Chapter 129: Contention

Liu Mu, who wanted to fight, was ultimately disappointed, because this ghost grass simply refused to engage her head-on.

"Come on! What the hell are you running for..."

The tunnel split open, and Liu Mu was thrown into the pitch-black soil, where the surrounding earth was heaved up by massive root systems and squeezed toward her.

Seeing that she was about to be buried alive, Boss Liu was not one to take such a loss; she turned over and grabbed hold of several roots, creating a sliver of a chance for survival.

"Give! My! Big sister! Back!"

Never mind underground, even in concrete, as long as there was space to accommodate the roots, there was room for her to move.

Of course, Liu Mu still noted that these roots were large enough, but, "What about my basement? A project worth hundreds of millions, and you just went and destroyed it like that, damn it?"

For a moment, she didn't know whether to be more worried about Xu Xiaofeng or more heartbroken over her Scrap Station. She aimed for the thick, sturdy roots; following the main stems provided gaps large enough to move through, and from the outside, those tunnels were all wrapped in these roots, undulating and curving through the layers like massive blood vessels.

She was the one who had been thrown out from within.

Just as she was searching, Xu Xiaofeng was also struggling bitterly on her end.

She had lived for twenty-eight years, and she had never experienced such pain in her body.

The first eighteen years were actually very happy: ordinary, simple, yet loving parents, and a younger brother who, despite the age gap, was lively and cute; if not for the accident with her parents, their family of four could have lived happily together.

With her parents gone and her brother young, Xu Xiaofeng had no choice but to drop out of school to return home and take care of him, while also taking on the burden of running the shop to make a living; the initial hardship nearly crushed her before she was even twenty.

But looking at her brother who only knew how to cry, and facing the harassment from relatives, many times she only dared to cry silently alone after lulling her brother to sleep late at night.

On the night of the Winter Solstice, the sea wind was shrill and it began to drizzle; her parents had been gone for several months, business at the shop was getting worse and worse, and because the taste of the breakfast food she made was so different from her parents', it was almost impossible to sell.

That night, she had already packed her things, intending to quit. She would rent out the shop, and the rent would be enough to board her brother with relatives while she went out to work.

Just as she was about to dump the cold Steamed Buns, Liu Mu arrived and ate the remaining two steamer baskets of Steamed Buns.

At that time, Liu Mu's complexion was sallow, she was thin and tall, and in the middle of winter, she only wore a loose gray sweater and sweatpants that reached her calves, with plastic slippers on her feet that had been broken and sewn back together with rope—the rope used for the repairs had been changed so many times that the colors didn't even match.

Yet, in that state, she pedaled a tricycle piled high like a small mountain; one couldn't even guess where she got the strength to pedal it.

Xu Xiaofeng knew that Liu Mu was someone who traveled the countryside collecting scrap, and that she had a scrap collection station in a tin house not far away.

Hearing that she was going to close the shop, the girl didn't say anything at the time, but the next day, before dawn, she delivered two stacks of cash: "Take it, just make the Steamed Buns and porridge well; making so many fancy things just leaves people hungry."

After saying that, she pedaled away on her paint-chipped second-hand tricycle.

In the biting cold wind, for the first time since her parents passed away, Xu Xiaofeng felt a touch of human warmth, and she couldn't bring herself to leave her brother to be raised by others.

Following Liu Mu's advice, she focused on making the Steamed Buns and white porridge well, starting from the simplest and most familiar things, and things really did slowly get better.

The money wasn't paid back until two years later, but Xu Xiaofeng had kept that kindness in her heart.

Added to the life-saving bond from around this disaster, there was no way a child like her brother could ever repay it.

What she couldn't let go of even more was that this plant was something she had grown herself.

Not only did it want to eat her and her brother, but it had also occupied the entire Scrap Station—this was the family business Liu Mu had diligently and frugally saved up for over a decade.

It was all her own fault; if only she hadn't thought about growing vegetables, wouldn't that have been better?

Xu Xiaofeng only had time to hug her brother before she lost consciousness.

It wasn't until Liu Mu woke her up that she realized she had become like this.

She tried her best to remain conscious, but she couldn't ignore that feeling—something was constantly entering her body, from her spine to her brain, painful as if it were about to explode.

Then she 'saw' it: huge flowers, countless vines and roots, raindrops falling on leaves, the fishy saltiness of the sea wind, and Niu Boyi walking on her body.

What about Xiao Mu?

Xu Xiaofeng only saw her brother and Niu Boyi, so what about Xiao Mu?

Had she come back to find her? Right, with Liu Mu's personality, she would come back.

What to do? She couldn't be controlled, couldn't do anything to hurt Liu Mu, couldn't... be assimilated, couldn't lose herself.

But those noisy voices were like sharp thorns arguing in her brain, complex and vast, nearly bursting her head.

All the information converged, with only one purpose: to persuade her to give up the struggle and become a part of 'them'.

But she didn't want to; if she gave up, she would lose her family, she would die.

