Chapter 249: The Unlucky Shi Shishi Team
At 7:30 in the morning, the jungle was quiet.
After a few consecutive drizzles, the chill of autumn became more obvious. Fresh dewdrops hung on the branches and grass leaves, crystal clear, like gems dropped at night.
“Ka——”
The hatch slowly opened and Su Xia was the first to jump out.
Outside, his tall mecha was hidden by Hal with a camouflage net covered with dead vines and fallen leaves.
He walked over, pulled down the camouflage netting, and brushed aside some leaves.
On the slightly warm energy compartment on the back of the mecha, there are actually two stuffed animals for warmth. They look like squirrels, with gray-black fur.
“Go…go…”
Su Xia was merciless. He waved his hand to drive the two little guys away, and then activated the entire mecha.
The indicator lights are on, the connections of the mechanical modules are open, and all indicators are almost normal, except for the low energy indicator.
He manually replaced two more psychic batteries.
When you are out and about and your mecha is out of energy, it is just like a cell phone running out of battery, which is very uncomfortable.
Sun Lang and Chang Rufeng also climbed out of the cabin door and left the warm cabin. When they were blown by the cold morning wind outside, they both couldn't help shivering.
"Why is the temperature dropping so fast!" Sun Lang rubbed his palms. "This damn weather, can't it be warmer for a while? The girls on the street refuse to wear shorts!"
"Brother Sun, what you said makes sense!"
Chang Rufeng nodded repeatedly to show his agreement.
As usual, Su Xia threw a few sobering potions and antidotes to the two of them, told them to drink them and pay attention to their condition at all times.
Report immediately if you experience symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, or limb pain.
After a night's rest, the toxins in the bodies of the two had been almost metabolized. Now they were full of energy, so they took the potion and set off immediately.
Hal also sent a repair robot to follow.
Three people and one machine continued to search for the trapped team in Longcheng along the route that had been explored last night.
Su Xia turned on the mecha's light, illuminating the dark depths of the jungle, and said as he walked, "We found two bodies last night. They should be the people you have seen."
"I wonder who this unlucky guy is." Sun Lang took another antidote. "Commander, this potion is actually strawberry flavored. Is there any blueberry flavored one?"
"Yes, the black one."
"Hey, let me try it."
“It’s not juice…”
Seeing Sun Lang's actions, Su Xia was speechless and stopped talking, leading the way silently in front.
After walking for half an hour, the first body appeared in front of everyone.
After identification, Sun Lang and Chang Rufeng determined that this person was also a member of the Zero Point Tavern and had also rushed over from the northwest of the mainland a few days ago.
"Alas, this guy is a pauper. When he gets rich, he squanders it immediately, buying cars and mansions, and changing women every few days..."
After searching the body for a long time, Sun Lang only found two weapons that could barely be sold for a few dollars.
This person lives life thoroughly and spends as much money as he has.
The person died and the money was spent.
Everyone simply got some dead leaves and covered the body, which was considered a simple burial.
Then, the group continued to move forward.
Since the map of this area has been basically explored, and with Hal as our guide, the speed of this journey was much faster than yesterday, and we were able to basically avoid all dangerous areas.
Half an hour later, the second body was found.
Sun Lang recognized him after just one glance: "This guy is the deputy owner of the branch outside. I didn't expect him to be here too."
The circumstances of this man's death were very strange.
His neck was hung on several vines and his limbs were entangled by the vines. He seemed to have died of suffocation.
In this area, there are both psychedelic soul grass and withered vines. According to speculation, this person may have first fallen into hallucinations, and then bumped into the vine area while walking in a daze like sleepwalking, and died.
The skin on his neck had been corroded and rotted by the venom of the vines. The wound was disgusting and the rotting flesh was sickening.
"The deputy store owner's badge, the fifth-level psychic dagger, the deputy store authority identity card... and the mecha manufacturing contract, the slave contract, two warehouse keys, and the manor real estate contract..."
"This guy has a lot of good stuff."
"Gold coins exploded..."
Sun Lang became interested and searched the corpse carefully, and actually found a few gold coins.
These are not ordinary gold coins, but commemorative gold coins from before the war, and one can be sold for 400,000 to 500,000 on the black market.
In addition to gold coins, there are also cross pendants, antique medals, crown jewels, and so on. All kinds of things that add luck are very valuable. All added up, they can be sold for tens of millions.
