Chen Hao slammed the soaking wet plastic sheet on the ground and shook the mud off his hands. The rain had just stopped, and the air was still damp. At his feet lay several crooked metal frames, the remains of a greenhouse salvaged from the flood. In the distance, the fields were a mess, as if someone had churned them up with a pitchfork.
"How big do you think this floating platform should be?" He wiped his face and turned to ask Nana.
Nana was squatting in front of a half-submerged control module, a robotic arm extending a thin wire to connect to the interface, and an optical eye scanning the projected data. "The area of the basic unit should be no less than four square meters, and the center of gravity must be stable."
"Alright then." He sighed, bent down to move a rusty support rod, "My body hasn't recovered from last night's efforts to save the seeds, and now I have to work as a construction worker again."
“You only slept for thirty-seven minutes last night.” Nana looked up at him. “I suggest assigning you physical tasks.”
"Suggestions my ass," he scoffed. "You didn't turn your phone off all night either, did you? We're both just barely surviving right now."
The two worked until noon, finally managing to cobble together two makeshift planting troughs in the low-lying area. The troughs, made of wooden planks and metal frames, with a waterproof tarpaulin underneath, could barely float on the remaining water. Chen Hao carefully moved the pumpkin seedlings into one trough, and then planted tomatoes in the other.
"As you said, areas with strong sunlight should be towards the south, and areas with weak sunlight towards the north, and vines shouldn't be next to upright plants." He clapped his hands. "Now they should be able to coexist peacefully, right?"
Nana had activated the soil scanner, the beam sweeping across the root zone. After a moment, her voice was low and somber: "Abnormal signal."
"What do you mean? The bugs are back?"
“It’s not an insect.” She pulled up a set of waveforms. “The tomato roots are continuously releasing phenolic compounds at concentrations three times higher than normal. These substances inhibit the growth of neighboring plants, especially cucurbitaceous crops.”
Chen Hao was stunned: "It...poisoned it?"
“More accurately, it’s allelopathic.” Nana put away her instruments. “Some plants compete for living space by secreting chemical substances. It’s a passive defense mechanism, but it has now become close to aggressive exclusion.”
“Goodness,” he chuckled dryly, “I thought they were just fighting for sunlight and water, I never imagined they’d be waging biological warfare.”
“You can still pull the tomatoes out now,” Nana said.
“But it’s growing quite vigorously.” Chen Hao stared at the tomato plant, its leaves glossy and its stem thick, a stark contrast to the drooping pumpkin next to it. “How about… we move it to a different spot? Put some distance between it?”
“We can try,” she nodded, “but we must monitor it in real time to prevent the toxin from spreading.”
Over the next hour, Chen Hao rearranged the layout, moving the tomatoes to the easternmost independent floating platform, leaving a two-meter gap between them. He also sprinkled some activated charcoal powder into the soil, saying that he had heard from old farmers that it could "absorb evil spirits."
“That’s superstition,” Nana said.
"Then tell me what to do?" He spread his hands. "I'm not a botanist, I can't exactly give it a pep talk, can I? 'Comrade Tomato, please be friendly and cooperative'?"
Nana didn't respond and continued scanning. The data showed that the yellowing of the pumpkin leaves was worsening, while the rhizosphere microbial community of the tomatoes was clearly biased towards anaerobic bacteria, demonstrating a stronger ability to modify the environment.
“The situation is worsening,” she said. “Even with physical isolation, toxins have already seeped into the water, and the impact is expanding.”
"Then cut it off at the root!" Chen Hao grabbed a pair of scissors, rushed over, and snipped off a section of lateral root near the main root of the tomato plant. "I don't believe it can release poison through water!"
Nana looked at him quietly: "What you just cut was the part that absorbs nutrients."
“I know!” he gasped. “I just… want it to calm down.”
Just then, the ground shook slightly.
Both of them lowered their heads at the same time.
A crack appeared at the edge of the pumpkin platform, the soil churned up, and a vine suddenly shot out—but it was unlike an ordinary pumpkin vine. Its surface gleamed with a dark green metallic sheen, its texture was as hard as a whip, and its end was sharp as a thorn.
"Why does this thing look like this?" Chen Hao took a half step back.
The vine suddenly lashed into the air, striking and bending a nearby fill light bracket with a loud crack.
The second and third shoots broke through the soil one after another, some wrapping around the tomato plant and twisting it tightly, causing the stem to break on the spot; others rushed directly to the open space on the other side, as if searching for a target.
Nana swiftly deployed an electromagnetic barrier, instantly enveloping the two of them in a pale blue halo. The vines struck the barrier, crackling and emitting wisps of white smoke before convulsing violently.
