The quiet seafloor was covered with a thick layer of sediment. They shouldn't have belonged here, but after the anomalous event three years ago, the ocean currents here had stagnated, and the remains of many organisms suspended in the upper waters had settled here.
They are generally gray-brown in color, and if the samples are taken to the laboratory for analysis, about 70% of their components are calcium phosphate.
In this gray world, a mutant shrimp with nine pairs of legs carefully emerged from under a curved plastic sheet half-buried in the debris. Two white, spherical compound eyes protruded from its head, sensing subtle movements underwater.
It's completely transparent. It has no sight, no hearing, and even little sense of smell or taste. It perceives the world solely through the tiny hairs covering its body. The immense water pressure at the bottom of the ocean compresses the distance any signal can travel, so this tiny shrimp's range is extremely limited. Fortunately, the seabed mud is teeming with food, and after generations of biological succession, this hill has been completely colonized by them.
As the shrimp moves, more tiny white beads protrude from the sediment. If you shine a light on it, you can see that the terrain is raised, as if it has grown a layer of fuzz.
It is now the end of May and the beginning of June, which is the breeding season for shrimps. They use their two eyes to shake regularly on the seabed, creating small waves of water vibrations to attract females.
Individuals with dominant genes can often shake the surrounding mud and sand into several circles. The most powerful ones can even expand the diameter of the circles to 16 centimeters - almost twice their body length.
Not far away, a larger female was crawling slowly on the mud and sand. Perhaps it was a joke played by God. Just due to the change of two chromosomes, the female's athletic ability far exceeded that of the tiny males.
These females can use their oviducts to perform short water-jet leaps, giving them unparalleled maneuverability here. With this superpower, they can temporarily escape the Earth's gravity, hover near the ground, and sense larger-scale water fluctuations.
One of the female shrimps sensed the changes around it, and it immediately raised its first and second pairs of limbs and pulled the moving object out of the mud and sand.
Almost instantly, the lucky male shrimp was mercilessly broken into several pieces by the female shrimp. It then stuffed the food caught on its limbs into its mouth, while continuing to sense other recent fluctuations - it was like a feast.
Female shrimp are always like this. They become extremely hungry during the breeding season. During this period, the rich organic matter in the sediment is no longer enough to satisfy them. If their behavior were to be replicated on humans, each of them would be considered the ultimate scumbag.
Of course, all of this behavior stems from their special mating method.
Theoretically, the male shrimp should release as much of its essence as possible into the seawater before being eaten, so that when the female shrimp makes its next leap, its genes will likely follow the water flow and be sucked into the oviduct by the female shrimp.
After the breeding season, the female shrimp will crawl to the valley below the cliff and release a large number of frightened shrimp eggs. During this period, they will fast for several days. If they cannot store enough nutrients, they may starve to death in the valley.
The female shrimp soon sensed the larger ripples. It searched around in the direction of the water flow and finally tilted its head upwards.
That thing is really big, probably enough for it to eat for several years!
It crashed into the seabed without any deceleration. Before it touched the ground, a shield flashing white light suddenly appeared in front of it. Then, along with the shield, it plunged into the mud and sand, raising a large amount of gray-white dust.
There was no doubt that the thing was Jiang Ling who jumped from the shallow water.
It took her a lot of effort to climb out of the pile of mud and sand where she had no support.
But everything has its pros and cons - the soft sediment prevented the hard landing from causing damage to the exoskeleton - it acted as a near-perfect cushioning agent.
Jiang Ling tried to turn on the front searchlight of the exoskeleton, and the dark seabed was instantly illuminated by four 800-watt light bulbs, but it only revealed the terrain details less than ten meters ahead - there was too much debris around.
She shook her head, turned off the light, and then took out a folding harpoon from the clamp on her lower back. With the cooperation of the mechanical arm, she stretched it to the maximum extent and held it horizontally in front of her chest to protect the fragile part of the exoskeleton.
"System, how is the communication quality?" Jiang Ling used voice commands to instruct the exoskeleton to increase the communication power.
"Operator A0001, the signal has been disconnected. Please try again later."
"Fuck, why didn't I think of underwater convection? I should have hung a safety rope earlier." She felt regretful.
The current situation wasn't looking good. Jiang Ling pondered for a moment before spreading her psychic power. The numerous biological signals here interfered with her perception, and Political Commissar Xiao was just an ordinary person. To Jiang Ling, he was no different from the little bugs in the mud.
"You have to make some noise. At least jump a little?" She frowned and said to herself.
Blind movement is not advisable, and the exoskeleton's energy cannot withstand the waste of high-power equipment, even though it still has a lot of room.
Maybe jumping around in place would attract other people's attention, but it was too empty here. How could it be easy for someone in the dark to be found by another person in the dark?
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
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