Lin Yuan and Ni Ji walked a long way.
The terrain here is too complicated, with pipes extending in all directions, countless intersections, and floors that go up and down from time to time.
With the help of the surveying instrument made by Ni Ji, they walked and stopped. When they were tired, they found a corner, leaned against each other, took turns to fall asleep, and watched over each other.
When you are hungry, you can light a fire and cook something hot to eat. Ni Ji has strong survival ability in the wild and his hands are dexterous, so he can create delicious food as much as possible in such an environment.
After exploring such a dark world for a long time, there is always only a dim light and endless passages.
The two people subconsciously moved closer to each other, holding each other's hands tightly every few steps, for fear of getting separated in such a world.
They often encounter some strange underground creatures.
Most of them are violent and cruel, and have to fight. But there are also some gentle and intelligent ones, who can even talk to each other when they meet, and are willing to point them in the direction of the temple.
"Don't go. The temple is about to collapse. What are you going there for?"
A female mutant with a terrifying appearance but a gentle voice told them this. She and her family were preparing to take refuge in a higher place.
Ni Ji heard a slight noise while walking forward and made a cautious gesture to Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan hesitated and said: "But..."
Ni Ji is a sentinel who uses his powerful hearing and vision to identify enemies in dark environments.
Lin Yuan uses his mental power entirely to distinguish living creatures.
The mutant in the corner gave her a familiar feeling. It was the little mutant who had asked them for snake meat soup and dragged it back to her mother not long ago.
The dim light of the flashlight shone over and saw a huge deformed creature lurking at the corner ahead.
It was several times larger than the little mutant. It looked like it had swallowed something huge. Its entire body was swollen, and its skin was stretched into a bulging layer. It was slowly crawling in the corner.
"Ah, I see you two again."
A bloated, huge, thinly skinned mutant moved out from the corner.
An empty tin can was squeezed out from under him and rolled in front of Ni Ji. Ni Ji stepped on it and recognized it as the tin can he used to hold the broth.
This creature, which had grown several times in size, was the small mutant they had encountered before.
"Although you were kind enough to give me this soup, Mom still couldn't hold on in the end."
There was a hint of sadness in his tone. He stretched out his long fat arm and touched his abdomen.
If my mother were to pass away, I would inherit her body and not a single bit of it would be wasted.
Ni Ji and Lin Yuan remembered what he had said. They kept their mouths shut and didn't ask where his mother had gone. They just felt a chill down their spines.
But the little mutant was oblivious to their emotions.
He seemed happy about the reunion. He was very excited to see these two alien humans who had shown kindness to him.
"You guys want to look for the temple, right? That place is not easy to find." The little mutant crawled out from the hiding passage, "Come, I'll take you there."
He moved ahead swiftly, leading the way, sometimes climbing up the wall, sometimes sticking to the roof.
Although he has grown bigger, his movements are still like those of a cub.
It doesn't walk in a straight line, but likes to climb up and down. Occasionally, it is distracted by something and will stop to fiddle with it for a while.
Very pure, with a simple mind. But some of his actions are cruel, such as trying to hunt down Ni Ji and Lin Yuan without saying a word, and devouring his dead mother without hesitation.
Although they evolved from humans, they are obviously a completely different race from humans in terms of behavior and ideology.
Ni Ji and Lin Yuan looked at each other, kept a distance from each other, and slowly followed him.
A childish voice of a small mutant came from the front, "Brother and sister, you are from the outside world, right? Everyone says that the outside world is scary and humans are terrible. In fact, I think it's not that bad. You two are both good humans."
"Why do we need to go to the temple?" the childish voice said as it crawled. "The temple is not safe right now."
"Is the temple unsafe?" Ni Ji asked.
"We can't feel the god anymore. He's gone. Some people say he's dead. Everyone says the temple will collapse soon. It's very dangerous."
The giant young mutant crawled in the dark passage, its tone revealing confusion and worry.
"Maybe I should get out of here too, but I don't know where to go."
He has lived in this world since he was born.
He has no eyes and does not know what light is. This vast underground city is his entire world.
Perhaps in response to the collapse he mentioned, the ground of the maze soon shook terribly, dust fell, and the metal pipes creaked as they shook.
The little mutant squeezed its huge body into a small corner in fear.
While dodging falling objects, Ni Ji stretched out his hand to help him block a piece of metal that fell from the roof.
Even after the dizzying shaking ended, he was still hiding in the corner with his butt sticking up, not daring to come out.
He just stretched out a long, soft arm, grabbed the wall and twisted it to draw a route map.
"It's not too far. Just go forward, turn like this, then turn like this, then turn like this, and you'll be there."
There was an aftershock and a lot of stuff fell off the roof.
Lin Yuan looked up at the shaking roof and suspected that a landslide might really happen here.
The little mutant screamed and curled up his bloated body even tighter.
He had never experienced earthquakes or collapses, and could hardly believe that the steel city that had sheltered him since he was a child could also experience such a shaky moment.
Lin Yuan and Ni Ji prepared to say goodbye to him and hurried to the temple.
"Wait, wait a minute."
The eyeless head protruded from the cave, bald and strangely shaped.
But after seeing so many deformed species these days, Lin Yuan felt he had gotten used to it, and even thought the naked look was a little cute.
