After staring at Sang Wenhao with wide eyes and chatting for a while, Fu Erdie finally understood what was going on.
Before the apocalypse, Sang Wenhao had been a first-year graduate student, also working as a teaching assistant for a professor.
He was studying engineering, but his advisor’s wife was a professor in the biology department next door. Sometimes she needed assistance with materials and would have Sang Wenhao take things to the biology lab. In that lab, they had rabbits, frogs, and mice specifically for experiments.
Sang Wenhao was a student, and his family ran a sports-related business, he naturally had no idea where to find chicks or ducklings. He only knew about the lab rabbits.
But the university town…
Fu Erdie felt that she and Sang Wenhao probably didn’t have the luck to survive such a venture. Going back to the killing fields of the university town for rabbits that might not even be alive anymore seemed like asking for trouble.
Fu Erdie sighed and said sincerely, “Never mind. Whether we end up raising chicks, ducklings, or other small animals, let’s leave it to fate. Once we’ve cleared all the zombies in the neighborhood, we can figure out how to find livestock elsewhere.”
“Alright.”
Fu Erdie lowered her head, frowning in thought, unaware of the thoughtful look on the man’s face across from her.
After the meal, they officially began luring the zombies.
First, Sang Wenhao used metal parts to take off, starting from the top floor of Building 8 and drawing the zombies down floor by floor until they reached the open space outside.
Fu Erdie took over the zombies gathered on the ground floor of the building and lured them toward Building 7.
While the plants in Building 7 were handling the first batch of zombies, Sang Wenhao moved to Building 9 and used the same method to attract the zombies there. By the time the zombies from Building 9 were gathered, Building 7 had already finished processing the previous batch and was ready to take on the new ones.
Sang Wenhao then moved on to Building 10.
With the two of them and the plants in Building 7 working in seamless coordination, they cleared Buildings 8 through 10, then moved on to Buildings 5 through 1. By sunset, they had cleared all the zombies in the entire neighborhood. It went so smoothly it was almost unbelievable.
Back inside, they showered, ate, and assigned rooms.
Sang Wenhao chose Unit 16-2, right next to Fu Erdie’s original room, partly because it was more spacious, and partly because it was close to the host, making communication convenient.
Fu Erdie, meanwhile, took the now-significantly-larger potato seedling she had retrieved and began cleaning Unit 15-1.
An extension cord stretching thirty meters ran from 16-1 down to 15-1, and under the dim glow of a desk lamp, the unfamiliar room felt cold and bare.
Unit 15-1 had a single-sided sofa that took up little space, a narrow strip of seating that felt a bit uncomfortable to sleep on.
On the off-white coffee table beside it sat the seeds she had brought back from Building 6 today.
These seeds had never been exposed to the house’s domain. If they had remained unchanged for so long in Building 6 but mutated after being carried by Fu Erdie for just two days, it would confirm that her ability was indeed related to inducing mutation.
The sofa was narrow, leaving no room for the dog to sleep, so it lay on a pet mat on the floor nearby.
The pothos plant seemed to sense Fu Erdie’s unease. It extended a leaf as large as a blanket, draping it over her.
The faint, distinctive fragrance of the pothos lingered around her. The familiar scent and touch gradually eased her mind. Watching the pothos, the dog, and the potato seedling, she slowly drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, sunlight streamed in through the bare window, waking Fu Erdie.
The first thing she did was ask the pothos plant if the seeds had mutated.
The pothos shook its leaves.
Undeterred, Fu Erdie changed into her workout clothes and began her routine: running up and down the floors to patrol and exercise.
By the time she finished covering the entire building, it was still before seven. Sang Wenhao wasn’t up yet, so she decided to go find the succulent to conduct her experiment.
After the incident where she had tried to apply her blood to the potato seedling and was rejected, Fu Erdie decided not to cut her finger in front of the succulent. Instead, she made a small cut on a clean, sharp stone, pretended to injure herself, and then went to find the succulent.
The pothos plant followed behind her like a little bodyguard, making no move to stop her.
The succulent was happy to see Fu Erdie, but when it noticed the blood, it didn’t come over to cover the wound. Instead, it stood frozen, doing nothing.
