Chapter 60.2: Flower Servant (8)

Gui Sheng: “Huh?”

On this night, the bedtime for one adult and two children was delayed by two hours.

The night was deep, and the bright moonlight spread across the light green lake.

Amidst the serene and shallow breaths, the vine in the black porcelain basin grew longer and longer in the darkness, reaching the height of a person, bending towards the young man, silently hanging there.

As the sobbing night wind blew, the white window gauze fluttered, pouring a patch of moonlight that landed perfectly on the young man’s face.

While he slept, his hair was swept back, revealing a delicate, handsome face; his peacefully dangling long eyelashes composed a tranquil and obedient nocturnal scene.

With each breath, his chest rose and fell delicately.

Another gust of night wind sobbed past, and the sharp, long vines descended in the wind.

Ning Su suddenly opened his eyes, and his eyelashes trembled slightly due to nervousness.

In the next second, he rolled off the bed and dodged the piercing vines, leaping out of the window.

He ran madly through the night, the energy on his body scattered like a dark wind. This was a speed far surpassing that of humans, yet he still heard the vines getting closer and closer, tearing through the wind and piercing through the night.

Ning Su could distinctly sense how terrifying the power within those vines was when they brushed against him.

As long as it touched him, everything could be ground into invisible nothingness.

For the first time, Ning Su felt tense within a game instance.

He dashed like a fleeting gust of wind into the Dark Swamp Forest, both fleeing and luring the vines away from that street.

The Dark Swamp at midnight was silent and undulating. The figure of the young man, akin to a ghost in the night, was being relentlessly pursued by the black vines that transformed into claws.

Ning Su knew he had no advantage in the Dark Swamp, so he didn’t enter, but kept running through the forest where the Dark Swamp was.

This method seemed effective; as he ran at full speed and deftly maneuvered around bends, the distance between him and the vines opened up slightly.

Just as he was letting out a sigh of relief, a dark-red vine suddenly pierced out from ahead.

Ning Su widened his eyes, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

In that instant, he only felt a cool sensation around his waist, followed by a sharp pain in his chest.

Without giving him any time to react, a vine wrapped around his waist and lifted him above the forest. Another vine pierced through his chest.

At that moment, time seemed unusually quiet.

Ning Su’s heart was still in mid-jump when the vine only punctured the outermost layer, piercing through a small blood vessel on the surface before abruptly stopping as soon as it touched his blood.

“Bang—“

Ning Su felt another heavy heartbeat.

This time, the sensation came from the vine attached to his chest, even more intense than when he had caught it in the depths of the Dark Swamp.

Both the person and the vine remained still in the sobbing night wind.

Ning Su’s heart pounded vigorously.

He reached out and grasped the vine, sensing the movement within it, and moved it away from his chest.

The pristine moonlight spread across the Dark Swamp, and the sobbing in the night wind grew faint.

A pale and slender hand held the sharp, dark vine and gently moved it aside. The vine remained motionless, seemingly silently assessing him.

At the same time, another vine extended along the boy’s waist and climbed upward along his spine, causing his back to straighten abruptly.

A standoff between a person and a vine—one experiencing the stiffness after he had touched the other’s blood, the other recalling the intense heartbeat just moments ago.

***

In the morning, when the two children woke up, Ning Su was still asleep.

Their flower was still quietly sitting in the pot, unchanged after the night had passed.

There was some noise outside, but for some unknown reason, Ning Su showed no signs of waking up.

Gui Sheng stood on a chair and opened the window. Several players gathered in the pavilion outside, observing the flowers.

After the night had passed, three more flowers showed signs of contamination, growing body parts.

In the warm sunlight, Ning Su opened his eyes and glanced at the flower on the wooden platform. There was no change at all. He pressed his slightly itchy chest.

As he washed up, he looked at his chest again, where a scar had healed so well that it was almost invisible.

Ning Su blinked.

By the time he came out, the white-robed people who followed the Holy Maiden the morning before had already arrived.

Since the last incident, they were told that these people would be coming every morning to collect the contaminated flowers.

This time, one flower had grown into a cluster of grape-like eyes, each eyeball rotating. Dozens of them turned in different directions together, causing a dazzling spectacle.

One flower had a gaping mouth that was shouting, “Wuwa!“

Another had petal-like layers of fingernails, forming a flower that made people extremely uncomfortable.

“Only these three?” the leader of the white-robed people asked.

Several players looked at Ning Su, who had just come out. He nodded. “My flower isn’t contaminated.”

The white-robed people then took the three pots of flowers and left.

As the flower attendants dispersed, Ning Su noticed that the silver-haired flower attendant stumbled slightly and caught hold of the railing of the pavilion.

After spending nearly a week here, Ning Su could tell that the flower attendants had become much healthier. But the most noticeable change was in their blood vessels. Under the rapid stiffness of the blood vessels, their skin had become softer.

As a result, Ning Su could often see blood vessels bulging from the wrists and necks of the flower attendants.

In the moment of stumbling, the Hua Feng suddenly gripped the railing. The tendons in the back of his hand stood out due to the force, and at that moment, the bluish-purple blood vessels on his hand were indeed visible. However, Ning Su felt that something was not quite right.

His gaze followed upwards, landing on the other’s extremely pale neck and face.

Ning Su let out a sound of “Hmm.”

After he returned, he looked at the lily flower for a while. They were exactly the same as when he had brought them back, with no changes at all.

Ning Su pursed his lips and took a sip of creek water.

In the evening of the same day, Ning Su followed the players to the Dark Swamp again, mainly to collect points.

They returned early that night as well.

