Chapter 105: New Poppy
Sheng Jiang stopped quickly—but it was already too late.
Behind Xie Chongyi, the poppy vines seized the opportunity. Its thick branches shivered, petals folding back, spreading outward. Then, like a giant mouth, it lunged at his back.
A slender figure suddenly fell from above.
Wu Heng crashed to the ground, every bone in his body cracking, but he had no time to react to the pain. He scrambled up, swinging the blade—Xie Chongyi’s blade—cutting through the poppy vines like it was tofu. Branches and leaves rained down from above, covering the ground.
The plant flailed, only to find the severed parts blackened, unable to regenerate. The fallen fragments tried to root themselves, attempting to grow a new territory.
Wu Heng showed no mercy. He cut them all down, leaving the new shoots nothing but scorched earth.
The boy faced branch stumps wider than his own face, and he felt it watching him.
The poppy vines looked down from above, seeing nothing but weakness and insignificance below—just like the first time they had met months ago.
Back then, Wu Heng had only been able to guess its intent.
Now, he could feel its will directly. The difference this time: it was only confused.
So when it faced a human like a tiny beetle beneath it, it wavered between eating him and crouching submissively at his feet.
“Class Monitor, are you okay?” Wu Heng asked softly, not turning around.
The last time he had felt regret and pain coursing through his body was when Lin Mengzhi’s grandmother had passed.
His food had been injured, and the face he remembered from the first time he saw it had been half destroyed. Wu Heng’s whole body ached, muscles and nerves twitching in pain.
He gave a slight nod but didn’t look at Xie Chongyi. Instead, he turned to Dou Lu. “Take the class monitor back to the rest station.”
Dou Lu ran over in long strides, her figure disappearing halfway as she moved.
The poppy vines swayed their branches, immediately moving to block Dou Lu’s teleportation path.
Wu Heng focused, spinning the black blade in his hand twice. He flipped the blade backward, holding it close to his arm, and slashed upward under a thick branch.
The branch was cut halfway through. It felt the pain and recoiled.
Dou Lu grabbed Xie Chongyi’s arm. “Class Monitor, let’s go!”
Wu Heng faced the tsunami of frenzied vines and branches alone. His back was narrower than any single leaf in sight.
Sheng Jiang was about to step in to help, but Xie Chongyi yanked him back, coldly saying, “If you kill the plant, it’s the same as killing Wu Heng.”
“You don’t think it would attack him now?”
Of course it would. In fact, it wanted to—Wu Heng had been the perfect prey from the very start.
“If you interfere, at best you both get hurt badly.”
Xie Chongyi knew exactly what would happen if he and the others got involved. Sheng Jiang had mentioned “recovery,” but the chance was probably only a fraction of a percent—they were tapping into the source of all living energy on Blue Star. Any strike they made could be utterly destructive.
Sheng Jiang’s changed eyes looked down at Xie Chongyi. “You can’t guarantee his safety, but I can. Removing the plant won’t kill him.”
“That’s his thing. Whether it lives or dies is up to him.” Xie Chongyi wiped the sticky slime from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, smirking. “Kid, don’t get cocky. Not every human needs saving. Survival of the fittest.”
Sheng Jiang just rolled his eyes subtly. “You’re way too arrogant.”
Xie Chongyi didn’t bother replying.
Sheng Jiang looked at Dou Lu. “Take him back to the rest station.”
“Wait a sec.” Xie Chongyi, rare for him, let impatience show on his face.
Dou Lu hesitated, inwardly thinking about how she wanted to beat Sheng Jiang into the ground.
A shield appeared in Sheng Jiang’s hand, glowing faintly. He glanced at Dou Lu. “He can only stay conscious for ten more minutes. After that, you might have to carry him back yourself.”
With that, he vanished into the crowd.
In the blink of an eye, Sheng Jiang appeared in front of Wu Heng, his shield blocking the first round of the poppy’s frenzied strikes.
There was no doubt—defense wasn’t his strength. Wu Heng’s blocking alone wasn’t enough to stand against the sheer power of this massive plant.
