Happy Birthday to Zombie cưỡi Lợn, the editor of the Vietnamese version!
Lian Hua returned to his small room. He felt that these days it was best not to wander around where Pig Leg could see him. Ever since last time, when he accidentally saw Pig Leg bathing, every time Pig Leg saw him, his temperament would be especially eccentric.
Come on, Pig Leg wasn’t a girl. Looking a little bit wouldn’t make him lose any meat, and he didn’t need to take responsibility just for peeking. After all, this wasn’t a romantic encounter where the male or female lead catches the other person bathing. At that time, Lian Hua was taught a lesson by Pig Leg, too cruel! It was all because he listened to that wretched mushroom say that there was a nice mutated plant around here and immediately wanted to collect a little brother*. Why else would Lian Hua crawl into this grove? Who could guess that Pig Leg wouldn’t bathe in his spirit stream but instead run out here to go skinny dipping?
*subordinate
However, Pig Leg’s body really was awesome, especially that six pack, so s.e.xy! Wah, Lian Hua rubbed his own stomach, this area was only just starting to take shape. Even though he practice and trained every day, he still didn’t have any abdominal muscles. However, his height was shooting up. Lian Hua was confident he would definitely be taller than Pig Leg. His body was still growing after all.
Lian Hua sighed, Pig Leg was hard to serve. These days his life was harsh, was Pig Leg really starting to abuse his body? When would he start abusing his heart?
Lian Hua took off his clothes and took a look. After countless days of sculpting, the “white” in this white lotus body was starting to fade away. The weak white chicken body was finally firmer, his skinned had tanned no small amount, and there were numerous large and small scars all over his body. These were all medals Lian Hua received from heroically fighting zombies. Lian Hua didn’t want to use wood energy to erase them. Every time he saw them, he felt like he was a real man.
Lian Hua pulled on his clothes but took off his shoes and socks, and moved his feet around. Mm, pretty good, not bad.
“Basket[1], serve your brother in was.h.i.+ng feet.” Lian Hua sat like a big boss on the bed, starting to call on his little brothers.
“Understood! Master’s master.” A small and delicate voice rang out in Lian Hua’s head. Lian Hua’s pocket moved and Lian Yu jumped out. Its mushroom body twisted, and “pop!” spit out a plant that almost reached the height of a person. The tree stretched first, then a leaf stretched towards the ground, slowly growing longer, until it reached about 30 cm (one foot) when a lid grew on top of the leaf. It slowly expanded until it formed into the shape of a barrel shape.
Lian Hua threw water b.a.l.l.s inside until it was filled, then finally set his feet comfortably inside to soak.
“You’re not allowed to secrete digestive juices!” Lian Hua warned.
“Oh… alright…”
That’s right, Lian Yu’s comrade was a mutated plant from a variation of nepenthes, the tropical pitcher plant. Right now, mutated plants didn’t have much intelligence and wouldn’t take the initiative to attack living things. They also mixed in with normal plants and it was simply hard to tell the difference. Furthermore, plants grew at a rapid pace after the apocalypse, making it even harder to tell the difference. Wood espers were able to distinguish between them, but at low levels, energy consumption was too high. However, who was Lian Yu? It was the self-proclaimed mushroom king, ruler of all plants, so why couldn’t it see through mutated plants in the early stages? Lian Hua didn’t believe in its self appointed t.i.tle, but people still found this strain of tropical pitcher plant, and when he collected it, he happened to see Pig Leg bathing, really unlucky. T^T
“Master, you’re so extravagant, you’re using a mutated plant to wash your feet. Oh, my wonderful Master!” Lian Yu flattered exaggeratedly.
“You’ve already eaten all of your brother’s corpse crystals today!” Lian Hua looked coldly at Lian Yu. Ever since Lian Hua gave Lian Yu permission to eat jade and corpse crystals, Lian Yu ate like a pig. All of the jade in Lian Hua’s backpack was eaten. If Lian Hua couldn’t obtain so many corpse crystals for it, Lian Yu wouldn’t have told him that it could give birth to normal mushrooms, moreover delicious ones. Pig Leg’s comrades all thought he was a tyrant, but he was actually still very poor. Raising a pig-like mushroom made him suffer.
“Master, the mushroom isn’t the only one that eats, Basket has a small portion too! It can even speak now.” Lian Yu complained.
