If ordinary mutated plants really could be transplanted, and ordinary people could obtain crops every day just by watering and growing them, then everyone would not have to suffer so much anymore.
They would no longer have to eat mouldy, spoiled grain. They would no longer have to wonder whether they would go hungry tomorrow or return empty-handed. They would no longer have to fear the devastating blow natural disasters could deal to ordinary crops. Everyone would only need to protect their mutated crop pots, let them bask in the sun during the day, bring them indoors at night, or even keep them in their bedrooms and watch them closely. Then the wind and rain outside would have nothing to do with them.
If all of this could really be achieved, what a happy scene that would be.
As Fu Erdie thought this, the others’ hearts also surged with emotion.
The Spring Festival at the end of January was a very lively day.
Fu Chenghong and Cao Bingqing invited the hired workers to the fifteenth floor to eat lunch together with the people of Senyu Residential Complex.
Everyone prepared many hotpot ingredients together, and also made sesame tangyuan and cabbage dumplings.
Fu Erdie did not like drinking alcohol, but among the thirty-plus people, half of them wanted to drink. They had simply never had the chance before, and had not dared to drink in case it delayed work. Now that they were resting for the Spring Festival, Fu Erdie took out the several boxes of alcohol they had collected, especially the kind close to expiring, and let everyone drink freely.
“Only one thing: drink only if you want to. Don’t force others to drink.”
One of the bolder hired workers laughed. “I’m afraid someone will steal my alcohol and make me drink less. How could I possibly urge others to drink?”
Everyone laughed.
The lunch gathering lasted until around two or three in the afternoon.
Granny Zhang and little Zhang Guya originally cleared the bowls and chopsticks and wanted to pour away the hotpot soup base, but after asking, the hired workers requested to take it away so they could privately cook with it a few more times and eat several more meals.
Granny Zhang understood and let whoever wanted to pack up the soup base take it away.
Seeing this, Fu Erdie took out several packets of hotpot base, pickled vegetables, and zhacai, distributing them to the hired workers as New Year “red envelopes.” This caused a burst of delighted cheers. Even after returning to the fourteenth floor, they were still discussing it nonstop.
One person could not help sighing. “It’s just such a pity. One day, we’ll finish building this power system. When that time comes and we return to the D City base, everything will go back to how it was.”
Hearing this, the people nearby also felt uncomfortable.
After staying here for a month, who didn’t want to stay longer?
Forget the food that could fill their stomachs every day. Just the air here, fresher than outside by who knew how much, the electric lights that could be turned on anytime, the water they could use freely, even extravagantly enough to bathe every day, and the easy work that could be finished in seven or eight hours each day…
Which of these things did they not cherish?
Among the twenty-two hired workers, five were responsible for cement and wall repair. When this topic came up, they became anxious. “The buildings in the complex have already been repaired. To avoid being sent away, we’ve already started painting the walls. But once every wall has been painted and the exterior has been refreshed, we’ll still have to leave.”
“Worrying…” a cement group colleague beside him sighed. “I even want to work more slowly to extend the time we can stay here. But that pothos leaf that looks like a banana leaf keeps swaying beside us. It’s too terrifying. I don’t dare slack off at all.”
“Sometimes I suspect that if these plants grew a pair of hands, they could directly do our work themselves.”
“Exactly.”
The hired workers chatted noisily as they returned to their rooms. Fu Erdie and the others rested briefly on the sixteenth floor, then began preparing ingredients for another big meal that evening.
On a sudden whim, Fu Erdie wanted to visit pig, sheep, chicken, and duck farms, thinking they might be able to find some mutated animals and bring them back. The house could first use “healing” to filter out harmful mutations or diseases from the animals, and after they were healed, they could slaughter them to eat.
Now that she thought about it, during the half month spent clearing zombies in the city, Fu Erdie had indeed seen quite a few mutated dogs and cats.
They were ordinary mutations, not zombification, and they had not evolved crystal cores like ability users. They were similar to Mozi and the big yellow chicken, so Fu Erdie had ignored them.
Now, if they went to a breeding farm to try their luck, perhaps they might encounter some.
Seeing Fu Erdie eager to move, Grandma hurriedly pulled her back. “It’s a perfectly good Spring Festival. Don’t run around making trouble. There are still tins of food, and many are close to expiring. Let’s hurry up and eat the tins first, then talk about other things.”
So that evening, everyone had another big meal. Finally, they sat together and watched a family-friendly film they had downloaded before. Only then did they count the most important festival of the year as properly celebrated.
Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao also officially got together that day.
There was no solemn confession, no flowers or sweets, and no prepared, touching lines.
