Clumps of dirt were flung into the air. They fell like misty rain, forming a small mound behind a sweaty woman. She had been digging for almost an hour. Looking from a distance, she saw about five small mounds scattered around her. Based on her memory, this was certainly the spot where Snow disappeared. Unfortunately, though Lin Sanjiu had dug through a large surface area of soil, revealing the network of tightly packed giant white rhizomes underneath, she could not spot a single person even after much scrutiny.
The fuzzy feeling of hope was dashed abruptly. Lin Sanjiu could feel her blood vessels pulsating. She massaged her throbbing temples, unaware of what went wrong.
'Should I try another area?' She tried her best to encourage herself. She walked back to the camping ground nervously. She didn't even dare to take a break to catch her breath. She continued digging for another two hours before finally collapsing and sitting on one of the mounds. She looked at the sweat and dirt all over her and tasted the bitterness in her mouth.
At that moment, a strange sight was before her. The plants that once spotted the landscape had been uprooted and dumped into a pile, along with soil and rocks. White rhizomes with the size of locomotives were revealed beneath the surface. The intricate network of roots covered a large area. It was just as if someone's skin had been pried open, and instead of blood and flesh, there were countless white maggots.
However, this was only the upper layer of the white radishes. A large part of their main body was hidden underground, and who knows how deep they extended.
"Is it possible that the missing people and animals weren't sucked into this network of radishes?" Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself. "If it wasn't their doing, why are there dead people encased within them."
The alternative was that people coincidentally died in this area. As the white radish grew, they gradually wrapped around the corpses. Lin Sanjiu thought that this hypothesis was also plausible. After all, she had touched those things many times while digging. If the 'white radishes' did attack people, there was no reason she was still perfectly fine here.
The simplest solution was to find a rat or a worm to test her hypothesis. But Lin Sanjiu noticed that though she had stirred up the ground quite a bit while digging, no bug appeared from the soil or the plants.
She remembered that when she first came to the Garden of Eden, she saw many hideous, helmet-sized beetles. Their heads were covered with red compound eyes, and there was always a couple around, whether she was sleeping, eating, or walking. They appeared out of nowhere, and occasionally, Hui Chuyan would shriek out when she was caught off guard. Xueqin even taunted the girl for that.
The beetles' nests were equally disgusting. The nests comprised of a few shallow round holes. Typically, each nest held four beetles, which also fitted precisely four human heads. Lin Sanjiu was so familiar with this detail because she had already destroyed several empty nests when digging. She wondered when those beetles disappeared from their nests like her companions.
While she sat, she stretched her legs out and gazed vacantly at the network of white roots in front of her. She started to count the hours subconsciously. Snow, Bai Xiaoke, and Error 517 were the earliest to disappear. It had already been 24 hours. Even though she didn't know the exact time the others disappeared, it had already been almost 15 hours since she first discovered their disappearance.
As her mind drifted in that direction, Lin Sanjiu quickly slapped herself.
"I don't care how long they've been gone!" She clenched her teeth as she furrowed her brows in resolution. "If they are alive, I want to see them. Even if they're dead, I need to see their corpses!"
As Lin Sanjiu did not know what those 'white radishes' were, she was still quite wary about them. She was cautious when digging and avoided even scraping the surface of their skin. However, now enraged, she didn't care anymore. She took out Er Dao's saber and swiftly struck a white radish with it.
The white epidermises of the radishes weren't as hard as they appeared to be. Just as the blade of the saber touched the epidermis of that radish, the epidermis suddenly split open by itself, even without the saber cutting through its surface. Perhaps 'split open' was the proper term here. It was more like it opened up, like how a person opens his mouth to eat. The epidermis of the white radish opened up, and Lin Sanjiu could see long strands of slime dangling across the opening.
Her saber sunk into the soft, slimy, gelatinous mess without resistance. Then, the white radish instantly sealed its epidermis, swallowing half the saber in its mouth. Lin Sanjiu was stunned as she held the saber's hilt. She wanted to smash the radish to bits, but now that things deviated so much from her expectations, she didn't know what to do momentarily.
'Should I pull the knife out? Or should I just slash through?'
Before she could make a decision, the white radish reacted again. "Slurp." The saber was spat out from the surface of the epidermis and was now covered with a large amount of slime. The sealed epidermis looked the same as before, as if it had never opened up in the first place.
