Chapter 177: Simple Healing
“Huayibai, has Survivor’s Light responded yet?”
Lin Xiwan, completely exhausted and sprawled in a puddle, looked curiously at Huayibai lying beside her. Huayibai was intently focused on a large white butterfly perched on her nose, either studying its structure or testing the limits of her eye movement.
Only after hearing Lin Xiwan’s question did Huayibai roll over, resting her chin on the edge of the puddle and looking at Lin Xiwan. The white butterfly on her nose fluttered off and landed on her head.
“No, Sister Xi,” Huayibai shook her head.
The part of her body in Chongyu City had been monitoring Survivor’s Light’s radio frequency, but hadn’t heard anything. Their radio seemed to be completely off, not even playing music.
Before leaving Donghai City, Huayibai, at her mother’s request, had left behind many spores to suppress the spread of the native Blood Orb Mycelium. But now, she could no longer sense those undeveloped spores. It was as if they had all been wiped out.
“Has the music stopped?” Lin Xiwan asked again.
“The music has also stopped.”
“Hmm…”
Lin Xiwan, slumped in the puddle, let herself slide beneath the surface, submerged in the cool water. She had already suspected something had happened to Survivor’s Light, not from listening to the radio, but from her sister’s evasiveness earlier.
Her sister wanted to deal with something alone, and Lin Xiwan wouldn’t pester her with questions. Instead, she followed her sister’s suggestion and came here, adding another layer of flesh and blood to the training ground floor.
Even after exhausting her physical strength and blood crystal reserves, the tightness in Lin Xiwan’s chest didn’t ease. She desperately wanted to know what had happened, but was also afraid to hear confirmation from her sister. This conflicting feeling constantly tugged at her heart.
Whatever the outcome, one thing was certain: she, Lin Xiwan, was powerless.
Recalling her sister’s sweet smile at the amusement park that morning, and thinking back to the days and nights they had experienced together before arriving in Kun City, she suddenly felt a sense of acceptance.
“Gurgle, gurgle…”
Exhaling the air she had been holding, Lin Xiwan pushed herself up with her hands, her head emerging from the water. She looked again at Huayibai, who was looking at her curiously.
“Huayibai, bring me my bag.” Lin Xiwan pointed to the vines where her clothes were hanging. A black waist bag hung there.
Originally, Lin Xiwan used it to carry small tools like a lighter and a knife. After arriving in Kun City, its main use became storing the Blood Crystals she collected. Inside were a little over three Blood Crystals that the people from the ash area camp had collected and given to her.
Huayibai nodded obediently, then climbed up, the butterfly on her head, and ran towards the waist bag with open arms.
After jumping up and taking down Lin Xiwan’s waist bag, Huayibai returned, squatted by the puddle, held out the bag with both hands, and said, “Here.”
“Good girl.” Lin Xiwan smiled at Huayibai, took the waist bag, unbuckled it, unzipped it, and poured out the three Blood Crystals inside.
Huayibai squatted beside her, her eyes wide, looking at Lin Xiwan’s actions with some confusion.
Noticing Huayibai’s gaze, Lin Xiwan picked up one of the Blood Crystals and handed it to Huayibai, “Want one?”
Lin Xiwan thought Huayibai wanted to play with the shiny Blood Crystal.
“Huayibai doesn’t want it.” Huayibai shook her head.
Part of her body was currently attached to a flapping-wing insect, carrying more than sixty Blood Crystals, and was about to arrive in Kun City. And Mommy said she could use those Blood Crystals whenever she wanted, so Huayibai wasn’t lacking Blood Crystals at all.
“Okay.” Lin Xiwan nodded, withdrew her hand holding the Blood Crystal, and took out a folding knife from a small pocket in the waist bag.
With a “shing,” the shiny silver, scratched blade popped out, reflecting the shimmering light on the water’s surface.
Lin Xiwan gestured with the knife on her body, finally choosing a place where her sister was least likely to notice.
Below her heart—just a little below her chest.
Creating a wound there would result in a large amount of bleeding, and it was hidden and not easily discovered.
After placing the tip of the knife against her chest, Lin Xiwan looked up at Huayibai and smiled, “Remember not to tell your Sister Yao.”
“Eh?” Huayibai blinked, then nodded and agreed, “Okay.”
She couldn’t tell Sister Yao, but she could tell Mommy, Huayibai understood.