“These tissues contain unusual metallic components,” Nana quickly analyzed. “The preliminary judgment is that the ion deposits from the spacecraft wreckage have been absorbed by the plants and integrated into their cellular structure.”
"So they went bad?" Chen Hao's voice tightened.
“It’s not that it’s gone bad.” She stared at the data stream. “It’s over-stress. The allelochemicals in tomatoes stimulated the defense genes in pumpkins, causing them to be expressed dysregulated and resulting in unnatural mutations.”
As they spoke, more vines sprouted from all directions, some even rising from the water and slithering like snakes. One of them circled around the side of the barrier and suddenly lashed out at Nana's leg.
She reacted extremely quickly, and the mechanical leg immediately locked its joints, but the vines still wrapped around her, tightening their grip. The system notification sounded: "Motion module obstructed, torque output reduced by 60 percent."
"Hey!" Chen Hao grabbed a fire poker from the side and rushed forward, smashing the vines with all his might.
The vines remained completely still.
He gritted his teeth, turned around, pulled out a lighter and half a strip of old cloth, wrapped it around the end of the stick, lit it, and lunged forward again. The flame touched the vines, instantly producing a plume of black smoke with a pungent odor, like a mixture of plastic and burnt meat.
The vine trembled suddenly and released Nana's leg.
"It works!" he gasped. "It's afraid of fire!"
"Don't get close," Nana stopped him. "They might have heat-sensing abilities; concentrating your firepower might trigger a group attack."
"Then what do you suggest we do?" He held up the torch, his hand trembling slightly. "Wait for them to jump into the pot and cook themselves?"
“We need to cut off the source.” She pulled up a topographic map. “All the mutated vines come from the core area where the pumpkins were originally planted, where there may be a taproot mutant.”
"You mean...we have to dig it out?"
"The original root system must be destroyed, otherwise the chain reaction cannot be stopped."
Chen Hao looked at the torn-up floating platform, then at the torch in his hand that was almost burned out, and smiled bitterly: "I was thinking this morning that I could finally plant something, but now I have to dig up my own land with my own hands."
Do you have any other options?
“No.” He stuck the torch into the ground. “Then dig.”
He grabbed a shovel and rushed over. Just as he stepped onto the floating platform, the ground beneath his feet suddenly collapsed. A thick vine burst forth from the ground, heading straight for his face. He instinctively turned his head, the vine grazing his ear and striking his shoulder with a sharp pain.
"Damn!" He staggered backward, almost falling into the water.
Nana immediately fired a low-frequency pulse, striking the central part of the vine and temporarily paralyzing it. Chen Hao seized the opportunity to swing his shovel and chop hard into the soil.
The moment the soil was turned over, a stream of dark red liquid spurted out, splashing onto his pants and scalding him so much that he jumped up.
"This land has come to life!" he cursed.
"Pay attention to the central root node." Nana moved closer, her optical eyes locking onto the area below. "It's about eight centimeters in diameter, with an abnormally high tissue density, and it appears to have formed a ganglion-like structure."
"Ganges? Where do plants get nerves?"
“I don’t know.” Her tone was unusually serious. “But it is indeed responding to external stimuli and launching coordinated attacks.”
Chen Hao took a deep breath, gripped the shovel handle tightly with both hands, aimed at the throbbing clump of roots, and used all his strength to dig down.
Click!
The shovel got stuck.
The root cluster suddenly contracted, causing the entire floating platform to shake violently. The surrounding soil exploded, and more than a dozen vines simultaneously sprang up, sweeping towards them like tentacles.
Nana instantly reactivated the electromagnetic barrier, but the impact was too great this time, causing violent energy fluctuations. One vine broke through the defense and wrapped around her right leg, while another lunged straight at Chen Hao's chest.
He had no time to dodge and could only raise his arm to block.
The vines wrapped around my forearm, and I immediately felt a burning pain on my skin, as if I were being strangled by a hot wire.
"Nana—!"
"Activate high-voltage countermeasures!" She pressed the emergency button, and the barrier suddenly strengthened, bursting with blinding electric light. The entwined vines twisted and disintegrated in the strong current, turning into charred remains that fell into the water.
Chen Hao collapsed into the mud, his arm red and swollen, and he was breathing rapidly.
Nana half-squatted on the ground, her mechanical leg still entangled in a charred vine. The system prompted "Motion module obstructed," but she didn't move. Her optical eye continued to flash red, recording every tiny tremor of the surrounding vegetation.
The wind blew through the dilapidated floating platform, causing a few withered leaves to swirl around.
Chen Hao slowly propped himself up and picked up the shovel that had fallen to the side. The blade was chipped and the handle was cracked.
He stared at the main root that had been split in half, the liquid flowing out of it slowly turning dark green, like some kind of unknown blood.
"What... exactly did we plant?"
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