The energy inside the mutated plant was unstable. Its attacks could swing from light and delicate to wildly destructive, and it couldn’t simply be wiped out—an absolute headache.
The poppy vines sensed Sheng Jiang’s restrained handling through Wu Heng. Confident and energized, it treated Wu Heng as its old master, the plant’s vines twisting and thrashing like a writhing mass of snakes.
A flash of cold light. The arrogant poppy vines were cut down mercilessly by Wu Heng in a huge swipe. Like a giant tree toppling, it twisted on the ground, stabbing at him—but another slash from Wu Heng met it.
His face was only slightly pale. He gripped the hilt tightly, speaking softly: “No need to hold back.”
Sheng Jiang smiled but said nothing. After a moment, he stepped on a sprout poking through the ground. It squeezed up stubbornly along the edge of his shoe. Its resilience was impressive.
—Xiao Xie’s abilities were the complete opposite of everyone else’s. They were guardians, gentle rain. Xiao Xie was the virus, the judgment. The black, viscous fluid in his body acted like venom: it didn’t just burn and stop a plant from regenerating. It gradually weakened the whole plant, making it wither and die, ensuring no next spring would come.
What surprised Sheng Jiang even more was that Wu Heng showed no hesitation at all while cutting down the plant, not a trace of panic or loss of control from the pain.
The poppy vines were practically dying from it!
Its body softened from the pain, its swings grew weaker, and corpses kept dropping from its branches.
“Does it hurt?” Sheng Jiang still couldn’t help but ask. “Don’t overdo it—you could die.”
“It’s okay,” Wu Heng said, a faint smile curling his lips.
No sooner had he spoken than several vines shot toward him and Shen Jiang. Sheng Jiang grabbed Wu Heng, pulling him behind the shield, which rattled loudly from the impact.
Sheng Jiang’s hair fell loose as he looked down at Wu Heng, half his height. “Looks like Xiao Xie really cares about you. As Xiao Xie’s older brother, I’ll protect you the same way.”
Before his words even faded, the plant smashed into the shield, exploding into countless branches. The fragments shot out, then looped back from behind them, forming a deadly net.
Wu Heng had a bad feeling. Whether or not the poppy still recognized him, they were symbiotic. The ferocity of its attacks came directly from his emotions. He’d have to empty himself—let go, surrender, give up—for the mutated plant to soften.
But that wasn’t realistic. If he gave up resisting, he’d just become fertilizer for the poppy.
“Little brother?” In a brief lull, Wu Heng grabbed Sheng Jiang’s wrist. “Is that what the class monitor calls you?”
Before the young man could answer, he suddenly got kicked in the stomach. He shot out of a gap in the vines. Inside that narrow space, Wu Heng’s youthful, delicate face was frighteningly calm.
“I raise it myself. I manage it myself,” Wu Heng said lightly, his tone icy.
The plant thrashed and grew wildly, its tips reaching over the base walls. The zombie tide was kept outside, feeding it as it fueled its own growth. The poppy vines swamped Wu Heng.
But all he had in his hand was the knife Xie Chongyi had given him—it was now his only tool, his teacher’s rod.
He spun and charged toward the poppy’s roots. Behind him, the vines froze mid-motion. Realizing what he was doing, they lunged after him.
Bodies were shredded into flying pieces. Wu Heng got slammed into the ground. Before he could even get up, the sound of air tearing behind him told him where the next strike would come from. To save time, he swung the knife backward as he scrambled to his feet.
The green sap on the blade told him he’d hit.
But a wave of dizziness followed immediately.
The vines wavered between pursuing and giving up—but chose pursuit. They blocked his path with side branches. When his blade cut toward them, they quickly moved aside.
Wu Heng had a more precise understanding of the poppy’s roots and main trunk than anyone.
They weren’t growing in fertile soil. No pile of zombie corpses fed them from below. Instead, their roots pierced countless corpses, stacking them at the center, feeding nonstop.
Wu Heng planted his feet firmly near the roots. When the thrashing vines reached him, they stopped their chase. Here, it was like standing inside a massive green tower, the outside world completely blocked off.
He tilted his head back. The stench of rotting flesh and blood swirled through the poppy’s roots and stalks—and coursed through the veins and bones of his own body.
