Zhou Qiming felt that it was difficult for a normal person to imagine the immense horror he had encountered.

He had parted from Lu Yan and come to the edge of Dragon Girl Lake. As the sun set, the lake surface, with its floating light leaping like gold, looked exceptionally beautiful and peaceful.

They say those who live by the water live off the water, but the people of Dragon Girl Village were completely different; straining one’s eyes to look as far as possible, not a single fishing boat could be seen.

Fortunately, this kind of thing wasn’t a big problem for Zhou Qiming.

He chopped down a tree and hollowed out the center. The buoyancy of the wood was already enough to support him as he sailed into the lake.

Zhou Qiming tied a line to his detection watch and, with a plop, tossed it into the water.

Through the earpiece came the report of the pollution values.

“Pollution value 70… 500… 1800… 4900…”

Within a mere minute, the pollution value surged to a number that left him utterly tongue-tied.

Zhou Qiming panicked. He thought to himself that this was disastrous. When the pollution value rose to 6300, he completely abandoned his plan to explore Dragon Girl Lake, left the detection watch behind, and paddled the boat wanting to leave.

Zhou Qiming had once learned sailing and knew a bit about rowing. Although the paddle he had carved with a knife was somewhat crude, Dragon Girl Lake had neither undercurrents nor reefs, and it was only a few dozen meters from the middle of the lake to the shore, so it should have been enough.

But Zhou Qiming didn’t expect that as he pushed down with his paddle, it felt as if he had struck a clump of water grass, rendering him unable to move a muscle.

He lowered his head, only to discover that at some unknown point, the patch of water beneath his boat had become much darker than the surrounding area.

It wasn’t that the water had spoiled; rather, something was underneath.

In the next second, his boat flipped.

A clump of pitch-black hair grabbed the stern of the boat and flipped it over with a forceful heave!

Large gulps of lake water choked into his oral cavity; the taste of this water was actually a foul, bloody stench.

Zhou Qiming knew how to swim and was in good physical shape, so he could have swum to the shore even if it came down to it, but that clump of hair simultaneously tangled around his ankle, dragging him continuously down into the deep water.

Beneath the water was practically a wild dance of demons.

Zhou Qiming saw many infants with fangs and snake tails. Some were larger, some smaller, all female infants; there were no pupils in their eyes, leaving only the grayish-white sclera. Like piranhas, the female infants circled around him, laughing with giggle-giggle-giggles, wishing they could dismantle him into their bellies immediately.

The name floating above their heads was “Dragon Girl,” and their title was “Aberrant Form.” Pollution level: 300.

Zhou Qiming also saw a woman with a snake tail. Her body size was exaggeratedly large, and her snake tail in the lake water actually seemed endless; sharp, backward-facing barbs grew along her spine, and she likewise had no pupils, her expression deathly cold.

Line after line of baby snakes sat upon her back, like daughters relying on their mother.

“Dragon Girl – Perfect Evolutionary Form.” Pollution level: ???

Whether it was these tiny infants or the massive snake woman right at the center, all of them were the Dragon Girl of Dragon Girl Lake.

They were neither gods nor monsters; they were merely women who had come to demand payment of a debt from this village.

Zhou Qiming grabbed the knife at his waist without hesitation and cut off the Dragon Girl’s hair.

Using every ounce of his strength, he swam toward the outside of the lake. But how could a human contend in the water against pollutants that originally lived in the water?

Very soon, wounds bitten out by the little dragon girls appeared on Zhou Qiming’s body. The bloody scent seeped into the lake water, resembling a carnival.

He fled, she pursued, and it was impossible for him to escape even if he grew wings.

The Dragon Girl strolled at a leisurely pace, like a cat playing with its prey.

Zhou Qiming knew that humans who died in terror tasted the most delicious to pollutants.

He wanted to calm down, but his unhelpful heart pounded thump-thump-thump, and his brain frantically secreted adrenaline, urging him to run quickly.

Zhou Qiming’s heart was filled with despair; in the water, not even ten percent of his strength remained, and by no means did he look capable of defeating the Dragon Girl.

