Fu Changxun and Dong Zi first escorted everyone back to the inn before heading out to help repair the city wall.
To be precise, they were protecting the players doing the repairs.
On the way back, Fu Changxun casually found an excuse to send Dagong’s lackeys away, then brought Xiaoxiao and Dong Zi to a safe, secluded spot.
He leaned close to Dong Zi and murmured, “Does it hurt? Evolution was brutal for me.”
Dong Zi tried to tough it out. “It’s fine. I can handle it.”
Fu Changxun narrowed his eyes. “Be honest. Or I’ll assume you can handle everything from now on.”
Dong Zi immediately changed tune. “It hurts. My head’s pounding, and my whole body aches in a way I can’t even describe.”
“See? Was that so hard?” Fu Changxun sighed and ruffled his hair. “Go back and get some rest. I’ll help them with the wall. And Xiaoxiao too.”
Then he crouched down in front of her, his tone serious. “Xiaoxiao, tell me about your ability.”
Ability Evolution… sounded simple.
But even for Fu Changxun, a grown man, the repeated use and eventual breakthrough brought searing pain. Let alone Xiaoxiao.
She was just ten. No way she hadn’t felt pain. Yet she acted like nothing had happened.
Xiaoxiao fidgeted with her fingers, staring at him in silence.
Fu Changxun continued gently, “If anything feels wrong, you have to tell gege, okay?”
Her eyes turned red.
Her mental issues hadn’t fully healed—she still couldn’t let her guard down around others.
“Gege will be really worried about you. Are you sure it doesn’t hurt at all?” Fu Changxun softened his voice even more.
And just like that, her defenses crumbled. She launched herself into his arms and burst into tears.
“It hurts! Ge, it hurts so much! Why does evolving hurt this bad? Am I just being a baby? But it really hurts, I’ve never felt anything like this—sob!”
She used to have her dad to protect her. Even though she was half a left-behind child, she’d been safe and unharmed. But this pain—this sharp, tearing pain—was a whole new experience.
It made her miss her dad terribly, though she didn’t want to burden her gege.
From the moment her ability evolved—when she’d killed that creeping vine—she’d been holding everything in.
Only now, under his gentle coaxing, did she finally break down.
“That’s it, let it out. Our Xiaoxiao is so strong and brave. You know, even your Dong Zi-ge was yelling just now, but you didn’t.” Fu Changxun scooped her up and gave her a bounce. “But next time, you have to tell me when you’re hurting. Don’t keep it in. That just makes gege more worried.” He wiped away her tears, speaking tenderly. “And gege needs to know exactly how you’re doing, so I can help us clear the game better, alright?”
Xiaoxiao sniffled, a big snot bubble popping out as she wiped it on Fu Changxun’s clothes in defeat.
Fu Changxun: “……”
He couldn’t even be mad. He just held her tighter.
“Xiaoxiao, I’m taking you both back to the inn. Get a good night’s sleep. If you still don’t feel well when you wake up, have your Lulu-jiejie heal you, okay?”
He thought for a moment. “All of you should stay behind. If possible, I’ll just ask Director Qiu to come with me as my bodyguard.”
“I’m going with you,” Dong Zi said firmly.
Fu Changxun tried to push him away. Failed. Tried again. Still failed.
With the difference in their size and build, there was no way he could actually stop Dong Zi’s stubborn insistence. In the end, he had no choice but to drag him along.
After dropping the injured off at the inn, he didn’t even have to ask—Qiu Yi and Song Zhenpeng volunteered to go with him immediately. Even Zhang Wei looked desperate to help.
With Xiaoxiao settled and the older couple asked to keep an eye on her, the group quickly headed for the edge of C City’s urban zone.
There, a massive construction effort was already underway—there were more “bodyguards” than actual builders.
Players with metal-type abilities were making quick work of the wall, raising a high barrier in no time.
It looked just like the one before, and clearly it was the one from before—same handiwork. It was solid too. Unless overwhelmed by a large group of mutated plants, it gave off a strong sense of security.
Just then, someone shouted—
“Plant heading this way!”
One of the players must’ve had long-distance vision, because they spotted it early and immediately gave a warning.
Fu Changxun couldn’t see anything yet, but asked right away, “Outside the wall or inside? If it’s already inside, let it run out on its own. If it’s still outside, we need to stop it!”
The eagle-eyed player replied, “Inside! It’s charging straight over… looks like a big flower!”
A big flower?
The man-eating blossom should’ve already been killed off by the herbicide. Were there other mutated flowers now?
The players working on the wall halted their movements. “What do we do? Keep going?” someone asked.
Fu Changxun shook his head. “Wait a second.”
He needed to determine whether this flower could be safely allowed to leave, or if it had to be dealt with immediately.
Half of the herbicide stock had already been given to Dagong, but the remaining amount was more than enough to take down dozens of mutated plants—so he wasn’t too worried.
However, as “it” got closer, an overpowering stench hit them before any sound did. The smell was so intense that everyone near the wall nearly passed out on the spot.
Fu Changxun finally understood. “Ah… a corpse flower. This thing’s practically biological warfare.”
