EOTWR Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Ai Wei had tried his best not to touch Xia Junchi’s injured leg, but in this strenuous struggle, Xia Junchi’s injured leg was inevitably bumped.

“Hmm…” Xia Junchi groaned in pain. Cold sweat broke out on his handsome face, and his eyes slowly opened.

His eyes lacked focus, as if he was still immersed in a dream. When he saw Ai Wei in front of him, he even showed a blank expression.

“Xia Junchi…” Ai Wei called out carefully, fearing that he would be like some people said, suddenly die or become insane after being awakened while sleepwalking.

Fortunately, Xia Junchi didn’t seem to have any problems from being awakened. After hearing Ai Wei’s voice, his eyes gradually cleared up.

“Ai Wei…” he said, looked at the surrounding scenery, and said somewhat blankly: “I just had a dream…” He looked in the direction where Doctor Li, Han Lu, and Li Xiaxia had left, and asked, “What did they go to do?”

“I suspect they may be controlled by an animal or plant with the ability to control the spirit of living beings.” Ai Wei said, “If it’s a plant, it might even be carnivorous, because the insects and birds nearby are gone. I suspect they’ve all been eaten by it.”

Xia Junchi frowned upon hearing this and looked at the backs of Doctor Li, Han Lu, and Li Xiaxia.

Doctor Li and the others had already walked 30 meters away. They were walking more slowly than usual, with their heads down, their movements somewhat stiff, and they would occasionally stumble on the uneven ridges of the fields. This scene was really strange and terrifying, and Ai Wei felt a chill in his heart just looking at it.

And now, they finally stopped.

Ai Wei felt that the plant or animal with the ability to control people’s spirits should be there.

He couldn’t help but look carefully in that direction. Under the bright moonlight, he only saw that there seemed to be nothing different from other places, except that the vegetation grew more robust and luxuriant than the surrounding crops. However, upon closer inspection, he discovered that there seemed to be a green water bottle reaching Li Xiaxia’s waist there.

Calling it a water bottle, it was more like a green plant. But Ai Wei couldn’t remember what kind of plant it was for a moment.

“Pitcher plant.” Xia Junchi recognized the plant.

The flower shape was like a bottle, and it would emit a special odor to attract prey into the flower to be eaten.

With this reminder, Ai Wei also remembered the shape of the plant. Wasn’t it just like the pitcher plant he had seen in books when he was a child!

“This pitcher plant is so big.” Ai Wei couldn’t help swallowing, feeling that such a big pitcher plant could fit a person, a thought that made his heart feel a little horrified.

Li Xiaxia was originally walking in the front, but Doctor Li and Han Lu had longer legs and walked faster, so at this time, Doctor Li was walking in the front, Han Lu in the middle, and Li Xiaxia at the end. Gradually, they came to the front of the pitcher plant. Ai Wei looked at the pitcher plant and couldn’t help but think of some movies he had seen before. In those movies, there were some very large man-eating flowers or man-eating grass. When humans looked at them, they would be quiet and indistinguishable from normal plants. But when humans turned around, they would open their mouths full of fangs and swallow them whole.

Now seeing Doctor Li and the others next to the pitcher plant, he was a little worried that the pitcher plant would suddenly open its mouth and swallow them all.

He couldn’t help swallowing, feeling a little afraid to go over to save them.

But remembering that Han Lu and Doctor Li had turned back to help him when he was being chased by the small punks today, Ai Wei gritted his teeth and drove the car out of the range covered by the pitcher plant’s mental power. He carefully picked up Xia Junchi again and moved him to the driver’s seat.

“If there’s any abnormality around, drive away. I’ll go save them.” Ai Wei said, picked up a cleaver, and rushed towards the pitcher plant.

At a distance of 20 meters from the pitcher plant, he smelled a faint, sweet, somewhat unpleasant odor. And the closer he got to the pitcher plant, the stronger the smell became, and the more difficult it was for him to keep his mind clear.

He simply retracted his outward-extending mental power, wrapping all of his mental power around himself, forming a mental barrier around his body, but in his heart, the dread of this pitcher plant reached its peak.

If there was no mental power to protect him, he was afraid that he would be like Han Lu and the others now, losing his mind to the pitcher plant.

When he arrived next to the pitcher plant, Doctor Li and Han Lu had already stretched their heads into the pitcher plant’s vase. The “mouth of the bottle” was even wriggling, trying to swallow the two people in at the same time. The scene was really terrifying.

Ai Wei couldn’t care about anything else, raised the cleaver, and slashed at the stem of the flower.

