Chapter 173: The Secret Behind the Flesh Apple
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
Lin Sanjiu did not know if the snake-faced person could hear her. But, right now, Lin Sanjiu's ears were filled with her own heavy breathing. She felt her blood freeze in her veins.
"Whir... Where, are you, from?" The cracks on the snake-faced person deepened, forming a cavernous, dark, canyon-like smile.
She found the language it spoke novel and odd. It rolled its forked tongue, surprisingly revealing an interest in continuing on: "You, talk."
Lin Sanjiu never imagined that this snake-faced person could speak human language.
Although she knew that this situation was beyond her control, her regret swallowed her heart whole as if a poisonous snake. [I shouldn't have touched that meaty apple! I'm too rash!]
[What should I do now?]
Seeing that she wasn't responding, the snake-face person grew impatient. It uncoiled its tail, and its body rose. It watched Lin Sanjiu closely with its pair of vertical pupils.
"Where... are you, from?"
Lin Sanjiu's heart froze. Her body reacted faster than her thoughts. She stored her [Ability Polishing Agent] in a split second. She turned and ran under the cover of the sudden darkness.
However, as soon as she began moving, something like a meteorite crashed in front of her. The tree branch, which had been stable all this time, started shaking violently and she fell backward.
Lin Sanjiu quickly took out her [Ability Polishing Agent]. She saw the shadow of a large bridge-like structure above her head. It had a forked tip. The thing sticking out from the tree bark in front of her was indeed the snake-faced person's tongue.
If she ran any faster, she would have been pierced.
Suddenly, a large drop of saliva fell on top of Lin Sanjiu, she was immediately drenched. The skin all over her body hurt from the impact of that single drop of saliva. If the snake-faced person wanted to attack her...
Lin Sanjiu couldn't think of anything that she could do.
"I-I came from the tree..." Since she was unable to defeat or run away from it, she could only wipe her face and talk. Maybe she could find a better opportunity through their conversation: "Why are you able to speak our language?"
It was obvious that not all snake-faced people knew human language. Otherwise, how could Lin Sanjiu be able to alive now? She probably would've been found when the meaty apple spoke.
This snake-face person seemed to be the only one who understood human language, that was why it secretly turned back after everyone was gone.
Hearing her reply, the huge bridge-like shadow above her head returned back with a swish. Though the object was huge, it moved at a speed faster than one could react. As the snake-faced person was too close to her, Lin Sanjiu couldn't see its entire expression, she could only hear the snake-faced person's hisses: "Tree? Weird... not possible."
However, it didn't answer her question.
She was too near to that thunderous voice, so her ears hurt. She rubbed her ears and continued, "I'm not lying, I really did come from the tree."
Two tall straight pupils whirled around, looking more intimidating under the silver light from her [Ability Polishing Agent].
"Impossible… All nutrients, should, be totally absorbed." The snake-faced person remained motionless as it stared at Lin Sanjiu, prepared to prevent her from a second attempt to escape. "Why, aren't you…. in the apple? Where are you... from?"
[Nutrients? In the apple?]
Although Lin Sanjiu had a faint premonition long ago, she felt a cold chill.
"Do the nutrients... refer to us humans?" She stuttered, feeling that the answer to her question was stupidly obvious.
Unexpectedly, the snake-face person corrected her.
After it spat out the word 'no' from the tip of its tongue, it only continued after a slight pause, as if it needed to choose its words, "Trees bear fruit. There are nutrients in fruits. The nutrients in the fruit I ate were bad, poor… But, I understand your language."
[Did I interpret those words correctly?]
Lin Sanjiu was almost stunned.
"Some fruits are good, like—" Conversing for the first time with other creatures that weren't snake-faced people, the snake-faced person seemed to have some interest in continuing the conversation. When it spoke to this point, it used its tongue to pronounce a complex syllable, appearing to be someone's name: "... ate one, she can glow. Some are no good, the one I ate, made me understand words."
"Every fruit has different nutrients, the one the leader ate, is the best."
Even though what the snake-faced person said wasn't quite clear, Lin Sanjiu immediately understood everything.
Those apple trees, in a certain kind of sense, were a type of 'reprocessing machine'. The blood and flesh of posthumans were mixed by the tree and converted into the apples growing from the tree. Each apple probably packed a few posthumans' abilities. When the snake-faced people ate those apples, they would obtain the corresponding abilities.
Naturally, from the snake-faced people's perspective, nutrients did not refer to humans but rather the abilities they possessed.
In that case, it was easy for Lin Sanjiu to understand why the apple could talk. The apple trees had to keep the posthumans alive so that the apples could retain their abilities. However, whether they survived in their usual human form or as a large apple structure made of a mix of blood and flesh, it wasn't for those humans to decide.
Coincidentally, the apple that the little snake-faced person secretly consumed possessed a sort of language communication ability.
