Eaten Ch.44.2

Chapter 44.2: Pitcher Plant

Ahead, Wu Zhi wiped the sweat off her face with her sleeve and pushed away the strands of hair sticking to her cheeks. “Brother Mengzhi, carry me.”

Lin Mengzhi tugged her along. “I’m already carrying one person. Go ask your brother.”

“You can carry Xiao Xue with one hand and me with the other,” Wu Zhi said matter-of-factly, perfectly assigning him his duties.

“Scram.”

Wu Heng—who should’ve been the first to tire out—was now the one who looked the most refreshed.

He’d eaten well before they left.

As he stepped over a knee-high patch of ferns, a thick green caterpillar, about as wide as a child’s wrist, fell from the leaves. He bent down, picked it up, and held it near the mouth of X, who was still sleeping in his arms. Even half-asleep, the bird opened its beak, bit down on the worm, and swallowed it whole with a soft gulp.

“I feel like it’s going to take forever for us to reach Jingzhou,” Wu Heng said, slowing his pace until he was walking beside Xie Chongyi.

“And once we get there,” Xie Chongyi asked, twirling a branch he’d found and using it as a walking stick, “what do you plan to do?”

“Find a place that’ll at least feed me, and I’ll work for them.”

But if he could get rid of Xie Chongyi along the way, Wu Heng might not even bother going to Jingzhou.

It’s just… He glanced at the man beside him. He couldn’t win.

Xie Chongyi, unaware of the boy’s thoughts, pondered for a moment and said, “Then work for me.”

Wu Heng scratched at X’s fur. That actually didn’t sound like a bad idea.

But why wasn’t it Xie Chongyi working for him?

He would order Xie Chongyi to feed him.

“What’s that?!” a shout of alarm suddenly came from the front of the group. The voice was indistinct, but the sound of hurried footsteps spread quickly toward the rear.

The team stopped.

“Teacher Ying, do you recognize what that is?” Du Yaoyuan was holding a fruit knife. He and Xue Shen were at the front of the line, their faces bathed in a soft red glow.

Ever since the earthquake, Ying Liuquan had been frightened half to death. Now he looked vacant and dull, shaking his head. “I don’t know.”

Wu Heng craned his neck to look, but he and Xie Chongyi were too far back to see anything.

“Class Monitor, the path ahead’s blocked by some really weird plants,” Du Yaoyuan said, gesturing animatedly. “They’re red and green—look kinda like toilets—and they’re everywhere, on the ground, in the trees!”

Wu Heng: “Mutated plants?”

“No sh*t, Sherlock,” Du Yaoyuan shot him a disdainful look.

At that moment, Lin Mengzhi, carrying Xue Qi over his shoulder, walked up beside Xue Shen. Hanging upside down from Lin Mengzhi’s shoulder, Xue Qi looked at the uneven, bulbous plants ahead—big and small, oddly adorable in their roundness—and remembered seeing the same thing once in a reptile house.

“It’s a pitcher plant,” Xue Qi said in disbelief. “I’ve seen it among the decorative plants in the reptile house—the owner said it eats bugs. But the ones there were thin and tiny, nothing like these fat ones.”

“Fat?! My ass, that’s huge!” Lin Mengzhi stared at the nearest cluster of pitcher plants—each one taller than he was, their bellies swollen and round, semi-transparent bodies revealing the liquid sloshing inside.

Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi walked up to the front together.

When Wu Heng saw the sight ahead, he froze for a moment. So beautiful.

The field of pitcher plants was no more than forty or fifty meters away. They had completely taken over both the ground and the air—vines burrowed into moss and crept along the earth, stacking the traps into little mounds, each one gaping wide. Other stems twined up the trees, suspending their bulbous traps at varying heights. The pitchers glowed faintly in the dim light, stretching forward without end, and on either side they shimmered like some kind of dreamlike galaxy. It was a sight so surreal that even animation could hardly capture it.

But no one was in the mood to admire nature’s eerie craftsmanship.

