Chapter 5

Once that suspicion arose, Ye Jingyan first released origin-energy strands to monitor the surroundings. Then he carefully guided the origin energy inside his body closer and closer to the Heaven-Devouring Plant. Only after confirming that it did not appear to resist did he gently prod one of its leaves with the energy.
The Heaven-Devouring Plant responded by flicking its vines.
But this time, the movement did not look fierce at all. If anything, it looked a little like it was acting spoiled.
Ye Jingyan found the thought amusing. He cautiously touched the plant’s leaf again with an origin-energy strand, only for the creature to immediately wrap a vine around the strand and begin winding itself around it playfully.
Mm. It was almost like raising a pet. How cute—
Given the bizarre situation, Ye Jingyan cautiously tried communicating with it mentally. At first, the Heaven-Devouring Plant seemed shy and ignored him. But after Ye Jingyan persistently tried several times, the little plant finally responded with soft whining noises. Although it was not human language, absurdly enough, Ye Jingyan could vaguely understand what it meant—the Heaven-Devouring Plant was expressing affection toward him.
What did it feel like to have the Heaven-Devouring Plant, a mutated creature infamous throughout his previous life, become his personal pet?
Ye Jingyan smugly declared—to himself—that it felt secretly fantastic.
But very soon, he could no longer smile. Because the Heaven-Devouring Plant was naturally so vicious, people in his previous life had known little about it. They knew only that no matter how powerful an ability user might be, anyone who invaded its territory could hardly escape being devoured. The problem was that now the Heaven-Devouring Plant had become his ability-linked plant. What was he supposed to feed it? Was he really supposed to let it eat people? If that was the case, things would become rather troublesome. Even during the apocalypse, openly eating people was not acceptable…
At the thought, Ye Jingyan could not help shivering before sinking into deep worry.
The Heaven-Devouring Plant had originally been playing obediently with Ye Jingyan’s origin-energy strands inside his origin-energy sphere. When it suddenly realised its master seemed to be ignoring it, it twisted unhappily several times. As it moved, Ye Jingyan felt something strange in his palm. He raised his hand and was astonished to discover that the tiny emerald plant from his origin-energy sphere had appeared in his palm.
Finally seeing the outside world again, the Heaven-Devouring Plant ignored its master’s surprise. It first shook its vines and stretched its leaves, then bobbed its head. A flash of green light passed, and Ye Jingyan watched in shock as the iron rod he had been using as a weapon silently disappeared into his pet’s mouth.
Excellent! A textbook glutton-based combat style!
Ye Jingyan silently gave his combat pet an approving thumbs-up in his heart.
Wait. Something seemed wrong… combat pet…
His body stiffened as a scene instantly appeared in his mind: facing zombies covered in pus and blood, he would summon the Heaven-Devouring Plant, let it swallow those disgusting monsters whole, and then allow it to crawl back inside his body…
Ugh…
The imagined scene made Ye Jingyan want to flip a table in frustration…
That would practically be the same as eating those things himself…
So Ye Jingyan first stared speechlessly at the little plant in his palm, then remembered all the disgusting zombies and mutated creatures he had encountered in his previous life. His stomach suddenly churned.
And now the Heaven-Devouring Plant lived inside his origin-energy sphere. Heaven knew what effect its fighting style might have on him. Could swallowing too many zombies somehow contaminate his origin energy as well? More importantly…
Ye Jingyan thought privately that the Heaven-Devouring Plant’s abilities were simply too terrifying and would easily attract the military’s attention. That would make many of the things he could otherwise do quietly far more restrictive…
With that in mind, he made a decision. His hand-to-hand combat was already good. For the sake of moving freely in the future, he absolutely could not let the Heaven-Devouring Plant appear casually unless he was facing a life-or-death situation!
Never reveal all your hidden cards to other people, or defeat would eventually be inevitable!
Looking at the Heaven-Devouring Plant in his palm, which was trying hard to curl itself into a ball and act adorable, Ye Jingyan suddenly felt an indescribable sense of desolation. He had thought gaining a powerful helper would let him be lazy, but apparently he would still have to fight for himself. How was this result any different from simply fusing with a useless crystal?
Mm, actually, no. His current situation seemed even worse, because now he also had a glutton beside him and no idea what to feed it…
So everything else was secondary! Material resources formed the foundation of everything. Collecting as many supplies as possible was the true priority!
At that thought, Ye Jingyan’s understanding of the jade space’s importance rose another level. He first “dug” the iron rod back out of his pet’s mouth and gripped it in his hand, then rushed up to the black-jade exhibition hall on the fifth floor as fast as he could.
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The fifth floor of Fine Beauty Department Store concentrated the building’s high-value goods. In addition to the current jade exhibition, large quantities of gold, diamonds, pearls, and other luxury products were stored there. Unlike the other floors, the fifth floor therefore had not only a specialised fingerprint-and-password locking system but also round-the-clock surveillance cameras covering every angle.
None of that posed much of a problem for Ye Jingyan. The main control system on the first floor had already collapsed, rendering the cameras useless. And after gaining an ability user’s enhanced strength and constitution, he simply chose the most primitive method: one punch shattered the password lock, after which he easily forced open the exhibition hall’s doors.
Because the jade exhibition displayed valuable private collections, the organisers had hired professional security personnel to patrol and protect the area throughout the night. As a result, when the doors opened, Ye Jingyan discovered that all the lights on the fifth floor were still on, allowing him to take in the entire hall at a glance. A dazzling array of black-jade exhibits sat quietly inside transparent display cases made of reinforced glass, reflecting an understated but luxurious glow beneath the lights. The western windows had been smashed to pieces by falling meteors, and several rough, iron-grey stones lay scattered beneath them. Several display cases near the windows had toppled in every direction, with scraps of flesh and blotches of blood hanging from them. Human bones were scattered around the cases, stripped completely clean of meat. Several uniformed security employees with pistols at their waists were wandering stiffly through the hall with blank expressions. One of them was even carrying an arm and chewing it with loud crunching sounds.
