Chapter 7: Flowers in the Water (I)
"Nature's uncanny workmanship..." Jiang Xian said with emotion, leaning against the wall. He took out compressed biscuits and a water bottle, and while eating, he carefully observed everything in front of him.
This is a huge space.
It is probably fifty meters from the ground, which is covered with stalagmites and countless pebbles of various sizes.
The entire space was probably about a thousand meters, forming a huge hollow field, and at the edge of the field, there were dozens of holes of different sizes, just like the one they came out of.
The sun shines through the cracks above, forming scattered spots of light on the water. Some are several meters wide, while others are only one foot square. The water is not deep, the deepest is only three to five meters. Through these spots of light, you can clearly see colorful flowers swaying in the water.
I don't know what species it is, it just grows quietly in the river, humbly trying to survive under the masterpiece of nature.
The lakeside is full of luminous plants. However, they do not spray spores under the light. Jiang Xian guessed correctly that this is indeed the final landing point of the luminous plant spores. Standing by the lake, one cannot see the end at all. Looking up, the cave ceiling is filled with scattered holes, like stars twinkling, or like a cracked mouth of light on a golden net. Looking down, the lake is clear and transparent. Under the sunlight, it looks like a crystal clear gem.
The brilliance of heaven and earth, the contrast between the extremely large and the extremely small, and the shock brought by the brilliant natural wonders make everyone intoxicated by this rare beauty.
After an unknown amount of time, a figure suddenly appeared beside him. Temulun, who was also eating compressed biscuits and drinking water, sat down beside him.
However, he did not look at him, but at this beautiful underground world. He took a big sip of water and sighed, "It is really a treasure of nature."
"Captain Jiang, I have a question that I have always wanted to ask you." Temulun put down the cup, looked up at the cave entrance above, and asked casually, "What... do you do?"
He continued to talk to himself: "When I heard that you were the leader, I didn't accept it. Don't say that I... No one accepts it."
"But... in these few hours, I am really convinced."
"Your quick reaction and extensive knowledge are at least better than mine. I am not as good as you."
Jiang Xian said, "We are just different majors. Do you have cigarettes?"
Temulun rummaged for a long time and found a package of fine white sand, and handed one to Jiang Xian. They lit it and took a deep breath. In the blue smoke, Jiang Xian squinted his eyes and smiled: "As for what I do... it's better to not know."
"It will probably be hard for us to have any intersection in the future."
Temulun was stunned for a moment, then smiled and said, "That's right."
"You are a dangerous person, but also a wonderful person." He gave a thumbs up, patted his butt with a cigarette in his mouth, and stood up. He walked to the unconscious Zhao Boli and covered his forehead with his hand.
Jiang Xian also stood up and asked as he walked over, "How is he?"
"He has a fever." Temulun looked at the other person's lips, which were starting to turn pale, and frowned. "The temperature is not low... How could this happen?"
"Bats carry too many viruses, this is normal." It was not Jiang Xian who answered, but Song Lianshi. After saying this, he looked up at Jiang Xian and asked, "What should we do now?"
Unconsciously, he had gotten used to putting himself in the position of listening to instructions.
Jiang Xian looked at him as if he had seen a ghost: "Are you still looking for Er Ganzi?"
"Believe me, the future ahead will be countless times more dangerous than this!"
The grave of that famous person who was buried here for some reason is abnormally large.
Starting to enclose the land from several thousand meters away, this... who could have such an honor at that time?
There is still no clue of the other party's tomb, so it must be deeper. How big is the area of this tomb? How much manpower is needed? How many traps and tricks are there in such a large tomb?
This is not a dungeon that can be cleared solo with Black Iron players like Song Lianshi.
At least a few kings are needed to form a group.
"I won't go forward." Jiang Xian took a few puffs of his cigarette, then extinguished it, stared into Song Lianshi's eyes and said, "I don't want to be buried with you."
Song Lianshi looked at him calmly, and after a long time he retracted his gaze, and smiled bitterly: "Well, it's the right choice, I won't move forward."
