Chapter 146
Si Chen opened the cupboard and found a bone china tea set that had somehow managed to remain intact.
He opened the tea canister, scooped a spoonful of roasted “Oriental Beauty”, placed it at the bottom of the teapot and then began to boil some hot water.
If he were to brew this tea like this outside, he’d probably be criticized for being swine presented with pearls.
Song Ziyu poked his head through the door, like a good child who’d been called for the first time into the principal’s office to be reprimanded.
Song Ziyu’s sense for danger was far more acute than ordinary people’s.
This ability had saved him numerous times in Space Folds.
Si Chen didn’t turn to look at him, just casually standing to a stop. Song Ziyu could feel the urge to run away.
Si Chen has obviously evolved again.
Behind Song Ziyu, Shen Yanxing, who had been pulled over to be brave, was confused. “Are you going in or not?”
Hearing the voice, Si Chen turned his head.
His eyes fell on them and he took stock of their physical condition.
Very healthy and free of mycelial parasites.
Though Si Chen’s standards for health were somewhat different from normal.
In his eyes, healthy was anybody that wasn’t injured beyond use or was ailed by some debilitating disease.
Although Song Ziyu had a broken arm, he’ll be able to supplement it with a bionic prosthetic after they leave. Xi He in his belly seemed to be in even better condition. Song Ziyu seemed to even have gained weight… so there was probably no problem.
As for Shen Yanxing, he managed to acquire two new arms for free. Although some mycelium remained in his body, it wasn’t a bad thing and it greatly increased his body’s strength.
Not to mention Si Chen himself, he may be the biggest winner of this Space Fold.
Summary: This venture had been really profitable.
Song Ziyu sat on the sofa. This was obviously his RV but he was as reserved as a daughter-in-law visiting his husband’s family for the first time.
“You finally woke up.” Song Ziyu whispered, “What exactly happened?”
This was his biggest concern.
Si Chen replied, “I met the mother plant on the third floor but I took care of it. Although my body has undergone some changes, I’m still me so there’s no need to think about it too much.”
The mother plant’s biggest mistake was probably wanting to parasitize Si Chen instead of killing him outright.
But it was also necessary to thank Dr. Sheng for his many contributions, without which Si Chen would not have been able to use the spores to devour the mother plant.
Si Chen accepted all the inheritance left by the mother plant. This inheritance could have even allowed him to directly reach the Seventh Step if he hadn’t given up this option.
Although Si Chen’s tone was dismissive, only he knew the actual danger.
Song Ziyu: “Can I ask what Step you are at now?”
This matter was like asking for scores after the college entrance examination; or asking the salary of a colleague who you were not very familiar with; it wasn’t very popular.
But Song Ziyu was really too curious.
Si Chen thought for a moment and said slowly, “The Sixth Step.”
Specifically, it was the 6.9th Step.
The current head of the Song Family is around this Step.
The Song Family Head is 89 years old and started bio-modification when he was 3 years old.
If the data has not been tampered with, Si Chen only became an Evolutionary at the beginning of last year.
Some people haven’t even enrolled to graduate school yet but are already about to graduate with full marks.
Song Ziyu was dumbfounded. “…”
He wanted to have a cigarette on the rooftop but thought of the child in his belly and held back.
Since he was a child, he has been called a genius. This was probably because no one around him has ever seen a true genius.
In comparison to Si Chen’s, other people’s resumes looked bleak.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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What Si Chen acquired was different. It had an entity and existed in the land of the low-dimensional universe. When Si Chen turns off the barrier, some fusion of the two dimensions would occur.
He needed to disinfect this Space Fold to prevent the high-dimensional creatures inside from affecting their world.
In the air, the concentration of spore powder was gradually decreasing.
Due to the different geographical environment, air pressure, soil and Si Chen’s deliberate manipulation, the densely growing fungi here began to die in large tracts.
These different types of Serpent Staff Mushrooms were important raw materials for pharmaceuticals and tens of thousands of mycelium capsules could be made.
Back then, in order to cultivate these mushrooms, Dr. Sheng invested enough resources to establish the “Serpent Staff Gene”.
Although Si Chen had fused with the mycelium, he did inherited neither Sheng Wu nor the mother plant’s memories. He didn’t know their formulas.
But even if he knew, he wouldn’t use these mushrooms to make medicine.
It’s enough that the tragedy of the Mycelium Man be staged only once.
**
Si Chen’s current state was very peculiar. In the Space Fold, all the hyphae were his eyes. He could sense many things without ever leaving where he was.
For example, this Space Fold stretches for more than 100 kilometers and near the Gene Museum is the city where the Serpent Staff Gene headquarters is located. Due to the limitations of the Space Fold, less than half of the city had been included.
Another example was that Si Chen could sense the second underground floor of the basement hidden away by Si Jujiu.
There were several coffin-like storage boxes there, containing some powerful mutant mycelium men.
At night, Si Chen went to the museum again without telling the others.
