Chapter 35: Peach Blossom Calamity

Chapter 35: Peach Blossom Calamity

"You actually didn't get exposed? That's some skill! Even when right under the protagonist's nose, you managed to weasel your way out of it."

"What excuse did you use?"

‘I told him I had a dream, but the person I dreamed of was him, so it was his fault I got dragged into the dream.’

"...What a way to shift the blame! But thankfully, Li Zhiyan was in the dream. If this were reality, he would’ve caught you in the lie."

Shen Ji glanced guiltily at Li Zhiyan before asking, ‘What’s going on?’

"The people who were confessed to are developing a new condition."

"Everyone who accepted a confession has fallen into a coma. They’re in a deep sleep and can’t be woken up. Scans indicate they’re in rapid eye movement, clearly dreaming."

‘How is that exposing my lie?’ Shen Ji let out a sigh of relief. ‘They’re unconscious, and so am I. They’re in REM sleep dreaming, and I’m dreaming too. The only difference is they don’t know what they’re dreaming about, while I ended up here. How is that any different?'

The system fell silent. A few seconds later, it exclaimed, "Oh, you’re right!"

"What a fluke that worked! But what’s the protagonist doing? Why is he just standing completely still?"

Shen Ji turned to look at Li Zhiyan. He was indeed standing still. The butterflies had returned to him, the ashes of the peach tree were slowly dissipating, and he was silently staring at the ashes on the ground.

After nearly a minute of this, Li Zhiyan finally looked up and said, "Still not up."

Shen Ji: *…So you thought burning the tree would wake you up, and you’ve just been waiting to wake yourself up!*

"Could there be more than one seed?" Shen Ji spoke up. "You mentioned earlier that a couple went missing—two people."

"Oh! You’re right." Li Zhiyan nodded in agreement. "One seed for two people? That doesn't track."

"So, this must be the other seed."

Li Zhiyan turned to look at the giant peach tree behind him.

From the very beginning, this enormous peach tree had popped up out of nowhere. It continuously released pollen, and everyone within its range began confessing to others. At night, they dreamed under the peach tree. Whether tracing its origin or using other methods, this peach tree was undeniably strange.

It was most likely another seed planted by the Gardener.

"S-class Pollutant Gardener, known as the cruelest S-class pollutant. Its plantation is filled with countless varieties of plants—trees with human heads, seedlings planted in human bodies, and even nightmare-borne contaminated species."

The system promptly pulled up the original text. "It plants seeds in suitable humans, and only takes them back once they're fully grown."

"As for the horrific disasters caused during the growth process, it pays no mind. It only cares about the plants; humans are merely soil."

Li Zhiyan walked up to the giant peach tree and placed his hand on its trunk. A soft glow lit up his palm as the butterflies dissolved into specks of light and surged into the tree. Shen Ji watched from behind, little mushrooms secretly crawling onto his shoulders, perching there to watch alongside him.

Fascinated, the little mushrooms nudged against Shen Ji.

‘It looks delicious! Master, let’s eat it!’

Shen Ji: …

He’s ruthless! He even eats poisonous mushrooms raw!

The little mushrooms let out a frightened yelp and scurried away.

"She’s still dreaming," Li Zhiyan suddenly said.

Shen Ji asked, "What do you mean?"

"I see." Li Zhiyan withdrew his hand. "It’s not that she is the pollutant, but her dreams are contaminated. She must have had a contaminated seed planted in her body, causing a mutation, just like that tree earlier."

"After killing the cheating male B, she activated the contaminated seed inside her and fell into a nightmare."

"The nightmare released contamination, which spawned this enormous peach tree."

"So that’s how it is. As expected, reality is different from the book's description."

"The original work had very little description of the S-class Pollutant Gardener. But as the strongest S-class mutant in the Pollution Prevention Center, Li Zhiyan undoubtedly understands the Gardener’s traits better than most and pinpointed the issue sooner."

‘As the protagonist, he naturally has to be somewhat useful. Otherwise, what’s the point of having him?’

Turning around, Shen Ji asked with polite concern, "Then what should we do? Wake her up?"

"Ah, you… never mind, I won’t say it."

"We have to enter her dream," Li Zhiyan said, turning to look at Shen Ji. "This place is just the shared dream—the peach tree everyone is dreaming of."

"To wake her, we must go into her dream."

"A dream within a dream?" Shen Ji frowned slightly, a hint of worry in his expression. "How do we get into her dream?"

"The entrance is on this tree." Li Zhiyan pointed at the trunk. A blue butterfly dashed into the tree, making the surface ripple. Soon, an opening formed in the middle.

Li Zhiyan asked, "Do you want to come in with me?"

