No one knew how long it had passed on Earth, but the cycles of dark nights and hazy days still continued.
In an endless creep area, many huge tombs were spread out towards the end of the horizon. The smoke they spurted out made the hazy sky even dimmer.
Countless insects were like ants moving orderly in the creep area. Every group of insects seemed to have designated tasks assigned to them. Sometimes, they were split apart; sometimes two or more groups were gathered together moving in the same direction. Occasionally, there was one huge but blurry figure passing by the groups of insects interrupting their works.
Amongst the busy swarm, a relatively bigger red-shelled insect was dragging a dying red-shelled insect and slowly moving towards a tomb that had a strange look, compared to other tombs.
Over there, it had the biggest blood pool in this creep area. All the dead insects would be gathered here to be dissolved and reused again.
…
Chu Yunsheng felt that his head was heavy, his body was heavy, his arms and his legs were also…
‘Wait… It is not right. It doesn’t feel like arms and legs!?’
He wanted to wake up. However, no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t open his eyes.
He felt like he was being dragged by something, and there were sounds of many insects around him.
‘Where am I?!’ He wondered.
‘Wake up!’ He shouted in this mind and attempted to use his hands to pinch his face. But he couldn’t feel his “hands”.
‘Wait… Am I still alive? Am I not supposed to be dead?’ then he suddenly remembered something, “that’s right. My body exploded, but where am I?”
‘What happened!’
Then, he seemed to smell the sharp and distinct smell of the insect’s mucus.
‘But why does it smell so nice now?’
‘I really want to lie down and sleep on it,’ He thought.
‘Ah!～’ He suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head, ‘why does it hurt to think anything? Why do I feel like someone is calling me?’
…
‘I woke up again?’
‘Huh? Why again? Did I wake up earlier? Am I dreaming again?’
‘My brain hurts again. Why do I feel like I don’t remember a lot of things?’
‘But, how do I know that I forget a lot of things?’
‘My brain hurts again…’
…
‘I am an insect? Why do I have this kind of thoughts? Not possible, I hate insects. How come I am an insect?’
‘But that signal told me that I am an insect…’
‘No, I am not an insect! I am a human being. My name is Chu… Chu…?’
‘Ah!… My head hurts again. Why does it always happen when I am about to remember some important things…’
…
‘Yes! I remember it! my name is Chu Yunsheng. It must be this name! That’s great. I have a name, I am not an insect, insects don’t have names.’
‘But…’
‘It seems like I have lost something important, very very important. What is it?’
‘Please remember it. Please remember it. What is it?’
‘My head hurts… Ah… Why…’
…
‘Yes! I remember it now. It’s a book. But why a book is important, I don’t like to read at all.’
‘I’m hungry? Why am I hungry?’
‘Where am I. Why is it so hot here?’
….
‘Someone wants to harm me. That’s right. Someone wants to harm me. Who is it? Who?’
….
*&&%…%￥%
….
Confusion… Confusion… Continuous confusion…
…
(The sound of bubbles popping…)
‘I feel like I am sinking, but why don’t I feel suffocating? Do I not need to breathe?’
‘I am feeling uncomfortable. Why do I feel like my body is being dissolved? It’s very painful.’
‘Pain everywhere…’
‘I can’t take it anymore!’
…
(The sound of bubbles popping…)
Suddenly, a mucus bubble popped out from deep inside a blood pool. At the same time, Chu Yunsheng who suffered from acute burning pain also woke up.
However, what he saw next shocked him.
His “vision” suddenly became extremely good. He could tell that the place he was in had bad visibility. However, he still could see a lot of things clearly.
‘What the fuck is this place? Why am I here?’
Around him floated bodies of all types of insects. There were red-shelled insects, green-shelled insects, golden-shelled insects… There were also many bodies of insects that he had never seen before, and there was even a huge skeleton of a dinosaur-like body!
They were all thrown into this red colored slimy pool.
