After leaving the space, she took out a bucket of water and heated it. Once the water had cooled slightly, she quickly washed her hair and took a bath.
Then she used the remaining water to rinse the clothes she had changed out of. She was careful with water now, but after crawling through the mountains all day, covered in mud and plants, it was hard to get clean. It took another full bucket to properly wash her clothes.
She felt a little guilty and wondered if she could find a water source tomorrow to store more.
By the fire, she had set up two forked sticks with a wooden rod across them. She didn’t need a proper clothes hanger, she simply hung her clothes by the fire. As long as the fire burned high, they would dry quickly.
By the time she finished, she was extremely exhausted. While drying her hair by the fire, she even fell asleep right there. In her sleep, she tilted dangerously, nearly falling to the ground, which startled her awake.
Feeling that her hair was fully dry, she forced her eyelids open, placed a thick log into the fire to burn slowly, and hurried into her small hut, collapsing onto the bed.
When she woke, the sun was already high. She had slept deeply, but still felt a bit tired. Thinking of last night’s unusual events, she realized it must have been due to her power’s energy consumption. Sleep might help her recover some strength, but the process was clearly slow, and she didn’t know if there was any other way.
She also remembered how the vines had leveled up after absorbing her blood. Could it work the other way? Could she absorb energy from other plants?
But her mind couldn’t help picturing the piles of animal bones she had seen when she woke in the giant tree hole… or, would she have to absorb the blood and flesh of animals like the giant tree?
Wen Xian shivered, unwilling to think further. She got dressed and stepped out of the hut. The fire outside had almost died, leaving only a thin wisp of blue smoke.
The sun was still bright today, but the temperature seemed to have dropped significantly. She instinctively took out her phone to check the weather, then remembered the internet had long since gone down, and weather forecasts no longer updated.
Her mood this morning was a little heavy. After gathering branches and leaves to rekindle the fire, she had no appetite to cook. She ate a few nearly expired small breads, a piece of chocolate, and an apple. She boiled a small pot of water and made herself a cup of coffee. After eating and drinking, her mood finally eased a little.
She touched the clothes she had hung out to dry, they were mostly dry, and with half a day of sun they would be completely dry. Then she entered the space to continue building her planting gardens.
The space was circular. She placed the first garden along the outer edge, then created another one ten meters long and two meters wide. In the end, she only had a few remaining wooden planks, two piles of soil, and several large stones. Wen Xian estimated that her existing gardens wouldn’t be enough to plant all the plants she had collected.
She first planted two chestnut trees and two coffee trees in the outermost garden. Then she planted one each of the Dian olive, orange, banana, soursop, guava, and Chinese toon trees in the second garden. The remaining small half of the space she used for a grapevine and August melon, both vining fruits. When she collected them, she had only kept the main branches; once they grew, she would need trellises, and even then, the garden might not be enough.
With the help of the vines, she made over twenty more wooden planks and finally completed a fifteen-meter-long super-sized garden. She planted three prickly ash trees, then planted the largest quantity: Panax notoginseng (Sanqi), which surprisingly took up nearly half the area. The remaining plants, He Shou Wu, Dendrobium, Angelica, Poria, Gastrodia, were squeezed in tightly, leaving only a third of the space.
Wen Xian tried to arrange the remaining wild vegetables as neatly as possible. She didn’t plant the water celery or bamboo shoots; the reishi mushrooms and edible mushrooms were planted at the base of other trees. In the end, the three planting gardens were filled to capacity, and the space was filled with green.
By now her face was almost pale, yet she couldn’t help but smile. After leaving the space, she collapsed onto her bed. Rapid breathing and sharp headaches reminded her she needed to replenish her energy, and almost immediately, she fell into a deep sleep.
When she woke, it was already dark. Her body had recovered about seventy to eighty percent. She relit the fire, collected her clothes, and took out some beef jerky, noodles, a handful of wild vegetables, and a few mushrooms. She remembered she had a few bottles of rice sauces, including [1]Lao Gan Ma (老干妈) is a famous Chinese chili sauce brand. It’s known for its spicy, savory flavor with crunchy bits of fermented soybeans or chili, often used as a condiment or cooking … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1829088_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1829088_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });Lao Gan Ma, so she took out a bottle of fermented black bean chicken Lao Gan Ma and cooked a bowl of noodles with it.
While washing the bowl, she vaguely heard a commotion in the distance, sounds like human shouts and beastly roars. When she stopped to listen carefully, the small vine snuggled over, twisting its body and rustling its leaves, masking the sounds. Wen Xian thought she had imagined it and didn’t pay it further attention. She played with the small vine for a while, listening as it told her that tomorrow it would lead her to a good place.
The next morning, she and the vine set out early. This time, the area they went to was even more densely vegetated, and along the way she encountered many useful things. The biggest surprise was discovering water vines in a mountain hollow.
She had seen many survival expert videos online and knew that water vines could be used as climbing vines and firewood. More importantly, the vines themselves held a high water content. In the wild, if you cut a water vine diagonally, a small stream of water would flow out and could be drunk directly.
