# Chapter 187: Head-Eating Man-Eating Flower
The nearest Zheng Liang and the skull-print short-sleeved man grabbed Iron Brother's waist and shoulder respectively, pulling him outward, but the tug-of-war's focal point was on Iron Brother's head. With both sides refusing to let go, blood streamed down Iron Brother's head as he roared, but then another flesh-colored sucker flew out of the elevator shaft and slapped onto his mouth!
The skull-print short-sleeved man's hands were stained red with blood. Seeing the flesh-colored thing pulling Iron Brother into the elevator gap, and hearing the rustling sounds from below the elevator shaft, he immediately let go, hurried to the side to close the elevator, and shouted back at his companions: "Come help! There are more of those things inside!"
Gu Yu and the others rushed forward. A bald-headed player reached into the elevator gap with a short blade and cut the flesh strip behind the sucker, allowing everyone to successfully pull Iron Brother out. Then the skull-print short-sleeved man and two other players forcibly closed the elevator doors.
"Boom! Boom!" The elevator doors were pounded loudly. Gu Yu and the others retreated, staring grimly at the constantly shaking elevator. The skull-print short-sleeved man said, "It's not safe outside, and the elevator has monsters too. Aren't we trapped on the fifteenth floor?"
"Is Iron Brother okay?" the mole-faced player asked at this point.
Iron Brother, who had been pulled out, lay on the ground without moving. The flesh-colored "suckers" covering his head and face hadn't fallen off. Aside from some green liquid spraying from the severed ends, the sucker heads kept wriggling and sucking, making an unsettling sound.
Seeing that these things weren't dead, the people around stepped back. Xu Huo then walked over, pried open a corner of one sucker with his dagger, and lifted it off. The sucker flipped over and fell to the ground, revealing it to be a hexagonal flower. However, the inside of its petals was covered in sharp thorns. Even after losing its target, it still twitched for a while before slowly losing its vitality.
"Not dead, just unconscious." Xu Huo removed the second one as well, then kicked the man-eating flower a bit further away as he stood up. "This kind of flower should be able to release an anesthetic."
Gu Yu was nearby and had the skull-print short-sleeved man feed Iron Brother a self-healing agent, then said, "The elevator shaft isn't full of these things, is it?"
Xu Huo shook his dagger, "Not necessarily. But since the man-eating flowers can grow out of the elevator shaft, we can't rule out the possibility of other mutated plants."
"Then it seems we can only stay on the fifteenth floor." Gu Yu paused and looked back, "Besides this public office area, there are some rooms on both sides. Let's go find anything useful."
Xu Huo didn't comment, instead using his foot to fiddle with the two man-eating flowers.
"So what should we do?" A middle-aged man carrying a backpack stepped forward and asked, then added, "We may not have your abilities, but many hands make light work. You can tell us what you need us to do."
Besides the dozen or so players, there were also over a hundred ordinary people who had come in, standing crowded together with fearful and uneasy expressions. After the middle-aged man finished speaking, a young girl said, "Please don't abandon us. My family is very rich—I can give you money!"
With someone opening this line, the rest also expressed that they could give the players money, as long as they would protect them.
Zheng Liang and the others sneered at this scene, "What's the use of money if you lose your life?"
Gu Yu glared at them, then calmed the crowd, saying, "Don't panic first. We're all trapped here. The priority is to stay calm. If any of you are willing, you can help look for some practical tools—to block the windows or for self-defense."
"You need to understand that the mortality rate for players in instances is also very high. And there are only a dozen or so players here, while you have over a hundred people. No matter how strong we are, we can't protect everyone, so you need to find ways to protect yourselves."
"But what can we do?" someone said. "Encountering those man-eating flowers, we can't even run away. And if they come out of the elevator, we have no choice but to jump out the window..."
"That's your problem!" the mole-faced player raised his voice. "You don't think we're obligated to protect you, do you?"
Among the hundred-plus ordinary people, some were angry, some protested, but most were filled with despair and sorrow.
"Find him!" Suddenly a player pointed at Xu Huo. "He saved dozens of people in a random instance before!"
Everyone's gaze turned to Xu Huo, and Xu Huo looked at the bald-headed player who had spoken—he had no memory of this person.
"Before the super item incident, he was planning to join the Ting City Research Institute." Gu Yu briefly explained, then looked at Xu Huo with a rather complicated expression. She hadn't heard about this.
"Sir, if you can guarantee my safety out of here, I'll give you money—ten million! Twenty million is fine too!" The girl who had first offered money ran up to him and said.
With the amount immediately reaching the tens of millions level, the rest clearly couldn't produce that much money, so someone pleaded, "I still have a child at home. She's only three years old and can't be without her mother..."
A group of people scrambled to surround Xu Huo. Before Xu Huo could speak, he thrust the crimson sword into the ground. The sharp blade pierced through the floor like cutting through tofu, and everyone's voices stopped.
Xu Huo swept his cold gaze over the crowd, finally fixing his eyes on the girl in front of him. He tilted his head, signaling her to step aside.
The girl stepped back with fear.
Xu Huo picked up the two man-eating flowers from the ground, stapled them together, and carried them as he walked toward the other end.
Everyone in the public area stared at him, watching him turn into an office on the side. Only then did Gu Yu say, "Let's go look around too."
The players weren't naive enough to think they could safely spend ninety hours on the fifteenth floor doing nothing, so they still needed to search for clues.
"What should we do?" the remaining people couldn't help asking.
The backpack-carrying middle-aged man said, "Everyone calm down. For safety's sake, let's not wander around or touch things randomly, to avoid causing unnecessary trouble."
"From what they said, we'll be here for several days. No one can go without eating or drinking. I suggest we gather all the food and drinking water together. It's just a few days—everyone can endure it."
"As long as we don't cause trouble for the players, if they can get out, they probably won't mind taking us along."
What he said made sense, and it calmed the restless crowd somewhat. Everyone began doing what they could.
"What should we do?" In the corner, the foreign burly man lowered his voice and asked the flower-selling girl. "If we follow him, will he hit us?"
The flower-selling girl was filled with regret. She bit her lower lip and said, "Since he didn't settle scores just now, he probably won't now."
"We're all in the same boat. Those ordinary people can't help, so they have no reason to refuse us. Besides, the person chasing us has conflicts with other players too—that's good for us."
So the two of them also sneaked over.