Chapter 579, Contaminated Zone 6 (Part 3)

Xie Tu was in the tent, preparing to contact Minister Duan.

According to procedure, after the mission is completed, the team leader should immediately contact the base to report on the mission status, including the mission progress, material reserves, casualties, etc.

The phone rang for a long time, but was neither answered nor hung up.

Xie Tu frowned slightly.

Minister Duan is always very busy, but the satellite received the armored vehicle's location signal the moment they came out.

The command center will report immediately and will not miss any communications from any combat team.

Xie Tu then dialed the command center number.

The call had not yet been connected when the communicator started vibrating.

[Minister Duan]: "We're in a meeting right now. We've received news that the mission wasn't completed?"

Xie Tu stared at the message for a while, then hung up and replied online, "Well, the situation is a bit complicated. Number Four has been absorbed by Number Six, and two reinforcement sentries were injured. I will report the details when I return to base."

[Minister Duan]: "Received. Return as soon as possible."

Minister Duan's tone was always like this, extremely official and businesslike, without any personal feelings of accountability.

Xie Tu felt a strange, inexplicable feeling deep down.

Following his intuition, he sent another message: "Has there been any unusual activity at the base recently?"

After the message was sent, it showed as "read," but Minister Duan did not reply for a long time.

Xie Tu frowned even more deeply.

In the past, Minister Duan would reply to messages quickly, and even if he was very busy, he would only reply briefly with "Everything is normal" or "Be careful".

He was about to dial the number again when he heard a noise outside.

Xie Tu put down the communicator for the moment, stood up and walked to the tent entrance.

Outside the tent, the scorching sun baked the Gobi Desert, the heat waves distorted the distant scenery, and even the air seemed to crackle slightly as it burned.

Fu Heng, who had just returned, was talking to the sentry at the gate.

Where is the adjutant?

Holding up half a severed piece of greenery, Fu Mo asked the officer on duty, "I need to speak with him."

"adjutant?"

The sentry on duty at the camp looked blank for a moment, then replied, "Our adjutant went to sentry post number 3 to notify the personnel to evacuate."

He then explained, "The contaminated areas have merged again. At the current rate of spread, we probably can't hold out for post number 3. We'll have to move all the equipment and other equipment because we don't have enough manpower there."

The soldier on duty answered flawlessly.

Indeed, because they failed to resolve the fourth contaminated zone, the adjacent third outpost was located within the spread path.

Those devices are too valuable; they must be moved as soon as possible.

Fu Yu had no choice but to give up. She glanced at the Dawn Base insignia on his shoulder and said, "I just found some non-mutated plants nearby. It would be best to notify your base immediately and have them scan all the vegetation in the vicinity."

"Okay." The sentry jogged away.

Fu Mu heard footsteps, looked up, and saw Xie Tu walking towards her.

"You're still awake?"

Xie Tu didn't answer, but instead looked at the somewhat familiar vine in her hand, "Avoiding vine?"

Fu Heng raised an eyebrow. "You know him too?"

Xie Tu nodded: "It's a woody vine that grows in the temperate rainforests of South America, and it's famous for its amazing ability to mimic human features."

The chaste vine can mimic the leaf shape of its host plant, and can even mimic the leaves of multiple different plants at the same time.

When the same chaste vine climbs between different hosts, it can exhibit a variety of different leaf shapes at the same time.

but……

"An unmutated creature? It shouldn't be here."

Xie Tu recognized it as the mutated plant that attacked people in the contaminated area. "Where did you find it?"

Fu Heng pointed behind her: "Two plants were found near the camp. I felt something was wrong and wanted to find someone to find out what was going on, but unfortunately the adjutant at Dawn Base is not here."

Xie Tu: "Should we ask Jiang Mu?"

Fu Heng scoffed, "Ask him? You might as well just call the command center at Dawn Base."

She clearly didn't believe that lazy Jiang Mu knew these things.

When Xie Tu heard her mention making a phone call, the strange feeling in his heart still lingered, and he asked, "Did you manage to contact your base?"

"I didn't have time. I just got back and was about to go back to my tent to contact you again."

Fu Yu didn't mention what she was going out to do.

Xie Tu didn't press the matter further; the mission was over, and it was someone else's private affair.

The two soon parted ways at the camp.

Fu Yan casually put the cut vines into her bag and returned to her tent to contact the base headquarters.

Xie Tu patrolled the area and encountered several logistics personnel wearing red-crowned crane medals.

His memory has always been excellent.

These faces, though not exactly familiar, were ones I had seen before; they were undoubtedly old acquaintances of the base.

No abnormalities were found.

Xie Tu turned and walked toward the medical tent to check on the two wounded sentries.

*

Yun Zhao was also not asleep.

That sticky feeling of being licked by gazes is everywhere.

The weather was sweltering. She lay flat on the folding bed, wide awake, her fingertips silently gripping the dagger beneath the covers.

"I don't think it's my imagination. There really is something watching me. Can you feel it?"

The little bluebird, who had been lying by the pillow, looked around with its icy blue eyes after hearing what she said.

【No. 】

Don't be nervous, we'll kill it when it comes.

Yun Zhao replied in a muffled voice, "I'm not nervous, it's just that I can't sleep because something is staring at me."

Nothing is watching you.

"have."

【No. 】

Yun Zhao was very stubborn: "Yes, you must believe me unconditionally."

But I couldn't find it.

The little bluebird never doubted its own abilities; ordinary monsters simply couldn't escape the capture of its mental threads.

"This shows that it is also very powerful."

Yun Zhao suddenly sat up, put down her dagger, and faced the inner canvas wall of the tent, as if confronting some invisible force.

"The eye in the sky, do you remember it? You've seen it too."

She suspected it was that blood-red eye.

The little bluebird proudly raised its head, [I don't remember.]

In the little guy's eyes, trash isn't worth remembering. He said, "If you have trouble sleeping in your bed, you can go find the cook to sleep with you."

"...I'm not a light sleeper."

Yun Zhao was silent for a moment, then suddenly threw off the thin blanket. "Forget it, let's not sleep. Let's go out and take a look."

She slung her backpack over her shoulder and led the little bluebird out of the tent.

The intense daylight, like molten metal pouring down, stung and burned one's eyes.

Yun Zhao squinted and raised his hand to shield his forehead, but the sunlight filtering through his fingers still stung his skin.

Outside, in the entire rest area, there wasn't even a sentry in sight.

In this kind of weather, even mutants hide in the shadows.

Is it normal that there's no one here?

Being watched outside is more suffocating than the scorching sun.

Yun Zhao was once again certain that it was not an illusion.

That thing kept following it. Could it have left the contaminated area? Or... did they never come out at all?

Where exactly did things go wrong?

Yun Zhao wanted to talk to someone, so she went next door but found that Xie Tu wasn't there.

The tent was tidied up meticulously, and the bedding on the cot was folded into perfect squares with no signs of use, indicating that Xie Tu had not rested at all after entering the tent.

Yun Zhao stood at the tent entrance, pondered for a moment, and then took out the sunglasses he had worn last time from his pack.

She put on her sunglasses, slowly walked towards the shadows, and then suddenly looked up at the sky.

Places beyond the reach of spiritual threads.

Only above the sky.