The Dragon Girl’s excessively long, eagle-claw-like hand reached toward his head.

But presumably because the contact time was long enough, in Zhou Qiming’s line of sight, a question mark popped up above the Dragon Girl’s head.

This meant he could use his talent.

Adopting the mindset of treating a dead horse as a living horse doctor, Zhou Qiming added a setting: “Zhou Qiming is my dad.”

Yes, because time was pressing, Zhou Qiming didn’t even have time to think. He added the setting just like that, naturally.

As a result, that hand, which was originally about to grab him, abruptly froze in place.

In stark contrast, the little dragon girls who were watching the show from the sidelines let out resentful shrieks one by one! They surged toward him like a school of fish.

Zhou Qiming had never swum this fast in his entire life. His clothes were torn to shreds, and the little dragon girls bit and devoured his flesh mouthful by mouthful, blossoms of blood exploding in the water.

He scrambled and crawled onto the shore, and there was even a little dragon girl who wouldn’t give up, executing a carp leaping over the dragon gate to jump onto the shore to bite him, only to be kicked back by Zhou Qiming.

Wrapped in a blanket, Zhou Qiming was breaking out in cold sweat all over, his wounds shivering from the pain. He leaned aggrievedly by Lu Yan’s side, recounting his tragic encounter to the others.

The detective was driving; his smoking addiction had flared up, making him very anxious: “Then we can only report it to the people at the Prevention and Control Center. I think the person who posted that thread back then wasn’t quite right either; it’s best to check into it.”

Lu Yan’s phone vibrated; it was a text message from Chen Shi’er.

“Our boss overused his ability, and the aftereffect is mental regression… please bear with him, sorry.”

This point was written in the internal publicity handbook of the Pollution Disease Prevention and Control Center. Quite a few Apocalypse Envoys would experience aftereffects after overusing their abilities—some physical, some mental.

Because Lu Yan hadn’t overused his yet, he temporarily didn’t know what aftereffects he might have.

[Rest assured, unless you directly ask me about things at this tier that you completely shouldn’t know, you don’t need to consider the issue of aftereffects at all.]

[Looking at the entire world, the only one who uses their talent anytime and anywhere is you.]

[Oh, right. Although it’s a bit strange, Chen Shi’er really didn’t lie to you.]

Zhou Qiming rubbed against his waist and said aggrievedly: “Doctor Lu. That woman is so scary. Her claws are so long, so thick, so hard…”

Lu Yan patted his head expressionlessly: “It’s fine now, you’re back.”

It was daytime when they came, and after staying for less than 6 hours, they began their return journey.

However, the mist in the mountain forests at night seemed even larger, and visibility was extremely low.

The detective didn’t dare to drive the car too fast, and the RV drove slowly on the winding mountain highway that seemed to have no end.

Lu Yan furrowed his brows, remembering the matter he had heard earlier at Old Wang’s place. It was said that someone wanted to leave the mountains to seek medical treatment, but the car circled for three days and ultimately returned to Dragon Girl Lake.

Four hours passed, and a dense layer of sweat had already risen on the forehead of the driving detective.

“This is wicked. When we came, we didn’t drive for this long either. Even if we drive a bit slower at night, it shouldn’t be to this extent! It’s already been four hours.”

Zhou Qiming had already been coaxed to sleep. The remaining two people both felt a bit of inexplicable irritability and heart palpitations; Chen Shi’er’s temper was noticeably volatile, and because his game wasn’t cleared, he straight up smashed a Switch game console.

Lu Yan said: “Stop the car first. Drive again when it’s dawn. Don’t go outside tonight.”

His voice was very calm, possessing an inexplicably convincing power.

The detective: “Alright… Huh, it seems like there’s an exit ahead?”

He stepped on the gas pedal with excitement and drove forward.

Lu Yan raised his head and glanced at the clock placed on the table; the hour hand pointed exactly to twelve o’clock.

Passing through the winding mountain road, the car came to a patch of flat ground, and the trees on both sides gradually thinned out.

