Infection (Part 1)

To Mo Li's right, a girl in hiking gear was gripping a wooden railing and shouting loudly. She had long brown hair, though it was messy, perhaps from not being combed for a long time, and it was covered in grass.

The girl was quite pretty, with distinct Middle Eastern features. However, her beautiful face looked haggard and held a trace of fear at the moment.

"You're awake?" Just as Mo Li was staring at the girl in surprise, another voice came from behind him. Upon hearing it, Mo Li turned his head in astonishment and saw a man with a full beard leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looking at him. On the ground behind him lay Zhong Lichun and Wei Dengke, unconscious. Their breathing seemed normal, so they had likely just fainted.

Seeing Mo Li looking at him, the bearded middle-aged man smiled at him, but it was a bitter, helpless smile.

"What is this place? And how did we get here?" Mo Li asked, his voice full of confusion. The place looked like a wooden prison. Although crude, it was sturdy. The existence of such a prison suggested an intelligent species inhabited the area. However, Mo Li vaguely remembered that when he, Zhong Lichun, and Wei Dengke swam to the lake shore, they had fainted due to gas poisoning. After that, he remembered nothing. Who had brought them out of that underground cavern?

"Don't ask me, I don't know either. Although I've been caught and brought here for four days, I've never left this prison," the bearded man said, shrugging. He then raised a finger and pointed at the wooden prison, clearly indicating that they were now prisoners.

Hearing the man's answer, Mo Li frowned and then turned to look around again. The prison they were in seemed to be located at the base of a cliff. Outside the prison was a dense forest, but what surprised Mo Li was that he didn't recognize any of the vegetation. He had lived in Motuo for ten years and knew the plants there, but the plants before him were clearly not from the primeval forests around Motuo.

Another thing that surprised Mo Li was the temperature. They had been on a snowy mountain before, and it was early winter, with temperatures close to freezing. Yet, this place was very hot, with a rough estimate of at least twenty-seven or twenty-eight degrees Celsius. Why was it so hot here? Had they left the snowy mountain? But even if they had left the snowy mountain, the temperature shouldn't be this high.

Just as Mo Li was filled with confusion, the sound of footsteps suddenly approached from a distance. Hearing the footsteps, the bearded man leaning against the wall became nervous and quickly rushed to the still shouting girl, pulled her back, and retreated to the base of the wall, watching the outside of the prison vigilantly.

Mo Li found the bearded man's nervousness inexplicable, but his confusion was soon resolved. He saw a Yeti, over two meters tall, walk up to the prison. Its ferocious face looked exceptionally terrifying.

Arriving at the prison, the Yeti brought its large face close to the bars to look at Mo Li and the others inside. Upon seeing Mo Li awake, a strange expression appeared in the Yeti's eyes.

However, the Yeti did not harm them. Instead, it threw in a leg bone from an unknown animal and then left directly.

After the Yeti left, the bearded man finally released his grip on the girl. He then walked to the piece of meat, picked it up, and brushed off the grass and dirt stuck to it. The bearded man handed the meat to the girl and said with a serious expression, "Eat it."

"I don't want to eat it!" The girl made a disgusted face at the meat in the bearded man's hand and then stubbornly turned her head away.

"Do you want to die here? How sad would your mother be if you died here?" The bearded man did not give up despite the girl's refusal. Instead, he held the meat out further.

Hearing the bearded man's words, the girl stopped resisting. She bit her lip, conflicted for a long time, then suddenly turned her head, grabbed the meat, and shoved it directly into her mouth. As she gnawed on the raw meat, tears streamed uncontrollably down her face. She had been pampered since childhood and had never suffered like this.

Mo Li stared at the girl as she ate the raw meat while crying. He had only seen her profile before, so he hadn't paid much attention. Now, seeing her face, Mo Li was stunned because this girl was one of the three foreign explorers they were looking for.

Noticing Mo Li staring at the girl's face, the bearded man instinctively took a step forward, blocking the girl and Mo Li. He then asked, "Who exactly are you three? You don't look like hikers."

Hearing the bearded man's question, Mo Li felt a mix of amusement and exasperation. Indeed, their current attire did not resemble that of hikers. After all, who would go hiking shirtless and in shorts? It was practically courting death!

There was a good chance the bearded man thought they were perverts. To clear up the misunderstanding, Mo Li told the bearded man their identities and the purpose of their trip. Since the girl and the bearded man were their rescue targets, there was no need to hide anything.

When Mo Li finished explaining, the bearded man's expression towards them became extremely strange. After a moment of silence, he asked, "Your country only sent the three of you to rescue us?"

"Uh~~ We are an investigation team; the rescue team is behind us." This was a matter of national dignity, so Mo Li naturally wouldn't say that it was just the three of them. He started to spout nonsense, but he wasn't worried about his lie being exposed. After all, they were all locked up here, and the bearded man had no way to verify it. Moreover, they had been out for so long without returning, so the county police station and the county rescue department wouldn't be inactive. Rescue teams might already be searching for them.

After answering the bearded man's question, Mo Li asked about their situation, curious about how these three had been captured and brought here.

Hearing Mo Li's question, the bearded man's expression became particularly unnatural. He hesitated for a long time before answering Mo Li. Just then, the girl, who was gnawing on the raw meat, suddenly vomited with a "wah." Everything she had eaten was thrown up, and she fell to the ground, clutching her stomach and screaming.

Seeing the girl's condition, the bearded man hurried over and squatted down to check on her. Mo Li's gaze instinctively fell on the girl's vomit. As soon as he saw it, Mo Li's face changed drastically, because he saw small, dark gray worms wriggling in the girl's vomit.