As expected of a deputy store manager, the amount of wealth he carries with him is astonishing.
"These things are said to bring good luck to people." Sun Lang's eyes lit up and he did not miss any valuable items.
"So, with all this good luck on him, he still died?"
Chang Rufeng shrugged, obviously not believing in luck or anything like that, only believing in his own strength.
At the side, Hal, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke up: "In the Seventh Empire, there are many specialized research institutes responsible for studying things that cannot be explained by science, and luck is one of them."
Chang Rufeng asked him: "Robots, have those scientists figured it out?"
Hal asked back, "What do you think, native people?"
"Probably not?"
"Yes." Hal replied coldly, "After decades of research, the only conclusion we can draw is that... people with good luck love to laugh."
“…”
Can people with bad luck still laugh?
Chang Rufeng was powerless to refute. He didn't expect that there were many experts in the interstellar world who just wanted to make a living and cheat for funding.
Not long after, Sun Lang finished the search.
He found at least 30 million worth of goodies from the corpse. After returning, he shared some with Su Xia and Chang Rufeng.
The group continued to move forward, and after another half an hour, they passed a place where there were many signs of the Dragon City team resting.
"Go further and you'll reach the real high-risk area." Su Xia paused and said, "Drink all the antidotes. There's no need to save them. I have plenty of them."
"OK!"
Sun Lang and Chang Rufeng trusted Su Xia very much, so they immediately took out the medicine and gulped it down.
The jungle ahead was so dense that there was almost no place to stand. Above were the umbrella-shaped crowns of towering trees, and below were densely packed shrubs and dead vines.
Su Xia's mecha was in front, and two sharp blades popped out from the left and right modules of the mechanical arm. They opened and closed vigorously, and with the swords slashing down, they forcibly cut a path.
“Crack!”
“Crack!”
Wherever the blade passed, juice splashed and the poisonous vines broke into pieces.
Not long ago, people from the Longcheng team also passed by here.
They had the advantage of exoskeleton armor, but they also forced their way through, leaving behind a lot of traces.
Following the light of the mecha, there were many signs of being trampled and cut in the bushes. Many dead branches and leaves were stepped into the humus soil, leaving behind deep and shallow footprints.
The Dragon City team is not progressing very fast.
In such a complex jungle area, the more people there are, the more trouble there is, not to mention that they are carrying a bunch of injured and sick people.
Su Xia and his group sped up, counting the minutes and seconds, and constantly closing the distance between the two sides.
They rested for a night last night, but the people of Longcheng also needed rest.
"Once we find the people from Longcheng, we'll get the 30 million bounty." Sun Lang calculated, "I just don't know if it's 30 million per person, or 30 million in total? Even if it's a total... we can each get 10 million."
"Why do you like money more and more now?"
Chang Rufeng asked him, "Don't you like adventure and traveling around the continent?"
"That being said, life is more important." Sun Lang shook his head. "There are many alien visitors on the mainland now, and there are more and more variables. I have a feeling that the next war between humans and machines is very close. Once it starts, it will definitely be a world-destroying war."
"What does this have to do with you?"
"I have to save money and build a few doomsday fortresses that will allow me to live safely for at least 20 years... Then, even if a zombie crisis breaks out, I won't be afraid..."
The two chatted as they walked, occasionally joking with each other, making the journey less boring.
Their topic is actually what many members of neutral organizations are worried about.
In the face of intensive artillery fire, psychic creatures are nothing more than stronger cannon fodder. Many people are worried about the next war.
In order to ensure survival in the next racial war, some people built secret bunkers in the deep mountains and forests, others spent a lot of money to search for isolated islands at sea, and some even directly modified submarines.
In the future, when the war breaks out, we will immediately hide in the vast ocean and come out to make money after the war is over.
Back on Earth, such behavior is often referred to as a "doomsday scenario."
But in this world, the end of the world could really come.
Time gradually came to twelve noon.
The three of them did not rest. They each took out some dry food and ate it as they moved forward.
…
At the same time, Shi Sishi's team, which entered the death jungle from another direction, was gradually approaching the high-risk area in the center.
During the search over the past two days, his team also encountered considerable problems.
Before setting off, through communication with the Longcheng headquarters, they had taken into account the possible presence of poisonous gas in the jungle, so they brought a large number of gas masks.
But they suffered a lot from all kinds of weird traps, unpredictable vines and annoying noises in the jungle.
