"It's my snake detective," Xia Hua raised her palm and looked at her wrist, then nodded, "It's back."
"Has it... any results from the investigation?" Luo Jiutian asked.
Xia Hua tilted her head slightly and made a listening gesture. Although no one else could hear her snaking voice, everyone neatly chose to remain silent.
After a while, Xia Hua straightened her neck again and frowned tightly.
"There are some results," Xia Hua said. "Snake Detective said that the thing seems to be a human, but it doesn't seem to be..."
"Oh, why is the answer like this again," Luo Jiutian wailed, "Why don't everyone act like a Taoist priest and not speak clearly?"
"Where can I get it?" The Taoist priest immediately argued.
"If you don't think so, then there won't be," Luo Jiutian dismissed the Taoist priest and said to Xia Hua, "Sister Hua, what were the original words of the snake detective?"
Xia Hua raised her eyebrows, "Do you want me to repeat it to you in the language it uses?"
"No... of course that's not what I meant." Luo Jiutian was so frightened that he shrank behind the Taoist priest. "What I meant was that you should translate the original words."
"Don't you think I was translating just now?" Xia Hua crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, "It's useless for you to hide behind the Taoist priest. Do you think I dare not hit the Taoist priest?"
The Taoist priest lying on the gun could only sigh humbly, turned his head and whispered to Luo Jiutian, "Jiutian, don't always hide behind me, sometimes I am also afraid."
"What I just said are the exact words of the snake detective," Xia Hua cleared her throat and said, "It also said that the thing is still some distance away from us. The route chosen by Jiutian successfully confused it. Before it found us, we You can still prepare more.”
"But we don't know anything, what should we prepare?" Luo Jiutian said.
"Ask Zhou...hey, where is Zhou Ye?" Xia Hua then realized that someone was missing, "Where did Zhou Ye go?"
Everyone looked around. The Taoist priest looked inside through the broken window and saw Zhou Ye sitting alone in a dark room, looking at the table, seemingly in a daze.
"Look."
The Taoist priest pointed in Zhou Ye's direction with his chin, and everyone turned to look over.
"What is he doing?" Xia Hua asked, "Why does he look so stupid?"
"Maybe it's because the brain hasn't recovered yet." Luo Jiutian pointed to his head and said.
Li Muyuan closed his eyes and thought for a while, then walked into the room without saying a word.
The other three people saw this, looked at each other, and followed.
Zhou Ye put one hand on the dusty table and clenched the other hand into a fist. Li Muyuan walked to Zhou Ye and followed his eyes.
In the gap between the table and the wall, several pieces of dark green moss grew. The moss came from years of moisture and darkness, secretly growing and parasitizing here.
Li Muyuan opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something.
Lao Luo also stared at the moss carefully for a long time. Luo Jiutian rubbed Lao Luo's arm and wanted to ask him what he found, but Lao Luo elbowed him away impatiently.
"Zhou Ye," Xia Hua finally asked, "Did you discover anything?"
Zhou Ye raised his head as if he had just woken up from a dream. He looked at the others and muttered after a while, "Hair...people...animals..."
"What?" Xia Hua didn't understand, "What are you talking about?"
"Did your snake detective say that the thing looks like a human but not like a human at the same time, which is weird?" Zhou Ye asked urgently.
"That's right," Xia Hua nodded, "Do you have an idea?"
"Moss...parasitism..." Li Muyuan said, "Did you think of zombies?"
"Zombie insect?"
"What is this?" Luo Jiutian asked both Li Muyuan and Lao Luo, "I have never heard of it."
"Is there not much you haven't heard of?" Lao Luo glared at his son, "Shut up and listen to Mu Yuan."
As a result, Mu Yuan didn't say anything this time, but Zhou Ye opened his mouth to explain.
"Although the Corpse Bug is called a bug, it is actually a kind of fungus," Zhou Ye said. "Just like its name, this fungus will parasitize on human corpses and gradually spread to the whole body of the corpse. , when the whole body of a corpse is eaten away by zombies, the corpse will be wrapped in black hair-like filaments, just like a chrysalis, hence the name zombies."
"You mean, that inexplicable spirit tide is actually this kind of zombie insect?" Luo Jiutian showed a disgusted expression, "How come everything can form a spirit tide now?"
"Don't underestimate fungi," Li Muyuan said seriously, "Fungi existed before there were humans in this world. Logically speaking, they are more advanced creatures than humans."
The humans who were targeted by the "advanced creatures" simultaneously lowered their heads and became distressed.
"I remembered it after you guys mentioned it. I've heard of the Corpse Bug," Xia Hua said. "It's said that this thing is rare. Zhou Ye, you won't even introduce the Corpse Bug into the game, right?"
"No, no, corpse-changing insects are indeed extremely rare. We have never seen them," Zhou Ye waved his hand, "What's more, corpse-changing insects can only deal with corpses, and they are useless to us."
This also makes sense.
"So, this corpse insect was not brought in by Zhou Ye and the others," Li Muyuan said, "In that case... it was attracted by this space itself?"
"Wait, I have a question," Luo Jiutian raised his hand, "Then what we see, is it the coffin of the fungus, or the coffin of the cannibalized corpse?"
Li Muyuan looked at Zhou Ye, and their eyes collided with each other, as did their thoughts.
"I think... it should be a combination of the two," Li Muyuan said. "For some reason, the thoughts of the corpse insect and the corpse reached a consensus, and the two together formed the current Lingxi."
"Sounds very difficult to deal with," Luo Jiutian pointed out the current focus of his work succinctly, "then does this zombie insect have any weaknesses?"
"Weakness..." Zhou Ye looked out the window at the dark night. The weeds in the yard were rustling like ghosts. "The biggest weakness of the corpse insect is that it cannot leave the parasitic entity. Therefore, even if the body is completely They have all been eaten away by the corpse worm, and it cannot leave that corpse to eat other corpses. When the nutrients disappear, the corpse worm will die with the corpse."
"In other words, when the corpse appears in the pupa state, what everyone sees is actually the dead corpse insect." Li Muyuan added.
"So, theoretically, as long as we find a way to dismantle the zombies and corpses, we can make them disappear, right?" Luo Jiutian said.
"So to speak," Zhou Ye did not deny, "but how do we take them apart?"
(End of chapter)
