When the filaments touched the star-shaped scar on the back of the neck, they suddenly curled up into a ring, like a rough ring.
Mou Xuan grabbed her restless wrist and rubbed the blood beads on her combat uniform with his fingertips.
The mycelium twisted into an angry expression in his palm lines, and suddenly dispersed into fine snow - this woman always managed to turn her superpowers into a kindergarten handicraft class.
"Yin Gong!
How much liquid nitrogen is left? "When he turned his head, he pulled at the new icicle on his shoulder blade.
The engineer was kneeling on the ground piecing together the three-piece crystal mask. Upon hearing this, he smashed the wrench into the console and said, "I just want to stock up on whiskey now!"
Laughter broke out in the command room.
Master Duan was tap dancing while swinging his trouser legs that were stuck with glue. The old construction worker's safety helmet, which was covered with slime, was upside down on the monitoring screen, shaking comically with the aftershocks of the permafrost.
Even Expert Xing, whose hair was singed by the magnetic storm, slumped in his chair and raised his middle finger to the melting swarm consciousness in the petri dish.
Mou Xuan's back teeth suddenly felt sour.
These faces, which had been turned into ice sculptures during two hundred reincarnations, were now steaming with the heat of living people.
Chen Yao's mycelium secretly wrapped around his little finger, and a small ice crystal flower bloomed at the tear in his combat gloves.
"Your heartbeat is faster than the flashing eyes of an insect swarm." Her breath brushed over Mou Xuan's earlobe, freezing a few strands of sweaty hair.
The emergency light source on the dome of the command room suddenly switched to warm yellow, casting the overlapping shadows of the two people on the metal wall covered with grooves.
The cheers suddenly rose.
Engineer Yin took out half a bottle of medical alcohol from somewhere and was pouring it into Master Duan's safety helmet.
Expert Xing held up the electromagnetic network controller that was emitting sparks as a microphone and sang "Unity is Strength" in a nonsensical voice.
A young technician cried while holding a keyboard that had been half-gnawed by the swarm of insects, his tears condensed into small icicles on the console.
Mou Xuan felt a sudden pain in his temple.
The frequency of the permafrost aftershocks was wrong - the vibrations that should have gradually subsided were now knocking on the defense walls with some strange rhythm.
He calmly carried Chen Yao behind him, his combat boots crushing the melting insect shells on the floor.
The Mycelial Crown suddenly made a clicking sound as if its gears were jamming.
The smile on Chen Yao's lips froze, and the neural network in her wrist moved without wind, forming a twisted exclamation mark on the back of Mou Xuan's hand.
The warm yellow light in the dome of the command room flickered twice, casting shadows on the wall that resembled crawling arthropods.
"Captain Mou!" Master Duan's helmet suddenly rolled to his feet, and the unfinished alcohol in it spilled onto the ground, forming an arrow pointing to the southeast vent. "Why do you think the ice debris in the permafrost smells like rust?"
The cheers seemed to have been paused.
Engineer Yin's wrench was suspended in the air, and the dripping mucus made a crisp sound when it hit the crystalline ground.
A sudden spark came out of the "microphone" in expert Xing's hand, illuminating a patch of melting scaly ice crystals on the vent filter.
The lining of Mou Xuan's combat uniform was instantly soaked with cold sweat.
He recognized the smell of rust - in the 30th reincarnation, when the mutant rats gnawed through the underground granary, the same bloody smell of rust wafted from the ventilation ducts.
The star map scar on the back of his neck suddenly felt hot, so hot that the reflection of glacial scales flashed before his eyes.
Chen Yao's mycelium silently drilled into the ventilation duct, and when it came back, it was wrapped around half a piece of filter mesh with teeth marks.
She twisted the ice crystal fragments between her fingertips and wrote down the longitude and latitude coordinates on Mou Xuan's palm - exactly the coordinates of the pile of "insect swarm remains" outside the defense wall.
The cheers rose again, this time with a trill of bravado.
Master Duan kicked off his safety helmet and deliberately sprayed the liquid nitrogen welding gun loudly.
Engineer Yin poured a whole bottle of disinfectant alcohol onto the console, and the blue flames illuminated the corners of his twitching mouth as they rose.
Mou Xuan clenched the filter tightly, and the jagged edge cut his palm.
The smell of blood mixed with the unique chill of permafrost filled his nostrils, and he heard a faint friction sound coming from outside the defense wall - like millions of limbs covered with ice armor dragging on the snow, or like the scales of a giant creature scraping against the frozen soil.
Chen Yao's hyphae wandered inside his combat uniform, and he deliberately scratched his wrist while bandaging his wound.
The corners of her bloodstained lips raised in a familiar arc, but her eyes were filled with a coldness that Mou Xuan had never seen before.
The mycelium crown condensed again, and this time it was no longer inlaid with ice crystals, but the electromagnetic net fragments obtained from Expert Xing.
The celebratory sounds in the command room were suddenly muted.
Everyone was organizing their equipment. Master Duan stuffed a handful of crushed ice into the liquid nitrogen welding gun, and Engineer Yin glued the fragments of the crystal mask together to make a pair of glasses.
Expert Xing sneered at the mucus in the petri dish and poured half a tube of nano-repair agent into the electromagnetic network controller.
Mou Xuan's back teeth began to itch again.
This time he didn't bite the emergency crystal, but got the filter fragment stuck between his teeth.
As the taste of rust spread on his tongue, he heard the muffled sound of snow collapsing outside the defense wall - as if some huge monster was turning over.
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