Chapter 50
Chapter 50
Qin Ying fell asleep again.
Once more, she stood upon a blood-red wasteland.
Her bare feet were buried ankle-deep in a layer of spore-like ash.
Qin Ying felt like a tiny ant standing in a garden, surrounded by massive blades of grass three or four times the height of a person.
Unlike her previous dream, Qin Ying was fully aware this time that she was dreaming. Consequently, she began to act with reckless abandon.
She stood on her tiptoes to observe these plants called Dream-Embracing Grass, carefully examining their enormous leaves.
Glancing left and right, she saw no sign of any Ghost-Shadow Vine. Qin Ying paused for a moment.
She tentatively called out, “Han Lie!”
Her voice echoed through the desolate, silent wasteland.
After calling out several times, Qin Ying’s heart began to sink.
Han Lie did not respond to her summons.
Was she calling him the wrong way, or had the previous time just been an accident?
Just as she crouched down to dig into the ground, deciding to explore the truth on her own, the sound of footsteps suddenly came from behind her.
“Supreme Deity, did you summon me?”
Qin Ying was overjoyed. She turned around to see a tall figure, covered in mud like a clay doll, standing behind her.
Semi-dried mud smeared the newcomer’s face so thoroughly that his nose and eyes were barely visible, but the voice definitely belonged to Han Lie.
Qin Ying breathed a sigh of relief at his appearance.
Han Lie, on the other hand, felt apprehensive and guilty. He had not yet found the Dream-Embracing Grass and expected to disappoint the Supreme Deity.
He lowered his head uneasily. Despite being 1.9 meters tall, he looked like a nervous puppy, his presence somehow smaller than the crouching Qin Ying.
He dropped to one knee. “Please wait a little longer, Supreme Deity.”
He had rushed to Youyun Marsh overnight. As long as he could find traces of the Ghost-Shadow Vine, he would be able to locate the Dream-Embracing Grass.
Once he harvested a leaf, he would offer it to the Supreme Deity immediately.
His worry and shame were like casting pearls before swine; Qin Ying wasn’t paying attention to that at all.
She tilted her head to look at him and asked the question she wanted answered most: “I have a friend who has been parasitized by a Ghost-Shadow Vine. What should be done?”
She wanted to maintain some shred of dignity, so she casually invented a ‘friend’ for the scenario.
Han Lie, however, believed her words implicitly. He frowned slightly upon hearing this. “The Ghost-Shadow Vine and the Dream-Embracing Grass share a symbiotic relationship.”
As he spoke, he moved a couple of steps and crouched beside Qin Ying, taking over the digging she had started.
Under his hands, a hollow was quickly excavated from the fluffy ash.
Only then did Qin Ying realize that beneath the ash lay large clumps of soft, rotting black mud.
Knowing that Qin Ying was unfamiliar with Monstrous Beasts and strange plants, Han Lie explained with great care.
The Dream-Embracing Grass relies on the Ghost-Shadow Vine for reproduction and growth.
Upon finding a suitable host, the Ghost-Shadow Vine ejects its spores along with the seeds of the Dream-Embracing Grass.
They take root within the living host, absorbing nutrients from the host’s body at the right temperature.
Eventually, the Ghost-Shadow Vine fully grows inside the host and emerges with the juvenile Dream-Embracing Grass, leaving behind only the desiccated husk of the host.
Hearing this, Qin Ying felt a prickling sensation crawl down her back.
“After emerging from the host, the Ghost-Shadow Vine takes the Dream-Embracing Grass sprout and roots itself back into the soil to nurture and protect it.”
“This continues until the leaves are fully grown.”
Once the leaves matured, both the Dream-Embracing Grass and the Ghost-Shadow Vine would enter a relatively quiet and safe phase.
Unless, of course, they were disturbed.
“The most dangerous periods are the search for a host and the phase where the Ghost-Shadow Vine is nurturing the Dream-Embracing Grass to maturity.”
Qin Ying couldn’t help but remark, “These two things are practically a ‘pure love’ story.”
Han Lie didn’t know what ‘pure love’ meant, but he believed Qin Ying’s nonsense and was very concerned for her non-existent friend. “If the Supreme Deity’s friend has been parasitized, they must stay in a place with a low temperature.”
He turned his head and made a solemn promise to Qin Ying: “Do not worry, Supreme Deity. I will harvest a leaf of the Dream-Embracing Grass as quickly as possible.”
“One only needs to consume the leaf to expel the Ghost-Shadow Vine from the body.”
Qin Ying was caught off guard as she met his eyes, noticing a faint ring of iron-gray in his pupils.
Her heart suddenly eased. “I believe you.”
Qin Ying’s words were ordinary, but Han Lie, who was terrible at handling praise, lowered his head. His face, hidden beneath the semi-dry mud, turned a deep shade of red.
“Are there any patterns to how the Ghost-Shadow Vine grows?” Qin Ying asked, soothing him as one would a dog. “Can the Ghost-Shadow Vine move around freely?”
Han Lie shook his head. “To protect the Dream-Embracing Grass, the Ghost-Shadow Vine will never stray too far!”
Qin Ying finally breathed a long sigh of relief. This meant those ghostly things were definitely near the Sewage Treatment Plant.
As for why the discarded host husks were chopped up, cooked, and dumped in the Wetland Park, it was likely the mastermind’s attempt to cover their tracks.
As they spoke, the familiar sensation of the world shaking returned.
Qin Ying felt dizzy for a moment and heard someone calling her name.
Han Lie hurriedly reached out to steady her. Seeing that the dream was about to end, he urgently whispered one last piece of information into her ear: “Smearing wet mud on the body will prevent the Ghost-Shadow Vine from detecting you.”
The breath from Han Lie’s words seemed to linger on the tip of her ear as Qin Ying opened her eyes on the hospital bed, her body drenched in sweat.
She was immediately met with a wave of cold mist from the hospital’s nebulizer.
She sat up like a corpse returning to life, and while shivering, she said to the group, “Go to the Sewage Treatment Plant.”