My abstract plant was exposed by my sister.

Lin Xiaokui found her own video on Douyin at 7:30 the next morning.

Overnight, her followers jumped from 30,000 to 500,000, and she received so many private messages that she couldn't keep up with them all. At least half of them were "requesting a live stream of a cactus".

She didn't even brush her teeth; she just threw on a coat and rushed out of the dorm.

It was only 8:10 when she arrived at the lab entrance.

She peeked through the crack in the door, but Lin Muyang wasn't there.

On the windowsill, the cactus was quietly basking in the sun, its tiny fingers drooping lazily, as if it had just woken up and didn't have the energy to curse.

Lin Xiaokui took out her phone and sent a message to Lin Muyang, who told her to wait for him in the lab.

Xiao Kui tiptoed open the door, moved a chair to the windowsill, took out her phone, and started a live stream.

"Good morning, everyone!" She waved at the camera. "Guess where I am?"

Thousands of people flooded into the live stream instantly. This time of day is usually a low point for live streams, but the words "cactus" seemed to be a magic bullet for viewers, and the chat was flooded with comments.

"cactus!!!"

"Is Xiaokui going to stream about that middle finger guy again today?"

"I've been squatting here all morning."

"Let the cactus out!"

Xiao Kui turned the camera to the windowsill: "Here it comes, here's the first footage of the day, the cactus is still sleeping."

The cactus seemed to sense the light, and its drooping fingers slowly lifted up, like someone who had just woken up stretching.

It turned to Xiao Kui, first giving a "V" sign, then quickly switching to the middle finger.

Good morning, middle finger.

"Is the first thing it does every morning to curse?"

"It seems even plants have morning grumpiness; they're so ritualistic!"

Xiao Kui grinned from ear to ear: "That's just how it is, it has a terrible temper. But it only gives my brother the middle finger, and occasionally it'll make a heart shape with its hands for me..."

She had barely finished speaking when the laboratory door was pushed open.

Lin Muyang walked in carrying two cups of soy milk.

"Good morning, brother!" Xiao Kui waved to him with a smile. "I brought you breakfast—oh, you bought soy milk too."

Lin Muyang took a deep breath: "Are you livestreaming?"

"Okay! Say hello to the family!" Xiao Kui turned the camera towards Lin Muyang.

Bullet comments:

"Good morning, brother! You're so handsome!"

"Bro, you need to take care of your cactus, that's too filthy."

Lin Muyang placed the soy milk on the table expressionlessly, walked to Xiao Kui, and was about to speak when footsteps came from outside the door.

A boy wearing a white lab coat and gold-rimmed glasses walked in, carrying a folder and an insulated box.

Su Mingzhe.

"Lin Muyang, Teacher Fang asked me to come—" He frowned when he saw Xiao Kui and the phone in her hand: "What's this?"

"This is my sister," Lin Muyang quickly introduced. "Xiao Kui, this is Senior Brother Su, Professor Fang's doctoral student."

Su Mingzhe nodded, didn't ask any more questions, and simply placed the folder on the workbench and opened it.

"Professor Fang said that we need to perform gene sequencing on this cactus to determine the genetic changes. I'm here to collect the sample."

He glanced at the cactus on the windowsill: "It needs one or two thorns."

Xiao Kui's eyes lit up.

She discreetly placed her phone behind the pen holder on the counter, with the camera positioned perfectly against the windowsill and cactus.

People in the live chat were already commenting, "What does sampling mean?", "They're going to remove the thorns!", and "The cacti are going to suffer."

Su Mingzhe picked up a pair of stainless steel tweezers and a centrifuge tube from the workbench and walked to the windowsill.

"Senior brother," Lin Muyang couldn't help but speak up, "this thing might..."

"What do you mean?" Su Mingzhe asked without looking up.

Lin Muyang opened his mouth, glanced at Xiao Kui and her phone hidden behind the pen holder, and swallowed back the words he was about to say.

"It's nothing, just be careful."

Su Mingzhe looked at him with a puzzled expression, then bent down and used tweezers to grasp the base of a thorn.

All the fingers of the cactus suddenly tensed up, like a bowstring being fully drawn.

It seems nervous.

"I have a feeling it's about to explode."

"Xiao Kui, could you remind that guy with glasses?"

Xiao Kui stared at the screen, silently pleading: Don't pull it out! ...

Su Mingzhe pulled hard.

The thorn was not pulled out.

But the cactus shook violently.

Then, all the thorns—all the tiny fingers—turn at the same time and are ejected from the surface of the cactus.

The scene resembled countless tiny arrows shooting out simultaneously in the same direction.

Su Mingzhe had no time to react. At least seven or eight thorns were stuck in his right hand fingers, and several others flew into his lab coat, face, and glasses.

"Hiss—" Su Mingzhe abruptly pulled his hand back, and the tweezers fell to the ground.

He looked down at his fingers.

Several tiny thorns stood upright on each of the pricked fingers, the tiny, pointed fingers pointing directly at him, the middle fingers neatly aligned.

The live stream chat exploded; the comments were so fast you couldn't even read them.

"Holy crap, it launched!!!"

"It will shoot spikes!!!"

"That guy with glasses got stabbed, hahaha."

"Cacti can even defend themselves!"

The number of online users has indeed exceeded 150,000, and it is still rising.

Xiao Kui stared at the numbers on the screen, her hands trembling, not from fear, but from excitement.

