The gruesome scene of the corpse had been completely dealt with, and the room looked much cleaner.
The potato seedling had grown and now sat quietly in its pot, as if sleeping.
On top of the pot sat two clean, freshly unearthed potatoes, round, plump, and incredibly adorable.
Fu Erdie stepped forward, carefully picked up the potatoes, and then cradled the pot in her arms.
This was truly a huge surprise.
Her food supply was secured!
Both the potato plant and the pothos needed time to rest and grow after being fully fed. During that period, they couldn’t “work.”
So, Fu Erdie went back to the pothos and asked if there were any other mutated crops in the apartment that could be taken outside.
The pothos scanned the area and picked out a seed from the ones Fu Erdie had brought back the day before.
The seed hadn’t sprouted and looked unremarkable. Fu Erdie thought it resembled a grain of millet, but she wasn’t sure.
Because it was so primitive and weak, Fu Erdie hadn’t noticed any signs of life from it.
Still, since the pothos had chosen it, it must have something special about it.
There were no spare pots left at home, so Fu Erdie decided to plant it in the large floor-standing vase in Unit 16-7 that she hadn’t been able to move.
After yesterday’s forced desensitization, Fu Erdie inspected and searched through the parts of the 16th floor that had previously been too daunting, the places with scattered remains.
This time, she found several items that could be used as pots.
Mutated greenery like the pothos and spider plant could take root and survive even in a thin layer of soil. With no other mutated crops available, Fu Erdie considered taking the spider plant, gardenia, or other greenery outside to feed.
And to clean up while she was at it.
After confirming that the 16th floor was fully cleared, Fu Erdie moved on to the 17th floor.
The situation was similar to the 16th floor, only three households on the 17th floor still had their doors intact and unbreached.
This time when Fu Erdie went out, she brought the spider plant.
The spider plant was much more active than the potato seedling and had a bigger appetite.
Before Fu Erdie had even finished searching one room, the spider plant had already eagerly moved on to clean the next.
Fu Erdie had to keep a close eye on it, making sure it didn’t wander off. Treating it like a restless child, she would place it in a safe spot where it could continue feeding.
For the first two rooms, Fu Erdie still had to face the remains herself.
But by the time she got to the next eight rooms, they were already spotless when she entered, barely even any dust left behind.
The spider plant was so full it almost seemed like it wanted to let out a burp.
Fu Erdie quickly carried it back to Unit 16-1, placed it back on the balcony, and then went to clear out the 17th floor herself.
The next day, she brought the gardenia to the 18th floor and followed the same process.
On the third day, she took a succulent to the 19th floor.
That day didn’t go as smoothly.
The succulent was small and adorable, with a squat, chubby shape. Its roots matched its appearance, short and unable to stretch far.
Fu Erdie placed the small square pot next to a pile of remains.
It took the succulent a full hour to slowly extend its thick, sturdy roots, which lacked flexibility and length.
Fu Erdie busied herself with her own tasks, not worried that the plant might excitedly roll or jump into a dangerous area.
By the time she finished searching the floor, the succulent had finally finished consuming a water-bottle-sized pile of remains.
After thinking it over, Fu Erdie placed it next to a larger pile, then went back home to pick up the now-recovered potato plant. She brought it over to absorb the remaining refuse on the floor, successfully harvesting three potatoes.
Feeling pleased, Fu Erdie switched to the spider plant and gardenia, working through the night to clear out the 20th and 21st floors. After ensuring there were no zombies or other dangers on those floors, she left the succulent in a room with remains so it could slowly absorb them.
That evening, Fu Erdie made mashed potatoes and shared them with the dog.
On the balcony, ten more kumquats had ripened, with another fifteen newly sprouted.
The other potato plants planted earlier had not yet produced tubers, but two sweet potatoes had already grown. Fu Erdie picked them and stored them properly.
The peach and cherry trees had grown tall. Under the special mutated environment of the balcony, they were neither tall nor robust, but they looked sturdy and had already begun bearing fruit. She estimated they would be ready to harvest in about four or five days.
These crops, planted just days after the apocalypse using her own fruit and grain, were all growing well.
The only exceptions were the tomatoes and cucumbers, which grew on vines and often tangled with each other during development. Fu Erdie had lost count of how many times she had seen them intertwined, twisting around each other. She couldn’t tell if it was just instinctive plant behavior or if, like the pothos, they had gained intelligence through mutation.
Every day after clearing floors, Fu Erdie acted like a kindergarten teacher, mediating their fights. She would separate them and adjust the direction of their vines, guiding one left and the other right.
But the next day, they would be tangled together again, locked in an intense struggle.
Fu Erdie had considered transplanting them into some of the unmovable vases on other floors, similar to what she had done with the millet, but they refused to leave.
The pothos tried tugging at them, nearly breaking a vine in the process, but still couldn’t get the tomato and cucumber plants to leave the small flower bed on the balcony.
Helpless, Fu Erdie had no choice but to give up.
It was like a person who could live normally in a 30-degree room, if they had the option to stay in an air-conditioned room, why wouldn’t they?
The tomato and cucumber plants probably didn’t want to leave not just because of the temperature, but also because Unit 16-1 was safer, with fresher air and a better environment.
