After dawn, Xie Xuan entered the town as planned.

This town is similar to the red nematode town that Xie Xuan and his friends passed by last time, but the buildings and roads here are better preserved.

If Xie Xuan didn't clearly know that she was outside the wall and that this place had been abandoned for more than a hundred years, she would probably have thought that this was a place inside the wall where an infection had just broken out.

The rainy season has ended for almost half a month, and the mycelium on the ground has almost withered after several days of sunny days.

The whole town has a desolate and lonely feeling, but because the buildings in the town are well preserved, it gives people a sense of incongruity that humans lived here not long ago.

The road was very flat, and Xie Xuan and his team drove all the way to the mission collection point without encountering any trouble or danger along the way.

Unlike when they encountered this town outside the town, when they actually entered it, it was so quiet and peaceful that it was unbelievable.

The air was filled with a faint smell of corruption, and from time to time there were the cries of strange infected animals.

Chongming stayed in the RV as usual, while the other three went together to carry out the sampling mission.

The samples collected were similar to last time, including soil samples, plant specimens and animal specimens.

But this time they were in the town, not in the wilderness where there were so many mushrooms. The method Song Zhixian suggested last time of finding a sturdy mushroom tree and uprooting it to find soil was no longer feasible.

However, Xie Xuan's sharp dagger can come in handy at this time.

They dug about half a meter in a place that looked like a roadside flower bed and saw soil mixed with mycelium.

Coincidentally, there was a palm-sized insect pupa-like thing in the soil that Xie Xuan dug up.

It looked very much like the shed cicada pupae that Xie Xuan often saw on the trees in the summer, but the cicada pupae in the past were definitely not this big.

"What luck!" Xiao Yao placed the empty insect pupa into the sample box and asked Song Zhixian, "Does this mean we've completed the animal sample collection?"

Song Zhixian nodded, "It counts."

Perhaps Xie Xuan's few good lucks ran out when he found the cicada pupa. They searched the area for a whole hour but couldn't find any trace of plants.

Although Song Zhixian said that anything would be fine, whether it was plant roots, fruits, or seeds, the key point was that there was nothing but dried mycelium in this small town, and no other plants.

Although Xie Xuan is not short of money now, submitting one less sample will reduce the task reward by one-third. Thinking of the considerable reward for completing the second task, Xie Xuan still wants to struggle.

Just as they were discussing whether to give up collecting plant samples, a black cat emerged from Xie Xuan's shadow.

Perhaps the cat that Xie Xuan mentioned casually last night inspired the shadow's wisdom. This morning, Xie Xuan found that the shadow had turned into an abstract kitten that was acting cute and coquettish like Xie Xuan.

But the shadow probably got some misleading images from Xie Xuan's memory at the beginning, and turned into a cat-headed man covered with fungi, and his whole body was pitch black.

Xie Xuan was so scared that she almost threw Shadow away. Later, Xie Xuan showed Shadow what a correct cat was. Shadow was very smart and reshaped himself into a small and cute shape.

However, before Xie Xuan came out to collect samples, she asked Shadow to stay put as she didn't have time to play with it for the time being.

Although Shadow cannot speak, his intelligence level seems to have improved a lot after being kidnapped and coming back this time. He has been quiet for more than an hour.

"What's wrong?" Xie Xuan asked Yingzi.

Shadow shook his long tail, pointed in a direction with his front paws, and ran in that direction.

It didn't run fast, as if it was waiting for Xie Xuan to catch up.

Ever since Shadow was driven out of her body and into Shadow, the telepathy between Xie Xuan and Shadow has become much weaker than before, but Xie Xuan could still vaguely feel that Shadow wanted to say that it had found the plant and asked them to follow it.

"It said it found some plants and asked us to follow it," said Xie Xuan.

Xiao Yao and Song Zhixian said in surprise: "Let's go and take a look."

The three of them followed the shadow leading the way, passed through several alleys, and suddenly the view in front of them opened up.

This place was probably originally a football field, and the shadow led them directly from the entrance to the audience seats.

But what grows on the football field is not grass, but a forest.

I don’t know if it’s because the football field is designed in the shape of a bird’s nest, which just blocks the infection outside, but the trees here look almost the same as what Xie Xuan remembered.

They grow very lushly, but do not look very healthy. In early autumn, just after the end of midsummer, most of the leaves have turned yellow and dry.

The woods that cover an entire football field and the mushroom forest outside give people completely different feelings. Although they look dilapidated, they give people a shocking sense of life.

Especially for Xiao Yao, who lives inside the wall and will probably never see so many trees anywhere else in his life.

Xiao Yao couldn't help but curse and looked at Song Zhixian, "Hasn't your garrison ever been to this place?"

If you have been here, the value of so many trees that appear to be uninfected is immeasurable.

In the wasteland era, untouched original ecological products, such as wooden objects, are as valuable as luxury goods.

"I don't remember being here before." Song Zhixian walked a little closer. The trees had grown to the center of the stands, and were estimated to be about seven or eight meters high.

Song Zhixian had no knowledge of trees, but it would definitely take more than one year for a tree to grow to seven or eight meters tall.

Xie Xuan recognized this kind of tree. It was a very common roadside tree a hundred years ago.

"Did you hear the heartbeat of the infected organism?" Xie Xuan asked Song Zhixian.

Song Zhixian shook his head, "No."

Xie Xuan didn't feel any scent of fungi around her, but she always felt uneasy in her heart.

Even Shadow was at her feet, wrapping his tail around her ankles.

"Then let's fold a piece of paper as a sample?" Xiao Yao said.

Xie Xuan and Song Zhixian nodded.

Because the trees growing on the football field have grown very tall, they can pick branches by just walking to the edge of the stands.

Xiao Yao walked the fastest and broke off a small branch about the thickness of a thumb.

The leaves on the branches had turned yellow and withered, making a slight crackling sound as Xiao Yao moved.

Song Zhixian opened the sample box, and when Xiao Yao was about to put it in, Xie Xuan suddenly saw a white object the size of a grain of rice in Xiao Yao's hand.