Chapter Two: The Invasion of the Foreign Race

In his dream, Luo Longyu once again saw his grandfather, carrying him on his back to work in the fields. He would sit at the edge of the field, playing with grasshoppers, watching his grandfather toil among the crops. His grandfather would pick vegetables, and he would rush to carry the big Chinese cabbage. Sometimes, his grandfather caught a large yellow weasel for him to play with, but it rarely survived a week—either it chewed through the rope and ran away, or he accidentally played it to death in his innocence...

As his consciousness gradually cleared, the crisp sound of birdsong made Luo Longyu slowly open his eyes. He glanced around and realized he was lying on the heated brick bed in the village chief’s house. The elderly village chief sat on a chair nearby, sipping tea. That solitary figure reminded him of his own grandfather; ever since the village chief had taken him in, the villagers had slowly stopped visiting the chief's house.

“Longyu, you’re awake. Come, have some breakfast.” Hearing movement, the old village chief turned around and saw Longyu looking at him. He smiled kindly, his eyes filled with warmth.

The chief’s wife was nowhere to be seen. At the table, Luo Longyu stared at the simple meal before him, but had no appetite. At last, he spoke: “Grandpa Chief, is my grandfather dead? Is he gone...?”

The old village chief paused, chopsticks mid-air, his gaze darkening as he looked at Luo Longyu. He slowly put down his chopsticks, sighed after a moment, and said, “Well, I suppose it’s only right you know. But Longyu, you’re still young. Perhaps you don’t understand—birth, aging, illness, and death are all part of life. There’s nothing...”

“But the villagers all say I have a contagious disease, that my grandfather died because I made him sick,” Luo Longyu murmured.

“Nonsense!” The old chief’s eyes widened. “Don’t listen to their gossip. What contagious disease? I don’t know anything about that. Longyu, you mustn’t believe what the villagers say, do you understand?”

And so, under the village chief’s protection, Luo Longyu grew up in this remote mountain village, where both news and travel were scarce. He attended school, though the chief often quarreled with his wife because of him—until his wife, too, died of illness.

That happened when Luo Longyu was eighteen. The chief’s wife’s passing reminded Luo Longyu again of his own grandfather—the blood he coughed up, his withered frame, so alike to his grandfather’s demise.

Rumors of contagious disease once more swirled around Luo Longyu, but at eighteen, he was no longer a child. After burying the chief’s wife, he watched as the old man grew thinner by the day, and a true fear gripped his heart. Was it really his fault?

One night, Luo Longyu was awakened by the chief’s coughing. He tiptoed out and found the old man sitting in the courtyard, wiping blood from his mouth. Luo Longyu’s pupils shrank to pinpoints—another fit of bloody coughing! Again!

It wasn’t long before the village chief, too, passed away. In his final moments, he grasped Luo Longyu’s hand, and his gaze was achingly familiar—just like his grandfather’s before he died.

With the villagers’ help, Luo Longyu arranged the chief’s burial. Lost and bewildered, he wondered if it truly was his fault. He had never known his parents. His grandfather, the chief, and the chief’s wife—all died coughing blood, their bodies wasting away, with no cause ever found. It was as if some external force was silently draining their life force. Was he that force?

Numb and adrift, Luo Longyu lingered a few days more in the village. But after the old chief’s death, he saw no reason to stay. At last, he resolved to leave, taking the three thousand yuan the chief had saved for him. He would leave the mountains, start anew in the outside world, and uncover the truth behind his own body.

On the fourth day after leaving the mountains, it was Luo Longyu’s birthday. That night, he walked alone through the bustling city streets. The initial curiosity and wonder at the city had faded, replaced by the monotony of daily life. With no experience, Luo Longyu met failure everywhere—he’d found no work at all.

Sitting on a pedestrian overpass, he gazed blankly at the stream of cars below. It was his birthday. He frowned at the half-eaten steamed bun in his hand, feeling something strange in his body that day, though he couldn’t define it. If anything, he had no appetite and was intensely thirsty—his throat so dry it felt as if he’d eaten a bowl of sand.

On the fifth day, still jobless, Luo Longyu grew anxious. That evening, back in his small hostel room, he lay on the bed flipping through a city map, pondering where to look for work the next day, and drifted off to sleep.

Half-dreaming, he found himself walking through a vast desert, black smoke swirling around him, the sky blood-red. Through blurred vision, Luo Longyu saw enormous creatures struggling to soar into the heavens, as if trying to escape. The air burned with terror, molten lava fractured the desert, snaking across the landscape.

He walked slowly, feeling as if he were someone else, and yet himself. He sensed he was searching for something—an uncanny state.

At last, amid the lava, he found what he’d been seeking: a coffin, gleaming with cold metallic light, seemingly forged from pure steel, surrounded by heaps of corpses—not human, but monstrous, grotesque, immense, and terrifying.

The metal coffin whispered incessantly, like a chorus of monks chanting across the ages, their voices ethereal yet real.

Luo Longyu stood for a while, then reached into the lava. Suddenly, a bitterly cold wind swept down from above. Luo Longyu leapt back a hundred meters and looked up at the sky. The blood-red heavens had split open, and a shadowy figure stood in the void, fleshly wings unfurled. The whispers surged, roaring like an avalanche, as lava surged heavenward, engulfing the world in flames...

