“Mu Ke, you and Liu Jiayi go to the infirmary on the first floor and find out if there are any relevant dical records to see why this group of people are ingesting drugs in such large quantities.”
Bai Liu’s eyes were deep: “These people should have been of sound mind when they arrived in Antarctica, we need to find out exactly what made them ntally unbalanced.”
Mu Ke nodded and led Liu Jiayi down. Before he left, Bai Liu threw them two guns and three boxes of ammunition: “Be careful.”
Mu Ke steadily took the gun and the bullets, which he expertly loaded and stuck to his side.
Liu Jiayi struggled to use it and although it had been modified, it was still too long and she had to lift her arm to hold it, but she had the correct posture.
After all the trials and tribulations, they were now almost all good with guns, not as good as Tang Erda, the marksman, but at least as good as an experienced gunman.
Even Liu Jiayi was proficient with automatic or semi-automatic firearms, although she used them sparingly because of her height and their powerful recoil, it wasn’t impossible for her to use.
But now there was no choice. In this freezing weather, it was better to use the supplies first than to use up one’s energy and skills.
Bai Liu led Mu Sicheng and Tang Erda, grabbed their guns, and followed Mu Ke and Liu Jiayi downstairs as they prepared to check out the basent under the helicopter hangar outside the observatory.
The two teams parted on the first floor.
Bai Liu walked up to the front door and saw that it had frosted over again in the space of an hour, with a foamy white conglorate hanging from the lock handle and a cold, hard texture in his hand.
It was so cold here that the extrely low temperatures and hurricane winds made the shaped snow solidify so quickly that it was not much different from ice in the hand.
Bai Liu moved his gaze to the wind gauge hanging next to the door, which gave the temperature and wind speed outside the window.
[-55.8°C, wind speed 119 km/h, force 12, category 1 hurricane, no going out]
Mu Sicheng, who grew up in the south, had never experienced such a bitter cold, and the realisation that he was in -50 degrees made him feel even colder. He was uncomfortable all over his body as if a cold breeze had been whipped into his bones, sending a chill through him.
But although he had no idea about low temperatures, he was more familiar with typhoons, and Mu Sicheng looked at the category 1 hurricane and said, “Shit? Is it that windy? This is on the coast, tens of kilograms of trees can be blown up……”
Tang Erda also wrinkled his nose: “You can’t fly a helicopter in this extre weather, you’ll get blown into the wind and have an accident and if you want to go out and find another observation post, you’ll have to drive a snowmobile.”
Bai Liu didn’t comnt on the weather as he calmly pushed the door open.
The wind howled and swept in, and there was no light outside the door, only a dense snow that obscured the shimring light far above, darkening the view as far as the eye could see.
The door was rattling with the wind, a thick layer of snow had built up in the doorway, reaching knee-high, and the wind was blowing in with such force that Tang Erda could not help but raise his hand to cover his eyes and be blown backward so distance.
“Put on your goggles and sledges!” In the gale, Tang Erda had to raise his voice so that the others could hear him and yelled, “Keep your safety lines around your waist and don’t get blown off! Watch out for the ice cracks under your feet too! Don’t fall in!”
The Antarctic winds can reach speeds of up to 35 tres per second, enough to blow away objects as heavy as ten Tang Erda, but that’s not the scariest thing here.
The scariest thing here is the ice crevasse, and no one who has survived in Antarctica would be unafraid of this.
The Antarctic ice is not completely flat, and as the weather temperature changes, the process of lting and reshaping the ice creates many crevasses between the ice and the surface that are over a hundred tres deep, and snowfall covers these crevasses, making them visually invisible and difficult to spot.
This naturally ans that it is easy for people to walk on ice or snow and if they are not careful, to step off and fall.
Tang Erda rembered a story he had heard before when he was over here about a Japanese observer who went out to overhaul equipnt and on his way back there was a strong gust of wind and he disappeared.
Four days later, the observatory crew found the team mber in a shallow ice crevice less than three tres from the entrance.
The missing team mber had been frozen alive, his face frosty with snow, his eyes open with resentnt as he stared up at the exit of the ice crevice, his ten fingers fractured and turned out, his nails all frozen, scratching out blood and wounds, his incisors half broken from gnawing, his mouth full of blood, the ice stained with so sticky foam of human skin and blood.
