224: Chapter 224 Deep Green Dive

It was the darkest hour before dawn.

The wind seemed tired, its whimpering sound becoming low and intermittent.

The shantytown was deathly silent; even the stray dogs were curled up in corners, fast asleep.

Inside the shack, Ling Ye was like a stone statue merging with the shadows, slowly adjusting his breathing, drawing the last trace of warmth brought by "Visualization" into his Dantian.

The recovery from his injuries brought not only physical strength but also a sense of calm control.

Hunger and weakness remained, but they were no longer dominant.

He could control every tremor of his muscles, every capture of his senses, and every concentration of his spirit with greater precision.

It was time.

Target: The abandoned sewage outlet behind the Old Textile Factory.

Nature of target: The rumored "green light" and strange sounds.

Reconnaissance Rank: Rank 1 (non-contact, extreme distance observation).

He carefully checked his equipment: a sharpened steel rebar spear (the handle and part of the shaft were wrapped with rags to reduce reflection and noise), a pipe cutter (tucked into his lower back), a small bottle of filtered water, half a piece of black solid that was as hard as a rock, found in some trash heap, suspected to be an "energy bar" (as emergency food), and most importantly—he used relatively clean rags he had picked up to carefully wrap his hands, wrists, neck, and all skin on his face that might be exposed, especially the finger with the xuanyuan ring, which was wrapped in several thick layers, leaving only his eyes and the necessary slits for breathing.

His canvas jacket and baseball cap had been smeared with mud and ash again, making their colors even darker.

He silently moved the heavy object blocking the door, slid out through a gap in the side of the shack, and merged into the thicker darkness like a drop of ink.

He did not take the winding alleys inside the shantytown, but chose to stick to the periphery, using the overgrown, abandoned area formed between the self-built houses and the ruins of the brick factory to move forward.

This area was more open and offered better visibility, but it was also more exposed.

He chose to act before dawn, specifically to utilize this final cover of darkness and the moment when most people (including potential observers) were at their sleepiest.

His footsteps were light, landing without a sound.

He kept his center of gravity extremely low, making full use of the undulating terrain and the shadows of sporadic bushes.

Like a snake gliding on land, he silently passed through the weeds, rubble, and rusted metal debris.

The Old Textile Factory was located to the northwest of this shantytown, closer to an old, long-dried-up riverbed.

The factory itself had been closed for many years, and the massive factory building was nothing but an empty shell with broken windows and peeling walls, occupied by vines and graffiti.

It was said that even before the disaster, it had been partially abandoned due to pollution issues.

After the disaster, it had completely turned into a ruin rarely visited by humans.

Ling Ye did not approach the main factory building directly.

His target was the abandoned sewage outlet at the back.

According to rumors and the approximate location obtained from previous observations, the sewage outlet should be at the back of the factory near the old river embankment, possibly a concrete pipe outlet half-buried in the ground.

He made a wide detour, slowly approaching from the side and rear of the factory along the slope of the old river embankment, which was overgrown with thorns and mugwort.

The river embankment was high, and below it lay the dried-up, cracked riverbed, piled high with garbage and silt.

The view here was open, but it also meant that once exposed, there was almost nowhere to hide.

He had to be extremely careful.

The air was filled with the heavy stench of rotting silt and the pungent odor of chemicals (likely from the residual pollutants in the factory).

The wind blew from the riverbed, bringing a clearer scent, like that of a rotting swamp.

There were no lights, no human voices, only the chirping of insects and the rustling of the wind through the mugwort.

Ling Ye lay motionless in the grass at the top of the embankment, using "Energy Perception" and all his senses to carefully scan the riverbed below and the area of the factory's back wall opposite him.

There were no abnormal electromagnetic fluctuations, no obvious energy concentrations, and no signs of human or large biological activity.

His gaze finally locked onto a pitch-black, circular hole at the base of the factory's back wall, half-hidden by overgrown weeds and piles of industrial waste.

The opening was about one and a half meters in diameter, slanted, with half exposed above the ground and half buried under soil and garbage.

The concrete at the edge of the opening had shattered and peeled away, revealing the rusted steel bars inside.

The inside of the opening was pitch black and bottomless.

That was it.

The abandoned sewage outlet.

