Hidden Dead Ends - Chapter 17: Cooperation (III)

Li Chengyi thought so and acted on it.

He entered the neighborhood and headed for the strings of wisterias hanging down.

He turned a corner, walked over, stopped, and gently reached out to touch the flowers.

If he didn’t repair the Flower Scale Gear, he might not be able to sleep at all.

Hiss…

A cool aura flowed from the petals into his fingers.

Soon, the aura dissipated. He could clearly feel that the wisterias he had touched seemed to have become empty shells. Something special inside had disappeared and been sucked away.

He could feel that the roots of the flowers seemed to be slowly replenishing this special thing, but it was very, very slow. As soon as they replenished a little, he immediately absorbed it.

Raising his hand, he quickly changed to unabsorbed wisterias and absorbed the special substance.

From his perspective, in one of the slots in the ring on the back of his right hand, a faint purple light was slowly lighting up like it was charging.

About half a minute later, he had touched all the wisterias here until the Flower of Evil ring on the back of his hand gave him a notification for the third time.

[The Flower Scale Gear has been repaired.]

Disappointed, he left the flower racks and walked toward his house.

He thought that if he had touched more, he might have been able to store some of this special substance for when the Flower Scale Gear was damaged again.

Now, it seemed like he had thought too much.

Tomorrow, I’ll learn the information about Dead Ends as soon as possible and then study the evolution of the Flower Scale Gear and how to activate the next Flower God Position!

With this thought in mind, Li Chengyi returned to his empty house, closed the door, and fell asleep without even taking off his clothes.

He completely buried his head in the soft pillow with the fragrance of detergent.

At this moment, he didn’t think about anything else and only wanted to sleep peacefully.

Time flowed slowly like a stream, and an unknown amount of time passed.

The faint sound of car horns gradually became clearer and louder in Li Chengyi’s consciousness.

He gradually woke up from his deep sleep.

In his daze, he heard people cursing and arguing downstairs over a parking space.

The anxious car horns had always been very annoying in the memories of his predecessor, but at this moment, they gave him a sense of relief that he had not felt for a long time.

He had only left for a few hours, but it seemed like a long time had passed.

“This child doesn’t even take off his clothes when he sleeps, and he’s even sleeping on his stomach.” The voice of his predecessor’s mother, Feng Yurong, sounded at the door.

Then there was the feeling of a thin blanket covering his body.

Then Li Chengyi’s consciousness sank again as he fell into a new round of sleep.

Dark, peaceful, warm.

After some time, when he returned to his senses, his eyelids had turned dark red.

It was the red light of blood shining on his eyelids from the outside.

Faint bird cries came in through the window, mixed with the sound of a mop mopping the floor.

Li Chengyi woke up and opened his eyes.

He had laid on his pillow and fell asleep without taking off his clothes. His saliva wet a large area of the pillowcase, and the skin at the corner of his mouth was pressing against it. It felt sticky and disgusting.

There was also an unpleasant smell of saliva.

He turned over and sat up on the bed.

In the room, his mother, Feng Yurong, wearing a black apron and home clothes, was bending over and mopping the floor.

The wet mop left clear wet marks on the floor, and it even emitted the faint smell of laundry water.

“Mom, you’re mopping the floor with laundry water again,” Li Chengyi said subconsciously.

This scene was exactly the same as what his mother had done in his previous life, and the two scenes inexplicably overlapped at this moment.

“Water is money too. Isn’t it a waste to throw it away after washing clothes?” Feng Yurong’s somewhat out-of-shape body stood up and wiped the sweat off her forehead.

She was a standard gentle housewife. She was a little thin and short, and her skin was pale from not seeing much sunlight all year round, making her look a little sickly. Her facial features were ordinary and not good-looking, but they were not ugly either. But there were always wrinkles between her eyebrows and the corner of her eyes, as though she was always worried about something.

“After mopping the floor, we can still keep the water for flushing the toilet. This way, our family will save at least a third of the water compared to others, and the water bill will be a third less.” Feng Yurong calculated seriously with her unskilled math skills.

“Okay, okay.” Li Chengyi replied and turned to look out the window.

Bright sunshine, blue skies.

A white four-winged drone slowly flew across the sky. Not far away, there were two black birds chasing and playing in the air.

“Get up and have breakfast. You slept until ten in the morning. You haven’t found a job yet, but you’re already slacking off,” Feng Yurong urged.

“Got it.” Li Chengyi supported himself with one hand on the edge of the bed, put on his slippers, and stood up.

After getting off the bed, he felt waves of soreness all over his body. His calves were soft and weak, and he couldn’t exert any strength in his shoulders and back. Clearly, he had strained his muscles in the Dead End.

He walked to the living room, pulled out a chair, and sat down at the dining table.

On the long brown wooden table were four small bowls.

In the grayish-white bowls with black dots were a bowl of black rice porridge, a bowl of unknown vegetable cut into small pieces, and two egg and onion pancakes.

“The pancakes are a little cold. Heat them up in the microwave. Half a minute is enough.” Feng Yurong’s voice came from his bedroom.

“Got it.” Li Chengyi picked up a silver metal spoon, scooped a spoonful of black rice porridge, and put it into his mouth.

The sweet ride porridge had a rough, grainy texture and the faint aroma of black rice.

The warm sensation made him feel an unprecedented sense of reality.

