150 The Fruit Of The Vines

Following a series of swishing noise, Lin Qiao cut off the three large bags and the fruit. As the fruit was falling to the ground, she hurriedly bent over and caught it with her hand, then quickly entered her space. 

The pitcher plants' bags automatically covered their openings while falling on the ground. 

All the vines paused when the fruit was cut off, and then began wriggling intensely. A loud rustling noise could be heard from the surrounding plants as the plants which had reached out all drew back, brandishing on this area and whipping at the surrounding plants over and over again. 

Stirred by these vines, the grass pieces and dust rose in clouds, and the earth shook fiercely. 

The movements of the vines startled all the birds on the surrounding trees, making them flap their wings and fly up into the sky as they left this area as quickly as possible. 

But soon, the vines slowed down and fell softly to the ground, as if they had lost their strength. A couple minutes later, they stopped moving completely. 

Lin Qiao didn't care what happened out there. After entering the space with the strange fruit, she sat down on a chair beside the lake. Next to the chair was the stone stove that she built to cook for the little boy. 

The chair that she was sitting on was carried here by Junjun. Junjun sometimes put the little boy on this chair while she was cooking for him. 

Lin Qiao didn't know the little boy's name yet, because not even Junjun remembered it. Hence, Junjun gave the little boy a new name—Tongtong. 

Lin Qiao put the fruit before her eyes to look at it. She found some sticky liquid flowing out of the broken stem of the fruit, the same as the liquid from the vines. 

She looked at the fruit carefully, then pinched it. It was hard, not looking edible at all. However, it was indeed filled with a great amount of energy. However, Lin Qiao couldn't tell if it contained a crystal-like nucleus, 

She popped a fingernail to cut the fruit from top to bottom, then from bottom to top. After that, she gripped both sides of the fruit and forced it apart. 

Crack!

Once the fruit was broken, a strong wave of energy flushed out, right toward Lin Qiao's face. 

She automatically turned her head to dodge it. 

Then, she looked into the fruit and found a thumb-sized white kernel, having a smooth, hard skin. What wrapped that kernel wasn't pulp, but a thick, very hard shell. Lin Qiao believed that not even a hammer could open this fruit. 

Lin Qiao picked the kernel out with the top of her fingernail, not noticing that a long and dark figure in the lake had swum toward her, and that a small green vine had stuck out of the water at the shoreside. 

The vine reached to Lin Qiao's feet. Right when she picked out the white kernel, the vine poked her foot with its end. 

'Eh?'

Lin Qiao felt that something was poking her foot as she prepared to try figuring out how to absorb the energy inside the kernel. She lowered her head and found that a familiar-looking vine had crawled to her feet.

'The vine plant here is really conscious!' She thought. 

As Lin Qiao noticed it, the vine immediately rose and pointed at the kernel in her hand. 

Lin Qiao naughtily moved her hand away. As she thought, the vine paused slightly, then followed her hand to the side. After that, she moved her hand back, and so did the vine. As she kept moving her hand, the vine never gave up on following, as if it had to touch the kernel. 

'Do you want it so much?' Lin Qiao suddenly felt that the vine was like a child asking for candies. She stared at it, wanting to laugh. 

The vine stopped moving abruptly, maybe because it had sensed Lin Qiao's thought. It stood straight before her eyes for a while, then reached to her hand and slowly coiled around her wrist. 

'I want energy! Upgrade!'

By touching the vine, Lin Qiao received a message. 

'Eh? Can this help you upgrade?' Lin Qiao thought. 'I can't absorb the energy in this kernel, but if I offer it to this vine plant, it might be happy. Perhaps, it'll give me another treatment.'

With that thought, Lin Qiao handed the white kernel to the vine, which immediately wrapped the kernel up and quickly dragged it into the water. 

Seeing the vine draw back into the lake with the kernel, Lin Qiao stood up and walked to the lakeside to try sensing something. As she had expected, she soon sensed a wave of energy vibration from the lake bottom.

After waiting for another while, she suddenly recalled that turtle which she had brought in earlier. 

She turned to where she had left the turtle, but found that it was gone. 

'Eh? Where did it go?'

…

Outside, Qiu Lili was having fun with those vines. But suddenly, she saw those vines pause, then all draw back, leaving her with the turtles. She guessed that Lin Qiao had done something to the vine plant to make all the vines draw back.

Not long after the vines drew back into the woods, she heard a loud series of noise from that area. 

She didn't know what happened, but she heard the vines whipping at the ground and the surrounding plants, also the startled birds flying and animals running. 

The noises lasted for a short while, then slowly faded. Soon, that area quieted down again. 

Qiu Lili waited for a while, but the vines never came out again. So, she squatted to continue playing with the turtles, because Lin Qiao hadn't come back. 

Later on, she raised her head to look at the sky. The sun was setting, but she didn't know when Lin Qiao would come back. Without any other choice, she stayed here and kept guarding these turtles. 

The bored Qiu Lili spun one turtle, then went to spin another one before the first one stopped spinning, and then the third and the fourth one. 

As the first one was about to stop, she went back to spin it again. 

Soon, she began enjoying this turtle-spinning game alone. This time, she wasn't spinning only one turtle, but all of them. 

Lin Qiao had caught and turned over seven turtles, but only five were left on the lawn now, as one was eaten by her and another one was taken into her space.