Chapter 18
Yan Hong successfully climbed up the rock wall to the ground, found a sturdy tree nearby, tied a safety rope to it, and threw the rope down so that several people could climb up with the rope.
Chen Yunliang and Shao Xingyang climbed up naturally and easily. Next was Lu Shiyu. Lu Shiyu had no experience in rock climbing and had never even climbed a tree. In the end, she could only connect and fix the safety rope and safety belt, and then let the people above pull her up.
With his limbs hanging in the air, Lu Shiyu suddenly felt like a plush doll caught by a mechanical claw in a claw machine. He felt a little dizzy when he looked down and could only use both hands to hold the rope to get some sense of security.
After Lu Shiyu was pulled up shakily, the rope was dropped again. Tang Zeyu fixed the luggage on the rope below and asked several people to lift the things up first, and finally Tang Zeyu.
"It's finally out." Yan Hong stretched, as if she had been feeling very suffocated during this time down there.
Lu Shiyu looked ahead and saw that it was still a forest, but when he looked inside, he could see that the trees here were obviously growing much better than the ones they had come from. Not only were the branches and leaves denser, the trunks were thicker, and even the height was much higher.
"The road ahead is almost completely undocumented at the base, and it will harbor even more aberrant creatures with higher degrees of distortion and greater aggression." Tang Zeyu addressed the entire team, but it was clearly meant for the newcomer, Lu Shiyu. "Don't fall behind, don't leave the team without permission, and tell me immediately if you find any problems. Do you understand?"
"I understand now," Shao Xingyang said in a long tone, yawning. "Why are you giving me all these precautions just like the teacher in school who told me not to go swimming outdoors?"
"I'm not saying this to you, so just pretend you didn't hear it." Chen Yunliang took out the glasses he had placed in the glasses case last night and put them on.
"What do distorted creatures with higher degrees of distortion look like?" Lu Shiyu asked curiously.
"I advise you not to be too curious," Yan Hong said with the air of an experienced person, "Those things seem to only appear in fantasy novels."
Hearing this, Lu Shiyu was not frightened but became even more curious.
"Fantasy novels? Are there unicorns or dragons?"
Yan Hong gave her a strange look and said, "This isn't a fairy tale. What are you thinking? They'll just be more bizarre and disgusting than the last."
"All right."
After packing their bags, they headed into a denser forest. From the outside, they looked like drops of water falling into the ocean, disappearing as soon as they entered the forest. Only two safety ropes tied to the trees were left as a mark and a tool for those who came later.
Most of the sunlight in the forest is blocked by the dense treetops above. The greedy big trees absorb most of the sunlight, and only a little is scattered from individual gaps for the plants below. But this also makes it convenient for the Eagle Squad. With the trees providing shade, some trouble is reduced. They don't have to worry about being exposed to the scorching sun, and walking is easier.
After this period of forced training, Lu Shiyu finally got used to walking like this every day.
The good news was that they didn't encounter any terrifying-looking deformed creatures along the way, but the bad news was that they had no food to cook dinner.
We walked until it was almost dark, and there were still only trees around us. There were no wild fruits or vegetables, and no animals came to our door. The search for food was at a standstill.
"You can't eat the bark, right?" Shao Xingyang tapped the hard bark. "Even if I boil it, I can't bite it."
"On the bright side, maybe it's eating grass roots?" said Chen Yunliang.
"If we can't find any food, we'll have to eat what I brought," Lu Shiyu said with some worry. "After all, the amount I brought is limited. If we finish it too soon, there won't be any food left for later."
After considering for a moment, Tang Zeyu asked a few people to look around first to see if they could find anything edible.
Lu Shiyu walked around but couldn't find any wild vegetables. When he was at a loss, he discovered a strange-looking plant.
This plant resembled the elm trees often used as bonsai, but Lu Shiyu compared it to the surrounding trees and realized this tree-like plant didn't look like a sapling. Its trunk was very thick, while its branches and leaves were very thin. It was as if all the nutrients were concentrated in the trunk, leaving the other branches to scavenge. Even so, its branches were dotted with small red fruits.
Maybe I really have to gnaw on the bark, Lu Shiyu thought to himself with self-mockery. However, the leaves of this tree-like plant seemed very tender, and the fruits were also well-grown, round and plump. Lu Shiyu had the idea of picking some to take back and see if he could eat them. Just as he reached out to pick them, the plant suddenly retreated a distance, just barely avoiding Lu Shiyu's hand.
"What's going on?" Lu Shiyu frowned slightly, thinking that he didn't grab it accurately just now. He reached out again, but was dodged again this time. However, this time Lu Shiyu could see clearly that the branches and leaves were shaking slightly, and the plant had indeed moved.
Lu Shiyu did not give up and tried to catch the plant several times. The plant dodged left and right. Lu Shiyu stretched out his hands to attack it from both sides, but the plant actually ran away!
Lu Shiyu witnessed the plant moving directly in front of him and blinked to make sure it was not an illusion.
Without thinking too much, it was certain that this was also a creature affected by the deformation. Lu Shiyu ran to catch up, but the plant was too fast and flexible, and it managed to dodge successfully several times when it was almost caught.
