Chapter 332: Shenmu

Meng Chao took a breath: "Could it be..."
"Yes, that's what you think."
Ye Xiaoxing took out the second photo.
There are thousands of young and middle-aged men, watching a bunch of burning flames.
In the flames, there was a young and beautiful woman tied up!
Even if it is only a photo, Meng Chao can see the pain that cannot be described with pen and ink from the woman's distorted face.
Meng Chao was surprised: "What are they doing and why are they using such cruel means to kill their own kind?"
Ye Xiaoxing said: "They are on trial for witches."
Meng Chao couldn't believe it: "Who is the witch?"
Ye Xiaoxing said: "All women are witches."
Meng Chao was stunned for a long time, puzzled: "How could this be?"
"The Dragon City search and rescue team discovered Dragon King Town four years ago, but because the opponent’s civilization has become completely different from ours, the search and rescue team did not rush in contact with them, but lurked in the dark for a year. I also tried every means to obtain a large number of diaries, suicide notes, selfie photos and videos left by the residents of Longwang Town during the initial period of the journey. From thousands of clues, finally pieced together the whole picture of Longwang Town through 50 years."
Ye Xiaoxing whispered, "Dragon King Town was passing through the instant, because of the impulse of time and space ripples, it was far away from its relative position with the main city of Longcheng, and it crossed into the corner of the mountain barrier, so that the residents of the town never knew. There are tens of millions of compatriots who crossed over with them, thinking that only tens of thousands of people in the town suffered bad luck.
"In the first few years, Dragon King Town could still rely on its own strength to sustain it.
"When I just passed through, the ripples of space took the form of a foggy city wall, blocking the vicious monsters outside.
"Although the alien virus violently attacked the human immune system and created some zombies, Longwangzhen was lucky and did not encounter a large-scale plague. A few zombies were quickly chopped up under the strict organization of humans. The mashed meat.
"As mentioned earlier, there are several mechanical processing factories in Longwang Town, and several mechanical and civil engineering schools. This means that the residents have no major problems in weapon processing and fortress construction, and the fog dissipates. Before the monsters invaded, it was enough to build Dragon King Town into a battle fortress surrounded by copper and iron walls.
"The problem is internal.
"There are so few people who can reproduce.
"Judging from the suicide notes left by many Dragon King residents at that time, they were full of despair, thinking that they would never go back to the earth, and even not realizing that they had crossed into a new, vast land, thinking that they would be trapped forever. Inside a small, misty town.
"The number of school-age women is so small that even if Longwang Town as a whole can continue to exist, as individual townspeople, out of ten, they cannot pass on their genes.
"Women of school age have become extremely scarce resources.
"Around such scarce resources, young and middle-aged young people quickly split into different factions, fought and killed each other.
"In a few years, when zombies and monsters did not pose a major threat, nearly half of young and middle-aged men in Dragon King Town died at the hands of the same kind.
"Of course, except for the opposite sex, clean drinking water, food, all kinds of machinery and raw materials for weapons are all scarce resources.
"It can also be said that Dragon King Town, shrouded in the mist, cannot satisfy the survival of nearly 100,000 young adults. Only through cannibalism, which reduces the mouth by half, can this system be barely maintained.
"After several years of internal fighting, Dragon King Town has formed five powerful forces based on schools and factories, similar to the gangs that Dragon City spontaneously formed in the and dark age.
"And as women of the right age who are scarce resources, part of them died in the fight between gangs, and part of them were unwilling to accept the miserable fate and self-determined. Only a few survived.
"In this way, the fundamental problem of the continuation of civilization remains unresolved.
"And in the infighting like raising a Gu, finally the terrifying Gu King was born, a woman who can play a man between her palms.
"We don't have much information about this woman. We only know that the residents of Longwang Town later called her the most evil witch.
"But according to our understanding, at the beginning, this'witch' just wanted to protect her sisters.
"In short, she used her natural charm to deal with the leaders of the five big gangs, and these leaders were fascinated.
"She also adopted some very extreme tactics, such as uniting all women of the right age to monopolize reproductive resources and seek more power and a higher status.
"Although the number of men occupies an absolute advantage and they have a powerful force, if there are no women to give birth to offspring, Dragon King Town will not be long before it will be destroyed.
"In this way, this'witch' skillfully used the contradictions between the five major gangs to once again provoke an internal fight in Dragon King Town.
"In the second cannibalism, the number of young and middle-aged men was reduced by half. Two of the five major gangs were completely defeated. Many losers were expelled from Dragon King Town and disappeared into the depths of the mist.
