I am Jinshan Youxia

"Hibino, we'll be late if we don't hurry," his classmate urged.

Hibino glanced at the 'monster' girl following him at the end of the street, said nothing, and walked forward with his head down.

On the balcony of the second floor of the villa, Zhang Chengyi was silently watching the girl on the street who was following closely behind the boy, looking exactly like a peeping tom.

In his view, the girl's face was blank, without even eyes; she was an absolute monster.

"Investigate those three students from earlier." After he finished speaking, the church member beside him bowed, acknowledged the order, and left.

"Is this yet another rule that's spiraling out of control?"

Zhang Chengyi rubbed his temples, feeling a bit of a headache. This N City really was a place of outstanding people and resources. In the half month he had been here, including the voyeur girl in front of him, he had already seen three people and things related to the supernatural.

An ice cream truck roams around, and children who eat its ice cream turn into ice cream and are sold. The rules are out of control [ice cream]. The driver is a strange, nameless man.

Because a child went missing, a parent reported it to the police. The city's security team quickly apprehended the ice cream truck and has now taken it into custody, where it is being held in an isolation room deep within the underground laboratory below.

One is the Zhonggu cigarette, which is popular in the city and has an unknown origin.

When Zhang Chengyi saw someone smoking a Zhonggu cigarette, he would see black smoke coming from that person's eyes, mouth, and nose. A few symbiotic microorganisms with psychic superpowers could also see this.

After spending money to buy it and taking a puff, you realize it's the Uncontrollable Rule [Tobacco]. Once you smoke it, you'll quickly become addicted and will actively spread the tobacco to others to smoke together. It will gradually distort a person's mind until they completely lose their mind, become a madman, and die.

People who smoke become unusually irritable without this strange cigarette. Once they start smoking, there is no possibility of quitting by ordinary means. The only way to cure them is to implant bacteria to satisfy their distorted bodies and minds with false illusions, but their minds will still be somewhat abnormal.

After the police quickly banned the cigarettes, many cases of assault and murder occurred. These people who attacked others had their minds contaminated by the mold, and generally 20% of their minds were also contaminated. Even implanting bacteria could not save them. If left untreated, they would suddenly die after a few hours of madness.

Just thinking about it makes me realize how troublesome it will be if it spreads.

The second body is leading a security team to search for the source of the tobacco.

Given the pattern of uncontrolled rules leading to their birth and expansion, large cities will indeed have more of these things, and many of them have probably already integrated into human society, becoming 'abnormalities' that are visible in daily life.

"The situation is more serious than I imagined..."

Zhang Chengyi had originally prepared to arrest several abnormal individuals in N City, but he didn't expect that before he could even begin a thorough investigation, three people had already voluntarily come forward. Who knows how many other messy things are hidden in such a large city?

"The experiment on clones needs to be accelerated. This year's goal is to clear out a safe zone in at least one large city."

"Your Highness, it's a call from Keiichi Matsui." Goro Furuhata strode over and presented the phone with both hands.

Zhang Chengyi picked up the phone, answered it, and asked, "Matsui?"

"It is I, Your Highness." Matsui Keiichi's voice was very respectful. "The Kinki Regional Public Security Investigation Bureau and the Kanto Regional Investigation Bureau have decided to merge into us, and the anomaly information they have investigated has been sent to the police force via fax."

"The Japanese government has discovered our actions, Your Highness. Should we send someone to Tokyo?"

The subtext of his words was that he should just go and take control of the higher-ups first, to avoid causing trouble later.

Zhang Chengyi thought for a while before saying, "Matsui, go take a look." He hadn't originally planned to take over the government by force, but now it seemed that it really wouldn't work.

There are too many out-of-control rules. They've already spread to N City, and we don't know what's going on in Japan. The rest of the world is probably in no better shape. We should move to another planet as quickly as possible.

If the Japanese government were to handle it itself, it would probably collapse even faster.

Sending Keiichi Matsui was the most direct solution. He's very decisive; he'd rather use mind control than verbal threats.

"Yes."

Matsui Keiichi's voice carried a hint of amusement; he was happy to bully ordinary people.

-----------------

Grass Fruit Town, near N City.

"This is it."

Zhang Chengyi's second body raised its head, looking at the dense black smoke filling the sky, its expression somewhat solemn, "Has it reached the point of changing the celestial phenomena?"

