Ye Junhan had gone to City A, leaving Gu Xi to watch over the camp.

The next morning, Feng Xiao found her first thing. His underwater robot was ready.

The robot’s design was a bit unusual, however. It had what looked like Wind Fire Wheels for feet, which were supposedly better for navigating the sludge.

Gu Xi took the robot herself and placed it over an area she hadn’t been able to probe. Then, she keyed the walkie-talkie in her hand. "It’s ready."

Back at the camp, Feng Xiao powered on the control screen...

By the time Gu Xi returned, the robot had already submerged to a depth of about 150 meters beneath the sludge. The screen was pitch-black. Even with infrared, it couldn’t detect a thing.

"’Miss Gu, something’s strange," Feng Xiao said, frowning slightly as he adjusted the camera angle again.

Gu Xi wasn’t surprised. She had discovered the same thing when she probed the area with her spiritual power. While many mutant animals inhabited the swamp, they all, without exception, lived on the surface.

As for the deep sludge beneath the water... even the roots of mutant plants were rarely seen.

A biological dead zone seemed to have formed down there. All flora and fauna instinctively avoided it, and even the incredibly resilient mutant plants were no exception.

Gu Xi knew something had to be down there.

But strangely, though the underwater robot circled up, down, left, and right a few times in the area Gu Xi had pinpointed, it found nothing.

Gu Xi’s brow furrowed slightly.

Just then, Qi Xiang came over to take a look. She stared at the monitor in front of Feng Xiao for a moment before suddenly saying, "Can you move it a little more to the left..."

Feng Xiao glanced at Gu Xi, then began maneuvering the underwater robot as Qi Xiang directed...

"’Stop," Qi Xiang said suddenly. She pointed to a few small red dots on the screen. "Look. See how the plant roots here are a bit longer than elsewhere? And they’re rooted deeper?"

Her words made something click for Gu Xi. She knew what she’d overlooked.

Previously, she and Feng Xiao had only been paying attention to the number of roots, not the differences in their length.

Now that Qi Xiang had pointed it out, Feng Xiao quickly zoomed in. He found that the roots of the mutant plants in this vicinity did, in fact, seem to be a tiny bit longer than those in the surrounding areas.

Not by much—only about one to two centimeters by visual estimation.

It was a tiny difference, easy to overlook.

"’Couldn’t it just be the species of the plant? Some plants naturally have longer roots, while others are just shallower," Shen Yue suggested, having walked over just in time to hear their conversation.

"’That’s possible, but it’s an easy thing to test," Qi Xiang said, gazing at the monitor. She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, then turned to Gu Xi. "Could you plant the same species in a circle around that spot?"

"’Even within the same species, there will be individual variations," Shen Yue pointed out. He wasn’t trying to argue, just raising all the possibilities. "And the soil conditions won’t be identical everywhere..."

Qi Xiang waved her hand dismissively. "Then we’ll just run more trials." With a larger sample size, they were bound to see a pattern.

Gu Xi agreed it was a viable plan. The area Qi Xiang had identified was outside the range of her previous spiritual power probes, but ’who knew? Maybe they’d find something new.’

The group got to work immediately.

To avoid being wasteful, Qi Xiang specifically asked Gu Xi to plant Water Vine Vegetable... That way, even if they didn’t discover anything, they’d at least have something for dinner.

Following the predetermined points, Gu Xi took out the Water Vine Vegetable seeds. She precisely controlled the output of her powers, ensuring that every single stalk received the exact same amount of energy...

Nearby, Qi Xiang was lying gingerly on a giant vine Gu Xi had just sprouted. She held a test tube in one hand and a testing device in the other, preparing to take soil and water samples.

Suddenly, Feng Xiao’s voice crackled over the walkie-talkie. "Miss Gu, something in the mud seems to be heading your way."

"’What is it?" Startled, Qi Xiang shoved the test tube back into her toolkit. She scrambled back to Gu Xi’s side, eyes wide and vigilant as she scanned the swamp. "Where?"

