My abstract plant was exposed by my sister.

Lin Muyang sighed: "You got stabbed?"

The boy nodded, then shook his head: "I wasn't pricked, I pulled it out myself."

I saw in a live stream that if you get pricked by this thorn, you'll feel really depressed. I thought it was fake... so I pulled one out and pricked myself to try it out.

He sniffed: "Then I just squatted here and cried for an hour. I felt like my life had no meaning, that living was just a waste of food."

"My parents spent so much money raising me, and I can't even pass my final exams. I'm just a..." He became more and more upset as he spoke, and snot bubbles came out of his nose.

"Alright," Lin Muyang interrupted him, "The effects will wear off soon. How long have you been squatting there?"

The boy glanced at his phone: "Forty minutes have passed."

Xiao Kui, always eager for drama, pointed the camera directly at the boy's face.

The comments section was in an uproar: "This guy is so pitiful." "His scientific spirit is admirable." "No, it's his death-defying spirit." "His snot bubble is pink, hahaha."

The boy then noticed Xiao Kui's phone, and his face turned pale instantly.

"You...you're live streaming?"

"Family members, did you see that? This is the effect of our bitter orange peel. This brave soul personally tested it and it works!" Xiao Kui suppressed a laugh: "How are you feeling now?"

The boy opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He lowered his head and said in an almost inaudible voice, "I feel... I'm dead."

Comments: "Socially dead +1", "Xiao Kui, you owe them money", "This guy will never dare to go out again".

Lin Muyang helped the boy up and handed him a bottle of water:

"Drink more water to speed up metabolism, but you still have to wait for it to wear off naturally. It should be fine in about 20 minutes."

The boy took the water, took a sip, and suddenly remembered something. His expression changed drastically: "Senior, um... before I pricked myself, many classmates had already removed the thorns and brought them back to school!"

Lin Muyang stopped: "How many people?"

"I...I don't know. I saw a post on the school forum saying that if you get pricked by the thorns on the research institute's wall, you'll feel emo, and a lot of people said they wanted to try it."

When I arrived, I saw several people had already removed the thorns and left.

Lin Muyang turned his head to look at the wall of trifoliate orange trees. The branches were dense and covered with thousands upon thousands of thorns, making it impossible to tell how many were missing.

He took a deep breath, took out his phone, and dialed Fang Jingshan's number. It was answered after three rings.

"Teacher Fang, something's come up."

"What is it?"

"The thorns on the trifoliate oranges I cultivated in the lab were pulled out and taken back to school."

Stabbing someone can trigger acute depression, causing loss of interest in everything, lasting approximately forty minutes.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, then Fang Jingshan's voice changed: "You mean, there are students in school now running around carrying around thorns that can cause depression?"

"Someone may have already been infected."

Silence again. Lin Muyang heard the sound of a chair being moved on the other end of the phone: "I'll inform the principal immediately. Don't let anyone else approach the wall."

The call ended. Lin Muyang turned to Xiao Kui: "How many people saw your live stream just now?"

"It hasn't been open for long...and there are several thousand people."

"Turn it off."

Why?

"From now on, stop live-streaming the wall. Don't let more people see the thorns of the trifoliate orange. I'll go and deal with it."

Xiao Kui, unusually, did not refute, and ended the live stream.

The boy remained standing there, looking guilty: "Um... I'm sorry, I didn't know it would turn out like this..."

Lin Muyang looked at his finger; the small red dot had disappeared, but his eyes were still red.

"Go back now. Drink plenty of water. Spend the rest of your time crying somewhere where no one is around, and don't let anyone see you."

"Aren't you going to yell at me?"

Lin Muyang thought for a moment: "You've been scolded by Zhi Ke for forty minutes now. It scolds me better than I do."

The boy walked away, his steps unsteady, as if he had just finished a marathon, wiping away tears with his sleeve as he went.

After walking a dozen steps, he turned back and shouted, "Senior! The plants you grow are really amazing!" Then he choked on his own snot and ran away coughing.

Xiao Kui watched his retreating figure and couldn't help but laugh out loud, then quickly covered her mouth. "Brother, what do we do now?"

"Wait for news."

Less than twenty minutes later, Fang Jingshan called.

"The principal has already notified the counselors of each college, asking them to check if any students are exhibiting abnormal emotional states." He paused, then added, "Is there any way to quickly undo the effects of this thorny thorn?"

