After a brief hesitation, she finally gave in to the pressure of strength, gesturing for the treant to lead the four of them around.

In the end, the treant chose to position itself between Xiao Liu and Xiao Bai, becoming Nan Muran’s new contracted plant.

Its addition added a touch of brown to the already exquisite pattern, making it even more eye-catching.

As for the other four—Xiao Zi, Xiao Fen, Xiao Huang, and Xiao Qing—they silently coiled together, wrapping themselves around Nan Muran’s wrist like a colorful rope.

They even intentionally closed the loop, making it seem as if Nan Muran was wearing a bracelet unless someone looked closely.

The moment they touched Nan Muran’s body, they felt an incredibly comfortable vitality.

Level 3 Xiao Huang Fruit Tree: “How amazing! This human is really impressive. I want to contract with her.”

Level 4 Xiao Zi Fruit Tree: “I do too…”

Before Level 5 Xiao Qing Fruit Tree and Level 3 Xiao Fen Fruit Tree could speak up, the treant’s ancient voice sounded, filled with obvious impatience: “Shut up.”

Xiao Liu: “Muran won’t contract with you. You’re too weak.”

Xiao Bai: “Mm-mm.”

Level 5 Xiao Qing Fruit Tree: “To be looked down on by someone of the same level… Where can we go to complain?”

“Where are the fruits?” Zhou Ling asked, somewhat puzzled, looking at the few who had returned empty-handed.

Han Yingting and the others weren’t curious. Having followed Nan Muran for a long time, they naturally knew she had other secrets. Of course, they trusted her completely.

Nan Muran looked at him with a teasing smile in her eyes: “You almost lost your life, yet you didn’t forget about the fruits.”

Zhou Ling scratched his head, a bit embarrassed.

“We’ll lead the way. Everyone, follow closely and head down the mountain as quickly as possible.” Si Ye pulled Nan Muran along, rushing down the mountain.

The others quickly followed. Fortunately, the road up the mountain had already been cleared, so it wasn’t difficult to walk.

While heading down, Nan Muran used her plant-based abilities to restore all traces to their original state. Even the crushed grass was carefully straightened.

To ensure the helicopter could take off smoothly, she also used her mental abilities to steal a small part.

As a result, several helicopters’ instrument panels were showing malfunctions, preventing them from taking off.

Taking advantage of the large number of soldiers heading up the mountain, they arrived at the place where the cars had been hidden in less than half the time it had taken them to climb.

“The tunnel is already being pursued. We can’t drive the cars.” Jia Wu quickly assessed the situation based on the sounds.

Nan Muran turned to them, thinking for a moment: “Han Yingting, take your people, Seven Jin, and Zhou Ling, and head back to the Eternal Night Hotel.”

“And you?” Han Yingting looked at them, worried.

“All traces about us must be cleaned up, or we’ll get into big trouble.” Si Ye looked at Han Yingting, his tone firm.

Everyone knew the situation. No one knew who was behind the fortified camp in the valley.

If the enemy followed their traces and discovered the Western Market safety base, leading to Chen Jianguo and the others, the consequences would be unimaginable.

Han Yingting looked at them, his eyes full of concern: “Be safe.”

“We’ll meet at the hotel.” They were once soldiers, so they understood the seriousness in each other’s words.

Seven Jin’s predictive abilities allowed him to foresee their next steps, so he knew that as long as no one in their group caused trouble, they could safely return.

After they left, Nan Muran directly stored both cars in her space and then restored all traces to their original state.

“Take their military vehicles?” Eagle looked at the vehicles coming out of the tunnel, his eyes gleaming.

“You really dare, huh?”

Si Ye thought for a moment: “Leaving some unimportant traces is fine. If there are no traces at all, it would be easier for them to guess we were here. Chen Shuhan is no fool.”

Nan Muran nodded in agreement.

Jia Wu suddenly said, “How about we just steal a car?”

“If you were abroad, what would you do?” Eagle asked, curious.

“Just steal a car and drive away.”

For their group, stealing a military vehicle wasn’t difficult, so they soon found a suitable fork in the road.

They first selected a car and used the treant to randomly leave some traces on one of the roads. Then, the car they had chosen had its tires successfully blown out.

“Leave two people to fix the car and catch up. The rest of you continue tracking.” The military man in charge of tracking looked at two of his subordinates.

“Captain, there’s a fork in the road.” One man quickly jumped out of the car to assess the situation.

“Let’s run a bit further to see if there are any other traces.” The captain looked at the traces on the ground, feeling that something seemed intentional. He then instructed one of the soldiers.

The soldier quickly returned, and they confirmed they would take the road without traces.

As the other vehicles followed the trace-free path, Nan Muran used her mental abilities to confirm that there were no abnormalities nearby.

Si Ye then used his water-based powers to create ice pillars and knocked out the two soldiers working on the car.

“Just leave them here to sleep?” Eagle looked at the two soldiers lying in the snow by the roadside, concerned they might freeze to death.

Jia Wu furrowed his brow: “Why don’t you take off your clothes and cover them to keep them warm?”

“That’s unnecessary, they’ll be fine sleeping like this.” Eagle instantly huddled himself tightly.

“Their backpacks are in the car. We should give them sleeping bags, so they don’t freeze.” Si Ye threw their backpacks out.

After preparing everything and clearing the traces, the four of them got into the car.

The living map, Eagle, relaxed in the passenger seat: “Not bad, the road we left is perfect. We don’t even need to take a detour to get to the ancient county.”

Their earlier actions with the traces were completely unintentional.

So no matter which road the soldiers chose, they simply took the other. Both roads led to the ancient county, just varying in distance.

They were lucky to leave a path that didn’t require a detour.

Nan Muran, resting her head against Si Ye’s chest in the back seat, sighed deeply: “This whole day has been exhausting. But the haul was pretty good. I counted earlier, and we picked 209 fruits in total.”

“With such heavy losses, they won’t just let it go.” Jia Wu’s tone was certain.

They had all experienced how difficult it was to find mutated fruit trees, not to mention transplanting them. The time, money, and manpower spent to find and transplant these five trees was unimaginable.

To have it all taken in one go—it was no surprise they would go mad.

Nan Muran wasn’t worried about that. Instead, she asked, “Who is that Director Lin? It seems like you all know him.”