Raymond signaled everyone to shut up and stop playing tricks.

Raymond drew pictures and learned the expressions of the ants when repairing the statue. He used the pictures to say hello and introduced himself, explaining that they had no hostility and that the previous behavior was purely accidental. Then he asked the other party the names of several big ants.

The leader of the big black ant drew several ants on the sand table. Triangular, circular, and spiral symbols emanated from their tentacles to distinguish them from each other.

"What do you mean?" Opal asked.

Raymond pondered for a moment and replied: "It should mean that they are not like us humans who use names to distinguish them. We all have no names and rely on the smell of our bodies to identify each other."

Opal nodded slowly, watching Raymond write, and found that Raymond was still very smart. He did have the ability to serve as the leader of the regiment. He was calm and stable, no better than the senior mercenaries he had seen.

The regiment leaders were inferior. If it were Opal himself, he wouldn't have thought of many things.

After Raymond finished painting, he and Opal put their left fists on their right shoulders and performed the mercenary etiquette.

The big black ants on the opposite side watched quietly. The last few ants entwined their tentacles together and bowed slightly to them. The two parties met and reached a friendly relationship. Raymond expressed his question with pictures: [Let's find a spaceship.

And a few humans.]

Based on Sid's previous description, Raymond drew the spaceship on the sand table, as well as the symbols of several villains, and a suitcase next to it.

The big black ant put a cross on the spaceship to show that he had never seen it before, and then circled the box.

Opal: "!!!"

Sid: "!!!"

Sid: "What! They've seen my dad! Where is he!!"

Raymond said: "Don't be impulsive! Opal, hold him down!"

There was a small commotion among the ants, and the leader kept watching them with his compound eyes. Sid said to the leader: "I beg you, tell me where my father is!"

The surroundings were full of ants watching the fun. They seemed to be very curious. They quickly hugged Sid and whispered comfort. Raymond drew an adult holding a little man on the sand table. The little man circled out and pointed at Sid.

"You are so smart!" Opal praised.

Raymond smiled modestly.

The leader understood and nodded slowly.

It drew undulating mountains and rivers on the ground. The four of them stared at each other with bated breath. The big black ant drew a very complicated map that filled the entire sand table, and finally drew an arch in the upper left corner.

Opal: “???”

He was puzzled, turned around and slowly walked to the edge of the ants. An ant came over and touched him with its tentacles. Opal touched it with his hand.

Raymond said: "Don't move, I don't want to cause any more trouble."

The ant retreated. The atmosphere was very harmonious at the moment. The relationship between the two parties was so good that they could call each other brothers. They were indeed very warm and hospitable. The teacher was right - Opal thought to himself. He affectionately took the initiative to put a hand on the smooth carapace back of the black ant leader and counted several times.

People and ants look at the sand table together.

The branch of the big black ant returned to the lower right corner of the sand table, and it drew a strange, huge monster. The monster looked a bit like an ant, but it had wings and was very large. Finally, it connected the ant with wings to

The small box circled around, drew a line, and flew directly towards the arched object.

"What does this mean?" Raymond narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"This thing." Opal looked at it for a long time and said, "Take the box and go somewhere?"

Raymond pointed at the pattern, then pointed at his head, spread his hands, and made an incomprehensible movement, like a polite gentleman. The big black ant observed them for a long time, then turned its head to communicate with other ants using its antennae for a while.

.

Opal and Raymond were both confused, and quickly said: "Ask it where our spaceship is."

"There's no rush." ​​Raymond said, "Let's figure things out first. There are too many puzzles."

This time the ants talked for a long time, nearly half an hour, and finally reached a consensus. A group of ants gave way to the passage, and the big black ant motioned for everyone to follow them.

Opal and Raymond followed the ants leading the way. When they communicated, they could lift up their front legs, but when they were rushing, they moved their six legs together. They walked very fast, stopping and stopping, and walked a long way in the underground tunnel.

Far away, and finally entered a huge and spectacular space.

Ants surrounded the four of them, and the leader pointed to the scene in the space, which was full of broken egg shells.

Raymond said: "This is their nursery."

Opal nodded slowly, surrounded by a shimmer of minerals. There was a turbid, dark red film in the center of the nursery, which was wrapped with living objects, and something was slowly pulsing inside.

Raymond became more and more confused and asked Opal: "Do you know what it means?"

