Li Meirong carefully considered her options. The thought of being responsible for the life or death of another weighed heavily on her heart, despite how vile he was.
"I wonder if it's possible to preserve the Jiangshi Master's life while ensuring he won't be able to harm us." She pondered aloud.
Just then, a strange idea popped into her head.
"Little Chou, if we extract that person from your, um, "belly" right now, would the person remain shrunken?" Li Meirong asked with a spark in her eye.
Contrary to her, Chou didn't possess any facial features, but something about his demeanour after her question made her certain that he thought she was being dumb.
After a short period of silence, his answer was telepathically transmitted.
'Master, I'm just a plant...' Chou's soft and almost childlike voice echoed in her head, exasperated. She could almost swear she heard him sigh.
A vein popped on Li Meirong's forehead. "Yes, yes. You're just a plant. So, what actually happens if you extract him?"
She wasn't even from this world. Give her a break! she couldn't even tell if it was commonplace to communicate with Man-eating Plants here.
'I will have to revert to my original size to spew him out. It doesn't feel good to do so, master. Imagine puking your food. Feels bad. Imagine someone shoving his hands into your mouth and taking out the food from your belly. Sure is awful, master.' Chou explained as slowly as possible, making no attempt at subtlety when referencing how he felt about what she'd done to him earlier that day.
Another vein popped on Li Meirong's forehead. "I see! I'm sorry about what happened before, but in my defense, you did almost eat my friends! I had no choice but to shove my hands inside and… sorry about that." Her apology came almost instinctively, but just as soon as she asked for forgiveness, regretted it!
'Chou was the culprit here so why am I apologizing?!' She mentally berated herself.
Chou, on the other hand, thought it was only right and proper for her to ask for his forgiveness. 'It's alright master, Chou won't hold it against you!'
"…" Said Li Meirong. This plant possessed a special ability of rendering her speechless!
'However master, in response to your inquiry, my body's saliva paralyzes prey before digesting it. I can keep the Jiangshi Man in a state of incubation for a while, if you will provide me with blood on a regular basis, instead.'
That didn't seem like a bad idea, maybe she could ask her friends what best to do with her "bounty", later on.
"How much blood do you need?"
'As much as you can give!'
"… I can give you a drop a day." Testing the waters, Li Meirong said, trying to gain the upper hand in the bargain.
'Master, I'm a growing plant and I need my nutrition!'
Cho crossed his vines around him. He sounded mad yet it was only possible to perceive from his voice since he had no face.
"Fine. A few drops a day." Li Meirong relented with a sigh.
The master and the pet reached an agreement and the walk progressed in silence. Li Meirong planned on asking Chou why did he even help her and why did he want to be her pet when he could have just eaten her? But she had more important issues to concentrate on right now. Finding Shu Qianqian and Mo Jing was her top priority.
They followed the trail, tracing Chou's tracks from his agile hopping through the jungle. After what felt like a whole day of agony, Li Meirong finally made it through to the familiar river bank where she had last seen her friends.
At this point, she was completely drained. Blisters formed on the soles of her feet and her legs were aching something awful. Twigs and leaves were stuck in her loosely tied hair.
Li Meirong dragged herself wearily toward the thick vines, the same place where she discovered Chou for the first time. Pushing through to the walled off clearing, only to discover to her great dismay that Mo Jing and Shu Qianqian were no longer there.
Now what..?
They couldn't be dead. She would have at least found some remains lying around if they were. Li Meirong tried to assure herself of this, yet she couldn't keep the gloomy thoughts from surfacing.
She honestly wasn't really sure what to do at that point. Instead of fretting, she tried to aim for the practical approach and at least care for herself in the meantime.
Heading back to the riverbank, Li Meirong knelt down and dipped her hands inside the water, cupping some of it in both her hands. She gazed at her own reflection. It was the first time Li Meirong had a chance to see what she looked like in this new body.
A face bearing full eyebrows, long lashes and ruby coloured lips was the reflection staring back at her. However, she was dishevelled and dirty from head to toe and her cheeks bore horrible scars, and yet despite all that, she could still tell that this body of hers had the potential to grow into a real beauty within a year or two.
Li Meirong didn't consider herself particularly bad looking in her original body. She had an average type of look, at least that was how she would have described herself, the type that with a little bit of makeup could pass for pretty.
She felt a bit guilty for taking over the body of this delicate girl who had probably endured so much only to end her life at such a young age. She appeared as a delicate doll who'd been mauled by an angry animal. Li Meirong concluded that she definitely hadn't been taking good care of herself since her arrival.
With that thought in mind, she splashed the water on her face and started scraping off the dirt caked to her skin. Next, she took off the worn out, mud-covered leather boots. She let her poor, sore feet breathe some fresh air before slipping them into the water. The blisters burned and caused her to bite her lower lip, stifling a yelp.
Chou hopped off her shoulder and imitated her actions, cupping water with his miniature leaves and splashing it on his chubby plant body. Li Meirong couldn't help giggling, watching his strange antics.
She decided to spend the night there, just in case Shu Qianqian and Mo Jing decided to come back and find her.
She laid in the corner where the thick vines lightly grazed the waters.
Before Li Meirong curled her body into a fetal position, she didn't forget to bleed her finger on Chou's hungry mouth.
The Pitcher Plant happily gobbled her blood. Then, he flattened himself to the ground and swung his chubby belly around from side to side.
It would have looked cute if Chou was a seal or a puppy, but it was hard to ignore the fact that he was a Carnivorous Plant with a man stuck inside his body.
"Whatever..." she mumbled, coming to terms with her strange new predicament.
Li Meirong closed her eyes and hoped her dreams would soon take over, giving her rest from this ever increasingly bizarre reality.