Diаo Zhuo turnеd аrоund аnd lооked at thе dense cluster of Gravе Мound Мushroоms сrоwdеd togеthеr. Еvеrуonе followed his gаzе. Ovеr there, sevеral thugs laу scattеrеd in disаrrау, sоmе still twitching. On thе trеes bеhind thе mushrоom рatсh, tеrrifying skulls with hollоw еyе sockets stаred emptilу—thоugh thеir eуes had long rоttеd аwaу, thеу sееmеd to bе gаzing intentlу at thе group.
"I susрeсt thе tоxiсitу оf this рoison is far lоwer than that of ordinаry toxiс mushrooms, аnd its metаbоlic rаte in the human body is very fast. Its advantage lies in continuous inhalation and sustained effect. As long as oxygen is supplied and the air is filtered, people can quickly regain consciousness. Therefore, whatever produces and releases this toxic gas must ensure continuous inhalation to achieve its purpose."
As Diao Zhuo spoke, everyone from the Rescue Team and the Mountaineering Association had already regained their senses. Each of them tightly covered their mouths and noses with masks, fearing they might fall into hallucinations again.
"From what you’re saying, the toxic gas isn’t man-made," Ge Mingliang remarked.
Bayunye shuddered and pointed at the Grave Mound Mushrooms, exclaiming loudly, "Is it those things?"
"Exactly," Diao Zhuo affirmed.
"Damn it, I’ll burn them all to ashes!" Bayunye’s bandit-like temper flared up. Clenching her fists, she ignored the fact that they were in a primeval forest and began looking around for gasoline.
Fat Monkey sat on the ground, re-bandaging the wound on his leg. Hearing this, he couldn’t help but laugh. "Hey, isn’t it a bit inappropriate to talk about starting a fire in front of the police?"
Bayunye faltered, letting out a dry chuckle before giving up.
"This might be an evolved self-defense mechanism of the Grave Mound Mushrooms," Xiang An speculated. "Maybe these things taste good, and to prevent people from eating them, they release a bit of toxic gas to drive others insane, so they won’t bother picking them."
Da Qin burst into laughter, but the movement tugged at his wound, causing a sharp pain. He cursed under his breath, clutching his injury as he muttered, "Self-defense mechanism? I think you’re just hungry..."
"It’s not afraid of being eaten—it wants to eat people." Diao Zhuo’s words instantly turned the recently relaxed atmosphere tense and somber again.
"How so?" Ge Mingliang asked with concern.
"Think back—we dug up the soil beneath the Grave Mound Mushrooms twice," Diao Zhuo prompted. "What did we find?"
Bayunye snapped her fingers. "I know—Japanese corpses! Are you saying these Grave Mound Mushrooms grow by absorbing nutrients from corpses? They drive passing creatures insane, knocking them unconscious so they can feed on them?"
Diao Zhuo gave her a thumbs-up but added, as Bayunye began to gloat, "Not entirely correct."
Bayunye waved her fist. "Tell me where I’m wrong! If there’s even the slightest mistake, I won’t be polite with you."
"Of course, Master Ba is always right," Diao Zhuo placated her. "You just missed a few details."
She asked irritably, "What details?"
"The Japanese remains are at least seventy or eighty years old, but the Grave Mound Mushrooms growing above them couldn’t possibly have survived that long. In fact, when we dug up the Japanese remains, we also found other corpses—a rabbit and a snake. So, I infer that the nutrients for those two Grave Mound Mushrooms likely didn’t come from the Japanese but from the rabbit and the snake. It’s just that, coincidentally, Japanese soldiers were buried underneath, so our attention was entirely focused on those two unlucky souls."
"That makes a lot of sense..." Bayunye stroked her chin. "I’ve decided to be a bit more polite to you after all."Xiang An looked at the cluster of Grave Mound Mushrooms with disgust. "So they want to use us as fertilizer?"
"Exactly. That's why the closer we got to the Grave Mound Mushrooms, the stronger the signal on our communication devices seemed—but that was also an illusion." Diao Zhuo took out his phone and GPS, which clearly showed no signal at all. "I asked you if you’d contacted rescue, and you said they replied they’d send a helicopter."