Someone was stained by the sticky vine venom, and his skin became red and swollen. Even after using many medicines, the swelling did not go down.
Some people also fell into swamp traps, their equipment was soaked by sewage and mud, they were in a miserable state and almost lost their lives.
When they were resting last night, they had the misfortune of choosing an area where the "Song of Death" was growing.
The strange sound made by this grass was not noticed at first, but soon people began to feel headaches, nausea, dizziness and other symptoms.
“Where do all these plants come from?”
"I've read a lot of books on vegetation in college, but I've never seen anything this strange."
"Could it be that they were all corrupted by psychic energy and mutated?"
In the team, more than a dozen disciples of Shi Sishi were communicating with each other, and each of them had an ugly look on their faces.
Regardless of the character of these guys——
The knowledge and insights they possessed could indeed crush most people, and in the pre-war years they were considered graduate students or even doctoral students.
And he is not a fake graduate student, he has real talent.
But when they got together, no one could tell the names of these strange plants.
"Everyone stop, replace the gas filter boxes in batches, and replace those with stronger psychic powers first." Shi Sishi suddenly gave an order, and the entire team rested on the spot.
Creatures with strong psychic powers have high physical fitness and are more resistant to poisons.
Since it is uncertain which plants will release poisonous gas, everyone faces a test every time they change the gas filter box of the gas mask in this strange jungle full of dangers.
But the gas filter box has to be replaced.
If it is not changed for more than an hour, the filtering ability will be weakened.
The night before, a member wearing a gas mask fainted, inhaled too much poison gas and fell into a coma.
"Everyone, be careful and don't touch the plants here casually."
“We can collect some of the plants that animals have come into contact with as samples and then go back to study them.”
Here, animals are the best guides.
Only members of Shi Shishi’s team dare to touch things that animals dare to eat.
But the deeper they went into the jungle, the fewer animals appeared, and the atmosphere of deathly silence gradually became thicker. The dark depths of the jungle seemed like a terrifying abyss, but everyone had no choice but to move forward.
After replacing the gas filter box, Shi Shishi's team continued to move forward.
They were already cautious enough, but after walking for only ten minutes, an accident occurred.
"ah--"
Suddenly someone screamed, missed a step, and fell into a deep pit.
This is not a swamp area, but there is a plant called "mobile trap".
Moreover, at the bottom of the deep pit, there were countless sharp tree roots growing upward, like deadly sharp spears.
The unfortunate member fell in and his left thigh was pierced, and blood gushed out like a fountain.
"Help—help me—"
He screamed in terror and called for help at the top of his lungs because he knew an artery in his leg had been punctured.
If he wasn't treated, he would soon go into shock from excessive blood loss and die in this hellhole.
"Oh no, help!"
"Pay attention to your surroundings and don't move!"
Everyone in the team took action, some entered the deep pit to rescue, and others took out various medical equipment.
Some people used flashlights to illuminate the environment inside the deep pit.
After seeing the bottom of the pit, many people took a deep breath.
Below, there were densely packed bones, too numerous to count, and it was unknown how many layers there were. The sharp tree roots standing upright made one's scalp tingle.
" What the hell is this plant?"
"There are cases in the book where psychic powers can cause plants to mutate, but they are all isolated cases. It's impossible for them to be as dense as in this forest!"
The most important thing right now is to save lives. No matter how many questions there are, we can only analyze them slowly later.
Fortunately, the rescue team brought enough medical supplies, so they could perform several operations in the wild.
It didn't take long for the team members to work together to rescue the person.
After treatment, the man's life and left leg can be saved, and it will not affect his mobility in the future. This can barely be considered good news.
"call……"
The people in charge of the rescue heaved a sigh of relief.
But there was no joy on the faces of the others.
The dangers in the depths of the jungle are increasing, and they have lost contact with the outside world, knowing nothing about the news from the Dragon City headquarters and the joint camp.
What if the Dragon City team has already escaped, but they just haven’t received the news?
The various predicaments, difficulties, and pains of the past two days have made many members consider returning along the same route.
"Master, shall we... take a break first?"
As the representative of many resistance organizations in the joint camp, Ms. Liu Ye had to stand up and ask Shi Sishi with worry between her beautiful brows.
Shi Sishi glanced at the injured member and nodded with an indifferent expression.
"Well, take a break and then move on."