The mutated apartment could regulate many things. Perhaps even the soil conditions in the flower bed were within its control. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how Fu Erdie, someone who barely knew anything about farming, could manage to keep all her crops alive.
The millet in Unit 16-7 had undergone an intelligent mutation, but when it was taken out, it was still small and had no means to resist. Now, it was struggling to grow in the vase, looking pitiful with only a tiny sprout.
To comfort it, and also to run an experiment, Fu Erdie made sure to water it on time every day.
She wanted to see if planting intelligently mutated plants outside her home could expand the area protected by her apartment.
So far, there was no sign of that happening.
All she could do was keep experimenting.
By August 7th, Fu Erdie had cleared up to the 23rd floor, working her way from the bottom up.
After clearing one more floor, she would have connected the 16th floor all the way to the rooftop.
Whether it was because she had gotten used to it or because her cleaning efforts were actually working, she felt that these floors no longer smelled as foul as before.
The 24th floor, which she hadn’t cleaned yet, also wasn’t as unbearably foul.
Dressed in her beggar outfit and carrying the gardenia, Fu Erdie confidently started cleaning from 24-1, following her usual routine.
Everything was going smoothly.
But when she reached 24-4, she suddenly heard some noise coming from 24-5.
She immediately stopped moving and tightened her grip on the hammer.
The stifling heat seemed to freeze in an instant. Her gaze fixed on the direction of 24-5 as she carefully retreated, stepping out of the line of sight of the peephole.
The gardenia, which had been diligently working, sensed Fu Erdie’s unease and stopped moving, pretending to be an ordinary potted plant.
But in the sweltering heat of the apocalypse, without access to clean water, a gardenia, no matter how ordinary it looked, was inherently suspicious.
The gardenia stayed still. Fu Erdie stayed still. And the unknown creature that had made the noise in 24-5 stayed still as well.
The heat was intense; sweat quickly soaked through Fu Erdie’s clothes and dripped onto the floor.
After a long while, Fu Erdie decided to retreat with the pot in her arms.
The doorway of 24-4 was diagonally across from 24-5. If she left, the creature’s peripheral vision might catch a glimpse of her.
But the view through a peephole wasn’t very clear. If she moved fast enough, the creature might not have time to react.
She turned sideways, shifted her footing, and dashed out like lightning.
The surroundings blurred past her like streaks of afterimages.
Fu Erdie’s eyes widened. Her speed… seemed much faster than before.
Once she was out of the stairwell, Fu Erdie headed straight downstairs, ready to abandon the entire 24th floor.
Then, from behind her in the stairwell, came a hoarse voice.
“Excuse me… are you human?”
The voice was impossible to identify as male or female. The only thing certain was its weakness, extreme weakness.
Fu Erdie felt a slight relief, but still wary that it might be a guise used by an ability user, she continued downstairs.
The voice became urgent, sounding like someone struggling to work a broken bellows.
“I just want some water, just a little. Is that okay?”
Fu Erdie kept going down the stairs.
But her pace gradually slowed. By the time she reached the 22nd floor, she stopped.
If that person wasn’t a zombie or an ability user, but just an ordinary human, then a small act of help from her now might be enough to get them through this crisis.
She had water at home. She had fruit. She had potatoes that kept producing. She even had chili peppers and scallions planted before the apocalypse. If she gave this neighbor just a little something, maybe they would survive.
It wasn’t as if she lacked these things.
But if she helped and then got entangled with this person, would her experiments and the secrets of her apartment be exposed?
The moral obligation to save a life clashed with her instinct for self-preservation.
Fu Erdie descended a few more steps, then finally turned and ran back home—
She took a bottle she had scavenged, filled it with water, grabbed a kumquat, and headed out again.
She walked slowly, feeling the temperature of the water and the fruit rise until they reached room temperature. Only then did she cautiously make her way back to the 24th floor.
The 24th floor was eerily silent now, with no sound at all.
Fu Erdie advanced step by step, staying on high alert. Before turning a corner, she used her phone’s camera to check what was on the other side.
From the camera view, she spotted a frail, dirty old woman collapsed by the door.
She quickened her pace, walked over, and gently nudged the old woman’s calf with the tip of her foot.
Slowly, the old woman opened her eyes.
Her parched lips parted as if she wanted to speak, but no sound came out at first.
Fu Erdie let go of her caution. She unscrewed the bottle cap, brought it to the old woman’s lips, and carefully poured some water in.
The old woman slowly swallowed, regaining a bit of strength. She then took the bottle herself and drank greedily.
Half the bottle was gone in no time.
For someone suffering from dehydration, finishing an entire bottle would normally take just a few minutes.
But the old woman stopped at half, looking at Fu Erdie. “Little sister, if I finish this water, will you have any left for yourself?”
Fu Erdie shook her head. “I still have more.”
She handed over the kumquat. “Here.”
The old woman hadn’t bathed in a long time; her body gave off a strong sour odor. But compared to zombies or rotting corpses, it was nothing.
Trembling slightly, she took the fist-sized kumquat and bit into it.
It was a little sour, a little sweet, and just enough to save a life.