Mutant Farmer in The Apocalypse

Little Ivy used one vine to grab the tote bag on the river and Poddie with the other. She pulled them to Yang Zhang's side, and Yang Zhang hugged Poddie first.

"PODDIE!"

"PII! PIII!"

Yang Zhang checked Poddie's body, afraid that the little guy was hurt somewhere, "Are you okay? Did you get hurt somewhere?" He asked.

"Pii!" Poddie replied, ensuring Yang Zhang that he was alright.

"Poddie…" Yang Zhang also saw his pets who surrounded him. He embraced them all for one big hug.

"I will never let you guys get hurt. You're all my friends in this difficult apocalypse world," Yang Zhang said.

"Vii!"

"Squeak!"

"Chirp! Chirp!"

"Pii! Pii!"

**

After the big warm hug, Yang Zhang asked Little Ivy to bring them down, and Yang Zhang carried the now-soaked tote bag and his pets that hid inside his pocket and sleeve.

He walked to the hut that he missed so much, even though it was just two days since the last time he left this place.

Yang Zhang opened the door and expected the place to be at least a bit dusty.

But much to his surprise, the house was clean. There was no sign of dust, mess, and dirt spots made by Lt. Spicy Wing and Chestnut when they played tag around the hut before.

Yang Zhang got suspicious instantly. He was afraid that a man had broken into his hut and thought this place was abandoned.

He started tiptoeing to look around, to check whether there was a sign of human other than he lived here in the past two days.

"Vii?"

"Ssh! We don't know if there is someone here. Stay silent," Yang Zhang said, and all his pets zipped their mouths instantly.

Yang Zhang grabbed the bedroom door handle. Since there was nobody in the living room, then he guessed that the intruder must've been sleeping on the bed right now, not knowing the history of the dead baby in the crib inside.

Just imagining himself sleeping in the same room with the dead baby, Yang Zhang's hair stood on end.

Yang Zhang took a deep breath, twisted the knob, and slammed it open, "HA!" Yang Zhang aimed his gun at the bed, thinking he got the intruder.

But he found nobody, the bedroom was also empty.

But strangely, the messy bedroom was now all squeaky clean, including the crib. The last time Yang Zhang visited this bedroom, the crib was left untouched after picking the baby's bones and burying him in the backyard.

"This intruder is surely a very clean person. Look at how clean and tidy they did this," Yang Zhang commented.

After finding out that the intruder wasn't in the bedroom, there was only one place that he hadn't checked yet, the backyard.

Yang Zhang went to the backyard, and when he looked around, he still hadn't found anyone.

"Huh, this is so strange…." Yang Zhang mumbled. "Why would an intruder tidy up the hut? And even if there is one who thinks he can stay, what's the point of cleaning up when he'd leave again?"

Nothing changed in the backyard. Only the dancing rose twerked when Yang Zhang opened the backyard door.

Yang Zhang peered suspiciously at the dancing rose. He might have gone mad because he kept on thinking that the dancing rose was actually the one who took care of the house while he was out.

Yang Zhang approached the twerking rose and then crouched in front of it. He continuously peered at the rose suspiciously, and the rose seemed to have noticed the suspicion and stopped dancing. The rose stood straight, like a rod. Even the leaves became stiff due to nervousness.

"AHA! I know that you can hear me!" Yang Zhang shouted, and the rose started trembling as if it was scared.

"Come and talk to me! Tell me if you can uproot yourself, like Little Ivy and Poddie. We need to talk!"

The little rose started trembling again, even trying to cover the petal with her leaves in shames.

Lt. Spicy Wing remembered that Miss Rose didn't want to show herself in front of their master because she was still shy and wasn't prepared.

So Spicy Wing jumped from Yang Zhang's head and shielded the twerking rose, "Chirp! Chirp!"

"Huh? You don't want me to bully this twerking rose? But you don't know if this rose is dangerous or not!" Yang Zhang insisted.

