After John Brunson fell, the scene that followed could only be described as chaos.
The exploration team members in the restaurant suddenly jumped up and helped restrain John. This wasn't to prevent him from hurting Lin Xi, but to prevent the old man convulsing on the ground from hurting himself. However, in doing so, their movements were far too rough; they looked almost... almost as if they were going to kill John Bronson.
Lin Xi admitted that he was somewhat frightened, and he watched those people's actions in shock.
They looked like mad dogs, their eyes empty yet gleaming with a wild, beastly light. Anyone with a modicum of sense could see that John Brunson was no longer capable of fighting; one person could easily subdue the terrified old man. Yet, almost the entire exploration team in the restaurant pounced on him.
They pinned the old man down, his veins throbbing like worms beneath his bluish-gray skin.
In the end, Lin Xi and Bryce even had to step forward themselves and pull the overly agitated men off the old man.
"Stop—"
Finally, Elisa brought the situation under control. She stopped the young people from acting too violently and then ordered Bryce to give old John a sedative injection.
It was a wise decision. After John received the injection, the old man's convulsing body finally calmed down. And once he was still, the exploration team members, panting heavily, also gradually quieted down.
However, he still seemed somewhat delirious.
"Heh heh... the mutants... will die... we... will all die..."
He lowered his head, his eyes clouded like those of a fish that had been dead for days. He kept mumbling incoherently, and finally slowly lost consciousness.
"It was like a nightmare."
Bryce stood beside Lin Xi, watching the others carry the unconscious John out of the restaurant, when Lin Xi heard him say this in a daze.
"yes……"
Lin Xi answered softly.
Neither of them asked the other whether the nightmare referred to John Brunson, who suddenly grabbed an axe and tried to kill Lin Xi, or the group of mad exploration team members—the latter's frenzy was even more morbid than John Brunson's.
Lin Xi was never afraid of John Bronson's madness, but when he thought about the actions of the exploration team just now, he felt a cold sweat break out on his back.
No one wanted to stay in that restaurant any longer, or rather, no one wanted to talk in front of such a group of people. A dozen minutes later, Lin Xi and Alyssa arrived at Bryce's medical room.
Bryce had treated many people injured in the previous insect attack over the past few days, so the medical room was a bit messy, and the air, after being disinfected multiple times, smelled metallic and unpleasant.
Strictly speaking, the environment here could even be described as harsh. However, when Bryce magically produced two coffee capsules and used a medical liquefaction machine to serve two cups of coffee to the other two people, Lin Xi quickly changed her mind.
"Where there is coffee, there is paradise."
Lin Xi sipped her hot coffee with relish, her heart filled with love for Bryce.
Of course, at the start of each space trip, the space agency would pack the spacecraft with as many coffee capsules as possible, but... everyone knows that no matter how many coffee capsules there are, it's impossible to last until the second half of the return journey.
This cup of coffee is a rare treat on the Sun God these days. Lin Xi is certain that if he hadn't almost been chopped in half by a crazy old man with an axe a dozen minutes ago, Bryce would never have been willing to share such a good thing.
"This is my last stock."
Bryce said irritably.
Then he looked at Lin Xi, and the expression on his face made Lin Xi stiffen—even the coffee in her mouth didn't seem so good anymore.
“You know, Bryce, once you get serious, it’s like there’s a nuclear bomb about to explode on this ship.”
Lin Xi said he tried to ease the tension, but his attempt clearly failed.
Bryce was still looking at him with a frown.
"Stop joking around like that, this isn't the time for jokes... To be honest, I wish I could relax a bit, but God doesn't seem to be giving me that chance," Bryce said seriously. "See those guys in the restaurant just now? And our head chef who suddenly started going crazy. Okay, now we all know something's not right."
"You mean those exploration team members..."
Lin Xi trembled slightly. He realized that subconsciously he didn't even want to talk to Bryce about this topic because he... he felt a little scared.
