The spider demon, which was what the giant spider on the computer screen was called, had appeared in neighboring Japan before Qin Sang discovered this one. Word was that it had wiped out half a city’s population. They had only received that news recently themselves. No one expected one to appear in the country too, and in Huashan City, a second-tier city at that.
Xiao Ma had no idea what Xu Lin was thinking and asked directly, “How many people died this time?”
Xu Lin replied, “One…”
“One as many as—what? Only one? Damn, did we get a superhero or something?” In Xiao Ma’s mind, a spider demon with that much destructive power—killing only one person before being taken down was incredible!
Xu Lin’s eyes sharpened. “It was discovered early this time. The reason so many people died in Japan was because that giant spider attacked by surprise.”
Of course, it also had something to do with how useless Japan’s armed forces were.
Xiao Ma had already run off excitedly to find someone to ask about the scene. Just then, Xu Lin’s phone rang. He answered it, and a very irritating voice came from the other end. “Yo, Da Linzi, did you see that? Your little sister is amazing. She discovered a spider demon and still dared to charge right at it. She’s so capable, and here you are stuck in an office. You look pretty useless in comparison!”
Xu Lin replied, “Even useless, I’m still better than you. All brawn and no brains.”
“Hey, hey, hey, I’ll take that as a compliment on my physique! Hahaha…”
Xu Lin was speechless. This Kang Shaoqi really had a smart mouth. He still couldn’t tell if knowing him was good luck or bad.
“Enough joking around. I heard the authorities recently released a new type of electric scooter. Get me one and send it directly to my place for Qin Sang. Don’t give me any excuses. Don’t say you can’t get it.”
If he weren’t stuck in the office and unable to leave right now, Xu Lin would have preferred to go back himself to deliver it.
After being bombarded with demands, Kang Shaoqi hung up the phone, lamenting that he had made the wrong friends. But his hands moved quickly as he happily ran off to the supplies department to buy the item.
Yes, he had connections to get officially newly developed items. But he couldn’t just take them for free—he had to exchange them for points. And as for the points, Xu Lin was definitely the one paying for them.
—
Meanwhile, Qin Sang had slept the entire way home on the bus. It wasn’t until she got off that she noticed Xu Lin had called her several times. She hadn’t answered, so he had also sent her a bunch of messages.
After reading through them one by one, her expression turned to one of shock.
She immediately called him back. “Is all of this true?”
On the other end of the line, Xu Lin nodded. “It’s all true. Not many people know about it yet. The related information online has been blocked. But the authorities will announce it publicly soon. You’ve been in contact with a giant spider, so you should know how powerful these mutated insects really are.”
As he said this, Xu Lin looked at the battle scenes on his computer screen, which looked like something out of a special effects movie, and sighed. “Sangsang, our world might really be about to change dramatically.”
Qin Sang hung up the phone, still reeling from the shock. The messages Xu Lin had sent her were nothing short of horrifying.
Centipedes three to four meters long, mantises one meter tall, mosquitoes half a meter tall, flies half a meter tall, snails half a meter tall, and countless other insects—biting midges, ants, rove beetles, aphids, termites, bed bugs, locusts, fleas, cotton bollworms, pine caterpillars, bees, butterflies, dragonflies, mantises, ladybugs, earthworms, and so on—had all mutated.
They had grown larger in size, their limbs had become stronger, and some had even become as sharp as the giant spider’s legs.
These mutated insects had been discovered all over the world, but the numbers found so far were still relatively small.
That was only for now. Given the current trend, it was possible that someday in the future, the numbers of these mutated insects would appear in swarms just like the giant cockroaches. When that day came, it would be the true beginning of humanity’s disaster.
Thinking of this, Qin Sang shuddered.
She knew firsthand just how lethal the giant spider was. Compared to the giant spider, even the giant cockroaches seemed cute.
Then again, no. Qin Sang’s mind suddenly wandered: The giant cockroaches appearing now were only palm-sized but came in swarms. The giant spider was two to three meters long but appeared alone. Did that mean that in the future, these particularly large insects would appear, but not in swarms?
Just as Qin Sang was letting her imagination run wild, she suddenly felt a disturbance in her spatial space. Frowning, she went upstairs, ignoring her parents’ questions, and entered the space directly.
—
“Why did you only come in now!”
“That giant spider earlier was useful!”
“This is terrible. Why is this thing appearing already!”
As soon as she entered the space, Grandpa Goose started scolding her non-stop. Qin Sang rubbed her temples, ignored him, and walked straight over to the energy water. She poured half a cup and drank it down.
