The morning light poured through the valley entrance, dyeing the sea of flowers gold.
The blood pool at the bottom of Hundred Flowers Valley had long since dried up, replaced by the endless flower sea White Peace had single-handedly nurtured.
Flowers of every color bloomed in layers, transforming last night’s battlefield littered with corpses into a dreamscape that didn’t belong to the Apocalypse.
But dreams must end eventually.
The group packed up and began walking out of the valley.
Leading the way was White Peace.
Wherever she stepped, flowers bloomed underfoot. The once sheer cliffs now had a long staircase woven from flower vines beneath her.
She walked barefoot on the soft petals, her white hair reaching her waist, her black skirt dotted with a few tiny fragments of petals.
Wherever she passed, the wildflowers on either side bent outward automatically, like servants seeing off their mistress.
Little Frost walked second, pushing her rusty bicycle.
White Night’s soul body floated above the bike basket, much more solid than before entering the valley.
A faint golden halo surrounded the edges of her soul form, making her look like a translucent real person in the morning light.
Gu Jiao walked in the middle.
The sandalwood beehive on her back was quiet, but the cloth strip wrapped around her shoulder oozed a dark ring of bloodstains.
Her steps were unsteady, but her eyes were much clearer than before entering the valley.
Mu Yingying brought up the rear, carrying the Tang Dao on her shoulder, occasionally glancing back at the valley entrance.
Her hand never left the hilt, maintaining her vigilance.
The path out was far easier than the way in.
The thorn vines on the valley walls had all withered, because the moment the Seven-Colored Flower was pulled out, the entire power of Hundred Flowers Valley began to collapse.
Those once vibrant exotic flowers were now only gray withered stalks and curled, shriveled leaves.
But the road wasn’t empty of others.
Far fewer people walked out alive than they had expected.
On the day Hundred Flowers Valley opened, over three hundred people had flooded in.
But now, on the slope at the valley entrance, only a dozen or so staggering figures could be seen scattered about.
White Night’s gaze swept over them one by one.
A one-armed man sat by the roadside.
His left arm was severed at the shoulder, the wound sealed with a black scab, looking like an old injury.
But White Night remembered him. On the day they entered the valley, she had watched this burly man swallow a red flower, and his severed arm regrew on the spot.
He still wore the same torn gray shirt now, but the regrown arm was gone.
The flower had withered.
Everything the flower had given was taken back.
He clutched a golden-glowing flower tightly to his chest, staring blankly at the ground, completely unresponsive to passersby.
The flower’s glow was dimmed by more than half, the edges of its petals starting to turn black. Soon, it would become a pile of withered residue.
Further ahead, two women supporting each other came out from a side path.
One’s face was horribly lacerated by thorns, her left eye nothing but a bloody black socket.
The other kept speaking urgently into her ear, but she couldn’t hear anything—both ears had been pierced by thorns, her ear canals clogged with dried black blood.
They passed White Night.
The one-eyed woman swept her remaining right eye over White Night for a second, then averted her gaze and continued stumbling forward.
Not far away, an old man knelt by the roadside, groping repeatedly in the mud, mumbling to himself.
“The flower… where’s my flower… It was right in my hand…”
There was nothing in his hands.
Maybe he had grabbed one at the valley bottom and lost it on the way out.
Maybe he had never grabbed one at all and just gone insane.
White Night looked at each of them in turn.
They had walked out alive.
But the light in their eyes had gone out.
It wasn’t the dimness of drained cultivation, but the extinguishing of a person’s last hope to keep living.
In Hundred Flowers Valley, they had staked everything on the flowers.
Those who won gambled took their power and fled far away; those who lost became flower fertilizer.
And those who dropped out midway ended up with nothing, caught between both outcomes.
Gu Jiao remained silent the entire way.
White Peace never once looked back at any of the survivors.
She didn’t walk fast; her steps were steady, as if she were touring a ruin that had nothing to do with her.
Five thousand eight hundred years—she had seen scenes like this too many times.
The collapse of a world, the burial of a city, the extinction of all life on a continent—in her memory, they were just insignificant frames in countless reincarnation cycles.
By noon, the earthen walls of Hundred Flowers Town finally came into view.
The gray rammed earth walls bleached white under the sun.
The sharp wooden stakes and barbed wire on the wall were still there, the dark bloodstains hanging from them long dried to black.
