From Apocalypse Boss to Farmer: My Vegetables Make Me Stronger!-Chapter 201 - 192: Sounds Familiar

The physiques of mutated people were truly formidable.

Even after being hit by a special tranquilizer dart, it woke up quickly.

Seeing the thing in his hand about to self-destruct, Liu Hao wailed in alarm, his legs spinning so fast they looked like Wind Fire Wheels, leaving behind a trail of afterimages.

Just then, a vine shot out of thin air and instantly wrapped around the mutated monster in his hand...

’So fast.’ Liu Hao was startled. Just as he was about to make a move, his captain’s voice came through his earpiece: "Don’t move."

Immediately after, he heard the piercing screech of brakes.

Liu Hao looked up to see his captain leap nimbly from the vehicle and stride toward him.

From the other side of the vehicle, Gu Xi pushed open her door and also walked over.

Liu Hao: "!" ’Captain, what is wrong with you? Don’t you know you’re supposed to open the car door for Miss Gu? At this rate, can the team still count on you to land us a sugar mama and let us all live the good life?’

Liu Hao frantically signaled his captain with his eyes, his eyelids twitching so hard they were about to cramp.

Ye Junhan shot him a cool glance before his gaze fell on the thing Liu Hao was holding.

Over the years, he’d led his team in dealing with countless mutated monsters, but this one... Ye Junhan narrowed his eyes slightly, an arc of lightning flashing across his fingertip.

Gu Xi stepped forward and bent down, her heart sinking as she looked at the enormous Pangolin with its humanoid face.

Ever since the South City Restaurant incident, where her three Crystal Core Fragments had unexpectedly led to the self-detonation at South City address 176, Gu Xi had suspected someone was targeting the mutated.

She simply had no proof.

But she never imagined they would be so bold as to actually keep mutated people in captivity!

Take this... creature, for instance. She supposed you could still call it a person. Although she didn’t know what methods had been used, it seemed to have retained its human rationality. Its situation was likely similar to Wei Heng’s before:

—some transformation abilities could only be used once. After that, there was no turning back to human form.

’To retain one’s human memories and reason, yet be unable to ever regain a human form... To survive in the world like this—was it a blessing or a curse for him?’

Gu Xi sighed and turned to Ye Junhan. "If we report this, how will the base handle it?"

Ye Junhan frowned slightly. Even if these mutated monsters retained their human rationality, their behavior would still be influenced by their bestial instincts. They would become exceptionally impulsive, violent, and bloodthirsty, killing indiscriminately.

In a way, they were no different from the zombies back then. They could no longer be called human.

Yet someone had created a whole horde of these monsters for their own selfish desires.

Ye Junhan remained silent.

He knew that even if he reported it to the base, the authorities would likely suppress it. There would only be one grand-sounding excuse: to maintain stability and avoid causing unnecessary panic among the public.

Just like the plant mutation incident before.

Gu Xi understood.

She stood up and dusted off her hands. Sprouty immediately released the monster. With a gentle shake of its vine, a tiny speck of golden light flew into the monster’s eyes...

Ye Junhan seemed to sense something. He snapped his head up just in time to see the monster’s eyes widen blankly. It was as if a tiny sliver of sunlight had rippled within its eyes before vanishing without a trace.

’Was that a trick of the light, or...?’ Ye Junhan looked up at the girl beside him.

Gu Xi met his gaze. ’What are you looking at me for?’

Standing between them, Liu Hao’s eyes darted slyly back and forth between the two a few times before he turned and asked a teammate in the vehicle for a bottle of water.

"Miss Gu."

Gu Xi turned to see Liu Hao walking toward her with a bottle of water, an honest, simple look on his face and an incredibly enthusiastic expression. "It’s so hot out. Here, have some water and take a break. We’ll take care of this thing..."

"Thank you." Gu Xi was about to reach for it when Liu Hao shoved the water into Ye Junhan’s hand.

Gu Xi: "..."

Ye Junhan: "..."

To the side, Liu Hao gave his captain a shove, exasperated by his lack of initiative. Life wasn’t easy for anyone these days, and living off a woman wasn’t that simple. A pretty face alone wasn’t going to cut it.

In other words, being a kept man was a skill in itself—one that his captain had clearly not yet mastered...

Liu Hao was so anxious he wished he could take the captain’s place himself.

After having someone come and carry the Pangolin away, Ye Junhan finally handed the water to Gu Xi.

Gu Xi took it with a faint smile. The guys from the Special Service Team were pretty interesting. ’Since I accepted their water, I should return the favor.’

’It’s not convenient to take things out of my dimensional space, so I’ll just plant a crop of big watermelons during the next break.’

Just then, Yang Liu returned with his team.

Over a dozen injured members of the Guard Team were laid out side-by-side on two vehicles. It was only thanks to the powerful physiques of high-level ability users that they were still alive; an ordinary person with such injuries would have died long ago.

Even so, they weren’t in good shape.

There were no Healing System ability users on this mission.

And with the convoy’s current medical facilities, the few who were missing the lower halves of their bodies probably wouldn’t survive the night.

Gu Xi had no intention of intervening. Yang Liu walked over to Ye Junhan and said in a low voice, "Captain, we only found 19." Including the one Liu Hao brought back alive, that made a total of just twenty.

But according to the intel from Qian Shan and the drone footage, the group that approached the convoy had a total of 25 members.

The whereabouts of the other five were unknown.

Ye Junhan and Gu Xi exchanged a look.

The convoy was about to get underway again.

"Wait." Qi Xiang came running over, panting, and knocked on the front vehicle’s door. "Ye Junhan, I want to ride with Gu Xi."

Ye Junhan glanced up at Wei Heng, who was standing behind her.

Wei Heng looked helpless; there was no stopping the young miss when she got stubborn.

Qi Xiang paid him no mind and opened the back door. Gu Xi scooted over to make room.

And just like that, the two women squeezed into Ye Junhan’s command vehicle.

Not far off, those who saw this began exchanging winks and meaningful glances. After all, rumors about Qi Xiang and Ye Junhan had been circulating for years. Now, Gu Xi was in the mix...

And so, the atmosphere throughout the entire convoy suddenly became... peculiar.

As soon as Qi Xiang got in, she started whispering to Gu Xi, glancing toward the front seat from time to time.

Gu Xi: "..."

Just then, Ye Junhan, who was in the front passenger seat, suddenly spoke. "Seatbelts."

The roads out here in the wild were bad and extremely bumpy. It was easy to get into an accident without a seatbelt.

Gu Xi nodded. Just as she was about to grab her seatbelt, Qi Xiang quickly intercepted her. "I’ll do it."

As Qi Xiang fastened Gu Xi’s seatbelt, she shot a look at a certain someone in the front seat.

Ye Junhan: "..."

Qi Xiang deftly fastened Gu Xi’s seatbelt and said, "Gu Xi, it’s so hot. I’m feeling a little thirsty."

That line sounded a little familiar.

Hearing this, Gu Xi glanced up at the certain someone in the front...

She suddenly narrowed her eyes.

At the same time, Ye Junhan pressed the button on his walkie-talkie. "Yang Liu, ten o’clock."

"Roger that."

A few drones quickly flew off in the ten o’clock direction.

Qi Xiang was curious. "What’s wrong?"

Ye Junhan ignored her and just told the driver to stop the vehicle.

He didn’t get out, but simply rested his hand on the window frame, tapping his fingers against the glass in a subtle, deliberate rhythm.

About two minutes later, Yang Liu’s voice came over the walkie-talkie:

"Captain, we’ve spotted a small convoy at ten o’clock... It’s the Abnormal Ability Research Institute’s vehicles!"