The Return of Cambrian Period Volume 1 Chapter 10 9 Dec 30, 2019

The abandoned sewage pipe was completely dark, the light from the flashlight only provided them with seven or eight meters of visibility. Most of the light was engulfed by the suffocating darkness.

The weeds under their feet rustled because of their steps. The insects in the grass were continuously making sound. Cong Xia had not listened to the sound of the nature this closely for a really long time. He had gotten so used to with all kinds of noise pollution made by humans that right now, he was feeling not very accustomed. No, it was not just the feeling of being unaccustomed. A sewage pipe that was covered by vegetation like an underground cave, so dark that you could hardly see your hand, you didn't know where it would lead to, you didn't know what unknown things were waiting for you in front, that kind of deep fear made Cong Xia feel difficult to breathe.

In order to ease his tension, Cong Xia could only desperately try to talk to Cheng Tianbi.

"Mr. Soldier, let's talk."

"Hey, how old are you? Twenty two? Twenty three?"

"Mr. Soldier, aren't you afraid? Are you hungry? We left all of our food for the dogs, what are we going to eat? How about eating some grass?"

Cong Xia already felt hungry now. He thought about the monkey meat that had not been finished at noon, he could not help but gulp down his saliva.

Cheng Tianbi was actually even hungrier than Cong Xia. Since this morning when he realized the change in his physical until now, he had always felt hungry. It was just that he did not have enough time to fill his stomach, and now there was nothing left to eat.

However, the evolution of the animals and the plants was so fast, who knew whether these grasses had evolved to become toxic or not, he could not just carelessly eat them like that. Cheng Tianbi said.

"Just endure. We'll talk about it when we get out of here."

"I am afraid that you may feel hungry, you are the only one who can fight here. You must maintain your physical strength."

Cheng Tianbi indifferently said.

"I'm not that hungry to graze the grass. Just speed up, get out of here and we can once again find a way to look for food."

Cong Xia sighed, once again he was frustrated of his uselessness. He couldn't even make a decent meal for his friend who saved himself twice.

The two of them continued to proceed deeper. They walked for nearly three kilometers. They still did not see any exits. However, Cong Xia noticed that the grass under their feet became lesser. They were gradually replaced by fungi instead. The air was filled with the suffocating smell of humidity that made it very uncomfortable to breathe. The road beneath their feet was also getting harder and harder to walk on. The damp moss and all kinds of mushrooms were very slippery. Every step was like stepping on a certain type of mucus.

Cong Xia accidentally slipped and his bottom was down on the ground. When his hand touched the wet and sticky vegetation on the ground, he felt unspeakably disgusted. Cheng Tianbi pulled him up.

"Pay attention to your feet."

Cong Xia desperately wiped his hand on his trousers. He was so disgusted.

"It's so disgusting. So slimy."

Cheng Tianbi held the flashlight tightly and shone everywhere all at once. Of any places he could see, there were mushrooms in various colors and sizes, they were densely packed. The scene was very uncomfortable to look at.

Cong Xia gulped down his saliva and subconsciously grasped Cheng Tianbi's hand. Cheng Tianbi frowned.

"Let go of my hand."

Cong Xia almost burst out crying.

"Mr. Soldier, let me hold your hand just for a while, this place is too damn scary, I'm almost unable to continue."

Cheng Tianbi rolled his eyes. Cong Xia tightly held Cheng Tianbi's hand. The thick palm that was covered with callus was exceptionally warm. It made him feel like he could walk now. He didn't doubt for a single second that if he was alone in an eerily strange place like this, he would absolutely went crazy within 5 minutes. Cheng Tianbi was his life-saving straw, he wished he could take some glue to stick himself onto Cheng Tianbi's body.

If this was the right place, Cheng Tianbi really wanted to knock Cong Xia out. He felt like he had no other choice and got really fed up with Cong Xia's weakness, but as long as he was still not dead, as long as he was still wearing this military uniform, he could not easily abandon his task. Not to mention that he owed the professor a favor, he must brought Cong Xia back to Beijing.

Cheng Tianbi had no choice but to let Cong Xia hold his hand, which could also prevent the two men from slipping.

The palms of the two men quickly became sweaty. The tension that Cong Xia was feeling made him hold his hand tighter and tighter, for he feared he would lose his only mental support.

The road underneath their feet became more and more slippery. In almost every three steps, they would have to stabilize their balance. Even so, they still fell so many times. It didn't hurt to fall on the slippery fungi, but it was awfully disgusting.

In fact, most of the mushrooms were very beautiful. It was hard to imagine that in a place where there was no sunlight, the vegetation could grow so colorfully. The more beautiful the vegetation was, the more poisonous they often were. Cong Xia restrained his own curiosity and tried to avoid these beautiful fungi.