'Huh?'
Lin Sanjiu looked at her damp saber and then at the white radish. "Why? Does it taste bad?" That was indeed her first reaction.
She held the saber closer and examined it. The saber was not only covered by slime but also had a few strands of roots on its blade, which had probably been cut off from the main body of the radish. As if fish were out of the water, those white strands of roots wiggled around for some time before drooping and becoming motionless.
Lin Sanjiu found those things ineffably disgusting.
Contemplating, Lin Sanjiu wiped her saber with a few leaves. Next, she slowly placed her arm close to the white radish. This time, Lin Sanjiu fixed her eyes on it, not wanting to miss seeing anything unusual. When she touched those 'radishes' while digging, they vibrated twice. Lin Sanjiu didn't take much notice as she thought it was just a natural biological reaction to an external stimulus. But now that she carefully observed the reaction, she witnessed the full process of that vibration.
When her arm was about to touch the epidermis of the radish, a slit appeared. Lin Sanjiu could see the strands of thin roots coiled up in its slime; it looked like the exposed nerves of a dissected brain. A long thin root probed out from the slit, but somehow it swiftly withdrew before the slime hanging from it even fell to the ground. The epidermis was sealed once more, and the white radish vibrated once. Then, it appeared just as before, as though nothing ever happened.
Lin Sanjiu was dumbstruck when she saw the whole process. She used her arm and baited the radishes in a few more areas. The radishes at every spot almost reacted in the same manner. For areas where she had already tested once, the radish gave no response no matter how close she got. They did not move even when she touched them with her hand.
"What the hell is this?" Lin Sanjiu smashed her fist on one of the radishes. The impact caused the radish to open up a small slit. Lin Sanjiu looked around her, feeling at a loss for some time. Although there weren't any bugs for her to test her hypothesis, she was sure these radishes had snatched the humans and animals from the surface. However, she did not know why they did not attack her.
It would be great if there was someone who could test her hypothesis. If she was around, accidents weren't likely to happen.
Lin Sanjiu knew that wasn't possible. The invisible boundary line she could detect through the geographic marker of her [Dog's Frisbee] had extended far beyond their campgrounds. Lin Sanjiu was certain that she would run to the new boundary and start digging. She would find the same 'white radishes' underground.
Those things seemed to be growing steadily and rapidly.
"Should I call Gong Daoyi over?" Lin Sanjiu thought of the only person she could contact now. "He is quite formidable, so he should at least be able to defend himself." She faced the patch of white radish and took out the paper crane. She rubbed it in her palms a few times, not knowing why she was hesitant.
The radioactive clouds weren't that thick today. The sun hung high in the sky, basking the strange landscape below with its warm rays, and even the white radishes looked fresh and juicy.
Under this sunlight, it was relatively obvious if a few long shadows suddenly appeared beside her. Lin Sanjiu immediately leaped up. She was already armed with her saber when she turned to look around. No matter who they were, with the capabilities to approach her silently, she knew that they wouldn't be dealt with easily. Yet, the instant she saw the uninvited visitors, she let out a sigh of relief. Lin Sanjiu did not expect that she would recognize them. No wonder they made no sound nor greeting when they approached her.
"Why are you guys here?" Lin Sanjiu had no ill will against them, but she had no choice but to keep her guard up. "Did Nüwa send you guys to attack me again?"
The two figures, two meters tall, had two additional pairs of arms sticking from their torsos and almond-shaped heads. They were two Neuhumes that Nüwa had created, Montesquieu and Aristotle.
Montesquieu seemed to understand what she meant, so he shook his head lightly but delivered his meaning. Under the sun, his grayish-green skin shone with a luster, which reminded Lin Sanjiu of a dolphin. Perhaps she had endured too much stress alone. When she first saw the sages, it was surprising that she felt some sense of closeness to them. "Then, why are you here? If other posthumans see you, they will think that you are duoluozhongs and attack you."
Judging from Nüwa's past actions, she was hiding them at the top of the black tower. It wasn't clear why the sages could walk openly outside now.
Aristotle nodded his head as he listened. Lin Sanjiu was not sure if he was agreeing with her or showing appreciation for her concern. After that, Montesquieu drew a folded piece of paper from his belt pocket and handed it to Lin Sanjiu.