Chapter 63

They both froze, then Ye Xiao said to Lin Tantan, "Get up here."
Lin Tantan blinked, understood, and quietly climbed onto the bed. She crouched there, staring at the curtain. The glass door was open, and they watched as the dark curtain bulged upward and something wriggled in from underneath.
Ye Xiao stilled the air around him; if you didn't look, you wouldn't know there was a second person in the room. The thing that crawled in, clearly, had no eyes.
It seemed to sense where Lin Tantan was and didn't come straight to her. Instead it crawled in slowly, making a faint scratching sound on the floor, smelling faintly of earth, circling the bed as if mapping the terrain.
Lin Tantan silently estimated its length: two meters, three, four. Then a swollen section appeared, and behind it trailed two roughly two-meter-long "limbs," one long, one short.
It was a pretty terrifying sight, yet for some reason Lin Tantan felt a little like laughing when she saw those "stumps."
Once it had fully entered, Ye Xiao didn't move right away; he wanted to see what it would do. The thing seemed to decide the room was safe and actually tried to climb up from the foot of the bed.
Bold. Ye Xiao moved like lightning, clasping the audacious end that was trying to climb and compressing the air around it until it formed an invisible, inescapable wall.
Lin Tantan switched on the light.
They saw what looked like a brown tree root, but thicker and more robust than a root, a rounded, bulbous thing in Ye Xiao's hand. It thrashed wildly but seemed trapped in an invisible glass tube; no matter how it fought, it slammed back against the barrier with dull thuds, with only a tiny space to move.
Lin Tantan climbed to the foot of the bed and finally made out the creature completely.
When she hadn't seen it clearly she could have sworn it was a snake, but up close the light-brown skin, the tiny whisker-like filaments, and the clinging granules of soil left no doubt, it was a plant root.
The swollen part was probably its core, covered in many short rootlets coated in even more damp soil, almost wrapping the whole bulge. Was it worried about being away from the earth too long?
Clearly this was a root plant that had sent out three stems; two had been cut off by Lin Tantan and still oozed mucus. The slime left two greenish trails on the floor, like those left by a slug.
"So that's what it looks like," Lin Tantan said. "Looks like the two I chopped off were the longest, then?" The whole root in front of them measured over four meters; the severed ones were about two meters, but the two that had speared and crushed the vehicles earlier had been over ten meters long.
The thing struggled for a long time until it seemed to exhaust itself and went quiet. Too bad it couldn't make a sound, otherwise it would probably be whining and sobbing now.
Lin Tantan asked, "Can I touch it?"
"Go ahead."
She touched it; it felt like an ordinary root, cool and firm but flexible when twisted. She muttered, "What kind of plant is this?"
"It probably isn't a normal plant, some kind of mutation."
"So what do we do now?"
"Just kill it." Ye Xiao said without hesitation.
Although it had been timid and nonaggressive at night, it tried to climb onto the bed as soon as it came in, and during the day it had viciously attacked vehicles, clearly dangerous.
At Ye Xiao's words, the feigning-dead creature suddenly sprang up again and began struggling more violently.
Lin Tantan couldn't decide at once. A mutated plant that could move itself, burrow and run through the ground, showed signs of intelligence, and even seemed to understand human speech, it was rare.
Lin Tantan said, "What does it eat? It doesn't have any above-ground leaves, so it probably can't photosynthesize, does it draw nutrients from the soil?"
Ye Xiao could tell Lin Tantan didn't want to kill it and was about to reason with her, but he swallowed his words when he thought of the nest of mutated rats below.
He thought for a moment and asked, "You want to keep it?"
"I want to observe it. At night it seemed obedient enough, but in the daytime it was so fierce, and it's so mobile, if it's a dangerous thing I can't watch it all the time..." Lin Tantan poked its hard skin. "Why did you come to find me in the first place? Do you want to eat me? Or to suck my blood? Or did you just come to have me treat your wounds?"
Ye Xiao gave her a helpless glance, but then felt the thing in his hand shift, the pressure was a little light, as if negotiating. He hesitated and eased his grip, and the thick, stubby root lifted up and performed a difficult maneuver.
