No one sympathized with Pei Xin. Someone saved her life, and she repaid it with hate. Even Professor Pei could not bear to watch. He brushed his sleeve, turned, and continued down the slope.
No one went to fuss over Pei Xin. The medical unit gave her a quick check. Once they confirmed nothing was life-threatening, they left her alone.
Pei Xin pounded the ground with her fist, swallowed the pain, and hurried after the team. At last, she quieted down. Without her antics, dinner time was much easier.
After dinner came the long, rotating rest shifts. Even so, the image of that big cat lingered in Lan Jin's mind and would not fade.
One human face could be a coincidence. Two human faces. Was that still a coincidence?
So had someone really carried out some monstrous human experiments here?
If so, what was the goal of turning people into neither human nor beast?
…
Answers would not come. With so many questions already, one more did not matter.
After everyone ate honestly and rested well for a night, they set out again.
This forest was truly vast. One ridge was not the end. They climbed two more. After about five days, they finally reached the entrance to the Maolin.
Before entering, Captain Zhang gave everyone a thorough briefing and mental preparation. Then he called Lan Jin and thirty-three others aside and said, "This mission is perilous. I am not sending you to die. You must fight to survive and bring what we find back to base.
I will tell you this much. That thing is tied to our future survival. Without it, everything else is nonsense. No matter what happens to others, you must live and carry it out."
Someone in the group asked, "Isn't our mission to protect the professor team."
"Yes, and no."
The professor team must be protected. But in a crisis, the thing they were to retrieve mattered even more than the professor team. Everyone had to prioritize the objective and themselves accordingly.
Within this group, those with the greatest personal strength and the strongest abilities were given the highest responsibility.
"Shen Zhiyan, Lan Jin, you two are the strongest in the team. You must get the item back to base."
Lao Gao suddenly asked, "I have a question. Sister Lan and Brother Shen are not from the same base. If one returns to R City base and the other to H City base, which base do we choose."
People chuckled. "Have a fight. Winner picks the base."
That was not the point. Captain Zhang said, "Either base is fine. N City base works too. Hand it in, and your task is complete. Others will handle the follow-up."
Whether N City base would still be standing by the time they came out of the Maolin, no one knew. Whether H City base or R City base would still be there after they returned, no one knew either.
"If it truly will not work, go to the Capital city base."
The Capital city base would be their final hope.
Captain Zhang spoke as if leaving last words. He assigned the mission, and also laid out their possible routes afterward. In short, those from the military bases could only go to military bases. Their ultimate destination would still be the Capital city base.
…
With their mental preparation complete, the group shouldered their packs, formed up, and entered the Maolin.
At the entrance grew the same itch flowers as at the H City base's Maolin.
They had no desire to "experience" the itch flowers again. Before anyone stepped in, Ling Jiang, just like last time, used Ling Jiang's ice ability to freeze the blossoms solid, leaving no chance for a single wisp to escape.
Having abilities, and having them strong, made a real difference.
They moved along the long approach and at last stepped into the Maolin.
Colossal plants loomed on every side. Vine whips writhed and lashed overhead. The mutated flora seemed even more active here than in H City's Maolin. At the same time, Lan Jin could faintly hear bestial roars rising from somewhere within the jungle.
As if afraid the cat incident would repeat, everyone gripped their weapons at once and watched the surroundings with full alertness.
Before long they came to a three-way fork.
No one in the force knew which path to take, so Captain Zhang had to consider splitting the group.
Before dividing them, Captain Zhang turned to Professor Pei. "Professor Pei, do you know which route we should take."
Professor Pei shook his head. "Sorry. I was not part of the original work. I do not know the route."
The answer was disappointing.
Disappointment or not, Captain Zhang immediately split the hundred-plus fighters into three teams, and distributed the professor team evenly among the three.
Looking at the three teams, with strength not exactly balanced, someone protested. "This is uneven. Why are so many strong people in one team."
That meant Lan Jin's team. Even before special training, Captain Zhang had promised that Lan Jin's group of four would not be separated. Lan Jin's team had four powerful ability users, and most of the top ten from training were also in this team. Ability or not, the strong were still strong.
Seeing such a lineup, people would naturally grumble. In truth, Lan Jin's team had several more members from the professor group than the others. Even the most troublesome, Pei Xin, had been placed under Captain Zhang's lead in Lan Jin's team.
So what if a team had more elites. If half the team were dead weight, anyone who thought it through could see the allocation was not that skewed.
The debate had not even ended when the Maolin's vines struck at the crowd.
They had been writhing above all along. Catch the unwary by the ankle, yank once, and a person was dragged away.
There were too many vines in the Maolin. People were hauled in every direction. There was no time to worry about forks or routes. Everyone sprinted wherever the captives were dragged, rushing to the rescue.