Then, under Huayibai’s gaze, Lin Xiwan slowly exerted force with her arm, the spring knife piercing diagonally upwards from below her left chest, slowly pushing towards her heart.
When the tip of the knife cut through the heart valve, Lin Xiwan abruptly pulled out the spring knife, and a large amount of blood spurted out.
At the same time, she quickly pressed the Blood Crystal in her left hand against the wound.
“Hiss…”
Even when the folding knife pierced her heart just now, Lin Xiwan didn’t make a sound, but the moment the Blood Crystal touched the wound, she couldn’t help but gasp.
It was a familiar feeling…
The Blood Crystal seemed to be attached to her wound. Even though Lin Xiwan’s hand was no longer pressing on the Blood Crystal, it was still rapidly melting into a liquid state and drilling into the wound.
Lin Xiwan reached forward with both arms and grabbed a Blood Crystal in each hand, then exerted force at the same time.
“Crack—”
The two Blood Crystals were instantly crushed by her, and the fragmented Blood Crystals cut through her skin and drilled into her blood vessels.
“Thump—”
Just like the previous evolution in the car, Lin Xiwan’s heart beat violently, and the veins on her arms all the way to her heart bulged like varicose veins, but the blood vessels inside had turned into a slightly glowing red.
Blood Crystals were constantly pouring into her body, strengthening her flesh and repairing her wounds.
Artificially creating wounds could speed up the absorption of Blood Crystals, and the areas repaired by Blood Crystals would be significantly stronger than other limbs.
Of course, there would be a lot of loss in the process, and ordinary Awakened would not deliberately create wounds for themselves in order to be promoted.
After all, it was a waste of Blood Crystals, and it was very painful.
To Lin Xiwan’s surprise, her body absorbed the Blood Crystals much faster than she expected. It only took less than five minutes for the bulging veins on her arms to slowly recede.
And she felt… that this didn’t seem to be her limit, she could absorb more.
This absorption was different from before, as if it had opened some kind of Pandora’s Box, making her heart fill with a craving for Blood Crystals.
She had a premonition that this was a sign of promotion… but she could feel that the amount of Blood Crystals needed was huge, so huge that she and her sister couldn’t afford it at all.
Taking a few deep breaths, Lin Xiwan slowly suppressed the craving for Blood Crystals in her heart.
She could only slowly collect Blood Crystals… such a large amount of Blood Crystals couldn’t be collected all at once. Other zombies and Awakened also completed their final transformation through repeated accumulation.
It was impossible for someone to prepare all the Blood Crystals needed for promotion and then absorb them all at once. This wasn’t a mobile game where you could pay to buy Blood Crystals.
But what Lin Xiwan didn’t know was that her cute little sister had once used nearly a hundred Blood Crystals to directly force out two B-ranks.
After suppressing her craving for Blood Crystals and washing the blood off her body, Lin Xiwan checked her wound.
The knife wound under her chest was very hidden, and now it was sealed by Blood Crystals, leaving only a faint red scar, which would probably disappear completely in about a week.
After putting on her sports bra and clothes, as long as she didn’t run around naked in front of her sister, she definitely wouldn’t be discovered.
After changing into the dry clothes she had prepared in advance, Lin Xiwan threw the blood-stained clothes from the battle into the blood-stained puddle just now.
The coagulated blood on the clothes dispersed and mixed with her own blood, making it impossible to distinguish.
And soon, this blood would be devoured by the moss in the water. After a few hours, it would become a set of clean clothes and a pool of clear water again.
It could only be said that the purification ability of these mutated plants in Kun City was really strong, which was why they could store so much clean water.
After changing her clothes, Lin Xiwan took Huayibai and embarked on the way back in the twilight. The absorption of Blood Crystals just now also made Lin Xiwan’s body recover a lot of strength, so she wasn’t unable to walk.
Soon, Lin Xiwan returned to the villa area with Huayibai and came to the unique house with vines as curtains.
Lin Jiayao did not enter directly through the main entrance, but parted the vines from the side and entered the room directly.
As soon as she parted the vines, Lin Xiwan saw her sister already sitting on the bed.
And her sister seemed to have heard their movements, and slowly opened her eyes after they entered the room, looking at them indifferently.
“Sister.” Seeing her sister, Lin Jiayao habitually called out first.
“Are you hungry? If you are, I’ll get you something to eat.” Lin Xiwan smiled and walked towards the bed, preparing to sit on the bed and touch her sister’s head for a while.