“You still ate the bulk of it!” Lian Hua already knew this shameless mushroom too well.
Lian Yu “…” The master was very sharp, all its secrets were found out.
In order to repay its dear master, Lian Yu trembled hard and sprinkled spores over the earth. Pop pop pop, many different varieties matured, normal, huge, delicious mushrooms. Lian Hua ordered Basket to separate them by variety so he could sell them later. Siiiigghhh, Basket wasn’t very smart, but it was very obedient, unlike like Lian Yu, the mushroom with a voracious appet.i.te that liked to play dirty.
After Lian Hua soaked his feet, he held out a hand towards Lian Yu. Lian Yu twirled and a couple of seeds fell into Lian Hua’s hand. This was Lian Hua asking Lian Yu to help him keep seeds in its body. Didn’t Lian Yu say that it could keep thousands of plant related objects in its body? He immediately transferred all of his seeds to Lian Yu, completely ignoring Lian Yu’s complaints. Able people should do more work.
A green light suddenly shone, a sprout broke through the sh.e.l.l and slowly grew up. Lian Hua only grew two cabbages, five white radishes, and three green onions, then let Basket hold them and prepared to set out.
With that, Lian Hua carried a strange plant made up* of buckets and barrels full of mushroom, vegetables, and weird plants out the door. In the small temporary village, Lian Hua found a good spot, let Basket invert a smaller bucket, and then placed his b.u.t.tocks on it. After that, he ordered Basket to place several buckets on the ground. Inside was water from his ability. Water formed from supernatural powers was high quality, the team’s water was rationed. Unless you were a water esper, it was rare for people to have constant access, not to mention bathing. Most people could only wipe themselves down.
*TL Note: I’m not sure if this is the intent, but I kinda imagine it like a matryoshka.
“Brother Lian’s shop is open! Come at the right time, time waits for no one, limited stock, while supplies last!” Lian Hua used his ability to ensure that everyone in the village could hear.
“Wow! Brother Lian, you’ve come again! What do you have today?” A young man rushed over.
“White radish, green onion, cabbage, and mushroom!”
“I want to eat corn!”
“Next time!”
“Alright, give me a big mushroom, a green onion, and a bucket of water.”
A bucket was stretched out and the young man threw in seven corpse crystals. Another bucket was pa.s.sed over with the things he asked for. The young man took it and the bucket of water. A big mushroom was one corpse crystal each, it wasn’t too expensive, and it was as big as a person’s head! Water was sold with the tropical pitcher plant’s leaves, five corpse crystals a bucket. Two were given to Basket for its contribution. Any other vegetables were worth one each.
“Brother Lian, your pet is so wonderful. Every time I see it, I want one too.”
“Flattering won’t lower the price!”
“Alright, give me two mushrooms.”
“If you have enough money, you’re welcome to come again!”
…
Not even an hour pa.s.sed before Lian Hua sold out. Lian Hua divided Basket’s portion of corpse crystals and left it in the bucket, the rest was put into his backpack. After that, Lian Yu collected Basket into its body.
When Lian Hua first started doing this, the other were shocked. So that was possible, ah! Having a mutated plant for a pet was really convenient. So everyone wanted one. Later, they discovered that, s.h.i.+t, it was hard to find mutated plants. Even if you could find one, you couldn’t satisfy it. If you weren’t a wood esper, it was especially hard, so everyone could only envy and be jealous of him.
Lian Hua occasionally encountered people who didn’t want to pay, but he directly threw them into a body bag, ah no, bucket, then let Lian Yu scatter hallucinogenic spores so that Basket could release digestive juices. Of course, even before that, Lian Hua would help them strip cleanly of all their possessions, let the digestive juices melt through the clothes and eat at the skin a little. Although espers had thick skin, they couldn’t withstand Basket’s digestive juices! Besides, the feeling of being digested bit by bit was extremely terrifying and the depletion of super powers was terrible! Often, the guys who didn’t pay were driven to tears, calling their mothers and fathers, ensuring that whenever they saw Lian Hua, their legs would shake and they never dared to withhold payment.
Lian Hua was very satisfied with today’s haul and prepared to return home. Mm, first, let’s see what Aunt Li is cooking today. Lian Yu cried in his head and rolled around, demanding corpse crystals, but was directly ignored by Lian Hua. This guy ate too much and deserved to be hungry!
