The next day, Lang Hua and others were on their way back to the base.
In the afternoon, the sky in the distance is foggy, and it is estimated that it will get dark very quickly today.
The sun is shining brightly on the western horizon, and large snowflakes are fluttering in the tornado. Most of them melted the moment they hit the ground, leaving only a small wet trace.
If the north wind were stronger, perhaps this wet trace would not remain for long.
But there were still a lot of snowflakes left in some shade areas. If this continues, after tonight, this provincial road will probably be completely white. And judging from Lang Hua's experience, this snowstorm will only get worse tonight.
Gusts of wind carried snow, which hit the outer fabric of everyone's jackets, making a shuddering sound.
Lang Hua looked up at the snowy sky and murmured to himself: "November...it shouldn't be December yet."
"It's the first snow in 2275."
Lin Qian also sighed softly. In just half a month, they experienced too many twists and turns. Looking back now, life before the disaster is still as clear as yesterday.
"Yes," Lang Hua nodded, "I came earlier than before."
Yang Xiaoxiao took off his hood and hurriedly interrupted: "The No. 2 bus parked on the eighth floor~"
Duan Hei also howled: "Took away the last falling yellow leaf~"
It has to be said that the two of them were seriously out of tune.
But Xiao Heizi and Yang Xiaoxiao didn't care. After they sang, they looked at each other, smiled, and gave a high-five with their little hands raised.
It wasn't until Lin Qian glared at them the next second that the two live treasures put away their playful smiles and shrank their necks.
"Yeah, I'll go. It's so cold, so cold!" Yang Xiaoxiao suddenly jumped three feet high.
It turned out that a few large snowflakes crossed the collar and fell on her neck.
Who told her to just take off her hat?
Lin Qian couldn't hold her face any longer and burst out laughing.
Duan Hei also wanted to laugh, but Yang Xiaoxiao kicked him in the butt first.
He rubbed his buttocks and was very dissatisfied with this differential treatment.
"roll."
Yang Xiaoxiao opened his mouth and Duan Hei immediately ran away behind his sister Duan Qing, sticking out his tongue and making faces at Yang Xiaoxiao from a distance.
"The black fog of spores in the atmosphere lingers after the disaster, causing the temperature difference in winter to narrow, with temperatures becoming colder during the day and milder at night."
"The spore communities in the black fog will also promote the production of "condensation nuclei", so this early arrival of "first snow" can be considered a trace."
"Ah?" Yang Xiaoxiao suddenly exclaimed after listening to Lang Hua's explanation, "Aren't there black fog spores in these snowflakes?"
She rolled her eyes, looked like a dead fish, and hurriedly said sadly: "It's over, a lot of it fell on me, I'm going to be infected."
After running to Lang Hua, Yang Xiaoxiao grabbed his sleeve and pretended to wipe away his tears.
"Brother, what should I do~ You have to save me."
If you ignore these modalities and listen attentively with your eyes closed, her tone is quite cheerful...
Unexpectedly, Lan Xi came forward diligently at this time, patted her chest and vowed: "Xiaoxiao, I'm not afraid, I'll brush off the snowflakes for you."
"Hey, no, no, no, no... you really don't have to..." Yang Xiaoxiao twitched the corners of her mouth and declined quickly.
"You are my best friend, and I will not let you be infected with the zombie transformation. The worst case... the worst case is that I will turn into a black corpse with you!"
As Lan Xi said this, she patted Yang Xiaoxiao's long-sleeved hoodie more vigorously. The force was so strong that Yang Xiaoxiao almost wanted to vomit blood...
In the end, Lan Xi was done and ready to take credit, but she got a huge roll of the eyes from Yang Xiaoxiao.
Please, dear sister.
Look at the atmosphere, ah hey!
Lang Hua didn't care about Yang Xiaoxiao's little thoughts. He rubbed the little girl's head and told her:
"It's not that scary. First of all, the proportion of black fog spores in the snowflake crystals is not high, it's just an order of magnitude more than in the air."
"And there are countless black fog spores in the atmosphere. These colonies are extremely small, close to nanometers, and cannot be seen by the naked eye." Chen Xinyan came over and took over the conversation, "Usually when we breathe, we inhale countless black fog spores and are exposed to the outside world. Their skin is also exposed to countless colonies of spores."
She took off her hat completely, still wearing a white coat, as if she didn't care about the coolness caused by the wind and snow.
"That's right." Lang Hua nodded.
Lin Qian made sense: "Then I understand, just like the human body naturally coexists with various microorganisms. These black mist spores that we repeatedly come into contact with are not harmful to us."
"After 'Advent', we have all completed evolutionary changes, so we have a certain degree of resistance? These foreign spores will not conflict with our evolutionary core, right?" The intelligence of the Lin family has been passed down from generation to generation, and Lin Wenjin is also very intelligent. A person who accepts new things very quickly.
