Underground passage stalactite forest, scavenging insect swarm animal remains.

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"This cave is really full of dampness......"

Listening to the constant sound of ticking water in her ears, Xinglan sighed softly, the walls, floor, and top here were covered with a thin layer of water vapor, and even the humidity in the air seemed to have reached the point of saturation, and with a gentle wave of the palm in front of her, you could clearly feel some moisture solidification on the surface of the skin.

The temperature of the forest at night is not very high, and a white mist can be formed when you exhale, and after entering this underground cavern, you can feel the temperature drop rapidly at a speed that you can feel, as if you have suddenly stepped into a cold room for food.

The ground next to the stream was slippery, and Xinglan was already aware of this. As she walked on the damp rocks covered with bryophytes, she could feel the danger of slipping at any moment...... The dark, damp environment gives these mosses the best place to live, and even walking barefoot can feel slippery.

Soon, the already narrow ground on both sides of the stream became smaller and smaller, and finally disappeared completely, or as the channel descended, the creek finally flooded the originally bare ground, and the entire bottom of the channel was covered with a layer of water.

However, the vine that was originally distributed at the bottom of the creek's bed did not take advantage of this opportunity to continue to expand, but became more and more sparse and finally disappeared completely...... It seems that even this unique vine is inevitably affected by the efficiency of the light, after all, the light inside the passage is so faint that not much light can reach it all the time, even in bright daylight.

"Here are some ...... The sound of biological activity. Xinglan frowned slightly, she already felt that the sounds in the environment here were not just the movements of nature, some subtle but real sounds echoed nearby, they were the sounds of animals moving, "It doesn't look like things are going so well, will there be trouble next?" ”

At the same time, it is not only the range of ordinary sound waves that has changed, but even the frequency of infrasound waves has a strange humming sound with a very low frequency, but it is continuous. The intensity of this fluctuation is so weak that it is almost impossible for the subjective consciousness to perceive its presence, but the most sensitive tissues of the body still produce some instinctive fear responses, such as a creepy shiver.

Of course, Xinglan will not be affected by this infrasound wave, and the environment here may be a little scary, but it is far from scaring her. Interestingly, she hasn't detected any regular ultrasonic signals here so far, and this dark underground cavern is supposed to have easily evolved animals with echolocation capabilities.

Since turning the corner, a large number of stalactites have appeared in the cave, some of which have fallen from the top of the cave, and some of which stand in the water brought by the stream. At this point, there was no dry place on the floor of the cave, and the stalactites that stood in the water were the only ones above the water.

Xinglan was now completely stepping on the water, and although the water had completely covered the ground, the depth of the water had been further reduced, and it was just enough to submerge her instep.

However, there was one thing that made Xinglan feel a little concerned, she looked at the scene in front of her, and keenly noticed that something was wrong, which seemed to be a strange suspicion.

As we all know, there are many different ways in which stalactites are formed in caves, some of which are due to the constant dripping of water droplets, and some of which are constantly impacted by water droplets, but in the final analysis, it is due to the fact that the calcium carbonate and other components contained in these water droplets are left in place, and after a long period of accumulation, they finally become stalactites that look incomparably wonderful...... But herein lies the problem.

You must know that at this time, the clear water has completely overflowed the ground, even if there are water droplets dripping down above, it can only splash a fleeting small splash in the water flow, and the trace amount of calcium carbonate will be washed away by the water flow before it has time to deposit, how can it be deposited to form those upward stalactites?

"Could it be because these stalactites are older? It is quite possible that they were formed before the appearance of this stream. Xinglan secretly guessed as she walked forward on the water, but she soon felt as if she had stepped on something, and hurriedly shone the light in her palm at the water below, so that the bottom of the entire water flow appeared clearly in front of her, "What the hell is in there......

A pale blue liquid glowed in the clear water, but the strange colors quickly disappeared under the constant flow of water. Xinglan bent down and reached under her feet to grab the source of the anomalous color: the corpse of a bug that had been trampled on.

