Underwater vines stretch infinitely, and dark entrances flank stone mounds.

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The water of the brook flowed briskly through the forest, and no amount of darkness could stop it. The current is neither wide nor turbulent, so clear that you can clearly see the bottom at a glance.

I don't know when it quietly appeared, it was a thick vine made up of multiple main vines swirling and intertwined. It stretched out a dense network of branches, like a complex vein of a stream, covering the base of the stream, spreading along the watershed, and at first glance it was impossible to see how long, as if it could continue to extend with the whole stream on both sides.

Like a long green carpet spread directly at the bottom of this stream, the vines spread along a common main axis, but did not extend from the stream to the land...... As can be seen from the small fish that are still active in the stream, this huge vine has not caused any bad effect on the water quality of the stream, otherwise these small fish, which are extremely sensitive to any changes in the environment, would not have survived, and they just used the vine as a playground.

The main body of the vine is almost completely immersed in water, but it does not look like an aquatic vine, but rather a vine on land. If you look closely, you can see that it also does not have a major root system, but is made up of thousands of small roots on the branches that are adsorbed in the gravel at the bottom of the stream, which together hold the whole in place.

Just as some wonderful tree can take root and grow into a forest on its own, eventually making an entire huge forest part of the same entity, this vine is clearly a similar plant of some kind that can spread itself infinitely in the living environment.

At about every five meters or so, a small branch of the main body of the vine spreads upwards and extends out of the water to form a loose and porous green umbrella-like object...... Structures that are exposed to the air absorb carbon dioxide from the outside world and transport it through gas channels to the vine body below, providing a constant supply of gas for its growth. Obviously, this method is much more efficient than extracting gas molecules directly from water.

Perhaps, we should give these special umbrella-like organs that protrude from the vines to the surface of the water a very figurative name: breathing umbrellas.

That's right, the parachute, which is a special structure that is unique at the moment. It's like a vent at the top of a primitive submarine, solving the problems that are easier to deal with in the air for the underwater part, and it also makes this slender vine a more unique existence...... Neither terrestrial nor aquatic vines are exactly what they are.

"But that's a mistake." Xinglan chuckled lightly and looked at the stream she was walking along all the way, "Because the light environment is not very good, I haven't been able to notice where this vine came from, but it must be hundreds of meters to extend here, can it extend all the way to the end of the stream and join the river with it?" ”

Soon, however, it turned out that Xinglan had guessed half right: the slender vine did stretch all the way to the end of the stream, but it was not able to spread its main body into the river.

At the end of this forest stream is a wide river, which Xinglan had originally thought, because unless it is located near the equator in an area where the high temperature will gradually evaporate the stream, it is the most likely fate for most streams to eventually merge with other streams to form a wide river.

However, when Xinglan arrived at the end of the creek before the scheduled return deadline, what she saw was somewhat unexpected, and the stream that had passed through the forest did not merge into the river.

In front of the continuous track of the stream, there was a small stone mound that suddenly appeared in the middle of the forest, made of ordinary natural rocks, and the shape of the surrounding environment was perfectly blended, and the stream went straight to the small stone mound. This was nothing special, but when Xinglan stood here and looked out, he could clearly see that a cave appeared on the side of the small stone mound that looked extremely deep and had a relatively wide entrance, and the stream that had been flowing on the surface of the earth had completely flowed into this bottomless cave and completely disappeared into the dark depths of the cave.

"It's really unexpected, did this creek end up being an underground stream?" Xinglan stopped, looking at the cave that suddenly appeared in front of her, it could be seen that the internal passage obviously extended to the ground, and the entrance of this dark cave was like a giant beast quietly opening its mouth, which made people feel an indescribable sense of fear when they saw it, "It's not a good idea to go deep into the cave at night like this, maybe there will be beasts hidden in it or something......"

However, it was not Xinglan's style to abandon the expedition for her own safety, so after only a brief hesitation, she reached out and opened the last bunch of curtains in front of her, and stood directly at the entrance of this mysterious cave.

This is not a completely deserted cave, and Xinglan quickly came to the conclusion of this. As long as she lowered her body slightly, she could see some scattered footprints on the ground at the entrance to the cave by the faint light of the stars and moon...... Those were not the paw prints of beasts, but the footprints of the Moon Prayers, which were a little messy, and could even be found with some irregular drag marks nearby.

