“They’re actually opening up contracts for mutant plants?”
Qin Sang stared at the notification that popped up on the Survival APP and jumped up from the sofa in shock.
Only a week had passed since Professor Su’s visit. She had known what he was thinking that day. But she hadn’t expected him to act so quickly—or for the results to be so remarkable.
“But the points required are so high—probably not many people can afford it.”
Mother Qin chimed in, staring at the countless zeros on the required points page, utterly astonished.
Father Qin, on the other hand, pulled out his phone and started counting how many zeros were in his own balance. After counting, he let out a relieved sigh: “I have enough points!”
Qin Sang laughed at her father’s sigh of relief.
“Dad, even if you didn’t have enough, I’ve got more. Besides, that mutant mushroom by the table leg—as long as we provide it with enough energy, it’ll evolve again soon.”
After a second evolution, mutant plants could be contracted.
That was exactly why Qin Sang was so stunned when she saw the official announcement allowing contracts with mutant plants. What a massive undertaking it must have been to provide so many mutant plants for people to contract! Even if the number wasn’t enough for everyone, it must have consumed an immeasurable amount of energy.
Hearing about the mutant mushroom in their own home, Mother Qin hurried over to the table leg, crouched down, and gazed at it with great fondness. She turned to Qin Sang: “Sang Sang, aren’t you going to contract this little mushroom?”
Qin Sang shook her head. “I already have Little Grass Seed. I don’t need to contract another mutant plant for now.”
In fact, Qin Sang had already contracted three spirit beasts. The energy she had cultivated so far was enough for one more contract. She wanted to save that slot for a mutant animal.
Yes—now that mutant plants were appearing in large numbers, could mutant animals be far behind?
——
As the number of people contracting mutant plants grew, even though the rain continued, every insect attack was repelled. Qin Sang’s collection of energy cores multiplied rapidly. Half went to Grandpa Goose for incubating the dragon egg, and the other half she kept for her three little ones to cultivate.
But this torrential rain had another benefit besides reviving mutant plants—the free-floating energy in the air had spiked significantly.
It was as if the storm had washed the entire planet clean, unleashing vast amounts of energy. The ambient energy concentration had shot up.
And it was precisely this energy surge that accelerated the revival of mutant plants.
At this point, the energy density in the outside world was only slightly less than that inside the Roast Goose Space.
It was against this backdrop that the authorities officially announced the Counterattack Plan.
As soon as the plan was unveiled, it sparked heated debate online.
Qin Sang had heard about it long ago, so she wasn’t surprised to see it finally made public.
Still, she received quite a few messages asking whether she would join the counterattack.
Even Fa Ge came to her door in person to ask: “Sang Sang, are you going?”
Qin Sang handed him a bowl of sago pudding and said, “It depends. Let’s see the details the authorities release later before deciding. A counterattack makes sense, but we need to know what’s on the other side of those spatial fissures. Rushing in blind is way too dangerous. Both our families are only children—if something happened to us, our parents wouldn’t survive it.”
Fa Ge downed the sago in a few gulps, wiped his mouth, and sighed: “Yeah, I really want to go, but my parents aren’t happy about it.”
Quite a few of their generation were only children. Since the apocalypse began, every young life lost had created another bereaved family. Some of those families, having lost their children and facing an increasingly harsh world, had gone off to fight the insects to the death.
Their village had seen several such tragedies. Thinking about it, both fell silent.
“Anyway, don’t rush to sign up. Wait a bit. Also, ask Da Linzi if he’s heard any inside info.”
Qin Sang had her space, so even if she went, she wouldn’t be completely defenseless. But she didn’t approve of Fa Ge signing up without knowing anything.
Fa Ge took her advice and contacted Xu Lin right after leaving.
Xu Lin was in his office at the time. After receiving Fa Ge’s message, he gave the same advice: “Hold on for now. I’ll come back to the village tomorrow. We can talk about it then.”
After hanging up, Xu Lin looked at his computer screen.
On it was the latest data from inside the spatial passage. Not many of the probes deployed by the authorities were still active, but they had gathered a fair amount of information.
For instance, the passage had many forks, each possibly leading to a different space—the so-called folded spaces.
With space stacked upon space, anyone who wasn’t sensitive enough to spatial dynamics would likely lose their life if they ventured in recklessly.
The authorities were preparing to deploy a second batch of probes. Xu Lin also favored collecting more data before finalizing the details of the counterattack plan.
Qin Sang soon received Xu Lin’s message.
Seeing the words “wait a bit,” she smiled.
And wait she did—another month passed. During that month, things progressed much as before. More people contracted mutant plants. Energy weapons were mass-deployed, gradually replacing laser weapons.
The number of brain worm eggs carried by the rain had decreased significantly. Clearly, the interstellar insects knew that humans had found a way to kill brain worms.