But... where was the green light? And the strange sounds?

At this moment, there was only deathly silence and darkness, along with an increasingly intense, nauseating smell of decay.

Was it a rumor? Or did the anomaly only appear at specific times?

Ling Ye did not get impatient.

Like a true stone, he lay in the grass, waiting patiently.

Time passed minute by minute.

The eternal leaden gray of the eastern sky seemed to reveal a faint, barely perceptible, bleak whitish hue.

Dawn was approaching.

Just as he was considering whether to get closer to observe or to retreat—

A change occurred.

Not from inside the sewage outlet, but from the ground around it.

In the extremely dim light, Ling Ye keenly captured that on the moist silt and decaying plants within a radius of about two or three meters around the sewage outlet, an extremely faint, intermittent, pale green fluorescence, like breathing, began to emerge!

This light was very dim; if not for the absolute darkness and his focused observation, it would have been almost impossible to notice.

They were like a thin layer of bioluminescent mold covering the surface, flickering slightly with some indescribable rhythm.

Immediately after, a clearer strange wind, carrying a strong, fishy-sweet and putrid scent, slowly surged out from the depths of the sewage outlet, causing the weeds at the entrance to sway slightly.

In the wind, there was an extremely low "gurgling" sound, as if countless bubbles were bursting underwater, or like some viscous liquid flowing slowly, mixed with faint "hissing" sounds that resembled insects flapping their wings, but were wetter and stickier.

There was no "green light" bursting from the opening, but the fluorescence around the opening, along with these eerie sounds and airflow, had already confirmed the partial truth of the rumors!

There was indeed some kind of "anomaly" here!

But what was this? It was not the dark blue of the "abyssal eye".

This pale green fluorescence was closer to... bioluminescence? Or some kind of chemical or energy reaction? Was it related to sewage and decaying matter?

Ling Ye's heart tightened slightly.

He increased the precision of his "Energy Perception" again, trying to capture the energy characteristics contained within the fluorescence and the strange sounds.

It was very faint, very... "turbid".

It didn't have the clear, cold sense of "incongruity" and corrosiveness like the "abyssal eye" pollution; instead, it was more diffuse and inert, carrying a strong sense of decay, rot, and some kind of... unstable chemical activity.

It was as if something was slowly decomposing and fermenting, releasing faint energy and light in the process.

Was it some new type of pollution, independent of the "abyssal eye"? Or a mutation of "abyssal eye" pollution in a specific environment (sewage, chemical residues)? Or perhaps... something completely different?

He needed to observe from closer up, at least to see the form of the fluorescent substance clearly, as well as the situation deeper inside the opening.

But this meant risk.

In the open area around the sewage outlet, if something came out from inside, or if there were an ambush outside, it would be difficult for him to retreat in time.

He observed the rhythm of the fluorescence flickering and the pattern of the strange wind surging out.

There seemed to be a cycle of about two or three minutes.

In the short interval when the fluorescence was dimmest and the strange wind subsided slightly, the environment would be relatively "calm".

He decided to use this "calm" interval to quickly approach the bottom of the river embankment, using the shadows at the edge of the riverbed and the piles of garbage as cover for close-up observation.

Once the fluorescence brightened or the strange wind intensified, he would retreat immediately.

Like a gecko, he silently slid down the steep slope of the river embankment and landed on the soft, garbage-strewn riverbed.

An even stronger stench hit him in the face.

He held his breath, hunched over, and used several huge, overturned concrete blocks and a pile of rusted oil drums as cover, quickly moving about twenty meters toward the sewage outlet.

Now, he was about thirty meters away from the sewage outlet.

He was hiding behind a damaged concrete pipe segment half-buried in the silt.

From this distance, he could see those pale green fluorescent lights more clearly.

They really were like a layer of slippery, translucent fungal film attached to the moist surface, and as they flickered, they seemed to be wriggling and spreading extremely slowly.

The fishy-sweet, putrid smell in the air was even more intense, almost making him dizzy.

The inside of the sewage outlet remained pitch black.

But the strange wind and the "gurgling" sounds seemed to come from deep within it.

Ling Ye stared intently.

