"So what do you call her?" Sun Hang pointed at Xue Yue, who looked puzzled, and asked.
"She is the 'fruit', the 'fruit' borne by this 'tree'," Lin Lun said, "In fact, the 'fruit' and the 'No-face ones' are part of an intertwined system... However, she is a very special 'fruit', and rather than calling it a 'fruit', I think it's more apt to describe her as a 'seed'. "
"Are you sure you graduated from Chunming City Second Industrial University? Not an Agricultural University?"
Lin Lun ignored Sun Hang's teasing and instead took out a remote-like device from his pocket and pressed a button on it.
Accompanied by the sound of wheels sliding, a white frost mist spread out, and a large steel-welded cabinet slid out from the wall beside them.
This large cabinet was neatly packed with over a dozen transparent coffins, resembling the Eternal Freeze Coffins commonly seen in the Mysterious Creature Research Institute, but on closer inspection, one would notice that these coffins lacked the myriad complex life-sustaining equipnt and monitoring devices that the Eternal Freeze Coffins had; they were rely simple containers.
Inside these transparent coffins were the corpses of over a dozen young n and won — they were referred to as corpses because their skin surfaces had already developed large patches of purplish-red bruising, and if they hadn't been kept in a low-temperature environnt, these bodies would presumably have long since decayed, leaving only skeletal remains.
Sun Hang did not sense any life force inside these bodies, nor did he feel any aura of mysterious creatures.
The lids of these coffins were labeled with numbers from "#1" to "#18" using black marker, and each number had a tag next to it, although the surface of the tag was covered with a thick layer of frost, making it impossible to discern the content on the tag.
"Do you also have such a heavy taste for collecting corpses as a hobby?"
"These people, they were used as containers to house 'fruits'," Lin Lun said, "The fruits borne by the 'tree' have no physical form; only I can see them... oh, and now you as well. But during one experint, I discovered that the 'fruits' could possess recently deceased human corpses and greatly extend the decomposition ti of the bodies."
"Containers one to three were the initial experintal models." Lin Lun walked to the coffins and gently wiped the labels with his hand, as the warmth from his palm gradually lted the frost covering the labels, revealing the text underneath, "Their retention tis were 668 minutes, 759 minutes, and five days plus eleven hours respectively."
"The 'fruits' have intelligence and independent thinking ability, and once they possess human bodies, they gradually learn all the life skills of the original hosts, as well as acquire most of the original hosts' mories... Of course, I discovered this with container number three; the retention ti for containers one and two was too short, and the 'fruits' hadn't learned those things before they perished with the cessation of the containers' physiological functions."
"With container number four, I conducted a bold experint," Lin Lun continued, "I let it out, trying to integrate it into human society... Its retention ti reached one month and nine days. During this month, I discovered that the 'fruits' could beco an extension of the 'tree'; they instinctively absorbed negative emotions from crowds, stored them, and then fed them back to the 'mother tree' that birthed them."
"It sounds like these fruits are disposable predation tools created by the tree," Sun Hang comnted.
"But as container number nineteen, its situation is completely different," Lin Lun looked at Xue Yue, "When the nineteenth fruit was born, I sensed sothing distinct about it, yet it was hard to pinpoint what that difference was... Driven by intuition, I deliberately let it leave the Well of Desires, and it entered the human society aboveground in a chaotic spirit body state... You've heard what happened afterward from it, right?"
Sun Hang nodded.
"It turns out I was right. Once it occupied Xue Yue's body, she seed to have been resurrected, with no signs of gradual weakening in bodily functions. Instead, she could achieve a wondrous self-circulation by continuously absorbing human negative emotions — those emotions wouldn't accumulate within her but were consud as 'energy' needed to sustain this corporeal body," Lin Lun's speech gradually sped up, "This ans it is no longer an extension of the 'mother tree', but a completely independent entity; it doesn't need to release the mass of pent-up negative emotions through feedback anymore but can do everything the 'mother tree' can."
Lin Lun excitedly waved his arm, "Do you know? This is what I truly wanted — it is not a fruit destined to rot but a seed that has taken root and will eventually grow into a second towering tree! And it can perfectly integrate into human society without causing widespread panic and suspicion!"
Seeing Lin Lun staring at him with fervent eyes, Xue Yue fearfully retreated a few steps, pressing her back against the cold and rough wall surface.
"You're scaring the child," Sun Hang said, "It seems like there's a slight issue with your emotional control ability."
"Sorry," Lin Lun took a deep breath and quickly regained his calm deanor, "I just... I just... alright, I did lose control a bit; that's my problem."
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