How to Raise a Baby in an Apocalypse - Chapter 413

The large female rat enters the first floor but loses sight of An Ran and the others. It staggers and collapses under the weight of its swollen belly. Little rats keep emerging from beneath its body—soft, red, and tender—streaming out endlessly, one after another.

An Ran quickly spreads her psychic ability outward and senses that the spiked puffball outside the door is eating quite well. From the original single puffball, several more have already sprouted.

She calls to the fat thorn balls in her mind, but they are too lazy to move. After a while, under her persistent call, several fat thorn ball mutant plants reluctantly roll out. They look like they don’t want to come in at all.

An Ran throws more energy at them, and only then do the puffballs become more cooperative, dutifully rolling around the first floor of the mall, stabbing at the newborn rats and absorbing their blood and flesh.

The mother rat, meanwhile, fixates on hunting down the traces of An Ran and the other “human cheese blocks.” Compared to the plants, real flesh is far more attractive. However, she hasn’t finished giving birth yet—barely a third of the pups are out—so her movement is sluggish and limited.

Zhao Ru and Little Mint move heavy objects to block the staircase entrance. Doll plays in the rocking car placed at An Ran’s feet. Xu Li’er has already hidden somewhere, and An Ran doesn’t care—so long as Xu Li’er stays out of trouble.

Soon, the fat thorn balls in the hall grow smaller ones after eating enough. These new fat thorn balls link together, with short roots wrapping around the tiny bones of the dead mice. They connect to the larger fat thorn balls growing like flower beds outside the side door, effectively guarding the entrance.

At least some of the adult mutant rats, the size of cats, can’t get in.

However, as the number of fat thorn balls increases, An Ran has to spend more energy to keep them obedient. After all, these are mutant plants—if she doesn’t continuously supply energy, they lose control, unable to distinguish friend from foe. Then, they don’t just eat rats—they run out to attack Zhan Lian and the others.

Controlling one fat thorn ball is easy for An Ran, but managing so many is taxing. They keep eating, growing, shedding roots, and spawning new fat thorn balls.

Soon, An Ran’s energy drains. Within a short time, she bends over, feeling the sharp pain of overdrawing her supernatural power.

She feels a strange grudge against places like supermarkets and shopping malls. The last time she experiences this kind of energy drain is also inside a mall—and now it’s happening again.

The human body is like a container, large or small. The energy in the crystal core is like water droplets. Humans absorb this energy from the crystal core and store it in their bodies. The larger the container, the more energy can be stored, allowing longer endurance and stronger abilities.

An Ran’s meridians accommodate the crystal core’s energy much better than Zhao Ru or Xu Li’er can.

But at the same time, Zhao Ru and Xu Li’er can’t control mutant plants like An Ran. Even if they could, they wouldn’t be able to keep control for this long.