Lin Xi has always appeared somewhat cynical in front of others, after all, his catchphrase is "Don't think too much," and he never wants to reveal his fear and timidity to outsiders.
Ever since the Apollo's jump failed, he has been terrified by some inexplicable people and things.
For example, the strange Sunu sculpture, or the exploration team members on the ship.
God knows that not long ago, he was enjoying playing cards with those people and then tricking them out of their calming gel sticks.
“There are others, such as the Ando couple, and… that Mr. Axe from earlier,” Elisa added, sounding quite downcast. After all, she had worked with John for many years, and now she saw him in this state.
The mere mention of the Ando couple and John Bronson brought a bitter taste to Lin Xi's mouth, and he was certain it wasn't the coffee.
He fell silent immediately.
Bryce tapped his terminal, displaying numerous daily physiological reports of the crew members to Elisa and Lin Xi.
“Out of professional ethics, I shouldn’t have disclosed the crew’s personal information to others. But now is not the time to worry about that… I’ve discovered something.” Bryce stared at the data on the electronic screen. He had studied it carefully many times, but each time he looked at it, he felt his mood grow heavier.
Lin Xi and Elisa stared at the professional data and charts together.
Is there really something wrong with these data?
A moment later, Elisa surrendered, and she asked in surprise.
“I don’t really understand these technical things, but from what I can understand, these people all look very healthy? Ah, look at this—” Elisa pulled up one of the personal records in front of her, “Anthony Leo, his teeth that were broken more than ten years ago have grown back?”
“That’s right, he came to me to get his old dentures removed because his teeth have started to grow back.”
"Bryce said grimly."
With a slight twitch of his fingers, more similar cases were projected in front of the other two people.
"Hair has turned black again, old wounds have healed, and allergies have disappeared... Almost all of these people are more than ten years younger in terms of biological age. Yes, I admit, if you just look at the data, our ship is almost a dream ship. Even the most injured exploration team members have perfect biological data—look at this one, Chris Luca, he's thirty-one years old, but since the failed jump, he's grown a full ten centimeters taller on this damn planet."
"It's perfectly normal to increase height during space travel..."
Lin Xi couldn't help but say softly, but even he knew how weak and powerless such an explanation was in the face of these examples.
"However, it is not normal for a person's body to have such a high proportion of cells in the proliferation and division phases."
Bryce clicked on an image, which was densely packed with cells whose nuclei were enlarging and preparing to proliferate, while the rest were cells that had already divided and were connected together...
"God, this thing is disgusting."
Elisa's face scrunched up, and she said with disgust.
"Well, these are biopsy slides from the exploration team members. The crew members' are slightly better, but not by much—"
Bryce clicked on many more similar pictures until he saw that Elisa and Lin Xi's faces were slightly pale, and they couldn't even drink their coffee. Only then did he move those pictures away.
“I now strongly suspect that some component in the food bag reacted with some substance on this planet. You've seen how those people look now. No matter how perfect their physical data is right now, what's going to happen next is definitely not good,” Bryce said with a serious expression.
“God, is this why you told me not to touch the food bags…” Lin Xi’s face paled slightly, then he quickly looked at Elisa, “So, should we report this to the ship now? This is no small matter. The Sun God is now under your command—at least as far as I know, that guy Taran hasn’t left his cabin in a long time, has he? His illness is very serious.”
Elisa's expression changed; Lin Xi had never seen her look so troubled before.
"No, I can't do that."
"Elisa said in a low voice, her tone even sounding fearful," Elisa said.
"Why? Our food, or rather this planet, is mutating our crew—"
Lin Xi was utterly puzzled.
“This is a complicated issue,” Elisa said, pausing before glancing nervously at the door of the medical room, her voice hushed as if she were worried someone might be eavesdropping.