In addition, the authorities had developed a new type of raincoat that covered the entire body, including the face, with waterproof material. Lightweight, form-fitting, and unrestricted in movement, it became an instant hit as soon as it launched.
With this new raincoat, even though the downpour continued, people were already coming out to hunt all kinds of insects.
The native insects that had undergone secondary evolution could not be contracted because they had been contaminated by the interstellar insects’ energy. So everyone focused on hunting those.
Whenever interstellar insects were deployed, people would swarm over to kill them too.
If they couldn’t win alone, there was no need to fear—they had numbers. One person wasn’t enough? Bring two. Two weren’t enough? Bring three. And if you were really shameless, you could just bring out the tech.
Energy weapons consumed a lot of power, but their firepower was undeniable.
With the added strength of spirit beasts, almost every insect that appeared on Blue Star was wiped out.
Though this overwhelming strength didn’t make the interstellar insects back down, it did reduce the frequency of their deployments. Seizing this opportunity, the authorities successfully launched the second batch of probes.
It was also at this time that the news was made public.
Along with it came the official summary of the spatial passage information, along with live footage from the probes.
Yes, the authorities had started a live broadcast, showing the real-time probe footage to the public—so that everyone could see what was happening on the other side.
——
Qin Sang opened the official livestream the moment it went live.
She had heard about this from Xu Lin before, but at the time he hadn’t been able to share the footage with her. Back then, she had been very curious about what the spatial passage looked like. Now, with the authorities opening up access, she could finally see for herself.
As she had guessed, the spatial passage wasn’t particularly stable, but it wasn’t about to disappear either.
Inside the passage, there were many branches, and those branches had branches of their own. It was said that each branch led to a folded space, where the interstellar insects hid. Some probes had even entered those folded spaces.
The livestreams from within those folded spaces were the most popular.
But Qin Sang was more interested in the very end of the spatial passage.
Unfortunately, the official probes couldn’t go too far—if they did, the signal wouldn’t transmit back.
However, Xu Lin had mentioned that the authorities had specially assigned several probes with the sole mission of finding the passage’s end. Due to signal issues, those probes hadn’t transmitted anything back yet.
With the live probe footage available, public confidence in the counterattack plan grew significantly.
Then, the number of registrations—which had been low—suddenly surged.
If you opened the Survival APP, you could see the counterattack participant count right on the homepage. The number was prominently displayed, changing every second. Beneath it was a promotional video for the counterattack plan.
The video showed clips of interstellar insects killing humans, humans killing insects, and the heroic moments of various fighters. It gave viewers a visceral sense of the insects’ terror and humanity’s resistance.
After the video, there was a dedicated section on the interstellar insect race, listing different species of insects.
Each species had its name, weaknesses, strengths, and hunting strategies clearly laid out.
Seeing this, Qin Sang mentally dubbed the section “The Interstellar Insect Encyclopedia.”
She often visited it. Some of the insects listed she recognized; others she didn’t.
It reminded her that she wasn’t fighting alone—there were plenty of other capable people out there quietly killing insects too.
——
In the end, Qin Sang only officially signed up after the authorities released the detailed counterattack plan.
By then, the number of registrants had already reached one-third of the total population.
If the authorities hadn’t imposed age and health restrictions, that number might have surpassed half.
After signing up, Qin Sang and the others were assigned to their local Management Bureau for training.
Yes—it was precisely because of the training that Qin Sang had finally decided to register. With training and a detailed plan, it was clear they weren’t being treated as cannon fodder.
At the training site, Qin Sang saw many familiar faces.
It had been nine months since the apocalypse began, and Qin Sang had made a name for herself. She frequently went out to hunt insects and had gradually come to know more people.
Seeing her arrive, these people were delighted.
Not for any other reason—simply because the more capable individuals joined, the greater the chance of success.
Naturally, Qin Sang was also happy to see familiar faces. They gathered together and exchanged recent insect-hunting experiences. In the rain, hunting insects came with all sorts of challenges at first, but after getting used to it, everyone had developed their own techniques.
Just then, Fa Ge came over cheerfully with a group of villagers.
From their village, the participants included the middle-aged men and women from the first batch of spirit beast contractors, along with some younger folks. Also there was Qu Meijing—the reborn woman who had once been somewhat arrogant but had now become more grounded.
Qu Meijing looked around with obvious curiosity. When she spotted Qin Sang, she grew a little excited.
“You’re here too! I was wondering why I hadn’t seen you.” Qu Meijing found this new world utterly incomprehensible—almost as if her memories from before her rebirth were false. But no matter what, Qin Sang and the village were the people she had interacted with the most since being reborn.
Qin Sang noticed her excitement but only nodded at her, without saying much.
No matter what that so-called “pre-rebirth” world had been like, this world was now completely different.
And all of them were about to change the fate of humanity.
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