Clown Game
Chapter 326 - 313: Mother Bug (Part 2)

Chapter 326: Chapter 313: Mother Bug (Part 2)

At this moment, Song Xuan and Bai Xiong had both gathered in Chen Xiao’s nest, looking exactly like three prisoners discussing plans for a jailbreak... only their goal was to kill the warden.

"Are you sure the Mother Nest isn’t far from us?" Song Xuan asked again, now fully recovered her memory.

"There’s more than a fifty percent chance, I’d say. We can all see it—none of us have seen the sunlight for over ten days. Having stayed underground for a long time, the probability of us carrying food and materials back and forth is not high. After all, compared to the ants, our strength is too insignificant. And when it comes to digging tunnels, humans without tools are basically idiots. We can only scrape some dirt with our hands from beneath our feet, then mix it with urine and saliva before smearing it onto the walls."

As he spoke, Chen Xiao pointed at the wall beside him, meaning that they were simply incapable of such tunneling.

"Alright, stop bringing up piss and shit all the time, stick to the main point!" Bai Xiong said gravely.

"Oh, sure. Next is the smell. You must have smelled it the moment you woke up... sweet and fishy, with a hint of some rotting stench. I thought at the time, since we humans are neither as strong nor as skilled as the ants, why would they capture so many of us."

Song Xuan took a moment to think... "You mean... we are the caretakers?"

"Right, we are the caretakers. And I even suspect that in the process of evolution, this ant colony has completely eliminated the work capabilities of the male ants, reducing them to mere tools for reproduction. After all, those creatures die after mating. So at this point, they need specialized personnel to feed the Mother Bug, which is us. Because no matter how you look at it, aside from having more dexterous hands and feet, we have no other advantages."

"Heh, hearing you say that, if humans stop using their brains, we’re indeed no better than ants," Song Xuan shrugged nonchalantly: "So, what then? You just want us to charge over there and desperately fight the Mother Bug?"

Chen Xiao grinned broadly: "Heh heh heh, that’s more or less the idea, but it’s also pretty much the best plan we’ve got. From your phone’s GPS earlier, this Ant Nest is very complex. Even if I could remember all the routes and try not to backtrack, it might take several days to find the exit, not to mention the countless bugs we’d have to face in the meantime. So escaping is almost impossible. Therefore, the best plan is to wait quietly until the Mother Bug feeds and then find a way to take her down."

Chen Xiao chuckled, pointing excitedly at the red dot still moving on the screen.

"The best plan? I feel like you’re really just thinking ’Since we’re here, it would be a pity not to see the Mother Bug,’ so you’re leading us to our deaths," Song Xuan said coldly to Chen Xiao, her tone sending shivers down his spine.

Unwilling to be outdone, Chen Xiao glared back: "Fine then, if you’re so capable, go and take on the ant horde by yourself. If you succeed, I’ll eat a truckload of ant shit in front of the entire Foundation!"

Not wanting to be heard by the ants, neither raised their voice, but the air was already thick with tension inside the little nest.

"Enough! Stop fighting!" Bai Xiong helplessly intervened, wondering why these two couldn’t get along from the start, not missing a chance to snipe at each other even in this situation: "Overall, waiting for the Mother Bug’s feeding time is the safer bet. Even if we can’t find an opportunity by then, as long as we don’t do anything unnecessary, we should avoid a fatal end."

After hearing this, Song Xuan leaned back lazily: "Hmm... yeah, it would indeed be too much of a pity to just die like that." She said, looking pointedly at Chen Xiao.

"Yeah, if we get a chance later, we should really have a good discussion about death," Chen Xiao replied nonchalantly.

Bai Xiong sighed, having no interest in watching their banter, and returned to his own hole. Seeing Bai Xiong leave, Song Xuan probably feared she might lose control and chop Chen Xiao, so she cast a provocative glance at him and stood up to leave as well.

Chen Xiao saw that both people had left, he curled his lip and muttered a few words under his breath as he looked at their retreating figures.

Then he turned his attention back to his phone.

At this moment, the red dot on the screen had stopped moving.

...

Books are short, and soon, a series of exceedingly orderly footsteps emerged from one end of the tunnel, while at the same time, a series of fine, fragmented sounds came from the surrounding caves.

Chen Xiao was slightly stunned, "What the hell? Is there a shift system?"

Indeed, just as he thought this, a team of people passed by the entrance of Chen Xiao’s cave. Each individual’s face was pale, some with hands and feet covered in sores and pus, and some had bones protruding on the outside. Yet, they moved as if they couldn’t feel any of it, with vacant eyes, some even with their eyes firmly shut. Chen Xiao noticed that everyone’s pace and movements were almost in the same rhythm, and even their breathing rates were broadly similar.

"Mind control has reached such a terrifying extent. If it were to be used in densely populated areas, I wonder what it would be like." Chen Xiao imagined excitedly, and then quickly stuffed the dagger and gun into his pants and followed his group as they crawled out of the cave.

Sure enough, people outside were also continuously entering.

Human bodies indeed aren’t up to much; after about 20 hours of continuous work, they must rest, otherwise long periods of toil will quickly break them, which is why the ant colony had no choice but to establish this sort of "rotation system."

Just like the group that had just returned, Chen Xiao’s group also moved forward in a neat formation, though he could hardly see what was ahead, he still mapped out a route in his mind and compared it with the one on his phone earlier.

As he had suspected, this was the direction toward the Mother Nest.

After about 10 minutes or so, they suddenly turned a corner, and a faint beam of light shot out abruptly. The line of people stepped out of the tunnel, arriving at the edge of an extremely wide area.

The ceiling here was at least 20 meters high, dotted with large and small openings through which gigantic ants were crawling in and out. The ground was fairly flat, presumably to facilitate the movement of the human group, yet with animal and human remains carelessly strewn about, it was difficult to move as one wished. Approximately 50 human slaves were supporting their frail bodies, moving the carcasses of remnants emotionlessly and with difficulty towards the center of the hall. There, a few ants, several times larger than the soldier ants seen before, moved slowly. They had massive mandibles, their entire carapaces bristling with spikes, and they bore transparent insect wings on their backs. On the lower end of their bodies and tails, like fireflies, they emitted lights that were fairly bright, clearly an evolutionary adaptation for maintaining the temperature of the Mother Nest.

Finally, surrounded by a throng of humans and ants, was the core of this ant colony, a gigantic grey-white Mother Bug.

Describing it is easy, just imagine a grain of rice enlarged by hundreds or thousands of times, with its material all turned into squishy, undulating fat, sprinkled with some black fuzz and spots. Just fit a kind of built-in meat grinder-like mouthpiece into the pointed end of this mound of flesh. From Chen Xiao’s angle, the rear of the Mother Bug was not visible, but from there one could see dozens of people moving back and forth, transporting transparent egg sacs almost one and a half meters tall.

"Hmm, looks like in addition to feeding, humans are also responsible for midwifery," he mumbled to himself.