Chapter 980 Awakening
The hidden danger buried three years ago is awakening. In order to quickly expand production capacity, the village accepted smart irrigation equipment donated by a Southeast Asian company, but did not know that the built-in chip carried a special program. At this moment, the garbled code on the screen gradually reorganized, showing a picture of the Southeast Asian rainforest - rotten mushrooms piled up into a small hill, and people in work clothes were dumping industrial waste into the river.
"They are replicating our disaster." The little fox's voice had a metallic vibrato, and its tail swept across the Mekong River mark on the map. "Those devices are stealing soil data and using our ecological model to create fast-growing mushrooms." Qi Tongwei's temples were throbbing as he thought of the Southeast Asian mushroom samples brought by the inspection team last month. The mycelium structure was exactly the same as the poisonous mushrooms in the village that year.
The alarm suddenly turned into a shrill frog croak. In the corner of the equipment room, a metal cabinet collapsed to the ground, revealing an old-fashioned toad radio hidden in the mezzanine. The mottled body lit up with a faint blue indicator light, and a strange ballad came from the speaker: "Mushroom pickers, don't be greedy, your roots will rot and your heart will corrode..." This is the long-lost mushroom picking tune in the village, but now it has a Southeast Asian accent.
Zhang Dazhu's roar exploded from the intercom: "The watermelon field is all gone! The vines turned black overnight!" Qi Tongwei rushed to the door and swept the flashlight across the experimental field. He saw the newly introduced "Belt and Road" cooperative watermelon varieties with dark green mold spots on the skin and the folds slowly moving. Aunt Wang was frozen on the ridge holding a few baskets of strawberries, her white hair covered with black spores.
Late at night in the village committee, a projector projected a satellite map onto a cracked earthen wall. The light spots of more than 97 Southeast Asian cooperation bases connected into a strange totem, each of which was devouring the surrounding green. The technician trembled as he retrieved the data: "The soil microbial mortality rate in these places is % consistent with our data before the outbreak of the fungus disaster that year."
The little fox suddenly jumped onto the conference table, with golden runes all over its body. Its claws scratched the wall, and the light spots on the map actually oozed black blood, forming streams on the ground. "This is the cry of the earth veins." Its voice echoed in the empty room, "Humans always repeat the same mistakes, and this time it involves more than just one village."
Qi Tongwei called the Provincial Department of Agriculture, but was told by the secretary that the leader was attending the "International Ecological Cooperation Celebration Banquet." He held the phone tightly and heard the laughter in the banquet hall through the receiver, mixed with the sound of champagne being opened. The little fox suddenly disappeared, and when it reappeared, it was holding a bloody chip in its mouth, engraved with the logo of a Southeast Asian company.
At three o'clock in the morning, Qi Tongwei and several young people sneaked into the abandoned old greenhouse. Moonlight poured through the hole in the ceiling, illuminating the piles of donated equipment. They pried open the control box and found that the motherboard was covered with black mycelium, which was devouring the circuit. When the first chip was pulled out, a thunderous roar came from afar, and the crown of the old locust tree swayed wildly in the night wind.
"All data transmission must be cut off!" Qi Tongwei pulled open the collar of his shirt, and pale blue veins appeared on his neck - that was the mark left by the fungus disaster that year, and it was now burning. The little fox turned into a stream of light and sank into the ground. All the screens in the monitoring station suddenly went out, and instead projected images of ecological disasters around the world: the fungus plague in the Amazon rainforest, the acidification of the African grasslands, the crop mutations on European farms...
When the first rays of morning light pierced through the clouds, Qi Tongwei stood under the old locust tree and watched the villagers spontaneously dismantle the smart irrigation equipment. Aunt Wang held the contaminated strawberries and suddenly buried them in the roots of the tree: "Just consider it as an apology to the land." The roar of the tractor came from the distance. It was Zhang Dazhu who was plowing the infected watermelon field. In the soil turned up by the iron plow, black hyphae could be vaguely seen shrinking in the morning light.
The lights at the monitoring station came on again, this time displaying the Global Soil Health Early Warning System. Qi Tongwei entered the password and uploaded the village's twenty years of ecological restoration data. The pulsating green curves formed a glaring contrast with the red alerts around the world. The little fox had somehow crouched on his shoulder, its tail sweeping across the screen: "Humans always think they can control the land, but they don't know that every mistake is weaving a bigger web."
The mountain breeze swept across the freshly turned soil, carrying the smell of rotting strawberries.
The little fox stood up suddenly, its tail blowing into a fluffy fan shape: "The ground vein is going to shake."
Before he finished speaking, the alarms at the monitoring stations blared collectively. On the screen of the Global Soil Health Early Warning System, red alerts spread like wildfire, with the permafrost melting curve of the Nordic tundra, the microbial extinction index of the Amazon rainforest, and the heavy metal exceeding standard data of rice fields in Southeast Asia jumping wildly. Only the green curve representing the mountain village stubbornly outlined an isolated island in the bloody ocean.
"Quickly notify everyone!" Qi Tongwei grabbed the intercom, his knuckles turning white from exertion. The moment he rushed to the door, he saw the electronic clock showing 17:23 - the exact time when the fungus outbreak occurred years ago. The rain came unexpectedly, and the big raindrops hit the iron roof like countless dry hands knocking.
The village radio crackled with an electric current: "Attention all villagers, go to Guanyin Temple immediately to take shelter!" Zhang Dazhu's roar penetrated the rain curtain. He was pushing the last truck of mushroom sticks into the warehouse in the rain. The mycelium under the plastic sheet was expanding wildly in the rainstorm, revealing a strange fluorescence. Aunt Wang, with a hunched back, went from house to house to collect the prayer flags that were hung out to dry, her white hair messy in the wind.
Qi Tongwei ran towards the old locust tree in the wind and rain. When lightning split the clouds, he saw an ancient totem emerging on the tree trunk - it was the "ground vein protection pattern" recorded in the county annals of the Ming and Qing dynasties, which was now flowing with the rain and turned into a winding golden stream. The little fox jumped into the rain, with glowing mycelium wrapped around its body, and let out a long wolf-like howl at the rolling clouds.
"Get out of the way!" The sound of rapid brakes pierced the rain. Three off-road vehicles with Southeast Asian corporate logos rolled over the muddy village road. Men in suits and leather shoes held up loudspeakers and shouted: "We are here to recycle smart devices! If you don't cooperate, we will sue you for breach of contract!" Zhang Dazhu picked up a shovel and blocked the door of the monitoring station. Rain dripped down his chin: "If you want to touch the equipment, step over my body first!"
The rainstorm suddenly turned into a black spore rain. Qi Tongwei looked at the raindrops that were rotting rapidly in his palm and remembered what the little fox had said: "When the wound in the land is too deep, even the rain will turn into poison." A muffled sound came from the direction of the warehouse, and several villagers stumbled over: "Oh no! All those strains from Southeast Asia have mutated!"
The Guanyin Temple was packed with people. The sound of chanting and rain intertwined, and the sandalwood condensed into mist in the humid air. Aunt Wang trembled as she lit the eternal lamp, and the flame flickered in the draft: "When the mountain god got angry, it was also like this..."