The SUV lurched forward the second Chenghai slammed it into gear.

One of his hands stayed tight on the wheel while the other shoved the gear shift hard enough that the vehicle jumped over the curb to avoid hitting two of the abandoned cars blocking the hotel entrance.

In the back seat, Yuche tightened his hold on Rouxi automatically when the SUV bounced over the broken pavement. The vines wrapped around her body reacted immediately, tightening around both of them before slowly settling again once the movement stopped.

"Sorry," Chenghai muttered without thinking.

Lingyun snorted beside Yuche. "Did you just apologize to the plants?"

"Oh fuck off," he grunted in response. "You would say sorry too if you pissed off her plants."

"Her plants love me," replied Lingyun. He held his fingers out toward the smallest vine wrapped around Rouxi’s neck. It snapped at him in response, black venom dripping down onto the leather seats between them.

Chenghai snorted from the front seat. "Yeah, I see that."

Zhenlan, ignoring the two bickering men, looked back through the rear windshield just in time to see Commander Li’s convoy forcing its way out onto the street behind them while soldiers shouted at civilians to clear the road.

Then the hotel collapsed.

The upper floors gave out first.

Glass burst outward across the street while concrete folded inward floor by floor in a roar loud enough to shake the surrounding buildings. Dust exploded upward between the towers of downtown Rongdu as civilians still fleeing the area screamed and scattered in every direction.

Chenghai didn’t slow down.

"Next right," Zhenlan warned as he watched the dust cloud spreading rapidly down the street behind them. "If that reaches us, we’re driving blind."

Chenghai turned the wheel sharply without hesitation. "Can’t you do something about the wind?"

"Not if I want to have anything left," replied Zhenlan, his voice dead serious. Chenghai grunted in response but nodded his head in understanding.

Behind them, Commander Li’s vehicles followed close enough that headlights flashed repeatedly through the mirrors every time the convoy changed direction.

For several minutes, nobody inside the SUV spoke.

Chenghai focused entirely on the road ahead while Zhenlan watched the streets around them for movement. The city looked worse at night now. Vines crawled across entire buildings in some districts while roots split open sections of asphalt badly enough that abandoned vehicles sat half-swallowed into the roads.

Everywhere he looked, the city carried signs of the plant apocalypse.

This was not to be confused with the zombie apocalypse. Both apocalypses would and could happen at the same time.

Which one was worse depended on where you lived and what you were facing at that moment.

In his first life, the zombie apocalypse had consumed Rongdu quickly. Hunger, infighting, zombie waves, and winter had stripped the city apart long before plants ever had the chance. It took two years, maybe three before the plants reached Rongdu.

But in this timeline, things were different.

The plants adapted differently.

And somehow, almost every change led back to the woman currently unconscious in Yuche’s arms.

A small sound came from the back seat and every person inside the SUV looked back immediately.

Rouxi head shifted weakly against Yuche’s chest before going still again while the vines wrapped around her arms tightened slightly around his wrist, making sure that she stayed anchored to the man they deemed her protector.

Yuche lowered his head automatically. "Easy," he whispered in her ear. "I have you. You aren’t going anywhere."

The words were more of a reassurance for himself than for her, after all, she wasn’t really showing signs of waking up.

Lingyun looked away first, turning his attention back toward the window beside him before anyone could say anything about it.

The convoy pushed deeper into the city.

Most of the roads between downtown Rongdu and the mansion were in half decent shape. Of course, there was still the abandoned vehicles that blocked the occasional intersection, or roots splitting apart streets overnight. And there were also the zombie groups wandered unpredictably enough that every turn had to be treated like a possible ambush. But other than that... the streets were perfect.

The first group of zombies appeared three intersections later. There might have been ten zombies maybe... fifteen at most.

They moved quietly between two overturned buses drawn toward the sound of engines while the convoy slowed automatically behind the SUV.

The night time zombies always gave Zhenlan the creeps... like a veil between something had been lifted and now everyone could see the potential that the zombies had.

Normally, nobody inside the vehicle would have bothered stopping for a group this small, but they were blocking the way... and Zhenlan couldn’t risk them trying to get into the SUV.

Apparently, Chenghai agreed. His hand moved toward the door handle, as if to go out and fight the creature, but Zhenlan stopped him. "I’ll do it."

Chenghai glanced toward him once before leaning back again. "Try not to damage the vehicles."

Zhenlan hummed in agreement. After all, that was the only reason why he was willing to fight the zombies in the first place.

He stepped out into the middle of the empty intersection while the convoy idled behind him. The zombies noticed him immediately and surged forward with wet growls echoing through the street.

They might not have been as slow as normal, but for Zhenlan, who was used to dealing with more evolved zombies, these ones were still like babies to him.

He lifted one hand slightly, and the very air around him changed. For a second, nothing happened. The zombies weren’t knocked out of the way or sent flying... but then Chenghai saw it.

The first zombie, the one closest to Zhenlan, started to swell violently. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

Its chest expanded first, then its throat and stomach as compressed air forced itself inside the corpse faster than rotting flesh could withstand.

The zombie exploded.

Blood and torn flesh splattered across the pavement hard enough that the creatures beside it staggered sideways from the impact.

The rest died seconds later.

Bodies bloated grotesquely before bursting apart one after another beneath the convoy headlights until the entire intersection looked like a slaughterhouse.

Zhenlan stared at the remains for a moment before turning back toward the SUV and getting in... not a single drop of blood or dead flesh on him.

"Huh," Chenghai said as Zhenlan buckled his seatbelt. "You’ve never done that before."

"I know."

That was the strange part.

In his last life, it had never once occurred to him to use his ability that way. Wind blades, pressure bursts, oxygen control... those techniques made sense. They were precise. Controlled.

But this?

This had felt instinctive.

Natural.

Like the power itself had already known what to do before he consciously decided to try.

The realization sat strangely in his chest as Chenghai pulled the SUV forward again.

Behind them, one of Commander Li’s vehicles slowed near the corpses.

Then immediately stopped again.

Yuche looked up from Rouxi just enough to glare through the windshield toward the convoy.

"If you leave the cores there like that," he said calmly, "Rouxi will kill you."

For the first time all night, Chenghai almost laughed.

Almost.

With a wave of his hand, Zhenlan used the air to pluck the crystal cores out of the blood and brains littered across the street and brought them to the car. "Better?" he asked.

"Much," agreed Yuche.

Chenghai let out a snort before he continued driving. It felt like hours before they were back on the highway, heading to the suburb where the house was. By the time they finally reached the outer streets surrounding the mansion property, every muscle, every bone in his body was in pain.

And he hadn’t done anything more than sat in a car and drove.

He was getting too old for this shit.

Then the lead SUV, the one with Commander Li inside of it stopped, Chenghai slowed automatically behind it before looking past the windshield toward what should have been the front gates.

Or what used to be the front gates.

Now the entire entrance had disappeared behind a massive wall of black vines, flowering thorn branches, and tangled roots thick enough to swallow the stone fencing completely.

Commander Li stepped out of his vehicle slowly and stared at the wall for several long seconds before finally looking back toward them.

"Did I get the wrong address," he asked dryly, "or did you fire your landscaper?"