There was a lot of sunflower on the path that Xinglan had come down the stream, and ordinary creatures couldn't completely ignore the potential dangers of these glowing plants like she did, and those dense glowworms were enough to make any animal with not thick enough skin pay for their trespassing, and the Moon Prayer was no exception.

So they didn't pass in that direction, and the footprints went around in a circle, pointing to the back of the small stone mound. It was also an endless forest as far as the eye could see, but the density of the sunflower was obviously much sparser, so as long as you were careful not to come into direct contact with the downside-down glowing tentacles, there would be no danger.

"It seems that it is not enough to explore the environment with these natural stars and moons......" In this kind of environment that can be directly used to make horror movies, Xinglan did not show any panic...... After all, the loneliness and insignificance of being alone in the vacuum of the universe are much more terrifying than here, she looked at the pitch-black cave in front of her with interest, "Once you follow the stream into the underground cave, even the light of the stars and the moon cannot penetrate it, it is a real dark world, even the best eyes cannot see the scenery in this dark world." ”

Several ghost rats jumped up on the trunk of the tree next to them, and the folds under their limbs were slid through the air, they didn't seem to be afraid of Xinglan's presence at all, and even a daring ghost mouse fell directly to the ground at Xinglan's feet, crawling in an awkward posture.

The next moment, a bright white beam of light suddenly pierced the original darkness, so that these nocturnal elves were frightened all of a sudden, they squinted uncomfortably with eyes that were not used to the sudden change in brightness, and they screamed and fled far away, and even some of them were dizzy for a while, and accidentally hit the trees or something. It wasn't until they had escaped some distance that some of the more daring ghost rats dared to cautiously peer among the plants in the distance to see what was happening, and their low intelligence alone could not comprehend what was going on here.

"It's been a long time since I've used this kind of lighting." Xinglan raised her left hand, and a bright searchlight in her palm pierced through the thin layer of skin, moving through the forest with the flipping of her palm, "But this is easy to pull hatred, this way of exposing yourself is too arrogant." ”

Xinglan didn't want to use the signal to scan the surrounding environment in detail, and infrared sensing and complete echolocation could not clearly identify colors, so if you want to explore this cave with almost no light, a light source is a must...... Although it may be better to use a torch to simulate a real expedition, there is not enough time left for Xinglan to make another torch, so she didn't think long before she adopted the most simple and crude method: directly using the searchlight built into the mechanical body to explore the underground cavern.

But even so, it's better to figure out what's going on here as soon as possible, although Xinglan won't make promises easily, but once she agrees, she will try not to make any mistakes.

Gently stretched out her hand and touched it in front of her, as if through a layer of light veil, several places at the entrance of the underground cave were obviously newly formed, and the structure similar to a spider's web was easily torn into pieces by Xinglan with her hands, and then she looked back at the forest under the light of the stars and moon, secretly calculated the time, and finally took a step forward, following the trajectory of the stream into this underground cave that seemed to have a trace of mystery.

There seemed to be some unusual fluctuation brewing in the air, and she could clearly feel that there was something different here than the outside...... Something very faint, almost imperceptible, but it can subtly affect everything here.

"Come on, let me take a good look, what secrets are you hiding here?" Xinglan muttered softly, turning her palm, and a bright beam of light shone into the cavern, exposing a near-vertical corner not far away. Its appearance is very interesting, both as a buffer that weakens the connection between the inside and the outside, and allows the deeper scene to be completely hidden behind the wet cave walls, which is the mystery of the cave that makes it impossible for a moment to be revealed.

At least the vicinity of the entrance seems to be relatively safe for now, and there are no ferocious beasts...... If there was such an aggressive beast in the depths, there was no reason for it to turn a blind eye to the glaring light.

Now that there was such a bright light, Xinglan simply didn't let go of her footsteps, but walked openly along the narrow area next to the stream until she turned the corner, illuminating the deeper place.

Around the corner of the cave, a large number of conical stalactites begin to appear on both sides of this stream, accompanied by the sound of ticking water in the environment. They either hung from the not-so-high roof of the cave or bulged from the ground, their uneven surfaces reflecting the light from searchlights, shimmering with a moist sheen.

(Ah, happy Dragon Boat Festival~)