The poppy vines were staring at him too.
Beyond the fullness of its feast, under the gaze of its old master, fear began to grow.
It had chewed up its old master, yet now it felt insignificant.
Rage twisted it further into madness. It bent its main trunk down, and its leaves brushed against its former master’s forehead.
“Using self-abuse to discipline yourself isn’t exactly wise,” Wu Heng said, his expression dark and disdainful. “And you’re not worthy of it.”
With that, he slashed his own palm, blood gushing forth.
Far outside, Shen Ping’an was clearing zombie corpses and stray branches around the poppy vines. Suddenly, his body stiffened. He still held a blade, but the green in his eyes dimmed for no reason.
Xue Shen kicked away a zombie lunging at Shen Ping’an and shoved him. “Daydreaming?”
The push sent Shen Ping’an collapsing to the ground.
A small, snake-like vine wriggled out of his mouth.
It coiled across his face, raising its thin tip, scanning left and right as if finding its way.
In an instant, it slithered into the dense jungle, across countless zombie corpses, blood spraying in its wake.
By the time it emerged at the edge of the forest, it had grown countless times larger than when it left Shen Ping’an’s body.
A bloodless arm reached toward it.
The vine bent its body as far as it could, pressing its most fragile leaves against the palm reaching up.
It was an honor to accept the invitation of the true master.
The vine surged into Wu Heng’s body. His icy hand clenched tight, the space the native had occupied being violently compressed.
The poppy vines across the ground thrashed with furious rage. They reached out their claws, even trying to tear Wu Heng apart to crush the intruder. The two plants twisted and entwined in a deadly struggle.
A human heart, no bigger than a fist, withstood the entanglement of two mutated plants. The side aligned with human will was, without question, the side that won.
The native plant was completely driven out by the intruder, far stronger than itself—even though it clung to every part of Wu Heng: his gently beating heart, his slowly expanding lungs, his nearly invisible pancreas, even the vertebrae running through his upper body…
The pain of being forcibly separated felt like countless daggers stabbing straight into Wu Heng. He collapsed, curling up, unable to stop convulsing. His face was deathly pale, sweat running down, making his skin look almost paper-white and delicate.
The ones feeling intense pain weren’t just the human; the mutated plant also felt it. The influence of the zombies was negligible here; the plant regained its consciousness, from the inside out.
The successor had already taken its place. Wu Heng lay on the ground. The reddish roots fed greedily on every dead thing around, while simultaneously trying to consume the native plant.
The native couldn’t survive without Wu Heng. Weakened, even the frenzied vines around it became docile.
Wu Heng ignored it.
He strode over to Shen Ping’an, cut off one of his own fingers, and placed it into the boy’s mouth.
Shen Ping’an’s body, already stiff and bluish, twitched twice as his muscles contracted. Then he gasped, suddenly opening his eyes.
“What… is this?” Shen Ping’an sat up, wiggling his fingers. He felt the energy that had just left him return, stronger than before.
“You can interpret it however you want, but I don’t have time to explain right now,” Wu Heng said.
With that, he vanished from Shen Ping’an’s sight. A blade appeared above the swaying green forest not far away. As it cut down, Wu Heng’s full body finally became visible—the native plant’s trunk split in half.
He yanked it out of the zombie pile and tossed it onto a nearby open patch. From the outside, it looked like nothing more than an ordinary clump of grass.
The soft, slow steps of a feline-like presence sounded as Wu Heng stood in front of it. “Do you remember what I said last time?”
He asked again, “Do you remember what I said a few hours ago?”
“You’re greedy, not very smart, always forgetting. I didn’t hold it against you. Just because of an evolved zombie, you found yourself a strong enough excuse. But have you thought about this? Even if you were manipulated, I don’t tolerate betrayal.”
Wu Heng felt a little hurt, a little disappointed. He squatted down, cut the now-wilted native plant into pieces, and fed them into his mouth.
The plant tasted completely bitter—no different from a normal, unmutated plant. This clearly showed that whether it was the poppy itself or its branches, they were just different vessels for mutated plant energy.
