“Yes, exactly,” the others echoed, looking at her with hopeful eyes. “We’re willing to do anything for you! As long as you give us the chance to receive treatment in the future!”
Fu Erdie hesitated for a moment, but did not refuse.
“I do actually have a zombie-luring plan. It’s not dangerous, but it will be a little tiring.”
The original elder plants of Building Seven would definitely follow her out in the future to fight monsters and level up.
Hua Country’s population was concentrated in the southeast. The northwest made up fifty percent of the land, but only had one hundred million people. So Fu Erdie planned that, if she took a whole building of plants out to fight, she would slowly move step by step toward the southeast.
The journey would be bumpy. Elderly people like Grandma could not withstand it. Her parents were also in their fifties and sixties; even if the house had conditioned their bodies to be strong, they could not handle the house jolting along like that.
The other Butterfly Garden employees were similar. They would all stay in Senyu Residential Complex with her parents.
But if Fu Erdie took away the most powerful plant babies in Building Seven, leaving only leaders like the third-rank dandelions and third-rank potato seedling, what if an extremely powerful zombie or zombie king came from the northwest?
At the very least, the plants left behind had to reach fourth-rank.
In fact, after eating so many zombies, perhaps some individual dandelion had already reached fourth-rank. But when it was among the dandelion group, the values Fu Erdie could measure were all group values, and she could not confirm the strength of a specific individual. She needed to be more cautious and raise the potato seedling to fourth-rank, have it guard Senyu Residential Complex, this main base, and then go southwest to fight monsters.
These past few days, she had been thinking of first quickly mapping out the sparsely populated northwest land, killing the ability zombies across this fifty percent of Hua Country’s land, and then slowly luring the remaining ordinary zombies back to Senyu Residential Complex for the plants to eat and level up. This would let the potato reach fourth-rank, let the succulent, the main force for moving the house, reach fourth-rank, and remove the worries behind the complex in the northwest direction.
She calculated the current walking speed of zombies. From the inhabited parts of the great northwest to her home, travelling day and night, they should arrive in about a month no matter what.
Looking at the sincere group in front of her, Fu Erdie explained her plan. “If you’re willing, after I eliminate the ability zombies in a region, you can slowly lure the ordinary zombies from that area back. I can guarantee your safety. I’ll only let you go after confirming all ability zombies have been eliminated and only ordinary zombies without much threat remain. Are you willing?”
Fu Erdie thought of how long the whole zombie-luring process would be. They would have to lure them batch by batch from near to far. It would inevitably take a lot of time. There was also the problem of how to maintain a safe distance from the zombies at night while sleeping, without letting the zombies scatter like headless flies.
Her gaze swept toward the dandelions. She said, “I’ll give you dandelion-version ‘hot air balloons.’ During the day, you travel by bicycle. At night, hide the bicycles, sit in the dandelion balloons and rise into the air, keeping the zombies hanging below.”
When she had done experiments before, she had made several such balloons. She immediately had the spider plant help bring them out for display, letting the dandelions fly into a giant balloon.
Fu Erdie pulled the balloon.
And just like that, the dandelions carried Fu Erdie floating into the air.
The newly arrived ability users widened their eyes and grew eager to try too.
One plant-type ability user immediately wove a basket that could hold four or five people. After jumping in with several teammates, they controlled the basket to connect to the ropes of the dandelion balloon.
Although there were more people and the basket was much heavier, the balloon still went up and down according to instructions, rising and descending steadily.
Yin Xuan and her group looked at one another, seeing eagerness in each other’s eyes.
It seemed… feasible!
If doing such simple work could guarantee that, for the rest of their lives, no matter what caused them to fall ill, or even when they grew old and developed various age-related diseases, Butterfly Principal could help regulate and heal them, then this deal was far too worthwhile!
After quietly discussing for a moment, everyone unanimously agreed.
“We’re willing!”
Seeing their excitement, Fu Erdie reminded them, “If you meet local ability users along the way, I’ll explain the situation of luring the zombies away. They probably won’t deliberately target you. But you still need to be careful.”
Apocalypse-era minor ability users had very rich survival experience. Yin Xuan patted her chest and promised, “Don’t worry. If they’re powerful ability users, they would have already wiped out large areas of zombies. If they’re not very strong, then they’re like us, shrinking back among zombie hordes and wishing the zombies would stay as far away as possible! They definitely won’t hurt or stop us!”
Seeing that they understood the general idea and had a sense of what to expect, Fu Erdie felt a large stone settle in her heart.
No one liked working blindly. If the addition of this group could speed up her plan, that would be ideal.
That day, everyone in the complex, including Fu Erdie’s parents, was busy moving. From top to bottom of Building Seven, including the several floors used as storage warehouses, everything was gradually moved into Building Six.