"I don't know if I should say this... but the problems with the Sun God are actually worse than you know. The Covenant has burned through most of our fuel, and if we can't find our coordinates and warp back soon, we'll be trapped and die in this damned place sooner or later. And the food storage was the most severely damaged during the previous crash landing. Why do you think Taran approved the use of food bags so early? The reason is simple: we're running out of food. Under these circumstances, if we announce this, we won't even have time for the so-called mutation before internal strife breaks out."
...
That day, when Lin Xi walked out of Bryce's medical room, his heart was heavy with sorrow.
It was after that private conversation that he realized why Bryce and Elisa didn't seem too concerned about the tragic deaths of the Ando couple.
After all, compared to the survival crisis of the entire ship, the tragedy that befell the couple became insignificant.
If one had to find any reassuring information in that conversation, it would probably be about the Sulu fossil sculpture. Lin Xi still vividly remembers the horrifying feeling that took hold of his precious body when he saw that sculpture in Ando Shizuo's room. And when Elisa and Bryce mentioned the noticeably deteriorating mental state of many people on the ship, Lin Xi brought it up with great unease.
Lin Xi always had a feeling that the sculpture possessed a strange and eerie power. However, his brother and Elisa clearly couldn't understand Lin Xi's apprehension about the sculpture...
“Good heavens, you scared me to death! I thought you were hiding something important, like, you actually killed Liz…” Elisa seemed relieved after hearing that Lin Xi's secret was just the Sunu sculpture, and her tone lightened slightly. “Don’t look at me like that, it was just a joke… Ando Shizuo lied to you. Ever since that sculpture had that accident—well, the one you know about—Taran had its seal reinforced and moved to his private warehouse. You know Taran’s personality; his private warehouse is practically a bank vault in space. Even if Ando Shizuo is incredibly skilled, there’s no way he could steal that Sunu fossil sculpture from Taran’s warehouse.”
"But I clearly saw it..."
Lin Xi murmured.
“As far as I know, before that tragedy happened, Shizuo Ando suddenly became very interested in the religion of Sunu, so he bought a hand-carved Sunu sculpture from a sailor. I think what you saw was that thing,” Elisa said nonchalantly. “That sculpture was just a toy that Ando bought for Liz to soothe her emotions.”
Lin Xi didn't doubt Alyssa's explanation. As the vice-captain, in such a critical moment, she had to know the movements of all the crew members as much as possible. If she said Ando Shizuo bought the handmade sculpture to fool Liz, then he really did.
Even so, Lin Xi still felt restless because of a slight unease in her heart.
If it really was just a handicraft, why did Shizuo Ando plead with him so earnestly after leaving the cabin that day?
And, in Lin Xi's heart, there was another question.
The Ando couple, John Bronson, and the increasingly eccentric exploration team...
Bryce and Elisa firmly believed that the problem lay with the food bags that might contain special ingredients, but...
Is that really all there is to it?
This unease stayed with Lin Xi until he returned to his own living quarters.
Lin Xi finally felt better when she saw the petri dish in the room, or more precisely, when she saw "Number One".
He saw that "Number One" had built a new nest on the sunu wood. It was golden yellow and more rounded and cute than the previous one. The "treasures" that "Number One" had carefully hidden before had been dug out again and placed at the bottom of the nest.
Doing all this is no easy task for a newborn insect. Perhaps that's why, when Lin Xi approached the petri dish, "Number One" seemed a little tired. It was curled up in its newly built nest and sleeping soundly. Lin Xi knew this because its wings were now a semi-transparent color, without any extra spots or colors.
What made Lin Xi even more gratified was that he checked the feed dish he had placed in the petri dish before leaving, and it was empty.
The previously irritable and angry "Number One" seems to have obediently eaten all the food in the petri dish.
"That's how you behave."
Lin Xi smiled.
"Number One" heard his whisper, shook its tentacles, and immediately crawled out of the nest.
It seemed to have forgotten the quarrel with Lin Xi not long ago, and immediately spread its wings and began to dance with great interest after seeing him.
This time, however, it carefully avoided the newly built nest with its wings.
