Mutated Cactus

By the time Da Zhuang returned, Jiang You was standing on the balcony in a daze, holding the potted cactus.

"Meow~"

Da Zhuang had a flower-patterned mouse struggling frantically in his mouth. As soon as he entered, he proudly dropped it at Jiang You's feet.

The mouse was extremely plump. At a glance, it weighed at least two pounds. Its entire body was mottled with black, white, and yellow, and its eyes were bright red, like gemstones.

For once, Jiang You found a mouse rather delicate and pretty-looking.

Seeing her stare at the mouse, Da Zhuang proudly raised his tail.

Sure enough, no one could resist a plump, delicious flower-patterned mouse!

In the world of cats, calico was the most beautiful coloring.

Therefore, Da Zhuang felt that a calico mouse was also the most beautiful mouse in the rodent world.

Jiang You stared at the mouse for a few moments before finally looking away.

It was a mouse!

No matter how delicate and pretty it looked, it was still a mouse!!

Although Jiang You was gratified that Da Zhuang stubbornly wanted to invite her to "dinner," it really wasn't necessary.

She shook her head. "I really don't eat mice. You eat it yourself."

"Meow~"

You're just waiting for this great master to leave so you can sneak a bite, and you still won't admit it.

Hmph.

Da Zhuang tossed the flower-patterned mouse into the bathtub, waiting for Jiang You to sneak a bite later. Then he tiptoed over and jumped onto Jiang You's lap, staring at the cactus in her hands for a long time.

He looked at her in confusion.

What's that?

It smells kind of good!

He hesitated for one second before opening his mouth wide and taking a huge bite.

The cactus spines made him let out a sharp yowl, but he didn't stop chewing.

He chewed the cactus, spines and all, into mush and swallowed it.

Then he looked at the remaining cactus in Jiang You's hands, looking as if he really wanted to eat it.

Jiang You, however, was staring at the bite mark left in the cactus and suddenly noticed something.

A large chunk had been bitten off the cactus's thick leaf, exposing its translucent flesh. In the middle of that flesh was an extremely tiny transparent crystal.

The crystal was green and about the size of a sesame seed, but it was especially conspicuous amid the translucent flesh.

If Da Zhuang hadn't bitten straight through the cactus, Jiang You really wouldn't have noticed the thing.

She reached out, dug out the crystal, and placed it in her palm.

She gave the remaining cactus to Da Zhuang. "If you want to eat it, go ahead. This stuff clears internal heat."

Da Zhuang unceremoniously munched up the rest of the cactus. Although his mouth was covered in blisters from the spines, he was suffering and enjoying it at the same time.

Jiang You, however, examined the rice-grain-sized, transparent green object in her palm.

"This is... a crystal core?"

So this cactus was a mutated plant!

It was just that this mutated plant was far too weak, so she had never associated it with mutated plants at all.

Jiang You felt as though she had finally discovered how this cactus differed from other plants.

It was a mutated plant, which was why her blood could help it grow and evolve.

Ordinary plants could not.

Animals could not either.

In other words, perhaps only the gene sequences of mutated plants could absorb her blood. It was even possible that not all mutated plants could do so, but only specific ones.

Jiang You suddenly remembered the blood threads that had surged from her wound when she had cut off her little finger.

She seemed to have seen those blood threads somewhere before?

She remembered. It had been during a time when the Doctor and the others had conducted experiments too frequently. Her body's ability to repair itself had failed to keep up, and the wounds on her body had not healed as they usually did. Instead, they had begun to rot.

When she had been on the verge of death and the stench from the rotting flesh on her body had become so bad that the laboratory was already planning to throw her into the waters around Forbidden Island to feed the fish,

a mysterious research specimen had been secretly sent to the laboratory. It was said to be the thing that had caused a large base with several million people to be wiped out overnight.

More than ten thousand ability users, including many high-level ability users, had all died without a survivor.

And the process of obtaining it had been practically paved with blood from beginning to end.

She had heard the researchers mention during their conversations that they had used three large bases as bait and sacrificed countless survivors before finally succeeding in putting the thing into hibernation.

When Jiang You had seen that thing, it had been a section of withered plant root. She did not know what plant it had come from.

Later, the Doctor had divided that plant root into ten portions and used them to conduct research on ten test subjects.

Jiang You had been one of those test subjects.

She had watched the Doctor extract something from that object and inject it into each of the ten test subjects.

They had even been locked up together for concentrated observation.

All ten test subjects were high-level A3 ability users, but in the end, all nine people besides her had died.

When one of the bodies was dragged away, Jiang You had seen red blood threads emerge from beneath the surface of his skin.

But there had been too many strange things on Forbidden Island, so she had not paid much attention to it.

Later, she had inexplicably recovered and assumed that the experiment had failed.

But now that she thought about it, it was from that point onward that Jiang You's regenerative ability had gradually improved...

Those fine blood threads would also frequently appear around her wounds. Yet as the threads churned, her wounds would heal incredibly quickly.

She stared at her palm.

She felt that she had been mistaken.

The Doctor's perfect stem cell experiment had not succeeded. She had merely been infected by some unknown thing.

And when she was reborn, that parasite had been reborn with her,

She could even make a bolder guess.

Her rebirth... could it have something to do with the blood threads inside her body?

It wasn't that she had been reborn with the blood threads.

Rather, the thing had not wanted to die, so it had brought its host—her—back to life.

But what kind of powerful thing could possess the power to turn back time?

The more Jiang You thought about it, the more horrified she became. Goosebumps spread across her entire back.

She hurriedly jumped up from the sofa and slapped herself twice across the face.

"Stop imagining things for no reason!"

Regardless of the reason, as things stood, she was the one benefiting.

Her powerful regenerative ability allowed her to recover quickly even after suffering severe injuries. She could even regrow severed limbs.

And there was the advantage of being reborn: seizing the space and stockpiling supplies.

She benefited from all of these things.

Why think about anything else?

Overthinking did no good!

However, to confirm whether her blood was only effective on mutated plants, Jiang You planned to find more mutated plants and test them.

It was just that many plants had withered and died directly because of the high temperatures. There were already very few plants to begin with, so mutated plants would probably be even harder to find.

If you think this book is good, remember to add it to your bookshelf so you won't have trouble finding it next time.