Chapter 63 Symbiosis
In the evening, it’s past ten o’clock.
At this point, Hogan City has fallen into a deep sleep.
Except for a few drunkards and some special professionals who only go out at night, most people have fallen asleep at home and will not wander outside.
The night is very quiet, with the occasional sound of birds chirping, insects, or noises made by drunkards.
Gaode quietly left the medicine garden from the backyard, walking very lightly and quickly towards the center of the city.
As we passed through the dirty and chaotic slums, we occasionally saw a few figures.
There are many restless people in the slums at night.
Soon, Gaode came to the civilian living area, which was relatively safer and tidier.
Every time he used to sell drugs, he would wander around Hogan City.
Therefore, Gothe is already quite familiar with Hogan City compared to when he first came to this world.
So, Gaode quickly found the goal of this trip.
A sewer entrance in a civilian area.
Gaode looked around and quickly found a suitable location.
Opposite the sewer entrance, there is a street tree with lush leaves.
He quickly approached the street tree, used his childhood tree climbing experience, and climbed up the tree in twos and twos, hiding his figure in the shadow of the tree.
After confirming that the branches and leaves of the street trees had completely covered his figure, without even the slightest trace of his shadow being leaked, Gao Decai carefully opened the branches and then stared at the entrance of the sewer.
The purpose of his trip is obvious:
to conduct a final verification of his guess and to try to find out the true identity of the "culprit behind" the strange things in the city.
There are not many sewer entrances in the city, but they are not few either.
Therefore, "waiting for the rabbit" still involves a bit of luck.
It’s just that Gaode can’t think of any other better way.
I squatted in the tree like this for more than an hour.
The willow branches on the moon.
Just when Gothe was feeling faintly sleepy, a faint rustling sound came into his ears.
This refreshed him and all his sleepiness disappeared without a trace.
He opened his eyes wide and looked towards the direction where the sound came from - the entrance to the sewer.
In Gothe's horrified eyes, a black rat poured out from the dark entrance that only one person could pass through.
These rats are of normal size. They are by no means as scary as the wolf rats that attacked the medicine garden at night. They look no different from the most common rats.
But in the dark night, the appearance of so many rats in groups is an extremely strange thing in itself.
Since leaving the sewer entrance, these rats have been swarming in one direction like a tide.
In just a moment, this large group of rats disappeared from Gothe's sight and disappeared into the night.
Gaode, who witnessed this horrific scene with his own eyes, waited silently.
It was about half an hour later.
Under the moonlight, dense black spots appeared again, rushing towards the sewer entrance here.
Wait until the black spots get bigger and bigger in Gothe's sight, until you can see the appearance of those mice clearly.
"Hiss!" Gothe couldn't help but take a breath of cold air.
The moonlight penetrated the sparse clouds and illuminated the strange scene in front of me.
These mice were lined up in a row, and their movements were uniform. They worked together to lift several humans who seemed to be unconscious or sleeping.
"One, two, three." Gothe glanced at it and figured out the number of humans carried by this strange group of rats.
These three people showed no signs of waking up from such violent movements.
The rats had a clear goal and carried the three people to the sewer entrance.
"Then what?" Gothe really couldn't imagine what these mice would do next.
Take these three people into the sewer? What's the purpose of doing this?
The next moment, Gothe's doubts were answered.
A hissing sound.
A streak of blood shot out from the dark sewer entrance.
By the moonlight, Gothe saw clearly the true face of the bloody light.
It was a blood-red vine.
A blood-red vine stretched out from the sewer and rolled towards one of the three humans being carried up by the rats.
There are sharp thorns on the vines, which are like teeth at this moment, piercing into the human skin. Then, the blood in the human body rushed out like a stream and was quickly absorbed by the vines.
Correspondingly, the man's body was drying up at a speed visible to the naked eye.
A chill quickly flowed through Gothe's entire body from the soles of his feet.
His breathing became heavier.
In just a few minutes, a living person turned into a pale and shriveled mummy under Gothe's eyes.
The vine stretched its branches and leaves after drinking blood.
It was clearly a vine, but Gaode seemed to feel that it was releasing a joyful and comfortable emotion at this moment.
At the same time, a faint red mist rose from the branches and leaves of the vines, spread out, and poured into the bodies of the rats.
The next moment, a familiar and horrifying scene happened in front of Gothe's eyes.
Moistened by the red mist, the rats' eyes turned into a strange crimson color, like burning rubies, shining with an ominous light in the night.
It is exactly the same as the two dots of deep red that Gothe caught a glimpse of when he left the sewer last time.
In the dark night, so many crimson eyes were shining densely, making one's scalp feel tight.
"Symbiosis." Gothe said to himself in his heart.
Obviously, the rats and this strange plant have a classic symbiotic relationship.
The exotic plant should have the characteristics of a plant, being immobile and requiring a pack of rats to hunt for it.
The rats need the strange red mist released by this strange plant after eating its food.
Although I don’t know its specific function, it is definitely beneficial to them.
Seeing that the vines were temporarily "fed and drunk" and the red-eyed monster rats also enjoyed the red mist, a small group of members of the rat group separated, biting the clothes of the mummy, and carried it to the sewer. Drag in.
Soon, the mummy went straight along the sewer entrance, fell into the sewer, and disappeared.
The murderer, the murder process, the whereabouts of the body, everything about this strange case of missing people, Gao De got the truth at this moment.
He even corrected his previous judgment.
Why have the big shots in the city been unable to solve the missing persons issue?
It’s not necessarily that the possibility of sewers has not been considered at all.
Unless you happen to see the red-eyed form of the rats.
Otherwise, under normal circumstances, even if the city guards checked the sewers and saw these rats with their own eyes, how could they connect the seemingly non-threatening and normal rats with the murderer?
The presence of rats in the sewers is a completely normal thing.
This disguise is too natural.
On the court, this "eating" is not over yet.
After a moment of pause, the vine started to move again as if it had finished digesting.
There is no doubt that the target is one of the remaining two people.
Phew!
The moment the vines moved.
A blazing light burst out in the night, cutting through the dull air and throwing into the group of rats gathered beside the vines.
It was an arrow-shaped flame.
The moment the flaming arrow hit the target rat, there was an explosion and a dazzling light. The flames spread quickly, covering a small group of red-eyed monster rats at the center of the explosion.
The group of red-eyed rats fled in all directions under the sudden attack of flames.
Screams mingle with the crackle of fire.
The pungent smell of burnt fur filled the air.
“What a sound!”
"It's coming from over there, go over and have a look!"
Da da da!
The sound of rapid, messy but powerful footsteps came.
The sudden and shocking explosions and lights in the silent night quickly attracted the attention of a group of city guards patrolling just outside a street.
Seemingly hearing the noise coming from the city guards, the group of red-eyed rats didn't care about anything else. Amidst the panicked squeaking sounds, they quickly got into the entrance of the sewer and disappeared.
The dead rat corpses that were charred by the flames were picked up by the living red-eyed monster rats and brought back to the sewer.
The weird vine moved even faster, and with a whoosh, it burrowed back along the sewer entrance passage.
At the same time, a figure jumped down from the street tree opposite the entrance and quickly disappeared into the night.
The birds and beasts disperse.
(End of this chapter)