Chapter 225: Mutated Cabbage
Chapter 225: Chapter 225: Mutated Cabbage
As the night deepened, a faint light still shone from a bedroom in the Dragon Lake Villa Area.
Luna Dawson leaned against the headboard, a thin blanket draped over her legs. Completely wide awake, she stayed up late, glued to her smart bracelet as she scrolled through videos on the Mutation Hub.
It was past midnight. Most people in the base had long since fallen asleep, but her screen continued to flicker, occasionally accompanied by a few bursts of uncontrollable laughter.
On the screen, a researcher from the institute was living out his miserable daily life. The bespectacled man was being chased around the experimental field by a bright red mutated chicken. One of his sneakers had flown off, and his messy hair was plastered to his face as he wailed, "Stop pecking! Stop pecking! I’ll give you the experimental data, okay?!"
"Hahaha, this researcher has it too rough." Luna’s shoulders shook with laughter. She liked the video and immediately forwarded it to the squad’s group chat with the caption, "Hahaha, this is killing me."
Caught up in the fun, Luna stumbled upon another video of a researcher being sent flying by a mutated wild boar. She casually forwarded it to Francis Grant, who had just sent her a caring message, adding the caption, "Haha, look at this! He fell even harder than you did when that bat sent you flying."
Francis had finally finished his official duties in the middle of the night. He habitually checked his bracelet before bed, not expecting that right after sending Luna a "good night," he would receive her reply and a shared video.
He stared at the screen for a long time, a gentle smile touching his eyes. She never used to make such jokes in the past.
His fingertips repeatedly traced Luna’s caption on the screen. After struggling for a long while, he carefully replied, "Go to sleep early. Don’t stare at your bracelet for too long. Staying up late is bad for your health." After hitting send, he held the bracelet and waited for quite a while until sleepiness washed over him, and he finally drifted off.
When they woke up the next morning, Kevin Keane, Evan Olson, and Lynn Shelby—three grown men—stared at the videos Luna had shared in the group chat as late as 3:30 AM. They fell into a unanimous silence. It seemed they would have to get used to Luna’s day-and-night-reversed, internet-addicted lifestyle from now on.
Luna hadn’t gone to sleep until around 4:00 AM. Relying on her spatial dimension as a cheat code, she slept incredibly soundly. She woke up right on time at a little past seven in the morning, not slacking off in the slightest.
If it weren’t for the fact that there was no signal in her dimension to connect her bracelet, she really would have wanted to hide inside and scroll through videos for a few more hours before coming out.
Carrying this tiny regret, she practically skipped downstairs, her footsteps going TAP TAP TAP, and dived into the kitchen to help Mrs. Dawson make steamed rice noodle rolls.
The rice batter let out a SIZZLE as it steamed in the steamer, and the savory aroma of the sauce filled the entire house. Combined with the sweet scent of the fruits on the table, Luna truly felt that these days were exactly like the times before the apocalypse—vibrant and grounding.
More and more people gradually gathered downstairs. Kevin spotted Luna at a glance and walked straight over. "Did you stay up all night on your bracelet?"
Luna raised an eyebrow, lifted her chin smugly, and pointed at her own eyes. "Open your titanium alloy eyes wide and take a good look. Do I have dark circles?"
Kevin retorted mercilessly, "I’m five years older than you, and you expect me to call you ’sis’?" As he spoke, his large hand pressed down on Luna’s head, rubbing it vigorously.
Luna felt like a helpless badger trapped in a hunter’s grasp. She struggled desperately, but even stretching her arms and legs to the limit, she couldn’t kick him. Losing the energy to argue, she waved her hand and mumbled, "Alright, alright, I know what I’m doing. Stop nagging me like a mother hen."
As she spoke, she swiftly grabbed a kumquat the size of an egg and accurately stuffed it into Kevin’s mouth just as he was about to speak, perfectly blocking his next round of nagging.
Grandpa and Hector had been absolutely buzzing with energy these past two days, waking up earlier than the roosters. The moment they finished breakfast, they would rush straight to the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
Now that the grandfather and grandson had something to do, they stood a lot taller, and even the wrinkles on Grandpa’s face seemed to radiate enthusiasm.