But Lu Yan’s expression abruptly changed: “Stop the car!”

A massive lake appeared before their eyes.

Different from its calmness during the day, at night, the lake water was like boiling water in a pot, churning continuously and bubbling.

There was a large floodlight for illumination on the lakeshore. It was very bright.

Under the light, a group of men of various ages with distended bellies were kneeling by the lakeside, forming a circle, continuously kowtowing toward Dragon Girl Lake.

Their eyes were hollow, and under the intense light, distorted male infants could be seen inside their translucent bellies.

Although these massive bellies made their movements very clumsy, their heads nonetheless touched the ground with utter devotion.

From within the lake water came the giggle laughing sounds of girls. In the dead of night, it was incomparably chilling.

Chen Shi’er drew in a sharp breath: “What… are those things?”

These men were still human, yet not completely human. These men didn’t need to eat or drink, yet they couldn’t die; unless they were sacrificed into the lake water, they would exist eternally just like Dragon Girl Lake.

Lu Yan scanned them; there were roughly seventy-odd people, their ages ranging from twenty to seventy. Without exception, all were heavily pregnant.

After finishing their kowtows, the oldest village chief stood up trembingly and shouted aloud: “May the Great Dragon Girl choose!”

All the surrounding men who were still kneeling showed expressions of fear.

The four people in the car held their breath and focused their minds. They saw a middle-aged man in the crowd suddenly let out a tragic shriek.

The man clutched his stomach, wailing in agony on the ground. The child in his stomach used its sharp fingernails to slice open the belly and crawled out. It was covered all over in translucent, pale-yellow amniotic fluid, completely wet.

Not long after this male infant crawled out, it collapsed onto the grass on the side and lost its breath. It was as if his existence, from the very beginning, was left with nothing but bringing pain to these men.

But the sacrifice did not stop.

The other pregnant men lifted this already unconscious middle-aged male up and tossed him into the lake.

The man didn’t even have time to let out a tragic shriek before he was already torn apart and eaten by a pack of little dragon girls who were so hungry they had lost their minds. The bloody water spread and expanded, dyeing that patch of water a light pink.

The boiling, furious Dragon Girl Lake finally calmed down.

The village chief said trembingly: “Alright, this month’s sacrifice has already ended. Let’s go back.”

Chen Shi’er’s fists hardened: “This pollutant is too much of a bastard.”

Lu Yan fell silent for a moment, then spoke the background he knew from the system using his own conjectures and inferences.

Because he was afraid of exposing the system, Lu Yan merely said he had found some clues on the way back.

Chen Shi’er’s fists hardened again: “Fuck, they truly fucking deserve it.”

A villager turned off the floodlight overhead.

The pregnant men, their faces ash-gray and numb, walked toward the village, resembling a pack of walking corpses.

From beginning to end, the RV remained stationary in the small grove, not taking a single step forward.

The detective tried carefully to reverse the car, only to find that the engine had been soaked by water and had stalled.

The surrounding moisture seemed to grow even heavier.

The system subconsciously lowered its voice: […The Dragon Girl is about to come ashore; she discovered you guys long ago.]

Amidst a vast expanse of snow-white mist came the sound of splashing water, as if some massive thing in the water was poking out of the water surface.

Lu Yan shook awake Zhou Qiming, who was sleeping on his lap and drooling. His tolerance had already reached its limit.

Having just woke up, Zhou Qiming was still a bit dazed and asked, “Are we there?”

The detective was so scared his hands and feet went cold. He opened the car door, saying softly and anxiously: “We’ll run in different directions.”

Lu Yan asked: “Can your talent still be used? Even if it can’t, force it out for me. Add a setting to the four of us.”

Zhou Qiming sat up: “What setting?”

Lu Yan answered seriously and solemnly: “Gender: Female.”

The cover has been updated! It’s the handsome Tang Xun’an!

The large image is on the author’s Weibo @XiaoQiLiu.

Banxia Xiaoshuo, a lot of happiness.