She had the vine help her uproot two water vines, cut off the excess parts, and place them into the space.
Later, she came across a tree on a slope with all its roots exposed above the ground, occupying nearly the entire hillside. It was clearly a mutated plant, one she had never seen before. Touching it, she felt a sense of closeness from the tree, though she could not communicate with it. Surprisingly, its “level” was lower than the vine’s, which left Wen Xian a bit puzzled.
She also found a number of precious wild medicinal plants such as reishi and Dendrobium officinale, many of higher quality than what she had found before. She collected some, both mutated and non-mutated.
She couldn’t tell whether their medicinal properties were affected, most of the plants she encountered only gave her feelings of closeness and joy, but she couldn’t assess their effectiveness.
Since she had collected a lot of medicinal plants, she also gathered plenty of fertile soil, wooden planks, and stones.
Around noon, they came across a low slope covered in plants. The vine told her that if she climbed over it, she would find something good. Wen Xian was thrilled, forgetting that she hadn’t encountered any mutated animals along the way.
By 2 PM, the vine led her to the mountaintop. The surrounding plants slowly retreated, revealing a valley below, strewn with animal corpses. Wen Xian gasped.
The valley seemed to have been the site of a brutal battle. Grass and shrubs were flattened, and several thick trees had been snapped, leaving jagged and sharp broken trunks.
Most of the dead animals were the size of cows or horses, and many were wolves, gray, mixed-haired, or white, lying scattered across the ground. There were also monkeys, bears, bobcats, and several corpses so mutilated they were unrecognizable.
Startled, she couldn’t help but wonder, how did a dozen different species of animals all end up in the same place? Could it have been a fight over territory?
At that moment, a massive black shape came into view. She focused for a long while before realizing it was a black snake, its body as thick as an adult man’s torso!
The black snake lay motionless on the ground, half its body buried under the branch of a broken tree. Its head was hidden, thankfully, because just seeing the length of its body from afar gave her goosebumps.
On the other side of the snake lay several enormous white wolves. The largest was at least the size of an adult water buffalo, and the two beside it were slightly smaller but still as massive as small hills, sending a chill down her spine.
These animals were truly enormous.
Scanning the scene, she guessed that the main combatants must have been the black snake and the wolves, while the other animals were either helpers or just caught up in the chaos.
Whatever had happened here, Wen Xian didn’t want to linger. She hesitated, looking at the vine, not sure where it had said the “good things” were.
To her surprise, the young vine’s tender tips pointed toward the animal carcasses scattered across the ground. Wen Xian choked back a reaction and had to confirm: “You mean the ‘good things’ are these dead animals?”
The small vine nodded cheerfully: “Yes, King! Eat, eat quickly!”
Wen Xian looked at it, tongue-tied. She didn’t want to eat these animals. Even if she did, they were already rotten…
Suddenly, an overwhelming desire, as if emanating from deep within her mind, seized her thoughts, a compulsion that felt like a curse from some distant time and space, whispering to her: Go down, eat them!
Wen Xian instinctively turned to look behind her, there was no one. It was just a feeling, coming from her own mind.
Instinctively, she grasped the small vine at her side, trying to resist the temptation, but then she remembered the mountain of corpses in the giant tree hollow.
So… was she really supposed to eat them?
Her heart rebelled violently against the thought, yet she could not suppress the impulse. The sensation… was like an addiction.
After struggling repeatedly, instinct ultimately overpowered the faint remnants of reason.
She stood up, expressionless, and walked down into the valley. The first thing she encountered was the corpse of a monkey, far taller than her. A wave of putrid smell, mud, blood, and rot, hit her nose, making her gag reflexively. Tears welled at the corners of her eyes, but she forced herself to stay calm and then reached out.
Her fingertips were pale, trembling uncontrollably, yet she still placed them on the monkey’s body. Immediately, an icy, chaotic, decaying sensation shot into her senses, and she jerked her hand back.
Gripping her shaking right hand with her left, Wen Xian closed her eyes, took several deep breaths, and opened them again. She flipped her hand over, and the next moment, her palm transformed into a thin vine. Under her control, it wrapped around the monkey’s corpse.
The vine seemed to know exactly what to do. Climbing to the monkey’s head, its soft, tender tip “popped” into the half-decayed eye socket, entering the brain. It quickly found a tiny, finger-sized crystal core, coiled around it, and began absorbing its energy.
Almost instantly, the crystal’s energy vanished, yet Wen Xian felt her own mind sharpen.
All of this happened within just a few seconds. The vine’s touch was indistinguishable from her own, as if her hand had reached into the monkey’s eye socket, shredded the flesh, found the crystal, and absorbed its energy.
Her heart trembled violently. The small vine immediately reverted to her hand, and Wen Xian gripped her own wrist tightly. On her delicate, pale fingers, it was as if the monkey’s brain matter still clung to her skin.
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