Chapter 220 | Chapter 221 | Chapter 222
Chapter 220: Xiao Kui Blossoms
“This should be in the wilderness…”
Huai Yu was somewhat puzzled.
Zhou Qian thought it over and replied, “If the Wilderness Exploration Department has been scouting for five years and still has no impression of this place, there is only one possibility—this place is extremely dangerous.”
So dangerous that no one has set foot there to this day.
However, this wasn’t absolute. After all, the Defense Army mostly handled preliminary work and acted as guides; they couldn’t accompany missions into the deeper regions. Thus, Zhou Qian suggested, “I’ll contact some friends later. If any of them know people in the Garrison Army, I’ll have them ask around about this place.”
“But…”
He turned Huai Yu’s flatbread drawing over and over, examining it. “Some plants are exclusive, like Kuang Biao. Its root system is too developed, and its plundering of resources far outstrips other trees, which is why bamboo quickly forms a forest. But in the wilderness, most plants actually cooperate with mutated animals. If such a massive clearing suddenly appears, then the sole plant in that clearing is likely the strongest thing within a hundred-meter radius.”
And the massive clump of filling in the center of the flatbread drawing was, according to Huai Yu’s description, a bizarre, leafless tree.
Zhou Qian frowned. “Xiao Yu, regardless of whether your dream is real or why you had it, this place is very dangerous. I’m afraid even the Garrison Army wouldn’t dare approach it lightly.”
Still, he was rather curious. “Why on earth do you dream of Lin Xuefeng anyway? Shouldn’t your dreams be tracing back your own memories instead?”
Huai Yu’s face was about to fall.
Even if it was a nightmare—well, dreaming that Lin Xuefeng died was indeed quite a nightmare. But it was still better than her memories!
It was truly wonderful that she had lost her memories; she didn’t want to know a single thing about those disgusting scenes from her past.
“I don’t know,” she replied, her tone stiff and icy.
Zhou Qian let out a sigh. “Your ability is too strange. Right now, we can’t tell anyone, nor can we guarantee that what you see in the dream is real. Otherwise, with General Lin’s whereabouts on the line, there would definitely be plenty of people willing to take the risk…”
In short, he became alert. “Before the things in the dream are confirmed, you are absolutely not allowed to go into the wilderness alone!”
“After all, if the scene you saw is real, General Lin stands absolutely no…” Zhou Qian swallowed the words about to leave his mouth and looked out at the vast wasteland outside. “How about we just plant more vegetables instead?”
Huai Yu nodded. “Got it!”
She wasn’t stupid. Lin Xuefeng was very important, but Zhou Qian was important too! She herself was the most important!
Before she had a plan and complete preparations, how could she easily go off to take risks? The wilderness was so massive, and she didn’t even know the location; if she went in, was she supposed to rely on heaven’s will?
But planting vegetables was proper work, so she nodded and said, “Then go ahead and keep clearing the vegetable garden. I’ll go purify the vegetables.”
Yesterday she had still been worrying over this colossal project, but today she had already rallied her spirits, brimming with fighting intent, determined to use this opportunity to thoroughly train her ability!
……
Zhou Qian’s mention of clearing the vegetable garden was purely to divert Huai Yu’s attention, but by the time he brought out the hoe and tentatively found an empty spot next to the vegetable garden to start digging, he was already covered in another layer of hot sweat.
Looking up at the sky again, the sun had barely climbed halfway. Yet the temperature after the heavy rain had clearly surged once more.
In this weather, probably not even an ability user could do manual labor, right?
He paused, decisively putting the hoe back. However, just as he took a step toward the utility shed, something caught the corner of his eye, causing him to instinctively look up at the roof.
He saw a brilliant, golden color behind the house, exceptionally striking.
At this moment, Huai Yu was standing at the corner of the house, her eyes wide as she stared at everything before her.
After several consecutive days of polluted rain, many vigorously growing bamboo shoots had sprouted in the bamboo grove. Kuang Biao’s irritable mood had clearly been hard to vent, but after being thrashed once in the rain by the Rose Corridor, it had managed to behave itself somewhat.
Because the rain had been too heavy, the bamboo grove tunnel hadn’t managed to block all of it. The ground was a patch of mud, and the air was damp; it would still take a day or two of sun-drying for now.