Though there was no wind, the mycelium in the museum swayed gently, as if welcoming him home.
He headed straight for the basement.
The path leading to the second floor had been blocked by Si Jujiu and Si Chen had to create a giant hole in the floor from where he then jumped down.
The water and electricity lines on the second floor were all in disrepair. The Eternal Life Abyss lay on Si Chen’s shoulder, dutifully holding up a flashlight.
It was now very skilled at handling these trivial matters.
Not only can Si Yuan hold up a flashlight but it can also wash dishes, brush its teeth and wipe its tentacles with a handkerchief.
In order to raise the Eternal Life Abyss well, Si Chen gained a lot of parenting knowledge. He never hesitated to praise and reward it.
Receiving praise made Si Yuan work even harder.
Si Chen followed the signal fed back by the hyphae and walked deeper down the corridor, finally stopping in front of an inconspicuous wall.
This wall was connected to the kitchen and was very thick. Si Chen controlled the mycelium and crushed the wall bit by bit, unearthing the storage boxes built into the wall.
There were only three such storage boxes, each containing mutant mycelium beings.
The mycelium men were still alive, driven only by instincts, lacking intelligence. They possessed strong fighting power and self-healing ability. Their spores, carried by the wind, could also infect humans. To the outside world, they were nightmare-level terrifying existences.
After the Space Fold concludes, this area will be open.
There is no completely reliable storage. Si Chen was worried that the mycelium men in these holding boxes would be released without his knowledge.
So he planned to dispose of these mycelium men himself.
Si Chen lowered his head and looked at his arm.
A deep red fungal thread emerged under his skin, more like a bulging blood vessel than hyphae.
There is only one thread of mycelium in his body but it was so long that it has almost replaced his blood vessels. Numerous small branches diverged from this main trunk.
Now, the fungal thread on his arm slowly formed a golden spore, only the size of a pea. The fungal thread looked like a vein of blood.
Si Chen took a deep breath and opened one of the coffins.
The mycelium man in the coffin had turned into a sticky black substance. The moment it saw Si Chen, its whole body bounced up, like a pool of mucus that wanted to jump onto Si Chen’s face. There were large tracts of skin there, making it easier for it to eat.
Without needing for the Eternal Life Abyss to take action, Si Chen directly grabbed the slime with his hand.
The hyphae on the mycelium man’s body made contact with the fungal thread on Si Chen’s and was directly absorbed.
It let out a faint scream.
The Eternal Life Abyss was a restraint, and the mother plant was also a restraint.
This kind of restraint made it unable to resist Si Chen’s devouring even thought it was already on the Eighth Step. Moreover, it had just come out of the holding box and was extremely weak.
Had it not been Si Chen, but some other creature who opened the box, there was a high probability that they would have served as food, absorbed and digested by the mutant mycelium man.
Si Chen crumpled the watermelon-sized hyphae into a small ball and stuffed a spore inside.
This mycelium man’s body was unwilling to be controlled by the spore and struggled fiercely.
The spore Si Chen had just planted was squeezed out of it body, falling to the ground and shattering like a glass bead.
No matter how weak it may be, this body had reached the Eighth Step, after all. How can it be controlled by a spore produced by a Sixth Step mycelium lifeform!
Si Chen sighed. “There’s nothing we can do about it.”
He took out a knife, cut off the spoiled part that had been left for too long and could not be eaten and fed the fungus to Si Yuan.
Half an hour later, Si Chen walked out of the museum. The Eternal Life Abyss was held in his arms, letting out burp after burp.
It has no belly or stomach but the entire Eternal Life Abyss was swollen like a sponge filled with water, even the red tentacle hidden under its belly was no exception.
Ever since Si Chen let it be split, Si Yuan has been spending more and more time outside. Partly because Si Yuan has just grown up and still had a strong sense curiosity regarding the outside world. And also, because this was Si Chen’s deliberate training.
When a child grows up, it will eventually leave its mother.
Even if Si Yuan itself doesn’t want to, Si Chen will help it complete its mental weaning.
Unless one day, Si Chen were to make the same choice as White King: evolve from human to grow into an Eternal Life Abyss.
But Si Chen had refused White Dress’ reward, giving up on becoming a mycelium man. Naturally, he wouldn’t choose to become an Eternal Life Abyss.
**
After this trip to the museum, Si Chen was very full.
After finishing his meal, he walked out of the museum and spread out the test paper he had brought with him.
Because too many unexpected incidents occurred during the problem-solving process, half of the questions on the paper were blank.
Several of his questions were left blank, such as “Waiting in the basement until the Space Fold is completed.”
Fortunately, this test paper was very sensible and directly added a 0 as the score for the additional question “Kill the Mycelium Mother Plant”.
In the end, Si Chen scored a total of 118 points.
At the end of the test paper, there was a line of small words written: The test is over. Congratulations to the candidate for handing in the paper early.
The exam was over but the above questions had not disappeared. He could only wait once they have the communication signal back up to ask White King.
