Chapter 85
After some discussion, they finally compromised and chose a method that would not destroy the skull, leave the deceased's body intact, and force out the things hiding inside.
Smoked.
Shaoxing Yang quickly cleared a piece of space and pulled out the weeds to prevent the fire from spreading accidentally and becoming uncontrollable. Then he asked Yan Hong to place the collected dry branches in the middle of the space, and asked Tang Zeyu to light the fuel to produce smoke. He only needed to hang his head on the fire and wait for the thing inside to crawl out.
Although he didn't know whether doing so would blacken the skull, this was the most suitable method Lu Shiyu could find.
According to the other three people, they didn't care what would happen to the stranger's bones, and they were willing to agree purely for Lu Shiyu's sake.
The smoke produced by burning is mainly caused by incomplete combustion of the combustibles. For this reason, several people also collected some dead leaves scattered on the ground, piled them on top of the dry firewood to block the air circulation, and then stuffed some not completely dry fuel into it. After placing the skull on the fuel pile, the simple version of the smoking device was completed.
Tang Zeyu picked up a handful of hay and summoned a supernatural flame to ignite it.
But two seconds after the flame appeared, it suddenly jumped twice, and then it seemed to lose control, suddenly soaring to three meters, almost burning the leaves above. Tang Zeyu hurriedly withdrew his supernatural power, and the out-of-control flame disappeared.
Lu Shiyu felt the high temperature from the flames on his face had not completely dissipated yet. He touched his cheek in surprise, almost thinking that all the hairs on his face were burned by the flames.
"What happened just now?"
Faced with Lu Shiyu's question, although the other members of the Eagle Team knew the answer, they were all secretly observing Tang Zeyu's expression, not knowing whether they should tell Lu Shiyu directly.
Tang Zeyu grabbed his wrist, his expression a little serious, but he quickly adjusted himself.
"Nothing."
Lu Shiyu frowned and quickly glanced at the few people with wandering eyes. She was very dissatisfied with the behavior of them choosing to hide something from her.
Although she was not a member of the Eagle Team in essence, she thought that they could at least be considered friends after traveling together for a long time, even if their relationship was not that deep.
As a result, no one was willing to tell her when there was a problem, and she was the only one kept in the dark.
But then I thought that this might be Tang Zeyu's private matter and it was not convenient to talk about it.
Rational understanding and emotional dissatisfaction were fighting endlessly in Lu Shiyu's mind, and he couldn't decide which one was better for a while.
Lu Shiyu just looked unhappy and stared at Tang Zeyu in a huff. Although he didn't say a word, he made Tang Zeyu, who was already feeling guilty, feel uneasy.
"Things are a bit complicated..."
Tang Zeyu finally gave in and decided to confess the problem of his supernatural powers to Lu Shiyu.
"Although my abilities are quite powerful, they are also difficult to control."
"Sometimes it doesn't act entirely according to my will. It might change its trajectory mid-flight or suddenly grow enormous. If for some reason I become mentally weakened and unable to constantly monitor the state of my supernatural power, it might even sneak out without me noticing."
"Sneaked out by himself?" Lu Shiyu was skeptical. "Can superpowers have self-awareness?"
"I'm not sure. Ultimately, it's just my ability, not a living being. The possibility of it having self-awareness is really low."
Tang Zeyu continued, "So I usually suppress my supernatural powers, just like a gas valve. I use my supernatural powers in a controlled manner. If the valve is loose, the gas will leak out uncontrollably. I think you can understand it with this explanation."
Lu Shiyu nodded, seemingly understanding: "I see, but I noticed that your abilities were very stable before. Why are they suddenly out of control now?"
Tang Zeyu stretched out his fist and spread his palm upwards. A small flame stayed quietly in his palm, neither swaying nor jumping up and down, completely unrelated to his out-of-control appearance just now.
"There's always a time when one's willpower slackens. So, in addition to my own usual precautions, I'll also have the professionals at the base place certain restrictions on my abilities. You can think of it as a lock. It ensures that even if my abilities get out of control, they won't cause irreparable trouble. It also makes it easier for me to suppress them."
"But just the day before yesterday, I unlocked the lock during a battle with the mercenary captain. If I want to lock it again, I have to wait until we get back to base to discuss it. Without the lock that controls my superpowers, I need to focus more on using them. If I continue to use them carelessly as usual, situations like what happened just now will easily occur."
After Tang Zeyu used it again, he regained the feel of using his supernatural powers, and the flames finally stabilized.
"But I'll get used to it, so don't worry too much."
The fuel pile was ignited successfully. After Tang Zeyu inserted the burning wooden stick into the fuel pile, billowing black smoke came out from it soon, slowly rising into the sky, and smoking away the mosquitoes around.
In the smoky and fiery environment, the thing that was clinging to the skull could not bear it for long and began to struggle to escape from the skull. However, Yan Hong quickly grabbed it with two wooden sticks and pulled it out.
After getting rid of the black smoke that obstructed their vision, everyone finally saw the true face of the thing.