“Go around?” Shen Ping’an rarely spoke, but now his voice was low.

“Not practical,” Xue Shen replied. “Most people’s strength is already spent—that’s one. And two, we can’t be sure we won’t run into something even worse if we detour.”

Xue Qi said, “Pitcher plants only eat insects. As long as we don’t touch their traps, we should be fine.”

The surroundings were eerily silent.

Xue Shen still led at the front of the group, while behind him Du Yaoyuan had forcefully hoisted Ruan Silian onto his back.

Beneath their feet, pitcher plant roots crawled through the moss. The soil was looser and wetter than before—every step sank into a puddle.

“Pitcher plants love moisture. If it hadn’t rained today, they’d never have grown this big.”

Pop—

Not far away, one of the huge hanging pitchers swelled all over. The umbrella-shaped lid on top slowly lifted, its edges curling outward. It was mature now—ready to feed. The patterns on its body had grown more defined, its color deeper and more vivid.

“So pretty,” Wu Zhi said, clinging to Lin Mengzhi’s arm. “Their mouths can open on their own!”

Wu Heng held X in his arms, bending down from time to time to avoid the enormous traps dangling overhead. The vines that suspended them were the same translucent color as the pitchers themselves—nutrient channels running through the plants.

The ground-level pitcher plants were packed the densest. Their maturity varied, and so did their colors—green, red, purple, brown—but all of them had far exceeded any normal plant’s size.

Passing by them, it was almost impossible to tell their original shape anymore. Some looked like tree trunks, smooth and cylindrical, some even bristled with sharp backward-pointing barbs.

Wu Heng shifted X to one arm and looked down at his palm. Poppy still hadn’t recovered. If he were in full condition, he’d have loved to take these pitcher plants under his control—such a massive colony must hold a tremendous amount of energy.

“Ah!”

A man suddenly fell forward.

Ying Liuquan had tripped.

The vine he stumbled over jerked the connected line of hanging pitchers, setting them all swaying.

“Teacher, get up!”

“Teacher!”

Ying Liuquan was so terrified that his hands and legs went weak. He scrambled to get up on all fours, but the vines around his ankle only tightened, winding higher until they covered his calves.

“There are so many—so many! They’re alive! They’re moving!” he cried, his face completely drained of color, eyes wild with panic.

“Teacher!” Wu Zhi shouted when she saw the small tendrils coiling around him like leeches.

Xue Qi pulled out the silk spear he’d spent the night weaving. The spear tip jabbed forward, and the vines instantly lashed onto it—but the spider silk was venomous. The vines that touched it shriveled and snapped one after another.

It was one of the pitcher plants’ roots—poisoned and rotting from the contact. The connected root system collapsed, and several of the hanging pitchers dropped down with it.

Bang!

A massive pitcher slammed down between Ying Liuquan and Xue Xi.

Ying Liuquan was so frightened he couldn’t stand. Beside him, a fallen pitcher lay on its side, pulsing faintly as though breathing. Its slick, fragrant interior seemed to beckon prey to crawl inside.

“Get up.” Shen Ping’an grabbed Ying Liuquan by the arm and hauled him upright.

The next second, another huge pitcher came crashing down from above—mouth first.

Shen Ping’an was a speed-type ability user. The instant he sensed danger, he shoved Ying Liuquan aside at lightning speed, and the falling trap enclosed only him inside.

“Sh*t!” Lin Mengzhi pushed the stumbling Ying Liuquan out of his way and raised his hand, ready to unleash fire.

“No—don’t! The range is too wide! You’ll trigger the others!” Xue Qi shouted, driving his spear hard into the pitcher. But its outer shell was impossibly tough—his strike didn’t even leave a mark.

The people in front kept moving forward, while those behind hadn’t caught up yet. They might have been close, but the thick overgrowth between them cut them off completely.

“Brother! Old Xie!” Xue Qi shook Ying Liuquan hard. “Go find my brother, now!”

Ying Liuquan swallowed hard, then stumbled forward, nearly tripping as he ran.