‘Was I caught by the tentacle monster?’ Chu Yunsheng couldn’t help but think.
He remembered clearly that when he was in Shen Cheng city, the tentacle monster he was dealing with had this kind of pool. But that pool was much smaller than this one.
However, when he looked around, he couldn’t find any tentacle monsters around him. Instead, the more he looked, the more he felt like he was in a tomb?!
But the tomb’s internal structure shouldn’t be like this. Chu Yunsheng was confused.
Then, he was suddenly hit with a fit of dizziness. He felt like his brain couldn’t handle too much thinking as if he didn’t have enough brain cells to help him to process the information.
But no matter where he was right now, he had to get out of this dangerous place.
So he immediately wanted to move to the edge of the mucus pool. But in the next second, he was almost scared to death.
‘Where are my hands!’
When he lifted up his “hand”, he noticed that he lifted up a big and broken claw!
It was the claw that he was extremely familiar with. It was a red-shelled insect’s claw.
‘What happened?’
Chu Yunsheng lifted another “hand” in panic. But it was still a broken claw. He was terrified and trying to use his claws to feel this body and head…
However, all he touched were solid shells.
Then he was stunned and completely paralyzed to discover the fact that he was now a red-shelled insect. Even though he was still in the mucus pool, and all the liquid around him was trying to dissolve him, he had no reactions to it at all.
Strangely, shortly after Chu Yunsheng’s mind went completely blank, its body started to move clumsily and slowly towards the edge of the mucus pool, and it didn’t seem like he was controlling it.
When “he” staggered to the exit of the tomb, a red-shelled insect that was much bigger and stronger than him, rushed in and waved its claws at him.
The familiar fight scene instantly triggered Chu Yunsheng’s defensive subconsciousness. He instinctively wanted to take out the roaring flame gun and Qian Bi sword to kill the red-shelled insect, However, nothing happened.
“Bang!”
The bigger red-shelled insect easily pinched his head and threw him outside the tomb very hard. All the red-shelled insects that were just passing by the tomb casually dodged him and carried on doing their works. It seemed like none of the insects were interested in him.
Then, another stronger red-shelled insect crawled towards him. It picked him up and turned him around and around while checking something on his body. A few seconds later, it put him down and dragged him towards another tomb nearby.
Chu Yunsheng had already woken up. The panic caused by the fact that he had become an insect had already been suppressed by him.
At least, I am still alive,’ he thought.
He had been through so many life and death situations. The simple and the ordinary will of staying alive made him adjust his emotions very quickly.
‘As long as I am alive, there will still be a hope. If I am dead then everything is over.’
He struggled and tried to stop the red-shelled insect that was dragging him towards another tomb. However, his weak struggle did not even slow down the bigger red-shelled insect’s speed at all.
His broken body was too weak. Including his claws, not a single place on his body was not injured. He felt empty inside his body. His insect’s body did not seem to have any corrosive liquid left, let alone the unique insect’s fire elemental energy.
He was dispirited. He had already accepted the fate of being an insect. But why did he have to be the weakest red-shelled insect? And why did he have to be the injured one?
‘Probably I am the weakest red-shelled insect in this swarm,’ He thought.
After failing to break free, and being “beaten” by the red-shelled insect that was dragging him several times, he gave up reluctantly…
If it’s fortune it isn’t a calamity, and if it’s a calamity then it can’t be avoided. So Chu Yunsheng just let the stronger red-shelled insect keep dragging him.
At the worst, he would just be thrown into another one of those mucus pools. It was better to restore his strength at the moment. So it would be easier for him to crawl out of a pool later.
‘A good insect knows what is good for it,’ Chu Yunsheng let out a hollow laugh. It might look like Chu Yunsheng was trying to ridicule himself, but actually, he was trying to encourage himself.
He knew that no one would be there to share his difficulty and loneliness, so he needed to learn how to handle this situation himself. Self-ridicule was exactly the method he used.
