Chapter 651: It Has Nothing to Do With the Flesh Flower
“It’s normal that someone would know you can control plants.” Zhao Ru shrugged, looking at An Ran. “You’re powerful, and people talk too much in Hexi. After the last few days, your ability’s bound to attract attention from those with bad intentions.”
Anyone who had escaped from Hexi already knew about An Ran’s power. Even those who hadn’t seen it with their own eyes had heard stories of how she could manipulate plants in miraculous ways.
So if someone wanted to free themselves from her control, setting fire to destroy the vegetation was a logical move.
Unfortunately, by burning An Ran’s plants, they had also disrupted her line of sight—doing Chen Chaofa a huge favor in the process.
People from the first floor were running upward, while those on the top floors were fleeing down.
On the fifth floor, Yun Tao soon arrived with the children, stopping near An Ran’s door.
Liu Shasha watched anxiously through the peephole, terrified he might knock. If he did, she knew she’d be torn over whether to open it.
But Yun Tao didn’t knock. He led the children past their door, heading toward the staff rest room at the end of the hall. There, he guided the kids inside to hide, then turned back toward the emergency stairs, clearly planning to go down and rescue more.
“Something’s off.” An Ran closed her eyes again, frowning deeply. “The plants are being affected.”
“What kind of effect?” Zhao Ru sat beside her, grasping An Ran’s hand with concern.
“Do you remember when we traveled from Tiesi Village to Xiang City,” An Ran said, rubbing her temple, “how there was a stretch where I felt blind and deaf?” Seeing Zhao Ru’s face change, she continued quietly, “Unfortunately, it’s happening again.”
“What is it? An Ran, are you hurt? Do you need me to heal you?”
Liu Shasha immediately raised her hands, palms glowing faintly with energy, ready to release her ability the moment An Ran nodded.
But before An Ran could answer, Zhao Ru turned back and waved her off. “It’s no use. Even your ability won’t help.”
This wasn’t An Ran’s body failing—it was the plants themselves that had severed their connection with her.
Zhao Ru remembered the last time this had happened, then turned back to An Ran and asked, “Is there some kind of plant inside this Grand Fortune Hotel that you can’t control? Or did that new Flesh Flower from Hexi turn against you again?”
“It has nothing to do with the Flesh Flower.”
An Ran pressed her hand to her forehead. The Flesh Flower was still in her mind, devouring relentlessly.
The people inside this Grand Fortune Hotel were too relaxed, killing each other as if nothing else existed. Did they really think that just because Chen Chaofa blew up Hexi, the world had returned to peace—that no new creatures stronger than humans would appear?
They were wrong.
The only reason things had been quiet was because the Flesh Flower was still rampaging across Hexi, devouring the mutated wolf packs there. That was why the Snow Wolves hadn’t crossed the river into Hedong to attack humans yet.
Mutated beasts reproduced terrifyingly fast—far faster than zombies. In no time, just a couple of surviving Snow Wolves could grow into an entire pack again.
Looking back, maybe it would’ve been better if the mutated wolves had crossed the river. At least then, humans might’ve had less energy to waste slaughtering each other.
An Ran shook her head, eyes closed. It was useless—her mental image grew blurrier by the second. The first to go were the plants on the upper floors. The hotel spanned dozens of stories; the top floor was already engulfed in flames, and one by one, the plants beneath it were cutting off from her control.