Volume 1 Glacial Relics Chapter 8 Secret Passage
"Hurry, we're almost there!" The five people who turned back passed by Jiang Lian's body, which meant that they were not far from the cave where the plane crashed.
The fresh flesh and blood that had not yet begun to rot successfully attracted the attention of the split-jaw worms, but it only bought Ke Lan and the others less than a second, and the corpses on the ground had already been eaten up by the swarm of worms.
"Bang!" The solid gate closed again. Except for Zhuo Ligetu who was unconscious, the other four people all sat down on the ground, gasping for breath.
"I am completely exhausted...it's almost over...this damn bug is such a bastard!" The hound lay on the ground with his arms and legs spread out, cursing while gasping for breath.
"You are right to scold me. The eggs of the split-jaw worm are hatched inside the body of the mother worm. When the larvae break out of the shell, in order to obtain enough nutrients for growth, they will eat the entire mother worm from the inside out... Every adult split-jaw worm is indeed Sima's thing." Ivan said very seriously. He took out his wine jug, unscrewed the lid, tilted his head back and took a big gulp.
"Hey, doctor, what's in that pot of yours? Is it really wine?" Layton, who finally breathed a sigh of relief, couldn't help but become envious.
Although alcohol is not particularly rare on the Ark, most people cannot afford it - since food is hard to come by, the Ark has extremely strict controls on alcoholic beverages. Everyone can only buy according to the ration quota, no matter how many credit points they have.
Even so, most of the wine that the common people could drink was not real wine, but alcohol produced using chemical methods and then blended with other beverages. As for wine that was actually brewed from grain, only the aristocracy could afford it.
"Vodka," Ivan replied.
"Grass? Vodka?! Really? You still have this good stuff?" Layton 's eyes suddenly widened. "Give me a sip, just one sip, let me taste it, and I'll buy it from you - five thousand, no! Six thousand! Six thousand credit points!"
"Eight thousand for one." Ivan threw the wine jug to Leighton, then walked to Zhuoligetu and began to help the Mongolian man treat his wounds.
"Eight thousand is eight thousand!" Leighton took the wine jug and took a sip impatiently, but the next second his face turned a strange purple-blue color.
"Puff!" Layton sprayed the 8,000 credits worth of "vodka" all over the floor. He spat out the remaining liquid in his mouth and yelled, "Vodka? This is vodka? Are you sure this isn't tank antifreeze?"
"Tank antifreeze is highly toxic. Drinking too much will affect your eyesight. This is just medical alcohol mixed with water." Ivan said nonchalantly.
"You can drink this? Maozi is indeed gifted..." Layton said helplessly, "Well, whether it's vodka or antifreeze, I guess I'll have to wait until my next life to drink it."
Layton's meaning was very clear - although they had managed to escape the pursuit of the split-jaw worm, they were now completely trapped in this cave and could not get out.
Two people were killed and one was seriously injured. What was more important was that not even a single unit of energy crystal was found during the entire exploration process. The stock on hand was simply not enough to open the gate again.
"Is Asano Akira still alive? Can we contact him?" Ivan raised his head and asked Ke Lan.
"I just tried, but couldn't get through." Ke Lan shook her head.
"Dead?"
"I'm not sure. Either his communication equipment is broken, or the distance between him and us has exceeded the limit of the equipment." Ke Lan glanced at Zhuo Ligetu's wound. Fortunately, only his two calves were eaten by the split-jaw worm, and the amount of blood loss was not very large. Otherwise, even a god would not be able to save him.
"I'll go see if there's anything useful on the transport plane. No matter what, we can hold on for one day. Maybe with a little luck we can get rescued by the Ark." Ke Lan said as he walked towards the wreckage of the transport plane, but after a few steps, his feet could no longer move.
"Where's the body... the body?"
"What corpse?" Leighton turned around, looking puzzled.
"Where is the pilot's body? I remember putting it here before, how come it's gone?!" Ke Lan quickly climbed onto the wreckage of the transport plane and scanned the entire cave with a flashlight, but except for a few rocks that rolled down during the landslide, the place was empty. The pilot's body seemed to have evaporated into thin air.
"Could it be a split-jaw worm?" Layton shuddered and subconsciously raised his mechanical arm, but was embarrassed to find that his weapon had been abandoned in the passage outside .
"No, the split-jaw worms only eat meat. If it were them, there would be a skeleton left behind." Ivan was relatively calm. "I think the body must have left on its own."
"Leave on their own? Do you mean those little bugs that can control corpses?" Ke Lan took a deep breath. For some reason, he felt a little chill down his spine.
"Hasn't the insect been cut into two pieces by Asano Akira?" The hound glanced at Ivan, who took out the test tube from his pocket. The broken insect corpse was still inside, with no signs of escape or resurrection.
Ivan frowned and put away the test tube: " I'm afraid there is more than one of these things."
"If that's the case, they've probably already escaped, and maybe even been eaten by the split-jaw worms." Layton shrugged.
"No, I don't think so." Ke Lan jumped down from the wreckage of the transport plane. "If the body escaped, we would definitely run into it when we turned back. We checked every corner of the passage along the way. There are no forks in the road and no blind spots for hiding... In addition, the body of the advance team fell in front of this gate, which means its destination is this cave. Since it is already here, how can it go back?"
"These two are not the same bug. Maybe one wants to come in and the other wants to escape! I remember there is an ancient book written by an old era writer in the e-book library. There seems to be a sentence like 'a birdcage painted with gold, the bird outside wants to come in, and the bird inside wants to escape'..." Layton muttered.
Ke Lan: "No, we have already confirmed that these insects are created by humans. In this case, they can be regarded as tools. The purpose of the same kind of tools is roughly the same."
"Then I use the same axe. Whether I chop it horizontally or vertically, isn't it still the same axe? Besides, there is nothing in this cave. Why must they come in here?"
"What are you fighting for...Have you all forgotten me?" The Hound suddenly interrupted, "Don't forget what my specialty is!"
"Uh... I almost forgot. With you here, old dog, I can tell where the body is by just smelling it!" Layton slapped his head excitedly, but forgot that he was using the modified mechanical prosthesis. He grimaced in pain for a while.
Ke Lan's eyes also lit up. The hound's previous abilities were too useless and had no presence at all, but in this situation, it could come in handy.
"The body hasn't decayed much. There's no corpse odor, only a faint smell of blood... Hmm? It's this direction..." The hound closed his eyes, and his huge hooked nose twitched from time to time. He circled twice along the wreckage of the transport plane, and finally locked onto a direction completely opposite to the gate.
"It's right here, the smell stops here... Huh? Why did the instep of my foot disappear?!" The people who had been keeping a close eye on the hound also noticed this abnormality. They saw that the front end of the hound's feet seemed to have disappeared inexplicably, almost completely merging with the dark rock. But when the hound took a step back, his feet reappeared intactly.
"It's optical camouflage!" Ke Lan's first reaction was, "Secret passage! There is a secret passage in this place!!"
