At the invitation of the Northwest King Ant, many ants surrounded the two great benefactors and entered the Ant Kingdom together. The so-called ant kingdom is a huge nest of ants, but the nest built by the Northwest King ant is the largest. The mound of earth built on the ground alone is one person high, and according to the size of the ants, it is at least a hundred floors, equivalent to the height of one meter eight of human beings, which is to pile up the excavated earth and leaves near the entrance to form a small mound, and build a nest in the mound, which can be used for living and protecting the nest.

In the information stored in Wei Xinyu's mind, there are various forms of ant nests, most of which are nests in the underground soil, digging tunnels, chambers and shelters, and piling up the excavated materials and leaves near the entrance, forming a small hill shape to play a protective role. It was the first time he had seen the excavated earth and blades piled up near the entrance and then reused to build a nest.

Wei Xinyu raised his head at the hole of the ant nest and looked at the top of the mound, which has many small windows, like the windows of human houses, usually used for ventilation and lighting. He asked the king of the northwest:

"Is this mound your dwelling place too?"

The king of the northwest told him: "We are making full use of all the resources to avoid wasting ant power, our population is growing rapidly, there are 100,000 people, we have built the mound into a nest to save time and effort, the mound is much drier than the underground, and the living environment is relatively comfortable." I'll take you on a tour of our mound dwellings. ”

The King of the Northwest took Wei Xinyu and Heng Liya into the mound ant nest together. The two found in the ant nest that although the whole nest was made of mud and had no reinforced concrete support, the structure inside was very clever, very strong and safe, Wei Xinyu tried to touch the cave wall with his hands uneasily, and the cave wall was very strong, and he said with admiration:

"No wonder we humans always praise you ants, we can't compare to you in terms of construction, the soft soil is in your hands, so strong, and you are definitely experts in construction with the same materials."

The king of the northwest shook his head and said, "You are false, we will never be able to catch up with humans, but our ant race is like a social system of you humans, we have different division of labor, and we have different social responsibilities with each other. In our system, although there is a strict hierarchy, we are sincerely united, united with the outside world, diligent, and contribute every strength to the group to open up the territory and build the homeland, we are in the same ethnic group, we are more united than you. ”

Heng Liya nodded and said, "That's true, I feel that you know us humans better." ”

"Hey," the king of the northwest sighed, "actually, I was also a human in my previous life, and it may be that we did something we shouldn't have done in our previous life, and God poured my soul into the ant and made me an ant king." The most painful thing is that God has not purified my soul and let me know many things about human beings, which is very painful...... Perhaps, instead of erasing the memories of my past life, God wants me to use human wisdom to transform the Ant Kingdom. ”

"What kind of pain are you," Heng Liya retorted, "You ants have a short lifespan, and it won't be long before your soul can be infused into other biological carriers. ”

The king of the northwest said: "Our life span is not short, at least 20 years, the longest can reach 70 years, maybe God will make me immortal." However, I'm used to it, and it's not bad to be an ant king. ”

The road of the ant nest extends in all directions, intricate, many ants are constantly busy, there is an ant king to lead the way, they don't need to ask the road while walking, they came to a branch room.

There are many chambers in the nest, and each of these chambers has its own usefulness. This chamber is a place to store food, and there are many grains, fruits, and other foods that the ants collect from the outside and transport them to store here. To the surprise of the two humans, the food stacked here will not be moldy and spoiled, according to the ant king, the indoor ventilation, cool, warm in winter and cool in summer, the food is not easy to spoil, these foods are used for winter.

As they passed through a separate room, Heng Liya saw that there were many ants with big bellies, their bellies were several times larger than the bellies of other ants, and their bellies were transparent. Heng Liya asked curiously:

"Are these ants waiting to give birth?"

"It's not." The King of the Northwest told her, "They're all honey ants. ”

"Honey ants?" Heng Liya thought for a while and said, "I know, they are also known as honey storage ants. They are used to store ants such as honey, and they live underground all their lives, hanging upside down in anthills. During the rainy season, their bellies are filled with nectar and swollen like balloons. When the drought comes, they expel food from their stomachs to help the colony survive the storm. Their bellies are a little storage room. They are not of the same species as you, and how did you take them captive and use them as your storeroom? ”

The King of the Northwest did not answer, and together they walked through the passage to the underground, and the two humans looked at the underground buildings, and they were both shocked. What they saw in front of them was a "room" made of stone, and if humans were to do the work, they would have to rely on digging tools, but no matter how hard the ant's palate was, it would be no harder than stone. This kind of ant nest is very strangely built, and it is also very strong, and the ants live in it, which is extremely safe and comfortable. Wei Xinyu knocked on the wall with his hand, he wanted to find out how ants built such a house, he asked:

"You have to use other tools to build a house like this, right?"

The king of the northwest shook his head and said, "No, we ants can secrete a liquid that can corrode stones, which is what you humans call hydrochloric acid, which is very corrosive. With this acid, we can not only carve the stone in detail like a sculptor, but also cut the whole stone into small pieces like a stonemason, and cut "rooms" of different sizes into the stone. This is the famous "Stone Town" of our kingdom, and the many streets paved with small grains of sand under our feet, as well as the famous "Stone Rooms", are all done little by little by thousands of worker ants secreting a liquid that corrupts stones. ”

Wei Xinyu saw this kind of dungeon house and continued to ask:

"You've spent a lot of energy and time trying to see this dungeon, right?"

