wandering planet

In the following time, the monitoring instruments of the lifeboat aimed at the direction where the winged snake left, and began to wait for it to appear.

While it was still sleeping in its nest, Jiang Che and others left the slope again and set off to explore the forest.

Soon after entering the forest, the sky began to gradually darken, and some rain fell overhead.

Night is not a good time to explore, and most of the animals have returned to their nests.Jiang Che and Ovid each carried a bag and began to pick fruit crazily.Lin Ni and Tang Mo searched for signs of animal activities near the fruit trees.

"Is this a deer?" Tang Mo asked, pointing to a plum blossom-shaped hoof mark on the ground.

"Like." Linney was observing a fan-shaped footprint on the ground, and replied perfunctorily.

He recognized this footprint, which was the footprint of a special three-legged beast, Mirak.This kind of three-legged beast is small in size, has sensitive hearing, and is easily frightened. When frightened, it runs very fast when fleeing, and escapes by running and jumping.Its head is like a deer, but its body is covered with feathers, its wings are severely degraded, and it cannot fly. It is said that its meat is very tender and delicious.

All the information about this planet was obtained from Song Junxing, and Cicero hadn't told him anything - Linney found that his idea was wrong.Cicero told him about Miraak's photos and footprints, but it was only told as "a story of alien creatures" at the time.Unknowingly, Cicero told him many things about the Sirius belt, as if Cicero himself had visited these places.

He has a headache.

The elder brother who has left seems to have countless secrets, and he has no way to get a glimpse of any clues, but the secret itself keeps stretching out tentacles, dragging his footsteps.

Tang Mo handed him a cylindrical purple fruit: "This one is so sweet."

Linney took it after thanking him, and ate absently.

"It tastes a bit like grapes...and like pears." Tang Mo showed a somewhat melancholy expression, "We grow a lot of grapes in our town, and they are all very expensive and delicious varieties."

Lin Ni was very surprised: they all thought Tang Mo was a weird and difficult person to understand, and this was the first time he saw her mentioning her longing for her hometown.

"do you miss home?"

"Are you homesick?" Tang Mo asked him directly.

Lin Ni was not very interested in Tang Mo's answer, so he replied casually, "I don't want to."

Tang Mo finished eating the fruit in his hand, took out a handkerchief and wiped his fingers carefully, and suddenly asked, "Are your father and mother here?"

"My mother is gone, and my father is the General Lee Swright they often mention."

Tang Mo nodded: "I know. I often see the general's name on TV and newspapers... Is he very old?"

Lin Ni sneered: "Not old, he is only in his 50s, and he can work for at least another ten years, turning the entire Marseille fleet into his stuff."

"But... when we were lingering in the galaxy's nucleus, didn't Marseilles have passed 30 years?" Tang Mo couldn't help but said, "General Lee Swright should be over 80 years old now."

Linney froze.

He shook, suddenly realizing that he had never thought about this question.

He resented his father for controlling his life, and resented his decision to abandon Cicero in order to preserve the reputation of the Leeswright family.Leaving Marseilles was tantamount to leaving the sphere of influence of General Lee Swright-for Linney, this was a matter of great celebration.

So much so that he forgot that his father was also in Marseille and spent 30 long years like everyone else.

The 30 years they lost, and the 30 years they spent slowly with the Maasai, suddenly jumped in front of him and became a real problem.

General Lee Swright's lifespan has exceeded the average human lifespan.

Linney didn't know if his father would use other means to prolong his life, just like Professor Benson who was waiting for the return of the captain of the Copernicus, Sylvia.

Benson is Bering's teacher and also Cicero's teacher. Including Linney, almost all the students in the college know his name: he is so old, and artificial means can only extend his life, but cannot keep him forever. healthy body.They often saw him sitting alone in a wheelchair waiting for an elevator. Due to the rigidity of his cervical spine, he could not look down or up. He could only use his skinny fingers to fumble for the keypad and recognize numbers based on Braille.

"Are you and your elder brother the only two children in your family?" Tang Mo asked again.

Linney nodded.

Tang Mo chewed a fruit with an even weirder shape, and looked at Lin Ni cautiously.Linney looked a little sad now, and she wondered if she should remind him that General Leeswright had lost his wife and eldest son, and now even his younger son was far away.

But she didn't say anything else, she turned around and sat on the soft grass, wiped the fruit with the corner of her clothes, and ate very contentedly.