"Chirp!" Spicy Wing continued defending the twerking rose, and Yang Zhang thought it was very strange for Spicy Wing to defend the rose.

It made him wonder if—

"D—Did you fall in love with this rose, Lieutenant?"

"CHIRP!? Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!" Spicy Wing was shocked by the accusation. He tried to explain to General Yang Zhang that it was forbidden for him to date in the military field because it would distract him from a mission.

Yang Zhang hummed as he listened to Spicy Wing's explanation.

"Alright, then let me check what is under the rose. Maybe this dancing rose has something underneath. Maybe it can actually uproot itself, like Poddie and Little Ivy. Move to the side, Lieutenant, or I will demote your rank."

"CHIRP!?" Lt. Spicy Wing finally yielded when it heard that General would demote the little chick for disobeying an order. But before Yang Zhang could touch the rose, he suddenly lost all of his strength.

"Ark! ACKKK!" Yang Zhang felt the Mana bead slowly come up from his throat, and he vomited the Mana bead out.

"Chirp! Chirp!"

"Vii!"

"Pii! Pii!"

"Squeak!"

The wound in his arm also opened again. He had an adrenaline rush before, so he sort of ignored the stab wound. Now that he finally puked out the Mana bead, he could feel that blood started leaking out again from the stab wound.

Yang Zhang fell to the ground, and he couldn't move even a single finger. The only thing he could do was stare at the sky.

'Ah… shit…'

Slowly, Yang Zhang closed his eyes as he fell into a deep slumber due to exhaustion.

"Chirp!?"

"Squeak! Squeak!"

"Pii!"

"Vii! Vii!"

The pets were panicked when they saw Yang Zhang fall to the ground and fainted on the spot. The blood in his arm also started leaking again.

Little Ivy tried to grab Yang Zhang's body first, at least to bring him to the hut. But Little Ivy was also exhausted after exerting so much strength despite getting wounded against that evil man with a knife before, so she couldn't carry Yang Zhang at all.

Amidst the panic between them, the rose started twerking again, and ahead suddenly popped up from the ground.

"VII!"

"PII!"

"SQUEAK?!"

Everyone except Spicy Wing was shocked when they saw a woman with long dark hair and a sweet smile. She was around mid-twenty and didn't show any hostility at all to the mutated pets.

She looked really beautiful, but her skin was rotting. But Spicy Wing realized that her rotting skin wasn't as bad as before. As if some of them had been manually stitched by using thin roots to act as a thread for stitching.

The woman looked concerned at Yang Zhang, who fainted with blood leaking.

"Oh no! Master is in bad condition! Let's bring him inside first and treat his wound!" The half-head girl suddenly uprooted herself and showed half of her body. She had a rotting zombie body but stitched in many spots to ensure no skin fell from her body.

She was naked when she showed half of her body, but she didn't seem to care about it, even when being looked at by these mutated pets.

The woman smiled at the pets and asked, "I'm sorry for my indecency. Let me cover myself first."

The zombie woman patted her body. Black roses started sprouting from her body and covering herself with a dress made out of roses.

She easily uprooted the rest of her body from the ground and patted her dirt-stained roses dress.

She squatted in front of her master, Yang Zhang, and was about to touch his chest when Little Ivy suddenly jumped onto Yang Zhang's chest and slapped the zombie's hand with her vine, "VII!"

Little Ivy tried to protect her master, afraid that this woman that had just uprooted from the grave of the mother and child would hurt Yang Zhang.

The woman smiled at Little Ivy and explained, "Don't worry. I know that you're just trying to protect him. I'm here to help because he is also my master, you know?"

"Vii?" Little Ivy looked up to the zombie woman, asking if she was also Yang Zhang's pet, just like the rest of them.

"Hihi, I am Master Yang Zhang's pet, just like you guys. I just have a different body," she replied. "Wait, we can't have a talk here. We need to stop the bleeding first, at least."

The zombie woman gently touched the wound on Yang Zhang's arm, and white roses magically sprouted and bloomed on Yang Zhang's arm to close the wound instantly.