Shen Ji was taken aback. "I thought you’d tell me to wait here."

"Really?" Li Zhiyan looked surprised, even a little enlightened. "I could’ve had you wait outside?"

Shen Ji: …

"I want to recruit you into the guard team. If I didn’t dare let you face even this little bit of danger, what would be the point of recruiting you?" Li Zhiyan laughed and gestured toward the opening. "Since I’m inviting you, it means I’ve never doubted your ability to protect yourself."

"I trust you."

Shen Ji and Li Zhiyan locked eyes. After a few seconds, Shen Ji averted his gaze, thanked him, and a faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

Clearly, Shen Ji was flattered.

‘System, this protagonist really is different from others.’

In typical literary works, the protagonist is often someone who cares deeply for the world and shows extreme concern for those around them. They trust but also worry, and to protect others, they prevent them from facing difficulties and dangers. They handle everything themselves, and the author calls this ‘protection.’

This protection can be seen as concern leading to chaos, or it can be interpreted as ‘excessive anxiety and overcontrol.’

Li Zhiyan, however, openly says, ‘Go ahead. I won’t stop you to protect you, because I believe in you.’

Even if he weren’t a pollutant, as a journalist, Shen Ji isn’t someone who needs protection. So, he quite appreciates it.

"Have you already been charmed by him, little journalist? He’s deceiving you!"

‘Whether it’s deception or trust, I’ll be the judge of that!’

"Better to kill the protagonist and cut off future problems at the root!"

Li Zhiyan didn’t wait for Shen Ji—this wasn’t the time for waiting politely. He took the lead and stepped into the black hole, vanishing beneath the peach tree in an instant.

Shen Ji followed, first surveying his surroundings before prodding at the butterflies maintaining the void.

"How did he do it?" Shen Ji asked. "Just casually linking to someone else’s dream like that?"

"Because his Talent is 'Mimic Butterfly.' Zhuang Zhou dreamed of butterflies, and in literary works, mimicry is often associated with butterflies. Li Zhiyan’s Talent integrates and merges these elements, forming an ability that seems weak at first glance but is actually unimaginably powerful."

"Not only can he find someone’s dream, but if he wanted to, he could make everyone in Q City sleep to death in their dreams and never wake up."

"Interesting."

Shen Ji stepped into the black void and immediately felt a breeze.

He opened his eyes and looked around. The breeze brushed against his face—not cold, likely spring.

Not far away stood a huge peach tree. Under it were two people: a woman in a pink dress, the wind lifting her skirt and black hair as her eyes were full of the man kneeling on one knee before her.

"Marry me," the man said, holding out a peach branch with a ring attached. "I will love you forever."

Female A and Male B.

"This is Female A—no, her name is Lu Kexin. To sustain her pain and allow the seed to grow, she repeats her painful experiences in her nightmares. These memories accelerate the seed’s growth. What you’re seeing is her memory."

"Where’s Li Zhiyan?"

"No trace of the protagonist detected. He might be elsewhere. For now, we don’t have to worry about him finding us."

Lu Kexin was almost crying. "I do, I do!"

She extended her hand, watching as the man slid the ring onto her finger. She took the peach branch, every part of her smelling of happiness.

Shen Ji watched them closely. "No pollution aura."

"The process isn’t over yet. In the dream, she’s still her former self, so the pollution hasn’t broken out. It won’t fully burst out until she kills her unfaithful husband. That’s also the best time for us to extract the Contaminated Seed."

The couple embraced happily, and the scene shifted to the Pollution Prevention Center’s marriage registration office. They made promises for a lifetime and signed their names on a thin certificate.

Up to this point, Lu Kexin was still happy.

Until one day, when she went to pick up her husband from work. They boarded the commuter bus home, but it suddenly changed direction, heading toward an unfamiliar place.

"The mysterious bus incident."

The system pulled up the files from the Pollution Prevention Center.

"In Q City, a mysterious bus suddenly appeared late at night, license plate ending in 7739. It often disguised itself as the staff commuter bus. Those who boarded it would mysteriously vanish. A few were later found in abandoned wilderness areas, suffering from varying degrees of mental instability, but all had forgotten what happened to them."

"Lu Kexin and her husband were victims of this mysterious incident."

Shen Ji stood still for a few seconds, thinking it over. "So, if we find this bus, could we follow it to the location of the planting field?"

His eyes slowly lit up. "You know what, System? I once interviewed large-scale crop farmers. To prepare, I learned how to drive excavators and large agricultural machinery. I could drive one right away!"

"You plan to follow the bus with an excavator?"