And the snow that covered the ice crevice was not thick enough to reasonably be broken free and then climbed out by this team mber, who realised this and desperately clawed and gnawed his way through the deep snow cover with his teeth.
It would have been possible for him to have managed to escape.
But on those two days, the mbers of the Observatory went out particularly heavily in search of the missing team mber, and on several occasions, snowmobiles were used to run over the crevasse, and this intensive outing soon compacted the snow on the ice crevasse.
And this mber of the team watched as these n, under the banner of saving him, turned his only door to life into a cold, dead one, and then trapped and froze to death.
Since then, the Japanese observatory has often had equipnt breakdowns on nights when a snowstorm was approaching, and the few mbers of the team who went out for maintenance said that on their way back, passing the ice crevasse, they could hear people below them viciously, spitefully pleading for help and hissing.
So of the team mbers with palpitations said they could hear the frantic scratching of nails and the gnawing sound of teeth clicking beneath the snow, and felt that the next thing inside would be scratching through the ice, grinning spitefully as it ca to take him in.
After several more missing overhaul crews, Japan opted for a different observation post as a base camp.
Tang Erda has doubts about the veracity of this story, as the Observatory checks daily for ice crevasses around the area, but it is also through this story that the ice crevasses are rembered.
So when Bai Liu said he was going out, Tang Erda also told the story to Mu Sicheng and Bai Liu in order to alert the group.
After hearing this, Mu Sicheng said: “Fuck it, I don’t want to go, you two should go.”
It was calmly dismissed by Bai Liu.
The three n staggered in the hurricane, pulling the safety rope around their waists in front and behind them, towards the helicopter hangar, which, fortunately, was not far away and was soon reached. Tang Erda pulled open the flap door and the three n entered the basent in turn.
Mu Sicheng shakes the snow from his body, his teeth chattering: “Damn, the weather has changed so quickly, it wasn’t this windy when I was here before!”
“If you stay a little longer when this wind cos, you don’t have anything on you, not a single satellite phone safety rope.” Bai Liu looked askance at Mu Sicheng, “…… Maybe the wind will blow you away and you’ll get stuck in an ice crevice sowhere ……”
Mu Sicheng: “……”
Grass.1
“But this is a ga pool, and I can still quit the ga!” Mu Sicheng spoke back with a stern, hard voice.
“That’s not necessarily true, going out like you did before would never work in this copy.” Tang Erda followed with a strong (fearful) tone at Bai Liu’s gaze, “The deepest ice chasm here is a hundred t, and the lowest temperature can reach -89 degrees, fifteen seconds can make you freeze to dull consciousness, and you may not even think about still being able to exit the ga before you are frozen to death.”
Mu Sicheng: “……”
Grass !!!!
What the hell kind of ga is this!!!
The basent that Bai Liu entered had two levels.
The upper floor was for so light experintation, not much was put in it and it didn’t need to be too clean, so sensors, hydraulic hamrs and such were stacked on this floor and two large vats of pickled cabbage and radishes were placed in the corner.
Tang Erda lifted the cover to take a look, and a foul stench of acidity rose to the sky.
Mu Sicheng’s nose twitched uncomfortably – the very low sll was pure, everything was frozen, so this irritating sll was the first he had slt since coming to this copy.
“It slls like my grandmother’s rotten sauerkraut2 after she failed to make it.” Mu Sicheng fought dry heaving and fanned his hand in front of his nose.
Tang Erda put down the cover cloth and he looked at Bai Liu with a complicated expression: “This sauerkraut is done Chinese style and the people at Edmond’s Observatory shouldn’t know how to do it, so it failed to be done and stinks.”
“But they would have been guided by soone to think of storing food like that.” Bai Liu pondered, “- it seems that the relationship between Tarzan Station and Edmond Observatory is not as rigid as we thought.”
Otherwise, the people of Tarzan Station would not have instructed each other so kindly on how to make sauerkraut, and such parental intercourse3 is clearly the anchor of intimacy.
Bai Liu walked around the tank a few tis. He looked pensive and seed to be looking for sothing.
Mu Sicheng couldn’t resist asking, “It’s just two vats of sauerkraut, what are you looking at?”