They were merely wearing warm coats, sitting on the edge of the rooftop, looking at the ruined city and the still very high water level of the Li River, when they kissed unexpectedly.
Under the moonlight, Fu Erdie wrapped her arms around the man’s waist and brought him falling from the twenty-fourth floor, performing a free-fall, rope less bungee jump.
The cold wind whooshed past their ears. The rooftop rapidly receded above them. Rising adrenaline and enormous throbbing emotion intertwined, blending into a tragic yet dazzling apocalyptic melody.
At the height of three floors before they were about to hit the ground, metal sheets cleverly slowed them down. The succulent’s thick fleshy leaves also stretched out at just the right time, catching them perfectly and bouncing them back up like a trampoline.
Fu Erdie found it fun and kept holding Sang Wenhao’s hand as they bounced on the succulent’s leaves.
Seeing this, the other plants also gathered over, treating the gardener and the gardener’s husband like balls, batting them back and forth and occasionally throwing them into the sky.
Feeling each free fall and each contact with the plants’ leaves, Fu Erdie laughed freely and lightly.
Hearing the sound upstairs, everyone stuck their heads out of the windows to look and were instantly frightened.
Especially Cen Xiyang, who knew that these plants were actually independent and not controlled by Fu Erdie. Cold sweat broke out on her at this moment.
Only Fu Erdie was not worried at all.
She trusted the plants, trusted Sang Wenhao, trusted the house, and also trusted her own extremely strong body, which was fourth-rank and even close to breaking through to fifth-rank.
“This is so good.”
When she was thrown to the highest point of the arc again, Fu Erdie looked at the bright moon in the sky, her eyes reflecting its light.
She had a good dream that night.
On the second day of the Lunar New Year, Fu Erdie and Sang Wenhao took an ordinary iron box to all the breeding farms they could find within thirty kilometres.
This time, they did not bring the house’s white light. They only used the largest iron box possible, thinking they would bring back every animal they saw that had not zombified. They would bring back however many they could. Those that could be paired for breeding would be kept to reproduce; those that could not be paired would be slaughtered and eaten.
However, perhaps because it was winter, the animals hid and refused to come out. After running around the whole morning, they only found one goose. After tying it up thoroughly and sealing its honking beak, they threw it into the box and continued on.
Passing by the Li River, Fu Erdie suddenly said, “Should we check the river and see if we can catch fish?”
With this change in thinking, the two of them went to inspect the river surface.
The river water was polluted, with many dead fish and corpses. The fish and aquatic plants still alive now all had some degree of mutation and carrion-feeding traits.
When they went over to look, sure enough, the floating corpses on the water were surrounded by all kinds of algae, as well as various extremely ugly fish.
The fish had mould-like growths on their bodies, covered in fuzzy, flocculent matter.
Besides that, they had mouths of all shapes. Many mouths were not at the front in the conventional sense, but on the top of the head or on both cheeks, like a 3D version of “Peppa Fish.”
Fu Erdie: “…”
These fish all looked very easy to catch.
But she was disgusted.
After a rough glance, she felt they were not something she could eat, so she took the goose and went to search for other land livestock farms.
Their luck in the afternoon was good. At a larger breeding farm, they found quite a few edible chickens, ducks, and geese. After changing locations, they even found a sheep. They returned fully loaded, and that evening, they prepared a whole-sheep feast.
However, during the routine 8 p.m. communication with the D City base, Fu Erdie received not-so-good news.
“Cao Yuanbai got into a fight.”
It was only the second day of the Spring Festival. How had her cousin already gotten into a fight?
Thinking of the food she had asked them to take over a few days ago, as well as the request for the cement factory’s person in charge to look after Cao Yuanbai, Fu Erdie had some guesses.
The person now responsible for the telegraph had changed from Professor Zhao at the start to Auntie Cao Rui, who had temporarily learned to compare against Morse code.
At this moment, Cao Rui was extremely worried, unable to sit still.
Fu Erdie steadied her. “Send a message over and ask whether Cao Yuanbai is injured. If he isn’t, the telegraph is too slow to explain clearly. I’ll go to the D City base tomorrow.”
Cao Rui hurriedly nodded.
The other side knew that Cao Rui, Fu Erdie, and the others were anxious, so they roughly described the situation.
More than a month ago, when Fu Erdie took Grandma and Auntie away, she had left Cao Yuanbai forty jin of grain. But before even seven days passed, that grain was lost.
Cao Yuanbai had stubbornly kept quiet and did not make a big fuss.
On New Year’s Eve, halfway through work, the person in charge of the cement factory received the Spring Festival gift Fu Erdie had asked someone to bring over, and also sent Cao Yuanbai another forty jin of grain.
Naturally, Cao Yuanbai was happy. This time, he thought he had chosen an even more hidden place to hide it.