"I am too confident." He sighed deeply, as if he wanted to say something. But in the end, all he could say turned into a sigh: "The ignorant are fearless..."
He turned to look at the unconscious Zhao Boli beside him: "Besides, he also needs medical treatment. If we lose a few more people, it won't be a search and rescue operation, it will become a burial."
He patted his trouser legs and stood up: "Is the water drinkable? I lost my backpack because I was carrying this kid. Let's rest up and then discuss how to get out."
Along the way, he and Temulun were responsible for carrying people, while Jiang Xian was responsible for carrying backpacks, but they could not carry the backpacks of several people. When Zhao Yazhi fell, her knee was broken, and she finally stopped herself. She could only carry one person, so Jiang Xian had to abandon one backpack. It was Song Lianshi's.
"Most groundwater is fine. But you have to boil it before drinking." Jiang Xian leaned on Song Lianshi's original position and touched Zhao Boli's forehead. He was about to continue resting, but when he looked at Song Lianshi, his eyes suddenly stopped.
Not only him, Zhao Yazhi gasped and stood up tremblingly. Temulun shook his head in disbelief, looked at his back, then looked at his head, and was speechless for a while.
"Old, Old Song..." In the end, it was Zhao Yazhi who spoke first: "You...you don't feel anything?"
"What do you feel?" Song Lianshi turned his head in confusion: "I'm almost uninjured. What do you want to feel?"
"No... no..." Zhao Yazhi swallowed her saliva: "Your back... doesn't hurt? It doesn't itch?"
Seeing the expressions of the three people, Song Lianshi finally became serious: "What's going on?"
"Come here first, with your back to us." Jiang Xian waved his hand, and Song Lianshi walked over to him and sat down. There was silence behind him for a full minute, and he frowned and asked, "What happened?"
"Touch your right shoulder with your hand." Jiang Xian's voice came from behind. Song Lianshi stretched out his hand in confusion, and the next second, his fingers trembled violently.
At some point, a knife was inserted into his right shoulder.
It wasn’t inserted deep, but... he didn’t feel anything at all!
"What happened to me?" He was so shocked that he almost stood up, but Temulun immediately held him down: "Don't worry, Team Leader Jiang is watching."
Jiang Xian was indeed watching.
But... no matter how he looked at it, he couldn't figure out how to solve it.
On Song Lianshi's back, thumb-sized pustules swelled up. The subcutaneous nerves around the pustules seemed to be stimulated by something, and swelled up thick and purple-red, like twisted tree roots, which was extremely terrifying!
There were no less than fifteen of these pustules! Most of them were shallow, but two or three of them were visible to the naked eye and had penetrated deep into the muscles!
Song Lianshi was like the back of a toad, and what was even more terrifying was... he felt nothing at all!
Complete paralysis of the dorsal nerves.
"Spores." Jiang Xian narrowed his eyes and fell into deep thought. He gently pressed his temple and sorted out the thoughts in his mind again.
"I understand... this killing move is not one level, but two levels!"
"The first part is that the luminous plants mimic insects and lure the bats to attack. The second part... these spores themselves are the killer move."
He muttered to himself, not avoiding others. Zhao Yazhi asked nervously, "What do you mean?"
Jiang Xian gently cut open a boil, and immediately, a stream of blood and smelly white fluid flowed down Song Lianshi's back. He gently moved the center of the boil with the tip of the knife. Soon, he picked out something the size of a grain of rice.
"What's this?"
Jiang Xian picked up the "grain of rice" on the tip of the knife, narrowed his eyes slightly, and said coldly: "Have you heard of Cordyceps sinensis?"
"Of course..." Zhao Yazhi hadn't finished speaking when she suddenly realized something. She said in disbelief, "You mean... these spores of luminous plants can take humans as hosts? And... and then, just like Cordyceps sinensis eats up bat moths, it can... take people..."
