Published: February 6, 2025
Chapter Title: The Essence is Gone, We'll Continue Next Week, Brothers
This night was destined to be restless for Cloud Summit Villa.
Wei Xiaoyong stood on the rooftop, glancing left and right, his brows furrowed.
Gunfire echoed from both Lu Laotou's and Xiao Dong's territories!
What happened? What on earth was going on?
Wei Xiaoyong racked his brain, but he couldn't figure it out.
“Boss, Jennings and his gang are on the move!”
Jennings is moving too?
Wei Xiaoyong felt that something was off, no, it was too off.
How could such a calm night suddenly be filled with so many incidents?
“Is there anything unusual on our end?” Wei Xiaoyong asked his subordinates nearby.
“No, nothing unusual at all.”
“Where did Jennings and his gang go?”
“To Lu Laotou's side!”
Wei Xiaoyong paced back and forth on the rooftop, muttering to himself about what the hell was happening.
“Gather everyone! No matter what happens, we need to check it out!” Wei Xiaoyong waved his right fist, “We’re heading to Lu Laotou's side!”
………………………………………………………………………………………
Ye Zhongming stood in front of the iron cabinet in the basement, watching as Sister Rong twisted the knob, and the iron door opened.
Behind him were women crowding the basement, along with a few men who usually had no bad records, but just now had survived under the onslaught of these devilish women.
“Hypocritical Ghost Tree?”
Ye Zhongming was somewhat moved upon seeing the mutated plant inside, flailing its thick, branch-like tentacles.
In his previous life, this thing was indeed notorious.
No one could figure out exactly what plant the Hypocritical Ghost Tree mutated from, nor did they care to know. Survivors were more concerned about how terrifying it was.
The tree Ye Zhongming had seen before occupied an entire city, and many suspected it was the ultimate form of the Hypocritical Ghost Tree.
Simply put, the Hypocritical Ghost Tree was intelligent.
From its appearance, you could never tell how evolved it was, because it concealed the magic crystals and its tentacles would bear fragrant fruits. Survivors eating these fruits would evolve, and any survivor with a lower evolution level than the Hypocritical Ghost Tree would be affected if they consumed its fruits.
When survivors first discovered this ghastly thing, they flocked to it, as it meant humanity had found a way to evolve without needing Evolution Potions; this could potentially free humanity from the control of the Roulette and lead them onto a completely new path of enhancement.
However, later people realized how fanciful and wrong this was.
Those fruits seemed to allow humans to evolve, but this evolution only lasted about a month; after that, the power would disappear, and survivors would tragically revert to their original forms. Furthermore, because they had consumed the Hypocritical Ghost Tree's fruits, their bodies would become breeding grounds for it, with seeds germinating and taking root inside them. By the time they realized the power of evolution had disappeared, it was already too late; their blood would have been partially taken over by the initial stages of the Hypocritical Ghost Tree seedlings, turning them into its fertilizer. Eventually, when their flesh had been completely drained, a new Hypocritical Ghost Tree would burst forth from their bodies.
From hiding its levels to lure all survivors to approach and pick its evolution fruits, to the Hypocritical Ghost Tree putting up a semblance of resistance by killing one or a few attacking survivors for nourishment and fertilizer, and finally, intentionally allowing humans to pick its fruits, completing a process vital for its reproduction.
When survivors truly understood this series of interconnected traps, they were all taken aback, gaining a new awareness of the dangers of this world.
A mutated plant could possess such bizarre methods of evolution and reproduction; how could humanity survive?
Out of fear and hatred for the Hypocritical Ghost Tree, people speculated that the tree resembling the heavens was indeed the ultimate form of the Hypocritical Ghost Tree.