Lin Xi stared at "Number One" for a long time, feeling her heart slowly relax as if it were being soaked in warm water.
In a world filled with ominousness and crisis, it seemed that only this corner of his room offered a respite.
Only when looking at "Number One" could Lin Xi temporarily forget the troubles she was facing and become a little more relaxed.
Perhaps his abnormal behavior was caused by excessive mental stress, or perhaps his affection for Xingdie made him lose his mind.
When Lin Xi came to his senses, he realized that he had involuntarily pushed open the top of the culture dish and reached his hand inside.
He gently touched "Number One's" body, which was as hard and cold as metal, and its huge wings.
According to Shizuo Ando's notes, if Hoshino had felt even the slightest aversion to him, his fingers would have already been cut in two by now.
However, such a thing is of course impossible.
As soon as "Number One" saw Lin Xi open the culture dish, it instantly became more active. It flew around Lin Xi's wrist incessantly, and finally simply stopped on the back of his hand. It remained motionless, with only the slightly curled antennae on its head trembling incessantly, as if it were sniffing his scent.
"Good girl."
Lin Xi looked at its small red eyes and sighed.
"If only you could always be this good..."
He said softly.
...
That evening—
On the lower deck, dozens of meters below Lin Xi's feet, in the crew's confinement room, John Bronson convulsed violently before slowly regaining consciousness from the drug-induced stupor.
He was shackled with heavy electronic chains, and several IV tubes were inserted directly into his flesh, with the other end of each tube connected to a pale green medicine bottle.
John's cloudy eyes focused for a long time before he could make out the names on the medicine bottles; they were all potent sedatives.
These drugs usually have serious side effects, but at this moment, John Bronson couldn't help but feel grateful for their effectiveness.
Under the influence of a powerful sedative, he was finally able to regain some of his senses from that near-collapse state of madness, though only a tiny bit.
After all, John had been struggling to fight the mutations within his body for so long, which had almost exhausted him.
Now, recalling his mistake during the day, John Brunson's heart was instantly overwhelmed by regret and despair.
"We're all doomed..."
Even though he knew perfectly well that this small room, which was called a solitary confinement cell but was actually a prison cell, was empty except for him, John still opened his lips and whispered hoarsely.
"The Mother of Insects will turn us all into incubators for Her children..."
His muttering started very softly, almost a whisper, but soon the whisper turned into a roar.
"Lin Xi—you must kill Lin Xi—he is that mutant—look at what he's done! He hasn't woken up yet, you still have time! Look at what he's done! He summoned the insects! Because those are his kin! Once the King Insect appears, it will be too late, his children… His children… will kill us all!"
John Bronson suddenly looked up, stared at a corner of the ceiling, and roared with veins bulging on his face.
In that corner, the red dot on the monitor was flashing regularly and slowly.
Two decks above John's was the monitoring center. The Helios was a very old spaceship, so it still used the most primitive monitoring systems. A whole row of monitoring windows floated neatly in mid-air in the spherical room. If all went according to plan, two monitoring personnel would sit below these windows. Upon hearing John Brunson's shouting, they would frown and remotely increase the dosage of the old man's medication to calm him down.
However, today is not the kind of "error-free" situation.
Unfortunately, the two crew members responsible for monitoring people tonight were a secret couple. While the monitoring room shift might be a tedious job for some, it was a rare moment of leisure for them—they found themselves a storage room to enjoy the night and ignored their assigned monitoring duties. After all, the Apollo was currently grounded, everything was so boring and peaceful, there was really nothing to monitor. At least, that's what they thought.
So when John Brunson realized something was wrong, there was no response to his screams and cries for help from the monitor.
...
At first, it was just a faint "rustling" sound.
It was so slight, so distant, that it sounded almost as insignificant as a minor malfunction in a fan in an air duct.
But soon, the "rustling" sound became clearer.
John Bronson stopped cursing Lin Xi, his lips pressed tightly together, and his body trembled violently.
