Chapter 129 Fear

The next morning.

Li Cheng颐 was among the first to arrive at the Long'an Botanical Garden, watching the staff slowly slide open the large iron gate.

He straightened his clothes, making sure his floral researcher ID badge was properly displayed on his chest.

"Boss, coming to admire the flowers so early? I'll go look around for a breakfast place." Zhou Xing瞳 got out of the car behind him, couldn't help but yawn, covered her mouth with her hand, and then quickly touched up her makeup with a small mirror.

At four thirty in the morning, before dawn, her boss had called her to get ready to leave.

Poor her, she had only managed half a dream after taking a shower and putting on a face mask before being woken up.

She was still dazed.

'Admiring flowers so early...’ She was beginning to understand her boss's torturous routine.

No, actually it wasn't really torture, at least he himself got up even earlier.

She sighed. But for the sake of the doubled overtime pay, Zhou Xing瞳 cheered herself up.

‘The mentally ill are always happy,’ she now understood the meaning of this saying.

He liked magic tricks, liked scaring people, and after scaring people, he would immediately go admire flowers, never carrying over the fatigue and stress of the previous day.

This was a day in the life of her mentally ill boss.

‘Maybe I can post a daily thread, recording the boss's happy life every day.’

"Ah, it's okay, I bought food. Here's a portion for you." Li Cheng颐 didn't even turn his head, handing her a bag of steamed buns, marinated eggs, and a boxed mung bean porridge.

"Okay, thank you, boss." Zhou Xing瞳 took it and started eating, devouring a meat bun in three bites.

For a child who grew up enduring hardship like her, she never fussed about food.

"Let's go, let's go inside and take a look." Seeing the botanical garden open, Li Cheng颐 brushed off non-existent dust from his body and strode forward.

Zhou Xing瞳 quickly steered the car to the parking lot on autopilot, while she hurried to catch up in her high heels.

Then she saw her boss say a few words to the gatekeeper, and soon a middle-aged woman from the botanical garden staff was assigned to take him inside.

Her boss skillfully stuffed a roll of banknotes into the woman's hand.

The woman immediately beamed and began to enthusiastically introduce the situation.

Zhou Xing瞳 finished the egg in a few bites, then poked open the mung bean porridge and took a sip, hurrying to follow.

A few minutes later.

The three of them arrived at the edge of the gladiolus garden, which was still under construction and being watered.

The woman gave a few instructions and then turned to leave.

"Xing瞳, you wait here, I'll go study it and be right back." Li Cheng颐 dropped a sentence and entered the flower field from a small path.

Then he began to touch each flower one by one.

Before long, the boss's expression turned gloomy. His burly body bent down, carefully looking at the red gladiolus flowers that had been knocked off the ground by something.

Zhou Xing瞳 saw him carefully pick up the few red gladiolus flowers as if cradling a son, his face full of regret.

Then the boss called over the gardeners who were pruning nearby and began to lecture them, spouting professional knowledge one after another, and questioning them on how they did their jobs.

‘Even if the workers didn't do a good job, it shouldn't be the boss's business, right? It should be the botanical garden's management who comes out.’

Zhou Xing瞳 was puzzled.

But soon she thought of something, took out her phone and quickly flipped through it.

‘Oh… the boss seems to have booked the entire gladiolus garden… um… let me see… a temporary booking for half a month, the price is… nine hundred thousand! Yikes.’

Zhou Xing瞳 completely couldn't understand.

Looking up at the boss who had just lectured the gardeners, she pulled up her phone's notepad and wrote down: ‘Hobbies – cherishes flowers as if they were his life.’

* * *

Huff.

Li Cheng颐's heart was aching.

Although there were many varieties of gladiolus, they were also more mixed. There were only three varieties here that could completely gather variants with hundreds of degrees of evolution.

This time, the variant he chose was the crimson gladiolus, but several flowers were knocked off by the workers, almost making him mad.

It was already almost out of season, and now several flowers were knocked off, if he was stuck on the last few points of evolution…

Thinking of this, he quickly continued to touch the flowers.

‘32%’

‘41%’

‘55%’

‘68%’

As the degree of evolution increased, Li Cheng颐 looked at the few remaining crimson gladiolus flowers, his heart began to pound.

‘Don't get stuck, don't get stuck!’

He sped up his movements. At the same time, he didn't let go of any gladiolus flowers that fell on the ground.

Even if some flowers had fallen, they still had qi, and could still be absorbed.

One minute.

Two minutes.

Five minutes…

‘97%’

Almost full, almost full…

Li Cheng颐 turned a corner, but was suddenly stunned.

Only the last crimson gladiolus plant remained!

Fortunately, it didn't matter, one plant usually had many flowers, arranged in a line from top to bottom.

As his fingers stroked them one by one.

Cool floral qi continuously flowed into his fingers.

Finally.

When there were only two flowers left, the floral qi progress reached 100.

Huff!!

Li Cheng颐 let out a long sigh of relief.

Immediately following was the joy and anticipation that came with it.

He couldn't wait to stand in the flower field, using his consciousness to direct and confirm that the remaining evil thoughts were inputted into the gladiolus.

Evil thoughts went from 0 to 100 in the blink of an eye.

On the Evil Flower, the grid belonging to the gladiolus suddenly lit up with a golden light.

But soon, the golden light faded, and transformed into crimson red.

Thump.

Suddenly, a strange heartbeat sound spread throughout Li Cheng颐's body.

He stood frozen in place.

Streams of feedback from the Evil Flower surged into his mind along the back of his hand.