Xiao Mu had said that even in the apocalypse, their family had to live well: "I don't want to die! And I don't want to become a part of you, you..."

If Xiao Mu encountered this situation, what would she do?

Her, Xu Xiaofeng thought, she would probably bargain with these plants and reach a cooperation in the way most beneficial to herself.

How to reach a cooperation?

Xu Xiaofeng suddenly raised her hand and fiercely grabbed the 'nerves' behind her that were connected to her body; the sharp pain pierced through her spine and straight into her brain: "You all be quiet!"

She wanted to say more, but the pain almost made her reveal her weakness; Xiao Mu had said that when negotiating, the more afraid you are, the tougher you must be.

The 'discussion' stopped; she even felt various emotions from this sudden silence. As a generous little Boss, she often didn't mind taking a small loss.

"I must be the one in charge! Although you have undergone Mutation, in the apocalypse, no Mutation is as useful as my human social experience, and you've felt it too, right? If I really disappear, my sister will definitely dig you up by the roots."

Being the one in charge was something the small-town citizen Xu Xiaofeng had never thought about before, but this time, she had to grit her teeth and hold on: "Only by giving me face can you continue to grow in this area; how about it? You don't want to be wiped out by human thermal weapons, do you?"

After those words, the threat had some effect, but not as much as expected.

The 'discussion' sounds drowned Xu Xiaofeng out again, but she had no more favorable conditions to use for negotiation. She realized to some extent that the other side just wanted to obtain some information belonging to humans from her human body.

If they weren't afraid of humans and were determined to occupy this place, then she really had no other way.

"This place was originally ours, you savage humans; this place was originally our territory. You occupy, you take, you pollute, you destroy... how dare you say this is your territory! Human, this has been ours since ancient times... we are the true Masters!"

A 'voice' that hadn't appeared before was transmitted into Xu Xiaofeng's brain through the nerves; she immediately realized that this voice was the giant plant connected to her, and the leader of this entire plant colony.

... At the very beginning, it was the vegetables planted in the plastic box that were growing vigorously, but one of the vines that grew the best was very strange.

It was neither a vegetable she recognized nor one of the Seeds she had cultivated. Just as she was wondering if it was a weed that had grown from the soil and wanted to pull it out, the vine suddenly extended a sharp thorn and pricked her finger.

That pain was very unusual; the thorn was poisonous, both painful and itchy, and it showed no signs of fading for a long time.

She had thought about waiting to find a pair of gloves before weeding, but less than ten minutes later, the Scrap Station was attacked by the suddenly appearing giant plant.

Now that she thought about it, wasn't the giant vine in her current perception similar to that one in the plastic box?

So, "It was you who attacked us? Hmph, since you've read the information in my brain, you should know the rules of biological Evolution—natural selection, survival of the fittest!"

She almost said the same thing as Liu Mu, choosing her own path amidst this immense terror.

Xu Xiaofeng exerted force with her hand once again, pulling the neural filaments behind her back out amidst pain that felt like being flayed and skinned.

Almost at the same moment she cried out in pain, the plant colony also let out a shrill "scream"!

Xu Xiaofeng struggled to think amidst the chaos, but just as she had a lead, her thoughts were read away.

"You want me to compromise with you humans? Keep dreaming. Once I absorb you and digest that intruder human as well, let's see if you still dare to negotiate with me!"

The other party's anger was beyond Xu Xiaofeng's expectations; hearing there was an intruder, she was almost certain that Liu Mu had returned to save her.

She slowly loosened her grip; now was not the time for a life-or-death struggle, and only these neural connections could be utilized.

Having made up her mind, Xu Xiaofeng closed her eyes and, amidst the pain, concentrated her energy to probe toward the other end of the nerves. Since the other party could use nerves to read her information, she could also perform the operation in reverse to control it!

Moreover, this was not the first time; when she had just told Xiao Feng to take her younger brother and leave, she had already attempted to control the flowers.

The Great Master Flower, thinking it had already completely controlled this human, did not notice Xu Xiaofeng's intentions; lacking the ability to process things in multiple threads, it was just about to deal with the other human it had thrown into the soil.

On Liu Mu's side, the massive root system she was climbing suddenly sprouted countless tiny rootlets, forming a layer of pale fuzz. It was just waiting for the prey to approach again so it could use its digestive rootlets to turn her into its own nutrients.

In order to make the prey appear, it even used its root system to squeeze the space formed by the cracks in the soil, forcing Liu Mu out.

The space to move was already small, and the only weapons Liu Mu could bring out were two daggers; when the surrounding mud pressed toward her, she could only move toward the nearest large root.

*Squelch*, as soon as Liu Mu hugged it, her entire body was stuck fast by the white fuzz, and she couldn't move at all.

She could even feel these filaments burrowing into her nostrils and eyes; she wanted to break free, but these rootlets were more troublesome than the previous ones, not only getting into every pore but also secreting an acrid mucus.

This kind of mucus would harden the instant she moved, making it even more troublesome than superglue. Liu Mu was soon trapped within the hardened transparent adhesive, helpless like an insect in amber.