radicalducati Chapter 154 The Brain of Theseus
Chapter 154 The Brain of Theseus
Chapter 154 The Brain of Theseus (Part 2)
"They are insect eggs," Bai Shuyuan said calmly.
These three words instantly froze the atmosphere around them.
When everyone saw the tiny, egg-shaped objects, their faces turned deathly pale. Feng Yue even took a step back and gagged.
Bai Shuyuan ignored all of this. She simply used her dagger to gently scrape off the insect eggs.
Then, she ran the flame over the blade again and said, "It's fine now."
The veteran looked at the wound on his arm and simply said, "—This is so weird."
"If I'm parasitized—will I turn into one of those guys?"
Old Qian's voice trembled slightly.
Bai Shuyuan glanced at him and said directly, "Open your mouth."
"what?"
"Hold him down."
Bai Shuyuan's instructions were concise and clear, targeting Lao Wang and Feng Yue, who were closest to Lao Qian.
Old Qian's face turned pale instantly. He instinctively took a step back, waving his hands frantically, "No—no way? I just ate something—"
He tried to struggle, but a hand reached out from both sides and grabbed his arms.
"Open your mouth," Bai Shuyuan repeated.
Old Qian had no choice but to open his mouth.
Little Green watched this scene and felt like complaining. This scene was just like a dentist asking parents to help control a child's cavities.
Bai Shuyuan's dagger tip precisely probed into Lao Qian's palate, into a slightly ulcerated area.
Her dagger groped around there, and after finding something unusual, she gently pried it open.
A grayish-black object was thus peeled off his palate.
She held the dagger up to everyone.
On the tip of the knife was a grayish-black insect much larger than an egg, its limbs still twitching slightly.
"It will crawl all the way to the brain from here."
Just like when mummifying an animal, you remove its brain from its nasal cavity. Little Green instantly understood the process.
There doesn't seem to be any strong bony structure between the pharynx and the cranial cavity that can block it.
"vomit--"
After being released by the crowd, Lao Qian lay down to the side and vomited violently, probably trying to turn his intestines inside out to clean them up.
"————The King of Pedopods?"
For some reason, the name of this deep-sea creature suddenly popped into Little Green's mind, and it seemed somewhat similar.
"No, it's more like a cowardly fish louse," Bai Shuyuan corrected her mistake.
"A worm that can parasitize fish, eat them, and replace their tongues."
She paused, recalling the state of those charred corpses.
"However, it seems that this aggregate is more likely to replace the human nervous system."
After she finished speaking, she turned her gaze to Lao Qian. Although her tone and expression did not change much, Xiao Lü could detect a hint of helplessness in her voice.
"—Do not eat anything given by strangers in areas where the Shannon counter reading is abnormal."
Old Qian nodded repeatedly, like a primary school student who had made a mistake.
"I'll never do it again."
He let his guard down because he was a canned food, but little did he know that the real threat came from those guys.
Feng Yue's face remained deathly pale. She asked with some worry, "Then—what about the rest of us? Will we—"
"—Is it in the stomach too?"
The moment this question was raised, everyone's hearts were in their throats.
"Insect eggs cannot withstand a highly acidic environment."
"Moreover, the amount you ingested was not much, and your own information stability was sufficient to eliminate the impact."
—Just like the fruit fly larvae in a bayberry, or the cockroach fragments crushed in a coffee bean, eating them won't cause any problems. Little Green thought to herself.
"So, you mean we really won't end up like that?" Old Wang was still a little uneasy and asked again.
"Won't."
To reassure everyone, Bai Shuyuan took out the Shannon counter and scanned it in front of each person.
The stability of information did not fluctuate significantly compared to before. Only the old money, which consumed the most, showed a tiny positive value on the imaginary part.
"Furthermore, there are currently no surviving parasites on you."
She addressed the crowd.
"This kind of thing seems to rely mainly on quantity to succeed, and the dosage you've been exposed to is far from that level."
She waved her hand, indicating that everyone could leave.
"Go and rest, I'll handle the rest."
Only after the footsteps had completely faded away did Bai Shuyuan turn around again.
She squatted down, seemingly with great interest, looking at the charred corpses on the ground. Her expression was like that of Fabre observing insects.
"It's dangerous, it needs to be cleared."
Little Green made an obvious judgment.
"Yes, let's go upstairs." Bai Shuyuan's voice came from beside her.
The floor had been cleaned thoroughly, and the two did not linger, but stepped onto the stairs leading upstairs.
After going upstairs, I heard some conversation coming from a half-open door at the end of the corridor.
The two exchanged a glance, then tiptoed and quietly approached, peering inside.
In the living room, three people were huddled together in front of a dark television.
Their bodies have undergone obvious deformities, with strange tentacles protruding from their heads, and their movements are somewhat stiff.
However, they sat together like an ordinary family, watching the screen that had no picture.
"I want to see Super Blue Cat!"
A boy who looked like a child suddenly let out a sharp scream. The tone was like a broken record, somewhat degraded compared to a normal person's voice.
"What's all the noise about! Your dad wants to watch the news!"
The slightly larger man next to him suddenly raised his hand and slapped the child on the back of the head.
"Snapped!"
The child's head just fell off and landed on the coffee table.
The cut was unusually smooth, without a trace of blood, with only a few gray-black insects anxiously poking out from the exposed spine.
Within the exposed neck muscles, more lurking shadows and cysts can be seen.
"Ugh! Look what you've done!"
A sharp female voice rang out as she complained, picked up the head, and put it back around the child's neck.
Countless tiny insects emerged from the broken end, secreting a viscous liquid that reattached the head.
"Don't hit their heads! It'll make them stupid! What if they don't get into university? What if they can't find a job? What if they can't afford a house!"
"You need to know, this is our only hope!"
The mother repeated the line in a rather exaggerated tone, as if it had been dug up from some obscure corner of the host's memory.
Seemingly sensing the gaze, everyone in the living room suddenly stopped moving.
They turned their heads stiffly, their empty gazes fixed on Xiao Lü and Bai Shuyuan at the door.
"I'm his teacher, here for a home visit," Bai Shuyuan said.
Xiao Lü didn't understand at all, and looked at Bai Shuyuan beside her with a sense of awe and confusion.
"Oh! It's Xiao Liang's teacher!"
The parents paused for a moment, their expressions instantly shifting to a stiff respect.
This made Xiao Lü feel a deep sense of irony.
Immediately afterwards, they enthusiastically took out various snacks and eagerly offered them to the teacher and the green-clad children in front of them.
Bai Shuyuan seemed to have obtained enough information. She gently shook her head, her voice calm.
"I don't eat insect eggs."
The moment the words left his mouth, the smiles on everyone's faces in the living room vanished without a trace.
Instead, there was a puppet-like indifference and a puppet-like murderous intent.
"Just freeze your hands and feet and lay them flat."
Little Green nodded.
As magic surged, thick, solid ice instantly formed on the limbs of those figures, causing them to fall to the ground, unable to move.
There was truly nothing human left in his eyes. All that remained was aggression towards the two people in front of him.
—Just like Bai Shuyuan before my eyes.
Although her face remained expressionless, Xiao Lü could sense that her curiosity was almost overflowing.
Little Green sighed. It seemed the mad scientist's research was about to begin.