Reborn as a lotus, she initially refuses to hand it over to the state.

The mountain road was rugged. Along the way, although Little Jinbao was a chatterbox, it was indeed very dutiful, able to detect danger and the presence of strange beasts in advance.

They even took detours several times, clearly trying to avoid something.

As dawn broke, signs of human activity finally appeared at the edge of the forest. Wisps of smoke rose from distant chimneys.

Several gray-tiled houses are scattered at the foot of the mountain.

This is Heishi Village, a village on the outskirts of Heilong Mountain. It's a small village that relies on the mountains for its livelihood, with fewer than 300 households.

Normally, they make a living by collecting medicinal herbs, planting fruit trees, and doing odd jobs, but in recent days, the entire Black Stone Village has been filled with unease.

Because people started dying in the mountains. First, several villagers who went into the mountains to pick mushrooms went missing. At first, everyone thought they had gotten lost.

Later, someone found half a corpse at the foot of the mountain. It looked like it had been torn apart by something, and the bones had been bitten off.

Later, the pigs, sheep, and dogs raised in the village began to disappear inexplicably. A few nights ago, someone even saw a black shadow bigger than a cow appear at the entrance of the village.

With a single swipe of its claw, it bent the iron railing. The old folks in the village all said that a demon had appeared in Black Dragon Mountain.

At this moment, at the entrance of Heishi Village, several villagers were guarding the road with hoes and homemade guns, and a man in his fifties looked very nervous.

"Old Li's son didn't come back again yesterday."

"They must have died in the mountains."

The woman next to him turned pale.

"I heard something came into the village tonight."

"The chicken coop was completely destroyed."

"There were paw prints on the ground, bigger than a washbasin."

Just as everyone was discussing it, someone exclaimed in surprise.

"etc!"

"There are people over there!"

Everyone immediately looked over and saw a young girl with tattered clothes and covered in mud staggering out from the end of the mountain path. She was pale and clearly frightened. It was Lin Qingxue.

Above her head, a small golden bird circled twice before suddenly turning back and flying back into the forest.

Lin Qingxue watched it leave and whispered, "Thank you."

The villagers had already surrounded them in the next second.

"girl!"

"You came from the mountains?"

What exactly happened in the mountains?

"Is there a monster?"

Lin Qingxue was a little dazed by the crowd and hadn't had a chance to speak yet.

In the distance, the sound of police sirens could be heard. Several black SUVs quickly drove into the village entrance, and the doors opened, from which several people dressed in black combat uniforms got out.

They all wore silver-gray badges on their chests, bearing only the number "nine".

The leader was a woman in her thirties, with short hair, a sharp demeanor, and cold eyes.

Her name is Su Wan, deputy captain of the action team of the Ninth Branch of Linjiang City, in charge of the recent "investigation of abnormal events".

Recently, there have been a series of missing persons, animal riots, and abnormal life reactions in the area around Linjiang.

Black Dragon Mountain is the area with the highest danger level. Standing next to her is a young man wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a refined demeanor.

The man's name is Gu Yan, an intelligence analyst at the Linjiang City branch of the Ninth Bureau, specializing in summarizing intelligence on anomalous organisms.

As soon as the two arrived, the village chief hurriedly went to greet them.

"Something really happened in the mountains, leaders. Several people have died recently, and wild animals have been entering the village. What are we going to do?"

Su Wan raised her hand, signaling everyone to be quiet.

She didn't immediately put on airs or rush to spout official platitudes. Instead, her gaze swept over the villagers who were clearly visibly panicked.

"Everyone, please don't panic."

"I am Su Wan, the head of the special security investigation team in Linjiang City."

"The reason I'm here is to deal with the unusual events that have recently occurred in Heilong Mountain."

As she spoke, she glanced at the mountains shrouded in thick fog in the distance.

The early morning at Heilong Mountain was eerily quiet, but that quietness was unsettling.

Su Wan continued, "We have received reports about the recent disappearances in Blackstone Village."

"These include people going missing in the mountains, livestock disappearing, and attacks by large wild animals at night."

"These situations are not accidental."

Upon hearing this, the villagers' expressions immediately changed.

Someone couldn't help but ask, "Boss, do you mean there's something really good about this?"

"Is it a tiger?"

"Or is it a bear?"

An old woman's voice trembled: "Old Wang from the west end of the village said he saw red eyes in the mountains at night, bigger than lanterns."

"Could it really be a ghost?"

The atmosphere at the scene suddenly became somewhat chaotic. Su Wan knew that denying it at this point was pointless.

Ordinary wild animals couldn't make such a commotion. So she changed to a more acceptable explanation.

"Some unusually large creatures have indeed appeared in the mountains."

"Very aggressive."

"And the scope of their activities is expanding."

Her voice deepened: "So from now on..."

"Blackstone Village must be evacuated."

"Evacuate immediately."

As soon as he finished speaking, the entire village entrance erupted in chaos.

"What?"

"Relocate the village?"

"Are you kidding me!"

"We've lived here our whole lives!"

"What will happen to the land? What will happen to the livestock?"