“You didn’t go exercise today. Little Dong even called to ask about you. He said that he couldn’t reach your number, but when he got through later, no one answered. He didn’t believe me when I said that you were asleep, and he said he would find you after work. And Lin Sang, that little girl asked you if you were free. She sent you a message, but you didn’t reply. Your dad went out to buy groceries and met her. She smiled and greeted him. She’s a polite child…”

Feng Yurong was chattering non-stop in the room while mopping the floor.

In the living room, Li Chengyi was eating the black rice porridge one bite after another.

Then he scooped up a piece of white vegetable and stuffed it into his mouth.

It was a cucumber.

He tasted it. The peeled cucumber had been cut into pieces. It was a little sour but very refreshing.

He picked up the bowl and downed the porridge in a few gulps. Then he picked up the pancake and took big bites.

In less than five minutes, he wiped out everything in the four bowls in front of him.

“Thanks for the meal. I have something to do today. It’s work. Don’t worry about lunch and dinner for me.” He stood up and went to the bathroom to wipe his face quickly. The pain in the corner of his eyes was still reminding him that everything that had happened was not a dream.

“Got it. I have a break today. The machine tools in my area of the factory are being serviced today, so I can only go to work in the afternoon. Have you found a job? If you have any news, remember to tell your dad and me. We’re not sleeping well because we’re worried about you. 

“But don’t worry too much. Fortunately, everything went smoothly on your sister’s side. She said that she wanted to take the exam for some certificate. It seems to be a mechanist or something. We don’t really understand. It costs a lot of money… But once she passes, her income will be very high, and the family’s finances will be much better off…”

Feng Yurong was nagging again.

Li Chengyi wasn’t his predecessor, so he didn’t feel impatient. Everything here was new to him.

Simple memories could not perfectly repeat the vividness of the past. Only by experiencing it personally could he feel more.

He responded casually, quickly brushed his teeth, and changed his clothes. The sleeves of his sportswear were stained with some red.

He quickly put his sleeves under the tap, wet them with soap, and rubbed them.

Then he changed into a gray hoodie.

“I’m going out to do something. Bye.” He casually used an excuse to deal with Feng Yurong, put on his shoes, and opened the front door.

“Come back early. If you don’t have anything to do, don’t wander around outside to waste time and then come back and say that you had an interview.” Feng Yurong looked as though she had seen through everything.

“I know…” Li Chengyi was helpless. He didn’t expect his predecessor to do such a thing for the sake of his face.

Bang!

After closing the door, he breathed a long sigh of relief. He pressed the elevator button, waited for the doors to open, and went in.

While the elevator was going down, he took out his phone and looked at the missed calls and unread texts.

There were calls from Lin Sang, Chen Xudong, Professor Chen Shan, and an unknown number.

He quickly returned the calls of his mentor and Chen Xudong, made up an excuse that he had been sick and fallen asleep, and then opened the messages to reply to them one by one.

By the time he finished replying to all of them, he had left the building and walked to the entrance of the neighborhood.

Without stopping, he walked toward the small park again.

The Flower of Evil had helped him a lot to survive this time, so the first thing he had to do after waking up and feeling full of energy was to study this mysterious trump card that greatly increased his survival rate!

After arriving at the small park, Li Chengyi returned to the racks where the wisterias were.

The wind had knocked down many wisteria petals on the ground under the racks, and some of them had even been trampled and crushed.

This scene made Li Chengyi’s heart ache slightly. He wasn’t a person who loved flowers, but these flowers were his capital to preserve his life. It seems I have to find a way to ensure a stable source of flowers in the future. For now, I’ll study how to use the Flower of Evil.

Beside the flower racks, there were two middle-aged women who had just finished dancing with red folding fans and were chatting with their hands on their hips.

On a bench not far away sat a young couple with a child. The little child, who only knew how to crawl, was rubbing against his mother like a little pig.

After confirming that there were no people worthy of note around, Li Chengyi retracted his gaze and reached out to touch a bunch of wisterias.

[The Flower Scale Gear has been repaired.]

A clear reminder appeared in his mind, but other than this, there was no other response.

After putting down his hand, Li Chengyi thought for a while and changed his target. He looked around and took a few steps toward the grass beside the racks.

Then he bent down and reached out to grab some flowers growing on the ground.

The grass was a mess of overgrown weeds.

Wild grass was mixed with flowers and plants in the park, and wild flowers and human-cultivated flowers were also mixed together.

Big red flowers, white flowers, yellow chrysanthemums, some light blue and small unknown flowers… Some of these flowers were fully blooming, some were only half-blooming, and some were only buds.

Li Chengyi reached out and gently touched the largest and most eye-catching red flower.

Since the wisterias didn’t bring about any changes, he would first try to see if the other flowers could activate the Second Flower God Position.

Since I’ve already collected the wisterias for the Flower Scale Gear, does this satisfy the requirement of developing the First Flower God Position to the limit?

As his fingers touched the big red flower…

New information emerged.

[Red Peony: It is also known as the farewell flower. The petals can reach hundreds, and the roots are medicinal. It can relieve pain, promote blood circulation, and help with menstrual cycles. It prefers growth environments with sunlight and is resistant to drought. The flowering period is from May to June.]

[Flower Language: Fondness (Suppose there is a dark red metal bell that is two meters tall and weighs a ton. As long as you have feelings for it, you can easily lift it and smash it at anyone.)]

[Flower Scale Gear: Not enough Flower God Positions. Please activate.]