Chapter 22: Peaceful Four
“This is Yi State, not White Star.” Sindra shook her head, “If he can’t even get past the first Dead End, then he is not the contractor I need.”
“Understood.” Aran nodded.
“Be careful in your actions, some people are keeping a very close eye on us,” Sindra warned.
“Understood.”
* * *
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
Inside the shooting gallery.
Li Chengyi put down the pistol in his hand, unplugged his earplugs, and took a long breath to relieve the stuffiness in his chest.
On the target thirty meters away, bullet holes spread wide and contorted were clearly visible.
“Thirty meters and fifty meters are considered close shooting, and what you need to practice mainly is this distance,” a black-clothed instructor with broad shoulders explained.
“Since firearms are mainly useful against people, you must train on close-range moving targets after fixed-point shooting.”
“No need for rifles, just practice with pistols.”
He took the black pistol from Li Chengyi’s hand.
“This is specially selected for you, the Deling G17 model, made of engineering plastic, weighs 600 grams, 17 bullets, fully automatic firing. The only thing you need to be careful of is not to fire all the bullets at once.”
“So keeping your emotions steady is the most important thing, right?” Li Chengyi understood.
“Yes, don’t get excited. The bullets are also made of reinforced plastic and will easily shatter upon hitting hard objects. This can avoid ricochet in a closed environment.”
The instructor smiled, “Of course, the bullets I’m giving you now are not this kind, just ordinary practice rounds.”
Li Chengyi took off the earplugs around his neck and nodded.
“Can I practice alone for a while?”
“You can, the bullets are on the side, help yourself, but you can’t take them out of this isolation booth.” The instructor smiled kindly. “Also, don’t play too long. You still have a dodge training course later.”
“Okay!” Li Chengyi nodded heavily. At this moment, what he was thinking about was finding an opportunity to test the strength of his flower scale armor.
Now that he had a pistol in hand, he might as well try it.
As for how to test, it was actually very simple.
“I’ll go rest for a bit then, giving you fifteen minutes of free time. Don’t point the gun at yourself, remember.” The shooting instructor left these words behind and turned to exit the shooting booth.
Leaving Li Chengyi holding the pistol, a look of curiosity on his face.
Guns, the human invention for top-tier assassination, always evoked a special feeling in people.
Most shooting ranges would not allow someone to play with a gun alone without a coach’s supervision, let alone a fully automatic firearm.
But Li Chengyi was different.
Because this shooting range belonged to Mr. Sindra, his private property.
So, it’s very normal to be given some special privileges.
After all, what he wanted was a crash course.
Holding the Deling G17, Li Chengyi glanced at the camera in the corner, raised the gun toward the distant red and white circular target and pretended to aim.
For this test, he had specifically bought black cloth gloves.
The gloves were cosplay style, embroidered with embarrassingly silly patterns all over.
Li Chengyi took out the gloves from his pocket, put them on both hands, then held the gun again and posed several foolish poses, pretending to emulate characters from films and animations.
Then, he quickly raised the gun and aimed.
Bang.
This shot went out instantly, but not like before, simply a straight shot.
Instead, it grazed past Li Chengyi’s left fingertip, slightly skewed from the shot.
Yes, at the critical moment, he had covered his left fingertip with the gun barrel, equipped with a piece of flower scale armor.
Wearing a flower scale armor on just one finger, right at the edge of the gun barrel, it was just grazed by the bullet, but due to the thickness and angle, it wouldn’t harm the finger.
In an instant, Li Chengyi unassumingly retracted the flower scale armor, lowered his hand, his fingertips red.
‘Flower scale armor damaged, please repair in time.’
The prompt from the evil flower appeared swiftly.
‘As expected, not strong enough, the flower scale armor couldn’t block the bullet at all.’
Aside from bullets, he had also tried cutting and lightly chopping with a kitchen knife at home.
The result was, the surface of the flower scale armor seemed hard, seemingly made of a material similar to metal, but not very thick, it could block normal strength but not stronger forces.
Now, it seems, it can’t stop bullets either.
‘What about after evolution? According to the feedback from the evil flower, the flower scale armor would be stronger after evolution, and the Floral Language abilities could be stronger too, perhaps.’
After confirming that the flower scale armor couldn’t withstand bullets, Li Chengyi placed his hopes on the evolved flower scale armor.
Immediately, he took off the gloves, looked at the slight damage at the tip of the gloves left by the bullet.
‘The day after tomorrow is the time agreed to visit the flower base, to see how strong it will be after evolution.’
Then, he cast aside the distractions, took off the gloves, and continued to practice shooting.
In a blink, two days passed.
Li Chengyi and Sindra took a leave and boarded the bus heading to the flower base.
The Qingrun Flower Base was located in a woodland on the outskirts of Suoyang City.
Surrounded by dense forests.
The entire base was wrapped up in large silver-white greenhouses.
Rows and rows of vibrant flowers competed for beauty, with varying colors, attracting many butterflies and bees to flutter about within the greenhouses.