A sentinel spotted them from afar, first raising his crossbow, then recognizing Gu Jiao walking in the middle. He immediately lowered his weapon and blew his whistle.
The sharp whistle carried far in the noon air.
At the town gate, the guard who had stopped them last time came running out.
Seeing Gu Jiao covered in blood and with bandages on her shoulder, his face changed dramatically.
“Sister Gu! You—”
Gu Jiao raised her hand to stop him.
“I’m fine. Go notify everyone—gather at the trading zone square tonight. I have something to say.”
The guard acknowledged and ran off.
As he left, his gaze swept over White Peace, a hint of confusion in his eyes.
But he didn’t dare ask. Everyone who came back from this trip to Hundred Flowers Valley seemed strange, and asking too many questions could bring trouble.
Another guard’s gaze landed on White Night. He instinctively took half a step back, his hand immediately moving to his sword hilt.
White Night’s soul body was far more solid than before entering the valley.
Before, she was semi-transparent, like a glowing fog.
Now, her outline was so clear she almost looked real, the golden halo at her edges flickering faintly in the sunlight, making her look just like a Weirdness.
Little Frost shot him a cold glance.
The guard’s hand quickly retreated.
They entered the town gate.
There were far fewer people on the streets than before they left.
Some squatted in corners staring into space, others wrapped in blankets huddled under eaves, shivering.
Some walked with their heads down, their steps as mechanical as a wound-up puppet.
A middle-aged woman suddenly rushed out of an alley, grabbing Gu Jiao’s arm with a force that made Gu Jiao stumble.
“Sister Gu! My brother! Zhou Dazhuang! Six foot one, a scar on his face—did you see him?!”
Gu Jiao opened her mouth.
She had seen Zhou Dazhuang.
On the slope inside the valley, he had charged ahead to grab a flower, killed two people attacking him, and was himself stabbed in the back by a third.
As he fell, he still clutched a flower tightly, but that flower was eventually pried from his hand by his opponent.
Gu Jiao remembered that scene.
But she couldn’t say it.
Not a single word.
The woman understood her expression.
That kind of mouth opening and closing without sound was too common in this Apocalypse.
Every time, it meant the same answer.
The woman’s hand slipped from Gu Jiao’s arm, and she collapsed to the ground as if all her bones had been pulled out.
Gu Jiao stood there, silent.
Little Frost walked past her, pushing her bicycle, without stopping.
Scenes like this—stopping wouldn’t help anyway.
Mu Yingying glanced down at the woman as she passed, her lips moving, but ultimately saying nothing.
White Peace led the way, never looking back.
They returned to the small flat-roofed house in the corner near the wall.
The iron lock on the door was intact, but a pool of dried black blood stained the doorstep.
Mu Yingying crouched down to look, scraping a bit of the dried residue with her nail and sniffing it.
“Human blood.”
Gu Jiao’s face darkened, but she said nothing.
Little Frost unlocked the door and pushed it open.
Everything inside was as they had left it—the chipped wooden table, the water vat, the old plank bed—all covered in a thin layer of dust, but undisturbed.
Little Frost leaned her bicycle against the wall, pulled out a soft cloth from her bag, and began meticulously wiping the frame.
This was her daily ritual. No matter where she was, no matter what happened, this habit was never broken.
Mu Yingying flopped her big fat butt heavily onto the plank bed, making it creak loudly.
She tilted her pale neck back and let out a long sigh.
“Finally, a chance to rest. Those two days in Hundred Flowers Valley almost broke my old back.”
Gu Jiao leaned against the doorframe, looking at the others inside the room, hesitating to speak.
White Peace stood at the doorway, her gaze sweeping over the room’s sparse furnishings before finally landing on White Night, her eyes softening slightly.
“You live in a place like this?”
Little Frost didn’t look up, continuing to wipe the bike.
“Is there a problem?”
“No problem. I just think, given White Night’s status, she should live better.”
Little Frost’s hand paused for a moment. She didn’t respond, but her wiping became noticeably more forceful.
Mu Yingying quickly intervened.
“Oh, come on—it’s the Apocalypse. Having a roof over your head is good enough. Beauty Auntie, don’t be too picky, okay?”
White Peace glanced at her.
“I’m not picky. Wherever White Night stays, I stay.”