It was an insect with an exoskeleton carapace, no more than four centimeters long, and the pale blue liquid just now was obviously the color of its blood, and the life of this insect disappeared the moment it was stepped on. Of course, Xinglan didn't particularly care about the life of this strange bug, she took a closer look at the insect's roughly intact head, the two rows of staggered jagged mouthparts looked a little scary, but in fact, its shape was not suitable for attacking prey, but more suitable for tearing biological structures such as skin and flesh.

This is not a carnivore, but a harmless scavenger.

"Since there is one, then it means ......" Xinglan swept around the vicinity with a light, and sure enough, many of these scavenging insects were found in the nearby water stream, they were like prawns wandering back and forth in the clear water, although they looked vicious but not aggressive, of course, the key problem was not this......

What are scavengers? It is an animal that does not hunt its prey, but feeds on the carcasses of other animals, they have the strongest acidic digestive system, and are hardly afraid of any residual germs in the carcass, but since there are scavengers here, it means that there must be some food that they can get in the vicinity...... That is, the carcass of a dead animal.

In the illuminated water, you can see some pale hard objects, those bones left by animals that came here in the past, relying on their weight and hardness to resist the impact of the flowing water. Their presence is undoubtedly a grave warning to those who come after them: there is danger here.

Of course, Xinglan completely ignored these dangerous signals as always, and she was never afraid of the adventures on Lanxing, because it didn't really hurt her, only the kind of attacks that could directly spread to the overall signal subnetwork such as the original dark energy impact would make her really take it seriously...... Therefore, when exploring the dangerous environment in the universe, Xinglan will not have the mentality of a game, and will not hesitate to use it when it is time to scan with signal subs.

In contrast, Lanxing is just a playground for her, and no matter how terrifying the game is, it can't really do any harm.

As Xinglan groped her way through the current, the density of the scavenging insects increased considerably, and she finally saw the first relatively complete skeleton here...... Judging from the skeletal frame, it was a four-legged beast about two meters long, and it finally died in the water stream upright, and its movements on the rocks at the bottom of the water were still very clear, but the head with horns had rolled and fallen into the water next to it, surrounded by a large swarm of scavenging insects and constantly gnawing, almost only the bone part remained.

Obviously, the animal had been dead here for at least a few days, so that the rest of the flesh on its body had completely rotted in the water, giving off a disgusting pungent stench, but it might have been an enticing aroma for the scavenging insects, and they even fought with their own kind to fight for the remaining carrion, which was enough for a worm to eat for many days.

The behavior of scavengers may seem disgusting, but it is undeniable that they play a vital role in the stability of the natural environment. When scavengers eat dead animal carcasses, they also use their stomach acid to destroy the bacteria on the carrion that are likely to cause various large-scale infectious diseases, thus greatly limiting the infection of most diseases and the contamination of water sources.

Xinglan adjusted the light and carefully observed the animal's body, which she had never recorded before, and was sure that this corpse belonged to a new species that she had not encountered before, and it was a good time to expand the database, and perhaps to scan its intact genetic sequence from the carrion.

This animal should not have died here due to an accidental attack, Xinglan can be sure of this, there are no signs of a strong attack on its skeleton, and there is no way that the enemy can let it lie on the bottom rock so quietly and die. Of course, it is even more impossible to die here after getting lost, the entire underground passage is almost a line, as long as it is an animal with normal intelligence, it is impossible to get lost in this kind of place or even eventually lead to death.

Perhaps, it was the end of its life quietly ushered in here after it was too old and weak, Xinglan guessed, after all, its death seemed to be too peaceful. The animal's death gave the hungry scavengers in the underground caverns a brief feast to fill their stomachs.

After silently entering all the bone structures in front of him into the memory bank of the signal sub, Xing Lan cautiously crossed the corpse and continued to move forward, but the flowing water suddenly knocked a bone out of place at this moment, and Xing Lan, who was caught off guard, was suddenly tripped by this bone, and hurriedly reached out to hold the stalactite on the ground next to him to stabilize his body without falling.

"Whew, it's really a bit dangerous...... Xinglan relaxed and was about to stand up straight, but her face suddenly changed.

The finger pressed on the stalactite was not able to pull it back for a while, and the seemingly hard surface of the stalactite began to sink down like quicksand at some point, quickly sucking her finger......