He thought about how five minutes ago, Du Sai touched the blister on her head that was caused by the parasitic worm. She realized that she couldn’t survive and would be executed by the Judge. Yet while afraid, she seemed to want to be closer to the Judge, taking a few steps in that direction. Before she could reach Lu Feng, the bullet penetrated her body.

Where was Lu Feng at that time? An Zhe looked at the dark blood on the ground not far away. At that time, Lu Feng had been standing where An Zhe stood, or not far away, and fired.

What was a bullet casing? It was the coat of the bullet, he knew. An Ze had similar knowledge in his memories. Once the bullet left the barrel and shot out, the casing would be ejected backward and land on the ground.

There was no doubt that the casing he picked up now belonged to Lu Feng, the master of the Trial Court. What about the exact bullet casing An Zhe picked up in the wilderness where his spore was taken? Did it have something to do with the Trial Court?

An unspeakable feeling rushed into An Zhe’s heart. He felt a type of fear that couldn’t be accurately described. If the spore was related to the Trial Court, he could imagine the difficulty of recovering it. He couldn’t directly ask. Asking about the spore was no different from admitting that he was a mushroom.

In the midst of such thoughts, the 30 minutes were over. The mechanical voice was heard again. “The buffer time is over. Please queue in an orderly manner to receive the infection screening. After passing the screening, please leave by yourself.”

The instructions played out repeatedly and a large light shone on the opposite side of the square. People started to move in that direction for screening. Standing next to An Zhe appeared to be a father and son. One of them was older with a beard while the other was a 13 year old underage boy.

He heard the boy ask, “Why wait 30 minutes?”

“The judges aren’t machines. They can’t see that you have been infected after just being bitten by a bug.” The father whispered. “You haven’t been to the gate which also has 30 minutes of queuing time.”

“Oh.”

Then he wondered, “How will it appear?”

“Don’t ask me,” his father replied. “I don’t know how they see it.”

“I heard they just want to kill—”

“Shut up.” The father’s voice was filled with a hint of fear. “Do you want to be shot?”

As if to verify the father’s words, a gunshot rang out at the end of the square. They immediately fell silent.