The flower attendants who brought back three new plants felt uneasy before falling asleep, afraid that these flowers would turn into frightening things again.

Ning Su also couldn’t fall asleep for a long time. While both children were in deep slumber, he kept his eyes open.

Unable to sleep for the first time, Ning Su simply sat up and stared at that flower.

As he looked, he swallowed his saliva and reached out with his hand towards the four-petaled lily flower.

He had eaten so many lily flowers before, but he had never eaten a four-petaled one.

The four-petaled one was even redder, as if there was blood flowing inside. It looked very delicious.

Just as his finger was about to touch the petal, Ning Su heard a faint sound of a door opening.

The sound was very faint, and the person opening the door definitely didn’t want to be noticed.

The more this was the case, the more Ning Su wanted to know what this person was up to.

Ning Su lifted the curtain, turned, and sat on the windowsill to look outside.

In the quiet courtyard of the night, a man was holding a long knife and moving forward quietly.

Ning Su recognized him as Dai Dong. He was heading towards the room of the white-haired flower attendant.

Ning Su immediately guessed what he was about to do.

This man had finally decided to avenge Jiang Ying.

Ning Su watched silently like this.

As was well known, players could not attack NPCs unless necessary, and it was clear that Hua Feng was not an ordinary NPC.

Dai Dong’s quiet approach might be an attempt to secretly cut off the hand flower that killed Jiang Ying while Hua Feng was asleep. So, he could seek revenge.

Could it be that simple?

The experiences of the past few days had already shown them that these flowers growing in the Dark Swamp did not appear under the scorching sun but were most active during the late night.

They grew human body parts during the deep night. That lifeless hand flower also transformed into a giant hand during the late night, tearing apart Jiang Ying’s chest.

Just as Ning Su had guessed, Dai Dong didn’t go to the door, but walked to the window of Hua Feng’s room.

Directly facing the entrance was the tearoom. Hua Feng’s roommate died on the first day of going to the Dark Swamp, and he had been living in the room on the right side.

White window paper was punctured by Dai Dong, and he pressed his eyes against it to look inside.

Ning Su clearly saw the other’s pupil dilate in response, not knowing what he saw. The long knife in his hand dropped.

That long knife was his skill weapon, one and a half meters long. The sound of it hitting the ground was quite distinct in the quiet night.

At the same time, a muffled moan of pain resounded.

Immediately, vigilant players opened the door. In that situation, Ning Su simply jumped down from the window.

The nearest players, upon hearing the painful sound emanating from the room, hesitated for a while before pushing open the door. When Ning Su arrived, he happened to witness the scene inside.

Zhu Shuangshuang and Su Wangsheng, who arrived a step later, both took a sharp breath.

The layout of each room in the courtyard was similar. The white-haired flower attendant was half-lying on a wooden pallet, white hair flowing around him, a fine layer of sweat on his forehead.

His pale lips were biting down on a piece of cloth, preventing himself from crying out in pain.

One hand held a blood-stained knife, while the other was raised over the hand flower, a cut mark on his wrist.

Zhu Shuangshuang thought of the doubts she had when observing him during the day and exclaimed in shock, “He’s using his own blood to nourish the hand flower!”

The self-inflicted wrist cut was already apparent.

“No wonder he has been so pale and weak these past two days!”

The other players couldn’t follow her words, still staring at the scene in horror.

He did feed it, previously he must have been using his blood to nourish the hand flower. He let the blood from his wrist drip onto the hand flower. But tonight, the hand flower was no longer satisfied with just that.

Its long nails pierced into the wound on his wrist, and its fingers forcefully burrowed into his veins.

They could even see the fingers continuously lengthening within the veins, passing through the elbow, chasing after the blood.

Witnessing this scene, the players gasped in shock, feeling a twinge of pain in their own arms, their veins hurting as well.

They watched as the finger extended within the veins, yet the veins didn’t burst. They felt like they just realized something, and yet were unsure of what it was exactly. A sense of inexplicable panic crept over them.

One by one, they stood at the doorway, either in horror or silence, observing this scene.

The first to move was Dai Dong.

He picked up his sword once again, gritting his teeth malevolently as he stepped inside.

Hua Feng watched the sword in his hand and shook his head incessantly, muffled sounds of pain coming from the towel-covered mouth.

Su Wangsheng grabbed him, Dai Dong forcibly prying his hand open. “Step aside!”

His expression was fierce and contorted, the silence of the past two days erupting in this moment. “I’ll chop it to pieces! It killed Jiang Ying!”

Su Wangsheng grabbed his collar and pressed him against the wall. “Calm down first. It’s in Hua Feng’s arm now.”

“So what!”

“So what!” Dai Dong shouted at Su Wangsheng twice in succession. “It tore through Jiang Ying’s chest! Do you know what it feels like for Jiang Ying to bleed out completely?”

“I know! She’s been telling me for the past two nights!”

“Do you know that Jiang Ying was thrown into that filthy swamp? Do you know how much she valued cleanliness in her lifetime? What’s inside there? Rotten flesh, corpse water, putrid mud!”

“Do you know... do you know that every time you go into the swamp to look for the flower, you might be stepping on her face, her chest, her heart? How many people will crush her like this?”

His voice was full of resentment and hoarseness, slowly taking on a teary tone.

“I must crush it into pieces! Completely shattered! This disgusting monster!”

He suddenly pushed Su Wangsheng aside, striding forward.

Hua Feng kept shaking his head, tears sliding down his eyes, wetting the towel in his mouth.

As Dai Dong raised the sword, the towel fell from his mouth.

“No, please... don’t. He’s not a monster, he’s...”

“He’s my brother...”

 

<Prev> <ToC> <Next>