Necromancer, summoning 055? What the heck?

Chapter 482 Insect Plague Tears Apart the Seeds of Sin
Summers in Hanhai City are actually quite hot.

The midday sun was like a red-hot copper basin, hanging over our heads and refusing to budge.

The air was filled with a dry, scorching smell, and in the distance, the sandy ground emitted visible, distorted heat waves, turning the barely surviving saplings into crooked shadows.

Although over the years, Hanhai has planted trees, grass, rice, and various cash crops in this area, making it a deep green landscape, the desert is still a desert. Completing such a grand transformation cannot be done in just three to five years.

The Eastern Xia dynasty on Earth considered transforming the desert a century-long endeavor.

However, Han Hai, who inherited the legacy from his own lord, seems to have an innate passion for nature.

A large number of workers in the territory spend all year round in the sand field, planting poplars and willows in spring, pressing sand and laying grass in summer, replanting and tending in autumn, and even in winter, they have to continue setting up sand-fixing grids despite the cold wind.

Except for the brief few days when the Green Pine Army pressed down on the city, the greening work of the Vast Ocean has never stopped, even during the most intense periods of war between the territory and foreign powers, as long as the flames of war are not burning on its doorstep.

Day after day, Han Hai tirelessly plants grass and trees, then plants grass and trees again.

There are annual targets, and if they are not met, the responsible person will be removed from office.

Liu Shan was one of the unfortunate ones who were implicated.

Liu Shan's uncle was the former director of the Forestry and Grassland Department, which was a crucial position during the period when Hanhai was undertaking large-scale infrastructure construction.

After taking office, adhering to the principle of keeping the benefits within the family, and taking advantage of the talent shortage in Hanhai, this director promoted a large number of relatives and cronies.

In Han Hai's personnel management principles, for non-combat-related positions, Han Hai is very willing to use ordinary people. Although Liu Shan has no talent for cultivation, with his fairly quick mind and his uncle's care, he quickly became an important backbone member of the department.

With a new status and a decent income, Liu Shan's life underwent a dramatic transformation.

He used to be just an unknown ordinary person; now, he is a civil servant at Hanhai.

We moved from the dugout into a spacious house with glass windows that let in plenty of light!

The house is furnished with furniture brought from Hanhai Wood Factory; it's brand new, smooth, and has a pleasant wood smell.

With the bicycles provided by the company, the bells jingled as we rode through the streets and alleys, and everyone who saw us would greet us.

Even the girl who had only dared to steal a glance before, and never dared to look directly at Liu Shan, asked someone to shyly express her feelings to him.

The girl had big, bright eyes, and when she smiled, she had two shallow dimples. According to her father, if the men who pursued her were to line up, they could stretch all the way from Hanhai City to the bay dock.

Even the boldest Liu Shan ever dared to only secretly hold a girl's hand in his dreams.

Now, holding the vest that the girl had knitted by hand, Liu Shan's fingers were trembling from the heat.

The two quickly set a wedding date, and everything wonderful seemed to be coming their way.

Then, unsurprisingly, an accident occurred.

A group of people with connections were huddled together, many of whom had never witnessed the mighty power of the Vast Ocean. Naturally, they were prone to using inferior goods and engaging in fraudulent practices.

Fortunately, planting trees is not too difficult. If we follow the guidelines given by the lord and the council and put in a little more effort, we can still meet the target.

They managed to muddle through for over a year, and then trouble struck.

In one tree-planting area, due to the use of inferior seedlings and inadequate cultivation practices, a large area of ​​trees withered and died after a period of extreme heat.

This is serious trouble.

These people with connections weren't very good at math. After counting on their fingers for a long time, they discovered that the survival rate of the trees planted that year had fallen short of expectations.

As the uncle of the Director of the Forestry and Grassland Bureau, his face turned deathly pale, and his body trembled as if he had a seizure. The crowd below also wailed in pain.

At the critical moment, an old man among the relatives who had once worked as a handyman in a mercenary group stepped forward.

Having traveled extensively with mercenary groups, he naturally had far more experience than the average person, and he offered a way to survive even in the face of death.

“When I was working in the south, I saw a kind of insect that the locals called ‘wood-eating beetle’.”

