From Apocalypse Boss to Farmer: My Vegetables Make Me Stronger!-Chapter 36 - 33: Destined to Clash

Nearby, Shen Yue glanced at Wei Heng, then slowly walked over to Ye Junhan.

The two men exchanged a look and tacitly moved to the side.

They had been friends for years, so they spoke rather casually.

"Here to pick up Ye Nan?" Shen Yue raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over to Qi Xiang before he asked Ye Junhan, "Why did you bring her along?"

Last night, Ye Nan made a new discovery deep in the woods. Since the equipment she needed happened to be among the new instruments Mr. Zhao had just delivered, she stayed behind.

But Ye Junhan’s mission on this trip was to protect Dr. Qi. When Dr. Qi had to return to the South City base last night on urgent business, Ye Junhan left two team members to ensure Ye Nan’s safety and went with him.

It wasn’t strange that Ye Junhan would come back to pick up Ye Nan, since she was still here. What was strange was that he brought Qi Xiang along.

"There was an incident at the Abnormal Ability Research Institute. Dr. Qi received a message and rushed back to the Central Base overnight..." Ye Junhan paused, giving Shen Yue a meaningful look. His voice was cold.

"And?" Shen Yue asked nonchalantly, a lazy eyebrow raised.

’That Mr. Xv really is worried about Gu Xi,’ he thought. ’And he’s certainly capable. I just leaked a tiny bit of information last night, and he immediately scrambled to get Dr. Qi recalled to the Central Base.’

"Qi Xiang is also a student at the Agricultural University. Last night, she volunteered to come here as an assistant to the professors. The higher-ups approved it, so Dr. Qi asked me to bring her over before he left."

Ye Junhan explained calmly. His right hand, clad in a tactical glove, rested on the sheath at his waist, his fingertips tapping it unconsciously.

His posture was casual, yet it radiated an overwhelming sense of power and intimidation.

Unaware of what Qi Xiang was saying over there, Gu Xi glanced in the two men’s direction. Her gaze inadvertently swept over Ye Junhan’s waist, a hint of nostalgia in her eyes.

Ye Junhan’s perception was extremely sharp.

The moment Gu Xi looked over, his cold gaze snapped toward her. But she only glanced at him for a second before looking away, so she didn’t notice his fingertips pressing harder against the sheath.

But Shen Yue saw it.

Shen Yue raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He just followed Ye Junhan’s gaze to Gu Xi, who looked about ready to crumble under Qi Xiang’s overwhelming enthusiasm.

Suddenly, he retracted his gaze, took two steps forward, and clapped Ye Junhan on the shoulder.

"Come on, I’ll take you to Ye Nan."

Shen Yue waggled the personal terminal on his wrist and explained with a grin, "The mutant plant specimens Ye Nan brought back last night show suspected signs of Purification... The lab is under complete lockdown now. You won’t get in without me."

Ye Junhan glanced at him and gave a quiet grunt of acknowledgment.

Not far away, Gu Xi, whose hand was being held by Qi Xiang, didn’t seem to notice the two men’s conversation.

Miss Qi’s enthusiasm, wrapped in a gentle voice and a bright smile, was truly hard to handle.

Gu Xi lowered her eyes to the hands gripping her wrist and subtly raised an eyebrow.

’So this is the legendary Golden Carp Luck ability? It certainly is... special.’

In fact, Gu Xi had known since last night that Ye Nan had stayed behind. With her level of caution, there was no way she would have missed the new faces in the area.

A few discreet inquiries were all it took to find out what was going on.

However, because Ye Nan’s experiments were classified, Gu Xi hadn’t previously known the reason she was staying.

But now, she did.

Thinking about the plant specimens Ye Nan had brought back from deep within those woods last night, Gu Xi felt a faint sense of resignation.

With the successive arrivals of the Qin Family sisters, Mr. Zhao, and the others, Gu Xi didn’t want to reveal her biggest trump card. So, after dealing with that malignantly mutated plant the other day, she had stopped harvesting energy nearby and had instead been going deep into the woods on the back mountain.

She had thought it was far enough away and deep enough in the woods that no one would go there. But as fate would have it, right after she went to the woods for a harvest in the early hours of yesterday morning, people from the Abnormal Ability Research Institute showed up...