Huai Yu had no time to focus on any of that, though. She just stared dumbfounded at the large patch of sunflowers she had planted behind the house.
Before the rainstorm, the sunflowers had been barely over a meter tall, with the most vigorous ones just passing two meters. The leaves at the tips had wrapped around tiny flower buds, clearly showing no intention of blooming anytime soon, still wanting to try hard to grow taller.
But now, the tallest sunflower had grown to over four meters, far exceeding the height of the roof. Right in the center, a massive flower head, even larger than her washbasin, had opened its full, plump body.
The petals weren’t the yellow of the sunflowers she imagined, but instead seemed to carry a golden sheen. A sharp reflection could faintly be seen along the edges, resembling a circular saw fitted with countless blades.
Huai Yu was dazed, and couldn’t help but think:
Will they move on their own? Can they chop trees?
And with the flower head being so big, will there be more sunflower seeds? When the time comes, if a single flower head can yield a full basin of seeds, that would be so blissful! But I’ve never noticed before that polluted rain could suddenly force a plant to grow like this?
She recalled the station staff telling her that its mutation value was 23, guessing that plants with high mutation values probably had unstable traits to begin with, making them prone to sudden mutations under extreme conditions.
But it didn’t matter. No matter what the mutation value was, she would still get to eat them.
Could Kuang Biao’s influence really be involved here?
Huai Yu leaned in and called out softly, “Xiao Kui?”
“What?! Xiao Kui?!” Kuang Biao instantly snapped out of its listless state, the bamboo leaves on its branches rustling loudly as it instinctively looked toward its girlfriend’s position.
Subsequently, the entire bamboo grove seemed to hit the pause button.
“Xiao Kui!”
Kuang Biao cried out, “Why did you suddenly grow so big?”
It gestured to measure its own height. “Stop growing, stop growing! If you keep growing, I won’t be able to shield you when it rains.”
Then it let out a silly, infatuated laugh. “But your flower bloomed so big! My flowers are way too small… You look so beautiful!”
The sunflowers before them didn’t speak, and the one that bloomed the largest, most beautiful, and most vigorous remained completely motionless.
Huai Yu faintly sensed its emotions, finding that its mindset was exceptionally stable. Facing the blazing sun, it didn’t possess a single shred of the irritability or wild thoughts typical of mutated plants.
Looking back at the bamboo grove on the other side, she was truly afraid that Kuang Biao would lose its mind to love and uncontrollably extend its roots over again. Thus, she warned once more, “Even if she has bloomed, you are not allowed to cross the line. Otherwise, the next time the Rose Corridor beats you up, I’ll have it pull out all your bamboo, leaving only a tiny bit of root, and see how you can still date!”
Kuang Biao completely ignored her, instead beginning to speak in a high-flown, literary manner. “The moment I laid eyes on you, my true feelings flowed within my chest, naturally giving rise to a beautiful love poem…”
“Xiao Kui, I shall recite it to you right now.”
Chapter 221: Kuang Biao’s Poetry
Huai Yu stood where she was, watching Kuang Biao’s courtship with a complicated expression.
Zhou Qian walked over at some point, staring at the sunflower’s tall, straight stem and the massive circular bloom atop it. He couldn’t help but sigh, “That stalk grew really straight, didn’t it?”
No sooner had he finished speaking than he saw Huai Yu turn to look at him, pressing a finger to her lips: “Shh.”
Zhou Qian looked at the top of her head, noting that she seemed to have grown a little taller since he last saw her a few days ago.
But right now…
A voice began to drone on, affecting a deep, overly dramatic, and incredibly greasy tone as it recited a pretentious, sappy poem—
“You are in the far north, I am in the far south.” “Pulling my longing toward a shore thousands of miles away.” “Where Kuang Biao’s heart is intertwined.” “In the golden center of the sunflower, faintly shimmering with fragments of our love…”
Huai Yu’s face was already puckered as if she’d eaten one of Uncle Zao’s mutated green dates, and Zhou Qian’s expression grew equally bizarre.
A moment later, they both shivered simultaneously and began frantically rubbing their own arms. “My god…”
Zhou Qian even asked, “If Xiao Kui really does produce fragments of love, will you still be able to eat those sunflower seeds?”
Huai Yu’s face turned even paler.
But what did human joy or sorrow have to do with Kuang Biao?
