Chapter 319: Seen Enough
Lingyun watched the plants work with a bright smile on his face. "Look at the babies, getting faster with every bad guy they take down. I feel like a very proud daddy."
One of the vines spun around and seemingly glared at him before slinking over to Zhenlan to get a pet.
The other man looked shocked for a single second before stroking the leaf that acted as the vine’s head.
"It looks like I’m their favorite," Zhenlan purred. A soft smile that I hadn’t seen in a long time appeared on his face.
"Ah," Lingyun nodded, tapping his chin as he looked up into the sky. "But if I killed you, then that would be one less man competing for their love and attention." The look that flashed in his eyes showed just how unhinged he actually was when he made that statement.
He really wasn’t kidding.
Zhenlan’s hand paused on the vine’s head as he slowly looked over at him. "I’m beginning to understand why they don’t like you."
Lingyun’s face suddenly changed again as he gasped like he had just been deeply wounded, his hand flying to his chest as he looked at me like I was supposed to defend him. "They love me. They just have a... unique way of showing it."
The vine immediately curled tighter around Zhenlan’s wrist, and hissed at Lingyun again. I didn’t bother hiding my smile. Apparently, even the plants had standards.
"They’ve been getting a lot of practice," I replied with a shrug, bringing the conversation back to where it had started.
But I wasn’t upset. The more the plants ate, the bigger they became and the more food they would need. It was a perpetual cycle that kept me and mine safe. Why on earth would I complain?
Lingyun looked pleased by that answer, even though the vine still refused to return to him.
The woman with the shaved head jerked against the vine holding her, but it didn’t loosen. "Stop this! The East River Raiders won’t stand for it. You might have thought that you took us all out, but this isn’t even a quarter of our forces."
I glanced toward her.
The road had become strangely quiet. Small fires still burned among the wreckage, but the gunfire had ended. The only voices left belonged to the wounded men the plants hadn’t finished dragging away.
"You came here," I reminded her. "You brought weapons, vehicles, and enough people to start a war outside my house."
"We didn’t know what this place was."
"That sounds like a you problem," I replied.
Her mouth tightened as she looked over the bodies scattered across the road. Most of the confidence she had arrived with had disappeared, but there was still enough left for her to believe she could talk her way out of this.
"Look," she offered quickly, completely changing her tune. "We can leave. You’ve made your point. Let us go, and the East River won’t come back."
I tilted my head as though I was actually considering it.
The woman straightened a little, her eyes flashing in triumph.
Then one of the flowers snapped shut around a man who had been trying to crawl away behind her. Her face went pale again, her eyes dropping back to the ground in front of her feet.
"I might have been born at night," I said, looking down my nose at her. "But it wasn’t last night. You already came back," I reminded her. "Several times."
"That wasn’t my decision," she sputtered like all her men weren’t looking at her for their next order.
"I don’t care whose decision it was."
And I didn’t.
Maybe she had followed orders. Maybe she had wanted to come. Maybe someone had promised her the mansion, the supplies, or a nice comfortable room after everyone inside was dead.
But none of that mattered anymore.
They had crossed into my territory with weapons in their hands, and their reason only mattered to people who still believed they were leaving. We all knew that if I let them go, they would come right back here.
In a world where supplies were king, people had the memory of a goldfish when it came to anything else. And I made it clear that I had supplies. Otherwise, why would I protect my house this much?
Her eyes moved toward Gu Han’s observers across the road.
They were still standing behind the windows, their binoculars raised. None of them had tried to leave, mostly because the vines curled around the houses had made it clear that running wasn’t an option.
The woman saw them.
For the first time, she seemed to understand why they had been allowed to remain untouched.
"You knew they were there," she whispered, and I smiled.
Of course I knew. These East River Raiders were the chickens I was killing to warn the monkeys. I could have killed them whenever I wanted, but that would have ruined the entire point.
Dead men couldn’t describe what they had seen. They couldn’t return to Gu Han shaking so badly that their voices cracked. They couldn’t explain that every person he had allowed to walk toward my house had died while his own men stood close enough to hear their bones break.
Sometimes letting someone live was the crueler option.
Behind the woman, the last surviving East River Raider managed to crawl out from beneath a broken section of truck. One leg dragged uselessly behind him, and blood covered both hands as he pulled himself toward the edge of the road.
He made it almost three meters when Zhenlan lifted two fingers.
A burst of wind rolled the man back into the center of the street, directly into the path of a waiting root.
The root tightened around his waist and pulled him beneath the ground.
Then there was no one left.
No one except the woman and Gu Han’s observers.
The plants slowed, withdrawing from the middle of the road as they began sorting through what remained. Bodies disappeared first. Weapons and vehicle parts were pushed into separate piles, while anything soaked in fuel was dragged away from the mansion.
A few vines worked together to lift an undamaged rifle from beneath a body. They carried it toward Yuche and placed it carefully at his feet before returning to the road.
Yuche looked down at the weapon, then at me. "At least someone brought useful gifts," he murmured.
"They could have saved themselves the trouble and left everything at the bottom of the driveway."
"Clearly, they weren’t raised properly."
That explained a lot.
The plants continued sorting through the wreckage, separating ammunition from broken glass and anything that might still explode. They weren’t perfect at it yet, but they were learning quickly.
More importantly, they were learning what belonged inside my territory and what needed to disappear.
Yuche rested the bat against one shoulder and looked toward me. Blood covered his hands and the front of his shirt, but his expression remained calm.
Lingyun stood several feet away, surrounded by fading flames and wearing the happiest smile I had seen from him all day.
Zhou Chenghai returned to the bottom of the porch steps.
Zhenlan stayed beside me, with the vine still curled possessively around his wrist.
All four of them looked toward the workers’ houses.
The observers finally lowered their binoculars.
One man stepped back from the window, only for the vine wrapped around the frame to tap sharply against the glass.
He raised them again.
I pushed away from the railing.
"All right," I murmured, looking from the empty road to the people Gu Han had sent to spy on us. "I think they’ve seen enough."