At the support team’s area, Lian Hua immediately smelled meat. Today’s dish really was mutated animal meat. Vegetables were scarce and most vegetable dishes were basic, such as dried or pickled. That’s why Lian Hua’s business was so good.
“Aunt Li, I’m here.” Lian Hua shouted as soon as he saw Aunt Li. Aunt Li was in charge of the squad’s kitchen and had a lot of authority. Anyone who offended her didn’t get to eat.
“Hmph!” Jiang Siyu saw Lian Hua and still didn’t have a pleasant expression. Lian Hua was too lazy to care about her, so he pretended not to notice.
Jiang Siyu was still a normal person on the support team. Aunt Li was promoted to the captain of the support team, head over all the women and girls. Jiang Siyu was one of them. She was an esper, but actually had to listen to a normal person, making her furious. She went looking for Xia Zhi to talk, but Xia Zhi directly told her to obediently listen or get out and chased her away, making her so angry she wanted to vomit blood.
“Xiao Hua, come, come quickly, Aunt Li saved you something delicious.” Aunt Li still loved Lian Hua very much.
“Thank you, Aunt Li. I brought you mushrooms and vegetables. Lian Hua held up a few mushrooms and cabbages as if offering treasures for Aunt Li to see.
“Xiao Hua is really devoted.” Aunt Li smiled and looked back at Jiang Siyu, saying, “Xiao Jiang, go deal with the mutated beast that was delivered by the elite team today. You are an esper with a lot of strength, the other girls can’t do this.”
Jiang Siyu’s face became even more distorted. It took a lot of effort to squeeze out an affirmation from between her teeth, and she angrily stomp off. She was a n.o.ble esper, but the ordinary Aunt Li wanted her to be a butcher and she could not refuse! It made her vomit blood!
“Xia Jiang is ill-hearted. Xiao Hua, if you fancy her, there won’t be a good ending.” Aunt Li was a bit worried when she saw Lian Hua stare at Jiang Siyu’s back and smirk.
Lian Hua “…” Why would your brother fancy her, your brother is gloating, okay? Someone was more unlucky than him, it wasn’t love, okay?
Aunt Li was against Jiang Siyu because her ambition was obvious. Besides, Jiang Siyu often looked at Pig Leg’s face too fiercely, as if she wanted to swallow Pig Leg whole. Every time Lian Hua saw her look at Pig Leg this way, he wanted to poke her eyes blind. Dammit, is Pig Leg someone you can dream about? Go look in the mirror to see if you can match his looks!
“Aunt Li, you thought too much. How could I fancy her, I can’t hate her enough.” Aunt Li wanted to say something but was interrupted by Lian Hua. “Auntie, didn’t you say that there was something for me to eat? Let’s go, fry the mushroom and vegetables. Let’s have dinner.”
Aunt Li was indeed distracted and led Lian Hua into the temporary kitchen.
Translator’s Notes:
[1]Now, this character(?)’s name, at first glance, is Cage(笼子), but if you break it down, it’s actually “Basket Child”, which makes more sense because of how it’s used.
I put my thoughts under the chapter so you can ignore them, but I like a little fan interaction :,)
I went to the spoiler forum and I’m laughing so hard at the posts. Um… actually, guys, my friend’s Vietnamese version isn’t that accurate… If you’re gonna MTL, well…. “A bucket stretched over, the young man threw seven dead bodies into it…” No wonder people don’t wanna bother MTL’ing this one. It’s got all the hardest subjects to MTL too haha. Apocalypse, super powers, cultivation, and pure randomness?!
But I’m happy this is my first project lmao. To think I wanted to pick up Heaven’s Blessing ;;;; *Looks guiltily at that half a chapter….* Tbh I haven’t dug that hole yet, so maybe I shouldn’t jump into it. XDDD In fact, I looked over it about a month ago and saw the author edit it. =_= Yea no, let’s wait until she’s done writing.
Please comment wild fan theories if you have them. Also I noticed I’m the only one drawing fan art for this series OwO I didn’t even see that request on the spoiler forum until today, I just felt like drawing lol. Probably because I don’t feel any shame begging for money because I actually designed and drew all these pictures lol please throw money at me, haha… Tbh it still makes me feel a little guilty but whatever…