Suddenly, in another interval of the fluorescence flickering, he seemed to see, in the darkness at the edge inside the sewage outlet, a few even dimmer shadows that almost blended into the darkness, wriggling extremely slowly, as if they were attracted by the movement at the entrance but were afraid of the outside air or light?

He couldn't see clearly; it was like... some kind of mutated annelid living deep in the silt? Or...

He did not dare to get any closer.

This distance and angle of observation were already the limit he could accept.

Any further, and the risk would increase exponentially.

Moreover, the purpose of his trip—to confirm the truth of the rumors and make a preliminary judgment on the nature of the anomaly—had basically been achieved.

There was indeed an unknown phenomenon here that was different from the characteristics of the "abyssal eye", suspected to be related to severe pollution and a decaying environment, capable of producing faint bioluminescence and abnormal sounds.

What exactly it was, how dangerous it was, and whether it was related to the "abyssal eye" or The Plainclothes Organization was not yet clear.

But it was definitely not a place to be trifled with.

He noted down the exact location, environmental characteristics, and the general patterns of the abnormal manifestations here.

Then, he began to retreat slowly, following the path he had come, using cover to inch his way back to the river embankment.

Just as he was about to climb onto the river embankment and leave—

"Plop."

A slight but clear sound, as if a lump of wet mud had fallen, came from not far behind him, from the area of silt covered with green fluorescence!

Ling Ye froze instantly, his body pressed against the slope of the river embankment, and he slowly turned his head.

He saw that at the edge of the area covered by the green fungal film, the silt had been arched open to form a small mound.

A fist-sized, irregularly shaped, indescribable creature, its surface covered in mucus and pale green fluorescent spots, was "crawling" out of the silt.

It had no obvious eyes or limbs; it was more like a mass of self-wriggling, half-decayed organic aggregate, relying on the irregular contraction and expansion of its body to leave a slippery, fluorescent trail on the surface of the silt.

It moved very slowly, and its direction... seemed to be toward the concrete pipe segment where he had just been hiding?

Was it a coincidence? Or did it "perceive" something?

Ling Ye held his breath, motionless.

The thing wriggled a few centimeters and seemed to stop; the fluorescent spots on its surface flickered rapidly a few times, and then, slowly, as if it had lost its target or interest, it shrank back under the arched silt, leaving only a slightly raised small mound and an even more intense sweet smell of decay in the air.

Ling Ye did not delay any longer; with the fastest speed and lightest movements, he climbed onto the river embankment, slipped into the weeds, and retreated quickly and stealthily in the direction he had come, without looking back.

Only when he returned to the edge of the shantytown, crawled back into the dilapidated shack, and propped the door shut again with the heavy object, did he lean against the cold wall and slowly exhale a breath of foul air that tasted of rust.

Cold sweat had already soaked his inner clothes.

What the hell was that thing? A new type of polluted creature? Or an ordinary creature that had mutated due to extreme pollution in the natural environment?

Its appearance meant that deep inside the sewage outlet, there might be a small "nest" or "breeding ground" formed based on severe chemical and biological pollution, capable of nurturing or attracting such strange creatures.

This was completely different from the more "high-dimensional" and "energy-corrosive" characteristics of the "abyssal eye"; it leaned more towards realistic, material-level decay and mutation.

But both were equally dangerous, and perhaps even more troublesome in some respects due to their "materiality" and "biological nature".

This discovery was valuable, but it also brought new questions and threats.

Ling Ye curled up in the darkness, quickly integrating the information in his mind.

The "green light" anomaly at the sewage outlet of the Old Textile Factory could basically be confirmed to exist.

Nature: Suspected regional mutation and bioluminescence phenomenon caused by severe chemical/biological pollution.

Danger Rank: Unknown, but requires high vigilance.

Connection with "abyssal eye"/"Plainclothes Agents": No direct evidence for now, but since it appeared on the periphery of the "Dark Nest" radiation zone, one must remain skeptical.

He touched the G-7 record paper in his bosom.

Compared to this "green light" nest filled with the scent of unknown decay, the clues about "the key" and The Plainclothes Organization were clearly more critical to unraveling the mystery of the "abyssal eye" and his own situation.

But the appearance of the "green light" nest also reminded him that there might be more than one kind of "anomaly" in this city besides the "abyssal eye".

Danger existed in more diverse and hidden forms.