In her opinion, the most indifferent person on the entire lifeboat might be herself.In order to bring them to the Black Sea smoothly, Pierre chose to board the ship, and Linney is a hard-spoken and soft-hearted person, who is surprisingly kind.No matter what they said they wanted to eat, Jiang Che would try his best to satisfy it. When collecting ingredients on Virgil and Greia F, he would keep reminding them not to take things that were too small and had just grown.Ovid is a weird homosexual, Tang Mo suspects that he decided to go to the Black Sea because of Jiang Che, his suppressed fanaticism is like all the stupid things people commit when they fall in love for the first time.

And me?Tang Mo thought, who am I?

Lin Ni threw several coin-sized fruits to her, and Tang Molisuo caught them.

"What's on your mind?" Linney said. "A kid, don't think about it all day."

When Jiang Che and Ovid were picking fruit, they found a strange thing on the trunk.

It appeared to be some kind of soft invertebrate, but it was shaped like an extremely thick layer of clear glue, clinging tightly to the trunk.Jiang Che poked it a few times and found that the transparent thing was very soft and smooth, and they didn't find its head or limbs.

Ovid didn't care about 21, just tore it off and threw it into the cloth bag.The soft, colorless animal slowly curled up into a ball, wrapping around a fruit.

"Cook and eat," said Ovid, "it's up to you."

Jiang Che: "...I can't do everything either! What is this!"

After receiving Pierre's warning, the four hurriedly packed up and returned to the lifeboat as quickly as possible.

They ran twice a day, and they were so tired that they couldn't even straighten their hands.Jiang Che found that there was still some fish meat left in the double-lobe fish, so he continued to heat up the oil, dipped the fish meat in bread crumbs and threw it in, and fried a few pieces of fish cakes for them.

A double-backed fish is a fish with two spines.It is said that there are two spines, but actually a long crack is formed after the spine is split, but the fish's activities are not affected at all, and because of the increased flexibility, the fish can be fully exercised, which is very delicious.

Dip it in bread crumbs and then fry it. The gravy of the fish is completely wrapped in it, absorbing the aroma of fat and meat, mixed with fine black pepper and sea salt, not too fresh or too weak, the taste is just right.

Jiang Che himself was not too hungry, he ate a lot of fruit.

After wolfing down the fish cakes, everyone continued to clean all kinds of utensils and freshly picked fruits around the lifeboat. The huge gray-white figure of the winged snake kept jumping over the forest in the distance, startling countless flocks of birds.

Jiang Che and Ovid were halfway through washing the fruit, when they discovered the weird mollusk they just picked out from the tree.

Ovid put it in the palm of his hand, shaking it like holding a ball of transparent ointment.

"How do you eat it?" He held up the ball and asked Jiang Che, his eyes full of expectation.

Jiang Che stared at the soft mass and thought for a moment.This thing was lying on the tree, and when it was torn off, it seemed that there were threads still attached to the trunk. He guessed that it lived on sucking tree sap, so the possibility of being poisonous was very low.

He took the lump from Ovid's hand, threw it into the small saucepan, added some water, and began to heat it.

After washing all the fruits in the hand and putting them into the box, the lump was boiled in the small pot and melted, and the colorless liquid was bubbling viscously in the small pot, bubbling hot air.

No one understood what Jiang Che was doing.

Let Ovid and Tang Mo find a few small cups and bowls from the back cabin of the lifeboat. Jiang Che carefully kept the temperature of the liquid in the pot, sprinkled some sugar in it, and watched Ovid cut the fruit into pieces. piece.

Most of the fruits on Nini are grown directly without artificial improvement, even if they are delicious, they are very tasty.Fortunately, the color is beautiful and the juice is quite rich. Although there are too many crude fibers, it is no problem to eat it as a snack.

According to Jiang Che, Ovid cut the fruits of several colors into finger-sized cubes and put them into small bowls and cups one by one.

Jiang Che picked up the pot in his hand, and carefully poured the liquid inside into the utensil.

The liquid was so viscous and heavy that it couldn't splash a single drop, and it all sank into the cups and bowls.

"Leave it for a while, eat it when it's cold." Jiang Che patted Ovid's hand away, "Don't steal it."

Tang Mo and Pierre understood now: "Is it jelly?"

"I don't know if it can be done." Jiang Che himself had no idea.

Because it's not meat, Lin Ni lacks interest, and has been lying on the slope to watch the movement of the winged snake.

"It's back to its nest." After checking the time, Lin Ni lowered his head and calculated, "It took about an hour to come out to look for food this time."

The action of the winged snake is very regular. It will leave the nest every three hours and come out to look for food.

Everyone waited until the night was dark, making sure that the winged snake would not rest even at night, and kept looking for food around the forest.

"I guess some snake eggs have already hatched." Song Junxing contacted them and told them to pay attention to safety, "So it can't stop, the newborn snake needs nutrition very much."

