Mother of Insects

Chapter 17

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Bryce took off the necklace he had been wearing around his neck, and then opened the small pendant on the necklace.

The shadow of a young man was projected from the old-fashioned WeChat projector at the bottom of the pendant.

The pale man stood quietly in Bryce's palm, smiling at him silently.

"I wish you were here with us, Xavier, you always know what to do—"

Bryce lowered his eyes, looked at the figure of the man named Xavier, and muttered to himself.

"And you once promised that you would take good care of Lin Xi."

Unfortunately, Savile did not keep his promise.

"A-choo—"

Lin Xi sneezed.

Maybe someone was thinking of him.

He thought, rubbing his nose.

The hatch of his room slowly moved open in front of him. In the dark room, only the Star Butterfly Egg Case Life Support Device at the head of his bed was emitting a faint blue light. The furniture and sundries near the device were therefore stained with a hazy and illusory blue.

A thing that looked like a long-bearded jellyfish was turning and floating gently and slowly inside the not-so-spacious life-support device. Perhaps it was a coincidence, or perhaps it really sensed something. After Lin Xi walked in from outside the door, the direction of the egg sheath also moved.

The tentacles, which were originally swaying slowly and unconsciously in the sticky culture fluid, slowly stuck to the transparent glass inner wall of the device, and judging from the direction, they were approaching Lin Xi's direction.

This scene looks a bit weird, but Lin Xi has gotten used to it now.

He flipped the switch that switched on the power, and the lights quickly came on, filling the room with soft white light.

Then Lin Xi threw all his belongings on the ground, and then fell straight onto his bed. The hard bed on the Apollo 11 aches all over his body, which makes Lin Xi miss the thick and comfortable Simmons mattress in the teacher's apartment on Earth more than ever before.

"So tired..."

He buried his face in the sheets and mumbled tiredly.

Of course there was nothing wrong with the water orchid that Lin Xi had carefully cultivated.

But the plants he cared for still took a lot of his time.

Lin Xi has tried every method he could think of, but the insect plague still shows no signs of abating.

He was really exhausted. If this continued, he would have to shamelessly go to the exploration team and ask them for some insecticide specifically for the external environment of the spacecraft...

"Gurgle—"

Just when Lin Xi was having a headache thinking about work, a wet and sticky voice came from his ear... It was as if it was responding to his previous words belatedly.

Lin Xi turned his head, rested his face on his arms, and stared in the direction where the sound came from.

This position allowed him to see the egg case on the bedside table in a comfortable and relaxed state.

The egg case has undergone great changes.

When it was first sent to Lin Xi, those thin transparent tentacles dragging under its egg sheath were now nearly two millimeters in diameter, and the color had changed from completely transparent to translucent white.

The egg sheath itself also grew larger, and the eggshell covering the row of long and thin eggs began to become thinner and more transparent, allowing people to easily see the inside of the eggs.

At the position closest to Lin Xi, there is an insect egg that is more fully developed - although the contrast is not very obvious, if you look closely you can find that the egg is larger in size and some of the tightly curled structures inside are clearer.

Lin Xi could even see two tiny red dots attached to the inside of the insect eggs. Even in the absence of light, they still emitted a red light that was so faint that it was difficult to recognize.

That should be the eyes of the star butterfly.

Lin Xi guessed with interest.

He nicknamed the best-developed egg "the one".

"Number One," he would occasionally call it like this when he was extremely bored, and then talk to it about his thoughts that he could never tell any human being.

Seeing a small life develop from chaos to this stage is actually a rare and interesting thing in the extremely boring life on the spaceship. Lin Xi even checked the ship's database for it, wanting to find more information about the star butterfly. It's a pity that this sacred object left by the Sunu people was too mysterious in the past. Even the information about the adult insects is pitiful, not to mention the even rarer insect eggs.

Only Ando Shizuo, who has a Sunu-mixed wife, could recognize that this is the egg case of the star butterfly...

Moreover, Lin Xi can now understand Ando's obsession and passion for this little thing to a certain extent.

"… You are pretty entertaining after all, aren't you, Number One."

Lin Xi muttered.

"How long will it take for you to hatch?"

He unconsciously stretched out his fingers and tapped lightly on the transparent shell of the life support device.

According to Ando's request, this is to give the insect eggs slight external stimulation to help them develop - Lin Xi thought happily.

The tentacles growing out of the egg case were stimulated and attached to the other side of the glass at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The two red dots on "Number One"'s body, which Lin Xi believed to be eyes, also trembled slowly.

The two points of red light flickered for a moment at a level imperceptible to humans.

Lin Xi watched the tentacles gradually move towards his fingers. He raised his eyebrows and playfully placed his fingers on the other side of the device and tapped it lightly.

