Mou Xuan's tactical gloves rubbed against the cake knife, creating sparks, and the sweet smell of melted butter and the fishy smell of mycelium penetrated into his nostrils.
When he swung away the knife handle, the dull sound of the cake knife nailed into the wall made the entire banquet hall fall into silence in an instant.
"Three minutes." He pulled off his napkin and wiped the biscuit crumbs between his fingers. The mycelium mucus burned scorch marks on the cloth. "Chen Yao, take the electromagnetic isolation team to seal off the banquet hall. The rest of you, follow me to the water purification station."
Chen Yao's ice blade drew six-sided ice crystals in the air, freezing the still-growing mycelium sample into amber.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mou Xuan striding through the rain of colorful ribbons. When the hem of his bulletproof windbreaker swept across the mess on the ground, the orange-blue spots that were eroded by mycelium automatically retreated three inches.
The alloy gate of the water purification station glowed coldly in the rainstorm. Yue Shuiyuan, the water source manager, was stepping on a ladder to dismantle the filter element. The fluorescent blue mycelium was wrapped around his rubber gloves like a spider web. "The nano-filtration membrane was just replaced last week. This thing can actually penetrate the seven-layer purification system..."
"It's not penetration." Mou Xuan suddenly grabbed the ladder and shook it, and Yue Shuiyuan, who was complaining, almost fell into the reservoir.
He held up a strand of mycelium with the tip of his dagger and pointed it at the searchlight. The fluorescent blue thread reflected rainbow patterns under the strong light. "These bastards are imitating the topological structure of the water purification pipeline."
Inspector Hu stumbled over with half a box of rusty reagent bottles in his arms, party ribbons still stuck to his protective glasses: "The existing equipment can only detect conventional pollutants. This mutant mycelium..."
"Give me the pH test paper." Mou Xuan suddenly opened the inspection port of the water tank, and a foul smell hit him in the face.
He leaned half of his body into the dark pipe, and where the tactical flashlight swept, he saw hyphae weaving honeycomb-like veins along the seams of the pipe wall.
Yue Shuiyuan's hand holding the test paper was shaking: "This does not comply with the testing procedures..."
"They are breathing." Mou Xuan's mucus-covered palm suddenly pressed down on the edge of the inspection port, and silver-gray ripples vibrated violently deep in his pupils - this was a sign that the time ability was triggered.
When he pulled his hand back, the orange-yellow color on the test paper was fading to pale white at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Inspector Hu suddenly kicked over the reagent box: "Damn it! The pH value plummeted from 6.8 to 3.2 in thirty seconds!"
There were intermittent gasps in the heavy rain.
Mou Xuan shook off the squirming mycelium on his gloves and used a dagger to carve radial scratches on the outer wall of the reservoir: "Three sewage outlets, the area where acid rain just fell fifteen minutes ago, focus on checking all within a three-kilometer radius..."
He suddenly stopped, the tip of the dagger hanging at the end of a scratch.
The mycelium mucus was flowing back along the blade, outlining a strange counterclockwise vortex in the rainstorm.
"It's not acid rain." Chen Yao's voice came from the communicator, with the crisp sound of ice crystals condensing in the background. "The mycelium in the banquet hall has mutated to become phototropic. They have set up optical baits in the water supply and drainage system."
Mou Xuan's tactical boots crushed the mycelium under his feet, and the fluorescent blue juice splashed onto his taut jawline.
When the searchlight swept across the woods on the west side, he suddenly grabbed Yue Shuiyuan by the back of the neck and asked, "Did the expansion of the safe house last month dig up the old river channel?"
"That's because..."
"Lead the way!" Mou Xuan had already rushed into the rain curtain, and the light net woven by the mycelium in the rainstorm was knocked out by him, leaving a human-shaped gap.
As everyone ran wildly, they found that the hyphae that should have been wrapped around him began to curl up and carbonize ten centimeters away from Mou Xuan's sleeve.
When Yue Shuiyuan pushed aside the bushes while panting, the sight before him made everyone's throat tighten - in the old riverbed that should have been dry, the fluorescent blue fungal carpet was undulating in the heavy rain.
Rotting squirrel carcasses hang suspended in mycelial webs, each bone covered in coral-like blue flowers.
"They use corpses as culture medium." Mu Xuan's dagger suddenly pierced into the mud on the river bank, and the mycelium ball he picked up contained half a metal nameplate. "The patrol badge that went missing last month."
Inspector Hu suddenly fell to his knees, and the reagent bottle smashed on the bacterial blanket, creating blue ripples. "No wonder the routine tests couldn't find it... These bastards are simulating human tissue!"
A holographic map suddenly popped up on Mou Xuan's tactical tablet, and he drew three bloody red lines with a dagger: "The source of pollution is at the intersection of three points. Now divide into three groups with flamethrowers..."
“Captain Mou!” Chen Yao’s exclamation rang out from the communicator, the sound of ice crystals shattering mixed with electromagnetic humming, “The mycelium swarms in the banquet hall suddenly turned collectively to the northwest, as if… on a pilgrimage!”
The fungal mat in the rainstorm began to vibrate synchronously, and tens of thousands of fluorescent blue hyphae pointed straight to a certain coordinate that Mou Xuan was marking.
When the searchlight swept over, everyone saw that under the overturned concrete precast slab, half of the mutant mole's front paw was holding a broken vaccine tube.
Mou Xuan's pupils glowed silver, and the ripples of time condensed into materialized clock gears in the rainstorm.
When he reached out to grab the piece of vaccine tube, the mycelium frenzy suddenly tore open the ground beneath everyone's feet - underneath was an abandoned subway tunnel illuminated by mycelium, and a wave of fluorescent blue was rushing along the rails towards the core area of the base.
"It's not water pollution." Mou Xuan's voice made the rainstorm pause. The broken glass of the vaccine tube he crushed left a bloody mark on his palm. "These bastards are escorting something into the city." No modification required
Content after Chinese translation:
(Continued)
When Mou Xuan's tactical boots crushed the mycelium crystals, Chen Yao's ice blade had already drawn an ice line along the dome of the subway tunnel.
The blue spore rain froze into a suspended matrix between the two people, and each ice crystal reflected the strange fluorescence deep in the tunnel.
"Thirty-seven degrees elevation." Chen Yao suddenly inserted the ice blade into the gap between the rails, and Mou Xuan's bullet just passed through the ends of her raised hair.
The warhead, wrapped in the silver glow of the time power, nailed the mycelium that was rushing towards the control valve to the concrete pipe wall - the mycelium had a gear-like structure, exactly the same as the bite marks on the cake knife in the banquet hall half an hour ago.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
