alien island

Moving towards the depths of the cave, the blue light flickering in the darkness became clearer and clearer, and the surrounding environment was already so dark that you couldn't see your fingers.After going deep into the cave, I found that there was still a corner in the cave. Zhang Yao held onto the slippery rock wall and turned in. When he looked up, he saw the blue light shining like stars in the sky, the blue The light spot is oblong and flickers quickly every second. The dark blue fluorescence is like stars, embellishing the entire dark cave in a psychedelic and mysterious way, as if stepping into another space.

Looking up at the blue fluorescence all over the dark cave, Zhang Yao couldn't help but praise: "Yo, it's quite dazzling."

Stepping forward and getting closer to the objects that had been shining, Zhang Yao saw clearly that the objects that were shining were actually half a meter long insects about the thickness of an arm.

The abdomen of the worm is slender, the whole body is long and flat, with a pair of immature wing membranes attached to the back, the huge compound eyes occupy most of the head, and the antennae are short, where the back of the worm is connected to the end. with light.It seems that these blue fluorescent lights are emitted from the light emitter on the bug's body.

"Unexpectedly, there are things like fireflies here, but ah, the fireflies on this island are much bigger than what we usually see." Squatting on the ground, Zhang Yao casually grabbed a bug that was crawling slowly on the ground, and mentioned Studying carefully in front of my eyes.These bugs should be just larvae of fireflies, and they haven't transformed into adults that can fly.Now they can only crawl in this dark cave, and their bodies look a bit similar to Odonata larvae at first glance.

"Firefly?" Repeating Zhang Yao's words, Pei Yan had never noticed before, what is the name of this kind of bug.

"That's right, this kind of glowing bug has disappeared in the city for a long time. If you want to find it, you have to find it in very clean water." Zhang Yao thought about how he caught a lot of fireflies when he was a child. Put them together, but in the end, he tossed them all to death.

Unexpectedly, he could meet such a big firefly larva now. Zhang Yao looked at the fat larva in his hand. It was slowly twisting its body and shaking its small tentacles, trying to break free from his hand. .Zhang Yao used the fluorescent light on the insects as lighting, bent down to find two branches on the ground, and placed the larvae in his hand on the top of the branches. After the larvae's feet grabbed the bare branches, their emotions stabilized. , the fat and long body clinging to the branch, motionless, the tail continued to flash fluorescent blue light.

Fearing that the light of one bug would not be bright enough, Zhang Yao caught three more on the wall of the nearby cave, and put them on the two branches he was holding, one for each.Finally, he handed a branch in his hand with two larvae lying quietly on top of it, and handed it to Pei Yan who was beside him.

"..." Silently took the branch Zhang Yao handed over, Pei Yan stared at the two glowing larvae at the top that hugged the branch tightly, wondering what Zhang Yao was using it for.

"The fire we lit just now seems to have forgotten to use it as a torch, and it has been extinguished now. So, let's use this worm as a light, let's take a look inside." Shaking the 'worm lamp' in his hand , Zhang Yao explained that the light emitted by the insects at the top of the branches is actually quite bright, and the two light up together at the same time, which can almost illuminate a distance of one meter nearby.Holding it and continuing to walk into the cave should not be a big problem.

Zhang Yao walked in, and found that the number of glowing larvae around him began to decrease, and the cave became narrower than before. When he got a little further ahead, Zhang Yao was blocked by a huge protruding irregular-shaped boulder. The road and the color of the stones are not the same as the dark rock walls in the cave. They are light gray, and there seems to be something painted on them. Zhang Yao swept the insect lamp in his hand for a second, as if Noticing any details, he quickly stopped, retreated to the side of the boulder, raised the insect lamp in his hand close to the stone wall for illumination, and studied the painting on it.

It's a pity that the gray stone and the black line marks make it difficult to distinguish the colors, and the cave is too dark. Even if Zhang Yao sticks the insect lamp to the stone wall, the distance can't be any closer. , I still can't see clearly.Pei Yan, who was next to him, handed the branch with two glowing larvae in his hand to Zhang Yao for lighting.

Zhang Yao took the branch, directly caught the two glowing larvae on it, and placed it on the surface of the boulder to illuminate it, so that the pattern on the boulder appeared a little more clearly.

"Sure enough, this is a painting..." Touching the cold and damp stone surface illuminated by blue fluorescent light, I drew an extremely simple picture with black paint, although the lines drawn were very It's very simple, but Zhang Yao can still roughly analyze what is what.

In a black circle, many abstract patterns of the firefly larvae they caught were drawn, and a herringbone was drawn on the black circle, which represented that the circle was the location of the cave, and the people above pointed to it. It was where the painter was at that time.Extending from the black circle pattern, you can see a row of tree-like patterns, followed by a pattern of water ripples, and a circle surrounded by a bunch of trees, inside which is a picture of a beast with a head and a tail. , but it was a monster standing on a human body. Zhang Yao looked at the pattern strangely, and turned around to ask Pei Yan: "What...is this?" The creature painted on this stone doesn't really exist, does it?What about the animal head...

