“That’s right—which was exactly why we originally planned to use gasoline to destroy the eggs,” Natasha said. “Creatures that prefer moisture must fear fire.”

“That reasoning is sound—but preferring moisture doesn’t necessarily mean they need to keep their bodies wet at all times.” Bai Youwei thought for a moment, then began crawling forward through the ventilation duct. “Follow me.”

The others all paused. “Where to?”

“To find Yuri.” Bai Youwei reached a fork in the ventilation shaft and looked left and right, trying to work out her position. “…I have an idea. It’s well-suited for dealing with these little creatures.”

She turned the corner and kept going, not checking whether the others had kept up.

Natasha, separated from her by two people, desperately wanted to get close enough to ask—but there was no way to move past the others. All she could do was call out urgently from behind: “What idea?”

Bai Youwei answered while crawling. “These creatures called mutants—they look quite a bit like insects. Do you know how insects breathe?”

A-Da: “Through their mouths?”

Bai Youwei paused mid-crawl. Her lips twitched. She replied, “Some insects breathe through spiracles and tracheae—like cockroaches, ants, and locusts. Along both sides of their abdomen are rows of small circular openings, equivalent to a human’s nostrils. Another group breathes through gills—like dragonfly larvae and mayflies.”

“The mutants don’t live underwater, so gill respiration is unlikely,” Shen Mo said. “Spiracle respiration is the more probable option.”

“Yes.” Bai Youwei gave a small nod. “They look like arthropod-type insects. Most arthropods breathe through spiracles. But here’s what’s strange—this type of insect doesn’t typically coat itself in thick, wet slime.”

A-Da caught on too, muttering, “Right—if their bodies are constantly damp, the spiracles would get blocked. How would they breathe at all?”

“There’s another method of breathing…” Bai Youwei said, “cutaneous respiration. The most classic example is the earthworm.”

Natasha was surprised. “An earthworm?”

Mutants, in both their crawling form and their upright lizard-like posture, were extremely difficult to associate with something as soft-bodied as an earthworm.

“They don’t look alike at all,” Bai Youwei said. “But the habit of secreting slime is quite similar. An earthworm’s skin is rich with fine capillaries. Oxygen first dissolves into the mucus on the surface of the skin, then penetrates through the body wall and enters the capillaries. That’s why earthworms need to constantly secrete slime to stay moist. In other words—without the slime, an earthworm dies.”

Natasha listened, and understanding dawned. She turned it over carefully, then sighed with growing frustration. “If only we still had gasoline—burn them alive!”

Even if it didn’t kill them outright, a dry environment would certainly cause them tremendous suffering.

“I actually could still think of a way to get some gasoline,” Bai Youwei said from ahead, speaking slowly and unhurriedly, “but it’s not really practical in the current situation… If we set things on fire, the smoke would enter the ventilation ducts. We’d be suffocated.”

Natasha: “So… we don’t ignite it yet? Wait until we get out of the vents, then light it?”

“No need to go that far.” Bai Youwei stopped. She was now directly above the supply closet where Yuri was waiting.

She tapped the grate lightly twice and called out softly, “Yuri~”

Yuri had heard them coming a while ago. “What’s the situation outside?”

“About 80% hatched, I’d say. There are a lot of them.”

Bai Youwei shifted forward slightly to make room, signaling for Shen Mo to pry open the ventilation grate above the closet.

Yuri’s expression was grave. “If it’s 80%, we absolutely don’t have enough bullets. We still have explosives, but their use has to be carefully planned—we need to find a way to concentrate the mutants first, then draw them to the right location before detonating…”

“We don’t need to…” Bai Youwei stretched a small hand down through the opened vent and gave Yuri a wave. “On the shelf behind you—that bottle of toilet bowl cleaner… yes, that one, the big one. Pass it up.”

—