“This side is the vine area. This way.” A little girl at the base was assigned to guide him.
Li Chengyi followed behind, and the two walked along the paths between the greenhouses.
“The white wisteria is a perennial vine and needs a framework to climb, so we have also separately grouped all the vine flowers here. If you are buying in bulk, we can offer a discount.”
The little girl explained as they walked.
Li Chengyi wasn’t interested in her speech at all; if he were truly here to purchase, it would be fine, but he was here to take advantage for free, so he could only dispassionately entertain her along the way.
Soon, they arrived at a long, narrow greenhouse on the side, with staff at the entrance using a long-tubed sprayer for watering.
“Indoor artificial rainfall, mixed with insect repellent medicine, let’s wait for the water mist to settle down before we enter.” The little girl explained, standing with Li Chengyi at the entrance to wait.
While waiting, she continued enthusiastically introducing the advantages of their base, the variety, and quality of flowers they produce.
Li Chengyi coped with her, also somewhat bored, his gaze wandering around.
Suddenly, a green spiky plant not far away caught his attention.
“Is that…? The iron tree is in bloom?!”
He was somewhat surprised.
“Ah yes, you’re lucky. Our iron tree just so happened to be planted when I was little, and it’s only recently bloomed. Most people are really lucky to see it.” The little girl switched topics, starting a never-ending introduction about how precious and rare their iron tree was.
Li Chengyi, however, had no interest in what she was saying; instead, he walked closer and looked through the dense green spiky leaves to see the pale yellow spherical flower at the center.
That fist-sized flower, looking like a fluffy ball, was quite adorable and eye-catching.
“This is a female iron tree flower, generally this flattened ball shape, if it’s a male iron tree it would be different.” The little girl came closer and said.
“Iron trees have male and female differences?” Li Chengyi asked casually. Pretending to be completely clueless. In fact, he was a professional in plant care; how could he not know these details.
“Yes, yes, the flowers of male iron trees are cylindrical and look very yellow, well, you know.” The little girl made a suggestive gesture.
Li Chengyi smiled.
“Can I touch it lightly?” he asked.
“Be careful not to damage it, that’s fine.” The little girl casually responded. Obviously, this iron tree flower wasn’t as precious and rare as her words had made it seem earlier.
Li Chengyi approached a bit, gently pressed down the spiky leaves of the iron tree, bent over, and reached out to lightly touch the flower at the center.
As his fingertips approached and finally touched the petal, a cool breeze entered his finger.
‘Female Iron Tree Flower: Named iron tree because its wood is as hard as iron, requiring a large amount of iron for growth. It grows slowly and rarely blooms, with male and female differentiation. The stem contains edible starch, seeds have slight poison, can cure dysentery, cough, and stop bleeding. Generally blooms once every ten to twenty years.’
‘Floral Language: Unyielding Spikes. (The whole body can be covered with an invisible force field for a short time, anyone who touches the force field will suffer a counterattack of equal force spikes. The force field’s endurance limit is proportional to the hardness of the flower scale armor.)’
‘Floral Language: Hardening. (Passive ability, significantly enhances the hardness of the entire body’s bones and flower scale armor.)’
‘Flower Scale Armor: Flower God position not yet unlocked.’
Two Floral Language abilities!!?
Li Chengyi’s pupils contracted.
He had also randomly touched many flowers in the botanical garden, but he had never encountered one like the iron tree that possessed two Floral Language abilities.
And one of them was passive, meaning it could take effect without intending to use it.
‘Impressive! If I had used the iron tree flower from the beginning.’
This thought only flashed through his mind before being suppressed. Considering the long flowering period of the iron tree, gathering enough for the flower scale armor’s condensation was likely not an easy task.
If he had chosen this one from the start, by now his body would probably have decomposed completely.
‘The two Floral Language abilities complement each other; Hardening enhances the strength of the flower scale armor, and Unyielding Spikes improve the force field’s maximum endurance limit based on the hardness of the flower scale armor. Impressive!’
Li Chengyi silently took note of the iron tree flower; he had to get it!
“We can go in now.” At that moment, the little girl next to him reminded.
“Alright, thank you.” Li Chengyi withdrew his hand, straightened up, and looked towards the greenhouse entrance.
From the entrance, one could see rows of metal racks filled with wisteria flowers of various kinds.
A conspicuous swath of white clearly reflected in his line of sight.
“This way, do you need a mask?” The little girl asked. “There’s a lot of pollen inside; if you’re allergic, be careful.”
“No need, thank you.” Li Chengyi’s heart gradually stirred; he was very looking forward to what the evolved flower scale armor would be like.
“Then let’s go.”
The little girl led the way, moving ahead.
The two entered through the main gate, one after the other.
“White wisteria, we have specifically allocated a section here for it, you see, on the right side, the third row.”
Following the little girl’s pointing, Li Chengyi looked far to the right and indeed saw a cascade of white hanging from the racks at a distance.
White Wisteria!
Found it!
(End of Chapter)