A strange-looking deformed creature, its eight walking legs each had a hard shell and two pincers, but its body was like a peeled shrimp, or like the curled tentacles of an octopus, curled up limply, without any shell for protection, and not even a strong outer skin, on which one could directly see the tiny blood vessels and bloodshot. It could be said that except for the eight walking legs and two pincers, the other parts of this deformed creature were as fragile as a piece of tender tofu, and its two slender eyes like tentacles kept shaking, as if looking for the reason why it was hanging in the air.
This deformed creature was as big as two or three fists, and it stuffed itself so full into its skull that it only needed to extend its eight legs to move.
With such a fragile body, it's no wonder that it hides in the hard skull.
After forcing the thing out, several people hurriedly put out the fire and then began to observe the deformed creature.
"Why does it look like both a shrimp and a crab?" Shaoxing Yang scratched his head and said, "Is this considered a seafood product?"
Shao Xingyang stretched out his hand to poke the deformed creature. The deformed creature, which had been moving slowly, suddenly attacked quickly when Shao Xingyang's fingers approached, and almost pinched Shao Xingyang's fingers.
"Wow, you can still play dirty tricks."
Chen Yunliang took out a transparent bottle from his bag and barely put the deformed creature in it. This seemed more convenient than holding it with a wooden stick.
The deformed creature placed in the bottle suddenly quieted down. After a brief adaptation, it turned its body around and pointed its eight legs toward the mouth of the bottle. Its soft trunk pressed against the wall of the bottle, as if it just felt that it was in another skull - although this "skull" was transparent, it did not prevent it from treating this place as its territory.
Lu Shiyu looked through the book and found that it was another deformed creature that had not been recorded.
"It looks like two animals put together," Lu Shiyu said, tilting his head to look at the deformed creature in the bottle from different angles. "Doesn't it look like a hermit crab?"
"Oh, yes, that's exactly what I wanted to say!" Shao Xingyang slapped his head and said, "No wonder it looks familiar to me. But after all, it only looks like a hermit crab."
"Well, it's a deformed creature after all."
Yan Hong didn't care about that. She shook the bottle and asked, "Is it edible?"
Chen Yunliang thought for two seconds and said, "If it's not poisonous, it should be okay. It looks quite tender."
Lu Shiyu was speechless: "You guys want to eat something that has been in a skull?"
How did she just realize that these people were so delicious?
Yan Hong looked at the deformed creature in the glass bottle, then at the skull, and seemed to realize that there was something wrong. In the end, morality prevailed over appetite.
"Forget it, if you don't want to eat it, then don't eat it."
For some reason, Lu Shiyu always felt that Yan Hong's tone seemed regretful, but there was no point in being regretful, as she would not use this kind of thing to cook.
While several people were still fiddling with the deformed creatures, Tang Zeyu picked up the bones scattered on the ground and collected them into a pile. However, these bones all looked the same and it was impossible to tell which one belonged to which person.
"Or we can just dig a hole and bury them all together. Now that it's become like this, it's hard to tell who is who," Chen Yunliang suggested.
Although burying the bones of three people together sounded a little unacceptable, the three of them now had no chance to complain. Even if they were not satisfied, it was impossible for them to come to them at midnight.
Several people simply dug a hole, and after Chen Yunliang counted and confirmed the number of bones, they threw the scattered bones in. Shaoxing Yanggang shoveled up a shovel of soil and was about to bury it when he was stopped by Lu Shiyu.
"Are the things they had during their lifetime going to be buried together?"
What Lu Shiyu was referring to were of course the clothes and equipment. According to the custom in her hometown, before the deceased is buried, the family members will select some of the deceased's most precious relics and put them in the coffin together with the burial. The general meaning of this custom is to allow the deceased to go in peace.
However, this custom was forced to be abolished after the bodies were no longer allowed to be buried and had to be cremated.
"Let's bury them together. No one can fine us here anyway." Yan Hong squatted down and tapped the skull with her knuckles, making a thud. "We are really kind. Even in such a tight time, we are willing to take time out to dig their graves and bury them so that they can rest in peace. Well, we are too kind, but there is nothing we can do about it."
Lu Shiyu remembered that Yan Hong had said not long ago that she wanted to split the skull open, and smiled awkwardly.
When picking up the three people's belongings from under the tree one by one, Lu Shiyu saw that there was actually a small backpack behind the tree. Because the location was too hidden, the previous few people had not noticed that there was a bag here.
"What's in here? It's so heavy."
Lu Shiyu walked out with the backpack and put it on the open space, ready to open it to see what was inside, and at the same time look for anything that could prove their identity, such as an ID card or something.
The zipper on the backpack was smoothly opened. Just as Lu Shiyu was about to tear the backpack open to see what was inside, suddenly, a huge pair of pliers suddenly stretched out from the dark backpack. The size of the pliers was even bigger than Lu Shiyu's hand.
Fortunately, after going through so much, Lu Shiyu's reaction speed has been significantly improved. When the huge pincers just touched her face, Lu Shiyu threw the backpack away as a conditioned reflex.
The backpack made a short "puff" sound when it hit the ground, kicked up some dust and rolled twice before coming to a stop.
Several people who noticed the movement stopped what they were doing and looked at Lu Shiyu, who was staring at the black backpack as if facing a great enemy.
Under the gaze that seemed to be real, something was squirming inside the backpack.
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