Some distant memories began to resurface in his mind; he thought he had forgotten them, but now he remembered them.
Something was crawling towards him.
John was quite certain of this.
Because that thing seemed to have no intention of hiding its tracks.
Soon, something slowly crawled out from under the air filter.
"Oh...no..."
The vital signs monitoring system connected to John started alarming because John's blood pressure and heart rate were far above what a human of his age should have.
What terrified John was not just the impending death, but the thing itself.
That enormous and deformed body, those evil compound eyes, and those hideous mouthparts—oh, and the patterns on that insect's body, patterns more terrifying than any nightmare.
That bug looked like it had just crawled out of hell.
"Help—help me—"
John started screaming.
"Insects—oh my god—it's here—it's already—"
More rustling sounds came from inside; the lighting in the solitary confinement cell, which should have been on 24 hours a day, was now much dimmer.
John looked up, staring in shock at the light tubes on the ceiling.
He saw countless insects scrambling out of the cracks in the spaceship's walls like a tidal wave, then lining up and crowding together to climb onto the light tubes.
A strange, sweet yet slightly fishy smell spread through the solitary confinement cell; it was the smell of insects.
The light quickly went out completely, hidden by the insects.
Darkness enveloped the entire solitary confinement cell.
But in that darkness, two crimson lights appeared so clear, and then something slowly emerged from the shadows.
John didn't know why he saw it.
He shouldn't have been able to see it.
But the thing did appear, and its terrifying and abhorrent appearance was branded into his mind like a branding iron. He was terrified, just like he was during the day earlier.
"Help—no, no, no—help me—don't—don't come near me—"
Even the tranquilizers couldn't calm John down.
He began to struggle and scream with all his might.
"Shh...shh..."
It's the sound made when the elytra rub against each other.
The thing slowly crawled toward him.
John suddenly became unable to move, perhaps because the fear had exceeded his mental capacity.
He wished he could run away, scream, close his eyes—any one of those things—but he just couldn't.
He saw it; it tilted its head and stared intently at John.
Then John saw its mouthparts tremble.
So cute!
The old man heard an extremely strange sound coming from deep inside the insect's throat.
Number One—So Well-behaved—
It added.
Then, it came closer.
"Click...click..."
When the sound came out again, it was the clear sound of chewing.
...
If it weren't for a minor mishap, Lin Xi should have felt refreshed that morning.
After all, it's already fortunate that he was able to fall asleep smoothly under such a heavy heart, not to mention that he slept soundly without any dreams all night.
However, just as he was stretching and getting up, feeling quite content, some small things started falling off him with a clatter.
Lin Xi remained in the position of having the blanket pulled back, staring at the extra things on her bed, unsure of how to react.
The lighter ones are leaves, and their color and shape look very familiar.
The heavier items are small stones and metal parts.
What's most puzzling is that there's even a fountain pen on his bed that he's never seen before.
Lin Xi picked up the pen and examined it carefully. He was quite certain that it was not his own. After all, even if he were careless, he would not keep a pen in his room with its casing crushed and its surface covered with dark brown stains.
Of course, he was even more certain that he absolutely did not have the habit of sleepwalking... or rather, even if he did sleepwalk, he would not sleepwalk to the Star Butterfly's petri dish to steal all the little babies from "Number One" nest and hide them in his own quilt.
That's right, these are the things from "Number One" nest.
Lin Xi could already recognize the leaves and stones. The reason they looked familiar was simply because "Number One" had put them in his nest yesterday and then shown them off to Lin Xi for a very long time.
Of course, that pen was new; heaven knows where it came from.
"You'd better explain what's going on?"
Lin Xi jumped out of bed, grabbed the little gadgets, rushed to the petri dish of "Number One," and asked in despair.
Before that, "Number One" was comfortably lying in its nest when it heard Lin Xi's voice suddenly rise. It jumped up quickly and then darted behind the Sulu Xiangmu tree, leaving only its head outside, its two curled tentacles swaying incessantly.
