Nan Zhiqiao selected a few monkey carcasses that had just died, collected the bloody secretions from the corpses, and put them in sterile sampling bottles.

The puncture needle was taken out of the sampling box, a part of the monkey brain tissue was taken, and placed in the sterile preservation solution.

Finally, all the specimens were collected, sealed and packed, and loaded back into the sampling box, and Nan Zhiqiao and Ye Zhenzhen returned to the vicinity of the off-road vehicle.

After completely disinfecting the biosafety suits, the two of them changed into bulky spacesuit-like protective suits and began to prepare for the afternoon cave exploration.

Elusine, the guide, found a trail in the valley rainforest that an elephant had trodden out of, and along this path led to a cave halfway up the extinct volcano on the west side of the valley.

The four men each carried two boxes of equipment and walked up the valley along the elephant path.

This extinct volcano on the west side of the valley, more than 1,000 meters above sea level, the cave halfway up the mountain is more than 500 meters away from the valley bottom, from the valley floor to the top of the mountain, the vegetation changes, the tropical rainforest at the bottom of the valley gradually changes into alpine vegetation upward, there is a steep mountain road in the middle, the road is covered with blood-red volcanic ash, looking from afar, it is like a red ribbon around the mountainside.

The sloping mountain road was very long, and the four of them made two stops on the way, and after noon, they reached the cave halfway up the extinct volcano.

The entrance to the cave is very high, more than 40 meters wide and more than 3 meters high, and it looks like a wide and flat opening opened in the middle of the mountainside.

The terrain in front of the cave entrance is fairly flat, there are no large trees, and the ground is volcanic rock, with a few weeds and shrubs growing on it.

The four men laid the things they had brought up from the bottom of the valley on the hill in front of the cave entrance, and the guide, Elusine, gasped, leaned against a large box, and said, "It's past noon, do you want to eat lunch before going into the cave?"

After a busy morning, several people felt hungry, and they could replenish their physical strength to better complete the task.

The four of them divided the work, Nan Zhiqiao and Ye Zhenzhen prepared the items for entering the cave in the afternoon, the guide Elusine prepared lunch, and Dr. Sky listened to the guide's arrangement to go to the nearby forest to collect dry firewood.

The guide, Elusine, is very experienced in cooking on a fire in the wild, so she found a few volcanic stones, set up a simple stove, boiled water, heated food, and lunch for four people was quickly prepared.

After lunch, Elusine, the guide, stayed outside the cave to pitch her tent in preparation for the night camping.

Nan Zhiqiao, Ye Zhenzhen, and Doctor Sky, the three of them put on protective clothing, each carried a sampling box, and held a flashlight, and entered the cave.

The inside of the cave is more open than the entrance of the cave, and the rocks in the cave are uneven, and the stones on the wall of the cave seem to have been pried by hand, and there are small holes of different depths.

Ye Zhenzhen used a flashlight to illuminate the holes in the cave wall, and looked at them suspiciously, there would be no strange creatures hidden in these small holes, right?

Nan Zhiqiao walked to the side and explained, "These holes are dug by elephants with their tusks, and they need mineral salts to sustain their lives, and in the rainforest, mineral salts are hard to find, and this cave is where the elephant herd gets salt." ”

Ye Zhenzhen remembered that when she was outside the cave just now, she saw a large pile of dung, with a lot of undigested stones in it, and the guide Elusine said that it was elephant dung.

Sure enough, as Nan Zhiqiao said, there were no mysterious creatures hidden in these small holes in the stone wall, just traces of elephant tusks.

The three of them continued to walk, and a platform appeared on the floor of the potholed cave, on which there were patches of dry powder, mixed with some gravel from the cave wall, which seemed to be the powder formed by elephant dung, and elephants had indeed been in the cave.

Walking past the platform, the inside began to darken, and the three of them slowed down and walked one after another in the light of their flashlights.

The cave began to slope upwards, forming layers of rock ladders, and there was a layer of dark green viscous liquid on the rocks, and Dr. Sky approached the slime with a flashlight, stared at the slime through the transparent shield on his head, and said to himself, "It looks like the secretion of something." ”

"It's bat droppings!" Nan Zhiqiao looked up and shone his flashlight upwards.

On the rock ladder at the top of the mountain, countless glittering rubies are densely hung, and if you look closely, it turns out to be a swarm of bats hanging upside down on the rock ladder.

The bats are large, fruit bats, and the dark green slime underneath is the excrement of fruit bats.

Awakened by the light and human sounds, a shrill and piercing call erupted from the swarm, and many began to fly off the rock ladder and hover over the trio's heads.

Dr. Sky asked Nan Zhiqiao, "Do you want to catch a few fruit bats?"

Although several people have analyzed that the most likely storage host of the new virus is the insectivorous bat, other possible host animals also need to be collected.

"Catch!"

Dr. Sky pulled out the long-rod trap net he had prepared for catching bats and swung it.

There are many fruit bats in the school, and within a few clicks, a few are caught.

Putting the captured live fruit bats into cages, the three of them continued on their way.

After walking more than fifty meters, the three of them discovered a magical landscape that they would never forget, and a petrified rainforest appeared in the cave.

It turns out that this cave is a petrified rainforest, and many years ago, perhaps millions of years ago, an underground volcanic eruption, spewing out of the ground volcanic magma and volcanic ash, burying the nearby rainforest.

Millions of years later, the rainforest, buried in volcanic ash, has gradually petrified and formed a magical landscape.

The trio weave their way through a petrified rainforest, petrified trunks surrounded by white crystals, a mineral as sharp as a needle that reflects a dazzling glow in the light of a flashlight.

Ye Zhenzhen was very curious about this white crystal, and couldn't help but lean down to take a closer look.

Nan Zhiqiao followed behind Ye Zhenzhen and hurriedly reminded: "Be careful to pierce your hands, these needle-like crystalline minerals are very sharp. ”

Ye Zhenzhen took a small step back, and pulled away to observe the white crystals, although rare, but they had nothing to do with the new virus.

Walking through the petrified rainforest, the three of them came to a gentle slope, and the cave below the gentle slope was even more open, more than 100 meters long.

Walking down the gentle slope, they found a deep crack, and the three of them shone it down with a flashlight, and they could vaguely see the uneven rocks under the cracks, and the animal bones mixed in the middle of the rocks, only white bones, no living creatures.

The three of them continued to walk deeper into the cave, and up a gentle slope, they found a huge stone pillar.

The stone pillar is connected to the roof of the cave, and there are patches of sticky black feces around the stone pillar, and many bats are densely inhabited on the cave wall at the top of the stone pillar.

These bats are smaller than the fruit bats at the entrance of the cave and are insectivorous bats that feed on insects.

These insectivorous bats may be the reservoir hosts for the new virus, and this is the purpose of the trip.

Dr. Sky caught a few insectivorous bats with a long-rod net and placed them in another cage.

Ye Zhenzhen collected the black bat feces around the stone pillar, put it in a sampling bottle, and sealed it.

In the crack of the rock in the depths of the cave, Nan Zhiqiao caught a few small insects such as spiders and ants, and put them separately, and finally put them into the sampling box together.