"We don't know the details yet. But... there is this trend." Jiang Xian picked at the pustules one by one with his knife: "These spores attach themselves to the bats. I'm afraid it's not just to carry the spores to farther places... They may take root and sprout in the bats' bodies, and then... eat the bats up. If another plant of this kind grows... it's simply the spread of the virus!"
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A question suddenly came to his mind: what do luminous plants feed on?
Plants need nutrients to grow, but the pit is full of limestone and there is no soil. Where do the nutrients come from?
Now he understood.
Thinking back to that fluorescent canyon, the glowing plants all over the ground, how long had it taken to accumulate? How many bat carcasses were needed to form a fluorescent corridor? Just thinking about the number made him shudder.
He opened his eyes and focused all his attention on Song Lianshi's back. He said in a deep voice, "These spores have extremely strong paralytic properties. They grow very quickly. How long have we been through the Spore Canyon? They have grown from the size of a needle tip to the size of a grain of rice."
Zhao Yazhi's body trembled slightly. After a few seconds, she finally uttered the word "fuck".
What the hell is this place!?
"Then...Is Lao Song okay?"
Jiang Xian was concentrating on picking out the abscesses and didn't answer. Temulun beside him whispered, "Everything else is easy, but... the spores are too deep in these few places near the heart... I'm afraid we can only go to the hospital for surgery. If we take them out hastily, this place may be infected with more bacteria, and then it will really be hopeless."
"It's okay, I can hold on." Song Lianshi, who had been listening to their conversation silently, suddenly whispered.
Jiang Xian paused with his scalpel. An indescribable regret welled up in his heart.
I was careless.
Maybe he has worked with the King too much, leading the Bronze is not his strong point. He was well prepared before going down, and he had his people wrapped in clothes, but he didn't expect that the Green Galaxy was linked to the Bat Killer.
The arrival of the bat swarm and Zhao Boli's inappropriate response caused a chain reaction in the entire team. As a result, there was a shortage of flashlights, so Song Lianshi had to take off his clothes to use as torches. Therefore, among these people, only he was contaminated with spores.
Time passed by minute by minute. It took Jiang Xian more than ten minutes to pick out all the spores. He breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Old Zhao, help Xiao Zhao to the water's edge. Give him some ice. Remember, don't go too deep, just stay at the water's edge. Sometimes, danger is where you least expect."
Zhao Yazhi nodded deeply. After all, he had just experienced the unpredictable killing situation of nature. He even had some paranoia now.
"Temulun, go get some water from the river. Boil it, not too much. This part will be used to clean Lao Song's wound. Also boil some water for our water reserve. We don't have much water left. Remember, like Lao Zhao, don't go deep."
"clear."
After assigning the tasks, Jiang Xian turned around to count the packages and took out medical gauze and iodine. Just as he was about to help Zhao Yazhi to lift Xiao Zhao up, he suddenly felt... something pulling at the corner of his clothes.
It was very light, and if you weren't concentrating, it might be difficult to detect. He looked around without any expression. Zhao Yazhi was still looking for tools. Apart from him, there was no one else around him. So...
"Are you awake?" He approached Zhao Boli and asked in a low voice.
Zhao Boli's body trembled, and he opened his eyes with difficulty. His eyes were burning red, and he looked at Jiang Xian with great difficulty, and nodded slowly. Then, he opened his cracked lips and trembled slightly.
Jiang Xian thought the other person wanted to drink water, and was about to turn around to get some water, but his clothes were pulled again.
He... wants to speak?
Seeing the other person open his mouth several times, Jiang Xian put his ear close to his mouth. Then, he heard a sentence that made his hair stand on end.
"Someone...knocked down...my...flashlight..."
This sentence made Jiang Xian's skin crawl. He almost instinctively wanted to look back, but he suppressed the thought. He whispered, "It was too chaotic at the time, and mistakes were made in the chaos."
Zhao Boli's eyelids closed heavily, he shook his head slightly in pain, and two words came out of his lips silently.
twice.
Jiang Xian's eyes suddenly lit up, and he tightly grasped his trouser legs. He understood the lip reading, the other party was saying... that person knocked down his flashlight twice!
This is... murder!