He used all his strength in this slash. With a “crack” sound, the giant flower was cut off in the middle.

The severed flower and stems of the pitcher plant rolled on the ground in pain. At the same time, the mental power that had been interfering with Ai Wei weakened a lot.

Ai Wei was afraid that it would attack him and refused to give it a chance to breathe. He slashed wildly at its thick root system. After a few cuts, the entire pitcher plant was cut down by him.

The part that had lost its roots tossed and turned on the ground for a while, then completely stopped moving.

Ai Wei finally breathed a sigh of relief, walked to Doctor Li and Han Lu, and peeled the big vase off of their foreheads.

Because the mouth of the pitcher plant was not big enough, it only barely wrapped around their foreheads, so the two were not injured.

However, not knowing if they had been hypnotized too deeply by the mutated pitcher plant, Ai Wei called out several times, but no one woke up.

It wasn’t until he forcefully patted Doctor Li a few times that Doctor Li opened his eyes with a blank expression.

Seeing that he was finally awake, Ai Wei hurriedly asked, “Doctor Li, how do you feel now?”

“What’s wrong with me? Why am I here?” Doctor Li looked at the surrounding scenery and said with a somewhat dazed expression.

He always had a calm and clear face, and it was the first time he had shown such a blank expression.

Ai Wei went to wake Han Lu and Li Xiaxia, and their expressions were also very blank after they woke up.

Ai Wei explained what had just happened, and the few people looked at the huge pitcher plant flower, and they all felt a burst of lingering fear.

Almost, they were going to be eaten by this flower…

“This time, thanks to you, otherwise we would probably be dead.” Han Lu said with lingering fear.

Doctor Li patted Ai Wei on the shoulder and said, “Thank you.”

He had no memory of what had just happened, which showed how strong the pitcher plant’s ability to confuse people’s minds was. It was very rare that Ai Wei was able to risk saving them in that situation.

“If you encounter this kind of situation again in the future, you can just wake us up directly.” Doctor Li added.

“Will there be a problem if people who are sleepwalking are suddenly awakened?” Ai Wei asked.

“No, waking up people who are sleepwalking will not cause any harm to the sleepwalker.” Doctor Li said.

Ai Wei only had a smattering of knowledge about these things. He had only heard before that people who were hypnotized could not be awakened, so he didn’t dare to wake them up at the time. Hearing Doctor Li say this at this time, he nodded and said, “I understand.”

“That’s right, we have to remove the roots of that pitcher plant. If we don’t cut the grass and remove the roots, who knows if it will grow flowers and leaves again.” Ai Wei suddenly thought of this, picked up the cleaver, and went to the roots of the pitcher plant to start chopping.

After all, this pitcher plant was a mutated plant, and its vitality should be much stronger than ordinary plants. It was hard to guarantee that it would not grow again.

He used the cleaver to dig out the soil around the roots of the pitcher plant, and Doctor Li and Han Lu also came to help. However, what stunned them was that the root system of this pitcher plant was very developed. They dug more than a meter deep, but still did not find any sign of the bottom of the roots.

“This is too exaggerated. This root system is no different from that of a decades-old tree.” Han Lu said with a click of her tongue while using her mobile phone to record the roots of the pitcher plant.

Ai Wei threw out a knife of soil and couldn’t help but frown.

He originally thought that even if the roots of this pitcher plant were a little bigger, he would be able to dig them out quickly. But now, looking at this developed root system, he was afraid that he didn’t know how long the roots below were. Just then, he suddenly felt a faint energy fluctuation coming from under the roots of the pitcher plant.

He couldn’t help but be stunned, and then he mobilized his mental power to carefully sense the energy fluctuation.

The range of that energy fluctuation was very small, and it seemed to be hidden inside the roots of the pitcher plant.

So, he used a knife to cut off the section of root that was emitting the energy fluctuation. He used a knife to cut off the wood wrapped around the energy. Finally, a white crystal stone the size of a green bean appeared in his hand.

“This… could this be the energy crystal core mentioned in those apocalyptic novels?” Ai Wei looked at the crystal core under the moonlight.

The crystal core shimmered with a beautiful and clear light under the moonlight, making it very beautiful.

Doctor Li and Han Lu couldn’t help being stunned when they saw this crystal core.

In this day and age, who hasn’t read a few apocalyptic novels? They all knew about the setting in which zombies and mutated plants and animals had crystal cores, but when they really saw the crystal core, their mood was still very surprised.

Han Lu said, “Could this crystal core be used by humans to enhance their abilities like it’s written in the novels?”