“Looking for a production date.” Bai Liu replies blandly.
“?” Mu Sicheng was a bit confused, “Who makes sauerkraut and writes the date it was made? It’s a random thing ……”
His words ended abruptly when Bai Liu crouched down by the tank and wiped his hand over a dark muddy spot in the lower left corner.
In the bottom left corner of this pickle jar, a lab label is posted, which neatly states: [10/8, 12.14kg radish].
It was as if they were marking so upcoming experint.
Mu Sicheng was shocked: “How did you know they had a production date posted?!”
Bai Liu gets up slowly: “This is a laboratory, Edmond is a scientist, he doesn’t know how to make sauerkraut, so he put these two vats of sauerkraut here for one purpose – and that is to experint to docunt the process of fernting this sauerkraut. “
“And in keeping with Dr. Edmond’s rigorous approach to experintation, he was bound to make so basic notes on such things.”
He raised his eyes and smiled, “Like the date.”
Tang Erda had already crouched under another sauerkraut vat, carefully rubbing his fingertips around the old one and finding another label in the sa place.
“The date of placent here is also August 10th.” Tang Erda tilted his head to Bai Liu, but he quickly felt sothing was wrong and frowned, “The date the plane fell and crashed over here is August 7th, the fax from Tarzan station suggesting Edmond station stole the body parts was sent on August 8th, but this Edmond– “
“- Does it seem strange to actually toss two vats of sauerkraut on the 10th of August?” Bai Liu asked softly and rhetorically.
Tang Erda’s brow was furrowed and he couldn’t figure out why.
But Bai Liu didn’t an to answer his doubts either and continued on towards the sliding doors leading to the second basent level.
Between the first and second basent levels is also a sliding door, which is also apparently frozen. Mu Sicheng had cut it open when he ca down earlier.
The mont he opened it, Bai Liu understood why Mu Sicheng had taken the information and ran away.
A thick, strange stench, almost overturning the sky, rushed out, accompanied by a substantial dust and light smoke that poured through the air.
As the heating was restored, the ice prisms at the top of the second basent lted, dripping like stalactites and dropping a murky liquid that flooded the floor, subrging it in a layer of dark grey mud and water, on the surface of which floated a number of slides of unknown creatures and so plastic sealing material.
All in all, it doesn’t look like a pleasant scene.
Mu Sicheng saw Bai Liu going down without saying a word and warned urgently: “There’s water down there! There are rubber boots and gloves by the stairs! Get changed before you go down!”
Bai Liu changed into his rubber boots, pulled down to secure his rubber gloves, grabbed a plastic file bag to shield his head, and walked deep into the second basent.
After descending, the eerie stench intensified, like the fishy odour of so fish freshly salvaged from the depths of the ocean, slippery, slimy, like a sea serpent swimming around Bai Liu in the obscure, dusty air.
The water on the floor was shallow enough to reach the soles of his shoes, and Bai Liu moved with a ripple of water as he bent down to pick up the slides and so materials floating on the surface.
Bai Liu vaguely recognises a few as killer whales, lesser theropods, and several different species of penguin.
The slides floating on the surface are essentially fat and epidermal pressings of these polar animals, and most of the floating material also docunts the results of research on these animals.
In the centre of the basent is a wide, heavy writing desk with four microscopes, a box of knocked-over slides in the middle, and two small test tube racks.
In the test tube racks are neatly arranged rows of small test tubes, the surface of the cell fixing solution is slightly frozen and is now slowly lting as the temperature returns, the floating biological tissue inside taking on a peculiar pink colour after being stained.
As it ward up, the edges of the fleshy tissue began to grow strangely dark, and even so of the tissue in the small test tubes began to wriggle slightly, feeling as if it were coming to life.
Bai Liu scanned the labels attached to the lids of these tubes, all of which read: [Penguin (killer whale, etc.) unknown organism X free cell mix culture].
And in a pile of flesh that was turning black and writhing, there was a quietly suspended piece of tissue that was unmoving, before and after thawing, and it was that bright red of the freshly cut surface of the creature.
Bai Liu thought he could even see the capillaries on the slices oozing blood and dissipating into the fixative.