"In the apocalypse, there’s no rule against driving excavators on the road. If I save up my salary and get some bonuses, I’ll have enough to buy one."

"......"

Is this really about whether an excavator can be driven on the road?!

On the other side, after Lu Kexin and her husband got off the bus, they realized they hadn’t arrived at a familiar stop but at a strange, ink-black location. They couldn’t see anything clearly; dense, impenetrable black fog was everywhere. In the fog, they bumped into a tree draped with human heads.

As if awakened, the heads opened their eyes and began wailing and crying like babies.

Terrified, the two tried to flee, but thorny vines erupted from the tree roots. In his panic, the man pushed his wife forward, and she fell into the vines.

Lu Kexin was pricked all over by thorns, one of which stabbed through her eye, causing blood to flow. She watched helplessly as the husband who had sworn to protect her for a lifetime fled in a blind panic, disappearing from sight within seconds.

"Ah!!" Lu Kexin began to scream, her voice raw with utter despair.

"Humans again."

A strange voice sounded, startling Lu Kexin. She struggled, but the thorns only dug deeper.

She could only listen as the androgynous and extremely sinister voice droned on incessantly.

"You humans have scared it again. It’s so skittish, but you always scream at the sight of it, even though it’s such a darling thing."

"Humans truly have no taste."

"Hmm? The vibe you give off… seems somewhat suitable for soil."

"Since you’ve frightened my precious, you’ll have to compensate me. My new seed… I’ll entrust it to you."

A vine pierced Lu Kexin’s neck and rammed a fist-sized black seed inside. Overwhelmed by the intense pain, she blacked out, and the vines dragged her under the human-head tree.

Shortly after, the vines dragged a man out from the darkness.

"Ah! Let me go!!" the man screamed, trying to crawl away. "Don’t kill me!"

"This human specimen is rather poor, but he can serve as fertilizer for the soil." Another seed was forced into the man’s neck.

Afterward, the gardener dumped both of them out of the plantation. They lost their memories and were later found by the guards.

Shen Ji knew this was just a memory and that the real gardener wasn’t here, but he couldn’t suppress his anger upon hearing the gardener’s voice.

He jammed his hands into his pockets, gripping the fabric to steady his fluctuating emotions.

That unethical gardener! Planting seeds in his territory!

"Actually, I should tell you—according to this timeline, the gardener planted the seeds before Hui arrived in Q City. Even by the rule of first come, first served, it was here first."

"I don’t care when his seeds were planted. Now that they’re growing on my turf, it’s unacceptable."

"Fine."

The system said helplessly, "It seems now that, from the moment the gardener planted the contaminated seed, its harvest period was already predetermined."

"Having lost her memory, Lu Kexin retained her emotions due to the contamination. She began harboring inexplicable resentment toward her husband, leading to frequent arguments. Her husband struggled to understand her but subconsciously felt guilt and fear toward the wife he had personally pushed toward the pollutant. In the end, driven by uncontrollable fear, he sought comfort in an affair."

"And so…"

Shen Ji turned to look inside the room.

Lu Kexin raised an axe high and brought it down on the man, cutting halfway through his neck.

But even so, the man did not die, instead writhing on the ground, howling in agony.

"I was wrong, Kexin! Have mercy!"

"You said you would love me forever, that you would protect me always," Lu Kexin murmured, she brought the axe down again. "But you broke your promise."

"She seduced me! I made a mistake, but I’ll make it up to you! Please, no—!"

The axe severed the man’s head.

Lu Kexin dropped the axe, kneeling, she cradled the blood-soaked head in her hands.

"Let’s go to hell together."

The man’s head viciously sank its teeth into Lu Kexin’s fingers, a vicious glare in its eyes. Startled, Lu Kexin wrenched her fingers free from its mouth.

She placed the head on the ground and picked up the axe again.

Thud—

A green sprout shot out from the back of Lu Kexin’s neck, unfurling its branches and leaves, growing into purple thorns.

It pierced deep into Lu Kexin’s flesh, sinking deeper with every swing of her axe.

"It’s here!" the system alerted Shen Ji.

The hyphae erupted from the ground—they had been waiting for this moment.

The moment the pollution burst forth, they swarmed over her, tangling her up completely. They chomped down fiercely on the thorn that had sprouted from her neck.

An acrid, spicy smell flooded the air—different from the heat of spices, this pollution was so intense it felt like it was scouring the throat.

But the hyphae weren’t picky eaters, especially when it came to other pollutants invading their territory.

Ripping away the branches and leaves of the thorn, the hyphae dug into the nape of Lu Kexin’s neck, attempting to dig out the seed that had taken root there. The seed had already sent out roots, connected to Lu Kexin’s blood vessels and internal organs. Ripping it out violently caused her to shriek in agony.

