Searching for someone in northern Myanmar, and you call that earning tuition fees?

"It smells like a corpse, but then again, it doesn't?"

Ling Qiao frowned and subconsciously tightened her grip on the gun.

Liu Jianjun immediately went into battle mode, lowered his body, and gestured for Wang Hu to spread out his guard.

"Mr. Su, what do you mean...?" Liu Jianjun's voice was extremely low.

Su Ming didn't answer immediately, but instead sniffed the air again, his brows furrowed.

"It smells like decay, but not the decay of death." His tone turned serious. "It's the decay of life."

"Living...rotting?"

Ling Qiao felt that her understanding had been refreshed once again.

What kind of horror movie line is this?

"Let's go take a look." After saying that, Su Ming led the way towards the source of the smell.

"Mr. Su!" Liu Jianjun cried out urgently, "The situation ahead is unclear, you can't..."

"I know what's ahead," Su Ming said without turning his head. "Stay close and don't touch anything."

The three exchanged a glance and had no choice but to bite the bullet and follow.

Passing through a dense thicket of ferns, the sight before them made everyone's hearts tighten.

The remains of a small village.

A dozen or so simple wooden huts stood crookedly, their walls covered with dark red vines, the surface of which was covered with dense, fleshy growths.

Even more strangely, these vines were slowly wriggling.

"Holy shit..." Wang Hu blurted out, then realized he had lost his composure and quickly covered his mouth.

Ling Qiao's face also turned deathly pale.

She had seen battlefields littered with blood and gore, but the bizarre scene before her still made her stomach churn.

"Don't go near those vines," Su Ming's voice came. "That's the 'Immortal Vine,' or rather, a parasitic plant that has mutated after being infected by a virus."

"This...this is the target we're looking for?" Ling Qiao forced herself to calm down.

"No, this is just the infected area." Su Ming shook his head. "The real mother plant is deeper inside."

He walked to a house and gently lifted the curtain with a woodworking knife.

The interior of the house was a mess, with broken pottery jars, rotten food, and...

a corpse.

No, that cannot be called a corpse.

Its entire body was entwined and pierced by dark red vines, its flesh and blood merging with the plants, turning it into a human-shaped radish stuck in the mud. Its eyes were still open, its pupils grayish-white, its mouth wide open, making a silent scream.

The most terrifying thing was that his chest was still rising and falling slightly.

He is still alive.

"Damn it..." Liu Jianjun, a veteran who had seen countless deaths, couldn't help but swear at this moment.

Ling Qiao suppressed the urge to vomit and asked in a trembling voice, "Is...is there any hope for him?"

Su Ming remained silent for a few seconds, then shook his head.

"The virus has completely eroded his nervous system. What keeps him 'alive' now is not his will, but the virus itself."

"Viruses need a living host to continue multiplying."

"Therefore, it will forcibly maintain the host's basic vital signs, even if the host's brain has died."

Su Ming spoke calmly, but the weight of his words made everyone's hearts sink.

"This is the truth about 'immortality'."

"Not immortality, but the torment of never being able to die."

Ling Qiao's fists were clenched so tightly they turned white.

"The S.H.I.E.L.D. creatures... those beasts!"

"They've turned this place into an experimental ground!"

Su Ming didn't reply, but turned and walked out of the house, his gaze sweeping over the entire village.

"There should have been thirty to forty people here," he said calmly. "Now there are only twelve 'living corpses' left."

"Where are the others?" Wang Hu asked in a low voice.

"Either they escaped, or..." Su Ming pointed to the denser vine thicket at the edge of the village, "became nutrients for those things."

Suddenly, a rustling sound came from the thicket of vines.

Everyone immediately went on alert.

Liu Jianjun raised his gun and aimed it in the direction from which the sound came.

The vines were pushed aside, and a figure stumbled out.

It was a man in camouflage, and judging from his equipment, he was probably a mercenary. But at that moment, he was in a terrible state, his face covered in blood and dirt, his eyes filled with terror, and he kept muttering something.

"Don't shoot!" Su Ming shouted to stop Liu Jianjun.

When the man saw them, hope suddenly ignited in his eyes, and he staggered towards them.

"Help...help me..." he said in broken Chinese, "Monsters...monsters everywhere..."

Liu Jianjun strode forward, pinned him to the ground, and quickly searched his body.

"Report! A handgun has been found, magazine removed, and the person bears the insignia of the 'Viper' mercenary group!"

Ling Qiao stepped forward, looking down at him: "Are you from 'Viper'?"

"No... I'm just a technician..." the man said, his face contorted with grief. "I was responsible for maintaining the equipment... I didn't know it would turn out like this..."