Right now, it was saying soulfully, “Xiao Kui, do you like this poem? The moment I laid eyes on you, this poem flowed naturally into my empty body. It was written just for you; it is the manifestation of my lifelong literary talent. Are you moved?”
“Will you love me a little more?”
Xiao Kui did not answer.
Huai Yu and Zhou Qian couldn’t bear to listen anymore. She really hated herself for being bored enough to go read by the bamboo grove! Now, looking at that patch of motionless sunflowers, she found it too painful to watch.
Zhou Qian, however, wasn’t giving up, attempting to sow discord: “Kuang Biao, didn’t you say you liked sunflowers that were bright, gentle, and beautiful, and could write poetry? How come it’s your turn to write the poems now?”
“What do you know?” Kuang Biao was still immersed in its own incredible literary talent, answering lazily, “She looks so good, her bloom is so big—it doesn’t matter if she’s not bright, gentle, or beautiful.”
“You don’t have a partner, so you wouldn’t understand.”
“Meeting true love is like this. No matter how she looks, you think she’s beautiful.”
Well!
That single sentence had wounded two people at once.
Zhou Qian was a genuine single dog, and Huai Yu was currently single, though she had once been blind in love.
The two could stay no longer. The sun was getting higher and higher, so they’d better retreat back into the house to escape the heat.
There was no fan, and the room was equally sweltering, but the bamboo grove tunnel was still damp and felt like a steamer; it seemed they wouldn’t be escaping the heat today. The two could only wave the small fans they’d salvaged from the junk pile, sighing with regret:
“A love-struck bamboo is truly terrifying.”
Zhou Qian added sorrowfully, “Will the sunflower actually fall in love with it? Kuang Biao’s bamboo is a collective entity; which stalk did the sunflower choose? The largest, tallest one?”
“It can’t possibly be dating the whole patch.”
Huai Yu nodded. “It’s that tallest one. Only that one mutated; the others just have high pollution values, like the vegetables in the garden. They don’t have any other consciousness.”
At the thought of this wretched romance, they sighed in unison.
But before that sigh had faded, they suddenly heard Kuang Biao calling out through the window again:
“Xiao Yu! Xiao Yu!”
“Why is Xiao Kui ignoring me? Does it think I’m uncultured?” “Or is my poetry too subtle and reserved?” “Back when you read that poem, I clearly felt it fluttering with excitement!” “Xiao Yu, Xiao Yu!”
Huai Yu helplessly opened the window. “Stop calling out and just go about your romance in peace.” In this heat, its shouting sounded like a cicada—far too noisy.
But Kuang Biao wouldn’t listen. It only knew that Xiao Kui had grown up and bloomed, yet it remained indifferent to its passionate confession, not even sparing a glance.
It clearly had a reaction every time the poem was read in the past.
It made another request: “Xiao Yu, why don’t you read that poem to her one more time?” “Just read the one she likes best.”
Huai Yu replied expressionlessly, “I won’t.”
Kuang Biao cried out, “I’ll grow bamboo shoots! I’ll grow you lots and lots of bamboo shoots—the big, high-quality kind!”
“You can give them away or sell them for money, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been with you for so long, surely I’m a bamboo that deserves some credit even if I haven’t done anything major?”
“Just read it to her once! Put some feeling into it, okay?” “Just like you usually do when you stand next to her with your book.”
Huai Yu: …
A person should not bow for five pecks of rice.
But Kuang Biao was offering five acres of bamboo shoots! It was only because the payment was just too generous, and she was currently obsessed with earning more points.
Huai Yu silently agreed, picked up that wretched book Born Toward the Sun, and walked slowly toward the bamboo grove.
Opening the book, the first page was still that poem she had recited until she felt sick. As for Kuang Biao’s request for a “passionate reading,” she couldn’t muster a single syllable of it.
But with five acres of roasted bamboo shoots waiting before her, Huai Yu opened her mouth, her heart as still as stagnant water.
“Golden, majestic sunflower…”
Miraculously, it seemed to really have a reaction only to this poem. Or perhaps Xiao Kui finally felt Kuang Biao’s sincerity; as Huai Yu stood beside it, she actually seemed to feel that slightly joyous mood!
No way? This works too?
Holding onto this immense shock, her reading voice grew much louder—
“The sun casts its arrows of light onto her bright, gentle flowers…”
“Ouch!” Kuang Biao suddenly yelled!
