Closing the door to the rooftop room, Lin Yuan picked up the binoculars and looked at the sixth floor. Three zombies had already rushed to the twelfth floor. The rest were blocked by barricades on the seventh floor, jostling to get up.
Looking down, it was strange that there were no zombies below the sixth floor. Not a single zombie shadow could be seen. This made Lin Yuan feel very curious.
According to previous observations, there were three zombies on floors one to five. Where had they gone? Could the night demons have eaten them? Did zombies cannibalize each other?
Setting aside his doubts, Lin Yuan took back the binoculars and handed them to Wu Mengyao. He and Wu Tian then proceeded to clean up the night demon corpses.
The night demon, having been dead for some time, had all its mycelia turned black and gray. Its dark green tentacles had shriveled, exuding a lot of mucus. Poking at a tentacle with a wooden spear, Lin Yuan accidentally pierced something. The wooden tip was immediately corroded.
This situation startled Lin Yuan. He almost thought the night demon had come back to life and jumped far away.
Wu Tian, seeing the jumpy Lin Yuan, quickly grabbed his bow and arrows, ready to shoot. "What's wrong, Lin Yuan? Why did you jump so far?"
Looking at the night demon corpse on the ground, there was no movement, and it didn't seem like it was about to come back to life to slap them.
"It's nothing, the wooden spear just got a little melted," Lin Yuan said, showing the spear to Wu Tian.
The iron plating wrapped around the tip of the wooden spear had been mostly dissolved, exposing the carbonized wooden tip.
What was this?
Did this corpse still have corrosive properties? How could they clean it up? Leave it on the rooftop to dry into mushroom jerky? They had already finished drying the jerky, and there was plenty of space.
Using zombies as reserve food was definitely out of the question. The two put on their motorcycle helmets and approached for a closer look. Inside the shriveled tentacles, there seemed to be small sacs clustered together, resembling a beaded curtain. These were positioned right in front of the black spot-like orifices on the tentacles.
"These orifices haven't fully evolved yet. The sacs behind them are not connected to the orifices," Lin Yuan said, carefully slicing open a cross-section with a fruit knife.
After the night demon died, these things were no longer tough and could be easily cut.
He didn't poke the round sacs, fearing the corrosive liquid inside would spray out. If it got on them, it would be difficult to deal with.
"It seems this night demon is not a fully evolved night demon. Its mutation level hasn't truly reached that of a night demon," Lin Yuan pondered. This was the only explanation that made sense.
Wu Tian looked at the number of orifices and felt a thrill of fear. "Good thing it didn't fully evolve, or we might have really become fugitives today."
"Fugitives? We are birds of a feather, bound together like trees, meant to last forever," Lin Yuan replied without looking up as he examined the corpse.
Wu Tian: <(｀^´)>
Can't you at least pay attention when I say these cheesy pickup lines!
Just as he was about to get angry, Lin Yuan suddenly exclaimed, "Wait a minute, what is this thing?"
Lin Yuan picked out a round object from the tip of a tentacle. It was wrapped in a network of red nerve tissue and white mycelia, covered in murky mucus. It rolled onto the ground, collecting dust.
Not knowing what it was, Lin Yuan dared not touch it with his bare hands. He ran to the stove to get tongs and moved the object aside.
"Could this be some kind of spirit crystal? If you eat it, you gain superpowers?" Lin Yuan speculated, combining his observations with novels he had read.
"Alright, the chuunibyou kid can't be cured."
Wu Tian rolled his eyes. "It's probably not. The night demon didn't breathe fire or shoot lightning. Eating it would be more likely to make you spew sulfuric acid."
"Its corrosiveness is much stronger than sulfuric acid. Let's wait for the national biochemical research group's broadcast. It could also be just some mutated tissue, or even the night demon's egg?" Lin Yuan's imagination was running wilder.
Forget superpowers, now he's talking about laying eggs.
"It's unlikely to be an egg, but to be safe, let's seal this thing up. I'll go get a bottle and soak it in alcohol."
To be honest, Wu Tian was also a bit tempted. What if it was some kind of energy crystal, or something that could make them stronger if eaten? Wouldn't that increase their chances of survival?
Alcohol? Good heavens, straight to soaking it in liquor. If this was some kind of miraculous elixir, wouldn't that make zombies endangered species in the future?
But soaking it in liquor was fine. The probability of this being the Las Plagas parasite from Resident Evil was low.
Wu Tian was quick. In a few minutes, he returned with the item.
The emergency kits distributed to every household contained alcohol spray, and there was quite a bit of alcohol. This thing was about the size of a tennis ball. Any large bottle used for chili sauce could hold it.
Using the tongs, Lin Yuan rinsed the "miracle elixir" with a small bowl of water to clean it up a bit before dropping it into the glass jar filled with alcohol.
The transparent glass jar allowed them to clearly observe the changes in the object. After washing off the mucus, the nerve tissue and white mycelia in the alcohol began to shrink.
Nothing happened, and nothing drilled out from the surface. It was likely some kind of tissue, or something similar to a bull's or sheep's treasure. Speaking of which, this action was quite daring, as it was from a level-two mutated night demon. Who knew what it was?
"Don't tell me I'm a bit nervous. If this thing is some kind of super parasite, wouldn't we both be goners? Hahahaha," Lin Yuan said with a laugh, looking at the "miracle elixir" which remained intact and quiet.
"You're nervous but you're laughing. I don't think there's any problem, though. This is the connecting tissue between the tentacles and the night demon, so the possibility of it being alive is small. Besides, the national biochemical research group discovered the night demon several days before us. They must have studied the corpses. If it were a parasite, they would have said something. This thing must be useful, they just haven't researched it yet," Wu Tian offered his thoughts.
Lin Yuan tilted his head, thought for a moment, and decided that zombies that grew mushrooms were unlikely to spew parasites. Anyway, they didn't know, and they had already done it. There was no point regretting it afterward. Fortune favors the bold. (Note: In a regular zombie apocalypse, such activities are not recommended, as you don't know what might spray or burrow out of a zombie's body. It's best to follow the emergency broadcast for guidance.)
After some more time, the night demon's corpse had completely turned into a mass of gray-black slime, mixed with various colored tissues. This decomposition speed was much faster than that of ordinary zombies or zombies that had turned into fungal monsters.
To avoid any further complications, Lin Yuan poured two buckets of cooking oil onto the corpse and set it ablaze. Cooking oil had a history of being used as fuel. Although it wasn't as flammable or explosive as gasoline, it was perfectly fine for small-scale incineration, depending on how much you were willing to use.
The gray-black slime, consumed by flames, stopped growing and decomposing the corpse. It curled into a ball and was completely devoured by the fire.
Twenty minutes later, only a pile of charred bones and a pool of black ash remained on the ground. Lin Yuan swept them into a trash bag, preparing to discard them. After the zombie tentacles were burned away, the string of sacs containing corrosive liquid actually remained. The outer shell had become very hard. He tested it, and even the wooden spear couldn't pierce it.
Looking at this set of "disfiguring weapons," Lin Yuan and Wu Tian discussed it and decided to keep them, thinking they might prove useful at some point.