Chapter 43: Betty Parasite X Ma Lu Haiyang

  We ran out of the thicket and, unexpectedly, in front of us was a huge river blocking our way in this vast and deep mountain.

  "My goodness, this is too strange! A deep mountain can actually have a river!" Ruan Defeng said.

  "Kui Ruo Lan is on the other side of the river!" Ah Hao's eyes were sharp, pointing in the direction across the river. On the opposite bank of the river was still a dense and immeasurable forest, and on the black stone pile by the riverbank, Kui Ruo Lan was walking further and further away from us with her back to us, that two-faced strange baby still standing on her shoulders like a monkey.

  "We must cross the river!" Mr. Wu seemed somewhat anxious, I don't know why seeing the increasingly distant Kui Rulan made Mr. Wu more anxious than us.

  A Hao first jumped to the riverbank, carefully observed for a moment, and waved his hand: "There are many reefs in the river course. We can step on the reefs to get across. The river won't drown us!"

  It seems that we can only cross the river by treading on the reefs now. We walked to the riverside, just as we were about to get into the water, three dark-skinned children suddenly ran out from the riverbank, two boys and one girl, they murmured and called out unclearly, shaking their heads and waving their hands continuously.

  These three dark-skinned children were emaciated, severely malnourished. They ran swiftly along the riverbank with bare feet and quickly arrived beside us. Their clothes were tattered and their bodies filthy.

  Chen Qiuyang said: "Where did these wild kids come from? They seem like they want to tell us something."

  I crouched down and said to the slightly taller girl: "Little sister, is there something you want to tell me?"

  The little girl nodded, but she refused to open her mouth to speak. Her lips were pursed tightly, and the sound that came out was hoarse and muffled, like the sound I make when I have something in my mouth.

  The little girl pointed at the river and then shook her head repeatedly from side to side, waving her hands desperately.

  "Little sister, you mean we shouldn't cross the river?"

  The little girl nodded. I said: "We have to cross the river to save our friends."

  Another little boy tugged at my sleeve, pointing desperately at the river and then at himself, his face contorted in a mixture of fear.

  "Are you saying there's something in the river?" The little boy nodded desperately again.

  I patted his head and said, "Thanks for reminding me, you're really good kids. But we have to cross the river, look at this river, it's actually not deep at all, can't drown your brother, hehe."

  The little girl finally couldn't bear it anymore. She pointed at the river with a "hmm hmm" and then pointed at her own mouth, with a fearful expression on her face.

  "Wei Feng said with a strange tone: 'It seems like there's something in their mouths.'"

  Ruan squatted down and said to the little girl, "Little sister, are you sick? Can you open your mouth and let me take a look? Be good, I'm a doctor."

  The little girl hesitated and still refused to open her mouth.

  "Hey, is your mouth uncomfortable? Let me take a look, I can help you."

  The little girl finally slowly opened her mouth, and when we saw what was inside, we all gasped in shock.

  Inside the little girl's mouth, where her tongue should have been, was something terrifying - a disgusting crawling creature. The creature seemed to have eaten away the girl's tongue and taken its place, lying inside her mouth. It was deep red in color, covered with mucus, had small fleshy claws at the front, and looked somewhat like a strange crab. The girl's mouth was already festering, filled with dark red blood.

  "What is this thing?"

  "It's tapeworms, for goodness' sake! Why on earth would these children have tapeworms in their mouths? It's impossible!" Nguyen Dinh was heartbroken and exclaimed: "These poor kids..."

  "Betty tapeworm?"

  "In March 2012, media reports said that the Betta parasite was found in the Mediterranean, where it parasitizes the mouth of sea bream, devouring the host's tongue and then replacing it. I know this creature does exist, but it only parasitizes fish mouths, why would it parasitize these little kids' mouths? That's such a bizarre torture..."

  I said, "These good little kids are reminding us that there is a beaver parasite in the river, so they're stopping us from crossing." I stroked their hair and said, "You guys are really kind, thank you. But now we have to cross the river because we need to save our good friend."

  The little girl pointed to a nearby place where there was a simple bamboo raft, and made a "hmm" gesture with her hand, meaning that she could use the bamboo raft to cross the river.

  "Thank you." I was overjoyed.

  "Wei Feng said, "The situation with these kids is very serious. Thirteen, I won't be accompanying you across the river anymore. I'll follow them to their home and take a look. What exactly happened to these kids? Why did they get infested with Bettis' parasitic worms in their mouths? This has exceeded my understanding. Hope you understand."

  I nodded and said: "I understand, because you are a doctor, a skilled doctor who really cares about patients."

  "Uh-huh, I've seen Kui Roran, and I'll pass on your greetings."

  Farewell, Ruan De Feng. We've successfully crossed that intimidating river. My phone shows we're only 500 meters away from Kui Ruolan now. But the flashing signal on the screen is starting to flicker, sometimes there and sometimes not.

  "Not good, interference is still possible and it's likely that Kui Ruo Lan's tracker was damaged. We need to hurry over."