It took them more than an hour to walk like this. Both of them were sweating excessively. Walking on the fungi for less than one kilometer was much more exhausting than walking on the ground for ten kilometers.

Gradually, they spotted a faint blue light in front of them. It could possibly be an exit. Both of them boosted their morale up and walked towards the direction of the source of light.

After walking for more than half an hour, the blue glow was getting bigger and bigger. When they made a turn in the sewage pipe, their front suddenly became bright and clear. They were shocked by the scene that they saw.

It was an extremely wide cave with the diameter of at least 100 meters. The stone wall of the cave was covered with various mushrooms. Some were bright colored, some were plain and simple, some even glowed, but the most striking one was the huge and transparent mushroom that was emitting blue light at the center of the cave.

The mushroom was approximately three-story tall and six or seven meters in diameter. It only had a stalk that was as chunky as a car. The mushroom's cap had a shape like a bowl and was planted on top of the stalk. It looked like an umbrella that was overturned by the wind. The huge mushroom was overall transparent. Under its epidermis, there were numerous tiny, blue hyphae that were visible to the naked eye. They looked like its capillaries which were densely packed and criss-crossed one another. Moreover, these hyphae did not only grow in its own body, they also stretched from its body to the ground, like the veins of the underground river, as if it they extended to the entire cave, all creatures in the cave seemed to be in the mushroom's network.

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In addition, in the center of the mushroom cap, there was a dark green illuminating spot. However, it couldn't be seen clearly what it actually was, but it seemed like all the veins stretched out from there.

This huge mushroom was gently swaying in the cave. Its swaying range was very small, as if it was a hum followed after a lullaby. The transparent body, the blue glowing hyphae, as well as the incomparably huge appearance made it looked mysteriously beautiful, but no matter how beautiful it was, this image only crept the two humans at the scene out.

What kind of mushroom is this? How can it grow so big?!

Cong Xia growled in his head. He regretted not study more about fungi to begin with. Maybe that would become sort of useful now.

Cheng Tianbi stepped back one step at a time and lowered his voice.

"We come back to the turn just now and go around it."

For the first time, Cong Xia heard a trace of tension in Cheng Tianbi's tone.

The two fatal threats they encountered today were extremely dangerous, but they were the creatures that they acquainted with. They were just only a little bigger, but their habits and weaknesses had not changed. This organism had already exceeded beyond their imagination.

Cong Xia could not imagine that the earthquake had occurred in just over 30 hours and the city that he thought he was familiar with had quietly bred such a terrible and unimaginable organism.

The two of them carefully retreated step by step, no matter how far they had to go around, they would not choose to approach this big mushroom.

Just when they just exited for two steps, they suddenly felt the vibration through the soles of their feet. Then the ground that they had stepped on went up sharply. The two men looked down and saw that they had just stepped on a reddish brown mushroom that was as big as a dining table, which they always thought was the ground!

The mushroom swept them off their feet to the ground. The moment they landed, another mushroom "stood up" and threw them to the next mushroom.

Their bodies were covered in slippery mucus, they basically couldn't stand up or escape. They had no choice but could only be passed around by these horrifying mushrooms towards the huge mushroom. They were pushed left and right. Cheng Tianbi held the gun tightly. He aimed the gun at the direction of the huge mushroom and fired, but the bullet was like the dust, after it submerged into the body of the mushroom, it quietly disappeared.

Cheng Tianbi suddenly turned around to dodge the attack of a mushroom. He swung his hand in the air, which carried the strong wind. Along with his movement, the air was twisted into a white and sharp tip. There was a crunchy sound. The mushroom was hit and forced to sway left and right. It curled up as if it was in pain. Cheng Tianbi also dropped to the ground.

But before he could stand firmly, the mushroom under his feet stood up and once again joined the delivering group.

Just like that, in just ten seconds, the two of them were transported by these mushrooms to the center of the cave like some kind of goods. Finally, their bodies were tossed into the air, then the huge mushroom opened its "mouth" and all of a sudden swallowed them down.

The two fell into the center of the mushroom cap and then fell into a pool of mucus that was ankle deep.

The smell of the mucus was not unpleasant, it had the smell of oysters, but the texture was extremely disgusting, it was slippery to touch. The two men struggled for a long time before they could get up and cautiously observed the inside of the mushroom cap.

From the inside, the meat of the mushroom cap meat really beautiful, the thick and transparent body was embedded with tiny blue veins like the nerve system. The mushroom's body was gently swinging, these blue nerves were flickering like the stars in the sky, which made people mistakenly think that they had entered a magical world and everything was so surreal.

Cong Xia looked down at the deepest place of the mucus. The dark green spot that they saw outside just now was wrapped in the middle by the mushroom cap meat and countless and densely packed blue nerves. The dark green light was gentle and fulfill, but even with such a close distance like now, they were still unable to make out what it was.

If the blue veins are the nerves of the mushroom, in that case, is this green light cluster its heart?

