From Apocalypse Boss to Farmer: My Vegetables Make Me Stronger!-Chapter 196 - 187: Soft Persimmon

The smile on He Yue’s face gradually stiffened and grew cold.

"Miss Gu." Even his voice had turned a few degrees colder, seemingly filled with a threatening undertone.

In the end, Gu Xi had long since proven her value and demonstrated an astonishing talent for planting. But in He Yue’s eyes, she was still just a lucky Level 4 ability user who had caught the Qee Family’s eye.

Gu Xi met his gaze calmly. "Mr. He."

He Yue still had a smile on his face, but that smile had clearly soured.

Just then, the last drone operated by Yang Liu flew back. He spoke through the drone’s speaker, "Captain, a group of suspicious individuals has been spotted fifteen kilometers ahead, moving quickly toward our position."

It was unclear what He Yue thought of, but his expression changed slightly.

Ye Junhan looked up at Gu Xi, just as she was looking over at him.

"Want some watermelon?" she asked suddenly.

Leaning against the off-road pickup truck, Ye Junhan’s gaze swept over the guards across from her. They were frozen solid along with a watermelon, their life-or-death status unknown. He fell silent.

After a moment, he pressed his walkie-talkie and tilted his head. "Everyone, on alert. Qian Shan, take a few men and go check it out."

Soon, the voice of Qian Shan, who was patrolling the outermost perimeter, came through the walkie-talkie. "Roger that."

Ye Junhan strode over to stand with Gu Xi.

It was only then that He Yue sensed something was wrong.

He whipped his head around and discovered that all the men he had brought with him were frozen solid.

Along with the large, green-skinned, black-striped watermelon.

He Yue subconsciously took a few steps back.

His men had been taken down right under his nose.

And he hadn’t noticed a thing.

What made him even more alarmed and uneasy was that the men he had brought were all high-level ability users!

One of them was even an Ice Ability User!

’What terrifying power...’ He Yue didn’t suspect Gu Xi. He looked up at Ye Junhan across from them; the Special Service Team had a Level 9 Ice Ability User.

’But is he really that capable?’

’We’re both Level 9. Can the gap really be this huge?’

He Yue frowned slightly.

In the end, however, he chose to confront Gu Xi. "Miss Gu, what is the meaning of this? It’s just a watermelon. If you weren’t willing, you could have just said so. Why make such a scene?"

’Does he really think I’m a pushover?’

Gu Xi gave him a cool glance before looking away. She crouched down, squinting slightly to observe the large watermelon in the ground.

She had casually chosen to plant a watermelon because the weather was muggy, and she was really craving some fruit. But unexpectedly, planting this watermelon had brought a surprising discovery.

He Yue was a trusted subordinate of the Qee Family, a former personal guard to the old master—the most trusted of the trusted.

As the saying goes, even the doorman at a prime minister’s mansion is a powerful official. The Qee Family’s power in the Central Base was at its zenith, and as the old master’s favored subordinate, this Mr. He was accustomed to fawning smiles and eager courtesy at the base...

He had long since grown arrogant from all the flattery.

But now, being publicly ignored by Gu Xi, his face instantly fell.

’This is a slap in the face to the Qee Family.’

A dark look flashed in his eyes. He was about to make a move but was frozen in place by a single, cool glance from Ye Junhan.

He Yue was furious but didn’t dare move. He could only secretly curse him in his heart, consoling himself, ’A great man knows when to yield and when to stand firm. This temporary humiliation is nothing. Once I get back to the Central Base...’

He Yue shot a sullen glare across the way. He didn’t dare look at Ye Junhan or Wei Heng, so his gaze ultimately landed back on Gu Xi, a perfect example of picking on the weakest target.

Gu Xi sighed softly. She really wasn’t a pushover.

The reason she left He Yue and his men alone was that in the apocalypse, danger was everywhere. It wasn’t a bad thing to have a few extra cannon fodder around.