The king of the Northwest told him, "We have been here for 20 years. ”

Heng Liya exclaimed: "Humans think that ants are brainless animals, and I can't imagine that you ants can have such wisdom. ”

Wei Xinyu corrected Heng Liya's statement: "This is not called wisdom, this is called instinct." ”

The king of the northwest disagreed with Wei Xinyu's statement: "This is not instinct, this is that human beings do not understand us." I think that as long as there are living carriers, after being infused into the soul, they are all intelligent beings, but you humans cannot communicate with them. ”

As he spoke, they entered a hall, which was very different, it turned out to be the place where the queen ant was received. The queen ant is different from other ants, her body is several times larger than that of the king of the northwest, her body is white, like a pupa worm, and there are more than a dozen ants serving it beside her, some are feeding it, and some are cleaning it and are very busy.

The king of the Northwest stepped forward and saluted the queen and said:

"Report to the queen ant, two humans have come to visit."

The queen lazily opened her eyes and asked, "What are they doing with us?" They wouldn't want to spoil the peace of our ant kingdom, would they? ”

The king of the northwest hurriedly explained, and replied, "No, they also helped us to destroy the king of the southeast. They intruded into our space by accident, and they had no ill intentions. ”

Wei Xinyu and Heng Liya saluted the queen ant, and Heng Liya said politely: "We have inadvertently entered your kingdom and disturbed your tranquility, please forgive us." ”

The queen ant was still lazy, and said, "Since you have no ill intentions, I have heard that you humans are very powerful, can you help us do us a favor and heal our sick people." ”

Wei Xinyu heard that the queen ant asked them to treat the ants, and hurriedly waved his hand and said: "Queen ant, you can ask us to do anything else, we have never done this to treat ants, I am afraid that we will miss their lives." ”

The king of the northwest said: "You don't have to worry, these ants are going to die, you just treat the dead horses as live horse doctors, and the best results can cure them, and I won't blame you if you can't be cured." ”

"Okay!" Heng Liya agreed, "You take us to have a look." ”

They said goodbye to the queen ant, and the king of the northwest led the two to a group of ants whose brains were "mind controlled", pointed at them and said:

"Every once in a while, there are some ants in our kingdom who go insane, and they want to go to the graveyard of death at the risk of death, as if a ghost is haunting them. As long as our ants reach the graveyard of death, none of them will come out alive. This time, I told the soldiers to stop them and not allow them to go to the graveyard of the dead. ”

Heng Liya asked curiously, "Have you ever been to the cemetery of death?" ”

The king of the northwest replied, "No, I dare not go, and none of the ants who have been there will come back alive." ”

Wei Xinyu and Heng Liya decided to go to the death cemetery to inspect it on the spot, and they found the death cemetery in less than half an hour after walking in the direction pointed out by the king of the northwest. They found a lot of ant zombies in the cemetery of death, each ant died very terrifying, just on a leaf there are 7 ants tightly biting the veins of the leaf, they are so hard to leave the last mark in this world, they use their jaws to produce a small hole in the leaf to form a very special bite mark, in the shape of a clear dumbbell, this leaf is the achievement of the "ant grave", they can find a lot of such "ant grave" in this cemetery of death, and some ant heads have sprouts.

Heng Liya quickly made a judgment and said, "These ants died after being infected with fungi. ”

Wei Xinyu also nodded in agreement and said, "They are indeed infected with fungi." These fungi are said to be powerful. ”

"Yes." "These zombie fungi spread their spores in different ways, forming thin 'infection nails' that stick out of the victim ants and infect passing ants. Some grow "explosive" spores inside infected ants, and when other ants get close to the corpse, they shoot spores to hit these unsuspecting passers-by, further turning them into zombies. ”

Wei Xinyu took over the topic and said: "The fungus that inhabits the brains of zombie ants "commands" the dying ants to find leaves or other stable areas to settle down, and when the fungus is ready to kill the ants, the ants will go crazy and bite down on whatever object they are standing on. It seems that ants are very difficult to treat after being infected with fungi. ”

After they returned to the Ant Kingdom, Heng Liya truthfully reported the results of the inquest at the cemetery of the dead to the King of the Northwest, saying that there was no cure for the disease. The King of the Northwest asked disappointedly:

"You really can't think of a solution?"

Heng Liya replied truthfully: "There is a way, but we can't do it, in my memory there is a fungus that can save these poor ants, a fungus that can castrate "zombie fungi" ("anti-'zombie fungus' fungus"), called double parasitic bacteria. It is an ant that is infected by a zombie fungus and then infected by a double parasite, which is double parasitism. This double parasite is capable of parasitizing the "zombie fungus" and destroying the spores of the vast majority of the "zombie fungus", so that the zombie fungus "only about 6.5% of the spores survive." However, we do not have the modern means to find these double parasites, let alone use them. The only way now is to set up the cemetery of the dead as an ant no-go zone, and no ants are allowed to pass through it; For ants that have been infected, they are locked in a room and isolated, and they are not allowed to go outside under the influence of the fungus, so that the fungus in their body does not have a suitable growth environment, and naturally dies in the body of the infected ant. ”

The King of the Northwest adopted Heng Liya's advice and quickly isolated the infected ants, but he ordered the worker ants to seal all the infected ants with mud and let them starve to death inside.