The house and its entire building of plants were too large a target.
And because Fu Erdie was constantly worried about her family back at the complex, she kept having the house return regularly.
Going back and forth like this left too many gaps. On one hand, their offensive target was too large, so she could not fully guarantee the safety of the whole building of plants. On the other, the constant travelling was exhausting and created openings for ambushes.
Now that she knew the situation in the more densely populated eastern regions was more complicated, she could not stubbornly continue bringing the house along.
However, this whole building of plants did not need to go back either. Instead, this place could serve as a temporary stage base. Fu Erdie would first use it as the centre point to clear all ability zombies within a radius of several hundred to a thousand kilometres, while scattering mutated dandelion seeds to expand her territory. This would make the whole area controllable. Then, after Fu Erdie had a clearer understanding—
For now, she first pushed and pulled abilities with the house and the succulent at the same time, restoring them to around eighty percent condition. Then, like running laps around a sports field, she began taking the dandelions around to expand their territory.
As the plant with the largest reserve of mutated seeds, dandelions also had countless first-rank mutated individuals. The area they could cover was extremely wide.
A dandelion in its initial state could monitor everything visible within a fifty- to sixty-metre radius after sprouting. If it discovered a problem, it could pull itself up by the roots and drift back to Building Seven in the river with the wind to pass on the message.
As for first-, second-, third-, and fourth-rank dandelions, the higher their rank, the farther the distance a single plant could monitor and travel.
After Fu Erdie took the dandelions to sow seeds and establish a pattern, she followed the map and let the dandelions land in different places where they could easily hide.
With great efficiency, she spent one afternoon spreading dandelions across a full five-hundred-kilometre radius.
She did not have time to go farther for now. For the moment, she decided to place the area between Jian City, where Building Seven currently was, and C City, where the zombies had already been cleared, under her control. Once that entire stretch was within her surveillance range, she would head east and south separately.
“This time, I’ve decided it’ll just be the four of us, plus one zucchini. We won’t bring the house. The house will stay at home to look after everyone else.”
Like the potato, after being trained through many rounds of Fu Erdie’s ability push-pull, the fruits produced by the zucchini already had healing properties. If they suffered minor bumps and injuries outside, they could recover just by eating lots of zucchini fruit.
As for drinking water, it could be stored in Cen Xiyang’s space.
After upgrading from fourth rank to fifth rank, the space she could use had changed from the size of a single box to a two-hundred-cubic-metre room.
This space existed within Cen Xiyang’s energy space. Although she could not forcibly turn the entire energy space into usable storage, she could control that room’s shape and turn it into a sealed pool. If filled with water, it could store two hundred tons, or two hundred thousand litres of water. Calculated out, that was enough for four people to drink for decades.
As for daily cleaning, they would still have to trouble the zucchini.
The four of them had strong constitutions and were not afraid of using river water. If they were near rivers, lakes, seas, or streams, they could wash directly with natural water, then eat zucchini to cleanse any possible mutation infection.
If there was no water nearby, then they could only trouble the zucchini to act as a bath scrubber, wrapping its leaves around their bodies to absorb the dirt before releasing them.
The zucchini’s leaves were not as delicate as the spider plant’s and could not wash hair, so every couple of days they would still need the zucchini to purify a batch of river water so they could wash properly.
Apart from these basic daily needs, they still had many small things to consider. For example, transport.
With the house staying at the complex, they could no longer use electric vehicles without restraint.
Either they drove cars and constantly looked for petrol stations, or they travelled purely by bicycle.
Fu Erdie leaned more toward bicycles.
After the apocalypse, D City Base had specially made simpler metal-framed bicycles. They were easy to clean and dismantle, and could also be fitted with metal trailers.
With the four of them travelling, they could assemble the bicycles whenever needed into a shallow tricycle-like setup, taking turns pedalling while carrying the others.
When the roads were narrow, the tricycle could be separated back into individual mountain bikes.
At night, the bicycles and metal trailers could be assembled into a temporary shelter. It was indeed very convenient.
After understanding Fu Erdie’s general idea, Cen Xiyang and Han Zhi immediately started sorting through all the miscellaneous items they would need for the trip.
Fu Erdie, meanwhile, considered how to arrange Building Seven’s plants.
They would remain in Jian City, but none of the plants knew how to use a telegraph. Even if they were attacked, they might not be able to pass on the message in time.
Fu Erdie wondered if she should properly teach them. After all, the Morse code they used now was pinyin, the same pinyin the plants had studied for so long. If they could learn it, Fu Erdie could leave a telegraph machine here without calling over another person.
After thinking it over, she still felt it would be better to have an ordinary person stationed here.
That person did not need to be an ability user. They only needed to be reliable, able to stay here, know how to use the telegraph, teach the plants how to use it, and record any changes in the surrounding area while stationed here. That would be enough.
With that in mind, Fu Erdie decided to ask her aunt Cao Rui to work a little harder and recommend a reliable ordinary person from the complex based on her observations during this period. That person would be taught how to use the telegraph and then sent here to guard the place.
After making this series of plans, Fu Erdie notified the complex and D City Base, then took the house back.
In the blink of an eye, it was already April.
The Butterfly Garden, which had previously set out with great momentum, seemed to have stopped at Jian City.
And the Butterfly Gardener also seemed to have returned to the complex and not come out again.
The people of C City and D City felt extremely reassured, but the other major bases became unable to sit still.
Because they discovered that the communication channel between the Butterfly Garden and D City had changed. It was no longer the previously public channel.
For many days in a row, they could not listen in on any news from that side. The surging undercurrents suddenly sank into silence. In April of the third year of the apocalypse, bases in every direction across the country seemed to have reached a tacit agreement to officially stop friendly wireless telegraph communication.
This made weaker bases restless and stronger bases uneasy.
Meanwhile, Fu Erdie’s group, already reorganised and setting out again, continued travelling unhurriedly while scattering dandelion seeds wherever they went.
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