Care Guide to Raising a Max Level Leaf in Apocalypse - 81
Gazing at the tree
Si Yin Yuan lowered his head, flipping through the materials filled with students’ exam records. He remained silent, and the atmosphere remained oddly oppressive.
A brutal question lay before them, sparking an internal struggle.
Joker, unafraid of stirring things up, rolled up his sleeves and checked his watch, saying, “Oh, we have half an hour until the apocalypse starts.”
His sky-blue sports watch seemed out of place with his tall adult figure.
Ji Jiu responded slowly, “This belongs to that student from earlier. Lin Mo, I think.”
Unexpectedly, Joker had quietly taken it away.
Recalling Joker’s skilled lockpicking, Ji Jiu fell into silence.
Joker, completely unembarrassed, proudly waved the watch, saying, “This is magic!”
Yu Feichen grabbed his wrist, examining it closely in the darkness.
Time until midnight was running out.
Si Yin Yuan set aside the materials, saying, “The records are intact, and the exam scores match the student files.”
This further negated the possibility of an illusion. Even the most meticulous illusion couldn’t achieve such perfection in every detail.
“Could it really be a parallel world?” Yu Feichen sighed.
They walked out with heavy hearts. Ji Jiu looked up at the sky, where dark clouds obscured the moon.
Passing by the huge banyan tree again on their way back to the abandoned dormitory, the leaves and branches, once rustling gently in the daytime breeze, now looked like ink splatters in the night.
No one could have anticipated that the old tree, which only swayed in the gentle wind during the day, would transform into a killer for the entire school in just over ten minutes.
They stood before the tree, gazing at it as if reliving the misfortune of three years ago.
Someone stopped walking first, and no one moved forward.
Si Yin Yuan’s voice was unusually deep, “Are you all sure?”
No one answered, but their bodies stood here more resolutely than their thoughts.
He chuckled, “Alright.”
He knew his subordinates well. Even if all this might be meaningless, they wouldn’t willingly ignore it. From the beginning, he never considered not participating.
Ji Jiu felt the increasing concentration of gama around them—a subtle change that humans find hard to perceive.
In fact, gama concentration wasn’t something that appeared only after the apocalypse. It had always existed outside living organisms before the apocalypse, undetected and in sparse amounts.
The concentration of gama is rapidly increasing, as time was approaching midnight.
Ji Jiu sighed softly, refocusing on the banyan tree. Suddenly, he was grabbed by the nape of his neck.
“Huh?” He looked back with almost raised hairs.
Si Yin Yuan suppressed his tiny protest, placing him behind him and admonishing, “Don’t run around.”
Even though everyone in the base knew that Ji Jiu was a formidable hunter, under Si Yin Yuan’s powerful protection, he remained a vulnerable and lovable little figure that must be taken care of.
If only he could shrink him and keep him in his pocket.
Ji Jiu nodded obediently, peeking out cautiously to observe the banyan tree.
Joker suddenly lifted his wristwatch, his expression slightly more serious: “Oh, time’s up.”
As he spoke, the tree roots below shot up and aggressively attacked Guan Yin, who agilely avoided the assault.
Next came the sound of bones forcefully growing, a grating noise.
This was Ji Jiu’s first time witnessing a mutation starting from scratch. The branches rapidly extended, the color of the leaves turning gray from the crown downward until the lower half of the tree became entirely gray.
Si Yin Yuan didn’t let the mutation of this mutant continue. He raised his hand, causing golden flames to ignite from the base of the tree. The once vibrant vitality was instantly usurped, and to survive, the banyan tree’s branches grew ten more, striking towards all living things in front of it.
The branches were as powerful as spears, leaving deep holes in the cement road when they missed a target. It was easy to imagine that if these branches hit a human, they could effortlessly penetrate the flesh.
Ji Jiu was protected, not a single strand of his hair exposed to danger. He looked towards the flowers and plants under the banyan tree.
Unlike the tree, they didn’t mutate as quickly but continuously absorbed the surrounding gama elements, undergoing subtle changes internally.
If this group of roadblocks hadn’t appeared halfway, the banyan tree would have absorbed all the nearby flowers and plants, quietly spreading its roots throughout the entire school, and ultimately preying on the students.
Now, the process of mutation was abruptly interrupted, and the trunk was riddled with holes.
The commotion of such a significant fight woke up the students and teachers in the dormitory building. The first student who rushed over emitted a frightened scream, alerting everyone in the school that something was wrong.
As the banyan tree was completely extinguished by the flames and fell, a considerable number of people had gathered around. Though they hadn’t witnessed the entire process, they could reconstruct it from the chaotic scene.
There must have been a fierce battle here.
Chen Na, who somehow squeezed to the forefront of the crowd, with disheveled hair, looked towards them with an expression of uncontrollable astonishment. “Are you… not shooting a movie, right?”
Ji Jiu flashed her a harmless smile, saying, “Don’t be afraid; we’re not bad people.”
Like the round, innocent eyes of animal cubs, these originally tense students inexplicably relaxed. At an age where curiosity and courage were at their peak, they bombarded them with questions.
“Did you just have a fight with a tree?”
“Why is the flame golden? Did you use some kind of chemical weapon?”
“What exactly happened here?”
The once quiet campus instantly turned into a bustling market in the morning.
