I Can Add Passives to Plants

Bai Qingfeng's hand holding the cup trembled, making the water ripple slightly.

The tips of her ears began to redden, and her whole face looked as if someone had lightly brushed it with a thin layer of red paint, the color spreading swiftly and evenly.

Bai Qingfeng slammed the cup onto the table with a thud, her voice half a pitch higher than usual. "Who, who wants to win over your stomach?! Stop being so full of yourself!"

She said it loudly, but after speaking, she shrank back into her chair. Her loose hair fell forward, covering half her face.

Then she pushed the cup toward Lin Yue again. Her fingers brushed the rim before quickly pulling back.

"Don't choke. Eat slowly, nobody's taking it from you." She added in a voice eight pitches lower than before, muffled, as though squeezed from her throat with a breath. "Honestly, coming over to harass people this early in the morning..."

Lin Yue took the cup she handed him and lowered his head for a sip. The water was warm, neither hot nor cold.

Holding the cup, he watched Bai Qingfeng take back the empty bowl across from him, then use clean chopsticks to place the last small portion of fried rice into his bowl. Her movements were so natural, as if she had done it ten thousand times.

She seemed to do this kind of housework often.

She did not look at Lin Yue as she worked. Her expression was tense, but her fingers moved gently and steadily, carrying an unconscious attentiveness toward caring for others.

Holding that cup of warm water, a firm thought suddenly rose in Lin Yue's heart...

How did every single thing about her land right on my preferences?

Tsundere, baby-faced, serious, clumsy, able to cook, and even has that "mom" quality.

None of those traits was particularly unusual on its own, but when they all precisely landed on the same person, Lin Yue felt as though someone had tickled his heart with the tip of a feather for an entire minute. It itched unbearably.

What else was there to say?

He had to make her his.

Once they safely returned to reality this time, he would have his parents bring gifts to the house across the street to propose marriage.

After all, in this world, not getting married by twenty was illegal. They had to marry eventually, so he might as well tie down someone he truly liked early.

That would save him from his parents nagging him about marriage every day... His father would hold a wineglass and say, "You're not getting any younger," while his mother washed the dishes and said, "Look at Old Wang next door. His son already has two kids."

Although he had always managed to brush them off by saying he did not like the other person, or that he was a man destined to defeat Dr. Zomboss, and ordinary people were not worthy of him.

But in his current situation, he felt that he probably could not brush them off anymore.

This time, he really liked her.

As he set down the cup, his gaze fell on Bai Qingfeng's face across from him.

She was not looking at him. With her head lowered, she stacked the empty pots and bowls one by one. The profile of her face was soft beneath the morning light, and a tiny speck of oil clung to the tip of her nose without her noticing.

Lin Yue propped his elbow on the table and tilted his head as he watched her for a while.

"Oh no, I really am... into lolis with glasses."

He deeply realized that he had fallen in love.

And she seemed to have noticed as well, because Bai Qingfeng's movements slowed noticeably as she stacked the bowls. When she reached the third bowl, her fingers paused on its rim for two seconds. Then she quickly glanced at him before looking away just as quickly.

Lin Yue caught that look. Their gazes collided in the air for an instant, then bounced apart.

Thus, the same question circled through both their minds at once.

Bai Qingfeng thought: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did I develop feelings for him because my intelligence talent let me learn about that "prophecy" in advance... or would I develop feelings for this bastard as long as I met him?

Lin Yue thought: Was I first drawn in by her figure... or first moved by those clumsy but earnest little things she did?

Fine, it was both.

The two of them tacitly chose not to say anything.

However, Bai Qingfeng had already begun using her talent to learn today's intelligence. Her talent was practically absurd; she could actively obtain the information she wanted.

She could obtain three pieces of information a day.

Or three random pieces of information that were currently most needed.

The Neighborhood Supervisor, "Luo Chen"

From the road outside the courtyard came a sudden burst of hurried footsteps and consecutive shouts...

"Everyone, come out! Come out! Something happened in our neighborhood!"

"Wake up already! I'm the class monitor of Ninth Federation No. 2 High School. You can ask around about me outside—I'm a pretty trustworthy person..."

The voice was clear and bright. It sounded young, but full of vigor.

Lin Yue listened for a moment. It seemed that something had really happened in the neighborhood. He wondered how many people had died last night.

