All Plants vs. Zombies: I Can Add Passives to Plants

"When we go in, let's first check out the neighboring Plant Gardens," Lin Yue said, though even he felt less than confident.

Clear out the zombies?

With what?

To summon those plants from the backyard, every single one required sunlight. Chomper cost 175 sunlight to summon and another 25 sunlight every hour afterward;

Peashooter cost 100 sunlight to summon and another 25 per hour.

Their current sunlight reserves were enough for a few fights, but every summoned plant was like burning money. Still, if they did not deal with this, the zombies would only keep increasing.

"Wait..."

A voice came from behind them.

Lin Yue turned around and saw Luo Chen stuffing something into Bai Qingfeng's hand—a thin card smaller than a palm, its edges worn smooth and glossy. On its grayish-brown surface was printed a Puff-shroom with its cap tucked in.

"This is for you."

Luo Chen's voice drifted over from several steps away, casual as if he were talking about something trivial. "Stay alive. Otherwise, my mom will get mad."

Then he turned and left.

Bai Qingfeng stood where she was, looking down at the thin card in her palm. Her mouth opened, then closed again. She did not even get the chance to say thank you.

"I thought you always hated me... Brother..."

She watched Luo Chen's retreating back as he walked away alongside that two-meter-tall brute, turning into a gray-fog garden at the end of the street before vanishing behind the mist.

Lin Yue leaned closer and tilted his head to inspect the card.

Quality: White Card

Name: Puff-shroom

Sunlight Cost: 0

Description: A Puff-shroom cultivated by Luo Chen. Unbound to any garden and made into a summon card. No ongoing cost.

"...Where did he get a card?" Lin Yue's mind buzzed.

The technology to make plant cards required a house upgraded to at least Level 3.

It was only the third day. How had Luo Chen acquired that technology?

Could it be that he had not brought plants when he entered the garden at all, but this card instead?

"Talent." Bai Qingfeng slipped the card into her pocket, her tone carrying a complexity even she could not explain. "Brother probably has a special talent too, just like me."

Lin Yue did not press further.

Everyone had secrets, just as he would never tell anyone that he carried memories from a past life.

Luo Chen's trump card had nothing to do with him. All he needed to know was... Bai Qingfeng now had a zero-cost card that could save her life. That was enough.

"Let's go." He tilted his head toward the gray fog. "Let's check on the neighbors."

To prevent things from getting harder in the future, dear neighbors, it was time for them to sleep too.

Bai Qingfeng followed him.

The two walked up to the nearest garden entrance. The tightly packed gray fog stood before them like a thick wall of cotton.

Through the mist, they could vaguely make out a crooked wooden door and the outline of a collapsed fence. Inside came faint, intermittent footsteps, along with... heavy, wet breathing mixed into the wind.

"Huff... hrrk... huff... hrrk..."

The sound was close to the door, as if something were standing with its body pressed against the inner side of the door.

Bai Qingfeng's fingers lightly rested against the edge of the card in her pocket.

Lin Yue's fingers tightened slightly. They exchanged a glance, then both looked back toward the half-open door.

"Charging in is too dangerous. Let's prepare first."

Bai Qingfeng looked up at him, hesitation flashing through her almond-shaped eyes.

She took half a step forward. When her fingertips touched the edge of the door, the wood beneath her palm was cold and damp, and a sticky sensation seeped through the thin mist.

"Wait." Lin Yue reached out to stop her. The back of his hand lightly brushed hers, his fingertips resting against it without force, but firmly blocking her. He lowered his voice beside her ear. "Use your talent first. See how hard today's job is going to be. Don't rush in!"

Bai Qingfeng's fingers paused on the door for two seconds before slowly withdrawing. Her fingertips brushed against Lin Yue's clothes.

She closed her eyes. A moment later, her brows first furrowed slightly, then gradually relaxed. Her lips pressed together, but she could not hold back the trace of smug pride that appeared.

"The first thing is, 'our' neighbors aren't a threat to us." She softened her emphasis on the word "our," her eyelashes fluttering slightly before she quickly added, "But only if we spend some sunlight."

"The second thing is that my brother's message was true. The Football Zombie and the large-scale invasion won't come until the last day of the Beginner Trial. Before that, only small groups of zombies will keep sneaking over."

