Chapter 64 The Rose That Eats People

Early this morning, Xie Liang and Long Qingye went to the gathering place yesterday morning.

Hong Guo was talking to Liu Hao and Zhang Minghui. Seeing Xu He nearby, Xie Liang quickened his pace and walked over.

Xie Liang yawned and leaned against Xu He, looking very sleepy.

Xu He touched Xie Liang's head and asked, "Didn't you sleep all night?"

"No, I dreamed that those dry bones were chasing me. I ran all around the plain all night."

Long Qingye glanced at Xu He with disdain. Xie Liang felt puzzled. These two people seemed to be at odds with each other, and they looked like they couldn't stand each other.

Almost all the Adventers have arrived, but the man in the suit didn't show up today. Instead, he sent a maid out to say something:

"You don't need to gather here. The assessment will be tomorrow evening!"

"We'll meet here then! For now, please spend your time taking care of the flowers."

The maid said this and turned and left.

After Liu Hao and Zhang Minghui greeted Long Qingye, they left with their respective teams.

Xie Liang tugged at Hong Guo's sleeve: "Have you told them everything?"

Hong Guo nodded, pulled Long Qingye over, and whispered, "Brother Ye! Liu Hao told me that a few flowers in their team's flower garden have bloomed, but he doesn't know the specific reason."

Long Qingye didn't seem to care: "Don't worry about that."

Just like yesterday, the four of them found a place that was comfortable to sleep, with a breeze and a cool breeze, and began to take a nap.

At around four or five in the afternoon, Xie Liang suddenly heard several almost inaudible screams coming from the distance.

At first he thought he had misheard, until the screams rang out again, he was sure that he had not misheard.

"Something happened?" Xie Liang said to everyone.

Xu He, who was standing by, obviously also heard the scream. After exchanging a glance with Xie Liang, they both stood up.

Xu He looked in the direction where the sound came from.

Xie Liang stood up and followed his gaze towards the flower garden where Liu Hao was.

The afternoon sun was a bit dazzling, and the golden light shone into my eyes, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

Hongguo and Long Qingye got up at some point and were also looking at the flower garden in the distance - the one where Liu Hao was.

They all walked towards the flower garden where the accident happened. At this time, the screams could no longer be heard.

After walking for a while, they saw a group of people gathered in a corner of the flower garden.

After approaching, Xie Liang and his group pushed through the crowd and squeezed in.

Liu Hao, who was standing there stupidly, saw them and squeezed to their side from the other side.

A man and a woman were lying on the ground.

The man was lying on the ground, his flesh and blood seemed to have been sucked dry by something, his eyes and abdomen were deeply sunken, just like the dry bones seen last night.

The woman also lay on the ground, twitching incessantly, her throat moving but unable to utter a single sound. Her skin and flesh were shrivelling at a visible rate, as if something was draining her of her flesh and blood.

Xie Liang thought for a moment and blurted out, "It's the roots! Their roots!"

He quickly squatted down and reached out to grab the woman's hand, pulling her towards him.

After seeing clearly what was sucking the woman dry, there was a sound of gasps all around.

Several thick flower roots were firmly inserted into the woman's back.

Xie Liang turned the woman over, held her in his arms, and shouted to Xu He, "Cut them off quickly!"

Before Xu He could swing his sword, the flower roots, exposed to the sunlight, quickly retracted into the soil.

At this time, the rose buds near the woman began to bloom one after another, clustered together in the setting sun, like young girls competing for beauty.

“So this is how flowers bloom…”

"It's actually a man-eating rose!"

"No wonder Brother Dai..."

The crowd began to talk, and soon several people ran out.

Xie Liang held the woman in his hands and watched her die.

Just as Xie Liang was about to stand up, someone suddenly squeezed in from the crowd and said to him, "You? This is our team's business, stay out of our business!"

Xie Liang looked up and found that it was the person he met in the first copy - the bus driver Dai Tian.

Xie Liang put the woman's body on the ground, stood up and asked Dai Tian, "What's going on with them?"

Dai Tian crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at Xie Liang: "It's none of your business, get out of here!"

Xie Liang felt as if he had never met Dai Tian. He had become so arrogant, and the deaths of these two people seemed to be closely related to him.

"Can't I ask a few questions? Did you kill that person? You feel so guilty." Xie Liang said.

Dai Tian got angry and pushed Xie Liang.

Seeing this, Xu He drew out his black sword with a "swish". The people around Dai Tian also took out machetes, sticks, hammers and other weapons and surrounded Xie Liang and the others.

Seeing this, Liu Hao hurried over and persuaded Xie Liang and the others to leave by pulling and pushing them.

Liu Hao pulled Xie Liang to a deserted patch of flowers. He glanced at Long Qingye who was following behind him, then turned to Xie Liang. After a moment's deliberation, he spoke, "You're right. Dai Tian was the one who killed those two!"

"What's going on? Tell me quickly!" Hongguo moved closer to Liu Hao excitedly.

