After two days of walking, including the day that they left Westriver, it was now the third day of their emergency mission. Having split off the main path earlier, Lin Songmei was now striding through the forest along with Han Youhong and Yan Mingqing, nearing the area where the plants had been found. 

Songmei, though, was... bored. 

The initial burst of energy and motivation she had for this “emergency” mission had begun to fade. Somehow, after walking for two and a half days, she... she felt a little dull towards it!

Who would’ve thought... 

They had gotten back to the city after three days of walking and a little running. Then, while anticipating a week or so of break, had instead been sent right back out!

At this rate, Songmei had almost spent the last week straight walking... 

Painful. 

It was good exercise though, walking from almost the moment she woke up to the moment they set up camp for the night. That, added with the garbage-tasting rations that they were eating, made it so Songmei was getting into shape!

Wohooo!

Well, it wasn’t like she was fat beforehand... She was skin and bones. Now, she could be skin, bones, and some muscle!

Squish.

Turning towards Han Youhong, who she had gotten closer to over the past couple of days, Songmei could see the brightness in his red eyes... dulling. “You uhh... you okay, Han Youhong?” 

Squish. 

“No...” Han Youhong murmured, an air of despair leaking out of his mouth as he trudged on. “I haven’t gotten to eat... good, good food in a while...” 

Squish. 

Songmei gave Han Youhong a few shoulder pats, reassuring him that he’d be able to get some soon... probably. They still had to walk back to Westriver again, though. 

Stroking her chin, imagining the beautiful sight of one day having her own personal transportation vehicle like her master, Liu Xueli or Elder Wu Sen... 

‘Add that to the list of future purchases... that and a big house...’ 

In the distance, peeking out from behind a tree bordering a clearing, Songmei could see a hint of red. 

That was the plant, that was it. 

That was it!!!

The thing they had walked for so many days for... 

“It’s there!” Songmei cheered, running forward, vitality filling her body once more as she pulled Mingqing along by the hand. “It’s this stuff!” 

“This stuff?” Han Youhong asked, a little out of breath after chasing Songmei who had run off without a moment’s notice. “It looks... innocuous.” 

With her knees on the ground, Mingqing motioned for Han Youhong to kneel down as well to take a closer look. Sitting on the ground as well, Songmei watched as Mingqing dug the plant out of the ground by the roots. 

This plant that Songmei had run over to was only one of many that dotted a decent sized clearing in the middle of the forest. With the trees that represented the far side of the clearing in view and not over the horizon, the clearing wasn’t too big. Walking across the whole thing would take less than fifteen or twenty minutes, depending on one’s walking speed. 

In fact, this was the same clearing that Songmei and Mingqing had stumbled upon last time. By putting a little marker on their terminals they had managed to come back without much trouble, just... a lot of walking.  

“The plant itself, as you can see,” Mingqing explained to a curious Han Youhong, “Isn’t much. It has a green stem, stalk, I don’t know the terminology. However, to really identify these plants, you have to look at their leaves. Here look at this one.” 

Handing the plant over to Han Youhong who accepted it with an awkward half-stretched reach, Mingqing continued. “So from the midrib of the leaf, the middle part here that kinda looks like the spine of the leaf, you can see red. Then, it spreads through the vein-like structures in the leaf. The edges of the leaves are all red too for some reason...” 

“I see...” Han Youhong mused, looking the plant over from all angles. “I read over the message that my sect sent. Eating these plants makes the animals go berserk, huh, interesting...” 

Sitting down beside the two, putting on some gloves and pulling out some handheld gardening tools, Songmei joined in, adding, “Well, Mingqing didn’t think much of it. We submitted this plant as part of a bundle with a lot of other plants in a mission to collect plants from this area. Apparently though, this plant has an... interesting reproduction style.” 

“Hm? Why... ‘interesting’? Interesting as in weird or interesting as in cool?” Han Youhong asked, raising an eyebrow in bemusement, getting out some gardening tools of his own. 

“Well, from the file that our sect sent us, maybe yours sent it to you too,” Mingqing began, only to get a short “I don’t check my terminal” from Han Youhong before continuing, “Well, from the file, it told us that the way this plant like... does its thing is it gives off really sexy, alluring smells, attracting all the beasts. Then once the beasts eat it, the plant forcibly stimulates their potential, raising their strength at the cost of all their sanity, allowing them to rampage around and eat other animals. By eating other animals they can then poop a lot. Then, the plant, with its seeds now all in the animal's poop, gets spread around...” 

“I-...” Freezing with a confused look on his face, Han Youhong turned his head around a few times looking at the plants that dotted the clearing. “I... what? What??” 

“I know, right?” Sonmgei nodded with a resigned murmur, “These plants somehow did the evolutionary roulette and... yeah. Got to this.” 

Scooting a little further from Songmei and Mingqing to begin to dig up a plant, Han Youhong furrowed his eyebrows with an exasperated sigh. “I kinda want to read that file now. Like... what? I know nature is weird, and they probably have some spiritually strengthened seeds but... what?? How... like... what?” 

With a chuckle escaping her mouth in agreement with Han Youhong, Mingqing shook her head with a laugh. “We don’t know either... Nobody really knows. The plant was discovered in the central continent where things are weird. That also means that it's invasive when discovered in any part of the world that isn’t the central continent.” 

“That... that’s suspicious then,” Han Youhong acknowledged with a squint as he pulled the plant out of the ground, depositing it in his spatial ring. “Is it invasive here naturally or like... someone planted it?” 

“Well... that’s what we’re kinda here to find out isn’t it?” Mingqing laughed, pulling up the mission info for Han Youhong to read once more, “‘investigate’ they say, but yeah... we kinda gotta figure that out, while also pulling out these plants when we can. So let’s just pull out plants for a while more to rest our legs before beginning our... ‘investigation’ sounds good?” 

“Yes ma’am,” Songmei murmured with a laugh after Mingqing emphasized “investigation” over and over. Songmei didn’t mind a break to just dig up some plants, farmer simulator!

Maybe that would be the next big game after the bricklaying game... 

Esiyx

I wrote a noiceee short story, if you want to see my short stories, join the discorddddd
I post them there yeah... uh... yeah

Also these plants are weird...

Thanks for reading thoughh~!!
take care reader friends!! <3