She opened her eyes and turned to look at Lin Yue. Daylight reflected in her almond-shaped eyes, making them shine. "We still have over twenty days to develop. Enough time for everyone to fill their backyards with plants."

Lin Yue's shoulders relaxed. More than twenty days—for him, that meant more than twenty days of explosive growth.

Chomper could eat at least one zombie every day, Wall-nut could gain ten health every day, and another round of fertilizer in the Zen Garden would bring all the plants into maturity.

Little Football Zombie, if you came now, my Chomper could already eat you.

[Enter Abandoned Plant Garden?]

Lin Yue nodded. Under his palm, the door gave a rough, creaking "Creak—creak, creak," like a groan squeezed from the deepest joints.

The gap widened inch by inch. Gray fog billowed out from within, carrying a heavy stench of blood that clung stubbornly inside their nostrils as it washed over their faces.

The inside of the wooden house was very dark.

A hollowed-out corpse lay sprawled on the floor, the back of its school uniform facing upward. Dark brown dried stains marked its collar, and one arm stretched stiffly forward as if it had still been desperately crawling toward the door in its final moments.

One look was enough to make Lin Yue feel physically sick. He wanted to vomit.

Bai Qingfeng was even worse off. She could only clamp a hand tightly over her mouth.

Beside the corpse lay several half-charred leaves and a small puddle of blackened, hardened plant remains, like the traces of a plant exploding after exhausting the last of its life force.

In the shadows deeper inside the wooden house, two zombies slowly turned around with their backs to the door.

The ordinary zombie in front had its right arm severed at the shoulder. The edges of the wound were blackened and curled as though scorched by fire, exposing jagged gray-white bone amid clumps of dried dark fluid;

Behind it stood another zombie wearing a gray iron bucket, a pair of gray-white eyes beneath it turning toward the entrance.

"Hrrk..."

The ordinary zombie dragged its half-severed arm and took a step forward.

Lin Yue raised a hand.

Fine particles of light surged from his fingertips, gathering into a green outline.

[100 sunlight paid. Summoning Peashooter.]

The moment Peashooter landed, its barrel was already raised. Its stem tensed, and a green projectile nearly half again as large as an ordinary pea burst from its muzzle. With a dull puff, it struck the ordinary zombie squarely in the face.

Its head jerked back as though struck head-on by a sledgehammer. The impact sent its entire body reeling backward, its feet leaving the ground for an instant before it crashed heavily onto the floor.

The corpse did not move again.

Buckethead Zombie quickened its pace. Its face pointed toward Lin Yue's brain, its mouth opening to reveal half a row of gray-black teeth.

"Do you need help?" Bai Qingfeng stood by the doorframe, already pinching the corner of the Puff-shroom card between her fingers, ready to activate it at any moment.

"Not yet." Lin Yue's gaze settled steadily on the line between Peashooter and Buckethead Zombie. "My little Pea can handle it."

Bai Qingfeng's gaze moved from Lin Yue's profile to Peashooter, then from Peashooter to the approaching Buckethead Zombie.

One Peashooter could stop a Buckethead?

You think I never went to school?

A trace of doubt flashed through her mind, but seeing Lin Yue's expression that plainly said, Just watch, she swallowed the words on her lips. He was a reincarnator, after all. He probably would not make that kind of mistake.

Quietly, she pushed the card back half an inch, her fingertips resting loosely against its edge so she could draw it at any time.

As Buckethead Zombie stepped forward, a huge pea slammed directly into its metal helmet with tremendous force.

Every shot struck the exact same spot on the bucket—two inches below the rim, right in the center of an old, slightly dented mark.

More importantly, the zombie was being forced backward nonstop.

The first three shots shook the old dent into a thin crack. When the fourth hit landed, the crack burst apart completely. The bucket split down the middle and fell to the ground with a clang.

With its protection gone, the zombie's head was struck head-on by the fifth pea. Its entire body staggered back two steps like a puppet with cut strings before falling stiffly onto the wooden floor. Its back hit with a dull thud, its withered hand clawed at the air twice, then loosened.

From beginning to end, Buckethead Zombie never truly got close.

Bai Qingfeng stood at the doorway, her almond-shaped eyes widening slightly.

She watched Peashooter lower its head and quietly retract its barrel again, as if it had done nothing more than an ordinary little task. Then she looked at Buckethead Zombie's corpse lying face-up on the floor.