’Who knows when they might come in handy?’

Gu Xi never considered herself a good person, nor did she want to be one.

—In the apocalypse, good people don’t survive.

He Yue’s expression was incredibly ugly, and the look in his eyes shifted several times.

Many people were looking their way, but no one dared to approach—after all, the cautionary tale of the frozen men was right there for all to see.

But on a hot day like this in the middle of nowhere, the large, green-skinned, black-striped watermelon was truly tempting.

Qi Xiang pushed her way through the crowd and squeezed into the watermelon patch. Cupping her chin in her hands, she squatted next to Gu Xi and muttered, "Gu Xi, Ms. Chen and the others found an unknown substance in the nearby soil. I have a bad feeling about this watermelon you’ve got here. How about..."

She scanned the watermelon patch and finally pointed to the large one that was frozen. "Let’s cut that one open." It might not be enough for everyone, since there were so many people and Gu Xi was always generous.

As for the others still in the patch, Qi Xiang’s intuition told her it was best not to eat them.

Even though they looked incredibly tempting.

Ye Junhan was standing right behind them and heard every word Qi Xiang said. Setting aside the huge leap in logic in her suggestion, just her intuition for picking watermelons...

Ye Junhan glanced at the still-frozen watermelon, then back at Gu Xi in front of him. She was fiddling with a large watermelon still attached to its vine. A small green sprout shot out from her fingertip and wrapped itself around the watermelon again and again, looking rather strange.

"You’re right, we can’t eat it." Gu Xi had originally intended to poke it with her finger, but after a thought, she pulled the large machete Wei Heng had prepared for her from her big cloth bag. She gave the rind a gentle poke, and a stream of red juice spurted out.

The humid, hot air was instantly filled with a sweet fragrance.

Qi Xiang clearly heard someone gulp.

"This watermelon..."

A puzzled look appeared on her face. "Why does it smell so fragrant and sweet?"

’And the smell is too overpowering, as if it’s deliberately luring people to eat it. Something’s not right.’

Gu Xi didn’t poke it again. Instead, she had Wei Heng find a large laboratory dish to seal the entire watermelon in. "Have Mr. Liu and his team test it."

There should be something inside this watermelon, but strangely, she couldn’t sense it.

Gu Xi looked up toward the deep pit nearby. This feeling was remarkably similar to the one the thing in the pit gave her.

’For some reason, I can’t shake the feeling... that the thing at the bottom of the pit is alive?’

Wei Heng silently took the watermelon, which weighed more than ten pounds, and walked toward the simple laboratory bench nearby.

The test results came back quickly.

"These look like some kind of insect eggs?" Chen Jia stared at the results, utterly astonished. "But how did they get inside in such a short amount of time?"

They had watched Gu Xi plant this watermelon. The whole process had only taken about ten minutes.

But under a high-powered microscope, the watermelon juice was filled with these eggs.

The sheer density of them made Qi Xiang gasp. ’This isn’t a watermelon anymore! It’s a nest of bugs!’

GAG!

Qi Xiang turned her head and covered her mouth.

She probably wouldn’t want to eat watermelon again for a long time.

’It’s too disgusting.’

The few researchers to the side also turned pale.

One of them suddenly spoke up, "The substance we extracted from the nearby soil shows a clear repulsion to X Energy..."

And they hadn’t found anything like these eggs in any of the other nearby plants.

’But the watermelon Gu Xi grew has a mutation coefficient of zero and contains no X Energy. So, did that make it especially attractive to those bugs?’ 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Let me see." Gu Xi walked over, bent down to look into the microscope, and said without a change in expression, "Is it possible that these bugs are the same unknown substance from the nearby soil?"

"Impossible," Chen Jia denied instinctively. "The substance we found in the soil was dead. But the eggs in the watermelon are clearly alive..."

’How could they be the same thing!’

"In the apocalypse, nothing is impossible," Ye Junhan said calmly from the side, looking up.