Unlike Chu Ye, this sprouted seed had already fully fused with Lu Kexin.

Yanking it out would kill Lu Kexin outright.

"Continue," Shen Ji stared at Lu Kexin, his tone unusually icy and hard.

Shen Ji was always pragmatic. As a longtime journalist, he'd seen it all. Both in experience and grit, he was tougher than most, so he knew very well that hesitating now was pointless.

Just like how Li Zhiyan hadn’t hesitated to burn that small peach tree to death—because he knew it was better dead than alive.

"She was already dead the moment the seed sprouted. Now she’s just a petri dish for the Gardener’s seed."

"The Gardener only cares whether the petri dish has nutrients for the seed to grow. It doesn’t care if the dish is reusable. To it, all humans are just disposable tools."

Death wasn't a punishment for her; it was a mercy.

With that, the hyphae didn't hold back. They yanked on the seed, trying to pull it out completely. Such a large chunk of pepper—they were going to gulp it down in one bite!

Just then, with a low hum, the hyphae were all hurled back.

The ‘Lu Kexin’ who had put up no fight just moments ago slowly rose from the ground. Her long hair fell over one eye, while the other, now exposed, gleamed with a sinister green.

A terrifying pollution aura burst out throughout the room.

"S-class Pollutant Gardener—can temporarily manifest in other areas through its seeds. It has possessed Lu Kexin."

Shen Ji snapped his fingers, and the hyphae swarmed in, sealing off the area. They glared threateningly at the ‘Lu Kexin’ standing opposite them.

"You again."

‘Lu Kexin’ spoke, her voice now elongated and eerily serene. Purple thorns stretched out behind her once more, the branches and leaves torn off by the hyphae regrowing instantly. Aside from her spectral look, the Gardener didn’t seem particularly threatening—it even carried a distinctly non-human vibe.

It would question the meaning of the name ‘Gardener’ and praise its own plants as lovely and delightful.

Now, it fixed its luminous green eye on Shen Ji.

"I already gave you the last seed. Why must you bully my little plant? It’s been frightened to tears."

"They’re still so young, they don’t understand anything. How could you be so cruel?"

Shen Ji met its gaze coldly. "Gardener."

"It is I," the Gardener replied in a sing-song voice. "Can you not hear the bloom of life? Life is such a beautiful and precious thing. I plant these seeds to witness the miracle of life."

"Reporter, why do you target me? Why target them?"

The system couldn’t help but interject, "It remembers you called yourself a reporter."

'That’s not worth mentioning.'

"Last time, I warned you—your seeds have trespassed into my territory," Shen Ji’s voice was calm, but carried a sharp, icy edge. "It seems you didn’t take it seriously. In such a short time, you’ve allowed another seed to sprout on my land."

‘Lu Kexin’ fell silent.

As a high-level pollutant, the Gardener understood better than anyone how one would react when their territory was invaded by another pollutant.

But everyone has double standards—especially pollutants, beings born cruel and selfish.

After a few seconds, it finally spoke. "We should welcome the arrival of new life."

"Are you saying I should act like nothing happened and even return the seed to you?"

"That’s not what I meant. But don’t you think it’s adorable? It’s already sprouted—it would be such a waste to abandon it now."

The Gardener didn’t care about anything else—it only loved its seeds.

It sounded troubled. "The seed has already taken root here. Transplanting it now would make survival difficult."

"We should give it a chance."

"No." Shen Ji’s pupils turned blood-red. His sharp features grew even colder, each word dripping with threat. "Take your seed and get out of my territory now."

"Otherwise, don’t be surprised if I drop by your plantation. I’m not as easily fooled as humans. Your precious plants are nothing more than garbage in my eyes."

The Gardener fell silent for a long time, its gaze finally turning dark and sinister.

Provoking conflict with another S-class pollutant was certainly not ideal, but it refused to give up its fully grown seed.

Its plantation was still missing a peach tree capable of creating nightmares.

"I don’t wish to clash with you, but you never yield an inch." A faint, elusive scent of peach blossoms surrounded it as the intense pollution aura swelled and expanded.

Back down?

Shen Ji's gaze remained cold, with his usual calm, yet it made him appear even more terrifying. Shen Ji was far more frightening when he stayed silent than when he spoke.

Not just in this apocalyptic novel, but even in modern times, Shen Ji lived by one rule.

One cannot ignore their principles to make concessions for others. Once you yield a step, more people will force you to retreat further, until you're backed into a corner.

So many interviewees had been pushed step by step to their breaking point in exactly this way.

So today, he was going to rip this goddamn peach tree out by its roots!