Huai Yu’s poem came to an abrupt halt. She looked up. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Kuang Biao said, sounding incredibly aggrieved. “I think I just tasted the bitterness of love. For a split second, my leaves were so hot, it hurt.”
“But it’s fine! Keep reading! Xiao Kui is moved. Its petals are adjusting like waves… Is it trying to find the perfect angle to get the best view of me?”
Is that so? Huai Yu’s heart raced, and she didn’t believe it for a second.
But the poem was very short; after a few lines, she was forced to start over from the beginning.
When she reached the middle again, Zhou Qian suddenly opened the back window and squinted at the leaves atop the bamboo stalks, frowning. “Why are there suddenly so many light spots up there?”
He pondered curiously, “There aren’t any reflective surfaces around here… Could this be a new mutation direction?”
Huai Yu lifted her head with the book in hand. After stepping back slightly, she successfully saw the golden spots on Kuang Biao’s body, leaving her bewildered: “Kuang Biao, are you trying to gild yourself?”
The moment she finished speaking, those golden light spots on the bamboo leaves suddenly deepened in color, yellowed, and rapidly turned into dark, brownish scorch marks, as if they had been scorched or burned by something!
Chapter 222: Inter-species Romance
Kuang Biao, being a unique entity consisting of an entire bamboo grove, didn’t typically feel pain in a mundane way.
Generally speaking, because it had so many interconnected neural paths, its reactions were rather sluggish. When the “big kid” or “little kid” poked its stalks or shoots, it would only give a couple of “ouch” calls.
The only thing that truly pained it was when the Rose Corridor attacked. Because the corridor really went for the jugular, piercing and tugging as if it wanted to yank out its most vital roots… That was something Kuang Biao was still very much afraid of.
After all, while bamboo roots were aggressive and formidable, the fibrous roots of the Rosaceae family were even more pervasive, sprawling across millions of paths. If it really wanted to fight back, all it had to do was block its roots across the ground, and Kuang Biao would absolutely be unable to win.
Though, it had never actually fought back before.
But right now!
Kuang Biao was crying out, “Ouch! Ouch!” Its verdant bamboo leaves rustled noisily, as if a gale had swept through the entire grove. Yet, it still couldn’t stop the tops of those few stalks at the forefront from emitting wisps of black smoke.
Looking at those dense, lush leaves, many had been scorched into holes.
Huai Yu paused, remembering the mood she had felt from Xiao Kui while reciting the poem, and then looked at the sunflower, whose massive floral disk kept adjusting its angle, occasionally casting a blinding reflection into her eyes.
She hesitated for a brief moment and continued to recite the poem: “The sun is like arrows of light, casting onto her bright and gentle crown…”
The next moment, a faintly joyous mood rippled from Xiao Kui, while the massive floral disk above continued to adjust its orientation. Soon, little light spots began to glow on another cluster of Kuang Biao’s bamboo tips—
Good heavens, that really was the sun casting arrows of light!
Except it was a refracted, magnified version!
What a tragic romance! Huai Yu couldn’t help but close her book and sigh in grief. Based on how things looked, Kuang Biao was destined to lose both its love and a portion of its body.
After more smoke puffed from the bamboo leaves overhead, Huai Yu patted Kuang Biao’s trunk. “Anyway, I’ve recited the poem. Just remember to find time to grow more bamboo shoots! Don’t let them pop up too much; just show a little tip so I know where they are. Once they sprout, they aren’t as tender.”
“Of course, if you’re willing to push them up, I’d be eternally grateful.”
Zhou Qian, however, frowned with concern. “Won’t this catch fire?”
“It won’t.”
Huai Yu shook the book in her hand. “See? ‘Arrows of light’—it’ll just bake a hole; it won’t ignite.”
With Kuang Biao’s penchant for dramatic screeching, it would be wailing at the first sign of a flame, so there was really no need for them to worry about it.
Besides, to put it plainly, this whole situation was because of Kuang Biao’s overly greasy, one-sided pestering. Xiao Kui had endured such long harassment for no reason; it hadn’t been “enlightened” before, but now that it had the power, who could blame it for blowing off some steam?
Zhou Qian sighed with a touch of melancholy. “No wonder TV shows never feature inter-species romance; it clearly never ends well.”
