What do you mean the games you make are all real?!

Chapter 65 Plants 43

"Let's keep going," Fang Qingzhou said, looking at the two who were ready, and then continued walking forward.

He encountered several more pale-headed monsters and Licker Modified ahead, but these monsters were quickly dealt with thanks to his powerful firepower and defense.

At this point, Resident Evil was no longer a horror escape game for Fang Qingzhou, but a shooting game.

Before long, the three arrived at a huge circular platform.

This platform was more spacious than any space he had ever seen in the sewers and chemical plants. It was more than ten meters high, and the dome was covered with dense white light strips, illuminating the entire platform as bright as day.

At the very center of the platform is a bottomless giant shaft, its walls covered with pipes and cables that extend into the darkness beyond the reach of the naked eye.

This is the central transit station inside the hive, connecting all passages leading to different laboratory areas.

To prevent a virus leak from one laboratory from spreading to other areas, each access point requires research access to the corresponding area to be opened.

As they entered the transit station, the Mother Nest's system scanned the bracelet on Fang Qingzhou's wrist and issued a warning.

[Dr. Li, Director Cartwright requests your immediate travel to the East Wing Laboratory]

Fang Qingzhou ignored the artificial intelligence of the Mother Nest; his gaze was drawn to a corpse lying next to the transit station. The corpse was fully armed, with a gas mask on its face. Looking at the distinctive red-eyed gas mask, Fang Qingzhou knew that this was the Umbrella Corporation's secret unit, the USS.

He saw something resembling a body camera on the body's chest, and he immediately picked it up; it contained a video recording.

[Number One is calling Ghost. The target is heading to the West District, definitely to retrieve the G-virus and antiviral serum.]

This is a ghost; proceed to the West District immediately.

[Entry successful, Dr. Birkin. Please cooperate and follow us.]

Then, a member of the USS squad accidentally shot William Birkin. As he lay dying, William Birkin injected himself with a vial of the G virus, transforming into G William to eliminate the USS squad. In the process, he also destroyed a T virus sample, leading to the zombie crisis in Raccoon City.

Fang Qingzhou already knew about this part of the plot, but this was the first time Claire had learned the truth about the zombie outbreak in Raccoon City.

"So—Raccoon City became like this because of one night?" Claire's voice trembled slightly.

It wasn't out of fear, but rather an indigestible anger and sense of absurdity after being struck by the truth.

The entire city, with a population of 100,000, has now turned into zombies, all because of a single night's mistake by a few people.

"Even without this operational mishap, a biohazard outbreak in Raccoon City was inevitable. Umbrella has several labs on the outskirts of Raccoon City, and those labs leaked the T-virus a month or two ago," Fang Qingzhou said.

That's the plot of Resident Evil 0 and Resident Evil 1, taking place shortly before the full-scale outbreak in Raccoon City.

Those who experienced those events firsthand were the STARS team, and Claire's brother Chris was one of its core members.

Claire fell silent. She wasn't the type to waste too much time in shock. Like her brother, she preferred to process her emotions through actions.

She took a deep breath, picked up the assault rifle she was holding, and then turned to look at Shirley beside her.

The little girl had been silent the whole time, watching intently as her father was shot and turned into a monster.

Claire tried to cover Sherry's eyes with her hand, but stopped halfway through. Sherry had already seen everything, so there was no point in covering her now.

Moreover, this child is much stronger than she imagined. She escaped from the orphanage all the way here, was injected with a G-virus embryo by her own father, and has an unreliable mother. Anyone else would probably have collapsed by now.

"It's okay, we'll heal you," Fang Qingzhou rubbed the little girl's head, then looked at Claire.

"The virus serum is in the West Wing, let's go get it."

Claire nodded, and Fang Qingzhou went to the control panel in the west corridor and attached the bracelet, but then a line of red text appeared.

Insufficient permissions

"Damn, I have to change the bracelet again." Fang Qingzhou took the bracelet off the sensor and put it back on.

The screen still displayed those four red characters, and a helpful pop-up notification box appeared next to them.

Access to the West Wing lab requires a senior staff wristband or higher privileges.

Fang Qingzhou recalled what the artificial intelligence in the mother nest had just said; it seemed that his bracelet could go to the East District.

"Looks like we'll have to go to the East District and see if we can get a higher-level access bracelet." Fang Qingzhou turned around and said to Claire and Sherry, then went to the control panel in the East District passage on the other side and attached the bracelet.

This time, there was no permission error message, and the teleportation channel quickly expanded, connecting to the East District Laboratory.

The three of them quickly passed through the passage and arrived at the East District Laboratory.

"The Botanical Garden?" Claire followed Fang Qingzhou into the retractable tunnel. When the entire East District Laboratory was revealed to her, she couldn't help but whisper.

The interior of the East Zone laboratory was larger than any of the areas they had passed through before, with a ceiling as high as four or five stories. The ceiling was designed in an arch shape and inlaid with rows of full-spectrum light tubes that simulated sunlight.

When the lights shone down, it even gave people the illusion of standing outdoors in the sunlight.

The corridor is lined with transparent reinforced glass walls on both sides, behind which are individual plant cultivation and observation rooms.

Each observation room simulates a different ecological environment, but soon Fang Qingzhou and the others saw a shocking scene in front of a cracked glass window.

It was an observation room filled with vines, inside which a vine that looked like it had an open mouth was pressing a person wearing a yellow hazmat suit firmly against the glass.