Opal seemed to have vaguely touched something and said: "The one in the middle is their queen...?"

"Queen ant?" Opal murmured: "Queen ant! I understand! This matter has something to do with the queen ant! That thing is not the queen ant! The queen ant flew away! What is that?"

Raymond immediately understood that there was no sand table around. He signaled that he understood. The big black ant led them back. Opal and Raymond quickly started talking, and now they all understood.

Sid asked urgently: "Where are the people? Where are the others?"

Raymond: "Wait, let's sort out the information first. The queen ant took the box and flew to the mountain. What does the arc represent? Is it the plants grown in the box? Maybe we have misunderstood it."

Opal: "At least what we know so far is that the spacecraft was not destroyed in the explosion."

Raymond nodded slowly, and Opal added: "This is not an accident, it is a human factor. It has something to do with the person carrying the box. If you find him, you can find Sid's father."

Raymond hummed, and they returned to the central sand table. Raymond said, "But I don't understand, what does it want to show us?"

Several people stopped, and Raymond began to ask the big black ant. The big black ant drew a small ant next to the queen, then drew a line, circled to the queen, and then circled back.

Opal finally understood.

"Evolution!" Sid said: "I studied a little bit of entomology, and it must be because their queen is gone, so one of the populations is evolving towards the queen!"

Opal also remembered. He had read in the textbook that this is a natural adjustment mechanism - a method for a group to maintain its ability to reproduce itself after the queen ant dies or disappears.

He said solemnly: "So we'd better...find the queen ant back as well."

Opal took a deep breath and said: "This commission seems very troublesome, but there is no reward."

Raymond said: "What time is it? I'm still thinking about the reward. I don't really expect these ants to go to the union to entrust any tasks... Forget it, let's go and see first."

Raymond signaled the big black ant to find a spaceship for them, but the big black ant refused to let the few people leave. After smoothing the sand table, he drew a fat thing.

Opal: "?"

Raymond: "..."

Opal: "It's really hard to communicate with these guys."

Raymond's face twitched: "What can I do..."

While he was talking, a group of ants carried a huge, half-dead insect into the ground.

Everyone was dumbfounded.

Xun said: "Does it mean to invite us to dinner?"

The ants came out of the tunnels extending in all directions and swarmed towards the fat, white insect more than ten meters long. Raymond's handsome face turned green on the spot.

A group of ants gnawed an insect. The scene was really spectacular. There was splashing mucus everywhere, and the insect's skin was peeled off bit by bit. Sid turned around in an instant and vomited. Raymond couldn't help but avoid it and held on to the wall.

Also started vomiting.

Everyone ran to the corner and did not dare to look anymore. Opal only felt nauseated. Fortunately, the lessons in mercenary training and the power of faith effectively helped him successfully prevent the nausea.

"I, I, I...I don't want to eat." Opal said to the big black ant.

Big Black Ant Leader: "?"

Opal drew a little man with long arms and legs on the sand table, pointed at Raymond to indicate that it was him, and drew a protruding belly, saying, "He is pregnant and cannot eat bugs."

Raymond shouted angrily: "Stop talking nonsense!"

Big black ant leader: "???"

Opal began to waste time with the big black ant incoherently, saying: "A child appears in the belly, look. We don't want to eat this. The spaceship will find it and leave. I will bring the queen ant back to you... Goodbye."

"

A group of ants tore out the intestines of the insect and dragged them over to Opal, dragging them on the ground. The mucus-filled intestines completely and directly penetrated Opal's limit of tolerance, and he finally vomited.

Half an hour later, through repeated persistence, Raymond made the big black ants understand that they would not eat these. The ants poured out of the cave again to carry their spaceship back. Everyone was spinning and exhausted.

The two spaceships were carried by the ants to the open space outside the woods.

Raymond told the leader of the black ants that they wanted to take a look. The leader of the black ants led a group of ants to guide the way on the ground. The four of them controlled two spaceships to take off, fly at low altitude, and slowly fly to the black line on the ground.

After flying for a long time, the endless mossy plain was surrounded by dense ants, and the scene was extremely spectacular. The black ants spontaneously made way for an open space, and the spacecraft landed. Opal was stunned when he stepped out of the spacecraft.

In the middle of the wilderness, the ring-shaped building that the ants had drawn earlier was a lonely starry sky gate.
Chapter completed!