"This batch of mycelium is kind of outrageous..."
Ansheng stuck his head out, looked at the black little ball curled up in the armrest box, and showed a puzzled expression.
The Second Epoch's sickness came crashing down like a mountain; one wave of the returning perfect remains had already shattered everyone's mentality.
And now, they could actually still find, on Blue Star, a fungal species that could autonomously reproduce via spores, instead of relying on splitting or parasitic mutation to survive.
The key thing was that Ah Qing could even find it, and could clearly sense the mushrooms it had hidden.
"Am I supposed to eat this alone?"
Ah Qing stared at the message on her phone, speaking with a bit of surprise: "This... doesn't sound very decent, does it?"
"How about... we take it home and make chicken soup with it?"
They'd gone treasure hunting together; everyone had contributed people and effort to the expedition. Now to hog the food by herself, Ah Qing felt that would be really wrong.
"Look, Black Group is still here, right? The mycelium should grow mushrooms pretty fast. Momo, you should also kinda wanna have a taste, right?"
Ah Qing patted the Black Group in the armrest box, then looked at the skull in the fridge, her face full of certainty as she spoke.
"This..."
Momo's gaze drifted slightly, she looked at that skull with a troubled face, her smile a bit forced:
"We're sisters in Du Naizi's name, saying all this—you really can rest assured and enjoy it alone, it's actually good for you."
Momo might be greedy when it came to food, but faced with such a weird-looking mushroom growing out of a skull, deep down she still felt a faint sense of resistance.
"It's decided then. I'll ask Miaomiao to borrow an old hen from the Agricultural Research Institute!" Ah Qing said as she opened the car door and stepped out, calling Miaomiao.
"We're... eating what again?"
Tang You, who'd been talking with Jellyfish Lady the whole time about how to log into the game Night Hero, finally reacted, his jaw dropping as he looked around the car and asked.
"Plop?"
Black Group was utterly confused, touching the skull. Why were these two-legged creatures all so bad!
The two-legged ones before used to do a slide tackle, then prostrate themselves in front of it, shouting: "Bless us, oh Totem Lord."
...
The Security Bureau logistics support team fast-roped down from a helicopter into the mountains and forests, began sealing off the scene, and sent fully armed archaeologists into the tomb chamber to start the excavation.
Not a single brick or tile was overlooked; everything was collected and tagged with serial numbers to be used later for restoration work.
The Security Bureau's forensic team lined up to enter, their priority coming after the archaeologists in charge of preservation work.
After completing the on-site handover, Ansheng didn't continue staying in the Qinling Mountain Range, but headed back toward the city.
The group returned to Xinxing Agricultural Science College, and Ah Qing, brimming with enthusiasm, ran off to the supermarket and bought a clay pot.
Everyone gathered at the hideout, ready to drink chicken soup.
"Huh!? You wicked beast, what are you doing!"
As soon as he stepped into the hideout behind the cafeteria, Ansheng saw a severed hand hopping there, poking at his jar of ancient-tree black tea with its fingers.
The male hand gave a shudder, hurriedly jumped down from the tea cabinet to the floor, and stumbled into the shadows under the cabinet.
Meanwhile, in the little hideout's reception room, an eyeball was quietly hiding inside a snack bag.
"Hiss..."
Ansheng's eyes widened slightly; he looked at Momo and the others in disbelief and asked:
"How did you... end up putting all this filthy stuff in my little nest?"
During his business trip, Ansheng had heard about Ah Qing and the others running into the modular limbs, but shouldn't these things have been handed over to the Security Bureau?
Why are you dragging everything back home?
I'm the one who doesn't pick up random junk, how come you all started randomly picking up junk instead.
"They were originally sent to the Security Bureau, but it seems like they can sense each other..."
"In the busy downtown, a leg and two chests got run over and splattered because they had no eyes, so the Security Bureau said they'd temporarily store them at the Agricultural Research Institute for Professor Fan to use in medical-tech research."
Momo started talking about what had happened on the Security Bureau's side.
