Gu Yicheng had noticed the flower pot in Ruan Ning's hand when she got on the bus. Although he knew that the person who gave her this was a ten-year-old girl, he still felt a little jealous when he saw the girl holding the flower pot and looking so happy that she cherished it. He didn't know whether it was towards the flower or the person.
"Ningning, why are you holding it all the time? Why don't you just put the flowerpot on the ground?"
Ruan Ning didn't notice his "good intentions", shook his head and said, "It's okay, brother, I'm not tired, this pot of flowers is not heavy, and I put it on the ground, I'm afraid it will fall over when the car bumps."
A gift given by someone with great care cannot be treated casually, and Ruan Ning has to keep it on the balcony of the villa. However, because flowers are also considered "living things", they cannot be placed in the space, otherwise she would not have to worry about this problem. Fortunately, the flower pot that Yiyi gave her was very clean, so she was not afraid of getting her clothes dirty if she kept holding it.
Gu Yicheng smiled helplessly, "Then I'll find you a rope to fix the flower pot, okay?"
Yes, why didn't she think of this method! Ruan Ning glanced at the empty seat next to him, and his eyes lit up, "Yes, it's OK."
Gu Yicheng took out a rope from the space, ready to help her take the flower to the seat and fix it up. However, just as he was about to reach out to touch it, the flower buds on the plant suddenly wilted and curled up, and the stems and leaves also swayed in the opposite direction of him, as if they were very afraid of him.
Ruan Ning saw this scene and rubbed his eyes to make sure he had not seen it wrong: "......??!!"
Neither Gu Yicheng nor I have any wood-related abilities, so it is impossible for us to control this plant. The other people in the car don't have wood-related abilities either, so it's even more impossible.
In order to take a closer look, Ruan Ning took the pot of flowers back from Gu Yicheng.
Surprisingly, once it got close to Ruan Ning, it had a completely different spirit, and even its flower buds opened up again and swayed a few times. Although Ruan Ning could not understand the plant's language, she could somehow feel the plant's joy at her approach.
? ! ! Is this plant planning to become a spirit? !
...Okay, Ruan Ning knew that couldn't be the case.
After all, this world is just a world with a post-apocalyptic background, and it is impossible for plants to become spirits.
However, all things have spirits, and the current environment is so strange that it is inevitable that some changes will occur under such conditions. This plant should be in a similar situation.
It retracted its flower buds when it met Gu Yicheng, probably because the pressure from him as a fifth-level mutant was too strong. Normally, when Gu Yicheng was restraining his aura, it was difficult for ordinary people to sense it. The mutant plants were much more sensitive to everything than humans, so they reacted so strongly to this.
Ruan Ning had seen many mutant plants in the past few months of the apocalypse, but this was the first time she had seen such a spiritual plant. The most spiritual plant she had seen before was the big locust tree in B University.
Could it be that what Yu Yiyi said when she gave her the flower was true? Was the flower really very close to her and seemed to like her aura? Was it not just a trick she had deliberately used to get her to accept the flower? ?
It is understandable that it resisted Gu Yicheng's approach, but why did it show affection towards her?
Before Ruan Ning got into the car, he asked Chaozi to help him get the flower pot, but nothing special happened at that time.
Even though Ruan Ning had doubts in his heart, their car had already driven out of the Chaoyang base, and it was impossible for him to go back and ask.
"Brother, do you know what this mutant plant is?" Ruan Ning thought of something and asked the man next to him in a low voice.
In Ruan Ning's mind, Gu Yicheng was knowledgeable and no one knew more about the end of the world than him. Maybe he knew what this mutant plant was.
"Give it to me first, let me take a look." Gu Yicheng naturally noticed the peculiarity of this plant. He stared at the pot of flowers in front of him, searching his memory to see if there had ever been such a mutated plant. However, he did not find any mutated plant that matched its characteristics.
Maybe... this should just be an unusual yet ordinary mutant plant with a little spirituality.
Gu Yicheng narrowed his eyes slightly, used a knife to cut a small cut on his finger, and blood oozed out. He slowly moved his finger closer to the flower bud, and the smell of blood emanated. The flower bud curled up slightly, showing no reaction at all, as if it was completely uninterested.
When Ruan Ning saw the actions of the person next to him, a hint of confusion flashed across his eyes at first, and then he realized that he was testing whether this mutated plant was aggressive.
Like the mutant vines they encountered when they went to B University to look for someone, it was particularly sensitive to human blood. The smell of blood would stimulate it even more, and in the end it would suck the person into a dried corpse. I guess he was also worried about this, so he used his own blood for the experiment.
The cut Gu Yicheng made with a knife was very shallow and healed itself in a short while. During this time, the flower bud remained motionless.
After making sure everything was fine, he replied, "I've never seen this kind of mutant plant before, but it looks fine now. If you want to keep it, just keep it, but——"
He paused and said, "When you go back, keep it on the balcony and don't get too close to it." It is better to treat something of unclear origin with caution.
Ruan Ning knew that Gu Yicheng said this for his own good and did not reject the proposal.
Besides, she can't carry a pot of flowers around with her every day.
**
The Dawn Team was lucky on the way to Chaoyang Base and did not encounter many zombies. However, on the way back to Hope Base, they encountered zombies from time to time. Although these zombies were not difficult for everyone to deal with, they still caused them a lot of trouble.
Ruan Ning was there when everyone was killing the zombies just now, and his arms were numb from shooting.
After Ruan Ning finished killing the zombies, he returned to the car and placed the bag on the seat next to him. The bag contained almost half of the crystal cores they had just obtained from killing the zombies.
Now the car of the Dawn Team is parked on the side of the road. The others are busy and have not returned to the car yet, so no one saw that when the girl closed her eyes and dozed off, the flower in the flowerpot fixed on the seat quietly stretched out a transparent, thick and thin thing similar to a silk thread from the middle, trying to roll the crystal core in the open bag next to it into its own flower bud.
Unfortunately, because it was too greedy, it took the largest third-order crystal core inside, which was the size of a quail egg. Its little flower bud couldn't eat it at all, and instead got stuck in the middle, unable to move up or down.
Realizing that it was still too "weak" to eat the feast in front of it, its stem trembled slightly, and then "reluctantly" put the third-level crystal core back into the bag.
Its tentacles picked around in the bag, and after trying several times, it could only "reluctantly" roll a first-level transparent crystal core into its flower bud.
After swallowing the crystal core, the flower bud slowly closed together.
At this moment, if Gu Yicheng was in the car, he should be able to recognize that the flower bud in front of him, which looks inconspicuous now, eats in exactly the same way as the giant flower in the previous life that occupied half of the city and even high-level mutated zombies had to retreat.
——They all like to devour the crystal cores in the brains of zombies, but are not interested in human flesh and blood.
Although, the flower buds it grows now are only the size of a human fingernail and cannot even swallow a larger crystal core.