At this moment, Grandpa took a sip of his soy milk, grinning from ear to ear as he showed off to the people at the table. "You guys have no idea! Little Hector here is amazing! He’s only been at the Academy for two days, and he’s already made friends with that grumpy mutated giant cabbage! Now, that big guy doesn’t squat in the planting base and ambush the cultivators anymore!"
Hector held his small bowl, his large eyes blinking brightly. With his mouth stuffed full of fresh meat rice noodle rolls, he didn’t forget to nod, swinging his legs in excitement. "Grandpa! The Academy is super fun! I love chatting with Big Brother Cabbage the most!"
"A mutated cabbage?" Wayne Dawson paused with his chopsticks halfway to a rice noodle roll. His eyes lit up, his mind instantly filling with ten different ways to cook this new ingredient. "Is that thing edible? Does it taste good?"
Grandpa cleared his throat, instantly switching into a serious, educational mode. "That cabbage was discovered in the ruins outside the city during a mission by the Special Operations Department. It’s fully three stories tall! It took four captains with Third Order Wood superpowers working together just to barely tie it up and drag it back to the base."
He paused, lowering his voice with a touch of solemnity. "Right now, the base considers finding edible mutated plants and animals a top priority. When you all go out on missions from now on, keep an eye out. However, that cabbage has only just settled down, and it still doesn’t let anyone casually pluck its leaves. We can only slowly wear it down and hope to collect the offshoots it drops in the future, so we can mass-plant them in the base."
After all, a while ago, a desperately hungry survivor had picked up a small curled leaf that fell off the cabbage and gnawed on it. Not only did they not get poisoned, but they also claimed the texture was perfectly crisp. Once the news spread, the Academy of Agricultural Sciences immediately treated this blue cabbage, along with a previously discovered mutated red pomelo, as their top priority cultivation targets.
Grandpa’s words left everyone at the table utterly dumbfounded. As they looked at each other, they all felt a surreal illusion of having stumbled into a fantasy wonderland.
Luna methodically poured the soul-elevating sauce over her rice noodle rolls. Without even looking up, she chimed in, "I scrolled past a video of that cabbage. To be honest... it’s a bit ugly."
Grandpa coughed awkwardly twice. He picked up his teacup and took a sip, trying to save face. "As long as it’s edible, who cares if it’s a bit ugly?! At worst, we can just chop it up finely when cooking, mix it all together, and what the eye doesn’t see, the heart won’t grieve over!"
These words instantly piqued everyone’s curiosity. They had all received their own smart bracelets the previous evening. Now, in perfect unspoken agreement, they simultaneously tapped their screens to find the illustrated introduction published by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
The next second, a deathly silence fell over the dining table.
"Holy crap!" Wayne was the first to swear. He pointed at the horrifying picture on the screen, his voice cracking. "What kind of normal cabbage is blue?! It’s all curled up like a deformed head of lettuce. Are we sure this thing is edible?"
He prided himself on never being a picky eater, but looking at the giant plant on the screen—entirely deep blue, its leaves twisted and flipped outward, and densely dotted with countless mini blue cabbages—his stomach couldn’t help but churn. This thing practically came with an appetite-destroying buff.
Rhonda Dawson’s reaction was even more exaggerated. She rubbed her arms, shivering as goosebumps erupted all over her skin. Leaning close to Hector, she asked cautiously, "Hector, the friend you mentioned... is it this densely packed... thing?"
But Hector shook his head with utmost seriousness. His small brows knitted tightly together as he defended it in a protective tone, "It’s not ugly at all! Big Brother Cabbage is super pretty! It even told me how it swatted away the zombies that tried to ambush it in the ruins, and how it chased the mutated rabbits that tried to steal its territory all over the place. It was so much fun!"
Everyone was speechless. Alright then. A child’s aesthetic sense was clearly not on the same wavelength as an adult’s.
After everyone bustled about and thoroughly cleared the dining table, Evan checked the time. He picked up Grandpa and Hector’s backpacks and expertly drove the grandfather and grandson to work at the Academy of Agricultural Sciences.