Just then, Huayibai behind Lin Xiwan spoke directly.
Huayibai pointed at Lin Xiwan in front of her and said loudly to Lin Jiayao: “Mommy! Just now Sister Xi took a knife and…”
Before Huayibai could finish her words, Lin Xiwan quickly turned around and covered her mouth, which prevented Huayibai from saying anything else.
“Knife?” Lin Jiayao blinked and looked at her sister, who was covering Huayibai’s mouth with a nervous look.
“No… nothing, the child is just talking nonsense.” Lin Xiwan looked at her sister and forced a smile.
She knew that once Huayibai spoke, this matter definitely couldn’t be hidden from her sister.
But what Lin Xiwan didn’t expect was that her sister just nodded slightly, said “oh”, and then looked at Huayibai and said:
“Huayibai, go with Little Black and help bring back some canned food.”
Huayibai, who received the order, instantly forgot about reporting just now, and nodded while her mouth was covered: “Mmm!”
Then, Huayibai broke free from Lin Xiwan’s hands and ran out with her good friend Little Black (the white butterfly).
After Huayibai’s running footsteps faded away, Lin Xiwan stood up awkwardly, not knowing how to speak for a moment.
“Come here, Sister.”
“Ah? Oh…”
After being stunned for a moment, Lin Xiwan obediently walked over and sat next to her sister. Then, she heard her sister’s slightly softer but still indifferent voice beside her.
“I have an ability called ‘Hemophagy’, which can mark and track targets by tasting their blood…”
“Similarly, if a marked target is injured and bleeds again, the places where blood remains will be highlighted in my vision.”
“I’ve licked your blood.” Her sister added at the end.
Lin Xiwan was already used to her sister having all kinds of strange abilities, but after hearing her sister’s words, Lin Xiwan’s face burned.
Her sister had the ability to distinguish bloodstains, so her clumsy acting just now must have been like child’s play in her sister’s eyes.
And, she was clearly the one who wanted to hide it first, so why was it her sister who apologized first?
This made Lin Xiwan, who was already a little ashamed, feel even more guilty.
“Rustle—”
Suddenly, a pair of tender white hands reached out in front of her and pulled her zipper all the way down.
“Yao…”
“It might be a little numb, bear with it.”
“Okay…”
Lin Xiwan’s hands were on the bed, tightly gripping the sheets, which were completely wrinkled. This seemed to be a subconscious action, beyond her control, as if she was suppressing some kind of stimulation.
She already completely regretted cutting herself below her chest.
After feeling the warm and numb sensation leave her body, Lin Xiwan looked up and saw her sister wiping the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.
“Rustle—”
Lin Xiwan quickly zipped up her clothes, stood up and said, “I, I, I… I’ll pour you a glass of water.”
She didn’t seem to notice that the water she had left for her sister on the bedside table before leaving hadn’t been touched.
“Tap, tap, tap…”
Watching her sister leave the room, Lin Jiayao slowly looked away.
Her sister seemed to have met the conditions for promotion, only needing Huayibai to bring back the Blood Crystals.
The loss of the zombie fish-man brought Lin Jiayao three useless evolutions, and Lin Jiayao only chose one of them, the blue quality [Sharp Black Scales].
These were the scales on the fish-man zombie, an evolution that could be used for both defense and attack, better than nothing.
These were not the main point. The main point was that Lin Jiayao had actually simulated part of that seabed zombie in the training ground just now.
It was just a pity that that part was only an unconscious lifeform and didn’t react to Lin Jiayao’s attacks.
As for those light blue serpents, Lin Jiayao had already completely simulated them, and even figured out their habits, attack methods, and whether there were any special killing methods after death.
After fully understanding these, Lin Jiayao roughly understood the relationship between these serpents and the seabed creature.
It was really as Lin Jiayao guessed, they were being “farmed”.
But their relationship was not that of “slave owner” and “slave”, nor was it that of “farmer” and “farmland”.
In Lin Jiayao’s view, it was more like the relationship between “building” and “renewable building materials”.
Those terrifying black spikes, and the long passage before Lin Jiayao entered the fan-shaped gate, were very likely “built” from the corpses of the blue serpents.
The “builder” that built all of this, the one behind the scenes that used flesh and blood to bond into buildings, was the real A-rank zombie.
And that zombie, Lin Jiayao had not yet seen.