It shaped itself into the Arabic numeral "3".
It nearly twisted itself in two.
Lin Tantan: "..."
Ye Xiao: "..."
Lin Tantan stared in disbelief. Was it really that clever? But she immediately put on a stern face. "You're lying. You came to have me treat your wound, so why did you sneak onto my bed? Normally you'd wake me, right? Tell me, were you planning to stab me while I slept and drain me dry to feed yourself?"
Lin Tantan had read the records and knew that in the apocalypse many mutated plants used that tactic: appearing ordinary or harmless, or bright and beautiful to lure people close, and once someone approached they'd extend mouthparts from their flowers, or use branches and roots to suck blood, reducing people to dried husks. It was vicious.
She'd seen enough of it to get used to it; Ye Xiao, however, had never heard such a thing before and frowned at once. "Tantan, don't be ridiculous!"
But the more he looked at the strange thing in his hand, the more convinced he became that that was exactly what it was plotting. A murderous urge rose in him: better to kill the thing and put an end to it once and for all.
The object in his hand was so terrified by his intent that it couldn't even hold its "3" shape; it swayed back and forth like a person shaking their head.
Ye Xiao examined it; it trembled so hard that dirt flecks fell from its surface.
Knock knock knock, a knock sounded at the door. Bai Cheng called from outside, "A Xiao, Tantan, did you catch it?"
At the sound of Bai Cheng's voice, Lin Tantan jumped up from the bed, her face draining of color. "Oh my god, it's Bai Cheng! Quick, quick, go out the balcony!"
Ye Xiao opened his mouth. "What?"
"Uh..." She was half a beat behind in catching Bai Cheng's second half: did you catch it?
Catch what?
She realized, pointing at the mutant plant, "He knows about this?"
"Mm, everyone knows." Ye Xiao nodded slowly. Her first reaction to hearing Bai Cheng's voice had been to panic, honestly, it felt like being caught in the act, telling him to use the balcony...
Ye Xiao narrowed his eyes, feeling as if he'd noticed something.
His hand tightened without him realizing it; the root was squeezed out of shape with cracking sounds. It must have hurt terribly, yet it dared not struggle, rigid as a real root.
Lin Tantan sensed it too, Ye Xiao's expression was odd. Why?
Had she misunderstood earlier and told him to go out the balcony, making him unhappy? She pointed at the door. "I'll... go open it."
Ye Xiao's expression softened. "I'll go."
"?"
"Put your coat on." Ye Xiao said, carrying the thing toward the door. Lin Tantan hurriedly pulled on her coat. When the door opened there were actually several people outside, not only Bai Cheng, but Mei Baisheng, Jiang Xiaotian, and a few others.
When had they arranged this? She'd been staying up because she thought that thing would come for her, but when had they agreed to this, and how did they know Ye Xiao would come to her room to help catch it?
In any case, everyone gathered in the corridor and inspected the thing from top to bottom.
"So that's what it looks like," everyone remarked.
Asked what to do with it, Ye Xiao said calmly, "Keep it for now. If it behaves, keep it; if it doesn't, kill it."
The creature shuddered and stayed obediently in Ye Xiao's hand. Ye Xiao said, "Leave it with me tonight. You all go get some sleep."
Lin Tantan hesitated for a moment. "Be careful with it. If not, just kill it."
Ye Xiao's eyes warmed slightly. "I know what I'm doing."
He returned to his room and tossed the thing onto the floor. "Misbehave and I'll chop you into pieces!"
He went to the bathroom on the second floor, washed his face, and stared at himself in the mirror, taking a deep breath. She comes up with the strangest notions on a whim; her thoughts are always odd. Earlier she was probably just embarrassed at being found sharing a room with him.
Thinking carefully about how she usually interacted with Bai Cheng, there was no issue, hmm, he had clearly overthought it. She was just a girl who hadn't figured things out yet.
Although he thought that, when he turned and met Bai Cheng, who was about to come in, his step still faltered.
