Chang Haojie did not need to think about so many problems, so he did not consider Shen Feng's worries to be a serious matter. He couldn't help but say, "Brother-in-law, you're still worrying too much. Not to mention that there are still more than twenty days left for the battle, just about setting fire, it's burned, it didn't spread, what can others do to you?"
Shen Feng shook his head and said, "You don't understand this. A hundred mouths can melt gold, and accumulated slander can destroy bones. I'm not worried about others assassinating me, but about the fear of human words. After all, if you give others an excuse, the situation will become 'a piece of meat, egg, and milk in the country, and a prairie fire in South America.' To put it bluntly, setting fire is the last resort."
Chang Haojie nodded, remembering what he saw today, and couldn't help but share, "Brother-in-law, do you know what? I saw someone eating raw meat today!"
Shen Feng heard this but didn't care much. He casually replied, "Is eating raw meat strange? I used to eat raw meat often, especially raw meat from Japan and Korea, I ate a lot of it!"
When Chang Haojie heard Shen Feng's answer, he was shocked. He didn't expect his brother-in-law to have such a strange hobby: "You can eat raw meat, brother-in-law? How come I've never seen you eat it? Or are you secretly eating it behind our backs?"
Shen Feng put down the map and said seriously, "Of course, eating raw meat should be done behind people's backs, unless it's the kind of proper raw meat. However, you can only eat cooked meat, after all, the sinicization in China is quite strong."
Chang Haojie was originally very shocked. He imagined that Shen Feng must have secretly gone to the kitchen at night, possibly using his powers, making as little noise as possible, then gently opening the refrigerator door to find meat to eat, all while hiding it from others, not to be discovered.
However, when Chang Haojie heard the word "sinicization," he was immediately confused. Sinicization? What sinicization?
"Brother-in-law, let me confirm, when you say eating raw meat, do you mean the meat you eat in your mouth?" Chang Haojie couldn't help but ask.
Shen Feng was also stunned by this question, and then he realized that what he said and what his brother-in-law said were not the same thing. So he patted his head and explained, "The raw meat I'm talking about refers to foreign literary and artistic works that have not been translated, understand?"
Chang Haojie breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed he had misunderstood. Then he asked, "Brother-in-law, your foreign language must be very good then?"
"Uh... not really. Chewing raw meat doesn't mean my foreign language is good. Forget it, I can't explain this clearly to you. When you grow up, you'll understand everything." Shen Feng smiled awkwardly. Although he chewed raw meat, Shen Feng never cared about the text.
Chang Haojie suddenly thought of something and quickly said to Shen Feng, "Right, brother-in-law, when I was flying in the sky today, I saw a patch of yellow mist in the central area of the mutated beasts. The area is quite large, several square kilometers. Mutated beasts have been coming and going in it. I'm telling you this now!"
When Shen Feng heard this, he immediately felt that something was wrong and quickly said to Chang Haojie, "Take me to see it quickly, this is not a trivial matter, we must grasp the situation!"
At this moment, Shen Feng thought of his experience in Fish Town. Back then, in Fish Town, a thousand people were captured and absorbed by mutated plants. Fortunately, the plant heart feared sunlight, and Shen Feng blew away the white mist, which ended the battle. Now that there was mist in Yuzhou, even yellow mist, it couldn't be underestimated. If another plant heart appeared, it would be bad.
Chang Haojie quickly summoned clouds and took Shen Feng towards the middle of the encirclement. Shen Feng felt that Chang Haojie's speed was too slow, so he controlled a gust of wind to blow the clouds, making them fly towards the center of the encirclement. The speed increased significantly, but Chang Haojie had to maintain the clouds so they wouldn't scatter, which consumed more physical strength.
"We're here!" Chang Haojie and Shen Feng stood in the air and looked down.
Shen Feng looked down, and as Chang Haojie had said, there was a patch of light yellow mist covering several square kilometers in the central area of the encirclement. Around these mists, there were many mutated beasts lying on the ground. These mutated beasts looked very strange, moving in and out of the mists, their bodies swaying, and often falling to the ground as they walked.
Shen Feng did not know what was happening in these mists.
"Take me down, I want to see the specific situation!" Shen Feng said to Chang Haojie.
Chang Haojie was worried when he heard this and said, "There are so many mutated beasts below, it might be dangerous to go down rashly. Besides, before leaving Yuzhou, didn't your sister tell you to act cautiously?"
Chang Haojie did not want to go down, so he even brought up his sister to scare Shen Feng.
But Shen Feng did not fall for it and directly questioned, "Are you scared?"
Chang Haojie, who aspired to be a great hero, became anxious when he heard this. Wasn't his brother-in-law doubting his courage? His face couldn't help but turn red, and he directly said, "How could I be scared? If you don't believe me, then I'll go down!"
Seeing that his brother-in-law was so easily provoked, Shen Feng found it amusing, "He's still a child, his emotions are easily stirred by a single word from me."
Chang Haojie slowly landed on the ground with Shen Feng. Their vision was blocked by the yellow mist, and they could not see the situation in the forest. On the ground around them, there were many mutated beasts lying down, many with their eyes open. When these mutated beasts saw Shen Feng, they were indifferent. They neither rushed forward to fight nor turned to flee, but just lay on the ground, closing their eyes as they lay there.
Chang Haojie also found it strange and couldn't help but step forward to scare them, "Hey, wake up, can you sleep at your age? Have you got any ambition?"
