Chapter 63 Moss Activity

Mu Chen cradled Chen Si in his arms, her body unimaginably light. Her warm breath brushed against his neck, yet it was so faint it felt as though it could vanish at any moment.

"I... I'm fine..." Chen Si's voice was intermittent and barely audible, yet her arms instinctively tightened their desperate grip around Mu Chen's neck.

The group fled for their lives, practically stumbling and crawling as they rushed back to the twenty-seventh floor.

The door to Room 3001 stood wide open.

"Hurry! Get inside!" Chen Jiahe said in a voice kept extremely low, yet brooking no argument.

He was the last to flash into the apartment, casting a swift glance at the gloomy stairwell before swinging the heavy door shut with a loud *bang*!

The moment Big Mouth rushed inside, its legs turned to jelly, and it collapsed flat onto the floor with a heavy thud, its tongue lolling out as it panted heavily. Its injured hind leg was a bloody mess, with fresh blood welling out and quickly pooling beneath it. It tried in vain to lick the wound with its tongue, but the bleeding refused to stop.

Mu Chen gently laid Chen Si down on the sofa, every movement executed with utmost care.

"Don't move yet. Just lie still."

Only then did he free up his hands, turning to Doctor Li with an unshakeable tone:

"The ointment."

Sweat beaded on Doctor Li's temples, but she had no time to wipe it away. She quickly rummaged through her backpack, pulling out a collection bag filled to the brim with mutated moss, alongside a set of portable grinding and extraction tools.

Spreading the items out on the living room table, she immediately set to work with ruthless efficiency, her movements devoid of a single superfluous motion.

"The vitality of these mosses far exceeds my expectations!"

Her hands flew as she processed the moss, her voice heavy with gravity.

"The concentration of that special mineral element is also absurdly high!"

She paused and turned to Mu Chen.

"Mu Chen, my earlier hypothesis is probably correct. Whatever is buried downstairs is definitely not some simple radiation source that only appeared after the apocalypse!"

Xie Youyou supported Chen Si and hurriedly fed her a few sips of water.

"Sister Chen Si, do you feel better?"

Chen Si nodded weakly, her lips still devoid of color.

"I'm alright... just exhausted."

Mu Chen took a few strides to Doctor Li's side, his brow furrowing into a tight knot.

"You mean the source of this radiation is older and trickier than we thought?"

Doctor Li's hands moved at lightning speed without her once lifting her head.

"You could put it that way."

"The stability and corrosiveness of this mineral element are freakishly strong."

"The fact that it symbiotically coexists with the moss shows that the two adapted to each other a long time ago."

Her voice dropped a notch, carrying a hypothesis that made one's heart skip a beat.

"What truly worries me is... this 'adaptation' is likely to spell an even greater catastrophe for us!"

Before her voice had even faded, she mixed the ground moss powder with several chemical reagents and placed the container directly over an alcohol lamp to heat.

A faint blue flame licked at the bottom of the vessel, leaving it uncertain whether it would brew hope or a deeper despair.

A peculiar medicinal fragrance, mingled with the earthy stench unique to the moss, permeated the air.

Pan Guang's two deserters, Wang the Pockmarked and Liu San, cowered in the corner, too terrified to utter a single sound. The horrific encounter in the fire escape had thoroughly crushed whatever delusions of luck they had left.

*Rumble—*

Without warning, the apartment building shook violently once more, this time far more fiercely than any previous tremor!

The chandelier on the ceiling swayed crazily, sending dust raining down in flurries.

"Ah!" Xie Youyou screamed, nearly slipping off the edge of the sofa before Chen Jiahe's quick reflexes caught her by the waist.

"Wh-what's going on?!" Wang the Pockmarked's voice was shaking beyond recognition. "Is this building... is this building going to collapse?!"

A tightness gripped Mu Chen's chest, and he immediately activated his [Wall Perspective].

In his field of vision, the walls of Room 3001—especially those connected to the main load-bearing pillars—were undergoing terrifying structural changes.

Those luminescent substances, which had previously only lightly adhered to the steel reinforcement bars of the load-bearing pillars, were now stimulated by some unknown force, wildly activating and expanding!

They were no longer inanimate; they had come to life!

They were rapidly infiltrating the surface of the walls.

*Sish... sish...*

A faint, scalp-tingling tearing sound came from overhead.

Several fine cracks silently split open near the ceiling of one of the living room walls.

Immediately afterward, wisps of thick, pitch-black crystals "squeezed" their way out from the cracks, writhing and twisting along the pristine white wall in a deeply eerie fashion.

"It's... it's happening again!"

Liu San's voice cracked in pitch, his trembling finger pointing at the black crystals on the wall as his teeth chattered uncontrollably.

"Doctor Li! The ointment!"

Mu Chen let out a low roar, the suppressed anxiety making his voice tremble slightly.

"Almost there! Give me one more minute!"

Sweat rolled down Doctor Li's temples as she focused entirely, rapidly mixing the extracted dark green medicinal liquid with a solidifying agent.

Before her words could fully settle, the rate at which the black crystals on the wall spread suddenly accelerated!

The sweet, fishy odor in the air grew intensely pungent, making heads spin and inducing a wave of nausea.

Mu Chen's [Wall Perspective] saw it clearly: deep inside the main load-bearing pillars, those luminescent substances had completely "boiled," and the next moment they would shatter their restraints and erupt.

"Done!" Doctor Li finally dropped the last tear of liquid into a small porcelain bowl. The liquid inside rapidly solidified into a dark green paste, emitting a uniquely refreshing medicinal fragrance.

"This is the first batch! The quantity is small, so give priority to the injured and the weak!"

She swiftly assessed the group and noticed the wounds on Wang the Pockmarked's arm, where he had been grazed by the worm crystals; though shallow, they were already swelling and turning red.

"You, come try this!" Doctor Li pointed at Wang the Pockmarked.

Wang the Pockmarked swallowed hard, glanced at the bowl of dark green ointment, and then looked back at the wildly proliferating black crystals on the wall. Steeling his heart, he walked over.

"H-how do I use it?"

"Smear it on the wound in a thin layer." Doctor Li handed him a small wooden spatula.

Wang the Pockmarked cautiously scooped up a bit of ointment with the spatula and, trembling, applied it to the scratch on his arm.

The moment the ointment touched his skin, Wang the Pockmarked's entire body stiffened violently.

"Ugh..." A strange, muffled grunt escaped his throat as his arm spasmed violently and uncontrollably.

"What is it?" Liu San's voice tightened.

"My arm... it's so hot... no... it's so cold... Ah!" Wang the Pockmarked suddenly shrieked. Beneath the skin of the arm where he had applied the ointment, the exact same dim, glowing light as the one inside the load-bearing pillars began to show through!

That light seemed alive, rapidly crawling upward along his blood vessels!

"Aah—!!" Wang the Pockmarked clutched his arm, dropping to his knees in agony. His body violently twisted and writhed, emitting inhuman roars from his mouth.

His muscles began to bulge and deform unnaturally, and eerie dark-green veins surfaced across his skin.

"Th-this isn't crystallization!" Chen Jiahe retreated in horror. "He's... he's mutating!"

A violent shock shook Mu Chen's heart. Not only had the ointment failed to neutralize the radiation, but it seemed to have... catalyzed an even deeper and more terrifying mutation originating from those luminescent substances!