He needed to stay optimistic, even if it was just pretending. Otherwise, he really didn’t know if he had the courage to survive with an insect’s body.
He suppressed all the negative and pessimistic emotions, burying them all deep inside his mind, and tried not to think about them.
The life and death experiences he had had in the past taught him that he shouldn’t be pessimistic. Negative thoughts could easily make him lose his mind, and once he sank in, became a decadent walking dead, he would not be far from dead.
Soon, he was dragged into another tomb. Compared to the last tomb, the entrance of the tomb he entered now was much busier. Many insects with flashy shells constantly ran past him and joined the swarm outside.
Chu Yunsheng forced himself to shift his attention from himself to the new tomb.
But before he was able to carefully check the internal structure of the new tomb, a black tube that was as big as a human arm quickly wrapped him up and took him into the “forest” of tubes inside the tomb.
The sudden high-speed movement made Chu Yunsheng’s weak head feel dizzy. When the dizziness finally stopped, he noticed that there were many thin small and tender transparent tubes spitting different colors of liquid onto his wounds.
When those liquids just touched his body, Chu Yunsheng instantly felt like his injury began to recover rapidly. But at the same time, the acute discomforts like many ants were biting him, immediately rushed into his brain from those injured areas. It was so painful that he almost wanted to commit suicide.
Looking at the red-shelled insect that was going through the same process only a couple meters away from him, he was extremely envious. That dumb fuck probably didn’t have any consciousness. It didn’t even have any reactions to the liquid at all.
After almost 2 hours of painful recovery, Chu Yunsheng was lifted up by the tube again and sent to another place to fix his claws and legs.
Chu Yunsheng finally realized the function of this tomb now. The last tomb was probably used for recycling the dead insects. But this tomb was used to repairing the injured insects.
If a creep area had such a clear division of the labor, then how big could it be? And how powerful the Min here could be? Chu Yunsheng didn’t dare to imagine.
Compared to the tombs here, the three tombs Chu Yunsheng controlled in the yellow mountain area was like a child’s game.
It took the tomb another two hours to repair his claws and legs. Then, he was moved to another place to repair his shell.
The dumb red-shelled insect Chu Yunsheng saw earlier seemed to be always at a place a couple meters away from him.
‘It seems like that dumb fuck only entered the repairing process a couple of minutes before me,’ Chu Yunsheng thought.
Chu Yunsheng slowly started to lower his guard. It seemed like he was not in any danger in this place.
After a moment of dizziness, he was sent to another place again, and the dumb red-shelled insect was already there.
But in the next second, he suddenly had a strange cold shudder. While he was trying to figure out what caused him to feel that way, a golden tube was sent down from the above of the dumb red-shelled insect in front of him.
Then a strange steady stream of liquid was shot out from the tube. When the stream touched the back of the dumb red-shelled insect’s head, a cloud of smoke appeared. And with the sizzling sound it made, the tube was slowly moving horizontally from the back of the dumb red-shelled insect’s head to the front.
Shortly after the cut, a dozen thin transparent tubes quickly reached the dumb red-shelled insect and lifted up the top half of its skull.
The golden tube was retracted shortly, but another white tender earthworm-like tube was sent down from the above. It wriggled into the skull, writhed along the edge of the inside of the skull, wrapped around a brain-like black mass and then lifted it up.
There were many sticky substances attached to the black mass when it was lifted up. They were stretched very long before they finally broke apart. It looked disgusting as hell.
A few seconds after the black mass was lifted up, a red-colored but crystal clear brain-like mass was sent down from above and “stuffed” into the red-shelled insect’s empty skull.
At the same time, the top half of the skull was put back by many thin transparent tubes. They also spat out some strange fluid to glue the skull back together…
After seeing all of this, Chu Yunsheng instinctively raised his head to check.
Above him, a golden-colored tube was pointing at his head. He could even see the smokes coming from the tube.
