Chapter 347
Yannis asked gently, "Zinnia, what would you like to eat? I can make something for you."
That afternoon, Yannis walked into the home lab to find Zinnia busy preparing a herbal bath remedy for Nathan.
For Nathan’s condition now, merely taking medicine wouldn’t do much good. But soaking in the herbal bath remedy at night could help alleviate some of Nathan’s pain.
"Don’t worry about me, Yannis. I’m not hungry yet," Zinnia replied without looking up. She was meticulously preparing the mildest restorative formula.
Yannis squatted down in front of her and said, "How about I make you some sweet soup, honey? You barely ate at lunch; your body can’t take this."
At lunch, she barely touched her food before rushing upstairs and burying herself in the home lab.
Nathan was already in bad shape. Yannis couldn’t afford to let anything happen to her now.
"Thanks, Yannis. That’s really kind of you." Meeting his worried gaze, Zinnia paused briefly in her work before nodding.
"Don’t mention it. I’ll go make it for you right now," Yannis said affectionately, gently ruffling her hair.
At the moment, Nathan’s condition was unstable, and Jackson was in the room keeping watch over him. Meanwhile, Yannis stayed by Zinnia’s side.
Yannis left the lab and went downstairs to make some sweet soup for her.
Right now, she couldn’t stomach anything else. Only something sweet might get her to eat a little.
Zinnia watched Yannis walk away. She then lowered her gaze, her eyes unconsciously drifting to the box of seeds on the table, her mind elsewhere.
As she kept staring, she noticed something unusual – the wrinkled surface of the seed seemed different.
Zinnia shot upright and snatched up the box.
She picked up the seed from the box and leaned in close, examining it intently. Then she gently ran her fingers over the wrinkled surface of the seed.
Although the seed’s surface was still wrinkled, Zinnia could sense a subtle change in it.
The wrinkles on the surface weren’t as hard or sharp as before. It was almost as if something had softened them.
Zinnia carefully ran her fingers over it, verifying the changes.
Once she confirmed the change was real, her heart raced and tears welled up in her eyes.
The seed has changed,’ Zinnia thought. Just this tiny change was enough to make her heart soar with hope.
‘But what exactly made the seed start to sprout?’ she wondered.
Zinnia quickly composed herself. She clutched the seed, carefully retracing what she’d tried today.
With Nathan’s sudden health crisis today, they hadn’t had time to try any other methods.
‘But there’s no way this seed would just change on its own for no reason,’ Zinnia thought, frowning. She was absolutely certain the seed had only started changing today.
Zinnia opened her palm, pinched the seed between her fingertips, and brought it closer, lost in thought.
Suddenly, she caught the metallic tang of blood.
Chapter 347
‘The metallic scent of blood…’ Zinnia thought. She lowered her gaze and noticed the white gauze wrapped around her hand.
Earlier today, she had accidentally cut her palm quite deeply. Since the wound was in the center of her hand where a Band-Aid wouldn’t stay, Yannis had carefully wrapped it with gauze for her.
Zinnia mused, ‘Come to think of it, the way I held the seed today… Blood from my palm might’ve dripped onto it without me even noticing.’
Zinnia glanced down at the gauze wrapped around her hand, then carefully picked up the seed and set it in a small porcelain dish. She began carefully unwrapping the gauze from her hand.
By now, the wound in her palm had already begun to scab over. The wound had turned a pale pink and stopped bleeding.
Zinnia lowered her gaze, took out her acupuncture needle case, and carefully drew out a needle. She carefully aligned the slender tip of the needle with her wound and then closed her eyes.
The slender silver needle deliberately reopened her wound, and fresh beads of blood welled up from the broken scab.
Zinnia kept her eyes shut as she set the needle aside, fumbling for the small porcelain dish. She pressed her wounded palm against it and clenched her fist, feeling warm beads of blood well up in quick succession.
Zinnia’s blood was anything but ordinary. It has restorative properties.
“Who would’ve thought my blood would work on this seed too,’ Zinnia marveled inwardly.
She squeezed out roughly 20 milliliters of blood – not much, just enough to cover the seed.
Still keeping her eyes shut, Zinnia reached under the desk for the Moon Scar Cream and casually applied it to her wound. Only when the bleeding stopped did she finally open her eyes.
Zinnia picked up the gauze and rewrapped her hand. Only when she was sure not a single trace remained visible did Zinnia finally let out a quiet sigh of relief.
The blood loss left Zinnia pale and drained. Though the blood loss was minimal, she was anemic.
Feeling a dull ache in her chest, Zinnia frowned and rubbed the area over her heart.
Probably because she hadn’t been getting enough rest lately, she kept feeling a bit of discomfort in her chest from time to time.
Zinnia grabbed a bottle of blood-nourishing pills, shook out two, and quickly popped them into her mouth.
‘I can’t afford to let my health deteriorate right now,’ Zinnia reminded herself.
Zinnia stared intently at the seed in the small porcelain dish, searching for any sign of change. Her eyes widened – it was true. The seed was actually changing.
Now that the seed was fully nourished by her blood, the transformation became unmistakable.
The seed was quite large, roughly the size of her thumb. Submerged completely in blood, the wrinkled surface began transforming before Zinnia’s eyes. The once-rigid shell was visibly softening. She watched as the blood was slowly absorbed, little by little.
Tears welled up in Zinnia’s eyes instantly. ‘It worked. It’s actually working! If I’d known my blood could do this, I’d have used it ages ago,’ she thought to herself.
Over this period, Zinnia and the team of experts had tried every conceivable method on the seed, but none had shown the slightest effect.
If not for today’s accident, it might have taken them forever to stumble upon this method.
No one could have imagined the seed actually needed human blood to thrive.
Chapter 347
The reason Zinnia knew the seed required human blood was that the Yarbrough family had previously attempted to use animal blood as a substitute.
They had even tried cultivating it with human blood. But nothing worked.
‘I can’t believe… my blood actually works,’ Zinnia thought as a faint smile touched her pale lips. ‘He’s saved. Nathan is saved.’
According to the Yarbrough Family’s ancient records, any change in the seed’s outer shell indicated it may sprout.
A sudden knock sounded at the door.
"Wait." Zinnia’s eyes darted to the blood-soaked seed. She quickly snatched it up and concealed it.
Zinnia thought, ‘I must never let Yannis and the others find out about this. If they knew, they’d absolutely forbid me from doing it.
Nathan would never allow this. Besides, Jackson and the others would be frantic with worry if they found out.
But the main thing was that Zinnia was not even sure this method would work. If it didn’t, telling them would just be giving them false hope.
Yannis’ worried voice came from outside. "Zinnia, are you ready?"
He couldn’t shake off a nagging sense of unease.
Leaving Zinnia alone in the room made Yannis uneasy, so he hurriedly finished preparing the sweet soup and rushed back upstairs.
Zinnia glanced down at her bandaged hand once more, making sure the wrapping showed no trace of what she’d done. "Yeah," she said.
Yannis swung the door open, his gaze immediately locking on Zinnia. He caught the flicker of panic in her eyes.
"Zinnia," Yannis said, walking over with the bowl of sweet soup.
He looked down at the cluttered desk in front of her. Amid the mess, an acupuncture needle lay conspicuously in plain sight, and the needle’s tip was stained dark.
Before Yannis could get a good look, a hand darted out, snatching up the needle and tucking it away.
"Yannis…" Zinnia called out softly.