My teacher never taught me that!

"My... little Pea really can handle it," she softly repeated Lin Yue's words.

Clearing Out, Chopping Wood in the Forest

With their earlier experience, clearing the next two Plant Gardens became much easier.

Lin Yue and Bai Qingfeng coordinated more and more smoothly... Peashooter held the front line while Bai Qingfeng finished off stragglers and watched for zombies sneaking over.

Once they cleared one garden, they moved to the next;

Once one zombie fell, they fired another shot.

They swept through all three abandoned gardens in less than an hour.

The downside was how painfully fast they burned through sunlight.

If his Sunflower did not produce more than everyone else's, things would not have gone nearly so smoothly.

Lin Yue summoned Peashooter three times in total, one hundred sunlight each. Just like that, three hundred sunlight was gone.

Bai Qingfeng had summoned Peashooter once as well. Together, they had traded four hundred sunlight for three empty, clean gardens.

But the gains were real.

Bai Qingfeng had also obtained a handcart and a shovel.

Most of the plants in those abandoned gardens had been eaten clean by zombies, but the seeds buried deep in the soil remained.

Lin Yue crouched beside the planting field in the third garden and carefully brushed aside the surface soil with his fingers. From the bottom, he dug out a handful of grayish-brown pellets. He gathered them in his palm and counted them. There were ten in total.

Bai Qingfeng found another five in a different field. Together, they had exactly fifteen unknown seeds, dull gray and wrapped in dried mud shells, laid one by one across the stone pavement like a silent line of little soldiers.

"Just give me five. I can't use that many."

Bai Qingfeng crouched on the ground, her whole face scrunched up as she shook her head hard. Her braided pigtails swung across her shoulders. "You did the most work, so you take the bigger share. I already have Peashooter and a Threepeater. That's enough."

She pushed the pile of seeds back toward him, then casually moved three of them in front of herself. "I'll only take five. Not one more."

Lin Yue pushed them back again, and she pushed them back again.

After three rounds of pushing, Lin Yue sighed, gathered the seeds, and put them into his pocket. But stubbornly, he took out two more seeds and handed them to her. "This one is for your physical labor, and this one is for your information."

Bai Qingfeng looked down at the two additional seeds in her palm. Her cheeks puffed out, but she did not push them back again.

She stood and brushed the dirt from her knees. She even straightened a patch of grass she had stepped crooked, then stretched lazily, lifting her arms over her head. The hem of her school uniform rose with the motion, revealing a small patch of fair skin at her waist and her round navel.

Lin Yue very uprightly looked away.

Very uprightly.

"Good thing we cleared them in time..." Bai Qingfeng lowered her arms and looked around the three gardens, now quiet once more. She let out a long breath. "Look, none of these yards have tombstones growing above ground. If we'd waited another two or three days, there probably would've been two or three tombstones."

"What happens if there are tombstones?" Lin Yue asked casually as he recalled Peashooter.

"They start popping zombies out of the ground," Bai Qingfeng said without looking up as she crouched by the roadside and scraped the dirt off her shovel against the stone pavement.

"When I was little, I heard the headmistress at the orphanage say that once tombstones grow in an abandoned garden, even if you clear out all the zombies inside, the tombstones will keep spawning new ones. By then, either you find a Grave Buster, or that garden is completely ruined."

Lin Yue silently made a note of it. Just like in the game: if the tombstones remained, the zombies never stopped.

Lin Yue slung the shovel over his back, dusted himself off, and was about to tell Bai Qingfeng, "Let's go back and plant the seeds first," when she suddenly spoke.

"Anyway, my talent said we won't run into large groups of zombies for the next few weeks..."

Bai Qingfeng stood beneath the setting sun with her hands on her hips. She tilted her head to look at the crooked eaves of Lin Yue's little wooden house and its chimney that was about to fall off, then glanced at her own place before adding, "How about we go outside and chop some wood while we can? Upgrade the wooden houses to Level 2. That broken shack of yours looks like it'll collapse in the next rainstorm."

Lin Yue followed her gaze and looked back. His wooden house truly was in terrible shape... seven or eight roof tiles were missing, the boards by the wall corner had been warped upward for more than half a month, and the doorframe leaned sideways. Whenever he pushed the door open, he always felt as though the entire house was shaking with it.