Chapter Forty-Eight: Different People in the World
Not a single insect was found inside the temple. This shrine, unguarded by insects, resembled a sacred place, yet it was neither solemn nor holy.
Qi An recalled what he had learned in his textbooks: the Fallen Insects obeyed a collective will, and their beliefs, or their way of thinking, were completely unified.
They probably don't need religious sites or dedicated clergy.
Defacing temples is merely a form of expression; for them, blasphemous religions might not even qualify as deliberate humiliation.
Yang Yuning and Li Yi both had a mental enhancement level of 5, but after just one glance at the mural, Yang Yuning's pollution level had reached 55%, while Li Yi's had reached 60%! Qi An first grasped Li Yi's wrist and resonated with her mentally.
Surprisingly, it was not easy to purify. Li Yi was extremely angry, helpless, and even terrified!
His deepest memory was of what had just happened—the defiled Buddhist temple and that eerie pilgrimage scene!
His memory also includes being found by the army as a survivor after being infected with the Kuroshio virus, but encountering Fallen Insects along the way.
The boy ran desperately with the crowd, and in his terror, he turned around and saw a slender wisdom insect catching up with the crowd. Wherever its tentacles touched, screams and strange phenomena arose!
He fell! His head and face slammed into the mud pit, his breath caught in his throat for a moment, and fear made him instinctively clutch tightly to a jade Buddha statue strung on a red rope around his neck!
The Buddha statue was cold, just as the boy's heart and body were cold with despair.
Memories stop here, then loop, and Qi An experiences despair that grows ever deeper with each passing moment.
Her spiritual power transformed into a cold wave, freezing all the delicate tentacles that surged from all directions in Li Yi's spiritual world, and freezing his fear as well!
After repeating this process several times, Li Yi's emotions finally stabilized, and the pollution level decreased.
But he still held onto Qi An's hand tightly, preventing her from leaving.
Qi An's wrists were bruised, and Li Yi was only released after Yang Yuning slashed his arm.
Yang Yuning's pollution level was also very high. He pulled Qi An behind him and glared at Li Yi with his mutated pupils, his whole body full of hostility and aggression!
Despite the pain in his hand, Qi An immediately cleansed it to calm the man down.
Normally, Yang Yuning is very easygoing and cheerful, but at this moment she also didn't give Li Yi a friendly look.
After Li Yi turned his gaze away from Qi An, his face became even more gloomy and dejected.
When Qi An purified the two people, she did not remove her headset. She controlled the drone to scan the entire hall inside and out, recording the murals and graffiti.
The drone flew back to the hilltop 15 minutes later, and the three of them stood silently in the mountain breeze.
“The Buddhist temple is really beautiful. There must be many more beautiful ruins like this on the mainland.” Qi An, who was not fond of talking, was the first to break the silence.
This was very sincere; she could spend an entire day looking at the reliefs on just one mountain gate archway.
“Of course there are many! Before the apocalypse, many cities had famous historical sites and landmark buildings that cost countless manpower and resources to build. These are all symbols of civilization! So the Fallen Worms deserve to die!” Yang Yuning was still furious.
Li Yi sneered.
Yang Yuning truly loathed this person, her gaze shooting straight at him like an arrow: "What are you laughing at?"
"Laugh at your ambition to be a guardian of civilization, a hero of humanity?" Li Yi was unconcerned by his anger, only offering sarcasm.
"You mock heroes, then what do you want to be?" Qi An asked.
Faced with Qi An's question, Li Yi's prickly demeanor softened, but his answer was somewhat irrelevant: "The insect oil we are transporting this time is semi-purified."
Qi An was slightly taken aback. "So?"
"It's not that you can't use fully purified oil, but that semi-purified oil is more attractive to worms."
After we set off, many transport teams will depart from North 1 and various bases in the east. We are the bait to attract the Fallen Insects, the sacrifices to pave the way with blood... at least the largest group of sacrifices." Li Yi said calmly.
Qi An suddenly realized what was going on.
She noticed that the oil in North 1 was in a semi-purified state when she set off.
On the night they rested at the ranch, Qi An also heard the captain say that the convoy commander must report the situation of the fallen insects encountered on the road in a timely manner, especially the road conditions, the distribution of strongholds, and so on.
So, did the command headquarters and their superiors at each base not expect them to come home alive?
"We're lucky to have gotten this far, but we've only covered two-thirds of the journey." Li Yi glanced at Yang Yuning with a mocking look.
"To be a hero to those who are hoping for your death? How noble."
Yang Yuning showed no shock or frustration whatsoever. He didn't avoid Li Yi's gaze and said matter-of-factly, "I know."
Li Yi was taken aback, and Qi An looked at him in surprise as well.
“I know one of our convoy’s missions is to clear the way,” Yang Yuning frowned. “We can protect the other transport convoys, what’s wrong with that?”
His uncle advised him against joining the mission, arguing that the transport team could be used as bait and that it was too dangerous.
Yang Yuning did not hesitate at all. Protecting more people, isn't that the meaning of his joining the army?
His eyes, so clear and bright, looked at Li Yi, making Li Yi flinch.
Qi An felt that starry sky again, but this time it was daytime, the rain had stopped and the sun was shining brightly. Yang Yuning was bathed in the bright and intense midday sun of spring.
There are truly all sorts of different people in this world.
Li Yi and Yang Yuning stared at each other for only two seconds before he turned his head away, muttering, "Madman!" and quickly walked down the mountain.
Qi An slowed down a bit, because he suddenly discovered that the scenery on this small hill was quite beautiful.
Wildflowers of all colors bloomed all over the ground, a herd of wild horses scattered in twos and threes on the grass, and several groundhogs stood in a row on the rocks, curiously observing the two-legged creatures.
Qi An looked at it for a moment, then smiled and bent down to pick a bright yellow wildflower.
Yang Yuning raised an eyebrow and immediately said, "It's okay if we are delayed for 10 minutes."
After saying that, she started picking wildflowers and quickly gathered a large bunch of colorful ones, which she handed to Qi An somewhat shyly.
Qi An hesitated for a moment, but accepted the flowers anyway. Holding the flowers, he felt relaxed and went down the mountain.
The round trip took an hour and a half, exceeding the expected time, but it wasn't a big problem. Everyone in the convoy had a tough journey, and they were more than happy to get a little more rest.
Qi An tied the bunch of wildflowers with a thin rope and hung it on the side of the passenger door, filling the car with fragrance.
Yang Yuning had a smile on her face all afternoon.
After another full day of travel, the convoy was almost out of the mountainous area, and two-thirds of the journey had been completed.
Qi Anxin felt that although they were bait with a low survival rate, things were still possible, and perhaps they could return to the base safely?
As they were thinking this, they had almost reached the exit of the mountain. The mountain road forked ahead, heading in two directions, one to the south and one to the north.
Both directions were completely unknown this time, so everyone voted for the North Route based on their intuition.
As the convoy drove onto the northern road, Qi An's back suddenly stiffened.
She sensed the Fallen Insects, above...?
Qi An took off his headset and looked out the car window. On the mountain peak where the two roads intersected, he could vaguely see a small cluster of buildings.
Could it be another Buddhist temple?
Her field of vision was limited, and she soon lost sight of it, so she quickly put the headset back on and adjusted the drone.
From the drone's view, it was a building half-hidden in the mountainside, with a simple shape and a solid, heavy appearance.
Qi An drew upon her limited knowledge of pre-apocalyptic architecture, wondering if it was a military base.
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