He set down the cup, stood up, and extended a hand toward Bai Qingfeng. "Come on, let's go take a look."

Bai Qingfeng looked at his open palm, paused for a beat, then placed her hand in his.

It was small and soft, her fingertips slightly cool. Resting in his palm, it felt like a fallen doll.

Little Bai said nothing. As she stood, she turned her head and glanced at him. Her eyes held thirty percent disdain and seventy percent acquiescence, her cheeks puffed out slightly, but she did not pull her hand away.

The two left the wooden cabin one after the other. Bai Qingfeng's hand rested loosely in Lin Yue's palm, as if she could pull it away at any moment, yet she never did.

Once they stepped through the courtyard gate, the sight on the street made Lin Yue narrow his eyes slightly.

Around seventy people had already gathered in the middle of the road, a much larger gathering than the scattered passersby from yesterday.

The crowd formed a circle. At its center stood a boy in the dark-blue uniform of No. 2 High School. He was of average height and rather thin, but his shoulders were square and his posture straight.

His face was sharply defined, and black-framed glasses rested on his nose. He gave off the steady air of someone saying, "If you have a problem, come to me."

When Lin Yue led Bai Qingfeng over, the crowd automatically opened a gap for them.

Quite a few people had seen Lin Yue yesterday... The sound of that shovel striking Zhao Lei's head still lingered in many people's ears.

So when their gazes fell on him, they carried a measure of wary respect, as if to say, "This guy isn't someone to mess with."

But when their eyes shifted from Lin Yue's face to the hands he and Bai Qingfeng held together, they paused, then each person looked away. No one said anything, but their eyes had already gone through several rounds of speculation.

Lin Yue ignored those looks and focused on someone at the edge of the crowd... Zhao Lei.

Yesterday, that guy had been so arrogant he might as well have written "My dad is a councilman" on his face. Now, he stood quietly at the very edge of the crowd with his hands in his pockets. Though he was still unruly, he had become much more obedient and was seriously listening to the person speaking in the center.

He looked completely different from yesterday, docile as if someone had reformatted him.

Lin Yue gave him another glance and silently made a note of it, but did not think too deeply about it.

"I think everyone has received the news..." The boy in the dark-blue uniform at the center spoke, his voice steady and unhurried.

"Part of the second-tier plant battlefield's defenses has been breached. The Federation rear has confirmed the news."

As those words fell, the crowd was like a pool into which a small stone had been thrown, rippling with suppressed unrest.

"Then won't this year's college entrance exam score cutoff be lowered?"

"Now that you mention it, that really is possible. A lot of people will probably die."

"My dad is still on the front lines..."

"It'll be okay. Your dad will definitely come back alive."

Some people quietly sucked in a breath, some clenched the corners of their clothes, and some unconsciously moved closer to their companions.

Lin Yue felt the small hand in his palm tighten slightly. He gently squeezed it back. The force was not strong, but it was steady enough.

"And last night, at least two Conehead Zombies attacked my courtyard." The boy onstage paused and swept his eyes over the crowd. "Everyone knows the probability of encountering zombies on the first day."

No one answered.

That "1%" probability hung like a stone in everyone's heart, heavy enough to make it hard to breathe.

And many people had already encountered zombies yesterday, which meant their class was different from all the previous ones.

They could no longer simply copy what the textbooks said.

The person onstage did not linger long on the subject.

He cleared his throat, raised the notepad in his hand slightly, and switched to a more capable tone. "I gathered everyone here for two reasons. First, to form a mutual-aid neighborhood... to exchange plant seeds and items, and share resources.

"Second, and more importantly... I need to tally the current defensive strength of everyone's courtyards."

Lin Yue's brows shifted slightly when he heard that.

"To be honest, every person's courtyard defense is a personal secret. Things are indeed different now, but we should still keep some cards up our sleeves. We can't reveal everything."

His parents had told him long ago that, during a neighborhood's initial establishment, the system would automatically select a "neighborhood supervisor." This person had the authority to purchase basic supplies from the system. While it could not compare to Dave's shop, it was enough to support a neighborhood's initial flow of supplies.

However, Lin Yue could bypass him and buy directly from Dave.

The important thing was that if they encountered a large-scale zombie horde, the supervisor had the authority to dispatch people to defend critical positions.

It seemed the person onstage was most likely the supervisor.