Huai Yu: “I wouldn’t go that far…”
But before she could offer a counterargument, a pained cry from Kuang Biao erupted behind them. Huai Yu swallowed her words, turning to Zhou Qian. “How about we go tidy up the vegetable plot?”
“Want some peanuts? Go pull up some peanuts, and I’ll handle the purification. Pull up a bit more this time; we’ll make boiled peanuts with salt at noon, and later we can stir-fry some with chili, peppercorns, and salt.”
Zhou Qian, who had eaten several meals at home due to the rain, agreed instantly. He no longer felt bothered by the harsh sun; instead, he deftly pulled a basket out of the utility shed and, braving the blazing heat, pulled up a full basket in no time.
Huai Yu glanced at it from the doorway and hurriedly stopped him. “Knock the mud off!”
She didn’t stay idle either, heading over to Ketaro’s room.
With the sun so intense these days, Ketaro didn’t like going out during the day. It was feeling a bit down, spending every day hugging its ball, and was truly quite unhappy.
Seeing this, Huai Yu felt a bit sorry for it. After thinking it over, she said, “Ketaro, just hang in there a little longer. Tomorrow we’ll go to the market to see if there are any medicinal herbs. We’ll buy them and force-grow some more for you.”
“Since it’s so hot, in the future, you can join us by the bamboo grove corridor and roll your balls there.”
“I’ll build you a new nest there.”
After all, with the epic love-hate relationship between Xiao Kui and Kuang Biao behind the house, there would certainly be no shortage of bamboo poles for building tomorrow.
Ketaro perked up, its wings fluttering and its antennae curving as it tapped Huai Yu’s finger.
Huai Yu looked at the box already filled to the brim with Ketaro-balls and decided to make another trip to the trading market tomorrow.
She might as well take a bag of vegetables to check the market rates while she was at it!
…
The trading market after the rain was much busier than usual. Many people probably couldn’t find suitable produce, so they had to abandon the simple local trading environment and come to this large market to try their luck.
There were still people queuing at the testing station despite the sun being high in the sky. Huai Yu and Zhou Qian didn’t dare make a peep, slinking in through the VIP room with their sacks on their backs.
They had arrived a bit late today because they had to pick the vegetables in the early morning, and Huai Yu had been busy with the purification. Consequently, the entire bag of produce passed through the testing station, yielding extremely balanced and unremarkable data:
Mutation value: 14.
This value would have been considered medium-high before the rain, but after the rain, it was now top-tier. Even without her prompting, the inspectors gritted their teeth and bought some—if they didn’t eat it, it would sell for a good price.
Overall, however, this batch wasn’t particularly eye-catching.
What was truly eye-catching was the half-basket of colorful, gaudy spheres in Huai Yu’s back basket.
“What is this?”
The staff member stared at the mutation value card that had just popped out, his gaze burning.
No reason other than that the mutation value was exceptionally low—only 5. But a mutation value of 5 was a rare treasure that commoners could hardly ever hope to encounter.
Huai Yu thought for a moment and answered awkwardly, “This is… a type of tea leaf.”
Tea leaves?!
The staff member, an enthusiast of pre-cataclysm tea culture who now could only count the few remaining grains of his family-heirloom Pu’er to get by, widened his eyes. Words he shouldn’t have said slipped out:
“How many points per piece? What kind of tea is each one? I’ve never seen such gaudy things before. You didn’t add anything to the colors inside, did you?”
His questions were fast and numerous. Huai Yu looked genuinely guilty, fumbling with her words and not wanting to say much.
The staff member realized his mistake and spoke concisely. “Scared you? It’s just that tea is hard to come by these days, and I’m a bit desperate. Even if you sold them to me, I might not even be able to afford them.”
Huai Yu instantly sat up. “No, no, that’s not it!”
She looked at these Ketaro-balls and pulled out four that didn’t have strong medicinal properties. “How about… how about I just give these to you?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to sell them, it’s just that I’m not sure about the pricing yet. I’ll go find someone I know to ask first.”
If she had known this would happen, she should have just followed the original plan and asked Chen Xing.
But since the weather was so hot, and Zhou Qian was already carrying such a huge load of vegetables, they had decided to ask Uncle Zao first. Anyway, since they met every few days and there were so many Ketaro-balls, they could just sell them however they saw fit.