‘Because the evolution was purely filled with the evil thought of fear, the gladiolus flower god position has been mutated.’

‘Flower Scale Armor has been mutated.’

‘Flower Language has been mutated.’

‘New Flower Scale Armor and Flower Language are beginning to generate…’

* * *

Yunshan Base.

Poof.

A piece of bubble gum flew out, landing accurately in the trash can not far away.

Rainbow Candy had her legs propped up on the desk, leaning back in her leather chair, playing a fighting game on a handheld game console.

Now she was the only one in the base. Big Bear had gone back to manage the company, and Little Brown had gone out to buy goods, saying he wanted to buy some new parts.

As a result, the large base became hers alone.

Beep beep.

A circular light screen suddenly appeared automatically in the air next to her, displaying the caller ID.

"Connect." Rainbow Candy glanced at the name, immediately decisively turned off the game she was about to lose, leaving behind the words 'Consider yourselves lucky, I have something to do, or else I would have beaten you all!'

Feeling refreshed, she straightened her body, making her upper body curves more shapely.

Finally, she looked at the light screen.

With a click, the screen showed Cyndra's somewhat weathered face.

"Rainbow Candy, the Rose's notice has arrived. Regarding the new Dead Angle Dark City, Little 颐 discovered Rien's message. Should we temporarily shift our attention from Yunshan to Dark City?"

Even when facing Rainbow Candy, who was much younger than him, Cyndra's tone was quite respectful and equal.

This was also a key point that made everyone on the team respect him.

"Dark City… Rien's message? Uh…" Rainbow Candy was too busy playing games and hadn't had time to look.

Cyndra saw through her at a glance, but didn't expose her, just smiled.

"According to Little 颐's description of Dark City, the danger level there is extremely high, but there must be special avoidance methods. Rose has already begun searching and comparing related real-world prototypes. I also found acquaintances in the head office to help me search together."

"Isn't this already very complete? Then what does your call mean?" Rainbow Candy asked, puzzled.

"Rien's message mentioned the crescent mark. I came in later. I wanted to ask if you all had the crescent mark before?" Cyndra said.

"Yes," Rainbow Candy affirmed.

"Can you describe the shape?"

"This is no problem." Rainbow Candy quickly and carefully described the crescent shape to Cyndra in detail.

"This kind of feature… I seem to have heard it somewhere…" Cyndra paused after listening, and said.

"Hmm? Does someone else have it?" Rainbow Candy became interested.

"I can't remember clearly. I have to recall it and maybe look through old notebooks. But I can be sure that I have definitely seen this mark," Cyndra said decisively.

"The boss entered Dark City in Long'an. How about this, we'll rush to Long'an tomorrow. If there are any questions, you can ask them in person," Rainbow Candy said quickly.

"Okay. I'll have Little Brown watch over the company for the time being. Remote processing is no problem," Cyndra agreed.

* * *

Click.

The car door closed.

Li Cheng颐 sat in the back seat, slowly leaning his back against the leather chair.

The feedback from the Evil Flower was as he expected.

Indeed, the gladiolus's evolution count had reached the end, meaning that the fifth time was the ultimate form.

The information given by the feedback prompted that the evolution had been completed. The ultimate form gave a new second Flower Language.

Just like the radiance from the sunflower.

However, the second Flower Language given by the gladiolus seemed a bit incomprehensible…

"Boss, where to now?"

"Go to a place where no one knows," Li Cheng颐 replied casually. He planned to find a place to test the effects of the ultimate form gladiolus.

Purely mutating through the evil thought of fear, he didn't know what kind of influence it would bring.

"…" Zhou Xing瞳 started the car. Hearing the answer, she was silent for a moment, knowing that her boss's illness had relapsed.

Usually at this time, she just had to wait a little longer and then repeat the question to get a normal answer.

"Oh, just send me back to Long'an," Li Cheng颐 reacted at this time, and replied.

"Okay."

The car started slowly.

Testing the ultimate form gladiolus Flower Scale Armor in the surrounding area might not be safe. This was the conclusion Li Cheng颐 had gotten from Rose.

This place was different from Suiyang. Rainbow Candy had put most of her equipment and energy into the operation of Suiyang, so the various monitoring, defense, and shielding measures were much more complete there. Even so, it couldn't compare with the official level.

Long'an was even more different.

With Long'an University of Science and Technology, the range of sky eye coverage around this place was much larger than Suiyang.

The key was that there were constantly flying instrument masters coming and going around, exchanging ideas, sparring, learning, and researching. Compared to Suiyang, the number of flying instrument masters in Long'an was at least dozens of times more.

And there were many whose strength was at the professional level. Not to mention, his newly appointed mentor, Tang Zhiwei, was himself a professional-level flying instrument master. And his level in Long'an was not low.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to work as a professor of special warfare.

‘It seems that I can only go to Dead Angle to test for now,’ Li Cheng颐 suppressed the strong anticipation and impulse in his heart.

Now that the gladiolus had reached the ultimate form, the next was the wisteria. Unfortunately, the wisteria variants were out of season, so he had to go to other places to find wisteria that was still blooming to absorb.

The purple magnolia wasn't as troublesome… it was exactly in season.

The car slowly left the botanical garden and returned to the villa near the university.

Evil thoughts performed better at night, so Li Cheng颐 went to report to his mentor, and then went back to take out the newly acquired green light greatsword to study.

Inside the basement.

He held the greatsword in his hand, gently waving it at a humanoid target a few meters away.

Snap.

A bolt of lightning instantly flashed past, striking the target at a speed he couldn't react to at all.

(End of chapter)