"Yes. Except for the black mist eruption stage, these spore communities will be in a silent period without much activity." Lang Hua added, "In fact, for those who survive, if they deceive themselves and others to live, this world will be completely different. , there is not much difference compared to before the disaster.”
…
Within an hour or two, snowflakes had already fallen thickly on the ground.
More than twenty people in Lang Hua's team of evolvers are currently hiding behind a broken wall, lying on the cold snow and trying to reduce their presence.
There are falling snowflakes on all sides of the broken wall, but at the end of people's sight there is some "fluttering" movement.
The distance is not close, about forty or fifty meters.
"What is it?" Duan Hei asked in a low voice, "Is it another corpse bird?"
"No," Chen Xinyan looked intently into the distance, and then replied, "It's a bat, a group of bats to be precise."
Lang Hua stood aside and said nothing, not because he didn't see it. On the contrary, he saw it clearly.
Among these people, except Chen Xinyan, who has the ability to "micro", it is Lang Hua who has the highest evolutionary level and the broadest vision.
He could see clearly, so he could see the "monsters" swirling in groups in the wind and snow.
Their wingspan is more than 30 centimeters, almost as big as ordinary pigeons before the disaster, and completely exceeds the normal size of ordinary house bats before the disaster.
The forelimbs of bats are very developed, and the upper arms, forearms, metacarpals, and finger bones are all very long. After the catastrophe, ordinary bats evolved into mutated black beasts. The five toes are sharper than before and contain highly toxic substances. It is a nightmare for ordinary evolvers.
"Brother Lang Hua, why don't they leave?" Yang Xiaoxiao poked Lang Hua's waist.
"Shh," the latter put his index finger up to his lips and explained in a low voice: "Maybe he's 'lost'."
"get lost?"
"Like dolphins and whales, bats use ultrasonic pulses to locate food on their path, determine the size and shape, and then communicate with each other. When the bats aim at the food, the echo pulses surge, and the food is captured."
"However," Lang Hua changed the subject, "In such heavy snowfall weather, the 'impurities' in the air that hinder echolocation increased sharply, and the bat group found it difficult to adapt in a short period of time, so chaos occurred."
"By the way," Lin Qian suddenly thought of something, "Aren't all bats hibernating? Why do they still appear now?"
"No, there are many types of bats. I remember that some living in tropical areas do not hibernate." Yang Xiaoxiao interjected, "It is said on TV that our northern bats hibernate because their food is mostly insects, and insects are Winter is the hibernation period or the eggs are waiting to hatch, so bats have no choice but to hibernate if they don’t have anything to eat.”
As she talked, she seemed to have discovered something, but she just couldn't figure it out.
"Xiaoxiao should have discovered the problem." Lang Hua saw her appearance, smiled and said, "She is right. Many animals hibernate not because they are afraid of the cold, but because they lack food. For example, guys like brown bears are fat. They are hairy and thick, so they are not very afraid of the cold. However, they live close to the Arctic Circle, and there is not enough food to begin with. They spend most of the year except hibernating eating to store fat. In winter, food is hard to find. , often a lot of energy is wasted but only a small amount of energy is found in food, which is not worth the gain.”
Lang Hua spread his hands and said: "In order not to starve to death, they have to find a place to sleep, or lie still, keeping the body's consumption at a very low level, relying on the fat stored in the body to wait for the warmth of spring. Over time, evolution has formed the habit of hibernation. Therefore, both hibernation and aestivation are the result of animals evolving to adapt to the environment."
Lin Qian suddenly said: "You mean...they are hunting?"
"Maybe." Lang Hua said ambiguously, "But whether they are hunting or wandering, they are extremely dangerous to us. Don't forget, this is a period of disaster. Insects may not be able to eat in winter, but the blood of living people can It’s much easier to find, hehe.”
Lang Hua's smile made Lin Qian's hair stand on end.
"Don't scare her," Li Liping scolded with a smile, "Bats eat insects and are beneficial animals. There are only a few species that suck blood, so we can't lump them together."
"It is true," Lang Huasurong said, "but the flesh and blood of the evolved ones contains abundant energy, which is indeed a great temptation for them."
"It's true." Yang Qinghua on the side shivered, "Before the disaster, I had seen sheep eating meat, horses eating chicken cubs, and squirrels eating field mice. No creature would refuse the prey that comes to the door..."
Hearing this, everyone looked at me and me, with traces of fear in their eyes.
"Then let's leave quickly. They shouldn't find us," Chen Chongyin said in a low voice, "Didn't Lang Hua just say that the bat group has been disturbed by the environment?"
After hearing what he said, Lin Wenjin immediately curled his lips: "Then you're welcome. Do you know that the bat's echolocation is extraordinarily accurate? Even at night, it can detect what looks like human hair even at night when you can't see anything. Insects of different sizes. If you want to die, don’t drag us along.”
