Chapter 68 Part 2: Piranha Plant

Lao Wu stared at her for a long time.

He was trying to gauge whether this woman was a spy sent by Fatty Zhou.

Finally, he sighed.

He probably figured that a woman who dared to come to the slums to hand him a whole compressed biscuit couldn’t possibly be one of Fatty Zhou’s people.

Fatty Zhou’s people wouldn’t even step foot in the mud here.

“Your friend… she’s not coming back.”

His voice was dry and raspy.

“Mid-last month, on the night you mentioned, I happened to be digging through the trash pile near the town gate.”

“I saw two people in grey robes dragging someone toward the forbidden area.”

“The person being dragged was struggling desperately, shouting, ‘I’m not infected! You’ve got the wrong person!’”

“The grey-robed one punched him in the back of the head. He went limp on the spot, and they dragged him off. His shoes left two long streaks in the dirt.”

“The next day I passed by the drainage ditch outside the forbidden area and saw a puddle of black blood.”

“It smelled rotten.”

Mu Yingying’s brow furrowed tighter and tighter.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

Lao Wu let out a dry laugh that turned into a cough.

“Tell who? Tell Sister Gu? She can’t do anything about the forbidden area.”

“Tell Fatty Zhou? He’s an accomplice!”

“I’m just a crippled old man. If I spoke up, I’d be the next one dragged into the forbidden area.”

He lowered his head, clutching the compressed biscuit tightly to his chest, his voice dropping even lower.

“And it’s not just last month. Over these past few years, I’ve been picking through the trash by that drainage ditch. Every so often I see black blood.”

“Sometimes a lot, sometimes a little. Lately it’s been more and more frequent.”

“At first I thought it was fertilizer seeping out from the flower greenhouse. Then one time, I saw half a fingernail in the black blood.”

Mu Yingying shot to her feet.

She pulled another compressed biscuit from her pocket and shoved it into Lao Wu’s hands.

“Old Wu, don’t worry. This time, someone will handle it.”

Lao Wu looked up at her, a complex emotion flickering in his clouded eyes.

Half was doubt. Half was a hope that had been extinguished for too long and didn’t dare rekindle.

“Girl, don’t talk big. Everyone in this town who talked big ended up as flower fertilizer.”

Mu Yingying grinned, pulling at the vicious scar that ran from her temple to her jaw, making her look both fierce and roguish.

“Relax. I don’t have many skills, but there’s one thing: I never go back on my word.”

She turned and walked out of the slums.

Just as she left the shantytown, the black chess piece in her pocket gave off a faint warmth, so brief it felt like an illusion.

Mu Yingying paused, touched her pocket. The piece had already gone cold again.

She glanced toward the forbidden area, didn’t think much of it, and continued toward the small house.

That evening, three groups returned to the small house one after another.

Little Frost spoke first, her tone calm.

“In Fatty Zhou’s relief grain registry, the names crossed out by the Red Hall all have the word ‘Forbidden’ next to them.”

“Just this month alone, a full page has been crossed out. It’s accelerating—at first they only sent someone away once in a while, but now almost every day someone disappears.”

She tossed the bag of moldy oats onto the table. It landed with a dull thud.

“Also, every few days, Fatty Zhou sends a shipment to the forbidden area.”

“Officially it’s to support greenhouse research, but no one knows what’s actually inside.”

Mu Yingying followed up, her tone sour.

“Lao Wu saw it with his own eyes. The positive cases they claim to have expelled from town never left. They were taken straight into the forbidden area by grey robes.”

“In the drainage ditch there’s black blood mixed with broken bones. It’s been there for years, and lately it’s been flowing more and more.”

She leaned back against the wooden bed, the playful glint in her peach-blossom eyes gone.

“At this rate, they’ll drain all the drifters in town before long.”

White Peace spoke last, her voice still flat, but her words carried immense weight.

“The soil around the forbidden area is completely soaked in human blood. The remains of hundreds of people have seeped into it.”

“That flower has already grown strong, but its flowering period hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Once it blooms, the whole town dies with it.”

She glanced at Gu Jiao, who was sitting on the doorstep.

“Old Xing values that flower more than his own life. Whoever touches it, he’ll kill.”

Gu Jiao sat on the doorstep, silent for a long time after everyone finished speaking.

The dusk grew deeper. Her face was hidden in shadow, unreadable.

But White Night could feel her entire presence sinking.

It was something heavier than anger or fear—a suffocating weight of guilt.

“So.”

Gu Jiao finally spoke, her voice eerily calm.

“Fatty Zhou uses relief grain to screen out drifters with no one to care for them, then sends them to Old Xing as flower fertilizer.”

“Old Xing uses these people to raise the flower, extracts Weird Stones, and sells them through Fatty Zhou.”

“Some of the stones stay in town for detection. Some are sold outside in exchange for supplies.”

“And I…”

Her voice cracked, turning tearful.

“I used the Weird Stones refined from human lives to run detection for the whole town, and I personally sent the people they marked as positives straight into the forbidden area.”

The room fell dead silent.

The candle flame flickered in the draft, and the shadows of the group writhed on the wall like ghosts.

“Ever since I took over this job,”

Gu Jiao’s hands dug into the wooden threshold, her nails embedding into the grain, drawing blood.