Ai Wei’s mood was also a little excited. Although his ability had been getting stronger, the speed at which it got stronger was not fast. If the crystal core could help him enhance his ability, that would naturally be the best.

However, now was not the time to experiment. Xia Junchi was still waiting for them alone in the car! Moreover, he hadn’t told everyone that he had an ability, so it was naturally not good to absorb the energy in the crystal core in front of everyone.

Ai Wei put away the crystal core of the mutated pitcher plant, planning to find an opportunity to absorb the energy in the crystal core later.

The few people returned to the car. Ai Wei released his mental power again to investigate the area. After confirming that there were no abnormalities, he relaxed.

Taking out the crystal core, a thought couldn’t help but pop into his mind: Should he tell everyone that he had an ability?

Now many people on the Internet had stated that they had an ability, so one more of him wouldn’t make much of a difference. Moreover, after getting along with them for these past few days, he felt that the people traveling with him were all trustworthy.

He didn’t hesitate for long and decided to tell them.

After all, they would very likely encounter things like killing mutated plants and animals to obtain crystal cores in the future. If he stated that he was an ability user, then he wouldn’t have to worry about the people around him and could absorb the energy in the crystal core.

So, he called everyone together and said, “I have something I want to tell you. Actually, I have an ability.” However, after hearing his words, everyone didn’t seem very surprised.

Han Lu said, “I thought you might be an ability user before. I didn’t expect you really were.”

Ai Wei was a little surprised when he heard her say this and said, “You thought I was an ability user before?”

Han Lu smiled slightly and said, “You’re very strong, and you always seem to know in advance whether there is danger in places you can’t see.”

Doctor Li nodded and said, “Compared to the standards of ordinary people, you are indeed a bit stronger.”

Ai Wei…

He couldn’t help but look at Xia Junchi again, thinking that Xia Junchi wouldn’t have seen that he had an ability long ago, right?

Xia Junchi was also smiling. Seeing his smile, Ai Wei understood. Everyone had already noticed the difference. Only he thought that he was hiding it very well…

Am I really such an imprudent person? Ai Wei couldn’t help but doubt himself for 5 seconds.

“What is your ability? Let me guess, is it X-ray vision? With X-ray vision, you can see places that the human eye can’t see.” Han Lu said.

Ai Wei raised his eyebrows, feeling that her guess was somewhat reasonable, but she was still wrong.

“No.” He said, “My ability should be mental. I can release my consciousness outside my body to see the surrounding scenery. I can also resist mental attacks. When that pitcher plant wanted to control my mind, I relied on this ability to resist it and was able to walk in front of it.”

“This kind of ability is rare.” Doctor Li said, “It can see the nearby scenery and can also defend against mental attacks.”

Han Lu nodded and said, “This kind of ability should be very rare. I haven’t seen this kind of ability appear on the Internet. By the way, take out the crystal core of that pitcher plant quickly and see if you can absorb the energy in the crystal core.”

Ai Wei also wanted to see if the energy in the crystal core could be absorbed, so he put the crystal core in the palm of his hand and tried to absorb the energy in the crystal core.

The crystal core lay quietly in his palm. As he mobilized his ability, some energy actually entered his palm. He couldn’t help but be overjoyed in his heart and increased the strength of his energy absorption. As a result, the speed at which energy entered his palm became faster and faster. Before long, the energy in the crystal core was drained by him.

The crystal core was originally very crystal clear and moist, but after the energy was drained, that crystal clear and moist light faded away, as if it had turned into an ordinary piece of quartz.

Ai Wei felt the ability inside his body and found that his ability was a little stronger than before. He released his mental power again to check what was different between his mental power and before. Then, he discovered that the range that his mental power could cover was a little larger than before.

“My ability has become stronger.” He said happily. But soon, his smile disappeared again, because he felt that with the use of mental power, the abilities he absorbed gradually got used up.

“What’s wrong?” Xia Junchi asked when he saw that his expression was not right.

“The ability I just absorbed is gone after I used it.” Ai Wei said with a slumped face, looking at the crystal core in his hand, “This crystal core can probably only be used as a rechargeable battery to replenish abilities.”

Xia Junchi looked at his disappointed look, thought for a while, and said, “Maybe the crystal core has other uses. You can explore it further.”

There were no posts about crystal cores on the Internet yet. After all, it was the beginning of the apocalypse, and the vast majority of mutated plants and animals and zombies had not yet evolved crystal cores. As a result, no one on the Internet had discovered the existence of crystal cores until now. Of course, it was also possible that someone had discovered the crystal core but did not announce it. But in any case, if Ai Wei wanted to understand the crystal core now, he could only rely on his own exploration.