Luo Longyu abruptly opened his eyes. Unseen, a flash of silver flickered in his gaze. He lay on the bed in a daze for several seconds, then turned to look out the window. Dawn had broken. Rubbing his aching forehead, he got up. He gave little thought to last night’s dream; after all, he’d had plenty of strange dreams since childhood.

After a quick wash, Luo Longyu left the hostel, planning to search for work at a large mall in the city center that day.

As the first light of dawn crept over the horizon, Luo Longyu stood in the mall’s plaza, surrounded by people out for morning exercise and hurried commuters.

For reasons he couldn’t explain, the city’s vibrant morning filled Luo Longyu with unease—a strange sensation. Again and again, unfamiliar scenes flickered before his eyes—collapsed buildings, burning streets, people fleeing in terror...

Rubbing his eyes, the hallucinations faded. Luo Longyu chuckled bitterly, dismissing it as nothing but his own scattered thoughts.

He entered the mall, which was mostly filled with clothing stores, hoping to find a shop with a hiring sign.

On the third floor, a sudden announcement echoed through the speakers: “Emergency notice! Emergency notice! Due to a discovered fire safety hazard, all shops are to close immediately. All tenants and customers, please proceed quickly and orderly to the fire exits. We apologize for the inconvenience. Emergency notice...” At the same time, the shrill sound of fire alarms rang out through the mall.

Police and security guards rushed in, shouting for everyone to evacuate through the fire exits.

Chaos erupted as the crowd surged toward the exits. Luo Longyu, caught off guard, was swept along by the throng.

By the time Luo Longyu was pushed out through the fire exit with the crowd, the roar of helicopters had filled the air. Armored vehicles poured in, and fully armed soldiers leaped out, taking up positions. PLA soldiers rappelled from the rooftops, masked and heavily armed.

“Evacuate! Evacuate!” soldiers shouted, as police and paramilitary officers cleared a radius of several hundred meters around the mall.

“What’s going on? Is this a drill?”

“It can’t just be a fire hazard.”

Luo Longyu overheard the nearby men’s conversation, but was immediately herded into a safe zone by paramilitary police as chaos reigned.

At that moment, Luo Longyu’s senses caught a strange disturbance approaching rapidly. Frowning, he glanced at the ground. The first crack appeared in the cement underfoot, and he shouted, “Watch your feet!”

A deafening roar drowned out his warning as a black shadow burst from the earth, like a giant serpent. Its body, as thick as a barrel, instantly swept away a crowd of people. Luo Longyu was lifted high into the air by its armored snout and, in a daze, saw the serpent’s gaping maw looming, about to swallow him whole.

“Open fire!”

“Watch for civilians—full firepower!”

Gunfire erupted in all directions, forming a terrifying web of bullets as soldiers shielded the evacuation.

A shell struck the serpent’s jaw, the explosion tearing its flesh open. Luo Longyu was blasted aside by the shockwave, crashing heavily to the ground. Two paramilitary officers rushed forward, dragging him to safety.

Even with his head pressed down, Luo Longyu could feel bullets whistling overhead.

The serpent’s roar echoed from behind as it drove its massive body straight toward his position, shattering the ground.

A WZ-10 attack helicopter dove in, a missile streaking into the serpent’s skull, forcing the beast to recoil.

The two officers dragged Luo Longyu behind an armored vehicle. The serpent quickly recovered, its enormous spiked tail smashing down onto the helicopter, crumpling the fuselage and sending it crashing in flames into the mall, triggering a second explosion.

The thunderous blast drew screams from the crowd. Luo Longyu stood frozen, staring blankly at the collapsed corner of the shopping complex.

“Move!” Amidst the gunfire, a paramilitary officer tackled Luo Longyu, rolling him aside just as the ground beside the armored vehicle erupted again, flipping the massive vehicle as if it were nothing. Several soldiers were flung through the air; bullets sparked harmlessly off the serpent’s scales, leaving only scratches.

The serpent rampaged, its colossal body sweeping through the armored convoy, head raised as it scanned the surroundings before lunging forward, malice radiating in all directions.

“Aaah!” The officer pulling Luo Longyu was struck by the serpent’s head, his body twisted and broken by the impact. He spat blood and fell unconscious.

“Stop it! Fire at will!”

From afar, the roar of tanks approached. Four Type 96 tanks barreled down the street, their armor-piercing shells blasting four gaping wounds in the serpent’s body.

Howling in pain, the serpent opened its jaws and spat out hundreds of green eggs, each as tall as a person. After disgorging the eggs, the serpent collapsed into a pool of blood, seemingly dead.

Gunfire faded. Soldiers surrounded the plaza littered with monstrous eggs, their muzzles aimed warily at the nearest shells. Tank barrels stood ready, helicopters circled overhead, alert for any sign of danger.

For a moment, the world seemed to fall silent, save for the lingering scent of gunpowder. Helicopters periodically swept low, stirring up clouds of dust as medics hurried to evacuate the wounded. Under the blinding sunlight, the devastation was laid bare—broken earth, ruined buildings, and a desolate sense of sorrow...