Gu Xi also stared at the water’s surface, her brow furrowed. ’Strange,’ she thought, ’my spiritual power isn’t detecting anything...’

Feng Xiao’s voice continued, "I can’t make out what it is yet, but judging from its shape and size..."

The sludge was thick and viscous, sometimes obscuring the camera, so Feng Xiao couldn’t make an immediate judgment.

Feng Xiao’s hands rested on the control screen, his fingers flying as he constantly adjusted the camera angle. After a moment, he said uncertainly, "...Is that a tadpole?"

In Feng Xiao’s experience, post-apocalyptic tadpoles were the size of a grown man’s fist. But this one... ’Why does it look even smaller than a regular, pre-apocalypse tadpole?’

Staring at the Light Screen, Feng Xiao briefly described the image he was seeing. He ended by reminding Gu Xi and Qi Xiang, "This thing is tiny, and it’s in the sludge. Be careful."

Feng Xiao maneuvered the mini underwater robot, chasing right behind the creature. But he soon found that the little red dot on the screen had suddenly vanished!

"’Miss Gu, I think I lost the target," Feng Xiao’s frustrated voice came over the walkie-talkie. He couldn’t believe it. He had been tracking it without taking his eyes off the screen, but the little red dot had just vanished into thin air.

"’Lost it?" Qi Xiang sensed something was wrong. She turned and tugged on Gu Xi’s sleeve. "Gu Xi..."

Before she could finish, her vision blurred. When she blinked again, Gu Xi was a phantom-like figure, skimming swiftly across the swamp until she vanished into the vast white miasma, gone without a trace.

It took Qi Xiang a long moment to belatedly realize the implication. ’Wait a minute, Gu Xi just left... How am I supposed to get back?’

She was surrounded by the vast white miasma, and with Gu Xi gone, Qi Xiang didn’t dare move.

After waiting for a while, Qi Xiang grew bored and decided she might as well harvest the nearby Water Vine Vegetable.

The Water Vine Vegetable was growing exceptionally well; the tender shoots Gu Xi had coaxed out covered the entire puddle. Qi Xiang quickly picked a large handful, almost more than she could carry.

Luckily, her toolkit was right beside her. She casually placed the harvested shoots on top of it. Just as she was about to pick another handful, Feng Xiao’s terrified voice burst from the walkie-talkie—

"Get clear!"

Without a second thought, Qi Xiang rolled along the giant vine beneath her. A golden shadow shot out from nowhere, flying over her head and pouncing viciously on the spot where she’d just been crouching...

Qi Xiang looked up instinctively. ’Oh, it’s just the Mutated Rat King. That scared the life out of me.’

’Did you go for a roll in the mud?’ she wondered. ’Why are you so filthy? Even that ring of golden fluff around your ears is caked in mud.’

"Hey, where have you been fooling around? How’d you get so messy?" Qi Xiang teased, patting her chest, her heart still pounding.

The Mutated Rat King whipped its head around and let out a muffled "Squeak!" at her. Only then did Qi Xiang notice it was holding something in its mouth. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

’Is that why Feng Xiao yelled a warning?’

"What’s that in your mouth? Spit it out, let me see." When the Mutated Rat King didn’t budge, Qi Xiang resorted to threats. "Gu Xi will be back any second." ’Heh, you little rascal. You think I can’t handle you?’

The Mutated Rat King paused. It seemed to be sensing something for a moment, but it kept its jaws clamped shut on whatever it was holding. It merely shot Qi Xiang a disdainful look. ’Trying to fool me?’

’No way.’

Qi Xiang was speechless.

On the other end, Feng Xiao had seen the Mutated Rat King arrive through the camera feed and breathed a sigh of relief. He was about to take a sip of water when his eyes caught something in the corner of the screen. He shot bolt upright, gripping his walkie-talkie tightly. "Qi Xiang, don’t move."