pertwk Chapter 4: Pitcher Plant with Two Teeth, Flathead Ant of Shih's
Chapter 4: Pitcher Plant with Two Teeth, Flathead Ant of Shih's
At this moment, Ye Zhi's mind was unusually clear. He began to think about all the attack methods he currently possessed.
Due to chimerism, the upper jaw is uneven in size, making it difficult to function effectively. The only effective means of attack available to the individual is formic acid from the abdominal venom glands.
Ye Zhi subconsciously gritted his teeth, clenched his jaws, crossed them together, and slowly raised his slender nodules and lower abdomen, with the end of his abdomen pointing forward like a scorpion's tail, ready to go.
The ant-spider also moved, launching another deadly attack. Its forelimbs, disguised as antennae, suddenly slammed down, another familiar death embrace, as it lunged at Ye Zhi.
At this moment, Ye Zhi also responded. Its tightly clenched upper jaw loosened, as if letting out a silent roar at the pouncing ant-spider. Its abdomen also began to contract, preparing to spray out formic acid.
But then, a sudden change occurred – when the jaws were clenched earlier, the longer left jaw crossed with the shorter right jaw, and the shorter right jaw hooked onto the left jaw like a pick. Now, it suddenly loosened, causing the elastic potential energy accumulated by the longer left jaw to be released forward and strike the spider's forelimbs!
The reaction force that made Ye Zhi's jaws go numb caused the ant-spider's pounce to be interrupted, causing it to tilt to the side and lose its direction.
At the same time, Ye Zhi's abdomen moved, and formic acid sprayed out, which, with the help of a special structure at the end of his abdomen, shot out in a fan shape, spraying directly onto the face of the ant-spider!
At this moment, Ye Zhi exerted all his strength... or rather, the strength of eating honeydew from aphids, spraying out almost half of his venom gland's formic acid at the same time, causing the ant-spider, still in mid-air, to immediately begin to convulse.
This time, the ant-spider's pounce completely lost its direction, but its body still flew forward with the remaining momentum, crashing into Ye Zhi from the side. Ye Zhi was already unsteady on his feet from the previous impact, and now his claws slipped, causing him to fall from the tip of the leaf.
The wind whistled past beside the antennae. The ant-spider was nowhere to be found; it had probably fallen as well. One wonders if something of its size falling from that height would land it in jail.
But Ye Zhi felt that if he didn't do something, he would be going to jail first. In his panic, he suddenly remembered his wings, which he had never used since he was born. He quickly controlled the flight muscles on his back and opened his membranous wings.
The descent slowed somewhat, but it wasn't much better. He tried to recall the structure of an insect's flight muscles, twitched his back, and managed to flap his wings haphazardly a couple of times.
The bad news is that although the two pairs of wings were not significantly affected by the interlocking and maintained basic symmetry, it seems that the development of his flight muscles was affected, and no matter how much he flapped his wings, his body always maintained a downward trend.
Silently praying that the flying predators wouldn't target him, a chimera with little flesh, and continue to devour his healthy brothers and sisters, Ye Zhi tried his best to control his body while scanning the ground below with his compound eyes, searching for a safer landing spot.
They seemed to be nearing the edge of the forest, where the trees were becoming increasingly sparse. But then, something suddenly came into view: a huge vine growing on a slope, with a bottle-shaped structure faintly visible at the tip of its broad leaves.
"This is... a pitcher plant?"
Ye Zhi immediately had an idea – he was now forced to end his days of eating and drinking for free and live in seclusion, and had to face the perilous jungle alone like an ant, and this pitcher plant seemed to be a good hiding place.
This carnivorous plant might help me get rid of those unfriendly carnivorous insects that come near, and since I know how it hunts, there's no danger to me.
While pondering, he tried his best to steady himself and headed towards the pitcher plant—of course, he also had to try to avoid falling directly into the pitcher and becoming a casualty.
A soft thud was heard, and Ye Zhi managed a forward roll, landing on the pitcher plant's broad leaves. He retracted his membranous wings, immediately used his claw pads to grip the leaves firmly, and then looked down.
But this one glance made Ye Zhi think to himself, "Holy crap!"—because, above the pitcher plant's bottle-shaped insect trap, beneath the lid structure designed to prevent rainwater from pouring in, there was a pair of tooth-like protrusions resembling venomous snake fangs.
The name "Nepenthes didentata" popped into Ye Zhi's mind. In fact, Ye Zhi didn't know much about plants, but the reason he knew the specific name of this plant and even uttered the two-word exclamation from the bottom of his heart was entirely due to another reason.
According to memories from my previous life, this pitcher plant is a plant that lives in ants. Its pitcher is connected to the leaves by a large, hollow vine structure, and inside it often lives a small ant called the flathead ant of Scheres!
In other words, their plan to find shelter completely failed, and they even stumbled into someone else's home. For ants with a strong sense of territory, this is undoubtedly a provocation.
Countless fine rustling sounds confirmed Ye Zhi's guess. In his compound eyes, several pale yellowish-brown figures crawled out from the vines below, their bodies round and plump, clearly resembling the Shi clan flat-headed ants from his previous life's memories.
Realizing something was wrong, Ye Zhi quickly turned around, climbed up the middle stem from the broad leaf surface, and continued climbing upwards.
He silently reflected on the battle with the ant-spider, trying to learn from it and find a way to use it now—he stumbled upon the method of using these asymmetrical jaws by accident.
In my past life, I seemed to recall a species of termite called the Twisted Termite, which had evolved asymmetrical mandibles and used this head-flicking attack method to fight enemies. That meant that if I occupied a favorable position, I could repel the enemy's attack.
In addition, he seems to have mastered some flying ability, so if all else fails, he can choose to take off again to evade. In any case, continuing to climb higher up the stem is the best solution at present.
Ye Zhi used all six limbs to climb upwards, its claws gripping the smooth stem. Below, the rustling sound seemed to grow closer, indicating that more ants were chasing after it.
As the sound grew closer, Ye Zhi turned around, head down, and continued climbing backward. At the same time, he crossed his jaws together as before, accumulating elastic potential energy in preparation for an attack.
In the compound eye, the shape of the flathead ant is clearly visible. The leader is a large worker ant, whose head has a flat, circular cross-section in front, like a shield protecting the smaller worker ants behind it.
Ye Zhi also moved. His six limbs suddenly leaned forward, and his two mandibles, one large and one small, opened up and swung out with the accumulated elastic potential energy, striking the front of the head of the leading worker ant, the flathead ant!