  We didn't have time to care about the various shrubs and some plants with leaves full of thorns, we charged forward with all our might, rushing straight to our destination. The sturdy Chen Qiuyang held a machete in front, quickly clearing the way, while saying: "Lanlan, you must hold on, we're coming to rescue you right away!"

  At this time, the signal had completely disappeared. I quickly dialed Kui Ruo Lan's mobile phone, but it was unreachable, and she may have encountered an accident.

  We ran the 500-meter distance in a very short time to the location where the signal disappeared. By the time we rushed here, I also understood why the signal would disappear - there was an opening of a cave there.

  Obviously, Kui Ruo Lan had entered this cave. We didn't say another word and immediately packed up to enter the cave.

  Chen Qiuyang, walking in front, was visibly excited and said: "In the past when I was messing around online, I saw a lot of tomb raiding videos. Now I really have a feeling like I'm tomb raiding! Thirteen, be careful, maybe a big zombie will jump out soon!"

  Chen Qiuyang's "oh" was dragged out long and long, because he was in a state of astonishment.

  I also didn't expect this cave to be in a △ shape. We are now standing at the very top: underground is a huge rock cave, then there is a huge △-shaped stalactite on top of it, and we are at the tip of this stalactite, which is very narrow.

  "It's so high, how are we going to get down to the ground? What's with that two-faced monster baby, and what kind of evil intentions does it have for bringing Gui Ruo Lan to this strange cave? Thirteen Society Leader, how are we supposed to go down? It's too steep, we can't walk down."

  I said: "Aren't you a police academy graduate? This kind of situation should be a piece of cake for you?"

  "It's been so many years, a good man doesn't mention his past heroics. Now that I've become like this, where can I still fly over the eaves and walk on walls?"

  The taciturn Ah Hao first threw down his backpack, then squatted down silently, putting his feet in first, and then tilted his body, sliding down step by step.

  "This kid is quite something," Chen Qiuyang said as he slid down in the same posture. Then it was my turn and Mr. Wu's.

  Sliding down. We landed safely on the ground, but did not expect a terrible disaster waiting for us.

  The ground is moist, and since there are some cracks on the top, the outside sunlight shines in, producing refractions back and forth on the smooth stone wall, so the cave is not very dark.

  Chen Qiuyang took out a super bright flashlight from his backpack and the entire cave was suddenly illuminated.

  Mr. Wu said: "This high-intensity flashlight is too powerful, it's like daytime."

  "This is the outdoor lighting equipment configured for us by our Zhōu Guǎn family, he said it has full flying mobile lighting function and is very suitable for outdoor adventure."

  "I said: 'This flying mobile lighting is indeed very useful, but you don't have to talk like a salesperson here! Hurry up and find Rouran, it's urgent!'"

  "Kui Ruo Lan, are you there?" Chen Qiuyang shouted several times, without caring that he might startle the twin-faced baby.

  However, apart from the lingering echoes, there was no response from Kui Rulan.

  We walked along the road and moved forward. I suddenly found something was wrong because the front wall seemed to be moving, constantly in motion.

  Chen Qiuyang turned on the powerful flashlight and shone it deeper into the wall, only to see that the surrounding walls were moving even faster.

  How can walls move?

  It's not the walls that are moving, but the centipedes covering them. What a shocking and magnificent sight it is, with tens of thousands of centipedes crawling all over the walls several meters high, constantly surging forward.

  "Damn it! Lanan hasn't been found, but we've run into the Double-Faced Demon Infant's lair instead. Let's hurry up and get out of here, everyone! This Ma Lu is poisonous!"

  We took to our heels and ran back. Behind us, the millipedes were like a furious sea wave, rushing towards us rapidly. The huge friction sound they made was even louder than our cries.

  We rushed to the bottom of the stalactite and climbed up with force. Facing these thousands of horseflies that seemed like seawater, both Chen Qiuyang and I looked extremely uncalm.

  It was Ah Hao, who was much younger than us, who surprisingly remained calm. He didn't rush to climb up the stalactite like we did, but instead pulled out two lighters from his backpack, lit them, and threw them on the ground. Then he took out a bottle of insect repellent, twisted off the cap, and poured it out in a straight line. The insect repellent contained alcohol, so when the lighter flames touched it, they suddenly roared to life, shooting up half a person's height.

  Those horses that came rushing were stunned by the fierce flames and didn't dare to rush over again for a while. After doing all this, Ah Hao turned around and climbed up the stalactite, saying: "Don't look anymore, hurry up and escape, the fire can't be held back for much longer."

  As expected, as the flames slowly subsided, those horse-land creatures began to gradually approach the fire again. Moreover, during the climbing process, I discovered that a branch of horse-land creatures broke away from the main force and moved towards the wall, then seemed to move like water to the top of the mountain cave's stone wall, rushing towards us in our direction. We were out of breath and used all our strength, finally crawling to the top just as the horse-land creatures were about to engulf us, and we crawled out of the cave entrance.