Chapter 180 Rat Hole Removal
As he walked, he suddenly kicked a stone, and Zuo Shan couldn't help but grit his teeth in pain.
Feeling indignant, she squatted down, determined to move the stone to a different place.
The rock was about the size of a washbasin, and it looked rather cheap and dull. However, there were no deep pits or anything around it. If she moved it to the side, she might accidentally kick it again when she came back next year.
Thinking of this, she immediately put the stone into her spatial storage. She planned to have the old steward process it with his earth-based abilities later, and it could probably be used to build a wall.
Once the large rock was removed, she suddenly discovered an inconspicuous hole hidden beneath it.
The opening is slightly smaller than a dog hole, probably big enough for a house cat to come and go freely.
Zuo Shan was quite curious, so he picked up a stick that was more than a meter long from nearby and poked it down into the hole, but he couldn't reach the bottom.
Unconvinced, she picked up another stick, more than two meters long, and this time, she finally poked it to the bottom. She stirred it around and heard a shrill "squeak" sound!
Zuo Shan was startled!
Did she disturb a field mouse's nest? In her memory, most field mice in the wasteland were Tier 1, but there was always a few with good comprehension and opportunities who could break through to Tier 2.
She's a level zero superpower user, and a speed-type combat failure at that. If a level two superpower were to jump out of this rat's nest, she'd be doomed!
Just as Zuo Shan was about to run away, he noticed that four or five large, adult orange cat-sized rats crawled out from the roots of a tree more than twenty meters away.
As soon as they crawled out, they scattered in terror and soon disappeared without a trace.
Zuo Shan breathed a sigh of relief. It turned out that she wasn't the only one who was afraid; these guys were afraid too.
Thinking of this, she took out a hoe that had been enhanced by Xiao Bao and was comparable to an entrenching tool from her spatial storage and began digging the mutated field mouse burrow.
It wasn't that she didn't want to leave them a way to survive, but these little field mice love to hoard food, and what if there were edible seeds hidden in their holes?
Digging mutated field mouse burrows is incredibly physically demanding. Their burrows are about two meters deep and have several cross passages leading in different directions.
When Zuo Shan dug up their food storage nest, he was almost exhausted. At that moment, he couldn't help but think of Mao Li's mechanical arm. If all else failed, he would have liked to have Xiao Bao's metal claws to help him out!
She was really tired, but when she was looking for things in the mouse hole, she made quite a lot of progress.
A small handful of dark green beans, and a dozen or so round, egg-sized things that look like unmutated small potatoes. I'd guess they might be miniature versions of potatoes.
Several unidentified nuts, varying in shape and color, their poisonousness unknown;
Some broken, dark brown pieces look somewhat like dried shiitake mushrooms that we used to buy, but whether they are or not remains to be verified.
Finally, she dug out a metal box under a pile of loose soil. It was flat and rectangular with a hidden lock on the side, but it was probably rusted shut and couldn't be opened at all. The box itself was also heavily rusted, and its original color and texture were completely unrecognizable.
Zuo Shan guessed that Kang Zhenghao and the others would probably be back soon, so she didn't bother to check everything. She put everything in the rat's nest into a sealed bag and stored it in her spatial button.
Then she used a hoe to dig up the topsoil and cover the rat's nest. To avoid arousing suspicion from Kang Zhenghao and the others, she walked a short distance in the opposite direction of the rat hole and came to the place where they had thrown the ibex leg earlier.
In their haste to chase the cunning wolf, they forgot to even put away the ibex leg they had used as bait.
When the fan came from the left, it was discovered that it was already covered by a group of mutated red ants.
These mutated red ants looked about the same size as the gold-eating ants she had seen before, each at least 9 to 12 centimeters long, about the size of a medium-sized crayfish.
Seeing the flesh gnawed by these mutated red ants, Zuo Shan couldn't help but feel a pang of heartache. Even though she hadn't brought the meat, the wastelanders' appreciation for food was ingrained in their very bones.
Seeing the meat being ruined by ants, she couldn't contain her anger and raised the cutting knife, pointing it at one of the largest red ants before pressing the switch.
"Beep! Live zero-level mutant red ants detected. Moderately radioactive and edible. Mutant red ants often appear in swarms and damage buildings, devouring humans' only food source. It is recommended to find the ant nest and eradicate it!"
This was the first time the left fan had ever been cut with a detection blade while it was still alive, and it was the first time I'd ever heard such a notification. It was quite unexpected.
I remember seeing a group of children roasting ants together in the countryside. They probably didn't really want to eat them; they just thought it was exciting and fun, and they were seeing who was the bravest and dared to eat ants.
Since the cutting knife indicates that these mutated red ants are edible, if she kills a few more, she can make a plate of meat, right?
Ants rely on their sensitive antennae to sense vibrations and transmit signals to each other. Although the sound of the cutting knife was not quiet, it was clear that the other ants did not sense it.
They continued to busily climb onto the ibex legs and gnaw on them. Some, already full, would gnaw off a piece of meat several times their own size and laboriously drag it in one direction.
Having just raided the left side of the mutated field mouse's burrow, I boldly decided to raid an ant nest as well.
I followed the ant dragging the meat along for about several dozen meters, and finally saw an ant dragging the meat crawling through the grass. Suddenly, it burrowed headfirst into a hole.
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