Chapter 208: Man-Eating Flower Cultivation Diary
Several players became alert, and Xu Huo said, "Let's go back to the building first."
Although the glass greenhouse was large, with the view mostly occupied by dense plants, it wasn't hard to identify the direction. Xu Huo went up once and came back down, and the group headed back toward the elevator building.
The seven players walked in a formation, with the rich little girl and the middle-aged woman in the middle.
But even with sufficient caution, someone still disappeared, and right next to Xu Huo at that.
He, one of the two players Gu Yu had called over, and Dai Wenqian's companion were bringing up the rear. Just a few seconds ago, he had heard the footsteps of those two, but the moment he looked away, the player Gu Yu had called vanished without a trace!
Zheng Liang's face changed color in shock, and he blurted out, "Xu Huo, can you stop your damn habit of touching things?!"
"Click!" A metallic latch springing open sounded from inside the small wooden house. Then the floor beneath the desk lifted, moving along with the desk aside, and an aluminum cabinet slowly rose from below. The cabinet was filled with at least thirty or forty vials of various colors.
"Evolution agents!" Wei Bin said in surprise. "There are both P1 and P2, plus some self-healing agents and antidotes!"
Jiang Yihua and Zheng Liang quickly ran over. Zheng Liang said, "Jackpot this time! I didn't expect the game to actually hide agents here!"
"Share and share alike, we split them evenly!" Jiang Yihua said.
Dai Wenqian glanced at Xu Huo. "You found them, you divide them."
Whether it was evolution agents or self-healing agents, there were enough for each of the five players present to get at least seven or eight vials.
Xu Huo wasn't interested in the evolution agents, but he saw a few plant nutrient supplements at the bottom and reached out to take them. "You're not interested in these, so divide the rest as you see fit."
Jiang Yihua and the other two immediately split the remaining agents among themselves. Xu Huo took three nutrient supplements, so he got three fewer of the other agents.
After storing the agents in the item slot, Zheng Liang said, "This trip wasn't a complete waste of risk."
"She... she looks like she's dying!" the rich little girl, who had been resting nearby, said tearfully, looking at the convulsing woman.
Xu Huo walked over and pressed down on the woman's leg, finding that the bite wound from earlier had festered. The toxin had entered her bloodstream, and one leg was swollen.
"Didn't you find antidotes? Give her one!" the rich little girl pleaded. "I can buy them from you. My family is really rich. You can ask for any amount of money!"
"Antidotes for players might not work on ordinary people," Jiang Yihua said reluctantly.
Players' bodies are strengthened and can withstand the effects of the agents, but ordinary people are a different story.
"Still, we have to try!" the little girl said, her eyes red as she looked at them hopefully. "I'm begging you..."
Dai Wenqian ignored them and went to search for clues on the other side. Zheng Liang and Wei Bin hesitated, and Jiang Yihua was also reluctant to waste the agents.
Without a word, Xu Huo took out an antidote and injected it into the woman's neck. Then he said, "Whether she lives or dies depends on her luck."
The little girl repeatedly thanked him.
Jiang Yihua seemed a bit ashamed and went to help move the woman to the restroom inside to lie down. Zheng Liang glanced at Xu Huo. "Always playing the good guy. You only got one antidote. If you run into danger later, see what you do then!"
Xu Huo's expression remained unchanged. "Don't you still have antidotes?"
Zheng Liang's eyes widened as if to retort, but he swallowed his words when Xu Huo looked away, showing no intention of continuing the conversation.
Zheng Liang turned away angrily, bumping into a bewildered Wei Bin in the process.
After a thorough search, they found nothing else of value, but they did discover several plant cultivation diaries.
Zheng Liang lost patience. Looking at the lights outside, he said, "Let's just fight our way out. The mutated animals nearby have already backed off. A surprise attack might work."
"Throw something out and see," Dai Wenqian said.
Zheng Liang casually picked up a pen holder from the table and threw it out the window. As soon as the pen holder disappeared into the dense thicket, the branches and leaves shook violently, accompanied by the faint growls of wild beasts.
"Those mutated animals haven't gone far," Dai Wenqian said, sitting down to rest.
"I don't know how much longer these lights will last," Wei Bin said worriedly. "The Little Flower Red Red Building has been abandoned for five years. It wouldn't be strange if the energy storage equipment had problems."
"Can we use agents?" Jiang Yihua came out of the restroom and looked at Dai Wenqian. "Your agent seems very powerful. Can you drive those mutated animals away?"
Dai Wenqian shook his head. "My agent doesn't have that much killing power, and its range isn't large either."
Wei Bin leaned by the window and looked up at the lights on the glass greenhouse dome. Shielding his eyes, he said, "Can these lights be moved?"
"They're too high," Dai Wenqian said without thinking.
The other three couldn't help but feel discouraged. Seeing Xu Huo flipping through the plant cultivation diaries on the side, Jiang Yihua couldn't help asking, "What's the use of reading those?"
Xu Huo stopped and pointed at an entry on one page. "That kind of man-eating flower only sprays toxic powder when its roots are electrocuted, and it has to be alive."
"What does that mean?" Jiang Yihua didn't understand.
"The pollen attached to the roots of the giant man-eating flower is very similar to the toxic powder that appeared on the thirteenth floor. If the roots entered the ventilation ducts, then the appearance of toxic powder on the thirteenth floor would follow a pattern," Xu Huo said. "The elevator went to the thirteenth floor between ten o'clock the night before last and four o'clock in the morning yesterday. During that time, all of us were on the thirteenth floor, but we didn't encounter any danger."
"But Zhang Biao and the others did encounter danger," Dai Wenqian caught on the fastest. "The time was also between ten o'clock at night and four o'clock in the morning."
"It should be because someone returned to the thirteenth floor," Wei Bin said. "Every floor has sensors. It's not strange that someone going up activated the trap."
Dai Wenqian shook his head, however. "Xu Huo went up twice without any problem, and Zhang Biao and the others were active up there for a long time."
"Twice?" Zheng Liang looked at Xu Huo.
"So the thirteenth floor is different from the others. It might only spray toxic powder within a certain time frame," Xu Huo said.
"You mean, even if someone stays on the thirteenth floor at other times, nothing will happen?" Wei Bin was both surprised and delighted. "Then we can gather everyone on the thirteenth floor and find a way to cut off the man-eating flower's roots!"
"It's not that simple," Dai Wenqian said. "First, cutting the man-eating flower's roots might trigger a chain reaction. The fifteenth floor showed no signs of mutated animal attacks, but the glass shattered inward, proving there must be something outside."
"Mutated animals can move inside the building but don't use the outer walls. That's very telling."
"Second, the reason there are no mutated animals on the thirteenth floor might also be because of the man-eating flower. Whether other animals will come up after the roots are cut is another unknown."