Cheng Tianbi pulled him back from his own thoughts with a sentence.

"Don't keeping staring, we're about to be eaten."

Cong Xia stunned. He suddenly realized that the mucus at the sole of his feet began to bubble, like the water that was about to boil. The density of the bubbles was getting more and more, and the amount of mucus was slowly becoming more and more. Cong Xia could hear the fizzing sound. His shoes were melting!

Cong Xia quickly jumped to the side to avoid the pool of mucus, but he could only avoid it temporarily. When the mucus rose to a certain height, they would be dissolved in this disgusting mucus and became the nourishment of this big mushroom.

Cheng Tianbi's fingers were stroking the smooth meat wall of the mushroom, he then took out the military knife and ruthlessly stabbed the meat wall. The mushroom's body contracted a little bit. The pierced place flowed out some clear liquid, but it quickly expanded again.

There's a reaction!

Cheng Tianbi clenched the military knife and stabbed the body of the mushroom repeatedly. The transparent liquid sprayed out. Before it even landed, the liquid suddenly condensed and formed strings at midair. They wrapped around Cheng Tianbi's limbs and hung him up in the air.

Cong Xia hastily rushed over and desperately pulled the strings formed by the transparent liquid. The things were extremely elastic and flexible. No matter how hard he pulled, they would not break. Even a military knife could not cut them. Cong Xia was so worried that he was about to cry.

"Mr. Soldier, hold on, you must hold on, I... I will find a way to save you."

Even if he said this, he was not feeling confident at all. Cheng Tianbi struggled for a while, even when he was all sweaty, he still could not get rid of the shackles of those transparent strings, he said calmly.

"These strings just happen to form a net. Try to climb out, if you can run, then run."

Cong Xia's expression was mournful.

"I will not go alone. If I'm separated from you, I will die anyway. It would be better if we just die together."

Cheng Tianbi looked around, he couldn't think of any way for them to get out of here. The offspring of this big mushroom was everywhere, even if they got out of this mushroom, there was no way they could leave.

Cong Xia walked around the mucus, his eyes were once again attracted by the dark green light.

The heart...

Cong Xia stared at the light cluster, his eyes were exceptionally bright.

The boiling mucus almost reached the peak, the mucus level also rose by three or four centimeters. It wouldn't be long until they got drowned. If so, it wouldn't hurt to try!

However, he thought about the soles of his shoes that had been dissolved by the mucus... If he tried to get close to the "heart" of the mushroom, he would probably be turned into a pool of blood.

However, Mr. Soldier probably can survive.

If he didn't do it, they would die sooner or later, but if he risked his life, then the capable Mr. Soldier might be able to escape.

Cong Xia shakingly held up the military knife. He stood next to the pool of mucus, his lips were trembling. He gathered his courage to jump into the pool of mucus, doing the most daring thing that he had ever done in his life.

Cheng Tianbi saw through his intention, there was a trace of surprise flashing across his eyes. Cong Xia looked up at him and smiled stiffly.

"Mr. Soldier, I have always wondered... How old are you? How many years have you been a soldier? Please tell me."

Cheng Tianbi stayed quiet for a long time.

"Twenty one, four years."

Cong Xia giggled.

"It's not far from what I have guessed. You're five years younger than me. You are really capable. If you didn't bring me with you, you probably had already left Kunming. I'm sorry, for always being such a burden to you."

Cheng Tianbi looked at him silently, his eyes flickered with complex emotions.

Cong Xia took a deep breath, gnawed his teeth, stepped one foot in and rushed to the center of the pool of mucus quickly before his nerves could kick in.

But he didn't even run two steps that the burning pain reached his brain. Cong Xia screamed out loud. He felt like the skin on his calf had been burned and peeled off!

Cheng Tianbi frowned and clenched his fists tightly.

Cong Xia had never experienced such pain, as if something was stubbornly peeling off his skin, every nerve in his body was screaming: Hurt! Hurt! Hurt!

Cong Xia screamed out loud and fell to the ground. Holding a military knife in both hands, he ruthlessly stabbed the place where the dark green light was.

The mushroom cap was violently twitching. The whole mushroom was crazily squirming like there was an earthquake. There were numerous air bubbles coming from the mucus. Thick blood was coming out from all around Cong Xia's body. The parts of his body that entered the mucus had been corroded to the bones!

Cheng Tianbi closed his eyes tightly.

Cong Xia's eyes were all red, he continuously pressed the knife down until the blade reached a hard thing.

Instantly, the convulsion of the mushroom stopped and the mucus stopped boiling. At that moment, it seemed like the time had stopped.

Suddenly, the dark green "heart" shone brightly and made the whole cave bright like daytime. The earth vibrated violently. Cong Xia could no longer hold the knife. There was no strength left in his body at all. He saw a piercing white light and then lost consciousness.