The old mercenary lowered his voice and gestured with his hands, slightly spreading his thumb and forefinger to reveal a gap of more than an inch.

"Those insects are incredibly dangerous. They burrow into trees and eat the pith and core of the tree. They especially like to gnaw on young trees. Where there are these insects, the saplings will definitely die within a few months. They will be completely dead, and you won't be able to tell from the outside."

"We didn't realize something was wrong until all the leaves had withered!"

"This stuff can be used as a material for wood-type magic. There are people in the mercenary guild who buy it. The mercenary group I'm with has done it a few times, so I know where to get it."

At this point, the old mercenary paused and lowered his voice further.

"Director, if we are hit by this 'wood-eating beetle' infestation here, the higher-ups can't just blame us, can they?"

The director of the Forestry and Grassland Bureau, Liu Shan's uncle, swallowed hard: "Then... how can we bring about this disaster?"

"Let's find a way to get some insects and put them on the edge of the dead forest."

The old mercenary made a drilling gesture, "Insects can't talk, so who knows where these things came from?"

“In a few months, we’ll report it to our superiors and say we’ve had an insect infestation. We’ve never seen this before, and it’s not in the prevention and control manuals they’ve issued. This is a natural disaster, so we can’t blame it all on us, can we?”

Everyone's eyes lit up as they grasped at this lifeline, echoing, "That's right, the council isn't unreasonable. Last year, when the tide flooded the dock's warehouses, they said it was 'force majeure'!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's the bugs causing trouble! What does it have to do with us!"

"If we find it, it might even be considered a merit!"

And so the plan was set.

Liu Shan was standing in the corner when he heard this. His heart was pounding, and he instinctively felt that something was wrong.

But when he thought about his house, his bride-to-be, and his wonderful life, and then looked at the group of people who were already obsessed, he swallowed back the words of advice that were on the tip of his tongue.

He could only suppress his unease and keep reassuring himself: they were just bugs, and the forest was already completely dead anyway.

The people above are so busy, how could they have time to deal with such trivial matters?
As it turned out, his hunch was correct.

The Soul-Eating Beetle was successfully delivered to the forest area, and for the first few days there was no news. But soon, things developed in a way that far exceeded their expectations.

These insects disregard the dead trees and instead spread to the healthy woodlands.

By the time the Forestry and Grassland Bureau realized something was wrong, the insects had already appeared in three forest areas, infesting hundreds of trees, and their numbers were growing at an alarming rate.

The once lush green trees quickly began to turn yellow and fall off, and their branches became dry and brittle, breaking at the slightest touch.

The Forestry and Grassland Department quickly submitted a report, which was personally written by Liu Shan, expressing his sincere feelings and deep sorrow.

Faced with this sudden and severe insect infestation, the entire Forestry and Grassland Bureau was extremely anxious and was doing everything in its power to eradicate it, requesting support from the Lord's Mansion.

Chen Mo indeed attached great importance to it.

The Hanhai Political Affairs Office immediately established a prevention and control team, dispatched a cleanup team, began to carry out disinfection on the infected trees, patrolled and isolated the forest area, and quickly identified the true identity of the culprit insect.

The incident was characterized as an "invasive species" and an "unexpected natural disaster."

It seems that everything is going in the direction we expected.

However, to everyone's surprise, one of the councilors, eager to make a name for himself and eager to curry favor, suggested that the elven druids be involved.

"The elves have dealt with trees for tens of thousands of years. They are experts at dealing with insects. Perhaps some trees can be saved!"

The lord hesitated for a moment: "It's just a few saplings, it shouldn't be such a big fuss, right? How will the cost be calculated?"

Lilan Qingge, who was serving in the Vast Ocean, immediately patted her chest and said, "What money do you need? The lord protects all living things and has done great favors for the elves. How could a druid possibly accept your money!"

"This is giving them an opportunity to build a natural ecosystem together with you; they should be paying Hanhai!"

Chen Mo: "That's not necessary..."

Soon after, Lillian sent a message, and the Silvermoon Council immediately dispatched several senior druids.

A few old, bark-like creatures simply walked around the site, casually patted the tree trunks, and quickly pulled out all the wood-eating beetles. They even repaired some of the injured but still alive saplings.

