Chapter 156: The Unhatched Insect Egg

Although Chu's words sounded somewhat terrifying, Li Tianque felt deeply puzzled.

"How did you figure out that Brother Bi found the entrance? If, as you said, the madman who tied Tatar to the rat box operated right here in this room, it's hard to guarantee he wouldn't notice Brother Bi!"

"The only fresh blood here belongs to that Kang Min." Chu spat out a drop of blood from her fingertip and said indifferently.

Tasting blood to identify people?

This action made Li Tianque feel somewhat disgusted. Although he had no idea how many bizarre abilities Chu possessed, tasting blood in such an environment was still hard for him to accept.

However, an even harder-to-accept thing happened next.

Chu walked over to the corpses and began to rummage through the heavily decomposed bodies with her hands.

"What on earth are you doing? Since there's a way down, let's run!" Li Tianque urged.

Chu ignored Li Tianque and continued studying the three corpses.

Her occasional bouts of silence made Li Tianque somewhat anxious, but he endured it.

Because Chu looked so focused while examining the corpses, Li Tianque could not help but lean closer.

As he drew nearer, he was shocked to discover that the corpse she was groping had long since been disemboweled, its internal organs reduced to a bloody mess.

Chu parted the mangled flesh and reached her fingers deep into the corpse.

The process made Li Tianque's scalp tingle with numbness, yet Chu completely ignored it and continued groping around as if nothing were wrong.

After rummaging through the shredded meat for about three or four minutes, her poker-faced expression suddenly changed slightly. She turned back to look at Li Tianque with an extremely serious expression, stopping the hand she had inserted into the corpse, as if she had found what she was looking for.

"Flashlight!" Chu commanded.

Although reluctant to be ordered around like this, Li Tianque helplessly moved closer and turned on the flashlight.

In the beam of the flashlight, Li Tianque saw Chu pull something out from the visceral region of the corpse. It was a pale yellow mass of flesh adhering to the side of the internal organs.

Rather than a lump of flesh, it looked more like an egg.

This egg was semi-transparent, resembling a human embryo. Inside the egg was not a yolk, but a black, hard lump.

The egg looked like a crystal-clear amber, yet it emitted no sign of life whatsoever.

"Is this the egg of the Diet Limit?"

Li Tianque felt the nerves on the right side of his face twitch.

"Mhm," Chu said nonchalantly.

"Why are you looking for this egg?"

"Every corpse here has a parasite egg inside it. Clearly, someone left them here on purpose," Chu said out of nowhere.

"I don't quite understand what you mean. You'd better tell me first what this Diet Limit actually is." Li Tianque's voice grew somewhat angry of its own accord.

As someone with an already strong curiosity, being kept in the dark like this was pure torture.

Chu glanced at Li Tianque, pondered for a moment, and continued rummaging among the rotting corpses while speaking at a brisk pace:

"The Diet Limit is a parasitic core worm.

The yellow meat ball you saw is merely a derivative of the Diet Limit. Its true body is very small and can parasitize the bodies of other creatures.

These yellow balls can move freely within a certain range. They can secrete a highly bewitching fragrance that creates illusions, luring other creatures into devouring a part of their bodies.

During the feeding process, after consuming a large amount of yellow fluid, other creatures will feel their stomachs swell and experience severe discomfort.

However, the yellow fluid can quickly invade the blood and blend into it. Once the yellow fluid disappears, they will become immensely hungry and continue to gorge themselves frantically.

In this way, the yellow ball gradually erodes the creature that ate its body, turning it into a puppet.

And the yellow ball, which continuously absorbs energy, will return to the body of its true host at a specific moment, satisfying the host.

Those woodlice are just like that. In their delusions, this huge yellow ball is probably some kind of delicious rotting plant.

They look well-fed, but when the true body of the Diet Limit wants to slaughter them, it will instantly hollow them all out and turn them entirely into yellow fluid."

After hearing Chu's description, Li Tianque immediately associated it with the bizarre fragrance on the emaciated waiter and Grey Ice's erratic behavior of alternating between being full and starving, sending a wave of lingering fear through his heart.

Fortunately, he had managed to vomit out all the delicious food in his stomach in time; otherwise, he might have also fallen captive to the delicacy.

"But I don't quite understand. Since this yellow ball can emit such a strong fragrance, why didn't it do so when it faced the two of us, and why didn't I smell any fragrance?" Li Tianque asked.

"It only releases the corresponding attractive scent for the same species of creature," Chu explained.

Li Tianque quickly grasped her meaning. The yellow ball in the abandoned nursing home primarily targeted woodlice, so the scent it released was highly alluring to them.

But to Li Tianque, who was a human, it had no effect whatsoever.

At the same time, a terrifying thought suddenly struck Li Tianque:

Since there was still a yellow ball present in the Wolf Totem Restaurant, it meant there must be a true body belonging to it in the restaurant as well.

Otherwise, the large yellow ball could not possibly transport energy back to its host from miles away.

Right now, Sumido was the only person left in the restaurant. If the host over there made the yellow ball launch a sneak attack on Sumido, her chances of survival would be grim.

More importantly, through the past few days of understanding, Li Tianque knew very well that Sumido was an absolute foodie. Previously, with Wu Miaoran stopping her, she might have exercised some restraint.

Now that she was left entirely alone, it was hard to say whether she would be unable to help herself and fall into the yellow ball's trap.

Anxious at heart, Li Tianque no longer had the mood to worry about others and continued to press:

"You still haven't told me, what exactly are the parasite eggs inside these corpses?"

Chu flicked the blood off her hand and said:

"What else is there to say? These are parasite eggs.

After a hearty meal, the Diet Limit will divide and produce a parasite egg, much like cell division.

Once the parasite egg hatches, it secretes yellow fluid, forming a yellow ball to begin foraging on its behalf.

However, the parasite eggs inside these corpses are all abandoned eggs."

"Abandoned eggs?"

"Mhm. The hatching of a Diet Limit's egg requires a certain temperature. Its true body or host deliberately injected these eggs into the bodies of dead people precisely to prevent them from hatching successfully."

Li Tianque pondered Chu's words and nodded, saying:

"I see. Food is ultimately scarce here, and having one more competitor is hardly a good thing.

Yet the division of the Diet Limit presumably cannot be stopped voluntarily, so it simply chooses to eliminate its own offspring."

Chu shook her head, seemingly disagreeing with Li Tianque's conjecture, though she did not explain why he was wrong.

Before long, however, Chu, who had been rummaging through the corpses, abruptly underwent a complete change in demeanor, turning her face to stare intently at Li Tianque.

She looked as if some remark Li Tianque had just made had inadvertently infuriated her.

A terrifying murderous intent swirled within Chu's icy pupils, making one's hair stand on end!

Could this fellow be planning to abandon him, just like the Diet Limit abandoned its parasite eggs?

Li Tianque swallowed hard, looking at her in a panic, feeling as though his heart were a balloon inflated with air and tightly bound with hemp rope, ready to burst at any second.