Chapter 1 A New Beginning

Having given Zhu Tiandao a few instructions, Zhang Ji quickly left the West District office compound.

The streets were chaotic. From the distant fog came a cacophony of noise, followed by people rushing from the mist carrying a stretcher.

On the stretcher was a crashed pilot, covered in blood.

"Quick, a doctor, help him!"

"Is there a doctor?..."

The stretcher was carried into the nearest Xichuan Town West District People's Hospital, but after several nights of calamity, like many businesses, the hospital doors were wide open, but not a single doctor or physician was to be found.

Broken glass littered the floor, and the walls were splattered with blood.

Some former medical staff in the vicinity voluntarily stepped forward to help with the rescue.

Zhang Ji curiously walked over, and he heard the crowd talking.

"It's a pilot. All three planes crashed. There's no way out through the sky either. Six pilots, four dead and two injured."

"Alas, we are truly trapped here."

"The ground is blocked by the forest, and the sky is impassable. What will we do in the future?"

The surrounding people were agitated.

Zhang Ji turned to leave, but he heard a loudspeaker again on the square. It was the newly appointed West District Chief, Long Shuhai, speaking loudly.

"Fellow villagers, the sky is impassable, and the ground is blocked by the forest. People are dying every night. This is an unprecedented disaster for Xichuan Town."

"Today, my daughter is also seriously injured. Perhaps she will die, but I have no regrets."

"Xichuan Town is my home, and it is also your home. We cannot just sit here and wait for death. We must find a way out and escape Xichuan Town!"

His voice was hoarse, but very infectious.

The surrounding people were emotional and shouted, "Escape Xichuan Town, escape Xichuan Town..."

Long Shuhai's temples were silver, and he was not very burly, but at this moment his aura was strong, his eyes filled with tears, and a kind of tenacity and persistence.

"Now, the East District, North District, South District, and the most central High-Tech Zone of Xichuan Town are all working hard to find a way out. We in the West District cannot give up either!"

"What's blocking us is just a forest, isn't it? We'll burn it down!"

"If the authorities want to pursue responsibility in the future, I, Long Shuhai, will take it all!"

Long Shuhai said loudly, his eyes red, obviously making this decision was very difficult.

But it instantly caused a lot of people to cheer and agree, and applause thundered.

Zhang Ji was shocked.

Burning the forest, what courage!

A forest fire could turn the entire Xichuan Town into scorched earth if one wasn't careful, but on second thought, there was really no other way now. This seemed to be the only way to survive from a desperate situation.

Long Shuhai was completely different from the previous district chief, Lu Wencai. He did what he said he would do, and immediately led the townspeople to clear the road, driving more than a dozen cars loaded with fuel to the outer forest.

Many West District townspeople spontaneously went to help, and Zhang Ji curiously followed.

On the way, he met his father, Zhang Zhishan, who was very excited.

"Zhang Ji, this time our West District has a ruthless character! Burning the forest, maybe it can really break the blockade and find a way out!"

Zhang Ji nodded in agreement: "Yes, this Long Shuhai is indeed different from the former Lu Wencai. He is a man of action."

But he was worried.

This forest was strange. It suddenly appeared on the day of the Xichuan Town disaster, surrounding the entire Xichuan Town. The forest was full of towering trees, as if they had been growing for many years, but there were no birds, animals, or insects, a deathly silence.

Extremely strange.

Many people had tried countless times to cross this forest and escape Xichuan Town, but they all returned exhausted, with no way out.

Could burning the forest today really find a way out?

Zhang Ji grabbed a handful of the void, and the mist swirled in his palm, damp and cold, like a drizzle, but it made people's skin and bones feel cold.

The mist fell on the ancient trees of the forest, turning into damp dew that flowed and dripped from the tips of the leaves, merging into the ground.

Zhang Ji's eyes suddenly narrowed, and he thought of a serious problem.

"If anything absorbed the strange mist the most after the strange mist disaster, it's probably this forest!"

"Humans absorb the strange mist and become兽化变异 (shou hua bian yi, beastly mutants), but other cattle, sheep, livestock, and plants have not mutated. Why?"

"Could it be just because their bodies don't have the bloodline imprint of the twelve zodiac animals?!"

The bloodline imprint theory was Zhu Tiandao's speculation. Zhang Ji thought about it at this moment and felt that there must be loopholes in it.

Zhu Tiandao didn't consider other livestock and plants. He only studied humans.

Seeing the people around him pouring fuel on the outer trees, Zhang Ji felt uneasy and said to his father, Zhang Zhishan, "Let's stand back!"

"What's wrong?"

"It's hard to say, I have an uncomfortable feeling, I can't explain it."

Zhang Zhishan was surprised when he heard this and said, "I thought it was an illusion. I have this feeling too, like a great disaster is coming, it's very depressing."

Zhang Ji's heart skipped a beat when he heard this.

He quickly pulled his father back and shouted, "Don't light the fire yet, everyone wait—!"

However, someone had already lit a fire.

"Whoosh~ Boom~"

The fire instantly rose into the air, and with the help of the fuel, a large area of flames ignited.

The flames rose with the wind, burning away the mist in the void, with thick smoke billowing as the flames spread to the surrounding trees.

The heat was scorching, and everyone retreated, covering their faces, their eyes expectant and excited.

The fire grew bigger and bigger, spreading to the surrounding ancient trees of the forest, burning half the sky red. The thick smoke cleared the mist, and the sky had a rare hint of clarity.

Large tracts of forest were turned into scorched earth, and the once disappeared highway actually showed signs of appearing.

"Look, it's an asphalt road, hahaha, burning the forest is the right thing to do, we can get out!"

"That's right, I saw it too, it's the Xichuan Expressway. I've driven here many times."

"Thank District Chief Long Shuhai, he is our savior of Xichuan Town!"

Everyone cheered Long Shuhai's name, very excited, seeing the hope of escaping Xichuan Town.

Zhang Ji was puzzled. Could the feeling just now be wrong?!

He stared at the forest that had been burned by the fire. The ash on the ground was black, heavy, and gloomy, covered in a thick layer, which was obsidian material.

So much obsidian material was shocking.

Just then.

In the sky, in the mist and black smoke, lightning flashed suddenly, thunder rumbled, and a strong wind swept between heaven and earth. The wind blew so hard that people couldn't open their eyes, but it was particularly gloomy and cold.

Then, it started to rain in the sky, but it was red fur like blood, like the fur of some animal.

The red fur rain fluttered and floated across the earth, falling on everyone, the trees, and the grass. In an instant, the ground was a sea of red.

The distant forest was burning with fire, but when the red fur rain fell, it quietly extinguished. In the end, even the thick smoke disappeared, and the thick fog re-shrouded everything.

Zhang Ji stretched out his palm and waved it in the void.

A large cluster of red fur fell into his palm, but it was wriggling, like countless tiny red insects, and slowly burrowed into his flesh and pores, disappearing.

Zhang Ji was shocked and hurriedly patted his palm, but it was too late.

His palm was immediately sore and swollen, and black-brown scales began to appear on the skin of the back of his hand.

It was the scales of a king cobra.

And on his body, face, neck, chest, legs, and all over his body, there was a burst of numbness, and scales grew out of his pores.

In a moment, his whole body was covered with scales, turning him into a humanoid monster covered in snake scales.

It was like wearing a layer of snake scale armor, only revealing his eyes, and the rest of his body was covered in snake scales.