Green Frog (v1c21)
Ye Sheng seized the opportunity to hold Zhou Lin's arm while the strong man was talking to Old Lin.
Zhou Lin had been chirpy and lively before they set off for the wilderness today, but now she was covered in blood, with a few grass blades stuck in her messy red hair. Her round face was pale with fear.
She lowered her head, looking terrified.
Zhou Lin's body trembled when Ye Sheng reached out to hold her.
"Zhou Lin, it's me, Ye Sheng!" Ye Sheng said quickly, before Zhou Lin could pull away.
Zhou Lin paused at the sound of Ye Sheng's name.
She looked up and saw Ye Sheng's familiar face. Zhou Lin curled her lips and burst into tears. "Shengsheng, I almost didn't make it back. The wilderness is so scary!!!"
She threw herself into Ye Sheng's arms and sobbed uncontrollably.
Ye Sheng raised her hand and patted Zhou Lin's back, soothing her softly. "It's okay, it's okay, Zhou Lin. You're safe now."
Zhou Lin was about the same age as Ye Sheng, and she had been pampered by her family. The sudden danger had shaken her.
She had tried to hold back her tears before, but when she saw her little sister Shengsheng in the Swap shop, she couldn't help it anymore.
But Zhou Lin also had the unique strength of a wastelander. She only cried for a while and then stopped. She choked and told Ye Sheng the whole story.
Their team had reached 200 people and they had set off for the wilderness right away.
They had found an apricot forest along the way, and they had rushed to look for food. Someone had been lucky enough to find apricots with medium radiation.
Apricots as big as basketballs! ! !
They had moved on after finding the apricot forest, but they hadn't been as fortunate as before.
All they had seen were piles of highly radioactive grass blades, which were inedible.
The Zhou family, who led the team, wouldn't be satisfied with this income, so they had kept walking and walking.
Finally, they had found a large bracken field near a puddle at the bottom, where they had met another team.
Neither side wanted to give up the bracken field, and they had argued endlessly.
Zhou Lin had been hanging around in the team, watching her eldest brother bickering with the others. She had found it quite amusing for a while. But then she had heard someone scream.
She had turned around and seen a giant frog, as big as a tank, jumping out of the puddle grass.
It had stuck out a long red tongue with sharp barbs, wrapped it around a person's body and stuffed it into its mouth.
It was the Green Frog! ! !
They had realized then that what had popped out was the Green Frog, and the two teams had stopped fighting and chosen to cooperate temporarily against the scary beast.
Unlike the porcupine Rat, which liked sneak attacks, the Green Frog attacked head-on.
Anyone who touched the long tongue with barbs would have a large piece of flesh scraped off. What was even more terrifying was that it also had paralyzing properties, making the body stiff and immobile.
An ordinary person who was caught by the tongue and pierced by the barbs had no chance of survival.
They could only watch helplessly as they were stuffed into the mouth of the Green Frog.
Chewed alive.
Most of the people in the two teams were ordinary, and the weapons in their hands were very poor. They could only cut the skin of the Green Frog, but it was no different from tickling it.
The Green Frog had ignored them and continued to wrap its tongue around the people and eat them.
Zhou Lin was panicking in the crowd when the Green Frog suddenly stopped and launched an attack in her direction. Its long tongue smacked down, killing the person next to Zhou Lin on the spot.
As the tongue rolled up the corpse and retracted it, Zhou Lin saw the dead man's face clearly. It was full of horror, his eyes wide open and unable to close. He was stuffed into the frog's mouth without mercy.
The frog's mouth closed, and blood splashed out from the gap. It dripped onto the grass, dyeing the blades red.
The people were no match for the Green Frog. After losing more than a dozen lives in a row, Zhou Lin's brother made a decisive decision.
Run!
The group retreated in panic, running towards the way they had come.
If they ran too slowly, they would die!
Zhou Lin was so terrified by the sight of the frog eating people that she froze in place. Her brother saw her and gritted his teeth. He pulled his sister and ran away as fast as he could.
While they were escaping, someone tried a cunning trick. They blocked the way for Zhou Lin's brother, hoping to use him as a scapegoat to stop the frog's attack. But he was thrown behind by the tall and strong brother.
Soon, there were pitiful howls that echoed in the air.
Zhou Lin's brother took her and ran all the way. When they were safe, they counted the survivors. More than fifty people were gone.
They didn't know if they had been eaten by the frog or if they had gotten separated from the group in the chaos.
This trip to the wilderness had been a disaster. They had gained little, but lost a lot. The people who had escaped from the frog's tongue were so shaken that they chose to go home instead of continuing to scavenge in the wilderness.
There was one person in the group who had been scratched by the frog's tongue. His injury was serious, and the hemostatic powder made from mugwort leaves didn't work at all. He had to spend points to buy hemostatic medicine in the Swap shop.
He had entrusted Zhou Lin's brother, who was uninjured, to buy the medicine for him.
The strong man who had just opened the door and walked in was Zhou Lin's brother. Zhou Lin hadn't recovered yet, so she followed him into the exchange hall based on instinct.
"Woo, Shengsheng, you were right not to go with the group. That Green Frog was so scary!"
Under Ye Sheng's comfort, Zhou Lin slowly calmed down. But when she told her what had happened, her face was still pale with fear. It seemed that this trip to the wilderness had left a deep scar on her.
Zhou Lin wasn't the only one. Even Ye Sheng, who was listening, felt a chill.
She had thought that she was very brave for killing the porcupine rat. Even though the rat had been injured before, she had managed to kill it and find the energy stone in its stomach. That had made her feel proud.
But after hearing Zhou Lin's story, Ye Sheng's pride vanished.
The wilderness was terrifying! ! !
When Zhou Lin saw Ye Sheng, she could tell that she was also scared. Zhou Lin wiped her tears and tried to smile. "Shengsheng, don't be afraid. We were lucky to come back alive."
"Green frogs are polluted creatures that live in groups. This time we met a lone giant frog and we escaped. If we had met a group..."
Zhou Lin didn't finish her sentence, but Ye Sheng understood.
She wished Zhou Lin hadn't tried to comfort her.
It only made it scarier.
"Did the Green Frog just leave?" Ye Sheng asked.
"No, my brother told the base crisis management department. They'll send people from the mercenary group to deal with it."
The people in the mercenary group were different from ordinary people. They were strong and had advanced weapons. They could easily kill a lone Green Frog.
Ye Sheng felt a surge of relief.
She had been lucky to meet a wounded Porcupine rat this time. If she had met the Green Frog...
It would have killed her for sure!
Ye Sheng and Zhou Lin chatted for a while. Zhou Lin's brother had bought the hemostatic medicine and came back. He greeted Ye Sheng and left with his sister.
But Ye Sheng couldn't shake off the fear that the frog had caused. Luckily, Old Lin noticed that something was wrong with her. He pulled her to the glass cabinet and pointed at one of the pink liquids.
"Little Sheng, do you want to try this strawberry-flavored nutritional solution? It's very tasty and very popular among girls."
"Strawberry-flavored nutritional solution?"
Ye Sheng's attention was immediately drawn by the liquid. She leaned on the glass cabinet and looked down, her face brightening. She had been worried about what to feed the little girl!
(✪ω✪)