However, even with Chang Haojie's loud scolding, these mutated beasts lying on the ground remained unmoved, becoming increasingly silent on the ground, which seemed very strange. So many mutated beasts saw humans but did not dodge or flee, but instead lay on the ground sleeping. It was completely abnormal. So many mutated beasts could fight, and judging by their appearance, they did not seem to be exhausted to become like this.
At this moment, the wind direction changed, and a gust of wind blew, blowing the yellow mist towards Chang Haojie. Chang Haojie inhaled the yellow mist and couldn't help but rub his eyes.
"Brother-in-law, I feel so comfortable! I'm going to sleep, don't disturb me!" Chang Haojie said, stretching his back, and then he lowered his head to find a place to sleep, as if he had forgotten where he was. This was within the encirclement, where hundreds of thousands of mutated beasts were active every day. Once a large group of mutated beasts passed through here, even an elephant would be trampled into meat paste!
And Chang Haojie was about to fall asleep in this situation, which was very strange.
Shen Feng quickly stepped forward to hold Chang Haojie. He didn't expect his brother-in-law to be falling asleep now. Could it be the effect of this yellow mist?
"East Wind Mighty!" Shen Feng couldn't care about anything else and quickly used his powers to summon a mighty gust of wind that swept away all the yellow mist around.
However, although the use of powers seemed to be to disperse the yellow mist, it directly caused the yellow mist to spread eastward. The yellow mist drifted in the air, and wherever it passed, any mutated beast that inhaled the mist would fall to the ground and fall asleep, which was incredibly strange.
Seeing this, Shen Feng quickly stopped his actions. If the yellow mist blew towards Lu Xian, it might cause problems on the southeastern front. If the yellow mist was blown onto the battlefield, a large number of people would fall asleep on the spot, and then the mutated beasts would have a way to escape.
Shen Feng was about to take Chang Haojie away from this strange place when he suddenly saw what was happening in the mist. As the strong wind blew, countless dead branches and leaves on the ground were blown away. Such a strong wind caused sand and stones to fly from the ground, but such strong wind naturally blew the yellow mist far away.
When the yellow mist disappeared, Shen Feng saw the situation in the forest. It turned out that there was a large area of cypress trees growing here, and the yellow mist was falling from the cypress trees. Thinking carefully, Shen Feng understood that this yellow mist was cypress pollen. Every spring, various flowers would bloom and then pollinate. Among them, cypress pollen was the most abundant. A light pat would cause a large amount of light yellow pollen to fall.
"I've never heard of cypress pollen being hypnotic. Could this also be a mutated plant?" Shen Feng muttered to himself.
Shen Feng had heard of pollen allergies, and cypress pollen did cause allergic symptoms in some people with allergic constitutions. However, there were many mutated beasts lying on the ground in the forest now, clearly asleep. This meant that this yellow mist could put animals into a sleeping state!
"Take it back for research!" Shen Feng dared not be careless. The situation was already very tense. Underestimating mutated plants would lead to great losses.
Afterward, Shen Feng used his wind blade to cut off a branch of cypress and used "Follow the Wind" to rush up, hold his breath, pick up the branch, wrap it in his clothes, and then quickly returned to Chang Haojie's side. At this time, Chang Haojie was already lying on the ground, fast asleep, with saliva flowing from the corner of his mouth.
Shen Feng didn't care about this and quickly moved away, carrying Chang Haojie on his shoulder.
It was also Shen Feng's good luck that he did not inhale the yellow mist. Otherwise, Shen Feng might have already fallen asleep. As for what would happen after falling asleep, it was unpredictable.
As Shen Feng ran rapidly on the ground, after a while, Chang Haojie also woke up. He saw himself being carried on his brother-in-law's shoulder as he fled, and he looked confused, "What's wrong with me? Brother-in-law, why are you carrying me?"
Shen Feng said lightly, "It's nothing. I'm taking you back to the military camp now, and I'll have someone check your body. Next time, don't be so impulsive. Don't get too close when you encounter danger!"
Although Chang Haojie went down to the ground after being provoked by Shen Feng, his rashly stepping forward to scold the mutated beasts was still too reckless. In that situation, even testing with stones would have been better, at least Chang Haojie wouldn't have been hypnotized.
Therefore, Shen Feng couldn't help but lecture him a bit. This world was so dangerous, yet Chang Haojie had no sense of crisis at all. What would happen if he encountered danger in the future?
Chang Haojie felt a little wronged by Shen Feng's blame and couldn't help but say, "It was you who said I was scared, so I wanted to show off!"
"Alright, alright, as long as you're okay! Now it seems that the trees in the central area probably won't have too much impact on our plan. Later, we'll continue to wear down these mutated beasts and end the battle." Shen Feng didn't want to argue anymore. From the results, the cypress seemed to do nothing except for its hypnotic ability.
Lu Kaiyang called his recently deployed tactic the "Grindstone Tactic" because the mutated beasts within the encirclement were attacked from three sides, and the direction of battle changed every day, in a clockwise direction. It could be called a war of attrition, but it was not imposing enough. After much thought, Lu Kaiyang came up with a more imposing name, the Grindstone Tactic, using the mutated beasts in the center as beans and the surrounding hundred thousand soldiers as the grindstone.
The ultimate goal was to grind the mutated beasts into pieces bit by bit.
Shen Feng took Chang Haojie back to the military camp and then found the army doctor to examine him. The doctor finally confirmed after the examination that Chang Haojie had no abnormalities. This meant that the pollen had no other side effects besides hypnosis. Even so, the pollen was very terrifying. Chang Haojie was an ability user, yet he was easily hypnotized. If so much pollen suddenly appeared on the battlefield, it could change the course of the battle.