The sound of cloth rubbing against the bike frame immediately became sharper.
White Night shrank a little in the bike basket, sensing the atmosphere in the room turning delicate.
Evening came.
The sunset painted the small window of the house a warm orange.
They had sat resting all afternoon, each tending to their injuries or resting their minds.
Little Frost had wiped her bicycle three times. Gu Jiao stayed motionless, leaning against the doorframe. Mu Yingying had just woken up from a nap.
White Peace sat cross-legged in the corner, eyes closed, as if sensing something.
Gu Jiao finally spoke, her voice very low.
“White Night, thank you. If it weren’t for you all, I definitely wouldn’t have made it back this time.”
White Night floated above the bike basket, looking at her.
“Sister Gu, you don’t have to—”
“Let me finish.”
Gu Jiao cut her off, then paused, pulling a small cloth bundle from her chest.
Opening it revealed a black stone the size of a thumb, its surface rough, like a piece of burnt coal slag.
“This is called a Weird Stone.”
Gu Jiao continued.
“If you press it against your wrist and it heats up, it means there’s Eerie Factor in your body.”
“Every month, someone from the Forbidden Area sends a batch of Weird Stones. I’m in charge of organizing town-wide testing.”
“Those who test positive are gathered, and the townspeople vote on what to do—either locked in Death Prison for isolation, or expelled from the town.”
Gu Jiao clenched the Weird Stone, her knuckles turning white.
“When you came last time, I told you about this rule.”
“But what I didn’t tell you was—the people who were expelled never actually left the town.”
The room fell silent.
Mu Yingying sat up abruptly.
Little Frost’s hand stopped on the bike frame.
White Peace opened her eyes.
“What do you mean?” Mu Yingying asked.
“They were taken into the Forbidden Area.”
Gu Jiao’s voice was bone-dry.
“The person in charge of the Forbidden Area is called Lao Xing. He’s a Flower Planter Artisan.”
“He’s growing a black flower. That flower… uses humans as fertilizer.”
Little Frost lifted her head, her eyes fixed on Gu Jiao.
“How long have you known about this?”
“…A year. I’ve suspected it since last year, but I had no proof.”
“And Lao Xing controls the flower garden in the town—it’s the town’s food source.”
“I… didn’t dare to fall out with him.”
She lowered her head, her shoulders trembling slightly.
The room was quiet for a long time.
So long that the sunset outside sank halfway, the orange light turning into a dark, bloody red.
White Night spoke softly.
“Sister Gu, you’re telling us this now because you don’t want to endure it anymore, right?”
Gu Jiao nodded. “Yes. I don’t want to endure it anymore.”
“This trip to Hundred Flowers Valley nearly killed me. You saved me.”
“If I keep pretending I don’t know, keep helping Lao Xing with testing, voting, and sending people…”
She took a deep breath, her voice trembling but firm.
“I’ll never forgive myself for the rest of my life.”
Outside the window, the sun had fully set.
In the distance, the Forbidden Area, surrounded by black iron sheets, stood like a silent gravestone in the twilight.
White Night’s compass needle suddenly shifted slightly.
A continuous abnormal signal, pointing directly toward the Forbidden Area.
White Peace suddenly spoke.
“Something in that direction is breathing.”
“Breathing?”
“Not a person’s breath. It’s flowers.”
“Many, many flowers, packed together, breathing slowly.”
She turned to look at Gu Jiao.
“You said Lao Xing was growing a black flower. How long has he been growing it?”
“Nearly three years. At least three years.”
White Peace paused for a moment.
“Three years. That flower has already grown into something.”
Night fell.
The Red Moon hung high.
White Night kept watch, looking through the small window’s gap at the Forbidden Area, where a faint black light pulsed on and off.
It wasn’t lamplight or firelight.
The light rose and fell with a breathing rhythm—darkening on the inhale, brightening on the exhale, slow and long.
Her compass needle never deviated from that direction, the tip glowing with a faint dark red light.
Not an alarm. A confirmation.
Something was definitely there.
White Peace sat against the wall, eyes closed.
Her fingertips tapped gently on her knees, a steady rhythm.
It wasn’t random tapping.
It was a heartbeat-like rhythm.
But not her own heartbeat.
It was the sound of the black flower in the Forbidden Area.