Chapter 623: It Looks So Small
The tunnel was still being dug. According to An Ran’s orders, it had to reach all the way beneath the Grand Fortune Hotel’s base.
Didn’t those people love bombing? Didn’t they treat other lives as if they were their own disposable playthings?
Fine, then. Let them bomb.
She would dig this tunnel right under their feet—and if the heavens willed it, maybe one day the ground itself would collapse beneath their arrogance.
As the sound of digging echoed in the distance, An Ran turned toward the fleshy flower beside her. Its tentacles twitched and curled, slick and restless.
She looked at it with quiet emotion and whispered, “You used to be so big. And now… you look so small.”
Perhaps it was malnourished, or perhaps too much of its energy had been spent protecting her, but the mighty creature that had once towered over Xiangcheng—the one that could engulf an entire district—was now frail and thin. Its bulb was no larger than a basketball, its stem barely as thick as an adult’s arm. Even with its roots and leaves combined, it wasn’t bigger than An Ran’s villa.
It needed food. A lot of it. Only then could it return to its true form.
An Ran hummed softly under her breath, reaching out to feel the pulse of its inner world.
The flesh flower was still cruel by nature—still a predator—but no longer wild and unruly. It listened to her now. It understood her.
She ran her fingers over one of its warm, fleshy tendrils. She couldn’t even tell if it was a root, a stem, or a bud anymore—they all looked and moved alike.
Gently, as if soothing a child, she said, “We have to leave this place. Bombs could fall any time. You’re still too weak, and there’s little to eat here in this frozen wasteland. Don’t get yourself blown apart before you’ve even grown up.”
Then she turned her head and called out to Little Mint, who sat nearby, playing absentmindedly with Doll.
“Mint, help me find the Fat Thorn Ball’s nucleus. I don’t know where it was blown to.” Her voice trembled slightly with grief.
At advanced stages of evolution, every mutant plant became something like a child to her—alive, aware, connected through their shared bond. She had raised the Fat Thorn Ball from an ordinary parasitic sprout into a giant, octopus-like creature. It had fought for her, sheltered her, and grown with her. She couldn’t just let it vanish without a trace.
Little Mint quickly began searching, and before long, she returned with the crystal core—a small, spindle-shaped gem about the size of a palm.
An Ran accepted it carefully, brushing away the ice and dirt. “Good,” she murmured.
Then she turned to the fleshy flower and gave it a silent command.
The ground trembled slightly as the creature obeyed. The small, basketball-sized flower lifted itself up, its roots retracting and slithering through the cracks in the frozen tunnel. Its tendrils stretched endlessly, like veins spreading beneath the earth, carrying it deeper underground.
This place—the hollow, layered ice tunnels—was actually ideal for nesting. But An Ran knew better.
“Go deeper,” she instructed quietly. “Hide yourself. Don’t make the same mistake as before. Don’t let humans find you again.”
The weather was harsh, the air thin and cold. This was the worst possible time for a flesh flower to awaken. If not for An Ran’s strengthened abilities—her deeper communion with plants—and the emotional resonance of her anger and despair, the creature would never have sprouted at all. It should have stayed dormant until spring.
But it had felt her rage. Her grief. Her loss.
The Fat Thorn Ball was gone, and the other plants were too weak to defend her. The flesh flower had sensed that she needed it—and it had answered.
Now, their thoughts were one.
An Ran wanted to retreat deeper, to survive, to rebuild—and so did the flesh flower.
Both understood the same truth: if they didn’t bury themselves far enough below the surface, if they weren’t careful, the next explosion could reduce them to nothing.