From its constantly flashing red eyes, Lin Xi could tell that it seemed a little lost and flustered.
"..."
Lin Xi stared at "Number One" for a long time, then slumped down and relaxed her shoulders.
"This is something you gave me, right?"
Lin Xi placed those miscellaneous little trinkets next to the petri dish.
"Number One's" tentacles trembled violently, then stopped.
Lin Xi felt that this was probably Xingdie's way of expressing her approval.
"All right……"
He sighed.
Upon approaching the petri dish, Lin Xi noticed that "Number One's" nest had contained some new items. From "Number One's" perspective, Lin Xi should perhaps congratulate it; its collection had indeed been upgraded.
No longer did "Number One" put any more meager stones and leaves into its nest. Now, the bottom of the entire nest was covered only with those gleaming metal parts. Lin Xi stared at those metal parts in disbelief. Some of the metal parts looked somewhat familiar, giving him a very bad feeling.
“I really hope you can tell me where you got all this stuff from? God help me, I don’t want my room to be in need of repairs one day because of a plumbing problem.”
As Lin Xi muttered to "Number One," he bent down, examining the metal grid he had placed above the petri dish with the meticulous care of a detective.
After such a thorough investigation, he finally discovered a clue: near the edge of the metal mesh, there seemed to be a slight displacement.
Lin Xi was certain that "Number One" had escaped from the petri dish from here and then slipped back in.
This little insect's high intelligence was perfectly demonstrated; it even knew how to move the metal mesh covering Linxi back into place after crawling in and out.
Perhaps it was Lin Xi's earlier act of squeezing its body and throwing it back into the petri dish that made "Number One" realize that Lin Xi didn't like it leaving this cramped little area.
However, on the other hand, "Number One" also showed surprising clumsiness.
For example, it attempted to allocate its favorite collection items to Lin Xi.
That's right, that's what Lin Xi thinks. Those things on his bed must have been taken from his collection by "Number One" and moved to his bed overnight.
He really couldn't understand the thought process of the star butterflies. Perhaps, in their minds, the bottom of all nests should have something shiny? Including human beds.
But does this little bug know that by separating its own collection, it has perfectly revealed that it can freely enter and exit the petri dish?
"clatter--"
Just as Lin Xi was looking at the metal parts in her hand, feeling both amused and exasperated, a soft tapping sound came from inside the petri dish.
Lin Xi turned around and found that "Number One" had somehow emerged from behind Xiangmu.
It seemed to have realized that what Lin Xi was holding was the gift it had painstakingly given her yesterday. Its initial slight panic immediately vanished, replaced by an air of self-righteousness.
It used its two forelimbs to tap the inside of the petri dish alternately, making a "sizzling" sound that it had never made before.
It took Lin Xi a long time to realize with astonishment that "Number One" was actually gesturing for him to touch her like he had yesterday.
Dr. Ando's notebook did record this clingy trait of the Star Butterfly, but...
"No, I can't encourage this kind of behavior."
Lin Xi frowned and said to "Number One".
"..."
Suddenly, "Number One" stopped moving. It stared blankly at Lin Xi, its tentacles swaying above its head.
"Thank you for your kind gesture, but I don't need it at all, and I really don't like it when you take things apart—" He glanced at the old pen in his hand again and added with a headache, "I also don't really like it when you go to the trash can."
"..."
Number One remained motionless, staring at him, but this time, not even the tentacles on its head moved.
"Did you understand?"
Lin Xi said solemnly.
"Splash—"
He was certainly not going to receive an apology from some highly intelligent alien bug.
However, Lin Xi was certain that "Number One" could understand what Lin Xi was saying to it—the reason was simple: it suddenly turned around and used its hind legs to forcefully lift the sand at the bottom of the petri dish and pry it towards Lin Xi.
Author's Note: Number One: My wife hasn't hit me for three days.
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