When Si Chen returned to the RV, Shen Yanxing and Song Ziyu were preparing to have dinner.
The journey from Jiangchuan to Baidi City was estimated to take 14 days. The food they brought was supposed to last a month.
However, they had accidentally entered a Space Fold, the nanny robot in the RV got destroyed. Song Ziyu didn’t know how to cook so he ruined a lot of the raw materials and their food reserves ran out faster than scheduled.
And so, their evening meal could only be made from local ingredients.
Si Chen took a look and saw that there were stir-fried porcini mushrooms, bamboo mushroom soup and roasted mushrooms seasoned with salt and pepper.
Song Ziyu picked up the bowl and asked eagerly, “Si Chen Ge, won’t you have some? They were all just picked and are quite fresh. They’re not poisonous.”
Si Chen shook his head. “I’m not hungry.” Not only was he not hungry, he even felt nauseatingly full.
He added in a calm tone, “By the way, the high-dimensional invasion is over. Is there a signal booster on the car? Tell the nearby companies the news and let them send people to deal with this.”
The big mushrooms had been dealt with but there were still many interesting treasures left in this Space Fold area.
Song Ziyu was stunned and then overjoyed.
According to the map, the closest company to their position was Serpent Staff Gene.
But it didn’t matter, Song Ziyu was going to do everything in his power to notify the Khaos Manufacturing Group to have them come and steal a march on its competitors.
Song Ziyu immediately put down the bowls and chopsticks and re-entered the control room.
Si Chen also returned to his bedroom and took out his fully charged mobile phone.
His demeanor was no different from usual, except that he would unlock the screen every once in a while to see if the signal was good, harboring some anticipation he himself wasn’t aware of.
Si Chen waited for ten minutes before Song Ziyu managed to finally connect to the signal tower.
It was 8:23pm.
He opened the social networking app, clicked into his chat with Ji Chuyao and sent four words.
‘What are you doing?’
They had just connected to the Internet and the signal wasn’t good. The loading circle just kept spinning.
About half a minute later, a bunch of messages popped up on the chat interface. It started more than half a month ago.
-Your teacher came to Four Seasons Island today.
-He placed an order for a lot of mechanical prosthetics and heavy industry workshops but he didn’t seem to be prepared to pay.
-My dad asked me to work hard so I can defeat White King as soon as possible.
-Have you not arrived at Baidi City yet? You should be almost be there, right?
The last message Ji Chuyao sent was seven days ago.
-I hope I’m not disturbing you.
Although it was just text without sound, Si Chen seemed to be able to hear the disappointed whimper of a defeated dog come from somewhere.
He began typing in the chat box: ‘No, I accidentally entered a Space Fold and just came out…’
Before Si Chen could send the message, a phone call came in.
The caller was Ji Chuyao.
Si Chen chose to answer and the young man’s gentle voice came from the loudspeaker. “You just came out of a Space Fold?”
“En, yes.” Si Chen replied, “We encountered a bit of trouble but it has been resolved.”
Si Chen wasn’t surprised that Ji Chuyao knew.
The people in their car are high status personages. When they didn’t arrive at Baidi City, someone would have investigated.
And this was indeed the case.
On the day the RV’s signal disappeared, the Song Family, Ji Family, and Baidi City all launched investigations.
The result was that the RV had accidentally entered a Level 5A Space Fold.
This Space Fold should not have appeared in the first place and previous satellite monitoring showed no sign of its arrival. It just showed up.
This probability was equivalent to choking to death while drinking water.
What is a Level 5A? A Level 5A meant that even if you throw in White King, he may not come out completely unscathed.
The RV’s passengers were only at the Fifth Step at best.
At the time, Song Bai was still visiting Four Seasons Island. It was said he was there to recuperate from his injuries.
Ji Chuyao went to find Song Bai with the information returned by their intelligence network. No one knew exactly what happened in the other courtyard.
They only heard that there had been a big disagreement between White King and the eldest young master of the Ji Family.
Ji Chuyao could still clearly recall what White King said at that time.
[“Natural selection. He can’t always live under someone’s wing.”]
[“If you want to save him so much, why don’t you go by yourself? Well, turns out that you can’t do it yourself, Young Master.”]
[“If you’re incapable, you must learn to accept your fate.”]
Ji Chuyao felt that White King was right.
And so, he replaced his mechanical prosthetic body with his original body. Now, he had just completed the surgery and was in the process of fitting. He also made an extremely strict schedule. Anyone who looks at it would think he’d gone crazy.
This kind of frustration and pain caused by one’s own incompetence is more unbearable than any other emotion.
Ji Chuyao closed his eyes and whispered, “As long as you’re okay.”
Aaw, both Song Bai and Si Chen have the same philosophy of raising their kids to be independent. Cute.
Thank you for your hard work!
wait so… is ju chuyao giving the mechanical path??
Crazy thanks for the chapter
The theory of Theseus ship?
Thank you for your translation 💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛💛
🥰🥰🥰 Si Yuan is too cute