"Where is your base?" Ling Qiao pressed.

"Underground...underground..." The man pointed to a small hill behind the village, "There's a natural cave there, and they built their laboratory at the deepest part..."

How many people are left?

"I don't know... When I escaped, there were vines everywhere... Many people were infected..."

Just as Ling Qiao was about to ask another question, Su Ming suddenly spoke up: "Tell him to shut up."

Everyone was stunned.

"Mr. Su?"

"He's stalling for time," Su Ming said calmly. "He has a signal transmitter on him."

The man's expression changed drastically.

Liu Jianjun realized what was happening and ripped open the man's collar, where he found a small metal device about the size of a grain of rice near his collarbone.

"Damn it!" Liu Jianjun punched the man in the face. "You fucking faked us!"

"I...I didn't..." the man tried to deny it.

Su Ming walked up to him, squatted down, and coldly scrutinized him.

"When I asked about the location of the base, your pupils dilated, your breathing rate increased, and your right index finger twitched involuntarily twice."

"These are all physiological reactions when lying."

"Besides, your camouflage uniform is new and your shoes are free of mud, but the ground in this rainforest is covered in mud, even monkeys have three pounds of mud on their feet."

"You didn't 'escape' at all; you were deliberately sent as bait."

With each word Su Ming spoke, the man's face grew paler.

"I……"

"What is your objective?" Su Ming asked. "To lure us into an encirclement? Or to buy time to transfer crucial data?"

The man gritted his teeth and remained silent.

Su Ming wasn't angry; he simply stood up and dusted off his hands.

"Never mind, it's not important."

He turned to Ling Qiao: "Tell your men to prepare for a full-scale attack."

"But we don't know how many troops the enemy has..." Ling Qiao hesitated.

"We don't need to know," Su Ming said, "because we don't use the main entrance."

"Where to go?"

"kitchen."

"...Huh?" Ling Qiao wondered if she had misheard.

"Every underground base needs a ventilation system, and the weakest link in the ventilation system is the kitchen's exhaust pipe," Su Ming explained. "Going in from there, you can directly reach the core area."

"But... how are we supposed to know where the kitchen is?"

Su Ming pointed to the "technician" on the ground who had given up thinking.

He will tell us.

"I won't tell!" the man roared through gritted teeth.

"You will," Su Ming said, reaching out to the damp tree trunk beside him. With a deft pinch of his two fingers, he caught a beetle that was entirely black with tiny red spots on its back.

He held the still-struggling beetle up to the man's face.

"There's a little thing in the rainforest," Su Ming explained casually, "that the locals call it 'Excruciating Itch.' Getting bitten by it won't kill you or leave you crippled, but the toxins it secretes will make you feel like countless red-hot needles are piercing your skin from underneath. This torture will last for twelve hours, and the itching and pain will drive you crazy, making you want to tear your own flesh apart."

"Of course, that's what my grandfather taught me."

The man stared wide-eyed in horror at the beetle writhing in front of him, cold sweat instantly soaking his forehead.

"You...you're mistreating prisoners! This is a violation of the Geneva Convention!"

"The Geneva Convention?" Su Ming tilted his head. "I'm just a part-time college student, not on the official payroll, and not bound by military law."

"And..." he paused, his voice turning cold, "what you're doing here is what truly violates the bottom line of humanity. I've already been merciful by simply asking you to tell the truth."

Su Ming loosened his grip slightly, and the beetle was about to fall onto the man's face.

The man completely broke down, screaming, "No! I'll talk! I'll talk!"

Three seconds later, he spilled all the information like beans from a bamboo tube.

"The kitchen... is fifty meters to the left of the cave entrance... there's a ventilation shaft disguised as rock... the password is..."

Liu Jianjun was stunned.

"Mr. Su...you..."

"My grandfather said that you don't need to be morally upright when dealing with bad guys." Su Ming stood up, dusted off his pants, and said, "Let's go, it's time to get down to business."

He glanced back at the "technician" who was slumped on the ground, and under the man's terrified gaze, gently placed the "Excruciating Itch" beetle between his fingers onto the man's neck.

The beetle's mouthparts pierced the skin, and the technician's body stiffened abruptly, then went limp as a board, unable to utter a sound.

Su Ming said to Liu Jianjun, who was stunned beside him, "Don't worry, he won't die. He'll just be paralyzed for twelve hours, which is enough for us to move around. Right now, he's quieter than any communication device."

"After all, we are civilized people."

Ling Qiao took a deep breath and gave the order into the communicator.

"Attention everyone, target confirmed, prepare for action!"

She looked at Su Ming with a complicated expression.

How many secrets does this boy still hold?

And... who exactly is his all-powerful grandfather?!