Confused, Fu Erdie stepped closer and rubbed the abrasion on her arm against the succulent’s fleshy leaf.
The succulent: …
It pulled the pothos plant, which had been silently following along, and tried to place its leaf over Fu Erdie’s wound.
The wound was small and shallow, so the pothos leaf’s mild clotting and healing effects were more than enough to handle it.
But for some reason, the pothos didn’t come over to press against the wound. Instead, it “slapped” the succulent’s fleshy leaf and forced it back onto the wound.
Fu Erdie: … Are you two being polite or what? Playing the courtesy game like [1]Kong Rong was a historical figure from ancient China, living during the Eastern Han dynasty (roughly 150–208 CE). He is best remembered today not for his political career, but for a famous … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2143215_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2143215_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });Kong Rong giving away pears?
The succulent’s thick, fleshy leaf was no match for the thin pothos leaf. It ended up absorbing Fu Erdie’s blood, then turned around and hit her intact hand, as if scolding her.
And then… the pothos plant gave the succulent a slap, and it finally settled down.
Fu Erdie: …
Frowning, Fu Erdie realized that the matter of her blood might be different from what she had imagined.
Whether the succulent had mutated or not wouldn’t be apparent right away. She began making plans for the day, wrote a note, and had the spider plant deliver it to the dining table in 16-2 before heading off to work.
She planned to select the mutated dandelions in the building and transplant them to the other buildings.
Dandelions had a very special trait. On one hand, they possessed wind-related properties; on the other, they could connect and sense each other’s presence. If one dandelion detected something, all the others would know.
Moreover, dandelions reproduced quickly. Now, every floor had clusters of them, more than enough to cover most levels of the twelve buildings in the neighborhood.
They could serve as a seemingly harmless surveillance network.
Besides dandelions, Fu Erdie also wanted to transplant the tomato and cucumber plants.
Typically, when these plants bore fruit, if the fruit mutated after being stored in 16-1 for a few days, it would be planted. But the tomato and cucumber plants were among the few that had produced mutated fruit that hadn’t been planted.
The reason was simple: they loved to fight!!!
Even with just these two in the building, they caused constant chaos, leaving traces of their battles wherever they went. If she planted more, what would become of her Building 7?
Counting them up, there were now over thirty mutated tomato and cucumber fruits being kept in check by the pothos plant. One per building, with a few left over, those could be planted with their own kind in the same building.
Hopefully, they would be mindful enough not to start fighting even among themselves.
By the time she finished all this, the morning had passed.
Fu Erdie went home, placed the experimental seeds in 15-1, and returned to the 16th floor just in time for the little old lady’s lunch.
Sang Wenhao stood up to wait for her to sit, then said, “I’ve thought of a way to obtain rabbits or other surviving edible livestock.”
Having not slept well for six months into the apocalypse, Sang Wenhao had slept deeply both days since arriving here. When he woke up today, it was almost ten o’clock.
Fu Erdie had left a note telling him to rest well, as they would go out together tomorrow to look for edible livestock.
Yes, together.
Fu Erdie still felt it wasn’t right to send Sang Wenhao, whom she had only just met, on a mission alone. She wanted to explore the surrounding area with him.
The neighborhood was located in a relatively remote part of the city. Under normal circumstances, driving along the road for half an hour would get you out of C City.
Before the city expanded to this area, the surroundings had been rural farmhouses. Although high-rise residential buildings now stood there, some fields and wastelands remained, still cultivated by former farmers.
Naturally, those places had raised plenty of chickens, ducks, and geese. Perhaps some livestock had survived.
The note hadn’t gone into much detail, and Sang Wenhao hadn’t yet had a chance to observe the surrounding area. But people tend to start thinking about how to obtain resources from places they’re familiar with.
If he wanted to stay here long-term, he needed to show a more proactive attitude.
So he said, “We could drop information notes near the university town or anywhere else that might have farms, places with chickens, ducks, or fish. We can offer food and water far beyond the value of live livestock in exchange for them bringing live animals to a designated point.”
Fu Erdie’s interest was piqued. “Tell me more.”
References[+]