A sign not far away clearly displays five dark Chinese characters: 【中谷烟ト会】.

Through government channels, he discovered that this tobacco was not only popular in Japan, but also exported overseas, with a large number of customers in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It was of good quality and low price, and the repurchase rate was almost 100%.

This place was originally just a small town, but now it has been completely transformed into a tobacco factory.

Note that this is not a tobacco company, but a factory that supplies cigarettes to tobacco companies. Tobacco companies only care about making profits and don't care at all whether there are any problems inside.

Strangely, despite the enormous profits involved, the formula has not been taken away, and the production base is still only located in Caoguo Town.

"Sir, would you like a cigarette?" A man with black smoke billowing from his eyes approached and asked, offering a cigarette.

Zhang Chengyi took the cigarette, lit it, and took a puff. The smoke rushed out of his mouth. As a soulless "outcast," he hated this tobacco.

Seeing the customer smoking, the man smiled and said, "Sir, you're from out of town, aren't you? What brings you to Caoguo Town?"

Chapter 329 The one who stands out from the crowd is...

"I happened to be passing by on my trip."

Zhang Chengyi replied with a smile, then asked, "Are you a local?"

The person currently in use is a seasoned Nakatani cigarette enthusiast who has now become demented and is lying in an isolation room awaiting the process of destruction.

The man, whose expression was momentarily dazed by the hormones that had affected him the few seconds it took him to approach, asked respectfully, "No, but I've been here for two years. What is it that you want to know?"

Zhang Chengyi glanced at the road. All the pedestrians had cigarettes in their mouths, and black smoke billowed from their eyes, making them look extremely eerie. He opened and closed his mouth, and the questions he wanted to ask were all poured into the mind of the man next to him through memory transmission.

Fragments of memories kept surging from the man's mind, the overwhelming flood of recollections causing his brain to tremble. Before he started smoking Nakatani cigarettes and came to Kusaka Town, he had a happy family, a virtuous wife, and a well-behaved and sensible son. But after he became addicted to Nakatani cigarettes and abandoned everything to come here, he spent every day smoking, smoking, smoking...

He knelt on the ground, weeping bitterly, the cigarette in his mouth falling out, the cigarette that appeared to be still burning producing no sparks or smoke.

My mind has been distorted by tobacco by more than 40%; there's no hope for me.

Zhang Chengyi withdrew his ability, and the memories that had surfaced were quickly suppressed by his distorted mind. He watched as the man opened his mouth again, licked the fallen cigarette, and took deep drags as he walked toward the Zhonggu Tobacco Company's factory.

There are no locals left in Caoguo Town. Almost everyone here is an outsider who came in search of cigarettes and joined the tobacco club. They can get these unique cigarettes at the daily gatherings.

The factory in the city center that constantly spews out smoke is the Nakatani family's.

Nakatani is a surname. No one knows who it is or how many people are in it. All that is known is that the tobacco association is run by the Nakatani family, and the cigarettes are also produced by the Nakatani family.

Why are cigarettes given away for free to people who join the tobacco club? Why do so many people join the Grass Fruit Town every day for cigarettes, yet the town still has very few residents? Where did the missing people go?

Nobody cares.

There are no normal people here. They don't care about anything else; all they think about is taking drugs.

Similar to vampires who voluntarily swallow blood fruits after being infected by the Blood Jade Tree, once their minds are twisted beyond a certain limit, they cannot stop. Their brains are completely controlled, and they cannot tolerate any other thoughts except for what they want.

Zhang Chengyi reviewed the memories of many passersby. Some people did indeed feel something was wrong when they first arrived, but they couldn't resist the allure of cigarettes. After attending a few tobacco parties, they completely forgot their doubts and only thought about smoking.

However, thanks to this group of frenzied smokers, his infiltration went very smoothly, and it seemed that no one cared about having an extra person.

He wandered around Caoguo Town for a long time, deliberately making himself look suspicious, but no one paid any attention to him.

I should have known better than to waste time pretending to be someone I'm not.

That's completely unnecessary.

At first, Zhang Chengyi genuinely thought that Nakatani Tobacco was a schemer like Ya, and that he didn't know how many people he would kill if he continued like this. But when he walked in himself, it seemed that he was completely unprepared.