When she thought about B.Rabbit and her other missing companions, Lin Sanjiu felt anxious again. She wished she could search every tree branch this very moment, but she couldn't even move now.
"You… said that you came from the tree." The snake-face person talked again, Lin Sanjiu's body shook due to the vibration of its voice, "Could it be, the nutrients in the fruits actually came from things similar to you?
"That's right!" Lin Sanjiu was slight astonished that it never thought about the source of the nutrients. Following which, hoping for a bit of luck, she added, "I just want to find a few of my friends. Once I find them, we will leave immediately. We definitely won't disturb you guys from eating your apples… okay?"
When she was drifting along in the rhizomes, she actually wanted to rescue a few more people. But now, she had already given up that impractical fantasy.
Lin Sanjiu would be satisfied if she could just save B.Rabbit and the rest of her companions. Unfortunately, the snake-faced person crooked its head and stared at her, but didn't say a word.
The atmosphere, as quiet as dead, hung heavily in the darkness.
Lin Sanjiu grew more and more nervous. She stealthily hid her hands behind her back.
After a long time, the snake-faced person finally spoke.
"Being able to escape... trees, very strong." It spoke in the same slow manner but its body started swaying, "If I eat you, I will become powerful. Become leader!"
"You motherf*cker!" Lin Sanjiu couldn't help spitting out B.Rabbit favorite vulgar word. At the same time the pupil in front of her rose up and a long shadow shot out from the snake-faced person's mouth, coming directing at her.
Lin Sanjiu finally had a slight taste of what it was like colliding with Golden Gate Bridge.
With a sudden loud boom, the tongue pierced deep into the tree bark. Debris flew everywhere and the 'ground' under Lin Sanjiu quaked. Fortunately, Lin Sanjiu was already prepared. Using all of her limbs simultaneously, she rolled quite a distance away, dodging the attack unglamorously.
"You think I can't do anything, just because you are larger?" She spat fiercely. She saw its tongue aiming for another attack, but she couldn't think of any ideas. She had no choice but to jump to another slightly lower tree branch.
Just as her legs left the first branch, the spot where she was before was instantly smashed to smithereens. The sap from the tree, so familiar to her, sprayed everywhere before it rained down on her body.
[Dodging like this isn't the best strategy. If I had my [Bubbles Blowing Girl] with me...]
With that thought, Lin Sanjiu stopped and quickly checked her card inventory.
When they were scavenging for items in Garden of Eden Laboratories, she practically took everything she saw, only turning all of them into cards after that. Hence, she even forgot some of these items. As she swept her eyes across the cards in her hands, she had a sudden idea.
The attacks behind her had stopped. The ground continued shaking as the snake-faced person circled the tree and continued looking for her.
Only the ground was emitting endless quakes, seeming to be from the snake-faced person movement around the tree then, as it was searching up and down for her whereabouts.
Lin Sanjiu hid behind the fork of a branch. She was in the snake-faced person's blind spot. On top of that, she had stored her [Ability Polishing Agent] to avoid being the obvious target in the darkness. The pitch-black darkness affected the snake-faced person, making it more difficult for it to find Lin Sanjiu.
"Where is it? How annoying, I want to crush you..."
The long tongue hissed as it swept to and fro above the tree bark. Just when it was feeling impatient, it saw a silver light on one of the branches, but it quickly vanished. That split second was sufficient for the snake-faced person. It shot its long tongue toward the light.
However, the series of events that unfolded was beyond the snake-faced person's expectation. It tongue pierced through a mist. It felt a sharp burning pain it had never experienced, the pain spread rapidly through its tongue. The snake-faced person let out a fearsome hiss and pulled its tongue back into its mouth involuntarily. Right after that, it could no longer make any sound...
It collapsed to the ground, clutching its own neck tightly. It struggled soundlessly while it writhed and rolled on the ground. The ground shook, and a few apples fell. After some time, the vibrations similar to small earthquakes gradually stopped.
The black outline of the snake-faced person, which now laid on the ground, was like a mountain range. It stopped moving.
A small silver light lit up from a fork of a branch. The light could only cover a small area before dissipating into the darkness. Lin Sanjiu looked nervously at the shadow of the creature which laid out like a short mountain range. After she waited for a long time, she finally let out a sigh of relief.
Lin Sanjiu looked down at the storage device for her [Microorganism Cloud] and revealed a bitter smile.
As expected, the simple trap she set was useful. The snake-faced person stuck its tongue into the purple mist of [Microorganism Cloud]. The mist quickly adhered to its tongue and was quickly absorbed by its body. From the looks of it, she probably couldn't use the storage device to recover the mist.
Once the snake-faced person stopped shrieking and struggling, the silence returned. Lin Sanjiu could hear her racing heart. [I don't have much time.] Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. She had to find B.Rabbit and the other before resting, and quickly escape before the other snake-faced people discovered this corpse.