From Apocalypse Boss to Farmer: My Vegetables Make Me Stronger!-Chapter 113 - 104: A Grape Vine in Front of the Gate

Chapter 113: Chapter 104: A Grape Vine in Front of the Gate

That very afternoon, a fully armed squad of soldiers was stationed in the great canyon.

Word quickly and quietly spread throughout South City Base.

But as for what exactly had happened, very few people knew...

Quite a few factions tried to send people to gather intelligence, but the military had the entire area around the canyon locked down tight.

Some returned in failure, while others chose to lie low on the spot...

This surging undercurrent soon spread its ripples all the way to the Central Base.

Ye Junhan had immediately delivered the items to Shen Zhennan at the Heng Mountain forward command post.

With so many High-level Zombie Crystal Cores of unknown origin inexplicably appearing in his territory, Shen Zhennan immediately recognized the severity of the situation.

After a covert investigation, the military quickly tracked down the source of these Crystal Cores.

—Someone had used a bait-and-switch scheme, replacing High-level Zombie Crystal Cores with inferior crystal cores from mutated animals, and had stolen nearly the entire stock of a key national strategic energy reserve located north of South City Base!

When the incident came to light, the higher-ups were furious.

A joint task force was formed that very day to launch a secret investigation. They were ordered to thoroughly investigate the matter and root out the mastermind behind it all.

Based on the inferior Crystal Cores left behind in the warehouse, the joint task force quickly traced them to a private livestock farm on the outskirts of South City.

Strangely, however, that private farm had already been destroyed by someone beforehand...

’And the methods were quite brutal?’

Meanwhile, Gu Xi and her group, being the ones who had been at the scene, were also "invited" to a military post deep within the Heng Mountain Range.

The military’s attitude toward Gu Xi was quite polite. After all, to some extent, this young woman was their long-term meal ticket, their key to logistical support.

But an incident of this magnitude had occurred, and since they had been present at the scene, the questions that needed to be asked had to be asked.

Thus, Gu Xi and the others were asked to recount what happened at the time of the incident over and over again...

None of them held anything back, relaying everything they had seen, including all the details. Gu Xi even bluntly advised the military to focus their investigation on the Crystal Cores left from the color-changing dairy cows.

Her advice, however, aroused the suspicion of the personnel questioning her.

The man in charge of questioning Gu Xi was Mr. Chen from the Sixth Division of the Military Department’s intelligence branch.

At that moment, Mr. Chen was discreetly sizing up the young woman before him. With a gentle expression, he asked, "Gu, why do you think those Crystal Cores are problematic?"

Gu Xi fell silent for a moment. ’Even though my Crystal Core Fragments were sealed and sunk to the bottom of the lake, they still affected the environment within that valley.’

’Both the natural lake and the surrounding aquatic plants were influenced, to some degree, by the Divine-level Crystal Core Fragments, undergoing some sort of unknown mutation.’

’Gu Xi wasn’t sure if this was intentional—if someone was trying to use the military’s livestock station as a legitimate front for some clandestine experiment.’

’Or was the energy overflowing from the Divine-level Crystal Core Fragments simply something beyond human control?’

’After all, her ability... was hard to explain.’

’Previously, Gu Xi had always thought Yabao was a manifestation of her ability. But after waking up this time, she found that Yabao was growing more and more lively, as if it had developed a consciousness of its own...’

’Gu Xi didn’t even know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.’

’And those dairy cows had been living in the canyon for over a month. The water they drank and the grass they ate had all been affected by her Divine-level Crystal Core Fragments. Who knew what kind of strange biochemical reactions might have resulted?’

’Especially that first cow that changed color—the look in its eyes as it glanced up at them...’

’It was far too human-like.’

’It made her involuntarily recall a hypothesis Li Ming had once made—if the zombie virus was a grand evolution taking place across the entire planet, could it give birth to some new, intelligent species?’

’Gu Xi even wondered if the cows, so deeply influenced by her Crystal Core Fragments, might have already undergone some kind of unknown evolution?’

’But now, those cows were all dead. The only remaining clue might lie in their residual Crystal Cores.’

But she couldn’t explain any of this to the smiling fox, Mr. Chen. She could only hint at things and say no more.

But Mr. Chen clearly didn’t see it that way.

"Gu?" The old fox began to discreetly turn on his charm, gently trying to soothe Gu Xi.

"Don’t be nervous, we’re just having a casual chat. We all know this incident certainly has nothing to do with you. But, if you do know something, I hope you can tell us truthfully..."

"Mr. Chen, I’ve already told you everything I saw." Gu Xi looked up, meeting his gaze calmly. "As for your question..."

She paused for a moment before stating frankly, "Those cows suddenly changed color. Don’t you find that strange? So I wondered if their change in color might be related to the Crystal Cores inside their bodies."