He simply ran directly to the bottom of the chimney. There was a sign on the wall at the entrance of the courtyard that read "Zhonggu". No one stopped him when he went in. He arrived at the factory building under the chimney, pushed open the door and went in. The inside was filled with black smoke, and he couldn't see anything from a distance. Judging from his mental perspective, there were more than a dozen humans working on the production line.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the workers were smoking while working, and the black smoke billowing from their eyes was almost tangible.

Cigarettes fell from the mechanized equipment. Two workers, whose cigarettes had burned out, casually picked up a few more and put them in their mouths to continue smoking. The cigarettes burned quickly and disappeared. Then, the two men collapsed to the ground with a thud, no longer breathing, with expressions of enjoyment on their faces. Their open eyelids revealed empty sockets with tiny sparks flickering in them.

The workers nearby picked them up and happily walked away.

Zhang Chengyi made no attempt to conceal his presence; he was prepared to be attacked. However, these people remained unmoved when they heard or saw an outsider approaching.

He had no choice but to walk over and ask, "What are you going to do with the corpse?"

As he got closer, the bacteria in his body spread over and infected the group. He discovered that the mental distortion level of these people exceeded 50%, and they would probably die on the spot soon.

The workers carrying the corpses were too busy having fun to pay any attention to the outsiders; they were simply happy that they had more tobacco to smoke.

[Tobacco made from corpses?] Zhang Chengyi guessed for a moment, then followed the workers onto the bus and arrived at a relatively secluded street in the town.

The street was filled with tobacco leaves, making it look like a tobacco field. Workers carried corpses into the tobacco-filled courtyard. A nearly peeling sign on the wall read "Caoguo Funeral Home." Smoke from burning corpses drifted continuously in the sky.

Zhang Chengyi watched coldly as the workers burned the bodies and scattered the ashes in the yard, then began harvesting tobacco. No matter how much was cut, it would quickly grow back, becoming even more lush and spreading outwards onto the street.

He returned to the factory with the workers, carrying a truckload of tobacco, and waited quietly for an afternoon, but found nothing.

After two workers died, people immediately asked him if he wanted to work at the tobacco factory. When he refused, the workers weren't angry. They calmly went outside to recruit more people while smoking.

As evening approached, a few people drove around the town to collect the bodies of those who died from smoking and take them to the crematorium.

I can probably understand why this group is using human ashes to feed tobacco, but I never saw anyone from the Nakatani family behind the scenes.

He wandered around the town again, unwilling to give up, but still couldn't find anyone from the Nakatani family, or rather, any normal people.

Using his mind-reading ability, he read the minds of all the living people. The longest-lived among them had only come over in the last three years. As for the tobacco club, it was simply a continuation of the old tradition: the factory workers would bring out cigarettes, and everyone could find an open space to smoke as much as they wanted.

No wonder tobacco companies didn't seize the formula or take over the tobacco factories. Why bother with all the fancy stuff? They could just drive up to the factory, haul away the tobacco, and that would be the end of it.

Zhang Chengyi was truly bewildered. He went outside to let the security team members waiting for him in the town know he was safe, used the bacterial reagent he carried with him to replace his body with two types of extraordinary bacteria that were more capable of direct combat, and then returned to the town in a very open and honest manner.

In this situation, psychic abilities are indeed not very useful. If you test the IQ of the people in the town, they probably wouldn't even reach 80. Sending Forrest Gump here would make him stand out from the crowd, and if Arnold came here, he would be mistaken for Einstein.

He planned to forcibly destroy the factory and cigarettes to see if anyone from the Nakatani family would show up.

That's two updates today.

I need to adjust my sleep schedule; I'm too sleepy to write much.

Chapter 330 Verification and Speculation

At night, at the Nakatani Tobacco Factory, the machines that used to work 24 hours a day have stopped.

Workers who had worked until their dying breath collapsed on the ground.

"Snapped!"

Zhang Chengyi stood at the door. After snapping his fingers, driven by his telekinetic and energy-dissipating abilities, everything in the entire factory floated up, collided, squeezed, and shattered, turning into countless powders that rose into the sky.

The power-dissipating ability, which requires physical contact to take effect, can be extended through telekinesis. The two different abilities derived from the microbial community can achieve a synergistic effect greater than the sum of their parts, allowing for remote control of all forces. These are arguably the two abilities with the highest potential so far.

If it weren't for the fact that no one else besides him could simultaneously resonate with both of these bacterial groups, his actions might have been even more reckless.

In the blink of an eye, the original factory was completely razed to the ground.