Zombies were easily attracted by sound and the scent of living people. The instant Ye Jingyan opened the doors, every one of them was alerted and turned one after another to rush toward the entrance.
For the current Ye Jingyan, dealing with a few newly transformed zombies could not have been easier. But before he could move, the Heaven-Devouring Plant in his palm suddenly whipped its vines. The two vines, which had just looked tiny and adorable, instantly grew longer and larger. Each wrapped around one of the two zombies closest to Ye Jingyan and began dragging them back. Meanwhile, the plant’s huge head swayed indecisively between the two captured zombies as though it could not decide which one to eat first.
Ye Jingyan’s heart tightened. Before the zombies could get any closer, he hurriedly pulled back the left hand holding the Heaven-Devouring Plant, stepped forward, and swung the iron rod in his right hand. Two dull thuds sounded, and in the blink of an eye the heads of both zombies were smashed apart. They collapsed and stopped moving.
Seeing the “food” already at its mouth turn into dead objects, the Heaven-Devouring Plant became anxious. But since the one interfering was its master, it could only whine at Ye Jingyan to express its dissatisfaction.
Ye Jingyan had no time to consider his pet’s feelings. To prevent the same situation from happening again, he rushed forward at top speed and disposed of the remaining zombies. Only after confirming that none had escaped did he inwardly wipe away a cold sweat and turn his attention to the pet that had decided to sulk because its food had disappeared.
Yes!
The Heaven-Devouring Plant felt terribly wronged because its master had “stolen its food.” When Ye Jingyan repeatedly extended a conciliatory finger toward it, it did not immediately wrap its vines around him as usual. Instead, it drooped its head pitifully and dodged left and right, refusing to communicate.
Ye Jingyan did not know whether to laugh or cry at his pet’s childish behaviour. But the Heaven-Devouring Plant was still in its juvenile stage, with intelligence comparable to a three- or four-year-old child. Ye Jingyan could neither hit nor scold it, and he worried that if it became too upset it might simply shut him out completely. So he patiently repeated two requirements over and over: “You cannot eat things indiscriminately,” and “You can only come out to help fight when I need you.”
Under his persistence, the Heaven-Devouring Plant finally compromised. First it bobbed its head twice to indicate agreement. Then, as though seeking praise, it extended a vine in front of Ye Jingyan and slowly unfolded the leaf growing from it. Ye Jingyan was astonished to see two sparkling objects resting on the leaf—the crystal cores produced inside the brains of the two zombies he had just killed.
At the beginning of the apocalypse, a small proportion of zombies developed crystal cores inside their bodies. These cores were generally a translucent milky white and extremely inconspicuous. At first, no one paid much attention to the tiny crystals. Later, ability users discovered that absorbing the energy inside crystal cores of the corresponding level could increase their ability level, and the price of crystal cores quickly soared. Researchers subsequently invented ways to use crystal cores as an energy source as well. Almost overnight, crystal cores became a scarce resource and eventually circulated in markets as the most popular form of currency.
Mutated plants and animals actually had a much higher chance than zombies of developing crystal cores, but they were generally extremely dangerous. For anyone other than ability users, hunting zombies was therefore the best way to obtain crystal cores. The problem was that zombie crystal cores grew inside the head. To extract one, you first had to split open the skull and search through disgusting black blood and cloudy brain matter… It was an experience that pushed human visual tolerance to its limit.
Ye Jingyan clearly remembered that in his previous life, when survival first forced him to dig a crystal core out of a zombie’s brain while suppressing his disgust, he had not even managed to put the core away before running aside and vomiting until he nearly collapsed. Killing zombies was one thing. Digging through foul-smelling brains for crystal cores was something entirely different…
For the next three full days, everything he ate except plain water came straight back up. But survival left him no choice. After vomiting, he had to suppress the nausea, continue killing zombies, split open their heads, and search for crystal cores until he finally became completely numb to it.
But becoming numb and accustomed to something did not mean liking it. Crouching beside a zombie’s shattered skull and rummaging around inside was also far too conspicuous. Besides, this was still the beginning of the apocalypse. Most people had no idea crystal cores even existed. If the authorities mistook him for a lunatic or a pervert and tried to deal with him, that would become extremely troublesome.
Before this, Ye Jingyan had been worrying about how he could collect crystal cores without attracting attention. He had never imagined that the ability-linked pet he had accidentally subdued would solve the problem so effortlessly. It was like being handed a pillow the instant he felt sleepy…
Ye Jingyan immediately raised the Heaven-Devouring Plant’s importance in his heart by several levels and officially decided to reclassify it from combat pet to logistics pet. Then he very seriously presented his proposal to the plant.
The Heaven-Devouring Plant had the temperament of a child and desperately wanted its master’s attention and approval. It had been depressed after Ye Jingyan stripped it of its combat duties. Once it understood what its master wanted, it instantly emerged from the psychological shadow of feeling “useless.” It even smugly waved the leaf holding the crystal cores, nodded its huge head at Ye Jingyan, and began whining excitedly to express its feelings.
By now, Ye Jingyan was already accustomed to this form of communication and naturally understood what his pet meant. This creature was negotiating terms with him! The price of helping collect spoils was five crystal cores—and it wanted five every single day!
What kind of world was this?! Even his own ability-linked pet was charging him wages!
Even someone as broad-minded as Ye Jingyan could not keep the corner of his mouth from twitching as he sighed inwardly. What sin had he committed to end up with such a money-grubbing pet…?