ebonymovies Chapter 6: Sleep
Chapter 6: Sleep
From the deepest instincts of their genes, that strange flower exuded an irresistible allure, as if it were some kind of powerful tonic that could grant immortality by being swallowed.
Ye Zhi's mind started racing. Could it be that he hadn't been reborn into the world he was familiar with, and that there really was some extraordinary power here?
However, he remained calm and did not take any action for the time being.
Firstly, whether based on his past life experiences or his instincts deep within this body's genes, he felt that the true function of this thing would only be fully realized after the flowers withered and the fruit ripened.
Secondly, another serious problem lies before Ye Zhi – if he can sense this thing, other creatures will naturally be able to detect it as well. If it attracts any large animals, he could be trampled to death along with it, and that would be the end of him.
A decision was made instantly in my mind: whatever it is, I must first find a way to hide it before making any other plans.
This area is no longer within the range of the Spirochete schlegelii, so he doesn't need to worry about the Spirochete schlegelii's threat. The most dangerous ones are probably various flying insects and birds, which are very likely to discover this special flower, whether for pollination or foraging.
After a moment's thought, Ye Zhi came up with a solution - still using his ant silk, he would try to build a "shed" to hide the flower inside, leaving only an opening for himself to enter and exit for observation.
Thinking it over, he climbed up to the inflorescence where the flower was located, looked around, and then used his jaws to laboriously pick up the stem of a flower that seemed malnourished and was about to wither.
The abdomen bends, and a thread of ant silk is pulled out. One end is stuck to the top of the curved flower stem, and the other end is stuck to the foot. Then, the ant silk is wrapped around it several times to form the first "skeleton".
Then, Ye Zhi followed the same method, and another flower stem was pulled out, crossing to form another arched structure.
In Ye Zhi's vision, these two are the core skeleton, and the rest is to weave a miniature tent structure around these two skeletons with ant silk to cover the flower inside.
Ye Zhi dared not delay, fearing that things might go wrong if he waited too long, so he chose to work through the night. He figured out a way to tie a thread of silk to the knot on his waist and attach the other end to the top of the inflorescence, forming a simple "safety rope".
As dusk fell, the originally faint fragrance of the pitcher plant flowers began to intensify, even emitting a faint, almost imperceptible, fishy odor.
This made Ye Zhi somewhat anxious. It was probably because the pitcher plant was trying to use carrion-eating flying insects like flies to help it pollinate at night, which was undoubtedly bad news for him.
His abdomen tumbled and he even used his memories of being human to assist him with his current pair of clumsy forelimbs, trying to speed up as much as possible. When he got hungry, he continued to consume the honeydew he had stored from aphids to satisfy his hunger. He didn't even bother to rest and continued to weave.
As the sky began to lighten again, the first rays of sunlight pierced through the sparse leaves. Ye Zhiye finally finished sewing the last strand of ant silk, creating a small tent that completely enveloped the strange flower.
To enhance the camouflage effect, he even tore off some withered pitcher plant flowers and glued them with ant silk to cover the "tent," forming a makeshift "camouflage net."
Fortunately, these malnourished, withered flowers were not sturdy, otherwise it wouldn't have been so easy for his asymmetrical jaws to tear them off.
After Ye Zhi finished all this, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, crawled out of a pre-prepared hole just big enough for him to pass through, and climbed down to the hollow vine-covered place where he had temporarily settled.
He had used up more than half of the honeydew from the aphids in his stomach during a dangerous night's work, so he planned to replenish his food and then rest for a while.
His previous plan to retrieve the corpses was proving difficult and could potentially lead to conflict with the flathead ants, so he temporarily abandoned the idea and instead set his sights on the nectar glands of pitcher plants.
The nectar glands are located on the edge of the trap, in what is called the cage lip, and are designed to lure greedy flying insects into the trap.
But Ye Zhi wasn't afraid of this. He skillfully bent his abdomen, pulled out a thread, fixed one end above, and wrapped the other end around his knot. He tugged it a couple of times to make sure it was secure, and then climbed down with the "safety rope".
Once his "social stomach" was mostly full again, he climbed up the "safety rope," retrieved the ant thread, returned to his roosting location, and crawled into the previously reserved opening.
Having not slept all night, he planned to rest and recover his energy. Although ordinary ants do not need long periods of sleep, it seemed that due to his complex thinking, he had needed sleep almost every day since his rebirth, and now he was feeling sleepy.
Crawling into his temporary nest, just in case, Ye Zhi skillfully spit out ant silk to seal the reserved cave entrance again, and then retreated deep into the inner space of the cage.
He was indeed exhausted and almost fell asleep the moment his head hit the pillow, making one sigh at the advantages of youth. But what Ye didn't know was that a series of subtle changes were quietly taking place in his sleep.
An invisible, faint "vortex" slowly appeared around Ye Zhi's sleeping body. What was being stirred was not the air, but a mysterious particle component in the air.
If anything could be observed, it would be discovered that the energy flowing through the faintly shimmering patterns on the surface of that strange flower that Ye Zhi had previously concealed with the ant silk "tent" was the same as that of the flower!
......
A day passed quietly, but Ye Zhi did not wake up. Two days, three days... Even the strange pitcher plant flower that he had previously covered up began to change. The pale golden petals withered overnight, and the four sepals began to close and swell, forming a fruit shape called a capsule.
The same strange patterns appeared on the fruit shell, becoming more pronounced as the fruit swelled. But the ant-webbed canopy and camouflage netting faithfully performed their function, obscuring all view from the surroundings.
Several more days passed, and heavy rain poured down, but both the leaves in the vines and the "little tents" on the inflorescences were well protected by the broad leaves and other remaining inflorescences, and no accidents occurred.
After the rain stopped and the sky cleared, the covered capsules finally showed signs of cracking open. However, inside, which should have contained countless slender seeds, there was now only one exceptionally large seed, almost twice the normal size. The original patterns had disappeared and had now been transferred to this large and plump seed.
More than ten days later, within the hollow cage, Ye Zhi's still-sleeping body finally began to change. A pair of long, narrow antennae began to twitch slightly, as if indicating that its owner was about to wake up.