Liu Hao glanced at Dai Tian in the distance and whispered, "When I was taking a nap in the corner, I accidentally heard Dai Tian tell his men that he wanted to try to irrigate the flower bud with human blood.

"I heard that he had been scratched on the face by a thorn on a flower stem, and then he found that the bud of the rose that scratched his face had actually opened, so he came up with this crazy idea."

Liu Hao paused, then continued, "But I didn't expect him to act so quickly and so cruelly. He only killed his own men."

Xie Liang asked doubtfully, "If he kills someone, he will die too."

Liu Hao shook his head: "He didn't kill him directly. He slashed the man's back with a knife and then pressed him down on the soil with tangled roots under the flowers.

"At first I thought they wouldn't kill him, but after struggling for a while, he collapsed as if all his blood and flesh had been drained. After they killed one man, they captured another woman, and you know what happened next."

"If it's not a direct fatality, the rules of the dungeon won't take effect." Hong Guo said.

"Yes." Liu Hao nodded.

Xie Liang frowned: "He can also harm others."

"Tsk, this is unavoidable. If you can't protect yourself, you will die sooner or later." Long Qingye looked as if it had nothing to do with him. He lay on the ridge of the flower field and pulled a piece of grass and put it in his mouth.

Xie Liang knew that what he said made some sense. Along the way, the dungeon was full of dangers. Whether he could survive depended on luck and his own strength.

Xie Liang didn't say anything else. He just sat on the edge of the field and looked at the sunset in the distance.

At six o'clock in the evening, the bell rang and a group of people walked towards the manor one after another.

Xie Liang and his team met Zhang Minghui on the road. According to him, some flowers in their team's flower garden had also bloomed.

"It seems like everyone knows. How many people died?" Hongguo asked.

"No one in our team has died yet, but because everyone lost the same amount of blood, they forced me to cut myself." Zhang Minghui said as he rolled up his sleeves.

His forearm was wrapped in gauze, with a few traces of blood seeping out of the gauze.

Xie Liang said to Zhang Minghui and Liu Hao, "If you don't want to be forced by the team, find a place to hide tomorrow."

Zhang Minghui and Liu Hao nodded in agreement, and no one spoke along the way.

There were only two loaves of bread a day, and everyone was so hungry that they were dizzy. They just wanted to get some bread as soon as possible to fill their stomachs.

The group separated when they reached the pear blossom fence, each heading towards their respective residences.

When Xie Liang was queuing up to get bread, he found that there were obviously one or two people missing from his team, and he didn't know whether they were dead or alive.

The next morning, Xie Liang and his group slipped away to a high ground on the plain and hid there.

They lay behind a huge rock in the shade and could see the four flower beds below.

The Adventers there were moving among the rose bushes, and their bloody wrists could be seen raised high as they slowly moved over the flower buds in the flower bed.

Hong Guo looked at it for a while and said, "Will this method work? Every team knows, so wouldn't everyone's flowers be the same?"

"You'll know after the assessment." Long Qingye said lazily.

Time passed by unknowingly. Xie Liang was lazy all day and slept very well.

He stretched, stood up, and was stunned when his eyes swept across the sea of flowers on the plain.

After realizing what was happening, he pointed at the flowerbed where Dai Tian's team was and shouted to Xu He and the others, "What did that guy do? He actually..."

When Hong Guo saw clearly what Xie Liang was pointing at, she exclaimed in surprise, "All the flowers are blooming! Did he kill someone again?"

"There are quite a few people missing from his team," Xie Liang said. "I think he harmed people from other teams."

Xie Liang took a look at the other three flower beds. There were indeed fewer people. Most of the flowers in two teams had bloomed, and the flowers in the remaining two teams had also bloomed to a greater or lesser extent.

No one spoke, and everyone lay in the shade of the boulder waiting for the bell to ring.

The entire plain was a fiery red. The evening breeze blew gently, and waves of flowers came towards them one after another, like a beautiful red painting.

After an unknown amount of time, the returning bell rang, and the jingling sound woke up the dozing Xie Liang.

He yawned and stood up, looking at the flower beds below, where the invaders were walking towards the manor one after another.

Then he was surprised to find that the flowers in the four flower beds were almost in full bloom.

"Let's go too." Xie Liang said.

"The assessment is about to begin." Hong Guo said and led everyone to the gathering place.

When Xie Liang and his group arrived at the gathering place in front of the pear blossom fence, the man in the suit was already waiting there wearing white gloves.

Next to the man in the suit stood the four leading gardeners, all of whom looked expressionless.

When most people had gathered, the four gardeners stood in front of the group and asked everyone to line up according to their previous divisions.

After the teams formed up, the man in the suit leisurely walked to the front and said, "To be fair, please follow the florists of each team and follow me to appreciate the roses in each garden."

As soon as the man in the suit finished speaking, Xie Liang discovered that two people suddenly sneaked into the team where Dai Tian was.

Not only did he see it, many of the Adventers saw it, even the man in the suit saw it, but he didn't say anything.

Afterwards, the man in the suit led everyone towards the flower garden.