In the cracks of the blue stone pavement, amidst the dry dust, a few ants scurried restlessly back and forth, seemingly disoriented. In the summer mountains, the humidity in the air made even the night less than peaceful.

With no artificial light, pitch darkness stretched into the deep forest, so thick you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

Yet to Jiang Le, the scene appeared entirely different. The moonlight and starlight, hidden behind thick clouds, shone with blinding brilliance. To his eyes, the entire forest appeared vivid and clear, with high contrast, as if it were broad daylight.

Information from his surroundings surged toward Jiang Le like crashing waves, yet his mental energy allowed him to filter and control it with precision.

As he lowered his gaze slightly, an ant seemed to sense his stare and scurried back into its burrow; beneath a tree with twisted branches, on the underside of a leaf on a low shrub swaying in the wind, a green caterpillar was munching away; on a spiderweb suspended mid-air deep in the forest, a dewdrop poised to fall faintly reflected the moonlight; the trail left by a snail glowed as brightly as a lantern in Jiang Le’s eyes.

Jiang Le tilted his head slightly, and countless sounds flooded his ears.

The sound of the wind—countless kinds of wind. The wind rustling through the leaves, the wind created by the fluttering wings of flying insects, the wind sweeping across the water’s surface, accompanied by the rustling of earthworms wriggling deep underground, the chewing sounds of insects feeding in the darkness, and the damp, faint rustle of snakes gliding over the humus piled from fallen leaves.

With each breath of air, the cold fragrance of pine needles mingled with the night dew; the sweet scent of a half-eaten wild berry that had fallen to the ground still lingered, wafting in faint wisps. Even the village several kilometers away—the scent of burnt firewood, the lingering aroma of cement steaming under the scorching sun on the threshing floor—all these scents, near and far, were precisely captured by his newly refined senses.

For a single moment, Jiang Le felt as though he, too, had become a breeze floating in the air, a scent, blending seamlessly with nature—transforming into withered leaves, into moss-covered stones, into a part of the Earth’s ecosystem, and together with it, into the very transformation that was unfolding.

Only when Jiang Le withdrew all his senses did the surroundings slowly sink back into the familiar silence and darkness, returning to normal.

From Level 2 to Level 3, aside from his sensory perception being upgraded once more, the various creatures before Jiang Le’s eyes had taken on a new form. They no longer simply displayed their level; instead, they manifested in different colors based on their attributes.

Plants that had successfully mutated emitted a vivid, danger-signaling red glow, while the withered vines that had lost in this natural struggle appeared in a gray of death and decay. Only ordinary creatures that had neither mutated nor been devoured by mutated beings—and thus had not had their energy consumed—appeared in a pale green.

Jiang Le pulled out his phone, which was filled with unread messages. Aside from various useless notifications, the rest were all from Mao Xiaofei.

Although Jiang Le had told Mao Xiaofei before leaving that he didn’t know how many days this trip would take and wouldn’t be able to check his phone or reply to messages during that time, Mao Xiaofei still sent Jiang Le a check-in photo every day when he entered the farm, and another photo of the bulletin board showing no pending tasks when he clocked out.

“Bro Jiang, your farm is amazing! This bulletin board really does monitor tasks in every area in real time—the instructions are so clear!” 

“Is this what people online are calling high-tech, modernized operations?”

It was 9:00 p.m. Jiang Le walked toward the farm, intending to check on things before resting. Although he could view the farm’s data in the system, nothing put his mind at ease quite like seeing it with his own eyes.

However, to his surprise, when he arrived at the farm, he found that Mao Xiaofei was still there, huffing and puffing as he put up a shed.

“Xiaofei?” Jiang Le called out to him.

Mao Xiaofei had a flashlight clenched between his teeth and a bamboo pole in his hand. Hearing the voice, he looked up, let out a few surprised grunts, then remembered to take the flashlight out of his mouth. He exclaimed excitedly, “Brother Jiang! You’re back.”

The beam of light from the flashlight swept from Jiang Le’s eyelashes to the tops of his shoes, finally settling on his face.

Mao Xiaofei was a bit dazed. Brother Jiang still looked like the same Brother Jiang, yet there was something distinctly different about him. If Mao Xiaofei had to describe it, his limited vocabulary could only manage to say that he seemed to have become even more handsome. His face, which had always been tall and slender, handsome and otherworldly, now carried an added air of unapproachable aloofness.

Jiang Le asked, “Why are you still here so late?”

Judging by the materials in Mao Xiaofei’s hands and the rolled-up straw mat nearby, it seemed he intended to set up a makeshift shelter there to sleep.

Mao Xiaofei felt a bit embarrassed, as if he’d been caught red-handed. He scratched his head and explained, “I haven’t been sleeping well at home these past few days. All kinds of bugs are crawling around, biting people day and night. Yesterday, two snakes even slithered into the house—one was triangular and flat, and looked incredibly venomous. It scared me so much I jumped right out of bed.”