The giant pitcher before them stood over two meters tall, more than a meter wide—its body a translucent crimson. Sticky fluid clung to the inner walls, slowly sliding downward in viscous streaks.

Bang!

A hand suddenly pressed against the inside of the pitcher wall.

Lin Mengzhi stumbled back a step. “W-What… what is that?”

“It’s feeding! Brother—hurry!”

“Get back!” Xue Shen’s voice rang out.

Lin Mengzhi, still carrying Xue Qi, quickly dodged aside. Several blades of water slashed toward the pitcher, but the trap only shuddered, still sealed tight. The edge of its open mouth bit deep into the earth.

Xue Qi said breathlessly, “Pitcher plants need time to digest prey—don’t panic yet, don’t panic!”

“I’ll do it!” Du Yaoyuan rushed over, but even his bullets couldn’t pierce the thick outer shell.

Dou Lu trembled all over. “Let me try.” She crouched down, placing her palm flat on the ground, tracing the network of vines through the soil to locate the plant’s energy core.

A searing pain shot up her arm. She gritted her teeth and pressed harder—but the moment her hand sank into the earth, an immense force burst from the pitcher plant and flung her backward.

A gaping trap opened behind her, ready to swallow her whole—but Xue Qi reacted fast, whipping out a strand of spider silk and yanking her back to safety.

Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi were at the very rear of the group. Even running full speed, they arrived last—just in time to see the massive pitcher imprisoning Shen Ping’an.

“The trap is the part the plant uses to lure and devour prey!” Xue Xi shouted anxiously. “The liquid inside—it dissolves living flesh!”

Xie Chongyi raised his hand—the massive pitcher before him, glowing faintly in the dark, suddenly dented inward in one spot, then another.

“Help…”

A muffled, distorted cry came from inside. Shen Ping’an’s silhouette was visible against the translucent inner wall, his hands clawing frantically at it. His voice grew more pained as the pitcher began to shrink around him.

Whether they blasted it open or tore it apart, the force would land directly on Shen Ping’an himself.

Xie Chongyi could only pull back his hand.

Du Yaoyuan was trembling with fury, eyes wet. “Dou Lu, locate its core! We’ll destroy it!”

Ruan Silian’s face was deathly pale. “You might succeed—but if you attack, it’ll turn all these traps on everyone.”

Xue Qi turned his head, staring at the countless pitchers suspended in the air. “It’s useless even if we do,” he murmured. “This one’s already detached from the main root. It’s independent now. It’s no longer part of the plant—it’s just… a trap. That’s why we can’t open it.”

Wu Heng stood at the edge of the group, the bird cradled in his arms. His gaze swept over the eerily beautiful traps surrounding them. Slowly, he crouched down and pressed his palm against the damp, spongy moss.

His vines were still recovering, but they could still crawl.

They slipped through the moss, weaving under everyone’s feet, burrowing beneath the earth beneath the pitcher—then quietly snaked their way inside.

Inside, Shen Ping’an was covered head to toe in viscous fluid. Tiny beads of blood oozed from his skin—it was dissolving.

Wu Heng silently watched the spot where the pitcher stood, guiding a vine to gently coil around Shen Ping’an’s ankle.

A cool, damp sensation jolted the half-conscious man awake.

He looked down in confusion at the vine gripping his leg—a tail, like a serpent’s.

But instead of fear, a strange calm settled over him. He could feel it—the thing was reaching out to him… with kindness.

Shen Ping’an was a withdrawn and solitary person. He longed for Wei Xiao, yet he didn’t even really know how to smile.

He opened his mouth again, wanting to say something—but the moment he did, clumps of human tissue spilled out, choking off both his words and his breath.

The vine, seeing something to eat, immediately loosened its grip on his ankle and hurried to catch it, only to be hit squarely and dazed by the falling mass at Shen Ping’an’s feet.

When the vine finally crawled out from the heap of red and white tissue, Shen Ping’an’s head fell with a dull thud right beside it.

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