After inspecting the entire site, the eldest druid straightened up, dusted off the sawdust from his hands, and said something to the accompanying council official that plunged the entire Forestry and Grassland Bureau into despair.

"The bugs first appeared in this area," the old druid pointed to the woodland where the trees had died the earliest, "but these trees died first, and remained dead for at least a month before these bugs appeared."

"This 'wood-eating beetle' was probably planted by someone."

Alright, with such a clear movement pattern, the motive is obvious. Lin Caosi is the prime suspect.

Liu Shan couldn't remember much of what happened after that. He only knew that the inspectors arrived on the spot and ransacked the Forestry and Grassland Bureau like a pack of hyenas.

Ledgers, receipts, surveillance footage, inventory data, and entry/exit records—everything was exposed. How could these cronies withstand the iron fist of the inspection department?
In less than two days, the matter was thoroughly investigated.

Undoubtedly, this incident provoked Chen Mo's fury.

Because of corruption, inferior materials were used to replace superior ones, resulting in the death of a batch of trees. This already constitutes serious dereliction of duty, but at this point the situation is not too serious. At most, it is just a matter of individual personnel being fined, demoted, or dismissed.

However, the Director of the Forestry and Grassland Bureau deliberately introduced this vicious insect infestation in order to evade responsibility, resulting in even greater losses, which is unforgivable.

The main culprits were sentenced to death, and the group that bought and released the insects were all sentenced to heavy labor. Although Liu Shan did not participate in the whole process, he knew about it but did not report it, and was sentenced to one year of labor reform in the mine.

One year.

When things are going well, a year passes in the blink of an eye, but now a year feels like such a long and agonizing time.

A year later, when Liu Shan returned, he felt that things had changed and people were no longer the same, and that the world was cold and indifferent.

Those who used to fawn over him now avoid him like the plague, and he is the subject of much gossip and pointing fingers at by residents on the streets.

Even little kids who are only a few years old will yell "Bad guy, big bad guy!" at themselves and then spit out a ridiculous mouthful of saliva.

Fortunately, Hanhai will still give released prisoners a way out.

Liu Shan had previously worked at the Forestry and Grassland Bureau. He was assigned to a job as a laborer planting trees and was given a six-square-meter dugout. His life was essentially starting from scratch.

Liu Shan also wanted to start his new life properly.

He worked from dawn till dusk every day, following a group of tree planters, digging holes, laying soil, watering, and planting trees.

The calluses on his hands had peeled away layer after layer, and his back was tanned dark and shiny.

He thought, "That's it. I'll just have to endure it for a few years, save some money, and maybe I'll have a chance to get back to the life I had before."

Until he saw the girl he had once pledged his marriage to.

He never dared to go back to see her, as if he felt that as long as he didn't see her, he could freeze those beautiful memories there and wait for them to be reopened someday.

But in the end, he still ran into it.

As we finished work in the afternoon, the setting sun cast long shadows of people and houses on the street.

Liu Shan, carrying a shovel and covered in sweat, walked with his head down towards his dugout. When he reached the street corner, he looked up—

He saw her.

In Hanhai, good-looking girls can easily find their ideal partner.

In the year or so that Liu Shan was not by her side, enough things could happen.

Now, she is wearing a beautiful coat, light blue with small white flowers, looking fresh and clean.

The girl's hair was tied up in a bun at the back of her head, revealing her fair neck. She supported her slightly protruding belly with one hand and rested her other hand on the man in the Hanhai uniform beside her, smiling sweetly.

Liu Shan recognized the guy; he was an office worker at the port authority and had followed him and the girl around, constantly calling them "Big Brother" and "Big Sister-in-law."

At that moment, the man leaned down and whispered something in the girl's ear, which made her smile and playfully punch him, seemingly both angry and annoyed.

Liu Shan felt as if he had been struck by lightning.

He instinctively shrank back, disappearing into the building's shadow, his back pressed against the cold wall, too afraid to move.

After waiting a while, estimating that the two had gone far away, he secretly peeked out, revealing his blood-red eyes through the gap, staring intently at the receding figures.