These modular limbs were all mass-produced parts from the same Human Wholesale Tree, each one Spiritualized. After breaking away from their original host, their only instinct was to seek out nutrients.
If one limb found food, it would attract other modular limbs over for a feast.
The Security Bureau's medical clinic was right in the busy downtown area, while the modular limbs had no eyes. Because they ignored traffic rules and randomly dashed across the road, two of them got run over in a single day, and the Security Bureau just broke.
It wasn't that the Security Bureau cared about the limbs; what they cared about was how to explain this to ordinary citizens.
Even if they ran the printer dry, they probably couldn't print that many nondisclosure agreements.
Xinxing Agricultural Science College was in a remote area, and Professor Fan would be lecturing here every year before the New Year anyway, so the Security Bureau sent all the modular limbs over, saving Professor Fan the hassle of running back and forth between the Security Bureau and the College of Agriculture.
"Professor Fan still has a big kidney and a male, uh, over there, but he said he can't take care of them for now," Momo added after thinking for a moment.
"Fat Cat! Bring a broom and sweep all this filth out to the ecological base."
Ansheng rolled his eyes and signaled for Fat Cat to sweep everything in the room out.
"Fifty."
Fat Cat took out a broom and dustpan, then turned around and held them out to Jellyfish Lady.
"No need, what era do you think we live in now." Jellyfish Lady waved him off, a proud look on her face, walked to the base of the robot vacuum, turned on manual mode, then hopped onto the robot and rode it straight over to crush the eyeball.
"Everyone, come have some tea..."
Ansheng crouched on the tea table, used the automatic kettle-and-tea-set to brew a pot of tea, poured a cup for everyone present, then lay sideways on the tea table and stretched lazily.
Gold nest, silver nest, none of it could compare to lounging in his own little nest—this was true comfort.
"Tang You, come on! Log into Glory!"
Ansheng rummaged through the tea table drawer, pulled out a tablet Lin Bingyun had left there, and called out to Tang You.
"Forget Glory, let's play Shangzhou; I'll farm for you." Tang You gave Huhu a "you know what I mean" look.
"Why do you like those RNG-heavy games so much? Can't you just play something that's about skill for once?" Ansheng wondered aloud.
"It's not that I like them, it's that you're here. Doesn't this just make you look even more awesome?" Tang You scooted his chair closer to the little fox, grinning as he flattered him.
During the days when Master Fuli wasn't around, Tang You hadn't even set foot in his own little gaming group.
If anyone asked, he'd say he was busy studying and had no time for games, so he'd lent his account to his little bro to handle the dailies.
In reality, his luck was so atrocious it was unbelievable, and he was too embarrassed to post his match screenshots in the group.
From drop zone to extraction point, he'd go on a killing spree, madly looting the entire match, and it was just barely enough to pay for bullets.
But now that Master Fuli was back, everything was different again: the Cyber Emperor of Luck himself had returned to the group.
"Hmm?"
Sitting in her chair, Momo was replying to @ mentions on WeChat. She glanced at the conversation list and said:
"Yuyu says she ran into something and wants Consultant Fuli to come out and help with negotiations..."
"Negotiations? About what?" Ansheng, who was downloading the game, glanced over at Momo, puzzled.
"She says she ran into a Spiritualized ferret, and when she tried to abduct it home, her butt got rammed to pieces by the ferret," Momo relayed to Master Fuli.
Ah Qing's dorm had Huhu, and Miaomiao's dorm had a peregrine falcon that could cross its legs. Last time, when the Qinling Spirit Beasts migrated to the Agricultural Research Institute, the students had, one after another, brought Spirit Beasts back to their dorms to snuggle with.
Yuyu had been rolling around on the floor in envy, wanting her own wild, unrestrained Spiritual Ascension session.
So she'd been constantly searching for her Spirit Beast fated partner.
"A ferret?"
"Yeah, she wants to adopt that snow ferret, but it seems that snow ferret really doesn't give her the time of day."