In the wasteland era, almost everyone knew that if humans were infected by spores but did not become parasites, they would turn into a mycelium and rot within a minute.
Generally speaking, infected objects outside the area have no offensive power. The only scary thing is that spores may remain on the rotten remains, posing the risk of reinfection.
The thing in front of him that had no human form had not formed a territory, so it certainly could not be considered a parasite.
But to say that it was still a human being, Xie Xuan felt that this was tantamount to deceiving himself.
"What should we do now?" Xie Xuan asked Xie Yuheng in a low voice.
"You ask me?" Xie Yuheng asked back, "Shouldn't this be something you should be considering?"
Xie Xuan turned to look at Xie Yuheng in disbelief.
But Xie Yuheng had already stood at the farthest place from the bed. When he saw Xie Xuan looking at him, he raised his chin slightly.
"You shouldn't be looking at me right now, you should be looking at your enemy."
Xie Xuan was almost laughing out of anger. However, she hadn't expected Xie Yuheng to be a fighting force.
Xie Xuan looked at the rusty liquid that had dripped from the edge of the bed to the ground, and began to seriously consider the feasibility of her and Xie Yuheng hiding in a transparent cage and waiting for Xie Shu to come back to solve the problem.
But before she could put it into practice, she suddenly felt an itch in the palm of her hand.
Xie Xuan subconsciously scratched the palm of her hand with her fingers, but what she touched was not the skin of her palm, but a soft mass of something like mycelium.
Xie Xuan's heart skipped a beat, but she quickly thought of the extra symbiotic spores in her body and turned her hand over.
In the dim light from the terminal, a ball of blue mycelium in Xie Xuan's palm was particularly eye-catching against her white hand, not to mention that the mycelium was now emitting a faint fluorescence that flickered on and off as if it were breathing.
Xie Xuan: …
After not seeing it for just one day, it learns to shine.
Xie Xuan looked at the uninvited guest in her body and actually felt a bit like an old father looking at his naughty child.
As if sensing Xie Xuan's mood, the soft mycelium separated out a few strands and wrapped around Xie Xuan's fingers and rubbed them like a spoiled child.
Before Xie Xuan could sort out her complicated feelings, she heard Xie Yuheng say, "Is this symbiotic spore?"
"You know that too?" Xie Xuan realized she had asked a nonsense question after asking it.
Xie Yuheng suddenly took over Taikang Hospital, but he even knew that there was such a bacterial fusion experiment project in the sanatorium. Noah Technology's intelligence network might not even be able to match that of the Ecological Bureau.
However, Xie Yuheng did not mock Xie Xuan this time. "Most of the experimental subjects here are scrapped from the symbiotic project. Let the spores in your body try to swallow these infected substances."
Xie Xuan didn't like the words Xie Yuheng used to describe these innocent patients, but now was not the time to dwell on it.
Xie Xuan unskillfully tapped the mycelium sticking up from above and said, "Go and give it a try."
The mycelium also touched Xie Xuan's fingertips and obediently began to spread towards the dirt that had already accumulated into a small puddle on the ground.
"Heh." Xie Yuheng chuckled.
Xie Xuan completely understood the mocking tone in this voice, "What's so funny?"
Xie Yuheng didn't answer the question. As if to change the subject, he said, "Do you know what's so terrifying about symbiotic spores?"
Xie Xuan didn't like Xie Yuheng keeping her in suspense, but since Xie Xuan didn't need to answer, Xie Yuheng continued the story.
"Generally speaking, after the patient and the spores become symbiotic, the spores cannot obtain the nutrients they need to achieve mutual feeding with the host. Therefore, while the patient is still alive, they lack energy and can only hibernate."
Xie Yuheng paused, revealing a vague smile. "But once the host is near death, the spores' instinct for survival will drive them to begin plundering the host's vitality. However, a dying person's vitality is very limited. To continue living, the fungi, as saprophytes, will decompose the human body to gain energy. Eventually, the parasitized human will become what you see before you. The spores, no longer able to extract energy from this corpse to survive, will move on to find the next parasite."
When Xie Xuan heard the first sentence, she subconsciously wanted to refute that it was the symbiotic spores that saved her life when she was seriously injured and on the verge of death today.
But when she saw the smile on Xie Yuheng's lips, Xie Xuan suddenly thought that if she had not been standing in front of the C-level parasitic fungus, the symbiotic spores would have a better source of energy, otherwise it would probably choose to devour her vitality in turn.
Xie Xuan looked at the blue mycelium extending from the palm of her hand, and suddenly felt a chill on her back.
"Fungi and spores, even if they possess intelligence, are still aliens. If you let your guard down because you think they're cute, you're not far from death."
This sentence carries Xie Yuheng's own distinct subjective color.
Xie Xuan turned to look at Xie Yuheng, "So you also oppose the concept of ecological organizations?"
Xie Yuheng seemed a little surprised that Xie Xuan suddenly asked this question, but he neither admitted nor denied it.
"I'm a businessman, and I'm only interested in profit." Xie Yuheng said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
Xie Xuan frowned slightly and was about to say something when something suddenly pulled gently on the palm of her hand.
Xie Xuan turned her head again and saw that the rust-colored dirt wrapped in blue mycelium suddenly began to struggle desperately.
One is newly born, while the other is about to run out of power, but for now it seems that the old one has the upper hand.
"Help it." Xie Yuheng suddenly said, "Don't just watch."
Xie Xuan also wanted to help, but she also needed to know how to help. "How?"
"Have you never raised a dog?" Xie Yuheng's tone was a little sarcastic. "Cut it into small pieces, otherwise it will get stuck in the throat."
The veins on Xie Xuan's forehead throbbed. "Do you think everyone is as rich as you?"
Xie Xuan finished speaking angrily, then resignedly took out a dagger and cut the still spreading rust-colored dirt into small pieces as Xie Yuheng had instructed.
But even after being cut like this, these slime-like things were still slowly wriggling.
After Xie Xuan helped her symbiotic spores process the food, the blue mycelium's eating became much smoother.
After the blue mycelium wrapped up the slime, not long after, when the mycelium loosened up again, the slime inside was left with only a dark red, deflated shell, like a balloon that had been drained of water.
Xie Xuan and Xie Yuheng watched quietly as the blue mycelium slowly and methodically ate all the slimes, then slowly collected its mycelium and returned to Xie Xuan's palm.
This time it looked a little more energetic, and it even sent out a few strands of mycelium to make a heart shape for Xie Xuan.
Xie Xuan tapped its hyphae lightly with mixed feelings, and the symbiotic spores completely retracted, leaving a small wound the size of a needle tip on the palm of Xie Xuan's hand that was healing rapidly.
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