Chapter 659: They’ve Started Killing Again
Everyone who was supposed to be there was already gathered—everyone except Yun Tao. They were only waiting for him before deciding what to do next.
But where exactly had Yun Tao gone? Earlier, when chaos erupted and people began slaughtering each other, all they knew was that Yun Tao had gone upstairs with the children. Now, the children were here—but Yun Tao wasn’t. No one had seen him since.
A few hours passed. The fire at the top floor was finally brought under control before it spread downward. Zhan Lian and Luo Feifan went to the kitchen, bringing back a large pile of sausages to feed the hungry children.
The Grand Fortune Hotel’s power supply still ran around the clock, bright lights illuminating everything. But since they were now in the basement, buried under layers of snow, no one could tell whether it was day or night anymore. After all the chaos and tension, exhaustion set in. One by one, the survivors in the tearoom drifted off to sleep.
Zhan Lian sat at the entrance of the tearoom, his gaze fixed on the elevator across the hall. The elevator kept running up and down, stopping at the fourth floor multiple times. That could only mean one thing—more and more people were gathering there.
The lobby, meanwhile, was still littered with corpses left behind from the earlier battles. An Ran hadn’t touched them.
Now, every plant in the area was interconnected—disturb one, and it could affect them all. If she let her plants devour the corpses and one of them ended up absorbed by a high-level wood-type zombie, it would only make that zombie stronger. She wasn’t about to help them grow.
When it came to control, An Ran still had much to learn.
She sat quietly on a wooden meditation chair beneath the warm glow of an antique palace lantern. In her palm was the wood-type crystal core Little Mint had retrieved for her earlier. She hadn’t had a chance to use it before, but now that things had calmed, she intended to absorb it.
The wood-type core in her hand was about the size of a marble. Unlike the wood-type cores found inside mutated plants—which were essentially their seeds—this one came from a zombie.
Plant cores couldn’t be absorbed. Zombie cores could.
And as An Ran absorbed this one, the energy flowed through her effortlessly—smoother than any other core she’d taken in before. It filled her with warmth, like sunlight through spring mist, soft and invigorating.
A faint smile curved her lips. She lowered her hand slowly.
Beside her, Zhao Ru had been watching curiously the entire time. She leaned closer, kneeling by the armrest of An Ran’s chair, and asked eagerly, “Well? How does it feel? Like your power’s overflowing—like there’s a whole ocean of energy inside you?”
“Not quite that dramatic,” An Ran replied, her tone calm but thoughtful. “It just feels like my control has gotten stronger.”
She leaned back against the chair, head slightly bowed. The lantern’s amber light cast a soft glow on her neck and cheek. Her expression darkened.
“People on the fourth floor,” she murmured quietly, “have started killing each other again.”
The wood-type crystal core had enhanced her ability to command plants, giving her aura a force even stronger than that of the wood-type zombies. Ordinary plants were sensitive to strength—once they sensed her power surpassing the zombies’, they began returning to her, timidly restoring their connection.
Her field of perception expanded once more. She could “see” farther again—though not indefinitely. The control wouldn’t last forever. For now, it was only a temporary boost, a borrowed strength drawn from the energy of the wood-type crystal she had just absorbed.