Jiang Che's heart skipped a beat: If it has hatched, the female snake will only be more alert.

"We will set off when the female snake returns to the nest next time." Lin Ni reminded, "Ovid and I are in charge of the attack, and Jiang Che is in charge of the rest."

Jiang Che: "What is it?"

Linney: "Everything. Like stealing eggs, like cutting meat."

Jiang Che reminded him: "The winged snake eggs are estimated to be very big. There are five of us, just take one or two. Don't take them all. The number of winged snakes is too small, so keep some."

"If we kill the winged snake, will the eggs still hatch normally?" Tang Mo asked.

Song Junxing answered her question in the communicator: "Yes. Snake eggs are born in the same litter, and the hatching time is actually about the same. Assuming that snake eggs have already hatched, the remaining complete snake eggs should be like this. After two days, even if the winged snakes are dead, they can break their shells normally."

"What about the food?" Tang Mo asked again.

"The animals collected by the winged snake during this period are for the baby snake to eat after birth. The baby snake grows very, very fast, and can double in size in a few days, and then it can look for food by itself."

The winged snake, which struggles to grow in a harsh environment, has a strong ability to survive.After the third birth, the female winged snake can hardly move anymore, and the young snakes that break out of their shells after her death will either feed on the mother's corpse, or find food on their own, except for their natural enemies, carnivorous ants. can threaten them.

While waiting for the winged snake to return to its nest, the rows of small cups and bowls outside were gradually getting cold.

Jiang Che turned the bowl with the mouth of the cup facing down, and poured the contents onto the saucer.

The transparent semi-solid is wrapped in pulp, transparent and smooth, full of luster, plump and trembling under the fork.

When the fork was inserted obliquely, the jelly was smoothly divided into two halves, and the transparent gel opened, revealing the brightly colored pulp inside.

Tang Mo ate two in a row before finding a gap to speak: "It's so tender! It's so slippery!"

Lin Ni was not interested in desserts, and Jiang Che didn't eat them either, so Tang Mo had three.Ovid wanted to give Pierre his own, but Jiang Che held his hand.

"Although it's not black, the taste is similar to black jelly." Jiang Che said, "Didn't you always say that you want to eat black jelly with coconut milk? Without coconut milk, this is white jelly with pulp."

Ovid stayed for a moment, and immediately snatched back the jelly that was put in front of Pierre.

He didn't remember it himself, but Jiang Che took it to heart.

Ovid smirked for a while, carefully dug a piece with a spoon and put it in his mouth.Not too sweet, not too light, with a taste of sugar, if there is nothing.

When the Winged Snake returned to its nest, the three left the camp with all their equipment.

According to observation, the winged snake's lair is in a mountain behind the forest. In order to shorten the distance, the three decided to pass directly by the lake outside the forest and rush to their destination as soon as possible.

The winged snakes will rest in the lair for three hours, enough time, they should be able to arrive smoothly, as long as there are no more things about the size of the winged snakes on the way.

There are streams and lakes on the outskirts of the forest. Orange-yellow aquatic plants grow in the streams, reflecting the entire water into a strange color.At this time, Michelangelo II was hanging in the distant sky. They were wearing headlamps, and the light flickered on the water, dazzling people's eyes.The lake is a very calm sapphire blue, with thin bubbles on the surface of the water, and fish or other creatures breathing below.

Ovid watched while running, he felt that the bubble was a bit big, and the underwater thing was probably about the size of a person.

This is probably also Nini's protozoan, and the transport ship will not carry live fish.

Jiang Che wanted to help carry a hunting gun or hunting arrows, but was refused.

"Reserve your strength, the winged snake is so big, it might be difficult to fix it. Pay attention to the surrounding ground." Lin Ni told him, "If it really doesn't work, send a letter to Pierre and ask him to pick us up."

At this time, the three of them were walking through the bushes.

Jiang Che agreed, and followed closely behind Ovid.

In the past, on Earth or in Marseilles, if he wanted to approach such a huge animal without a complete plan, it would be absolutely impossible for him to agree to go with him.

But during the half a month of wandering and traveling in the Sirius planetary belt, all of them seem to have adapted to this kind of life at an extremely fast speed.Exciting, full of unknowns, so exhilarating to discover new possibilities - he even fell in love with this kind of life.

The destination is the earth, but during the journey, Jiang Che began to enjoy every exploration full of novelty.

After walking for nearly two hours, the three finally arrived at a mountain wall.

The face was steep, and at the top there was a huge chasm, about the width of two lifeboats.A gray-white snake's tail hangs outside the crack, shaking slightly.

They finally found the Winged Snake's nest.