After feeling a wave of energy spread from her mouth throughout her body, Qin Sang finally grabbed a chair and sat down. She took out a boxed roast goose rice meal from her space and started eating.
Seeing her so relaxed, Grandpa Goose fumed and hopped about, muttering, “Little Sangsang, Little Sangsang…”
Ignoring his nagging, Qin Sang finished the roast goose rice, then took out a bowl of red bean soup. After downing the red bean soup, she pulled out a sand pear and crunched away at it.
Just like that, Grandpa Goose’s fiery temper was completely defused by Qin Sang’s demeanor.
“Calmed down now?” Qin Sang raised an eyebrow at the deflated Grandpa Goose. But she reached out and lifted him onto the table beside her.
“Go on, Grandpa Goose. Is there something wrong with that giant spider?” If there weren’t, her heart wouldn’t have started pounding so anxiously just from getting near it.
Grandpa Goose wanted to flare up again at this, but thinking of Qin Sang’s methods, he said grumpily, “That thing shouldn’t be appearing right now. At the very earliest, it should appear a year from now. But here it is.”
Qin Sang thought to herself, just as I suspected.
When the swarms of giant cockroaches had appeared earlier, Grandpa Goose hadn’t reacted at all. But the moment the giant spider showed up, he got so anxious that he used the space to alert her.
“Did something go wrong during the world consciousness simulation?”
Grandpa Goose shook his head. “I’m not sure. But the world’s trajectory isn’t set in stone. At the same node, one world can have countless different trajectories. This current trajectory has deviated a little from the intended path.”
“How much is ‘a little’?” Qin Sang asked bluntly.
Grandpa Goose extended a wing and pointed to one tiny strand of down feather on it.
Qin Sang: And here I thought the world was about to end.
Grandpa Goose could see what Qin Sang was thinking and glared at her. “If giant spider creatures like this only appeared a year from now, one-third of humanity would be able to deal with them. But now they’ve appeared early. How many people do you think can handle them now?”
Qin Sang: One percent, maybe…
Grandpa Goose continued, “Humans can’t afford to die off in such large numbers all at once.”
Qin Sang felt this statement was somehow odd. But she didn’t nitpick over wording and directly asked the questions that had been on her mind.
“How did that giant spider mutate in the first place? And by not leaving the second underground level, was it guarding something?”
Grandpa Goose gave Qin Sang a look that said “smart girl.” “It wasn’t a natural mutation. According to the simulated world progression, naturally mutated large insects appear one year from now. The reason this one appeared early is because an energy crystal has condensed in the outside world.”
Qin Sang sighed internally. Another one of those mystical days. But she could understand the concept of an energy crystal. She figured it was probably similar to the spirit stones in cultivation novels.
Hearing this analogy, Grandpa Goose nodded again. “That’s right. Energy crystals can not only cause insects to mutate, but they can also enhance human physical capabilities.”
Qin Sang had thought maybe they could turn humans into superhumans.
“How could that be? An insect’s structure is much simpler compared to a human’s. For a human to become a superhuman, it might take tens of millions of energy crystals. But for an insect, not so many.”
Grandpa Goose continued, “You couldn’t retrieve that giant spider’s body, could you?”
Qin Sang shook her head.
“The next time you kill one, remember to extract the energy core from its head. That thing is useful.”
Qin Sang thought: Energy crystals have appeared, so I suppose energy cores aren’t so surprising either.
She didn’t ask any more questions; she probably wouldn’t get many answers anyway. After confirming with Grandpa Goose that energy crystals weren’t something common and cheap, Qin Sang finally breathed a sigh of relief. This meant that over the next year, even if mutated insects appeared, there wouldn’t be too many of them.
But then Qin Sang looked directly at Grandpa Goose. “Does the space have any legendary divine weapons? In my fight with the giant spider yesterday, I found that ordinary weapons were completely useless.”
Official weapons were controlled items, and there was no way she could get her hands on those.
Grandpa Goose didn’t waste any time this time. He happily and readily flapped his wings. A ball of light drifted toward Qin Sang. When it reached her, the ball shattered. Inside fell a silver longbow and three silver arrows.
Qin Sang couldn’t tell what material either the longbow or the arrows were made of. The moment she grabbed them, a dragon’s roar echoed in her mind.
Qin Sang’s eyes widened as she looked at Grandpa Goose.
No way! No way! It couldn’t be that exaggerated, could it? Was this still the world she had lived in for over twenty years?
Grandpa Goose held his head high, looking at her as if to say she was just too inexperienced.
