Just as they were getting ready to go, the team doctor Zhao Xiaomin stopped them and asked Sun Wu to come to the tent to take a look, and there seemed to be some important discoveries. Although Holden couldn't understand Chinese www.biquge.info, looking at the serious look of the team doctor Zhao Xiaomin, he knew that there might be some unexpected situations.

Holden followed the team doctor and Sun Wu into the tent, and immediately felt an unbearable stench, and the team doctor Zhao told them that the smell was emitted from a wound on the neck of the Chinese team member, and as he spoke, he went to turn the wounded man and uncover the gauze of the wound. Holden was shocked to see that there was an ulcerated hole in the back of the wounded man's neck, near the back of his head, and a foul-smelling pus slowly drained down the wound.

The team doctor, Zhao Xiaomin, took out a sealed glass bottle and said to Sun Wu and Holden:

"This is a nematode taken from the patient's wound, and according to the description of other members of the advance team, this black nematode is not directly parasitic on the human body, but is produced by the bite of another red insect, and the nematode seems to need air to survive, because, when I seal the patient's wound, the black nematode crawls out of the wound."

Holden was surprised to take the sealed glass bottle and saw a creature resembling the nematoid in the belly of a praying mantis, slowly wriggling inside the bottle, this insect was black, about ten centimeters long, but less than a millimeter in diameter, very small. Holden's scalp was numb, and it was hard to imagine what kind of experience it was for the patient to have this kind of worm parasitic in human wounds and eat away at flesh and blood.

Team doctor Zhao Xiaomin continued:

"Judging from the patient's previous crazy behavior of attacking his companions, this parasitic nematode seems to be able to invade the nerves of the human brain and manipulate the host's behavior, which is very terrifying. The patient is now in a coma and must be taken to the hospital for further resuscitation, so I would like to ask your opinion from the vice-captain. ”

On this point, Sun Wu made a decision without hesitation, after all, human life is at stake, he translated the situation to Holden as the team doctor said, and told him that his companion Dr. Smith was most likely parasitized by nematomorphs, so he would lose control and attack his teammates.

Captain Holden was shocked, in the past, he had only seen parasites capable of manipulating human behavior in science fiction movies, and he really couldn't imagine that such a thing could happen in reality. But after all, Holden is the captain of the British side, and his team members are controlled by parasites and their whereabouts are unknown, so he must assume the responsibility of captain and launch a search and rescue as soon as possible.

But at this time, there was another riot in the team outside, and in the Chinese team, a team member who was controlled by a nematomorph appeared again, stabbed his teammate's arm with the pickaxe of a mountaineering pickaxe, and was subdued to the ground by the other team members, still struggling, completely crazy.

As the situation deteriorated further, Sun Wu, as the deputy captain, was already in a hurry, he didn't know how the red insect stung the host and parasitized the nematoid in the host, and he hadn't even seen the body of the red insect. But he immediately realized that there was a huge danger in the dense vegetation of the platform at the bottom of this sinkhole, and he immediately made a deployment, and asked three team members, including team doctor Zhao Xiaomin, to take the two parasitic team members out for rescue, while the rest of the personnel, together with him and Captain Holden, searched and rescued the missing Li Guohui.

The second group of people who entered the cave were only Sun Wu, the deputy leader of the Chinese expedition, and Xiao Liang, an intern, and on the British side, because of the disappearance of Dr. Smith, Captain Holden and two other members were left. A group of five of them, dressed up, followed a stream at the mouth of the cave, and quickly entered the cave at the bottom of the sinkhole, which was 1,500 meters deep, and the darkness quickly swallowed them, and they had to turn on their headlamps and flashlights and trudge through the rocks by the stream.

Their search and rescue efforts were meticulous, meticulously searching every corner of the cavern's interior, calling out the names of the missing, and the process was extremely slow. But at this time, they had lost any other choice, and the Sino-British joint cave expedition was declared a failure when it was just launched, and it was temporarily changed to a search and rescue mission.

However, as they descended two kilometers into the cavern at the bottom of the sinkhole, there was still no news of the missing persons. Wu Guohui, the leader of the Chinese expedition, has always had a good habit of always putting the garbage and feces produced in the cave into a sealed bag and carrying it with him, no matter how troublesome it is, so as to protect the ecological environment of the cave. As a result, Captain Holden and Sun Wu's search work became very difficult. There are no clues, and if they continue to go deeper, what will they do after encountering the branch cave? However, Sun Wu felt that with Wu Guohui's experience in caving, he would definitely mark the entrance of the branch cave, so he immediately proposed to Holden to speed up the search and rescue process, and there was no need to waste too much time in the cave without any branches.

After trekking for 10 kilometers in a row, they finally found the red mark left by Wu Guohui at the entrance of a forked cave, but the content of the mark seemed a little strange, which read:

Things have changed, and there are giant creature bones in the cave, so be careful!

Sun Wu had never encountered such a situation, he didn't know how many unknown caves he had explored and discovered new species with Captain Wu Guohui over the years, but he had never seen any giant creatures in the caves.

He consulted with Holden and felt that Captain Wu Guohui had a lot of experience in caving after all, and even if he found some fossils of prehistoric animals, he didn't need to leave them a warning sign, he must have seen something else, making it difficult for him to judge. Moreover, they didn't seem to see the skeletons of any giant creatures along the way, could it be because they were in a hurry to get along and didn't pay attention to their surroundings, and thus missed something?

The expeditions were carried out on scientific expeditions, generally did not carry any weapons, and in China, weapons were strictly controlled. For now, they can only rely on sharp pickaxes to raise their vigilance, praying that the giant creature skeleton that Wu Guohui saw was nothing more than an extinct prehistoric creature.

They entered the branch cave marked by Captain Wu Guohui, and trekked for another five hours in a row, advancing 13 kilometers, at this time, there was still no trace of the missing person, and their group of five people, their physical strength had been exhausted to the limit, and they had to stop to do some rest, replenish some food and sleep.

Due to the low temperature in the depths of the cave, they heated the canned food with alcohol lamps on a platform and took turns resting after eating, intending to continue their journey after 4 hours. With the fate of their teammates unknown, they didn't dare to rest for too long, even if it was beyond the limits of their bodies.

But Holden didn't feel tired, he had always been an energetic workaholic, and he couldn't sleep at all when something like the disappearance of his teammates happened, so he let the four team members rest first, leaving him alone on duty, and by the way, he made some observations about the structure of the surrounding limestone formations.

The four members of the team quickly fell into a deep sleep due to physical exhaustion, and Holden was alone on the stone wall not far away, when he suddenly heard someone calling his name from the depths of the darkness.