In order to see the mural clearly, Pei Yan approached Zhang Yao's back and ear. At this time, his head was very close to Zhang Yao's cheek, and his exhaled breath lightly swept past Zhang Yao's ear. Zhang Yao couldn't help but put his ears on his shoulders, and rubbed them to get rid of the inexplicable warm itching.

Looking at the beast-headed and human-bodied monster on the surface of the boulder, Pei Yan replied: "Hey orcs, I rarely see them where I live."

"Is it... a human or a beast?" Looking at the giant stone painting, the beast with a human body shape, long and sharp nails piercing through the body of an animal that resembles a wild deer pattern, it doesn't look like anything Zhang Yao's sense of crisis inevitably aroused from the appearance of a benevolent person. He wondered if this orc-like monster would be dangerous.

"I don't know."

Maybe it's different from the area where they live, Pei Yan has rarely encountered these Chika orcs.The only two contacts, one was when he was young, when he was living with those lemurs, he once saw a lemur and brought back a Chika orc that had been bitten to death by it. It was the first time he had seen this creature.Because of the inexplicable resemblance to him in appearance, Pei Yan didn't eat its meat. Moreover, he felt that the smell of the orc disgusted him, and he didn't like it very much.

As for the second time he came into contact with Chika orcs, it was a year ago. In the canyon, he met a Chika orcs who escaped from nowhere, covered in injuries and skinny.Originally, Pei Yan just ignored and turned around and wanted to leave, but he was grabbed by the orc and spoke in a language he couldn't understand. At that time, Pei Yan was surprised to find that the orc also communicated through language. , He became interested in this, so he took the Chika orc back and gave it some herbs to bandage its wounds. In exchange, the Chika orc even told Pei Yan the meaning and how to say the Chika language with gestures.However, the Chika orc, who was seriously injured and unable to swallow anything, still struggled and died of illness after not learning for long.Other than that, Pei Yan never came into contact with these Chika orcs again.

"Oh..." Seeing that Pei Yan talked about them, he didn't know much about them. He only met one dead and one crippled, but Zhang Yao could still feel that these beastmen shouldn't be kind. Going deep into the island, I don't know if I will encounter these Chika orcs.

Continue to turn your head to look at the patterns painted on the boulders. Some of the patterns have been corroded by the wet cave, and it is hard to see clearly, while some of the patterns are too abstract. Yao didn't understand it in detail.However, when he saw a position marked with an 'X' and a strange tree-shaped pattern was drawn, Zhang Yao immediately reacted.That, is the tree they were looking for, the tree that could float in the sea and swim out of the island.

It turns out that this picture is a simple instruction map to find the floating tree. Looking at the location marked by the tree and their current cave location, Zhang Yao calculated how they should take the next step in order to reach the island where they left the island. The location of the most important and critical trees.I carefully studied the patterns on the boulder again. It seems that no matter how I go, I have to pass through the territory of the Chika Beastman. It seems that this road will not be very smooth.

"Name..." Pei Yan, who was also observing the patterns on the boulder behind Zhang Yao, suddenly found a small and unnoticeable foreign signature in the lower right corner of the pattern on the stone wall. Seeing that signature, Pei Yan spoke There was a rare fluctuation in his tone of voice.

"Name?" Looking at the place Pei Yan was pointing at, Zhang Yao found a flamboyant signature, and asked involuntarily, "Do you know this name?"

Nodding his head, Pei Yan replied, "It belongs to my father." He remembered that on the first page of his mother's diary, he saw the signature on this diary that his father gave to his mother, which was exactly the same as the signature on this boulder.

"So, could it be that your father drew this picture?" Zhang Yao never thought that in the cave they entered by mistake, they would accidentally run into Pei Yan's father who disappeared more than ten years ago and never came back. Drawn instructions for finding the floating wood.

"Then let's follow the instructions of this picture, maybe we can find out about your father." Zhang Yao thought that although so many years have passed, seeing this picture, it seems that he still sees some hope.This time, they not only found the icon showing the direction to the floating tree, but also accidentally found the trace of Pei Yan's father. They hope that they can find the tree and the news about Pei Yan's father smoothly along the way.

Probably remembering the marked position and direction of the key areas of the pattern on the boulder, Zhang Yao thought that they had to start from this hole before they could continue on the road behind. , just bring it here.Thinking of this, Zhang Yao slapped his forehead, and almost forgot about those two little ghosts, and now he must go back quickly, wondering if those two were still alive by the river, or if they were attacked by other creatures.

"Pei Yan, let's go back and pick up those two people before we start together." Patting Pei Yan who was still staring at the signature on the stone wall, Zhang Yao said.

"Hmm..." Nodding, Pei Yan looked back at the signature on the boulder that had become very blurred, then turned around and left with Zhang Yao.Return to the spring again, swim along the underwater channel and return to the river they came from, to meet Xiang Chen and Ke Yiqiao who were waiting for them there.