That in itself wouldn’t have been a problem.

Although the X Energy inside plants she’d plundered would decrease or even vanish, as if they had been purified, this energy loss would quickly be replenished, sometimes even to a higher level than before.

A single day was enough for the mutant plants she had harvested at dawn to recover.

No matter how much the people from the Abnormal Ability Research Institute investigated, they wouldn’t find anything.

But things just had to be that coincidental. Yesterday, while harvesting energy, Gu Xi had accidentally discovered a high-level Mutated Locust Tree, at least level 10, deep in the woods.

This Mutated Locust Tree was special. It had likely already evolved into a high-level mutant plant during the early days of the apocalypse.

The highly aggressive kind.

Later, after the second great mutation, plants were no longer aggressive. But this Mutated Locust Tree must have drawn blood before. Though it was no longer aggressive now, Gu Xi discovered that the energy within it was rather unusual.

It was somewhere between X Energy and the purer, higher-grade energy found after a malignant mutation.

Gu Xi worried that if it was left to develop, it would become another malignantly mutated plant.

The professors’ experimental fields were only about ten kilometers away. Leaving it here was extremely dangerous.

But if she got rid of it directly, she couldn’t bear to part with the vast, high-grade energy inside it that was on the verge of transformation.

So, the best method was actually to harvest it directly, "force-ripening" it into a state of malignant mutation. Once the energy inside it completed its transformation, she could eliminate it in one fell swoop.

But that would take some time.

And at that time, the sky was already growing light. Plus, she had already arranged with Shen Yue to go plant crops over by the Heng River later...

So, after thinking it over, Gu Xi didn’t "force-ripen" the Mutated Locust Tree. Instead, she used her own ability to envelop the energy within it, temporarily halting its growth.

Her original plan was to find some time after she got back from the banks of the Heng River to deal with this Mutated Locust Tree.

That way, no one would be the wiser.

But who would have thought things would be so coincidental...

Before she could even get back, the people from the Abnormal Ability Research Institute had arrived. And Ye Nan, under the influence of Qi Xiang’s Golden Carp Luck, had discovered the Mutated Locust Tree first.

Because the mutant energy inside it was enveloped and restricted by Gu Xi’s ability, it appeared as if the mutant plant’s mutation process had inexplicably stopped, as though it had been purified.

Ye Nan was from the Healing System and had been researching the Purification of mutant plants. For years, she had dreamed of using her own ability to purify the strange energies within plants and animals!

When it came to perceiving this sort of thing, Ye Nan was more astute than anyone.

So, after discovering the Mutated Locust Tree’s anomaly last night, Ye Nan immediately realized something... Fortunately, she always remembered her mom, Ye Xin’s, words—be wary of Dr. Qi.

That’s why after returning with the samples last night, Ye Nan didn’t say a word. Instead, she waited until just before Dr. Qi left, then used her mom, Ye Xin, as a shield.

—Citing the excuse that she had been entrusted by her mother, Mr. Ye, the vice director, to stay and investigate the disappearance of the malignantly mutated plant, Ye Nan successfully managed to remain behind.

Dr. Qi only gave her a deep look at the time and said nothing before hurrying back to the South City base—because by then, Shen Yue had already contacted Xv Yiyisan.

Due to her limited intelligence, Gu Xi didn’t know about the multi-sided power plays behind the scenes, but the fact that Ye Nan had discovered the Mutated Locust Tree still left her feeling a bit helpless.

’A night has passed. I wonder what those two professors and Ye Nan have discovered?’

Gu Xi lowered her eyes, hiding the regret within them.

’It’s not that I’m afraid of what Ye Nan might discover. No one would ever know it has anything to do with me anyway.’

’It’s just such a shame... Now that the Mutated Locust Tree has caught others’ attention, I’m afraid I’ll never get the chance to harvest its energy.’

At that thought, Gu Xi’s heart ached with regret, as if she had just lost a hundred million dollars...

Gu Xi lifted her gaze slightly, watching the tall, straight figure of the man following Shen Yue as he walked away. For some reason, a strange and unsettling thought suddenly flashed through her mind:

’Are our fortunes just incompatible? Does he always have to clash with me?’

’Otherwise, why is it that every time he shows up, the spare Abnormal Energy I’ve got my eye on disappears?’