Ai Wei nodded. He had only absorbed the energy in the crystal core once this time. When he had the chance later, he would try to develop other uses for the crystal core.

At this time, it was almost dawn. After a simple wash, everyone ate some breakfast and set off again.

Han Lu was still driving, and Ai Wei hadn’t slept all night, so he sat in the back row to catch up on sleep.

He didn’t dare to sleep too deeply and would wake up as soon as he heard an unusual noise.

At this time, it was almost the end of summer. Although the weather was not as hot as it was during the dog days, the temperature was still very high. When Ai Wei occasionally woke up and saw the scorching sunlight outside and the lush plants under the sunlight, he felt a little uneasy.

He didn’t know how many mutated plants were hidden among these plants.

Moreover, since they had encountered mutated plants, mutated animals were probably not far away.

Ai Wei was thinking wildly in a daze when he heard Han Lu say, “There’s a villa district ahead. The environment and safety facilities are good. Why don’t we settle down here?”

This villa district was a new district developed in B City a few years ago. It was located in the suburbs. The houses were built very large and beautiful, and the prices were not expensive, but because it was far from the city center, not many people bought them. Speaking of which, it was a bit like the residential complex where Doctor Li lived.

Xia Junchi looked at the large villas and couldn’t help but be a little tempted.

The walls of these villas were all high and strong, so even if there were zombies nearby, they couldn’t get in. Moreover, there was a wide asphalt road in front of the villas, which made transportation convenient. If they encountered any situation, they could quickly drive away.

Xia Junchi woke up Ai Wei and told him that they had found a place to settle down.

Ai Wei hadn’t slept for long and was still groggy when he was woken up. After waking up, he habitually used his ability to scan the area. Then, he suddenly woke up completely.

Because he discovered that there were dozens of people in a villa not far from them. Some of these people were hiding behind the windows of the villa, looking in their direction.

So, Ai Wei used his ability to carefully check the villa and found that they were all living people, which relieved him.

He said to Xia Junchi and Han Lu, “There are dozens of people in the villa in the 10 O’clock direction. Some of them are watching us.”

Xia Junchi and Han Lu’s expressions became solemn when they heard this. After experiencing the thrilling events of last night, they couldn’t let down their guard even with living people. “Do we still want to stay here?” Ai Wei frowned, hesitatingly asking, “Do we want to try to contact them?”

The environment here was very good. The walls were safe, and there were no zombies in sight. It was a good place to live. Moreover, even if they left here to find another place to live, other places might not be free of humans.

“How many people are there? What kind of people are they?” Xia Junchi asked.

“There are 35 people, including men, women, old, and young.” Ai Wei counted the population and replied, “They are kneeling and worshiping a painting. They should be worshiping a god or something.”

His mental power depicted the situation inside the villa. Except for two people who were on the rooftop keeping watch, everyone else was in the hall on the second floor, kowtowing and worshiping a painting. They should be praying to gods and Buddhas.

Ai Wei didn’t believe in these supernatural things. Moreover, so many people gathered together to pray to gods and Buddhas, and their kowtowing actions were very orderly, which made him feel inexplicably apprehensive.

Just then, the people in the villa took action.

One of the people on watch went to the hall on the second floor and whispered a few words to the person kneeling in the front row. That person stood up.

Then, that person said a few words to the worshiping crowd, then went down to the second floor and walked all the way to the gate of the villa.

“Someone is coming out. They might want to see us.” Ai Wei said.

Sure enough, after a while, the gate of the villa was opened.

A man with a string of beads around his neck and a string of beads on his hand, with a peaceful expression and somewhat gray hair, walked out of the villa. He saw Ai Wei and the others in the car, and he opened his arms and walked towards them, saying as he walked, “Welcome, my friends.”

Ai Wei and the others were stunned by his enthusiastic attitude. However, this person didn’t seem to have any ill intentions, so the few people couldn’t help but relax a little.

Ai Wei got out of the car, but he didn’t retract his mental power, paying attention to this person’s movements at all times. If the other party made any unusual movements, he would take action.

“Hello.” Ai Wei said somewhat cautiously.

The man had a compassionate smile on his face and said, “In this apocalypse, you must have been wandering for a long time. It’s a great fate that you and I can meet today. Come with me. We have plenty of food and water here, as well as many companions who can wash away the fatigue of your bodies and allow you to find peace of mind.”

Ai Wei… Where did this charlatan come from?