healed.