Without Wu Heng, they were all ordinary, nothing special.
The vines vanished completely. The zombie pile was riddled with holes. The tide of corpses surged again—bloody, broken limbs everywhere. From it, a soft poppy sprouted. Unlike the previous one, it wasn’t clingy. It popped up and immediately leaned against Wu Heng.
It stood tall, steady, waiting for instructions.
Wu Heng, sharing a connection with it, of course knew what it was thinking. He kicked a severed zombie hand toward it. “Eat.”
Once it received permission, the soft, harmless-looking plant suddenly grew thick and strong, taking over the entire open space. It fed more brutally and aggressively than the native plant, while still clearing nearby zombies.
Clearly, its personality was completely different from before.
In the corner, Wu Heng found X, utterly exhausted and sleeping like a dead pig. Only a few crows remained in the sky—they must have exerted a lot of effort.
…
At the rest station, Wu Heng drank several big jugs of water. He glimpsed a few severely injured guards lying in the hallway but looked away without a reaction.
Outside the windows, Sheng Jiang and Wu Dian were still fighting atop the walls.
Shen Ping’an refilled Wu Heng’s water again, saying, “Without Ji Zhelan, the zombie tide is much easier to clear. We can finally catch our breath.”
But he quickly added, “That said, if the zombie tide doesn’t end, the base and the ability users can’t sustain such high consumption for too long.”
Wu Heng gulped down water, letting out a muffled “hm” between swallows.
“Wu Heng, what exactly just happened?”
He paused mid-drink. “Nothing… I just planted a more obedient poppy inside you.”
“I see.” Shen Ping’an, naturally silent to the extreme, quietly felt the energy surging through his body.
Maybe it was because of what Wu Heng said, but since waking up, he felt his desire to submit to Wu Heng growing stronger than ever, almost impossible to resist.
He glanced at Wu Heng, then quickly looked away, inexplicably feeling like that little look had been rude.
“I want to go see the class monitor,” Wu Heng said after finishing his water, a tight knot forming in his chest as he thought of Xie Chongyi’s face earlier.
“I’ll take you there.”
Dou Lu was guarding Xie Chongyi. She was leaning against the headboard, nodding off, but the sound of footsteps made her immediately wake and eye the door warily.
Seeing Shen Ping’an’s expressionless, coffin-like face, she relaxed. “Oh, it’s you. Everything outside okay?”
Then she saw Wu Heng behind Shen Ping’an. His complexion looked much better than before.
“Wu Heng, you’re alright?” Dou Lu exclaimed in relief. She ran up to him and started firmly kneading his shoulders and arms. “We were all worried sick! That plant of yours was crazy, totally psycho—tied me up like some… b*ndage play!”
She showed Wu Heng her wrist, wrapped in a few layers of gauze.
Wu Heng said, “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine, just a scratch. The real worry is the class monitor.” Mentioning Xie Chongyi, her face darkened. “He’s unconscious… and half his face…” She couldn’t finish and stepped aside, letting the two of them go see him.
Shen Ping’an strode straight ahead.
Wu Heng, on the other hand, hesitated where he was, clutching X tightly. His emotions were a tangled mess—part nervous about returning, part something deeper he couldn’t put into words.
After a long moment, he finally made his way to the bedside.
Wu Heng handed X into Shen Ping’an’s arms, then bent down and gently pushed aside the stray hair over Xie Chongyi’s eyes.
His brow and eye sockets were fine, but the cheek and jaw on one side looked like something had eaten away at it—flesh and skin shriveled and blackened, forming a harsh, cruel line of contrast with the rest of his face.
Fortunately, the bone wasn’t exposed—if it had been, it would have been far worse.
Dou Lu, standing behind, eyes red, muttered, “Not that there were any real handsome guys left anyway… we’ll see if Dr. Chen can fix him.”
Wu Heng didn’t react. He withdrew his hand, bent his waist lower, and leaned his head close to the corroded side of Xie Chongyi’s face, lightly inhaling.
The familiar scent hit his nose. A small glint appeared in the boy’s eyes.
Relieved—thankfully, it still smelled the same.