As for Yin Xuan and the others, after confirming the complex’s various precautions, they officially chose their rooms in an orderly manner. They determined what supplies they could use, such as clothes, soap, and so on, and learned the price exchange list for all the small items in the complex. That would make it more convenient for them later, whether they searched for supplies outside or exchanged for supplies. After all, life was not only about food and housing, but also patching clothes and switching between foods of different flavours.
If life could be richer, there was no need to live so tightly.
Outside the complex, quite a few people had gathered today to charge devices.
Of course, these people learned that a team had moved in yesterday, so they all went to ask about the details, wanting to fight for entry too. When they learned that Yin Xuan had stepped in dog-shit luck and saved Butterfly Principal’s good friends, everyone deflated.
However, when they heard that Butterfly Principal had powerful healing ability, and had promised Yin Xuan’s group that if they helped lure zombies, she would provide sufficient treatment, everyone perked up!
Luring zombies? How? Follow Butterfly Principal to safe zones she had already cleared?
This…
They were good at that!
Wasn’t it just being chased by zombies? Who didn’t know how to do that!
They could perform on the spot as a lump of meat being chased by zombies!
Fu Erdie: “…”
Looking at the note passed through the gap in the iron gate outside, Fu Erdie was somewhat speechless, yet also amused.
She opened the complex gate and, for the first time, communicated face-to-face with the ability users outside.
At a glance, these ability users looked no different from the refugees outside D City Base. Their current appearance was entirely inferior to the ordinary people inside the complex.
Not to mention the filth on their bodies — just the lesions all over them caused by polluted river water were shocking to see.
Some had huge, visibly swollen tumours on their heads, arms, thighs, and buttocks, as if about to burst.
If a proper healing ability user were here, they would definitely see that the two most severely ill people would not survive the day.
Fu Erdie’s calm expression grew more solemn.
Five minutes later, she understood the needs of these people who seemed to have come to “charge devices,” but were actually facing all kinds of difficulties and searching for a way to live.
Cleanliness, treatment, sleep, even breathing… all of these were reasons they wanted to enter Butterfly Garden.
One person had inhaled a harsh mouthful of smoke during a fight with an ability zombie before. His entire nasal cavity and respiratory tract had become infected by something unknown. Now, every minute and every second, smelling all kinds of foul odours was a form of torment.
The healing ability users around C City were generally only first-rank and had very limited healing capacity. Even if they accepted benefits in exchange for using their abilities, they could only slightly relieve the various symptoms on these people’s bodies and could not cure them at all.
At first, they had not known that Butterfly Garden’s healing ability belonged to Fu Erdie. They only saw that no one from Butterfly Garden seemed to have serious lesions, so they assumed there was a powerful healing ability user here.
They had not expected… everything to be Butterfly Principal’s… home ability?!
What kind of heaven-defying ability was this!
Fu Erdie looked at the two people with the worst conditions. After lowering her eyes and thinking for a long time, she said, “I can let you live here, and I can treat you. But whether Yin Xuan and the others want to lure zombies is their own decision. If you want to join, you must work, and you must lure zombies together. This is not easy work. Also, if you come to Butterfly Garden, you must follow my rules. If any sign appears that is unfavourable to Butterfly Garden’s development and operation, I will immediately cut it off.”
“Think carefully. If you’re willing to obey my arrangements and management, then follow me in.”
For ordinary people, Fu Erdie would provide not only all basic needs in daily life, but also wages.
For this group of ability users, Fu Erdie would only provide accommodation, treatment, and tasks.
Once their needs were met and they completed their tasks, they could leave on their own. They would not die living outside. If they had needs later, they could come back to work, or bring other sincerity to find Butterfly Garden again.
This was a non-long-term, non-compulsory kind of cooperation: freer, more unstable, and with fewer benefits from Fu Erdie.
Even so, the ability users did not feel anything was wrong!
As long as Butterfly Principal was willing to give them a chance, even if they had to go out and run around luring zombies for one or two months, what did that count for?
That day, many ability users received preliminary but incomplete treatment in Butterfly Garden, as well as one day of accommodation and the opportunity to clean themselves.
The next day, the ability users returned to their respective bases and spread the news widely.
On the third day, even more ability users expressed willingness to come lure zombies and obey all of Fu Erdie’s arrangements.
The fourth day, the fifth day…
As days passed, more and more people learned about Fu Erdie’s requirements. Finally, on July 15th, all the ability users in C City and the nearby areas who had heard the news gathered. They found buildings to live in several kilometres around Butterfly Garden, fully prepared, waiting for Fu Erdie’s command to go out and campaign.
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