Xiang An scratched his head, blaming himself for being so muddle-headed at the time that he hadn’t noticed the flaw—never mind the abnormal magnetic field and towering ancient trees here, making it impossible to find a landing spot. Just consider how many people a helicopter could carry—how could it possibly rescue everyone at once? Besides, the criminals had guns. If the police really sent a helicopter, wouldn’t that force the criminals into a desperate fight? So he quickly denied it. "Did I say that?"
Everyone smiled at him, their expressions painfully insincere.
"Fine, it was just my auditory hallucination!" Xiang An admitted honestly.
Diao Zhuo said, "This area has the most Grave Mound Mushrooms, requiring the most nutrients, so the concentration of toxic gas they produce should be the strongest. That’s why our poisoning symptoms were the most severe. First, we experienced wish-fulfillment hallucinations—like seeing Brother Long, detecting signals, and even making phone calls. Then, as the toxins took control of our brains, we developed a longing for death, entering a Near-Death State. Our brains lost control of our muscles, and finally, we couldn’t breathe on our own... If we hadn’t snapped out of it in time, all of us would probably have been covered in Grave Mound Mushrooms."
Bayunye couldn’t help but feel a chill down her spine. "Although there’s a saying, ‘survival of the fittest,’ the survival tactics of Grave Mound Mushrooms are too despicable. Isn’t this just building their own happiness on others’ suffering?"
Compared to her righteous indignation, Diao Zhuo felt that perhaps it was precisely because of these Grave Mound Mushrooms, which "build their own happiness on others’ suffering," that this primeval forest had hindered humanity’s pursuit of economic value, allowing many rare species to survive and thrive.
"Wait!" Bayunye seemed to realize something else. "Actually, the Grave Mound Mushrooms aren’t really at fault. We were the ones who carelessly intruded into their world—they didn’t invade our daily lives. Besides, maybe tens of thousands of Japanese soldiers were killed by them. In a way, Grave Mound Mushrooms are anti-Japanese heroes. They should be renamed Anti-Japanese Mushrooms."
This view aligned perfectly with Diao Zhuo’s. He reached out and gently patted the top of her head. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed someone still lying on the ground. Looking closer, it was Hippo. The oxygen mask over his nose and mouth had been removed by someone, and now his lips were bluish-purple, his face pale.
Diao Zhuo rushed over in a flash and placed a portable oxygen mask over Hippo’s nose and mouth.
Noticing a shoe print on Hippo’s face, there was no need to guess—it was definitely Bayunye’s doing.
He turned around to see Bayunye standing with one hand in her pocket like a ruffian, staring back at him seriously, her eyes suddenly taking on a cold, striking intensity. "Why save him? He’s with that He guy."
Remembering what Hippo had said to him during their confrontation, Diao Zhuo didn’t remove the oxygen mask.
So Ah Shui was Hippo. He had infiltrated the mountaineering association’s team and followed them all the way. Hmph, no wonder he’d been so tightly covered up the whole time and hadn’t dared to say even a word more than necessary. Bayunye, with nowhere to vent her anger, couldn’t be bothered with Diao Zhuo and turned her back on him.Everything was quiet all around, and all the companions were safe and sound, but Brother Long was still nowhere to be seen. Bayunye’s mood instantly turned sour again. Her rain-dampened bangs clung to her forehead, and she irritably brushed them aside, stomping her foot hard on the ground twice.
Diao Zhuo’s brow was tightly furrowed. He occasionally checked Hippo’s breathing and felt his pulse. The other members of the Rescue Team had all heard about Hippo’s sudden departure to some extent, but no one dared to speak up.
“Our top priority now should be to continue searching for people,” Xiang An finally broke the silence.
“Since his bracelet fell among the Grave Mound Mushrooms, he should be nearby,” Diao Zhuo turned back and said, “Let’s split up and search.”
Hearing this, Bayunye felt a surge of joy and decided to treat Hippo as if he were invisible. “Really?”
“Bring oxygen tanks and masks,” he reminded her. “He might be in the same state we were in earlier.”
“If he’s also poisoned and hallucinating…” Bayunye asked, “Is he still alive?”