“I’ve sent in so many people that I’ve lost count.”

Little Frost said nothing.

Mu Yingying said nothing either.

White Peace leaned against the wall, eyes closed, as if listening to a story that had nothing to do with her.

White Night spoke softly.

“Sister Gu, you didn’t know.”

“Not knowing still makes me an accomplice.”

Gu Jiao’s voice was hoarse and dry.

“I should have looked into it long ago. I just didn’t dare.”

“I was afraid that if I found out the truth, I wouldn’t know how to face those people. I wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Now you know.”

White Peace suddenly opened her eyes, looking at her.

“What are you going to do?”

Gu Jiao shot up from the doorstep.

She turned and faced the direction of the forbidden area.

In the twilight, the silhouette of that black iron fence looked like a scar that would never heal.

“I’m going in.”

Her voice no longer trembled. It carried a grim resolve.

“I’m going to see with my own eyes exactly how many people that flower has devoured.”

“I owe them. I’ll pay it back myself.”

Just then, a knock came at the door.

Three knocks, neither fast nor slow, but carrying a deathly stillness.

Little Frost’s hand reached for the long spear leaning against the wall.

Mu Yingying sprang up from the bed, Tang Dao held crosswise in front of her.

White Peace didn’t even lift an eyelid.

Gu Jiao walked over and opened the door.

Outside stood a young man in a grey robe.

He was emaciated, the robe hanging loose on his frame.

His face was deathly pale, with hollow, dark-circled eyes as if he hadn’t slept in days.

The first thing White Night noticed was not his face, but his left hand.

Dirty bandages were wrapped around his fingertips, seeping dark blood.

Not bright red, but blackish, like ink mixed with blood.

“A Jiu.”

Gu Jiao recognized him.

A Jiu was Old Xing’s senior disciple. He was the one who delivered Weird Stones to the town every month.

A Jiu’s gaze swept quickly across the room.

He saw the long spear in Little Frost’s hand, the Tang Dao in Mu Yingying’s grip, and the faintly glowing White Night in the basket.

Finally, his eyes landed on White Peace in the corner.

The moment he saw her, he froze.

In his eyes was undisguised fear.

But beneath the fear was a hint of desperate, pleading hope.

He quickly averted his gaze and turned to Gu Jiao.

“Sister Gu.”

His voice was trembling, thick with exhaustion.

“My master… wants to see you.”

Gu Jiao frowned.

“Now? It’s already dark.”

“Yes, right now.”

A Jiu paused, leaned half a step closer, and lowered his voice until only Gu Jiao could barely hear.

“Sister Gu, you’d better… bring all your people with you.”

Gu Jiao’s brow furrowed even deeper.

“What do you mean?”

A Jiu didn’t answer.

He glanced again at White Peace, the fear and hope in his eyes even stronger.

White Night understood.

A Jiu wasn’t here to deliver a message.

He was here to beg for help.

With White Peace present, the group wasn’t afraid of any tricks, so they headed straight to the forbidden area.

The iron gate of the forbidden area was extremely thick.

The metal plates were two fingers wide, painted with cracked and peeling black paint, revealing rusty spots underneath.

A new, unfamiliar hidden lock hung on the gate, unlike the simple iron latch commonly seen in town.

Two grey-robed guards with short knives at their waists stood at the entrance. When they saw A Jiu, they immediately bowed their heads and stepped aside.

A Jiu walked straight to the iron gate, took a black key from around his neck, and inserted it into the hidden lock. With a click, the iron gate swung open.

A damp, rotting stench surged out.

The smell hit them, making Mu Yingying gag.

“Hold it in.”

Little Frost said quietly, frowning.

Gu Jiao’s face was ashen, but instead of stepping back, she tightened her grip on the door frame and crossed the threshold.

White Peace, the last one in, paused as she stepped through the iron gate—her perception triggered.

Then her pitch-black eyes flickered slightly, and she followed.

The iron gate slammed shut behind them. The metallic clang echoed through the forbidden area.

From his perch on Little Frost’s shoulder, White Night watched the compass needle spin wildly, its tip glowing a dull red.

The entire forbidden area was a zone of abnormal activity. She took a deep breath to calm her trembling and began to survey the scene.

The interior had been transformed into a massive greenhouse.

Above them, a canopy of metal frames and plastic sheeting caught dust and water stains, blocking out the moonlight.

Only the greasy yellow light of oil lamps hanging from the beams illuminated the space.

The ground was covered in soft, black soil that felt unnervingly springy underfoot.

This wasn’t ordinary dirt—it was something that had never fully decomposed from rot.

The soil was planted with pitch-black flowers, completely devoid of the vibrant colors of the strange flowers in Hundred Flower Valley.

Their thick, fleshy petals were lined with dark red veins, and their tightly closed, squirming buds looked particularly sinister.

The soil around each flower root was slightly raised from whatever was buried underneath. White Night knew exactly what it was.

White Peace had mentioned it earlier—it was the remains of many people, including bone fragments and unprocessed organic tissue.

“Don’t touch those flowers.”

A Jiu’s voice was dry from ahead.

“They haven’t bloomed yet. If you touch them, they bite.”