He recalled a year ago when she stood before him like a flower, shyly expressing her affection. Back then, her face was redder, her eyes brighter, and she twisted the hem of her dress as she spoke, looking utterly captivating.

That was his last happy memory.

A heart-wrenching pain spread through his chest. He dug his fingers into the wall, his fingernails filled with grit, and blood left deep marks on the wall.

At that moment, his reason was completely burned away!

He did nothing, but he lost everything. He became the achievement of those "black-skinned dogs" in the inspection team, and their capital to claim credit and rewards!

He has lost his happiness forever!
Liu Shan clenched his fists. How unfair fate had been to him!

He began to drink heavily, drinking cheap liquor that cost a copper coin a bowl, which burned his heart and lungs. After several drunken rants in taverns, an old mercenary approached him.

An old "raven" from the Tower of Twilight.

Liu Shan regained respect, at least among those people.

He also had a lot of money that he dared not spend, which he could only hide in a hole in the wall of his dugout and take out to count when it was quiet at night.

He had a woman he dared not bring into the public eye; she was very beautiful and would fawn over him at night.

Of course, there were also some shady tasks.

The quota Liu Shan received from the Forestry and Grassland Department today is to plant 120 saplings.

According to the standard tree planting manual released by Hanhai, the tree planting procedure is called "one dig, three lay, two water".

Digging naturally involves digging pits. On flat ground, small square pits should be dug, while on slopes, fish-scale pits should be dug.

The third layer consists of three layers: the bottom layer is topped with a layer of topsoil to improve the soil quality of the sandy land; the middle layer is covered with withered grass and fallen leaves to provide nutrients and retain water; and the top layer is fully decomposed farmyard manure, which is human and animal excrement.

Uncomposted fertilizer is not allowed, as it will burn the roots.

The two watering methods are: first, soaking the seedlings in water for three to five days before planting to allow them to absorb enough water.

Second, water the plants. Use one bucket of water per planting hole to settle the roots, with a standard amount of 12 kilograms, to ensure that the bottom of the hole is thoroughly wet.

The process is quite complicated. If it weren't for so many troublesome steps and the need to fetch water back and forth, Liu Shan could easily plant a thousand or eight hundred trees a day.

However, as long as the standard procedure is followed and water is replenished in a timely manner, the survival rate is indeed high.

Hanhai has always been this disciplined in its operations.

Liu Shan was already very skilled at the operation. He skillfully dug holes, laid materials, planted trees, filled in the soil, and tamped it down. After completing each tree, he would draw a line on the side of the bucket with a pen attached to it.

The five strokes form the character "正" (zhèng), which represents the standard procedure for planting trees, demonstrating meticulousness in every aspect.

When Liu Shan drew the sixth tally mark, he saw the small circular mark on the ground.

Without making a sound, he stepped on it, ground it with the sole of his foot, and then plunged a shovel deep into the ground to start digging a hole.

He dug this tree pit five centimeters longer than the other pits.

As he took clay from the cart, he glanced at the other tree planters out of the corner of his eye. A dozen or so people were scattered around; some were digging holes, some were fetching water, some were jogging along pushing carts, and some were squatting on the ground to catch their breath, with a cigarette dangling from their mouths...

Nobody is looking this way.

He buried his arm deep into the soil.

A small packet of magical materials was mixed in with the topsoil and placed at the bottom of the pit. It was quickly covered by leaves, then fertilizer was added, a tree was placed, and then soil was filled in...

And so, the foundation of a magic circle was laid out silently.

Liu Shan straightened up, patted the dirt off his hands, and drew another line on the side of the bucket.

When he looked up again, Liu Shan couldn't help but glance back at the distant Hanhai City.

Even now, Hanhai still has no city walls. All kinds of buildings fill the city to the brim, and even from a distance, you can feel its surging vitality.

Among those densely packed buildings, there was once one that was his home.

Now, no one knows who lives inside, or in which house does the girl he once longed for lie?

Liu Shan suddenly felt a burning pain in his chest.

He slammed the shovel hard onto the ground, the force of the impact making his hands go numb.

The tree planter uttered a few words that no one could understand.

"Go, everyone..."

I looked up and glanced once more at the city bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun.

"Die!"

(End of this chapter)