As the airtight door barely opened a crack, a suffocating, dense foreign fragrance wafted out from within.
The faces of the three, Sun Hang included, changed drastically, and they imdiately pulled out gas masks to cover their faces.
"Damn, this sll isn't poisonous, right?" The fisherman's voice ca out muffled from beneath the gas mask.
"Not sure..." Shino's face looked sowhat troubled. The sll ca too unexpectedly, and all three had inhaled a little to varying degrees.
"Do you feel anything strange in your body?" the fisherman asked again. "For so reason, I have this really strange feeling."
"What strange feeling?" Shino inquired.
"A feeling that's... indescribable... just very comfortable, very pleasurable... there's always an urge to take off the gas mask and take a few more whiffs." The fisherman said.
"I have that feeling too." Shino nodded. "This sll has a strong temptation and addiction... fortunately, we didn't inhale much."
After readjusting the gas masks temporarily strapped to their faces, Sun Hang once again approached the airtight door, gradually pushing the heavy door to one side.
The fisherman and Shino Seiichi both instinctively tensed their bodies, staring intently at the gradually revealed tunnel behind the door.
With the faint light leaking from outside, a huge, irregular shadow could faintly be seen entangled within the tunnel...
"It's really big... almost blocking the entire tunnel." The fisherman frowned. "How are we supposed to get through..."
Finally, once the airtight door was fully pushed aside, the three could see clearly: the tunnel was filled with countless vines, the thinnest of which was two circles thicker than Sun Hang's arm. Their surfaces had crack-like marks similar to scales, and through these marks, a dark red luminescent substance could be vaguely seen flowing inside.
Amidst the layers and layers of vines, a fist-sized flower bud stood coquettishly there.
This flower bud had extrely bright, crimson-red petals. From afar, it seed less like a bud and more like a fla burning fiercely at the end of a vine.
The bud was pulsing slightly, like the heart of so organism.
And those vines were its "blood vessels," with the dark red substance flowing within acting as its "blood."
"I... I recognize this thing..." Shino exclaid in astonishnt, "Type D15, 'Chami'... but according to Dubhe Tower's records, 'Chami' should be in the dense jungles of an island in Indonesia, not here."
"This is a replica created by the researchers on the Naless Island using 'Chami's' s," Sun Hang said.
However, this replica seed to be "tainted" as well, but unlike Type D95, this "contamination" instead endowed Chami with imnse energy. It's hard to imagine what sight it will be when the flower bud blooms.
"Whether it's a replica or not, put that aside. Shino, the 'Chami' you ntioned... is it poisonous?" the fisherman hurriedly asked.
"As for poison... theoretically, inhaling a small amount of the scent released by Chami won't cause any harm to the body; instead, it makes one feel delighted... In fact, when you ntioned having that reaction, for an instant I thought of this thing, but the geographical distance is just too vast..."
"So, what are the features of this eerie object? Tell us," Sun Hang asked.
Though he knew the thing blocking the tunnel was a replica of Chami, he was utterly clueless about Chami's specific properties.
"Chami was first discovered in the Xia Calendar year 4587... or was it 4578, on a small Indonesian island called 'Pratangbuck.' After receiving reports about an eerie object on the island, the local governnt dispatched a battalion to the island for reconnaissance, coincidentally stumbling upon the island's indigenous tribe's quadrennial 'Festival of Pleasures'..."
"Festival of Pleasures? This festival... it's for Chami, isn't it?" Sun Hang adjusted the strap of the gas mask behind his head, asking.
"Yes, in the island's indigenous tribe's language, Chami is referred to as the 'Flower of Pleasure.' They extract juice from Chami's rhizos, mix it with wood shavings and soil, and then dry it to make incense—according to them, this incense can cure a hundred ailnts and relieve all pain and worries. But in reality..."
"In reality, it's a high-intensity hallucinogen, isn't it?"
"Exactly." Shino nodded.
The continent of Xiazhou has similar cases. Sun Hang rembered reading in a docunt introducing the primitive tribes of the Yundian Region that the natives living in the rainforest would specifically search for a brightly colored fungus to consu. After eating this fungus, they would feel as if they had ascended to a celestial realm... even though many who 'ascended' never returned to the mortal world, it didn't stop others from continuing to search for and consu this fungus.
Because that feeling is addictive, its effects are much like the hallucinogenic or sedative drugs strictly controlled by the Xiazhou Federation, making it easy for people to beco dependent... Driven by curiosity, after trying it once, you'd think of trying it a second or third ti...
Until one is thoroughly addicted, no longer able to wake up.
But according to this, doesn't Chami's danger equate to the toxic mushrooms common in the rainforest?
Moreover, since the 'Festival of Pleasures' is held every four years, does that an that this indigenous tribe on the island has coexisted with this so-called 'Chami' for many years peacefully?
"And then? What happened next?" the fisherman eagerly asked, "Given people's attitude toward eerie objects back then, regardless of whether this object posed a threat, eliminating it would have been the highest priority, right?"
"After hearing the indigenous accounts, the soldiers quickly determined 'Flower of Pleasure' to be a Type D eerie object, and the leading officer imdiately decided to burn it, but was t with fierce resistance from the island's natives."
"Resistance? Don't tell ... those fully ard regular soldiers couldn't defeat a bunch of tribal natives with bows and spears?" the fisherman said in amazent.
"Under normal circumstances, they wouldn't be able to... It was indeed a massacre. After obtaining permission to open fire, the soldiers nearly annihilated the entire tribe. Just when they forced the last few prisoners to lead them to Chami's location, those islanders who were shot by bullets began crawling out of their pools of blood one by one."
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