The tentacles immediately began to slowly move towards the other side of the shell, but there were too many tentacles now, and when they were clustered together and changed direction, they looked flustered and clumsy.

Lin Xi almost laughed out loud.

But after chuckling, he looked intently at the life-support device a few more times.

The device seemed a little too small for the now much-developed and expanded egg case.

Lin Xi was a little unsure whether this was the right volume. Maybe he should really go look for Shizuo An Teng as Bryce said

At this time, Lin Xi had no idea that finding Shizuo Andeng would be such a difficult task.

Shizuo Ando was not in the office, nor was he in the laboratory.

When Lin Xi visited his laboratory, he saw only two of his students and assistants busying around in the laboratory. From what Lin Xi could see with his naked eyes, the two students were not prepared to take care of the alien life in Ando Shizuo's laboratory, even though the latter were almost in a state of cryogenic dormancy.

And Professor Ando actually allowed such a thing to happen

Lin Xi was shocked.

But faced with his confusion, the two young students acted extremely helpless and aggrieved.

"We didn't ask to be in charge of the lab."

One of the students, maybe called Ouni or something, stared at Lin Xi with bloodshot eyes.

"… Mrs. Ando had a serious health problem. I think the professor just told us to take care of the laboratory temporarily, but he never came here again." Ouni looked like he hadn't done any personal cleaning for several days. As soon as he approached, the smell on his body forced Lin Xi to silently take several steps back.

"That sounds terrible."

Lin Xi said stiffly and sympathetically.

"In fact, the situation was not so bad at the beginning," Ernie rubbed his greasy hair and said tiredly, "But we don't know what happened. Everything was obviously operating according to the operating rules... Maybe it's a problem with this asteroid? The physiological data of the experimental subject is becoming more and more abnormal..."

He looked as if he was about to complain a few more times, but soon, at the other end of the laboratory, an anesthetic capsule containing some kind of Sunu creatures similar to shrimps and parrots issued a sharp alarm.

The thing should have been as quiet as an animal corpse soaked in formalin, but at this moment it suddenly opened its eyes wide and scratched the inner wall of the container with its powerful claws.

“Unnie?!”

Another assistant yelled at Eun-ni angrily.

"Stop chatting and go check out that bird dragon, damn—"

He then turned to Lin Xi: "I'm sorry, Dr. Lin, there are too many troubles here."

After a pause, the assistant seemed to realize that his tone was too blunt, and he said, "I think maybe you can go directly to the teacher's room? He should be there. He has been staying in the room with Mrs. Ando during this period. We can occasionally contact him through the internal communicator, but he rarely responds to us. In fact, we are a little worried about the teacher's condition."

"Okay, sorry to bother you."

Almost at the same time as the other assistant was talking to Lin Xi, another alarm began to beep.

Not far from them, a mud rat trapped in a metal cage suddenly began to bang against the cage wall frantically, its eyes bulging, and its body turned a dazzling fluorescent green due to congestion. It was only the size of a fist, but the force of its impact was so great that the metal cage bolted to the test bench trembled continuously.

"Oh fuck, here it comes again—"

The assistant uttered a curse and without caring about Lin Xi anymore, he rushed towards the mud rat in a hurry.

Seeing the terrible scene in Ando's laboratory that looked like a battlefield, Lin Xi quickly retreated to avoid getting in the way.

However, even though he had left the laboratory, his frown showed no sign of relaxing.

This can't go on like this.

Lin Xi thought.

Any discerning person can see that Ando's laboratory has now become a huge hidden danger machine. Although there are still two assistants who can barely maintain the situation, Lin Xi is sure that it is only a matter of time before the situation is completely messed up.

There are still some students in the research group, but those who would take part in long-distance voyages like the Apollo are usually those who are on the verge of failing the Earth-Moon United University for various reasons. They can only rely on this thankless and extremely difficult activity to get credits, and their professional quality can only be described as appalling.

In fact, when Lin Xi himself was dealing with the troublesome bugs in his greenhouse, he also considered asking students to help, but he was worried that those people would only make the situation worse...

Lin Xi came directly to the door of Jingxiong An Teng's room with a heavy heart.

That's right, as soon as he left Ando's laboratory, Lin Xi came to him without delay. There was no appointment or communication in advance (he did try to contact Ando's personal terminal, but the other party completely ignored his connection request). This behavior can be said to be very impolite, but Lin Xi didn't care so much.

He directly connected the terminal to the monitor at the door and pressed the visit request button.

After a long time (so long that Lin Xi almost thought there was no one in the room), the metal hatch trembled slightly and then moved to the side.

A humid hot air mixed with a strong fishy and sweet smell instantly rushed towards Lin Xi.

Lin Xi almost suffocated because of the smell.

The room was dark, and the lighting was not turned on.