"We haven't found anything yet; we can only wait for the body to metabolize it naturally. It could take half an hour at the fastest, or an hour at the slowest."

Fang Jingshan took a deep breath: "So that means there are students crying inexplicably on campus right now?"

Lin Muyang considered the level of abstract thinking among today's college students and answered confidently, "Most likely, and quite a few at that."

A long sigh came from the other end of the phone: "I understand. Have people guard the wall and prevent anyone from getting any closer."

Lin Muyang hung up the phone, walked to the tool shed, and took out a roll of red warning tape that read "Danger: Keep Out of the Way".

He stretched the warning tape around the fence, tied it to several trees, and made a tight knot. He then pasted a piece of paper on it and wrote several large characters in marker:

"Poisonous! Do not touch, or you will be responsible for the consequences."

Xiao Kui followed behind him and couldn't help but say, "Brother, your last sentence, 'You'll bear the consequences,' sounded like a provocation."

"That's just provocation. The more we try to stop them, the more people will come. We might as well try to scare them away."

Just after the warning tape was put up, footsteps came from a distance. Two girls walked over from the direction of the school gate, glancing at the wall as they went.

One of them, holding a phone, pointed at the courtyard wall and muttered, "It's over here! Look at that green wall!"

Seeing this, Lin Muyang immediately stopped them: "You can't go near the courtyard wall."

Why?

"The plants on the wall are poisonous."

One of the girls pointed to her phone: "But the live stream said that if you get pricked by this thorn, you'll feel emo, so we just wanted to try it..."

Lin Muyang looked at them expressionlessly, and after three seconds of silence, asked, "Have you guys been studying for your final exams?"

The two girls froze at the same time.

"You have exams next week, and you still have time to come here and be all emotional? You'll cry for an hour after getting this injection, and then you still have to study when you get back. Are you sure you want to try it?"

The other girl blushed. What he said seemed to make sense?

Lin Muyang took the bottle of water from Xiao Kui and washed the dirt off his hands: "Go back. Come back after the exam. If you still want to cry then, I'll let you cry your fill."

The two girls exchanged a glance, then turned and walked away. Even after they'd gone a dozen steps, you could still hear them muttering to each other:

How did he know we had an exam?

"He probably did some calculations."

"Is he a counselor?"

"No, the counselor doesn't know how to grow flowers."

Xiao Kui was trying so hard not to laugh that her shoulders were shaking, but Lin Muyang ignored her and continued to patrol along the wall.

I had only walked a few dozen meters when I saw three boys squatting against the wall.

One of them was reaching for a drooping branch, his fingers already touching the thorns.

"Don't move!" Lin Muyang hurriedly called out to stop them. His voice wasn't loud, but the three boys froze at the same time.

Why?

"Because that thorn will make you cry for an hour."

The boy withdrew his hand, stood up, and asked defiantly, "How did you know?"

"Because I've tried it. Of course, if you really want to try it, you can sign a disclaimer and I can let you try it."

As for stubborn people, Lin Muyang wanted to see how long they could hold out.

The three boys exchanged bewildered glances. One of them raised his hand, revealing a small red dot on his palm. "Um... I've already had it done."

Lin Muyang looked at him, and the boy said with a bitter face, "I just got stabbed, and now I feel like life is meaningless."

The other two boys took a step back at the same time.

Lin Muyang pulled the warning tape in front of them and tied it to a nearby tree: "Drink more water first, he'll be fine in a few tens of minutes. You two don't need to try it yet, take him back to his dorm first. Don't leave him alone, he'll feel empty and might do something drastic."

"What will happen if you can't think straight?" the two asked curiously.

"There's nothing you can do if you can't think straight. The effect of the bitter orange peel is just to make you feel that nothing is meaningful, not even suicide." Lin Muyang paused, "So don't worry, you won't die, but you'll feel extremely uncomfortable. People with weak mental resilience shouldn't try it."

Hearing this, the boy who had been stabbed breathed a sigh of relief: "That's alright... at least I won't die." Then he cried again: "But I'm really so sad..."

His two roommates each grabbed one of his arms and dragged him away. As they walked, he turned back and shouted to Lin Muyang, "Senior! I definitely have to try this after the exams!"

Upon hearing this, Lin Muyang's face immediately darkened.