The teachers’ dormitory was relatively far from here, and when they arrived late, they could only see the students surrounding a group of suspicious individuals.
The students kept talking about superpowers.
These teachers, soaked in materialism and well-educated, suddenly wore dark expressions on their faces. They approached and urged, “Hey, what are you doing?”
In the school days, which student wasn’t afraid of teachers? They scattered at once, revealing Ji Jiu and the others.
Ten minutes later, Ji Jiu experienced the first-time life event of being invited by a teacher to have tea.
He looked at the tea in front of him and took a sip without any vigilance, immediately feeling it scalding his mouth.
Si Yin Yuan frowned immediately, “Open your mouth; let me see if there are any burns.”
With teary eyes, Ji Jiu obediently stuck out a small part of his tongue.
Si Yin Yuan looked at the reddened tip of his tongue with a distressed expression, a stark contrast to his earlier stern demeanor. This change added a touch of popularity to him.
Without the fierce and intimidating aura, the atmosphere became much more relaxed.
Seeing Ji Jiu looking wronged, the teacher pouring tea suddenly felt a bit out of place guilt.
With this unexpected interruption, the originally serious accountability discussion was instantly stifled.
Some female teachers, observing Ji Jiu’s demeanor, even softened their hearts and brought snacks from the office.
With the snacks in hand, Ji Jiu instantly forgot the pain, happily nibbling on the chestnut cake.
Yu Feichen could clearly sense that the teacher bringing pastries was giving them an even stranger look, as if they were suspicious characters kidnapping minors and not letting them eat their fill.
The shortest teacher in the crowd coughed, “Let’s not talk about how you deceived our school’s newly installed intelligent recognition door to get in. The fact remains that you used weapons with certain lethality to damage the school property.”
The sports teacher nodded, “You fooled me too. In reality, you didn’t have an appointment at all.”
At this point, someone noticed the combat guns at their waists and couldn’t help but shout, causing the office to descend into chaos again.
After a full hour of negotiation, these teachers finally chose to believe that they weren’t escaped mental patients or villains intending to wreak havoc in the school. As for the guns, they were props, and all the confusion was a misunderstanding caused by an error in the amount of gunpowder used during filming.
However, their wariness still couldn’t be completely dispelled. Fortunately, the discussion eventually shifted to the topic of illegal filming.
To disguise the fact that their hands were props, Guan Yin had to keep suppressing his tall stature, feeling quite constrained.
He suddenly spoke in a low voice, “It’s too strange.”
Ji Jiu, done with the chestnut cake and reaching for the green bean cake, asked in a hushed tone, “What’s strange?”
“At this moment, it’s more than three years ago. Shouldn’t they be stuck at the stage of finding the police when something happens?” Guan Yin took a sharp breath, “But why do they not have this awareness from start to finish?”
Not only that, not a single person thought to take out their phones to check online.
This way, they would discover that the signal had been interrupted after midnight.
For so long, everything had been identical to reality, and at this moment, a loophole finally appeared.
Ji Jiu took a small bite of the green bean cake and remarked, “Oh, they’re so foolish.”
Si Yin Yuan suddenly spoke, “It’s not foolishness, it’s subconscious resistance.”
Resistance to connecting with the outside world.
The conversation on that side finally came to an end. The teacher who initially came to apprehend them slammed the table, “Alright, anyway, by morning, you must leave after compensating me.”
Feng Chuyao nodded helplessly, “Okay, but we are too tired now. Can we wait until it’s daylight?” Ji Jiu let out a small yawn, leaning against his owner, and the little tuft of hair on his head softened.
In this situation, the group of teachers couldn’t make any extreme moves. After reaching an agreement, they locked the office door to ensure they wouldn’t pose a threat to the students’ safety.
Until the break of dawn, everyone except for a carefree little grass that slept half-coiled around its owner had stayed awake.
For awakened individuals, a night without sleep didn’t cause any issues. After a night of contemplation, Yu Feichen held his head, muttering, “No, I have to reveal the truth!”
Just as he stood up, the sun completely rose, and daylight flooded the surroundings.
Suddenly, the environment around them began to distort. Si Yin Yuan, the first to sense something amiss, raised his hand to shield Ji Jiu.
Before they could assume a combat stance, the surroundings changed again.
They were teleported back to the place just inside the school gate, and not far away, a class was having a physical education lesson on the sports field.
Before they could notice their surroundings, Si Yin Yuan, who was quick to react, said decisively, “Let’s go.”
They walked along another path that no one passed during class, without attracting anyone’s attention.
Yu Feichen felt dizzy, muttering, “What’s happening?”
Si Yin Yuan spoke decisively, “First, go see if that banyan tree is still there. Ji Jiu, come with me.”
The information Si Yin Yuan saw in the office the previous night came in handy now.
Watching them from a distance, Ji Jiu obediently took off the black combat suit and the equipment, revealing the white shirt underneath.
This attire made him look even more like a naive high school student.
As he followed Si Yin Yuan outside, they coincidentally encountered Chen Na and Lin Mo, who had just finished their laps.
In that instant when the four people made eye contact, the polite little grass raised his hand, saying, “Hello.”
Chen Na and Lin Mo, looking at each other strangely, each thought the other was a friend. In the end, Lin Mo hesitated and raised his hand, “Hello?”
In his hand was a blue sports wristwatch.