“In the last couple of days, there have been three or four people in our village alone who’ve been bitten by snakes or rats. Snakes are one thing, but rats…What’s going on? In past years, we’d hardly see one of these in several years. But when I was working here during the day, I noticed this part of the farm is cool and quiet—you don’t even see a single bug in the fields. So I just figured I’d sleep here at night. When I was a kid, my grandpa grew watermelons, and to keep people from stealing them, he used to sleep right out in the fields like this. I’ve done it before—I’m used to it…”

Mao Xiaofei glanced at Jiang Le’s expression, picked up his bedding, and said hesitantly, “I think I’ll just go home and sleep.”

The strange behavior exhibited by various animals now is simply due to the energy emitted by the meteorite slowly accumulating within their bodies. Whether they mutate or not, it erodes their original way of thinking: resources are limited, and to become stronger, one must plunder and kill.

Creatures will display immense aggression within the limits of their capabilities.

It hadn’t been long since the meteorite struck. Once half a month had passed, the meteorite’s effects would begin to manifest, zombies would start appearing, and a wave of global chaos would reach a minor peak.

Fortunately, upon seeing Mao Xiaofei, Jiang Le was able to determine the trajectory of his transformation by the faint red glow emanating from his body. Mao Xiaofei would not turn into a zombie; he would most likely become a superpower user.

Jiang Le didn’t let Mao Xiaofei actually sleep at the farm. While it wasn’t out of the question, they should at least build a proper house first. He had Mao Xiaofei follow him back to the Jiang family’s old house and told him to sleep in the main hall.

Mao Xiaofei’s feeling that the farm was safer and quieter wasn’t an illusion. Although the crops and poultry at the farm weren’t particularly high-level yet, items like cucumbers and tomatoes had already reached Level 2 through repeated harvesting and replanting. Compared to the plants and animals outside that had only just begun to mutate, Level 2 was still a formidable tier—most creatures wouldn’t dare approach it lightly.

At the Jiang family’s old house, Jiang Le himself served as that deterrent.

On the way back, Mao Xiaofei briefly recounted to Jiang Le the events that had unfolded in the surrounding area over the past few days.

The online buzz surrounding the meteorite had died down. People’s attitudes had shifted from initial onlooker curiosity and excitement to the current atmosphere of suspicion and vague panic, with all sorts of conspiracy theories flying around.

Trending videos on social media had been replaced by all sorts of strange, visibly anomalous phenomena.

Bizarrely twisted plants on the balcony, frogs whose skin had turned multicolored, leaves so hard they could split a block of wood…all of these phenomena have surpassed people’s previous understanding.

But what has left most people at their wits’ end is the surge in illness; small clinics, community centers, and both private and public hospitals are packed with patients of all kinds.

Chronic conditions that had been stable in the elderly seemed to have hit the fast-forward button; familiar medications no longer provided comfort or relief. Among children, seasonal illnesses—typically seen in the fall, winter, and early spring—erupted during the summer, leaving pediatric clinics and emergency rooms packed to the brim with anxious parents and crying children; even young office workers find no respite; latent damage in bodies already suffering from chronic sub-health is drawn out by an invisible force, leading to a sharp rise in headaches, fevers, insomnia, and anxiety.

Animals in various farms were either going berserk or dying for no apparent reason; even if they seemed fine today, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t suddenly develop problems tomorrow. Vegetable farmers faced similar issues: fresh produce that had previously yielded a steady daily harvest began exhibiting all sorts of abnormalities, with vast swaths of withered leaves. The remaining vegetables that appeared normal—though their appearance was excellent, even more attractive than ordinary produce—had undergone strange changes in taste, becoming either bitter or spicy, making them almost inedible.

Jiang Le listened calmly as Mao Xiaofei finished speaking. Mao Xiaofei looked somewhat uneasy, turning to Jiang Le as if seeking reassurance: “Brother Jiang, things should get back to normal eventually, right? I saw on the news that the authorities are already mobilizing their stockpiles and won’t allow prices to get too high.”

Jiang Le didn’t answer Mao Xiaofei’s question. He simply patted Mao Xiaofei on the shoulder and said, “Go to sleep.”

Although Jiang Le didn’t give a clear answer, his composed expression offered Mao Xiaofei some comfort. After a long, exhausting day of work, Mao Xiaofei fell asleep on the bamboo bed in no time.

Jiang Le, however, couldn’t sleep.

Everything unfolding outside was merely a repetition of what he had experienced in his previous life; there were no details that surprised Jiang Le. He knew the countless efforts the higher-ups had made, the countless attempts to organize rescue and unity. Otherwise, the world wouldn’t have descended into complete chaos only three months after the meteorite struck—after all, most nations had collapsed entirely before even a month had passed.

Yet, under the rewritten laws of nature, the strength of humanity was ultimately insignificant—powerless to protest, with no avenue for appeal. Survival or annihilation: this cruel transformation, irreversible in its nature, had already begun before humanity could even react.

Fully aware of all this, Jiang Le had no intention of wallowing in melancholy; he simply wanted to survive in this new world.