Lin Yue tilted his head and lowered his voice as he asked Bai Qingfeng, "Hey, do you know this guy? He's from No. 2 High too."

Bai Qingfeng lowered her voice as well, tilting her head toward him. Her hair brushed against her arm. "I know him. His name is Luo Chen. He's the son of the director of the orphanage I grew up in."

"He often argued with the director, so our relationship isn't exactly good..." A faint complexity entered her voice as she spoke, as if she had recalled fragments from long ago. "But Luo Chen has never made things difficult for anyone. At school, he's always been the type everyone calls 'someone else's child.'"

When Lin Yue heard "the orphanage director's son" and "often argued," his mind automatically pieced together the image of a rebellious son.

Probably another guy who did not understand his parents' greatness, always thinking that the orphanage children had taken away his mother's love for him.

He silently filled in the details, but seeing how composed the person onstage looked as he spoke, Lin Yue felt that did not seem quite right.

As for their relationship not being good, if he wanted to pursue Bai Qingfeng later, this orphanage brother whose relationship with her was "not exactly good" might become half a brother-in-law. He would need to find a way to repair that relationship.

Lin Yue withdrew his thoughts and quietly listened through the entire gathering.

On the defense record, he only mentioned that he had initially encountered a Buckethead Zombie, but his Chomper had dealt with it. Other than that, he only had one Wall-nut.

Everything else was seeds, which could not be used in actual combat for at least a month. Luo Chen recorded it all clearly.

He also made a point of marking the lack of offensive plants.

At the same time, he gave Bai Qingfeng beside him a few extra looks.

Why did this bratty little sister get herself a boyfriend? He looks decent enough, but no way. I need to report this to Mom when I get back.

More importantly, no matter how I look at him, he doesn't seem to be from No. 2 High. Some flower-picking thief has picked flowers right under my nose.

Burning Lin Yue's appearance firmly into his mind, Luo Chen hurriedly continued recording everyone else's plant arrangements.

Luo Chen spent nearly an hour tallying the basic courtyard situations of all seventy-three people present.

It seemed that twenty-seven people had already been attacked on the first night. If there were tools in the courtyards overrun by zombies, they would be left behind, and there might still be zombies inside.

If they wanted to go treasure hunting, they would need to take every precaution, such as bringing several plants with them.

After the first night, nearly thirty people had started with seeds. They simply could not cultivate mature plants in the short term; it would take at least a month before they could be put into battle, and that was not even counting the seeds' survival rate.

Many people wore gloomy expressions, their brows furrowed tight enough to crush flies.

"One more thing..." Luo Chen closed his notepad and swept his gaze across the crowd. "I'm sure everyone has noticed that the system chose me as the neighborhood supervisor.

"I can briefly communicate with the Federation rear, and I can also use the system quota to purchase some basic Peashooter seedlings and food. Anyone interested can come find me privately afterward."

After saying that, Luo Chen stepped aside, and the crowd surged around him.

Most of them were students who had only received seeds at the start. Their eyes gleamed like hungry wolves spotting meat.

Standing on the outskirts and watching the sea of moving heads, Lin Yue suddenly noticed Zhao Lei squeeze into the crowd as well. He stood at the very front, facing Luo Chen, apparently saying something.

After listening, Luo Chen nodded. The two seemed to have reached an agreement.

The Calm Before the Storm

"Zhao Lei..." Lin Yue narrowed his eyes as he watched for a while.

After Zhao Lei finished speaking with Luo Chen, he dipped slightly at the waist, turned, and left quietly. When he passed Lin Yue, he neither slowed his steps nor shifted his gaze, as if yesterday's conflict had never happened.

Lin Yue watched his back disappear around the street corner, and instead felt more at ease. All he could say was that the other guy still had a brain.

Survival came first now. The fewer people remained in the neighborhood, the more dangerous things would become later. No one would stir up conflict at a time like this.

"You..." Luo Chen's voice suddenly sounded beside him.

Lin Yue turned around and saw that Luo Chen had somehow already walked over to him and Bai Qingfeng.

Luo Chen's gaze paused on their clasped hands for an instant. His expression did not change, but something seemed to flash in his eyes.

He looked at Lin Yue for two seconds, then turned his eyes toward Bai Qingfeng and said flatly, "Is that Threepeater in your courtyard doing alright?"