But his food still disappeared.
This time, he was angry and immediately made a scene, telling all the survivors that whoever found the grain could keep it, but they had to find the person who stole it. Otherwise, no one should expect peace.
If they could not find the thief, he would watch everyone every day. Whoever ate a little better that day, he would dare make trouble until everyone knew.
With this half-threat, half-bribe, everyone began searching.
At the base, everyone ate together, lived together, and worked together. Everyone knew very clearly how much free time each person had every day and what routes they took during work. So after the food was found in the work area, they compared everyone’s statements and movement routes, and the outline of the grain theft became clear.
On New Year’s Eve morning, Cao Yuanbai received the food and immediately found a dead tree beside a route used for transporting stone materials. He hid the grain among the miscellaneous rubbish under the tree.
That afternoon, three ordinary people asked for leave. They were all sick leaves. Two of them were lying at home, visibly weak and unable to move. The other had asked for leave on the grounds of “hand cramps.”
That night, after work ended, Cao Yuanbai checked the place where he had hidden the grain and found no problem. He even happily ate some cucumbers and zucchini.
But on the third day, the second day of the Lunar New Year, he wanted to look at the fruit on the lower layer of the food box, only to discover—
This led to him making a scene regardless of consequences, and eventually finding the food in the area his good brother, Xiao Feng, passed through while working.
Coincidentally, Xiao Feng was also the only person who had taken leave during the two or three days since New Year’s Eve afternoon and was still in decent physical condition.
Thus, the case was solved. Cao Yuanbai and Xiao Feng got into a fight.
Ironically, because Cao Yuanbai’s previous grain had also been stolen by Xiao Feng, Xiao Feng’s current strength and physical condition were even better than Cao Yuanbai’s. At first, because he felt guilty, he took a few punches. Later, he turned the tables and beat Cao Yuanbai to the ground.
As he beat him, he shouted, “Your whole family only got out because your cousin sold herself, so what are you acting arrogant for all day?! Huh? She can barely take care of herself. She gives you a little food to send off a beggar, and you still don’t know your place?! You have food and don’t take the initiative to share it with your brothers, yet you still have the nerve to call yourself a brother? Pah!”
“I’m telling you, since this has already blown up, everyone now knows your cousin gives you food. Unless you immediately get out of the base, or your cousin takes you away, every batch of food you get, everyone will snatch. Let’s see what you can do!”
The people nearby who had originally wanted to help Cao Yuanbai hesitated.
Naturally, Cao Yuanbai was in the right in this matter. But how did his being right have anything to do with them, the onlookers?
If this had not been exposed, they would never have known that Cao Yuanbai’s cousin was still sending him food every month.
If his cousin cared about him and had the spare capacity to take him away, she would have taken him long ago.
Since he was here, that meant he could only stay here. And if hungry people like them wanted to eat more in the future, didn’t they also only have stealing or robbing as options?
Although they had not yet made up their minds to target this person every month, for a short while, malicious thoughts gained the upper hand, and no one moved. Only when the person in charge heard the commotion and rushed over, and something like flying fluff drifted into Xiao Feng’s mouth and made him cough, leaving him no time to continue fighting, did Cao Yuanbai finally leave the battlefield bruised and swollen.
The base had healing ability users, and one of them had a decent relationship with Xu Qi, who was responsible for communicating with Senyu Residential Complex. Knowing that this base was somewhat special and that Cao Yuanbai, the younger brother still being trained in character, was still valued, they quickly healed the serious wounds on his body. As for the remaining injuries, because this healing ability user’s rank was not very high and their ability was limited, they did not continue treating them.
So when Fu Erdie arrived at the D City base on the third day of the Lunar New Year, she saw her cousin covered in blood, looking as if he were about to die.
She pulled him into the box van. While healing him, she flew to the place where Xiao Feng was working and snapped her fingers above Xiao Feng’s head.
In the next instant, white fluff emerged from Xiao Feng’s mouth, eyes, and nose. His entire body began to puff up and swell, but because something had blocked his throat, he could not make a sound. In the end, he could not even scream before his whole body burst open.
However, the way he burst open was also strange.
There was no blood, only fluff like a down pillow that had been cut open and exploded. The fluff looked very much like dandelions.
Forget the others being frightened silly. Even Cao Yuanbai, still in the vehicle with tears about to fall uselessly, was stunned.
“Sis… Sis, aren’t you an ordinary person?”
Fu Erdie looked at him. “I am an ordinary person with plant friends.” Cao Yuanbai choked amid his enormous shock. After a long while, he finally said, “Isn’t that just plant-type? Damn, you really are my real sister! You’re so cool!”
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