Qin Sang then looked at the energy pool not far away. The sago-grain-sized dragon egg had grown to the size of a slightly larger sago grain.
Right, that was a dragon egg.
And right, the bow and arrows in her hands were made from dragon materials.
“The arrows you shoot will automatically return, drawn back by the bow’s attraction. Once you blood-bond with it, you’ll know how to use it. Originally, this was meant to be given to you a year from now. But the world is changing too fast now. Even I can’t quite understand its trajectory. Take good care of this Dragon’s Roar Bow.”
Qin Sang rarely saw Grandpa Goose so serious. She immediately stood up straight, her expression firm. “I understand.”
Afterward, Qin Sang found an open space in the space to practice. Of course, the blood-bonding step was essential.
After bonding, Qin Sang learned the origins of the bow. The bow body was forged from dragon bone, the bowstring from dragon sinew. The arrows were also made from dragon bone, with arrowheads from dragon teeth.
Anyway, after learning the materials of this bow and arrows, Qin Sang truly doubted whether she was still asleep.
But when she tried to draw the bow, she knew she was definitely not dreaming.
Because she couldn’t draw the bowstring at all.
Looking down at the silver-white longbow radiating a cool aura, Qin Sang felt a little dejected. Her own small body was still too weak.
She thought for a moment, then channeled all the energy in her body to her arms. She tried to draw the bowstring again. This time she succeeded, but the arrow she shot wobbled and veered off course. It was not at all worthy of the bow’s power.
Sigh. A long road ahead.
She had such an awesome weapon, but she herself was too weak.
It seemed she needed to cultivate more. The more energy she had in her body, the more she would be able to draw this Dragon’s Roar Bow.
She had wanted to practice more in the space. But knowing she couldn’t draw the Dragon’s Roar Bow for now, Qin Sang simply put the bow and arrows away and went out first to tell her parents about the previous day’s events. And then to urge them to cultivate more energy.
Given the current situation, the more energy one had in their body, the higher their chances of survival in the future.
—
“She’s out, she’s out…”
Seeing Qin Sang emerge from the space, Qin Ma quickly called Qin Ba over. At the same time, she asked Qin Sang, “Did something happen?”
Qin Sang didn’t waste time. She briefly and quickly recounted the incident with the giant spider.
Qin Ma found it hard to imagine just how big the so-called giant spider was.
Qin Sang simply showed her parents the drone footage. After watching it, the two elders fell silent.
Qin Ba said, “I’ve only just gotten used to the swarms of giant cockroaches appearing. And now there are spider demons…”
Qin Ma added, “And centipede demons, mosquito demons, mantis demons, fly demons, earthworm demons…”
Qin Sang said, “These are mutated insects. They mutate when stimulated by energy crystals.”
Qin Sang explained to her parents the information she had gotten from Grandpa Goose. After hearing it, Qin Ba and Qin Ma fell silent again.
After a long while, the two of them said, “We really need to cultivate more energy. Sangsang, we need to tell Da Linzi about this.”
Qin Sang nodded. But this kind of mystical matter was better discussed face to face.
Just as they were talking, the sound of a car came from downstairs. Qin Sang went out to look. Hey, it was someone she knew. Xu Lin had said his name was Kang Shaoqi.
“Come down, Qin Sang.”
Although Qin Sang didn’t know him well, she knew from Xu Lin that he was Xu Lin’s friend, so she went downstairs.
“The authorities’ latest product—a solar-powered scooter. It can operate in high and low temperatures. It’s definitely a great tool for getting around.”
Qin Sang watched as he shoved the scooter into her hands. She didn’t refuse.
“Thanks! By the way, after the giant spider’s body was brought out last night, did they find anything in the parking garage?”
By now, Qin Sang was pretty sure that the treasure the giant spider had been guarding was an energy crystal.
Kang Shaoqi chuckled twice. “Not telling you.” Then he got back in his car, waved, and drove off very casually.
Alright then. She figured she wouldn’t get an answer.
Qin Sang wasn’t upset. Carrying her new scooter, she went straight back home. In the eastern sky, the first rays of sunlight were already faintly visible.
This night was about to pass.
A new day was about to begin.
On the new day, Qin Sang didn’t laze around. She rested for half a day, then spent the afternoon cultivating and absorbing energy. When the sun set, Qin Sang, fully equipped and riding her now-familiar scooter, came straight out of her house.
She was going to walk around the neighborhood and see if she might encounter any mutated insects.
Leaving her house, she completely failed to notice that the withered aloe plant by the courtyard gate seemed to have moved slightly.
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