"Let's not be too curious about this..." the fisherman said weakly, "If we get recorded too, we'll be trapped forever."

"Immortality, how fascinating," Sun Hang said in a half-joking tone, "If it were ancient times and you presented this to the emperor, you'd definitely get a title and rewards."

"No, thanks... According to Shino, everything recorded gets reset to its state four years ago, so whatever I did in those four years becomes meaningless, and even the memories get wiped... The thought alone is terrifying."

"Wait a minute." Sun Hang suddenly interrupted the fisherman, "Shino, if someone recorded affected things outside the domain in those four years, would those changes remain after this person gets 'reset'? For example, if Dumi recorded a woman, and she went outside the domain and had a child with an unrecorded man in those four years, would the child vanish when she gets 'reset'?"

"Uh..." Faced with Sun Hang's question, Shino was stunned too, "I don't recall the experiment logs mentioning any attempts like that..."

"What about other clues? For example, if the natives ate food off the island, did it reappear in the lab cafeteria or kitchen after resetting, or, were their excrements a few hours before reset preserved in the lab's sewage pipes... is there no record of such things?"

Shino shook his head in astonishment, "No... no records at all."

"That's extremely careless." Sun Hang righteously criticized, "These researchers are too careless. Shouldn't recording the subjects' diet and excretions be the basic work content? Don't they do regular urinalysis and fecal exams on the natives? With such negligence, how can they conduct good research, benefit humanity, or fight unknown threats... It's truly sorrowful!"

"There should have been... but after four years, some complicated steps were omitted," Shino wiped the sweat from his forehead, "Or perhaps they did record it, but that era used paper documents, it's normal if they got lost over time."

"Well, there's no other way, let's just go through." Sun Hang glanced at the fisherman, "You leading the way?"

"Huh?" The fisherman pointed at himself, "Me leading? Really?"

"Or should we switch, and you come last?" Sun Hang suggested.

The fisherman looked at the vines in the tunnel, swallowed hard, and said, "Well, okay, I'll lead."

He took two deep breaths, walked to the entrance, but quickly stepped back, "These vines look quite tough, I don't think I can pull them apart with just my hands..."

"Don't you have a knife?" Sun Hang pointed to the short knife at the fisherman's waist.

Though the knife had an ordinary standard military combat blade design, its materials were anything but ordinary. Back on the warship, the fisherman boasted to Sun Hang that the knife was forged from a special material called "Gamma Alloy." This material was the latest technological marvel from the Dubhe Tower materials research institute, costing sixteen times more per gram than gold. The knife was issued to him under the guise of a "field test" — if he hadn't signed up for this advancement trial, he'd likely never have had this testing opportunity.

"You want me to use the knife to cut these vines?" the fisherman asked with a troubled expression, "These things won't have some reactive response, will they?"

"You'll have to ask Shino." Sun Hang turned to look at Shino.

"Theoretically, no," Shino replied, "According to the old records, except during blooming, Dumi in other states are quite 'harmless'... Even when the Pratangbuck Island natives cut its roots for incense, there was no reaction."

"Do archives from over a hundred years ago still have value?" the fisherman said, sweating, "Besides, this isn't the original; what if I cut it and it suddenly reacts?"

"From appearance, except for being slightly smaller, it matches the Dumi recorded in the archive exactly... that's why I recognized it immediately," Shino said.

"Whether it moves or not, a test will tell." Sun Hang said, pulling out his handgun, and fired a shot into the densest part of the vines.

"Bang!"

Two arm-thick vines were instantly severed by the bullet, and liquid as red as blood splattered from the cuts.

"See, no movement," Sun Hang said, "If you're still worried, I can take the lead."

A massive machete seemingly made of liquid metal materialized in Sun Hang's hand.

"Forget it, I'll do it." The fisherman gritted his teeth, drew his short knife, and went forward.

The knife rose and fell, slicing through a vine in front of the fisherman, dark red liquid sprayed onto his clothes.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit, it's just a flower! I can't be eaten alive by a flower! Damn you..." the fisherman muttered curses as he waved his short knife faster and faster... More and more vines were severed, gradually revealing a gap just big enough for someone to crouch through.

"Shino, follow him," Sun Hang urged from behind.

"Okay!" Shino put on his goggles, pushed aside the severed vines, and bent over into the tunnel.

Sun Hang looked around, and after ensuring nothing unusual, he followed them in.

The fisherman carefully avoided the budding flower, cutting a gap away from the bud, but when Sun Hang, at the end, passed by, he reached through the vines, grabbed the flower bud.

Sun Hang felt the bud pulse in his palm, a burning sensation flared in his hand.

But in the next second, a mouth appeared in his palm, biting the bud off the vine and swallowing it whole!

The burning sensation spread from Sun Hang's hand through his body, reaching every corner.

Unlike a soothing warmth, this burning made Sun Hang feel like every cell was boiling — if he must, those weight-loss ads claiming "burning fat" probably felt something like this.

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