He walked over and used two fingers to clip the small test tube out of the test tube rack, which had a label attached to the top lid that was very different from the others and read – [Unknown Creature: X].
The mont this small test tube was removed, the tissue inside the other small test tubes seed to be violated and the mouth of the test tube instantly erupted with sharp vapours, and the formaldehyde liquid inside instantly evaporated.
These little pieces of flesh began to divide and grow in so unknown direction, crawling out of the test tube and sticking together, growing in the blink of an eye into a basketball-sized, tentacle-covered, slimy black ball of flesh.
This ball of flesh has the smooth skin of a penguin or killer whale, a mouthful of sharp carnivore teeth, and tumbling newborn tentacles all over the fleshy wings on either side, growing in pulsating bursts.
The tentacles, as if uniting with each other and twisting around each other, sink into the body of this ball of flesh and soon diverge into new tissue – a pair of fishtail-like webbed feet.
The ball of flesh scread hideously and flung its tentacles towards Bai Liu. Tang Erda, standing at the entrance to the stairs, leaned back as quickly as he could, leaned against the steps to lend a hand, threw up his waist rifle, and raised it to his shoulder. He then put it to his face, aid, and fired.
“Bang Bang!”
Two clean shots and the atball lay motionless in the muddy water.
Tang Erda lowered his rifle, his breath slightly panting, and solemnly reminded, “I triggered the monster book, This should be one of the monsters in this copy, called Unknown Creature x Contaminant, This is most likely a biochemically contaminated copy, Be careful not to run into the contaminant source.”
“Okay.” Bai Liu returned ekly, backhanding the small test tube in his hand and hiding it in his fanny pack.
Bai Liu finally found what he was looking for in a locked safe – he had Tang Erda break the lock on it with his gun.
Inside was a chronological diary of experints.
After getting it, Bai Liu erged from the underground laboratory door, closed it and followed Mu Sicheng, who was reluctant to go down.
Behind them, the pile of creatures that Tang Erda had “killed” began to morph and fuse like asphalt, rapidly reassembling from a pile of non-human-looking things, slowly becoming more like a human being, face, features, and limbs all appearing on its body.
It is as if it is adjusting its appearance and body, constantly reappearing in three different ways, at one mont with a slightly more robust human body, at another with an elegant and clean look, and at another with the shape of a monkey’s headphones on its head, and occasionally with eyes that erge from the “asphalt” in pure curiosity.
Eventually, it seed to decide what it wanted to beco and gradually shed the snake-like black shell of its body in the muddy water, its thin white arms and legs bursting rudely out of the shell.
A naked Bai Liu stumbles to his knees in the muddy water, his eyes open with pure clarity and a high-frequency whale-like cry for a companion in his throat.
Scattered across the water, the photocopies were cluttered with the following inscriptions.
[- Cetacean tissues after mixed suspension culture of unknown organism X cells exhibit plant-like recombinant regenerative properties with minimal regression of differentiation, which can be induced to redifferentiate ……]
[Cells possess high levels of intelligence for individual species, and the differentiated “basketball tentacle-like lower organisms” (later referred to as basketballs) exhibit differentiation across biological categories, including humans, birds, fish, and even ferns and ancient microbes……]
[Whale cells begin to play a dominant role, producing whale fish habits, growing a smooth layer of epidermal tissue wrapped around the “basketball”, Cell differentiation gradually tends to normal, differentiation a week after the cells gradually die……]
[Whale habit erges before death, starts moulting, after moulting …… my god! It was reborn! It shows a learning nature! It begins to control the direction of its differentiation …… Oh my god! It started to differentiate in the direction of humans after multiple moults!!!]
[- No, I have to stop the experint, it’s an ethically unacceptable filth, it’ll contaminate the human geno!]
EN1: about the text thing being weird..very sorry trying to fix it!!
EN2: and so hell begins
This is just an MTL edited chapter and can have so errors in it. Feel free to report them in the ERRORS channel on our server !
a chinese slang, 草 is pronounced cǎo and is often used as a euphemism for 肏 (cào) which ans fuck. ↩︎Sauerkraut is finely cut raw cabbage that has been fernted by various lactic acid bacteria. It has a long shelf life and a distinctive sour flavour. ↩︎ communication or dealings between individuals or groups. ↩︎
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