Sun Gui said harshly: "What are you afraid of? In the worst case, we will fight with them!"
"How do you fight? Do you think we are all hard-shelled turtles like you? We don't want to transform into poisoned corpses."
"You! What do you think we should do?"
"Everyone, be quiet and lie down lower." Lang Hua scolded, "We'd better wait for them to pass."
"Sister Xinyan, Xiaoxiao, you will be on guard for the time being and report any situation in a timely manner."
…
The winter snow was bitingly cold. Lang Hua took the lead and lay down in the snowdrift, staring nervously at the mutant bats in the distance.
In fact, Lang Hua has been vigilant ever since he discovered the mutated bat swarm. However, what he was wary of was not the fangs and claws of the mutated bats, or even the potent spore toxins that could turn low-level evolvers into corpses on the spot, but the unique ability of the mutated bats after the disaster - sonic attack.
When bats use their nasal cavity to emit ultrasonic pulses, the baffle structure "nose leaf" in front of their nose will deform in various sizes. The nose lobe is composed of skin and connective tissue and has a complex structure. It has a real-time impact on the directionality of ultrasound motion, causing the rays to diffract, which in turn affects "sounding" and echolocation.
In the research data compiled after the disaster, mutant bats can emit ultrasonic waves close to 400,000 Hz, and their nerve reflection speed exceeds 600km/s. This kind of ultrasonic wave has extremely strong penetrating ability and is easy to obtain relatively concentrated "sound energy". The huge energy is enough to cause severe forced vibration and break the human bones.
You must know that long before the disaster, ultrasonic waves were widely used in distance measurement, speed measurement, cleaning, welding, gravel, etc. Its sonic energy can even destroy bacterial structures and sterilize items.
When the frequency of the periodic driving force is equal to the natural frequency of the object, the amplitude reaches the maximum and resonance occurs, which even evolutionaries cannot bear.
Although human muscle tissue is already a pretty good shock-absorbing device, facing a swarm of mutant bats is like hitting a stone with an egg!
However, the ultrasonic path of the mutant bat is mainly reflection and refraction. Lang Hua and the others are now hiding in another direction and will most likely not be discovered.
In fact, Lang Hua is also betting that the catastrophic process of this world is still under his control.
Because he knew that three years after the catastrophe, a large-scale "mass mutation" occurred in the Black Beast tribe, producing a large number of mutants within each race.
Among the mutated bat groups, there is a kind of "secondary bat" produced. This kind of "secondary bat" is rare in number and can emit infrasound waves with a frequency of 10 to 15 Hz. Infrasound waves are not easily attenuated, and their longer wavelength allows them to diffract around certain large obstacles.
The sound wave diffraction of "secondary bats" is coincidentally close to the vibration frequency of biological organs, which makes it easy to resonate, interfere with the normal function of the nervous system, and cause dizziness, nausea, vomiting, loss of balance, and even mental depression. . Stronger infrasound waves can also cause deafness, coma, mental disorder and even death.
In Lang Hua's memory, the most terrifying thing is the "Infrasound King Bat", which can easily cause people within the diffraction range to fall into crazy hallucinations and kill each other in a short period of time, which is very terrifying. The "Infrasonic King Bat" has almost no intelligence, but it passively produces secondary disasters wherever it goes. In the later stages of the disaster, various gathering places were miserable.
…
"Brother, Sister Xinyan said they have flown away."
After listening to Xiaoxiao's report, Lang Hua looked up from the snow.
"Flying far?" He finally confirmed.
"Yes." Yang Xiaoxiao blushed, a little surprised, "They didn't fly towards us. After the wind and snow subsided, they flew straight to the south."
It seems that the little boy and girl were severely cold this time.
"Xiaoxiao, thank you for your hard work." Lang Hua said distressedly.
He stood up and breathed a sigh of relief to the people around him: "We escaped a disaster this time."
"A catastrophe?" Chen Xinyan's expression was a little confused.
Lang Hua shook his head and indicated that this was not the place to talk. The wind and snow gradually subsided, but the temperature was terrifyingly low. Trapped in the snow for most of the day, the team now urgently needs a campsite to stay warm and rest.
Lang Hua looked into the distance, and then said: "There is a gas station ahead. We will camp here tonight. We will wait until the snow stops tomorrow before leaving."
After he finished speaking, he patted the snowflakes on his body and took the lead.
But just as Lang Hua pulled his feet out of the snow and took two steps forward, he suddenly felt his eyes go dark.
"Boom."
In his last conscious state, he heard the sound of himself falling heavily to the ground.
"Lang Hua!"
"Brother Lang Hua, what's wrong with you?"
"Aunt Ping! Aunt Ping, come here quickly, there is a lot of blood in his nose."
…
