The first ray of sunlight in the morning penetrates the sloping tunnel and shines into the depths of the nest. The small nest that has gradually become cold quickly warms up.
The protagonist's body was warmed by the sun. He moved his hands and feet comfortably. If he could make a sound, he would have moaned happily by now.
The protagonist got up. As the temperature gradually dropped last night, his body became colder and colder. In the end, he didn't want to move. If the centipede came at this time, the protagonist's resistance would be greatly reduced. After all, the temporary campsite is not a regular ant nest. It is too close to the surface and the insulation capacity of the nest is not strong. Moreover, the temperature difference between day and night in this place is huge. During the day, it looks like late spring or early autumn, but at night it is as cold as early winter.
And cold-blooded animals have unique shortcomings. If winter really comes, they will have to hide deep underground, otherwise they will soon be eroded by the cold and lose their ability to move, and eventually freeze to death outside.
The protagonist looks towards the entrance of the nest and the five injured soldier ants last night. The miracle did not happen. The five soldier ants had stopped struggling and fell on their backs on the cold ground with stiff limbs. Their bodies had also become cold. Although the second poisonous mist sprayed by the centipede was much thinner and did not kill these warriors immediately, the final outcome was not different, and it added to their pain and struggle for a long time.
The protagonist silently called Xiaomi, Hua Mulan and other worker ants and soldiers to move their vehicles and luggage out of the small camping ground.
"Are we going?" The little secretary asked the protagonist: "Are you going to continue to let the soldier ants carry those strange things?" Although the little secretary has seen how the vehicle is used and has a general understanding of its purpose, he suffers from the ants' consciousness communication. There is no corresponding noun in the vocabulary, so it can only be called something strange.
"No, wait first." The protagonist did not tell everyone to hurry up and hurry up. He ordered the worker ants to seal the hole in the temporary camp with soil.
This job is the specialty of the worker ants. They quickly buried the cave underground and built a small hemispherical earth bag according to the protagonist's request. If anyone could see it, they would recognize the appearance of a typical grave bag.
The protagonist himself dismantled a single ant vehicle. He had already eaten a sunflower seed last night. This vehicle was empty, so it was better to put some more use into it. The protagonist took off the sunflower seed shells on it. Because the binding was too tight, the protagonist finally got it done after a lot of struggling with his mouth and hands.
The protagonist held this small and long half-sunflower seed shell with his front two limbs without letting anyone else help. He walked quietly to the small grave bag and inserted the sunflower seed shells into the ground. Without pen and ink, the protagonists cannot write their names on the sunflower seed shell tombstones. The protagonist could only recite the names of five ants silently in his heart. These five names randomly chosen by the protagonist have now become the last evidence that they once lived in the world and fought bravely: Wei 2, Wei 6, Li 1, Force 2, Force 7.
After the protagonist finished all this, the little secret who was silently observing came up and said, "Weird King, what are you doing?"
"I'm burying my companions." The protagonist explained softly. After a big battle last night, he felt closer to Xiao Mi. Although she is not required to understand what she is doing, it is still a good thing to have someone to talk to. Lack of communication partners is a very painful thing for humans. Many shipwreck survivors who live on desert islands often lose the ability to speak due to a long period of lack of communication.
"Why bury it?" Xiao Mi's curiosity is unique among all the ants he has ever seen.
"Let's rest in peace." The protagonist's answer made the little secretary confused.
The protagonist asked: "What do you do with your dead companions?" The little secretary thought for a while: "If you find them, take them to the cemetery."
The protagonist thought for a while and remembered that ants have a special cemetery and have the characteristic of placing dead ants together.
"This is the cemetery for the five of them. It only belongs to the five of them." The protagonist explained.
The little secretary was still confused, so she asked what the sunflower seed shells were for when they were stuck on the ground. Then I continued not to understand what the protagonist meant by leaving a commemorative tombstone.
"You don't understand, and maybe you will never understand." The protagonist was helpless and looked back at Hua Mulan. It was the soldier ants like Hua Mulan who didn't ask questions every day that were cuter.
After building the ant grave and answering the secret's questions, the protagonist asked everyone to get ready to hit the road.
Three of the soldier ants carrying the luggage were killed last night. We could only pick Wei 7 and Wei 8 from the guarding soldier ants to go in and carry the remaining five single ant vehicles and two double ant vehicles. Now there are only nine guarding soldier ants left, including Hua Mulan and Zhuang Yi who are protecting the little secret.
This time, when the protagonist was tying the ropes of the vehicle to the soldier ants one by one, the secretary actually ran over and started to observe. In the end, he even took the initiative to test it once, using his hands and mouth. It looked clumsy and abnormal, but ultimately failed. But her hands-on and mouth-moving abilities really surprised the protagonist.
This small team set off again, moving quickly along the ant path, temporarily forgetting the fatigue caused by last night's battle, forgetting the seven sacrificed companions, and moving firmly towards the goal.
In the morning and afternoon, this small team passed through the territory of a secondary nest. The closer to the main nest, the greater the density of the distribution of secondary nests, and the smaller the blank areas without ant activity between different secondary nests. Throughout the day, the team encountered no danger.
When we camped at night, the secretary introduced that we could reach the main nest the next morning. The place to camp happens to be in the empty area between the main nest and the secondary nest. Seeing that night was approaching, the protagonist stopped and, together with the secretary, directed the worker ants to dig and build a second temporary camp.
This time the protagonist learned the lesson from the first night and let the worker ants dig two holes. The first one is for the ants in the team. The entrance is very small, a little smaller than the tunnels that the ants used to dig. Two ants can only move forward side by side in a crowded way. The second cave has a larger opening and is not dug deep. The protagonist asks the soldier ants to unload the vehicles and luggage here.
After he finished eating the food for the day, he hurried back to the campsite and asked Strong 1 and Strong 2 to work together to hold a small stone in their mouths to block the entrance, leaving only a small gap to ensure air circulation.
In this way, the campsite is very secretive, and even if the luggage storage area is discovered by centipedes and other predators, it will not attract their attention. The only drawback is that the air in the nest is very dull, and if the protagonist is thirsty again at night, he will have to go out to drink water with a lot of trouble.
But safety comes first, and the protagonist can barely tolerate this. After arranging six soldier ants to take turns guarding in three shifts, the protagonist fell asleep with peace of mind, trying to make up for the lack of sleep on the first day.
