XG 183 - You like humans more than trees?

Despite wanting to find someone to talk to about her problems, Kang Xunsu needed rest and should not be bothered. As for her parents, they were not active in the family chat group at all. Other than her, only her mother responded and asked her questions about how she was doing.

Other than that, there was no enthusiasm for sharing what they were doing with their daughter. The most Suzie Yap did was assure her daughter that they were fine and would come back to Korea soon.

With cloudy eyes, Wong Xue Guo's thumb lightly rubbed her cellphone. Her mother was back to her old habits of keeping her ignorant in the name of protection, while her father, from start to the end, does not care about telling her anything if it was unimportant.

If it was before her 'unknown for how long' soul trip, it would have hurt her quite a bit, but now she only feels disappointed with her mother. The moment she put a name to this familiar emotion with a new twist into it, she was shocked at how rude she was to be feeling this way to her mother. But as she was given more time to digest that emotion in that timeless space, the degree of shock slowly lessen.

Time and distance were pretty scary with how they could change a person.

Now she was much calmer and less yearning for her parents' affection, especially after discovering she could have gotten the love she wanted from someone else that was valued her equally.

It was the love she could get if Chen Yibo finally agree to date her.

"Is something bothering you?" Chen Yibo's self-taught 101 ways to understand Wong Xue Guo once again provided to be useful.

Hidden in the darkness of the car, Wong Xue Guo did not restrain the smile from making its appearance. Now she has one more person that she could talk to.

Not shy of unloading her worry, she leaned close to Chen Yibo and talk softly. "There are too few zombies around for me to absorb energy from. I can absorb energy from the trees, but I prefer harming zombies than Mother Nature."

Chen Yibo was not very sure of her ability's full use, especially now that she learned more tricks from the demon. "If you can absorb energy from trees, why not absorb from the weeds? They are the ones that people would cut off first."

Although the new era allowed the trees to grow well and healthy, if Wong Xue Guo does not want to harm the trees, Chen Yibo would not go against her wish. He also agreed that zombies were the much-preferred target over Mother nature, but he had some concerns that the zombie's energy would harm her.

Her warm breath tickled his ears as her mouth leaned closer to his ear. "You don't see it, but after I absorb their life force, they tend to dry out and turn brownish yellow. Like how normal plants that died would look. If you stumble over a green area with an entire patch of dead grass, do you think it's normal?"

"I see. You are worried that someone would investigate why it happen. Then what if you absorb only half of each tree's life force? That way, they won't die and no one will catch onto the strangeness."

Wong Xue Guo retracted her head and stared at him oddly. "... Wow, you just made me realize I'm a glutton."

"How so?"

Sighing sadly, she admitted an embarrassing part of herself. "I always absorb everything and never leave any behind." But she was relieved that Chen Yibo had thought up a good way.

Chen Yibo laughed softly, tickling Wong Xue Guo's heart but also catching Max's eyes from the rearview mirror. Max was then scolded by L.L. for not paying attention to the road, not that Max understood English, but he certainly understand the censure glare.

Just after being scolded, the car braked abruptly without warning. Wong Xue Guo would have crashed to the front if not for Chen Yibo's fast reflex to catch her, using his leg to step on the back of the front seat to stop them from flying forward.

Wong Xue Guo, who only wears a seatbelt when she sits in the passenger seat, started to consider doing the same even in the backseat. As long she has a knife, she can cut it if she was trapped by it.

"S-Sorry! There's a car in the middle of the road!"

"No one cleaned the road yet?" Wong Xue Guo peered at the front. There was a truck that crashed into a light pole, its length covered more than half of the road width. They would have to push it aside to continue driving.

"It is only Jihyo that made an effort to clean up Manse street after they barricaded the area. I doubt everyone else has the time to do the same," Chen Yibo said.

Wong Xue Guo was used to travelling the road without any blockage, not realizing that her team was never the first that set out to check the place or to open the path for future use.

"But didn't Max use this road when he comes to Musihada...?"

At Wong Xue Guo's question, both she and Chen Yibo turned to look at Max. Chen Yibo repeated the question in Korean. "Max, is this the road you used yesterday?"

"Y-Yes."

"Maybe someone had an accident during that time frame."

"Or... it could be a trap?" Wong Xue Guo countered Chen Yibo's guess.

Luckily for them, the truck was not a trap.

The door of the driver's seat was wide open and the remains of the driver's body showed he was eaten by zombies. Wong Xue Guo shivered at the sight of his legs trapped in the crash, unable to run and basically offering himself to the zombie. For this deceased sake, it was better for him to die from the collision, or unconscious and not feel himself being eaten.

There were signs that someone else was in the passenger seat, but the person had either ran off or met their demise outside the truck.

The contents of the truck were ransacked before, and only unimportant items like the stacks of photo albums were left behind. Hey, they could use the photos to continue the fire, no?

If they wanted to move the truck, they had to move the remains of the corpse. Someone would have to sacrifice their clothing and hygiene to drive the truck.

L.L. refused to participate in the selection and choose to guard their rear instead. His eyes were pinning on Max to do it, but the poor guy was also sickened out by the thought of touching the corpse.

It was Chen Yibo's offer to drive the truck away, with a momentary doubt about where he learned to drive without a license, that prompted Wong Xue Guo to do something.

Wrapping her shadow around Max's eyes first, without warning the person, Wong Xue Guo spread her shadow and solidified into a pitch-black elephant. Waving its trunk playfully, the elephant's body rammed into the truck, sending it crashing to the side.

It was so loud that the already terrified, blinded Max screamed like a slaughtered chicken.

When his sight finally returned after the shadow left him, Max was shocked silly at the overturned truck and caught the black elephant before it melted away like a puddle. "What the fuck happen?"

Only after he uttered his question did his mind answer himself. He had briefly seen the power of the shadow swallowing the zombies back at the base. After some asking, he learned it was Director Wong's daughter that was the owner of that fearsome ability and was also the young lady that joined the rescue mission.

At first, he was a little offended that the rescue mission only consisted of three people, not including himself. But he could not be choosy when Musihada were already willing to listen to him and even had the princess of the base to help him.

Feeling like he was among the stronger lineups in the small team, Max had been forcing himself to be alert for any danger, knowing that he would have to protect the weaker lineups. But the overturned truck poured cold water on him and his ego.

He may be of help, but the main attacker was actually the delicate-looking princess! Max himself was actually among the weaker lineups!

The sudden large output of power had Wong Xue Guo's legs wobbling. Forming the elephant was easy, but solidifying it and granting it super strength was exhausting. Chen Yibo supported her weight and dragged her to the side.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Her head was slightly dizzy, and the movement made it worse.

"There's a tree over here." Chen Yibo helpfully placed her palm onto the thick trunk and she automatically started to absorb it to ease her discomfort.

To her surprise, the energy from the tree was purer and much easier to swallow like clear water. It was very different from the demonic plants from Hell that Mr Demon had her absorb for practice.

The refreshing feeling had her forgotten to pull back, and the tree rapidly dried out and died.

"It's okay, just absorb everything. There are not many trees around and we can't afford to protect them now," Chen Yibo coaxed.

"You like humans more than trees?"

"... I like you more than them."

Wong Xue Guo quickly looked at him, ignoring the risk of snapping her neck. "Are you confessing?"