Lu Shiyu chased the fast-moving plant and saw Yan Hong and Shao Xingyang not far away and shouted hurriedly: "Catch it quickly! Don't let it get away!"
At first, the two of them didn't understand what Lu Shiyu meant. After all, there was no animal she was chasing nearby. But soon they noticed a plant that was moving on the ground.
"Oh my god, am I hallucinating because of hunger?"
Shaoxing Yang rubbed his eyes in disbelief. The plant was still moving flexibly, and it didn't look like a plant that would only take root in one place.
Lu Shiyu originally thought that everything would be safe if he found Yan Hong, but unexpectedly, even Yan Hong couldn't catch that thing. Yan Hong was about to catch it several times, but was always just a little bit short. Even Yan Hong herself felt incredible.
"What's going on?"
Yan Hong even activated her special ability in the end. She moved so fast that only her shadow was left. She fought with the plant several times, but in the end she only managed to grab a few leaves.
Yan Hong was breathing slightly. She didn't know if it was an illusion, but she felt that the plant was also breathing, and its branches and leaves were swaying slightly, as if it was also very tired.
Just as both sides were wary of each other's next move, a water ball hit the plant. The plant froze instantly, and the leaves that were originally shaking also stopped.
Yan Hong found the right moment to grab the plant. Although it could still move, it could only rush around blindly and no longer had the flexible dodging ability it had before. It was caught by Yan Hong in a short while.
Lu Shiyu looked at Shao Xingyang, who was also confused, and asked, "Why did you throw a water ball over there just now?"
"I don't know. I just wanted to see if I could hit it, and I actually did."
Lu Shiyu: “…”
Yan Hong grabbed the plant and felt that the roots below were gripping the soil extremely tightly. She grabbed the trunk with both hands, spread her legs to make it easier to exert force, and finally pulled the runaway plant up by the roots.
"F*ck! What the hell is this!"
Yan Hong couldn't help but curse, but she managed not to throw the damn thing away. The two people who walked in to check were also shocked.
To say it's scary is an understatement. It's truly horrifying. The plant looks like a bonsai plant, but is actually similar to a radish. The exposed part looks like the trunk of a tree, but that's actually the exposed roots. Two-thirds of the rhizome is buried under the soil and is unusually thick.
The most terrifying thing is that it looks like a deformed baby. You can even tell where the head and feet are. Although it is very abstract, it immediately reminds people of the appearance of a human baby, and its face is particularly distorted.
"If the ginseng fruit looks like this, then I can understand why Tang Sanzang couldn't eat it."
Shaoxing Yang swallowed his saliva and looked at the plant whose roots were still twisting, feeling scared.
"It might rely on these roots to move," Lu Shiyu said, pointing to the thick, forked rhizomes. "But it probably won't be able to move once it leaves the ground."
"No, it's really powerful," Yan Hong stretched out her arms and tried to move the thing as far away as possible. "It looks so disgusting, I want to throw it away right now."
"Don't throw it away, otherwise what will we eat for dinner?"
Yan Hong: “?”
Shaoxing Yang: “?”
Tang Zeyu and Chen Yunliang rushed over after hearing the noise: "?"
"People shouldn't eat this kind of thing even if they starve to death, right?" Yan Hong shook the plant in her hand. The thing felt the shaking and all the extended roots retracted and coiled around the main body.
"But you also know that the deformed creatures you'll encounter will become increasingly distorted in appearance. If you can't adapt, you'll have nothing to eat."
Yan Hong looked embarrassed: "But how can anyone eat this?"
Shaoxing Yang nodded frantically in agreement: "Yes, yes, this thing looks too inhumane."
"That's not so exaggerated," Lu Shiyu said as he took the plant from Yan Hong's hand. "Leave the food processing to me. Go dig a few more."
"Do you want to catch more?" Yan Hong's tone suddenly rose several degrees.
"Just one is definitely not enough, let's get a few more."
There was no other way, Yan Hong and Shao Xingyang had to take Tang Zeyu and Chen Yunliang who had just arrived to catch the plants. Fortunately, they had just summed up some experience. One person was responsible for attracting the attention of the plants, and Shao Xingyang could capture them more easily by pouring a water ball on them. As for why this was the case, Shao Xingyang himself didn't know.
Lu Shiyu held the shivering, huddled plants in his hands and wondered why they were so easy to catch when he watered them. Were they afraid of water? Unlikely. What plant is afraid of water?
Lu Shiyu felt the wetness on his hands, where the water Shaoxing Yang had used to water the plants still remained. Lu Shiyu looked at the branches and leaves that had been soaked in water, and suddenly seemed to have discovered the secret of how plants could cleverly avoid capture, and why they lost their ability to identify plants after being watered. However, this conjecture still needed to be simply confirmed.
After they successfully captured a few wild plants, they saw Lu Shiyu smiling and wiping the moisture off the plant. The plant sat obediently on Lu Shiyu's legs without moving. Even when Lu Shiyu let go of his hand holding it, it did not run away. It looked very well-behaved and sensible.
Shao Xingyang rubbed his eyes and said, "I must have fainted from hunger. Why do I feel like Lu Shiyu treats that thing as a pet?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