The researcher was wearing the senior staff bracelet that Fang Qingzhou and his team needed.

"I didn't expect to find what we wanted so quickly," Fang Qingzhou said.

"But how do we get the bracelet out? The plants inside seem to be alive."

Claire stood beside Fang Qingzhou, carefully examining the dense, giant green net inside the observation room through the cracked glass window.

"I'll go in and take a look first. If we can't beat them, we'll think of something else," Fang Qingzhou said.

With his current defensive capabilities and the A-grade armor he's wearing, he doesn't think anything other than Tyrant and G William can hurt him.

Claire frowned slightly. She wanted to stop him, but after seeing Fang Qingzhou's fully armed appearance, she nodded.

Fang Qingzhou walked around the cracked glass window and found a metal door with vines growing out of it on the wall next to it.

The sign on the door reads "Cultivation Observation Room 43," and next to it is a warning sign that reads something like, "Please make sure the experimental subject is in dormancy before entering."

"Experimental subject." Fang Qingzhou uttered these three words, his lips twitching slightly.

Sure enough, the plants cultivated by Umbrella Corporation in this botanical garden weren't exactly respectable.

He pressed the green door open button that was still flashing by the door, and the airlock door slid slowly open to both sides with a dull hum from the hydraulic system.

The space inside the observation room was wider than he could see through the glass window.

Most of the simulated fluorescent tubes overhead were still barely functioning, casting warm white light through layers of vines and broad leaves, creating dappled, swaying, and ever-changing shadows on the ground.

The vines hung down from the steel frame of the ceiling, like countless green snakes of varying thicknesses intertwining and strangling each other, weaving a dense, three-dimensional giant net.

Fang Qingzhou's target was clear: the body of the researcher wearing a yellow hazmat suit was in the deepest part of the observation room, pinned to the glass wall by a thick vine that pierced through his chest.

He strode toward the body, while the surrounding plants remained motionless.

"Leon! How are you? Do you need any help?" Claire's voice came from outside.

"No need, just stay at the door and don't come in," Fang Qingzhou called out, then turned and continued walking forward.

Just as Fang Qingzhou approached the corpse, the surrounding green vines finally moved.

Several thick vines, like snakes, wrapped around his ankles and calves.

The surface of the vines was covered with fine barbs, which scraped against the A-armor leg guards with a harsh metallic scraping sound, but none of them could pierce the protective layer of the armor.

Just as Fang Qingzhou had expected, he took out his dagger and cut the vines, then continued.

When he was less than five meters away from the body, the thick vine that had impaled the researcher finally moved.

The body, dressed in a yellow protective suit, slipped from the tip of the vine and fell to the ground with a dull thud.

The tip of the vine slowly turned towards Fang Qingzhou. This vine was at least three times thicker than the ones that had just wrapped around his legs. The main stem was as thick as an adult's thigh, and the surface was covered with dense knots.

At the top of the vine is an unopened flower bud, shaped like a giant, unbloomed orchid, covered with layers of thick, petal-like leaves.

But when Fang Qingzhou got within three meters, the flower bud suddenly opened. The internal structure of the flower bud made Fang Qingzhou's eyelids twitch. It was not the stamen of a plant, but several rows of white, hard structures similar to animal teeth, arranged in a ring on the inner wall of the flower bud.

Deep inside the flower bud was a dark pipe, the inner wall of which was secreting a pale yellow viscous liquid that emitted a strong sour smell. The liquid dripped from the edge of the flower bud, and a wisp of pungent white smoke immediately rose from the steel plate on the ground.

Without the slightest hesitation, Fang Qingzhou raised his assault rifle and fired at the large, flower-bud-like mouth.

Bullets pierced the flower bud densely, striking the rows of spiraling white teeth and sending sparks flying. More bullets passed through the gaps between the teeth and entered the black esophagus deep inside the flower bud.

A mixture of yellowish-green sap and pale yellow slime gushed from the bullet hole, splashing onto the nearby vines and the floor, producing a series of sizzling, corrosive sounds.

The flower bud convulsed violently from the hail of bullets, its petal-like outer leaves instinctively contracting inward in an attempt to close, but the impact of the bullets kept blasting it open again.

A magazine was quickly emptied, and Fang Qingzhou immediately changed magazines, intending to blow the flower bud up, but the surrounding vines had already fully come back to life.

Dozens of vines of varying thickness surged from the ceiling, walls, and floor at the same time, like a giant green net closing in from all directions, binding his limbs and torso.

His hand, which had just reached for the spare magazine, was tightly wrapped around his wrist by a vine that shot out from the side, while his other hand was pulled to his sides by several vines that had spread up from his calves.

The vines tightened simultaneously with astonishing force, and Fang Qingzhou could clearly feel them strangling him. Each vine was contracting with maximum power, trying to crush him inside the A-armor with pressure, but the protective layer of the A-armor was not breached.

The problem was that he also found himself unable to break free from the vines; there were just too many of them. As soon as he cut one off with his dagger, two or three new vines would immediately spring up from different directions and entangle the same spot.

Just as he was about to ask Claire, who was waiting in the corridor outside the door, for help, the flower bud, riddled with bullet holes, suddenly opened again.

This time it opened wider than ever before, with its petal-like leaves flipped to their maximum angle, exposing the entire black esophagus.

Then, with a speed so fast it almost left a trail in the air, it suddenly descended from above Fang Qingzhou's head, swallowing him whole along with his A-grade armor.