Chapter 230: [Blessed with Longevity] Waking Up to Make Trouble
Bai Cha slept fairly peacefully.
Aside from waking briefly whenever there was noise during rounds, it was much quieter here than in her rented apartment.
Her dreams were still a jumbled mess, but she wasn’t disrupted by anything.
She slept straight through to the morning, yet she didn’t feel refreshed in the slightest.
Perhaps because her body had sustained damage, she felt sore and exhausted all over upon opening her eyes, wishing nothing more than to sleep for another three days and nights.
However, her mental state was slightly better.
After sitting there and staring off into space for a while, Lin Hong happened to come in to deliver breakfast.
Bai Cha accepted the food, offered a word of thanks, and casually asked, “Nurse Lin, I heard someone blew up the nursing home yesterday. Did they catch the person?”
Catching the culprit was naturally impossible, since she was sitting right here.
Lin Hong replied, “No, but after checking through the night, there are no more explosives in the nursing home. You can rest assured.”
Bai Cha nodded at her words without asking how they had searched.
“Can I still go downstairs to pick flowers today?”
Lin Hong knitted her brows slightly.
“You’d better stay inside. It’s a bit dangerous, so just walk around on our floor.”
Bai Cha nodded with a trace of disappointment.
“Alright then. Nurse Lin, could you bring me a few flowers instead?”
Lin Hong naturally had no intention of doing so.
Yet she held back her impatience and nodded.
“Fine, just wait here. I’ll go after I finish my work.”
As for when she would actually finish her work, that remained uncertain. She could always claim later that she simply forgot because she was busy.
With that thought in mind, Lin Hong turned and walked away.
Bai Cha didn’t actually need her to bring flowers anyway—she was merely acting according to her persona.
She stood up and walked over to the window.
Nothing appeared amiss outside the window.
Looking as though she were admiring the view, she carefully sensed the condition of all the Dodder Vines.
Before leaving the front yard yesterday, she had deliberately transferred all the subsurface Dodder Vines into the middle of the roses climbing the perimeter fence.
After all, Dodder Vines weren’t subterranean plants; if discovered under the soil, it would naturally look very odd, so she did it just to be safe.
Now, Dodder Vines were spread virtually everywhere throughout the entire nursing home.
Thus, Bai Cha gently triggered a Dodder Vine inside an elderly resident’s body in the front yard.
As pale yellow vines sprouted from the human body, the front yard predictably plummeted into sheer panic.
The vines multiplied continuously, coiling and intertwining with one another until they completely encased the old man’s body.
Since Bai Cha didn’t recall the vines, she simply let them remain there, coiling and growing on their own.
The medical staff were so terrified that none dared draw near, leaving them no choice but to hurriedly phone Qin Fa.
Due to the foul stench in his room, Qin Fa had been forced to sleep in a second-floor ward room; hearing of such an anomaly at this moment, he instinctively knitted his brows and walked out.
“Sprouting vines?”
“Yes! Yellow ones, and they’re even blooming! Someone recognized them and said it’s Dodder Vine!”
Qin Fa found it utterly incredible. “How could Dodder Vine sprout from inside his body?”
Who could possibly know that?
Qin Fa arrived at the location in short order. Every elderly resident here occupied a single room; right now, a large crowd had gathered outside the room, peering inward.
The old man who was supposed to be lying on the bed inside was nowhere to be seen, replaced entirely by massive, intertwined patches of yellow vines that were still actively growing, with some creeping out across the floor.
Compared to when these people consumed the Tai Sui and were wrapped in those black threads, this scene was hardly any better.
The critical issue, however, was that the Tai Sui fell within the scope of Qin Fa’s knowledge—so what on earth was this before their eyes? Had the Tai Sui mutated?
“When did this start with him?”
“Just this morning, before you arrived… less than twenty minutes ago,” the nurse answered while checking her watch.
“It just happened all of a sudden. Yellow vines abruptly sprouted from inside his body, growing more and more numerous.”
Looking at Qin Fa, everyone’s eyes couldn’t help but carry a thread of worry—a worry for their own situation.
“Doctor Qin, you have to give us an explanation! What on earth is going on?”
“That’s right, Doctor Qin! This… couldn’t be a side effect of the treatment, could it?”
Every single person present valued their life immensely; otherwise, they wouldn’t harbor such a desperate craving to return to youth and achieve immortality.
This fierce desire to survive even made them willing to temporarily act as nurses to care for those young people.
Because those youths served as the fertile soil supplying them with life, prompting them to exert every effort in caring for them.
Yet whether it was yesterday’s explosion or today’s eerie vines, this nursing home hardly seemed as flawless as Qin Fa had promised them.
Clearly, other dangers lurked beneath the surface.
“Doctor Qin, you must give us an account!”
The elderly residents here had not yet fully returned to youth, and they remained capable of returning to society at any moment, given that their public identities were still intact.
Nor had they reached the degree of craving toward the Tai Sui that the medical staff possessed.
Consequently, they naturally maintained an air of superiority.
Now that two consecutive mishaps had occurred, they naturally had to look out for their own survival.
With a cold, dark face, Qin Fa walked straight into the ward room.
Crouching on the floor, he yanked upward on a vine.
Without Bai Cha’s command, the vine appeared thoroughly ordinary.
It was nothing more than a pure plant.
Yet whose house plant sprouted straight out of a human body?
“Fetch me a pair of scissors!”
Rescuing the person took priority right now.
The crowd outside hadn’t dispersed, all standing around to watch as Qin Fa took the scissors and set about cutting the vines open.
However, the vines were rather tough and resilient; after two snips, he had someone swap them for specialized lawn-trimming shears.
The cutting went much faster this time.
The vines were peeled back entirely, yet no human was inside.
It was completely empty.
Aside from the spread-out, dangling vines resting atop the bed, nothing remained.
Witnessing this entire scene, the elderly onlookers were instantly overcome with shock and rage.
“Doctor Qin, where is he?! What happened to the person?! Don’t tell me he turned into vines entirely?!”
“If he really turned into vines, wouldn’t cutting them up mean he can’t survive?!”
“Doctor Qin, aren’t you going to explain this to us?!”
Qin Fa closed his eyes briefly, an overwhelming wave of irritation surging in his heart.
To tell the truth, his past status and position had been countless times superior to these fellows.
If not for the sake of bringing the Tai Sui under control at an early date and truly mastering its power, he wouldn’t waste time with these people in the slightest!
“Rest assured, everyone. This incident was indeed beyond my expectations, but I will give you all a proper account.”
This response naturally failed to satisfy them.
However, these individuals were all shrewd old foxes who could tell Qin Fa was in a foul mood, refraining from pressing him too aggressively.
No one cared about that person’s life or death.
Everyone cared solely about their own survival.
With an overcast, heavy face, Qin Fa had just stepped out of the front hall onto the lawn when screams echoed from behind him once again.
“Doctor Qin! Hurry, come look!”
Qin Fa turned around swiftly and strode back.
Before him, vines were sprouting at lightning speed from another doctor’s body—from his eyes, ears, mouth, and every single inch of his frame.
The man himself wore an expression of sheer terror.
This sight looked far too SAN-draining.
The surrounding crowd scattered in terror, shrieking as they fled.
This time, the vines erupted outward, growing rapidly the moment they attached to any surface, behaving completely differently from the inward-wrapping vines from moments ago.
And this time, everyone could witness with their own eyes as that doctor’s body withered away at a rapid pace—much like a plant—until he turned entirely into dried leaves, crumbling to dust and dissolving into ash as if crushed to pieces.