It attacked through brute-force physical means and released a smell that flies loved—while delivering a full-on olfactory critical hit to any creature with a nose.
Especially humans, who happened to be particularly sensitive to smell.
But this corpse flower… it was clearly trying its best to suppress its stench.
It dashed toward the open breach in the wall, only to screech to a halt a few dozen meters out when several players startled it. It wobbled uncertainly in place, looking dazed.
It seemed to want to say something to the humans blocking its path, but all it could manage were frantic gestures—completely incomprehensible.
Fu Changxun: “…?”
He suddenly missed the dandelion. At least that one could understand both human and plant speech.
Dandelion: designated interpreter.
And at this very moment, what was the little dandelion up to?
Fighting!
Caught in the middle of a chaotic free-for-all, with plants brawling left and right, and humans tossing abilities and items like fireworks.
“Tomato…? You’re here too?”
The dandelion spotted a familiar face—no, a familiar plant—and started waving its leaves excitedly.
The tomato plant: “!”
It turned and bolted. The dandelion immediately took off in hot pursuit.
Dagong, lacking Fu Changxun’s ability to hear plant speech, could only watch as the dandelion suddenly lost its mind and started charging at a mutated tomato.
He had no idea what was going on and began to worry that their unreliable dandelion might be switching sides mid-battle.
But the moment the dandelion caught up, it smacked the tomato plant with a leaf and growled, “Didn’t I warn you not to mess with me? And now you show up on my turf? Looking to die?”
The tomato sulked. “I didn’t!”
It had just been talked into this by a few other mutated plants. It only came to C City to scavenge some emergency rations.
Naturally, the dandelion didn’t care for explanations. It immediately called for the tomato to be tossed out—thrown out of East Street, out of the city entirely.
Tomato: You damn traitor.
Back by the wall, Fu Changxun was going nuts without his leafy interpreter. He stuffed tissue into his nostrils to physically block the corpse flower’s stench.
“You want out, right?” He didn’t speak Plant, so he could only rely on body language.
The corpse flower seemed to get the gist. The huge red blossom atop its head gave a slight nod.
“Alright then. Please, go ahead.”
Fu Changxun quickly stepped aside and motioned for the others to do the same.
The corpse flower happily strolled out, leaving a few players grumbling in its wake.
“Why’d we let it go? We should’ve chopped it up.”
Fu Changxun stepped aside again, bluntly saying, “I get the feeling most of you are all bark and no bite.”
The players immediately looked down in shame.
Because the truth was… none of them had the guts to face a corpse flower head-on. Their earlier talk had been just that—talk.
With the stinkbomb plant gone, construction resumed.
“The foundation last time wasn’t laid properly. Only went down two meters, which made it easy to topple. This time, I’ve driven the metal wall down seven or eight meters. Should be enough. It won’t fall again,” the metal-ability player reported excitedly.
Fu Changxun ran a finger along the wall, still dissatisfied.
He made a suggestion. “What if… we get someone with earth or wood-based abilities to add a few more layers of defense on the outside? The sturdier, the better.”
“And then we loop around the whole city—can you handle that? Will your abilities hold up?”
The metal player frowned. “Is that really necessary? Only this section took damage. The rest is still secure. Honestly, I don’t think we need to go that far…”
Others quickly chimed in.
“Yeah, it feels kinda excessive.”
“You just need steel reinforcements in the middle. That’s all the wall needs.”
“Earth? I mean, I can control soil. Whoa… can I help too?”
The chatter was nonstop, rivaling the dandelion’s nonstop babbling, and gave Fu Changxun a splitting headache.
Dong Zi finally cut in. “Your Da-ge said we call the shots on this. So if you agree, shut up. If you disagree, go report to your Da-ge.”
None of the players had ever seen someone wield borrowed authority this shamelessly. They were stunned.
Fu Changxun fixed them with a cold stare. “Yeah. If you don’t want to fix the wall properly, you can leave now.”
The players looked at each other.
Several minutes passed—and not a single person left.
Fu Changxun made the call unilaterally. “Alright then. We’ll do it my way. I don’t want to push you harder than necessary.”
If he really wanted to, he could’ve used Hypnosis to control them all and make them finish the wall without a word of complaint.
But he didn’t want to manipulate players.
With NPCs and ghost-type creatures, he had no problem. But other real human players?
He could. He just chose not to.
Thankfully, Dagong’s reputation carried a lot of weight. The players quieted down and finally got to work.
The finished product looked like an ancient fortress gate, though the core was pure steel.
During construction, a few more waves of mutated plants came by, only to be violently weeded out—thanks to Dong Zi’s misdirection tactics and Fu Changxun’s herbicide.
Or to put it another way: they were removed from the plant world entirely.
As the repairs neared completion, the eagle-eyed player called out again. “Another plant incoming… whoa, looks like a tomato! It’s covered in little red fruits.”
A tomato?
That sounded oddly familiar… almost like an old friend.
Fu Changxun had a sudden thought. “Can you check behind the tomato? Is there a dandelion following it?”