"I, I may not be able to leave here." The little mutant requested, his tone was very sincere, "I want to ask you, if I die, can you eat some of my flesh?"
Lin Yuan shook his head and refused, "Sorry."
For them, being eaten by their favorite creatures after death is the continuation of life.
It is extremely painful to have no one to inherit your body.
Swallowing is a way for the creatures here to inherit power and continue life.
The strong devour the weak, and the dead relatives entrust their bodies to the younger generations. In their eyes, it is a matter of course.
However, the concepts shaped by Lin Yuan's living environment since childhood made it impossible for her to accept such advice.
In this shaking vibration, Lin Yuan recalled his previous memories.
When Ni Ji was unconscious, she was brought deep underground by Teng Lu.
An ancient, distorted creature that was so old and nearly exhausted crawled out from the ground and tried to devour her body.
"Great! Finally a guide has been sent to me, a young guide who is closely related to me by blood." said the giant.
Lin Yuan was unwilling to give in, and as a result their mental powers clashed and entangled with each other, and the tug-of-war battle lasted for a long time.
After the earthquake stopped, Lin Yuan and Ni Ji said goodbye to the panicked little mutant, followed his instructions, and finally arrived at a huge gate.
I don’t know what special material the door is made of, it is pure white and thick, and when you touch it with your fingers, beautiful golden murals will light up.
Ni Ji pressed the door with both hands, exerted force with his fingers, and pushed the thick white door open with a creak.
They found themselves at last at the temple they had been seeking.
This place is called a temple, but it looks more like a research institute with a huge space.
It was no longer dark inside, and there were dim lights in the corners of every space.
The four walls are white, the floor is white, and the whole space is open, wide, and terrifyingly pure white.
Various advanced instruments are placed in the large white house, various cables and steel cables are hung from the roof, and huge glass sealed cabins are neatly arranged on the outside.
The glassware is now empty, the yellow-green liquid dried on the inside of the glass.
Lin Yuan and Ni Ji shook each other's hands and walked into the vast, silent and pale space.
They saw many iron beds.
Thick iron chains were dragging on both sides of the bed, with dried black bloodstains on the chains.
It is obvious that many humans have been locked in this cold iron bed and struggled in pain.
Silent and cold iron beds are placed in the pale world, and the air seems to be filled with ancient wails.
Ni Ji and Lin Yuan avoided the blood-stained iron beds and walked forward.
Passing through the huge machinery that was as dense as a rainforest, through the doors of the partitioned rooms, I saw the huge hole in the floor of the central area.
In the center of this research institute, there is such a deep cave, with electric fences surrounding the entrance.
Standing at the edge of the cave and looking down, there is a jade altar right below. Pale light is projected from here. It is dark below, and only the smooth surface of the altar is shrouded in light.
That familiar altar that appeared many times in dreams and reality!
"I've seen it on the murals. People at that time probably fed humans to a monster here, hatched it, and raised it. They used it for human experiments."
As Ni Ji said this, he reached out and held the hand of Lin Yuan who was standing beside him.
He held a cold hand.
Ni Ji turned his head suddenly.
The person behind him was in a white dress with sparkling eyes. He was holding her hand, but it was not Lin Yuan, but another face.
Lin Yuan saw the altar in the underground cave.
The altar was bathed in light and soaked in countless thick blood.
She took two steps back and happened to knock open a partition door behind her.
The small white door creaked open, and Lin Yuan turned around and looked. The small space looked like an office, with white coats hanging on the wall and documents scattered on the floor.
On the ground under those thin pieces of paper, there was actually a huge eye. When the eye saw Lin Yuan appear, its blood-red pupil moved, blinked, and moved from the ground to the roof.
Lin Yuan subconsciously reached out to pull Ni Ji behind her. There was light here, and everything in the world was clearly visible. Ni Ji was just one step away behind her.
But she held a strange hand, which was soft and small, icy and cold, and definitely not Ni Ji's hand.
Lin Yuan got goosebumps all over his body and suddenly looked back.
The person holding his hand was wearing a white dress and looked like Fujilu, but it felt completely wrong. She was so close to him that he could hold hands with her, but she seemed very far away from him. Her white arms seemed to be infinitely extended, curved and stretched into the distance.
The space seemed to be distorted, and Lin Yuan saw Ni Ji on the other side of the man.
There was only one person between the two of them, but Ni Ji seemed to become extremely small over there, and very far away from him.
He was running towards him, a distance that he could reach in one or two steps at his speed, but it seemed that he could never reach it no matter how fast he ran.
"Don't be surprised. I'm not Fujilu. Or I can't be considered a complete Fujilu." The creature in a white dress, who was both far away and close, said to Lin Yuan, "She didn't want to turn back into a human, so she voluntarily gave her body to me, giving me this opportunity to talk to you."
"Who are you?" Lin Yuan asked.
"Who am I?" The will holding her hand conveyed a certain smile, "I can't answer this question either. Perhaps you can give an answer of your own."
Their palms were clasped together, their skins were touching, and the mental powers of both sides collided head-on in the spiritual sea as vast as the universe.
The brilliant spiritual universe is boundless.
The flowing consciousness is like colorful lights.
The colored lights touched and invaded each other.
(End of this chapter)