"Is that so?" Mr. Chen nodded with a broad smile. "Gu, your analysis makes a lot of sense. Don’t you worry, I will definitely report your suggestion faithfully..."

As he spoke, the old fox abruptly changed the subject, saying with a chuckle, "By the way, Gu, I can see you have a very quick mind. Have you ever thought about coming to work for our intelligence division?"

Gu Xi froze for a second. ’Isn’t this change of subject a little too abrupt?’

Mr. Chen poured her a cup of hot water, his smile never wavering. "I know that young women like you surely don’t enjoy all the fighting and killing," he said cheerfully. "As it happens, our intelligence division just needs people to manage things from the rear. No need for fieldwork..."

’The main reason,’ he thought, ’is that with a treasure like her on our side, our Sixth Intelligence Division could strut through the Military Department with impunity!’

’After all, how does that old saying go? You follow whoever provides the milk, right?’

Mr. Chen’s calculations were cunning. He had, after all, gone to great lengths to snatch this opportunity to get close to this prized possession from so many other old foxes.

Just as Gu Xi was trying to figure out how to politely refuse Mr. Chen, who sounded like the leader of a pyramid scheme, someone leaned against the doorway and knocked lazily on the doorframe.

Shen Yue had finally arrived.

With him making an appearance, the subsequent procedures became very simple. That afternoon, Gu Xi and her group were permitted to leave their respective rooms.

"You guys are really something else." Shen Yue’s face was haggard from a long, sleepless night of work. He lounged lazily on the sofa and looked up at the group across from him. "So, spit it out. What exactly happened?"

Qi Xiang and Wei Heng exchanged a glance but said nothing.

Even now, the two of them were still completely baffled, with no idea what this was all about.

Lu Shiliu knew even less.

Gu Xi kept her eyes lowered in silence, obviously deep in thought.

Seeing this, Wei Heng sighed and gave a brief account of what happened.

"That day, after Gu visited Mr. Zhang, she sent me a message... We got to that place at night and discovered... Later, on the way back, we ran into Qi Xiang... and then Gu Xi suddenly said she wanted to come find Lu Shiliu..."

Qi Xiang nodded in agreement from the side. "That’s right, that’s what happened." Then, she added the story of how Zhou Jing had suddenly shown up at South City Base the previous night.

After they finished, everyone turned to look at Gu Xi in unison.

Gu Xi, however, asked Wei Heng, "Has Ye Junhan contacted you privately over the past two days?"

Wei Heng paused, then slowly shook his head. "No."

Just then, Shen Yue propped his chin on his hand and said lazily, "That night, Ye Junhan took the case and returned to the Central Base."

Gu Xi raised an eyebrow slightly.

After a moment of silence, she looked up at Shen Yue and said, "Keep an eye on the Special Service Team’s recent movements for me."

’Ye Junhan leading his team and suddenly appearing out of nowhere that day was definitely not a coincidence.’

’Although Li Ming said that Ye Junhan was actually one of his people, his direct superior now is Xiao Ran.’

’She remembered that during the NX1984 incident, the Military Department’s representative in charge of handling the matter was Xiao Ran, and Zhang Cheng had also attended that meeting as the representative for South City Base.’

’And in this current incident, it was also Zhang Cheng who had alerted her...’

’This was getting complicated. Was she overlooking something?’

Shen Yue glanced up at her and lazily agreed, "Sure, no problem."

Early the next morning, after finishing up the formalities and giving his grandfather a heads-up, Shen Yue led the group away.

On the way, Gu Xi suddenly received a message from Mr. Zhao. It seemed there had been a breakthrough with the reverse evolution of the fruits.

However, many details still required Gu Xi’s cooperation to finalize the plan.

So, after getting out of the car, Gu Xi didn’t even go home, heading straight for Mr. Zhao’s laboratory.

A few days later, with Gu Xi’s help and after the researchers’ unflagging efforts, a grapevine finally showed signs of reverse evolution.

That evening, looking at the grapevine she had just induced to grow more than ten meters tall, Gu Xi suddenly remembered a nursery rhyme Ye Xin often hummed to lull her to sleep as a child—

"In front of the door, a grapevine tree..."

Thinking of old friends and times gone by, Gu Xi couldn’t help but feel a pang of wistfulness.

Late at night, Chen Qian knocked on his superior’s office door. "Miss Ye, we just received news. The people in South City have successfully cultivated a grapevine that has undergone reverse evolution. What do you think...?"

Behind the black desk, Ye Xin—now over sixty but looking no older than her early thirties—was as beautiful as ever.

However, she now possessed an air of calm and composure that she hadn’t had back then.

Hearing this, Ye Xin raised a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear and smiled faintly. "What’s the rush? It’s still a long, long time before the grapes are ripe..."