"Leave it." Yuche’s voice ca out absolute, but Zhenlan didn’t react to the order... he didn’t so much as twitch out of the way.
The baby hissed and Yuche knew that if it had eyes, it would definitely be glaring at Zhenlan right now.
Its tiny body was coiled tight, triangular leaf raised high as it stared at the crystal sitting inside the crate. Black venom dripped lazily from its teeth onto the hardwood floor.
"No," stated Zhenlan, and Yuche didn’t know if he was talking to the little monster or him. "It cannot just eat whatever it wants."
His voice was firm, like soone who was absolutely sure that the sun was going to rise the next day, but if he wasn’t careful, he would live long enough to see it.
The baby hissed louder as it tried to go around him. Zhenlan stepped sideways, and the small vine was forced to stop or risk getting stepped on. It looked over its shoulder at Rouxi like it expected her to wake up and yell at the man, but she didn’t so much as move.
Left with no choice, the vine lifted its head like a cobra, opened its mouth wider, and waited for the man in front of it to smarted up and understand where he stood on the food chain.
Rows of venomous teeth unfolded in a way that should not have been physically possible and it let the black venom drip down to the floor like the threat that it was.
Commander Li’s n collectively took another step backward, their eyes never leaving the new threat in front of them while Lingyun looked delighted.
The baby, on the other hand, looked offended.
"No," repeated Zhenlan.
The baby launched itself forward. Not at the crystal. At Zhenlan’s boot.
The man jumped backward so quickly that he nearly knocked over one of the crates and Lingyun burst out laughing. Even Chenghai looked suspiciously close to smiling at the sight.
"What are you doing?" Yuche asked, his voice turning murderous.
Zhenlan stared at him like he was the one who was crazy. "I’m protecting the cores of course."
"Why?" The question seed to catch the other man completely off guard.
"Because it wants to eat them."
"No shit."
"Those are high-grade cores."
"Well aware. I just still don’t understand why you are blocking its way when you know what it wants." Yuche’s voice was so cold that Zhenlan couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t kill him.
The room fell silent as Commander Li and his n tried to figure out just what was going on.
The vine took advantage of the distraction and slithered another few inches closer to the crate, pausing for a second to see if either man would react. But they didn’t notice it.
"Just because it wants cores doesn’t an that we give it to them. These things are worth millions. Why are you letting it just need sothing that could get us supplies?" demanded Zhenlan.
Yuche frowned. The question genuinely didn’t make sense.
Why wouldn’t he let it? Cores weren’t that hard to get. Not the way Rouxi did it. And hell, even the plants gave them cores whenever a zombie ca by.
His gaze dropped briefly toward Rouxi.
She still hadn’t moved.
Her face remained pale beneath the dried blood. The larger vines were still wrapped around her body, supporting injuries that should have killed her several tis over.
Then he looked back at the baby. "Why are you stopping it?"
That made Zhenlan pause. "It’s eating the cores." He said the four words slowly like Yuche was either dumb or an idiot...
"And?"
"It’s—"
"Rouxi needs them."
The room went quiet.
The baby imdiately chose that mont to throw itself into the crate.
"HEY!" shouted Zhenlan. But it was too late
The largest crystal, a dark blue one, disappeared into its mouth.
Commander Li forgot about the core in his hand as he stared at the small thing consuming sothing that was bigger than its head.
Sun Ming stared, Luo Xin actually took a step forward, the opal core clenched in his hand as he watched the process.
Now that it was in the treasure chest, the vine didn’t slow down.
"It’s going to explode," snarled Zhenlan, but nobody was listening to him.
The baby erged with another crystal clamped firmly between its teeth. The crystal was a bit smaller, almost as large as its head. This one was a brilliant erald green.
It took the core from the box and, with it still in its mouth, was forced to drag the thing across the floor like a dog carrying a stick that was far too large. It placed the core on Rouxi’s chest before going back to the boxes and continued to eat indiscriminately.
The room stared as the baby imdiately dove back into the crate.
"It’s doing it again," grunted Chenghai.
"I can see that," snarled Zhenlan.
The third crystal disappeared monts later.
Yuche ignored the increasingly horrified expressions around the room and focused entirely on Rouxi.
The pulse beneath his fingers beat just a bit harder. Or maybe that was his imagination. But the second he watched the green core turning into a liquid then disappearing into Rouxi, he let out a long breath.
Her breathing got a bit stronger, her pulse was a bit more present. It was sothing...
But it wasn’t enough.
Not nearly enough.
The baby surfaced from the crate carrying another crystal almost as large as its head before it swallowed that one too.
"What is wrong with it?" Zhao Rui asked.
"Nothing," replied Lingyun. "The little monster is a study in what not to do if you want to keep on breathing."
Before Zhao Rui could reply, the vine poked its head up, a core in its mouth and turned to look at Lingyun. It dropped the core just long enough to hiss threateningly at the man before it went back to eating everything in its path.
Yeah... the baby was a bit of a glutton.
"It isn’t matching attributes," muttered Commander Li as he stepped forward to study it. But the second the vine turned its attention to him, he backed up.
That wasn’t sothing Li was willing to deal with today. Or tomorrow. Probably not any day ending in Y. If he had questions, he would wait until Rouxi woke up and ask her then.
"Like I said," sighed Lingyun, reaching out to pet the little monster. He quickly moved his fingers when the vine snapped at him. "The vine is the exception to all the rules."
The little nace was treating several months worth of carefully collected resources like an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Zhenlan looked increasingly horrified.
But while everyone was paying attention to the baby, Luo Xin slowly lowered himself beside Rouxi again.
He took a deep breath and balanced the opal core on his hand. "Please don’t make blow up," he whispered to himself. He felt like an idiot, not having any idea of how to ’absorb the core’ but he forced his shoulders to relax and closed his eyes.
After a second, he felt a rush of cold energy pouring into him like his hand was inside a mountain river or sothing. The empty feeling in his chest slowly went away, the pressure he was feeling disappeared, and for the first ti in what seed like months, he could finally take in a deep breath.
But it wasn’t enough.
"I need more," he grunted. The mont the words were out of his mouth, he felt sothing poking at him. He opened his eyes and looked down to see the vine sitting beside him, the back end of the creature touching his knee.
In its mouth was another small opal core.
It spat it out onto the ground and looked up at Luo Xin like it wanted a reward for good behavior.
Luo Xin chuckled and patted the vine’s head. "Thank you," he replied. Picking the core up with two fingers, he covertly wiped the venom off of it and held it in his palm.
Just like before, he felt the refreshing feeling of water rushing beneath his skin.
"Let’s do this," he murmured. Putting his hands on Rouxi, he closed his eyes. Now he didn’t have to worry about going to far, now he had a backup resource that worked faster than ’ti’.
He was maybe five minutes into fixing the actual vertebrae themselves when the entire front wall of shuddered violently.
Every head in the room snapped toward the front of the house.
The baby froze, poking its head out of a box and let out a hiss that none of the n had ever heard from it before.
A second later the mansion shook hard enough to rattle the windows.
Outside, people were shouting.
And sothing was burning.
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