Bai Cheng smiled. "What's the matter? You look displeased. It's rare to be alone with someone, although you didn't exactly engineer this chance yourself, it's still a big step forward. Shouldn't you be happy?"
Progress...
Ye Xiao remembered tripping on the bed earlier; he'd instinctively steadied her waist. Well... that counts as progress, right? Ahem. He said matter-of-factly, "I'm going."
The night passed without incident. The next morning when Lin Tantan came downstairs, Ye Xiao was already there, and at his feet the mutant plant lay wilted in a coil, after a night it seemed rather duller.
Lin Tantan asked if it had caused trouble the night before. Ye Xiao said it had been very well-behaved.
Lin Tantan took a close look at the cross-sections of those two pitiful severed limbs. Her golden blade should have left a clean, smooth cut, but because they'd been burrowing in the soil so much, the sections looked miserable, smeared with dirt and altogether messy.
Since they planned to keep it, even if it was still under observation, they couldn't completely ignore it.
She wasn't sure whether her abilities worked on plants. After asking Ye Xiao and getting his approval, she tried to treat the creature.
She placed her hand on the wound and slowly released energy. At that moment, the thick short rootlets on the swollen part suddenly lengthened and wound around her hand.
Ye Xiao moved almost at the same time. Lin Tantan hurriedly said, "Wait." The wind blade skimmed past the mutant plant and bit into the ground, leaving a deep gouge.
Ye Xiao watched Lin Tantan without moving. Lin Tantan felt the tendrils begin drawing in the psychic energy she’d released and realized, “So that’s how it absorbs energy, does it take nutrients in through here too?”
After a moment she stopped releasing energy. The mutant plant seemed reluctant to let go but didn’t dare to cling further; the little tendrils withdrew from Lin Tantan’s hand and returned to their original length, and the two torn ends had noticeably healed.
Lin Tantan smiled, “Looks like it heals pretty fast.”
Ye Xiao grunted in agreement.
He had a lot to do today as well. There was no way he could leave the thing in the villa, so he found a box, put it inside, and set it where he could keep an eye on it.
Lin Tantan felt a bit sorry for the mutant plant; once a formidable mutated species, it had ended up like this, though, of course, it had attacked them first.
She spent the whole day in the shantytown, not hiding in a folding tent but sitting outside, watching the sick who came and went. Whether severe or mild, by the end of the day she had actually identified a few who might be awakening powers. Quietly she told Jiang Zhongyi to keep an eye on them and write down their names.
Something else happened today: the shantytown managers drove over to distribute meals for the patients. Only patients were allowed to collect them, and there weren’t many, maybe a bowl of porridge, a steamed bun, or a packet of biscuits.
Though meager, it made the patients incredibly happy; they were almost in tears with gratitude.
Filling a belly a little was one thing; more importantly, it signaled that the base hadn’t abandoned them and didn’t secretly wish the sick would die to avoid being a burden, as some had suggested. The symbolic power of those meals did more for their spirits than the food itself; it immediately lifted the patients’ morale.
Lin Tantan felt pleased too.
She was even happier knowing the food had come from Yang City.
Fortunately the rain had finally stopped today. The sky cleared and the sun came out. The sunlight fell on people, though it wasn’t warm, it lifted spirits. After the heavy rain the sky looked especially blue and clean.
During a break Jiang Zhongyi came over and said, “Sis, someone says they’ll give me a lot of supplies if I join them.”
Lin Tantan asked, puzzled, “Isn’t that common? What’s different this time?”
“This time they’re promising a lot of supplies, and it’s not just me, Yang Xinyu, Zhao Yidan and the others have all been approached. They’re casting a wide net and pushing hard.”
Lin Tantan didn’t think it was anything to worry about. Once word got out that Ye Xiao was going to develop here, people would get restless. If someone was willing to spend supplies to lure people away, let them, those who could be enticed now could be enticed later; the earlier they were taken the sooner she’d be free of trouble.
She smiled, “Are you tempted?”
Jiang Zhongyi hurriedly waved his hand, “No, no, I will definitely stay with you.”