"And this ‘witch’ also briefly seized the highest power, causing Dragon King Town to enter a new stage similar to...matriarchal society.
"The surviving women of school age seem to usher in the most beautiful spring.
"They are above everyone else. They can choose tall, handsome, gentle, considerate, and sturdy men at will as their partners. They can also use the reason of raising offspring to occupy the most abundant resources, and they can treat those wretched, ugly, and Attractive men, impose the cruelest punishment.
"It's a pity that these women who enjoy the treatment of a queen forget to think about a problem in a short dream."
Meng Chao said: "What's the problem."
Ye Xiaoxing sighed and said, "Compared to a gentleman who is both handsome and gentle, there are too many men with mediocre looks and wretched characters.
"Realizing that one's own genes will never be passed on, and even in this life, it is impossible to hold the hands of the opposite sex, the wretched men who account for the absolute majority in Dragon King Town initiated the third civil unrest.
"After the previous two civil strifes, the humanity of the residents of Longwang Town has been completely wiped out.
"Their brains were eroded by androgens, and their brains turned into a tuft of fishy paste. These wretched men launched an indiscriminate attack, treating all women as'witches' and nurturing the witches. The handsome men were regarded as'witches', and the'witches' and'witches' were regarded as the culprits that caused the three civil unrest in Dragon King Town, and eventually, the'witches' and the'witches' were killed.
"Women are all disasters, even if only one woman is left, the civil strife in Longwangzhen will not be put down!
"This is the slogan shouted by the wretched men at the time."
"..."
Meng Chao hesitated, "But, in this way, Longwangzhen will have no future."
"Yes, the frantic passion receded. Faced with the devastated Dragon King Town and the same sex, the survivors only regained their rationality and realized that they had cut off the future with their own hands. At this time, the fog around Dragon King Town disappeared slightly. Various monsters and spiritual plants have appeared one after another, bringing new crises."
Ye Xiaoxing said, "Originally, Dragon King Town absolutely couldn't survive. Even if the monsters' offensives can be repelled, humans will lose their most basic motivation for survival without offspring.
"Fortunately, the'sacred tree' appeared."
Meng Chaodao, "What is'sacred tree'?"
"A very special kind of plant, or, between plants and fungi, a brand new life form that has never been seen on earth."
Ye Xiaoxing pointed to the towering tree that covered half of the town in the first photo, and said, "This is not the true appearance of the'sacred tree', but it is parasitic on a big banyan tree and genetically modified the banyan tree. As a result, the body of the'sacred tree' should be something like moss or mushrooms.
"Yes, this weird life form seems to have extremely advanced genetic modification capabilities, and can even...help humans and inherit genes."
With that, Ye Xiaoxing slowly revealed the third photo.
In this photo, Meng Chao saw that the branches of the towering trees were full of fruits, bending the branches to the ground, and many humans were harvesting beside the branches.
These humans are different from the people who tried the witches in the second photo.
Most people don't wear clothes, just a simple loincloth around the crotch.
Their skin is abnormally green, as if growing a thin layer of moss.
The upper limbs appear to be longer and thicker than normal people. Although the lower limbs are short, the toes are particularly developed.
Just like a gibbon, it needs to rely on its arms to dance between the branches. Many delicate operations can be handled by the toes.
However, what surprised Meng Chao most was what they "harvested".
It was a cocoon that was thin as a cicada's wings and covered with bloodshot eyes.
No, it is neither a fruit nor a cocoon.
Because in the fourth photo, Meng Chao saw them carefully cut apart these things and took out one...baby!
"This, how is this possible!" Meng Chao lost his voice.
Even in the memory fragments of his previous life, he had never seen such a weird picture.
"Now you should understand why we can't disclose the situation in Dragon King Town, right?"
Ye Xiaoxing said, "In the long years of the past half a century, in order to continue their genes and civilization, the residents of Dragon King seem to have formed a...symbiotic relationship with this strange alien creature.
"'Sacred Wood' helps them continue their genes, draw resources from the ground, and grow branches that are not inferior to metal in hardness and strength, and become raw materials for manufacturing machinery and weapons.
"The townsfolk of the Dragon King act as hunters and guards of the'sacred tree', filling the lack of mobility and aggressiveness of the'sacred tree', hunting more monsters for it, becoming its food, and accelerating its growth.
"Up to now, the cooperative relationship between the residents of Dragon King Town and Shenmu is very close and good. It can be said that the humans in Dragon King Town have merged with alien creatures to form a... brand new civilization."