“There should still be some time between losing consciousness and complete death, as this toxin itself isn’t directly fatal,” Diao Zhuo reassured her.
Qi Zi patted the dirt off his clothes, intending to give the two of them some time alone. “Master Ba, you stay and take care of Da Qin and Fat Monkey. We’ll go search.”
Bayunye lowered her head unhappily. After everyone had left, she said to Diao Zhuo somewhat petulantly, “Since you’re being such a good person, why not just go ahead and rescue Red Beard and his gang too?”
“It’s different,” he had no intention of saving those criminals. Pointing at Hippo, he said, “Along the way, he helped you.”
“I don’t care whether he helped me or not. It was him who took Zhang Chenguang’s thermos and left! To find He Zhengren! He’s the undercover they sent to our club to spy on me! Now he’s pretending to be from the mountaineering association, all to find Brother Long! Even if he might not be working with those criminals, his goal is the same as theirs!”
“Calm down,” Diao Zhuo saw that Hippo’s condition had stabilized and stood up, walking closer to Bayunye. “Do you trust me?”
Time seemed to flow backward. Earlier, when he had privately confronted “Ah Shui” and exposed his identity, Hippo had asked him, “Do you think you’re a brave and trustworthy man?”
“You’re not God. Why should I trust you?” She rolled her eyes at him. In truth, she still trusted him. Otherwise, if she wanted to strangle Hippo, he wouldn’t have been able to stop her.
Diao Zhuo said in a low voice, “If you trust me, wait for him to wake up and tell you himself.”
Bayunye glared at him, meeting his gaze, before finally looking away. This Diao Zhuo must have discovered long ago that Ah Shui was Hippo in disguise and must have learned some truth from Hippo’s mouth, which is why he was so kind as to save him. She thought back to the three years she and Hippo had spent partnering up to guide clients—countless moments of laughter and shared hardships. Her heart suddenly softened a little, and she let out a long sigh, her shoulders, which had been tense with anger, relaxing.
“Does he have some unavoidable hardship? Did He Zhengren and the others threaten his wife and children?”
Diao Zhuo smiled and shook his head.
Bayunye furrowed her brow, thinking for a moment before asking again, “Don’t tell me… he’s also a police officer?”
“Does he look like one?”
“No.”
“It’s better for him to explain it to you himself.”
She kicked Hippo’s foot and mocked, “Damn it, he was wearing height-increasing insoles. No wonder I didn’t realize it was him.”
Diao Zhuo suddenly hugged her.To be honest, even though the crisis had passed, after days of relentless travel, Bayunye couldn't help but feel physically and mentally exhausted. Leaning into Diao Zhuo's embrace, she found a moment of peace and ease. She recalled the pain she had relived while falling into darkness—it was precisely that pain that had forged the compassionate, courageous, and daring Master Ba she had become.
More than ten minutes later, the other members of the Rescue Team returned one by one. They had found no trace of Brother Long or any marks he might have left nearby.
Looking on the bright side, not finding him meant he hadn't collapsed yet.
The effectiveness of the filter masks was limited, and it was impossible for everyone to stay long in this forest dense with Grave Mound Mushrooms. But continuing forward would be like wandering aimlessly, relying purely on luck to find him or not. After so many sudden incidents, most of the group was utterly exhausted. Whether to keep searching or not had become a dilemma.
Should they continue the search, or trust that Brother Long could rely on his exceptional survival skills to make his way out of the dense forest?
Bayunye glanced around, then looked at her companions who had come this far together. Exchanging a glance with Ge Mingliang, she finally took a deep breath and said, "Let's... turn back."
Everyone exchanged uncertain looks, standing still as they each pondered the situation, their expressions grave. By now, their drinking water and food supplies were nearly depleted. Coupled with the equipment being disrupted by magnetic interference, making navigation and positioning impossible, turning back offered a chance to retreat safely. If they risked pressing forward, what unknown dangers might still await them?
After weighing the options, everyone decided to head back.
Ge Mingliang retrieved his and Fat Monkey's guns from the bandits. The others packed up briefly, then, carrying the still-unconscious Hippo, they began to follow their original route back in a group. Just then, Diao Zhuo suddenly stopped. "Wait."
OpenNovel