Su Mingzhe slowly pulled out the thorns from his fingers, one by one.

His expression changed from confusion to contemplation, and from contemplation to something akin to surprise.

He held a thorn he had just pulled out, examining it closely.

After the thorn left the cactus, the finger-like structure quickly withered and turned into an ordinary, grayish-white thorn.

"The launch mechanism..." Su Mingzhe muttered to himself, "When it encounters an external force, the cells at the base of the spike generate a high-pressure airflow, propelling the spike out... This requires an extremely precise cellular structure..."

Xiao Kui couldn't help but say, "Senior Brother Su, your hand is bleeding."

Su Mingzhe glanced down at the few small blood spots on his finger, expressionlessly took out a tissue from his pocket, and wiped them.

"It's okay, continue."

"Continue?" Xiao Kui thought she had misheard. Doesn't this hurt?

Su Mingzhe picked up the tweezers again, this time from a different angle, gently pinching a thorn from the side without pulling it out, and instead using his other hand to hold a small pair of scissors.

"Just cut it off." He carefully cut off a small section of the thorn and put it into a centrifuge tube.

The cactus did not launch this time.

It simply turned the remaining half of the thorn into a bare, short stake and waved it at Su Mingzhe.

Su Mingzhe capped the centrifuge tube and wrote on the label: "Sample 001. Cactus spine. Collection time: 9:17."

His tone was as calm as if he were conducting a routine experiment.

This move stunned everyone in the live stream.

"This guy with glasses is ruthless."

"You can still get samples taken even after being pricked."

Is he a robot?

"I declare this to be the most hardcore PhD student I've ever seen."

Xiao Kui lowered her voice to the camera: "Family, this is my brother's senior, Su Mingzhe, a doctoral student who has published two SCI papers. This is his first time appearing on camera, and he's already contributed such impressive footage."

Su Mingzhe put the sample into the insulated box, closed the folder, and turned to look at the phone in Xiao Kui's hand.

Are you livestreaming?

Xiao Kui nodded.

"How many people saw it?"

Xiao Kui glanced at the screen: "About... 150,000?"

Su Mingzhe was silent for two seconds, then pushed up his glasses: "That's fine. Saves me from writing lab reports."

After he finished speaking, he picked up the insulated box and walked out of the laboratory.

"Haha, saves me from writing lab reports!"

"The ultimate way for research dogs to slack off"

"I'm a fan of this senior brother."

Xiao Kui's live stream viewership exceeded 200,000. She tried hard to control her expression, but her mouth was already stretched to her ears.

She turned to look at Lin Muyang, who was covering his face, motionless, like a statue.

"Brother?" Xiao Kui poked his shoulder.

Lin Muyang didn't move, but Lin Xiaokui continued to shake him: "Brother, I've made your senior brother famous."

Lin Muyang lowered his hand and looked at her expressionlessly: "He got pricked by a cactus, and you were live-streaming it, with 200,000 people watching. You call that helping him become famous?"

"Yeah! He's the most hardcore PhD student on the entire internet now!"

Lin Muyang took a deep breath, walked to the windowsill, and looked at the cactus that had lost a small patch of its barrenness.

The cactus turned its remaining fingers towards him and simultaneously raised its middle finger.

Lin Muyang stared at it for five seconds, then turned to Xiao Kui: "You can go now."

Why?

"Because I have to write a lab report. A lab report on the 'cactus spine launch mechanism'."

"Then go ahead and write, I won't bother you."

"You're live streaming."

"I can mute it."

Lin Muyang picked up her phone, turned off the live stream, and shoved it back into her hand, expressionless: "Let's go."

Xiao Kui pouted, reluctantly stood up, and walked towards the door. When she reached the door, she turned back and glanced at the cactus.

The cactus used its few remaining thorns to make a crooked heart shape towards her.

Xiao Kui smiled: "Brother, look how much it likes me."

Lin Muyang didn't even turn his head: "It's only nice to you. To others, it'll just give you the middle finger and fire."

"And what about you?"

Lin Muyang didn't answer, because the cactus had already given him the middle finger.

Xiao Kui ran out laughing.

The lab fell silent. Lin Muyang sat at the workbench, opened his notebook, and wrote:

"Plant Evolution Log No. 001 Supplement"

"New discovery: The third characteristic of cacti - when the thorns are pulled out by external force, they will be launched outwards."

"Launch mechanism: High-pressure airflow generated by cells at the base of the spike. Effective range: Approximately 30 centimeters."

"Note: Senior brother is a ruthless person, sister is a troublemaker, and cactus is a patriarch."

He closed his laptop, glanced at his phone, and saw a message from Lin Xiaokui:

"Bro!!! The live stream peaked at 220,000 viewers! 80,000 yuan in donations! Let's split it 50/50!!!"

Lin Muyang didn't reply to her, and turned to look at the cactus.

The cactus changed the direction of its fingers, pointing out the window, in the direction where Xiao Kui had left.

Then, it slowly bent all its fingers into a crooked heart shape.

Lin Muyang was taken aback: "Do you like her, or do you think she's an idiot?"

The cactus, of course, didn't answer. But it held the heart shape for a long time, long enough that Lin Muyang couldn't resist taking out his phone and snapping a picture.

He looked at the photo, then at the cactus, and sighed.

"Fine. You two, one a fool and the other an idiot, are a perfect match."