The village chief grew anxious: "Leader Su, is it really that serious?"

"If we don't go into the mountains tonight, everything will be fine, right?"

Su Wan didn't say anything, but instead took the tablet from the teammate next to her. She turned the screen around and handed it to everyone.

It was a photograph. In the woods at the foot of the mountain, there was only half a body left, and the chest cavity looked as if it had been torn open by something.

The bones were broken, and there were drag marks all over the muddy ground. Several timid villagers turned pale instantly, and the women even covered their mouths.

"Is this Old Li's son?"

Su Wan nodded, her voice calm, but it was precisely this calmness that sent chills down one's spine: "This is just one of them. In the past twenty days, more than twenty people have gone missing near Black Dragon Mountain."

"Seven people have been confirmed dead."

"Moreover," she paused, looking up at the mountains, "these things have begun to actively approach the village."

"Chicken coops and sheep pens are just the beginning."

"Next time, it might be a person."

The air suddenly fell silent, and no one uttered a sound, because they knew that the commotion they had been experiencing lately was real.

The iron gate was bent by the impact, the family dog ​​barked wildly all night, and there was a series of frighteningly large paw prints at the entrance of the village.

It was nothing like an ordinary animal. Just then, Gu Yan suddenly walked up quickly from behind, holding a silver instrument in his hand.

His complexion was clearly not right.

"team leader."

Su Wan turned her head to the side.

"What's wrong?"

Gu Yan lowered his voice, his tone grave: "The psionic fluctuations are rising, and at a rapid pace."

He handed over the screen, and on the detection interface, deep in the Black Dragon Mountain, a blinding red light was constantly expanding.

The numbers were fluctuating wildly.

【317】

【426】

【589】

……

"It's even rising," Gu Yan pushed up his glasses and said with a serious expression, "The situation is more serious than expected. Something big is probably going to happen in the mountains."

"Immediate Level 1 evacuation is recommended."

Su Wan's pupils contracted slightly. She knew very well that once the Ninth Bureau's detector exceeded five hundred...

This meant the disaster was out of control. Without any hesitation, she turned to look at all the villagers, raising her voice with an undeniable sense of pressure.

"Listen up, everyone!"

"Begin evacuating Blackstone Village now!"

"Only essential supplies are allowed."

"Elderly people and children have priority boarding!"

"Half an hour later."

"Those who haven't left yet will bear the consequences!"

As soon as Su Wan finished speaking, her gaze fell on Lin Qingxue at the edge of the crowd.

In that instant, she noticed the female college student.

Her clothes were torn, her hands were scratched, and she seemed dazed, but most importantly, she carried the distinct aura of the depths of the mountains and forests, as well as lingering traces of spiritual energy fluctuations.

"Come here for a moment."

Su Wan's tone wasn't harsh, but it carried an undeniable sense of pressure. Lin Qingxue hesitated for a moment, but still subconsciously followed.

Gu Yan glanced sideways, tapped the silver instrument lightly with his finger, and said to Su Wan, "Captain, there's an abnormal residual reaction."

Su Wan led Lin Qingxue to one side of the village entrance, avoiding the crowd, and went straight to the point.

"What's your name?"

"Lin Qingxue".

"Where did you come from?"

Lin Qingxue answered cautiously, "Black Dragon Mountain."

Su Wan: "Are you an ordinary villager?"

Lin Qingxue shook her head: "I am a graduate student in the Department of Biology at Linjiang University. I went into the mountains with my supervisor's team to conduct an ecological anomaly investigation."

"There are three of us: our mentor, Professor Zhao Guoan, and Zhou Hao from our group."

Su Wan's expression changed slightly.

Where are they?

Lin Qingxue's lips turned pale, and she said in horror, "The professor is dead."

The air fell silent instantly, even the noise from the nearby villagers quieted down.

"How did he die?"

Lin Qingxue took a deep breath and said in horror, "We encountered a mutated white tiger in the mountains, and shooting at it didn't work."

As she spoke, her voice began to tremble: "The professor stood in front of us to let us run and was attacked by it. I saw with my own eyes him being torn in two by the tiger."

Everyone was quite surprised; how could it be so brutal?

Su Wan's expression was very serious. It seemed that the strange occurrences in the mountains were more troublesome than she had imagined.

Gu Yan spoke up from the side, "Life forms of level three or higher have indeed been detected on the outskirts of Black Dragon Mountain."

"What about your other companion, Zhou Hao?" Su Wan asked.

He abandoned me and ran away alone.

Su Wan was taken aback by his words, her brows furrowing. This was a troublesome matter. She continued, "Then how did you survive?"

This is a crucial question. In an abnormal area of ​​this magnitude, it is abnormal in itself that an ordinary graduate student could survive.

Lin Qingxue was somewhat stunned, and images of Black Dragon Lake, the spiritual mist, the towering demonic lotus, and the strange golden bird flashed through her mind.

But those images seemed veiled by a layer of fog, growing increasingly blurry the more she thought about them. She frowned and shook her head in bewilderment.

"I don't remember the details very well."

"It seems like he ran all the way out."