Before the war began, Shen Feng had only encountered two types of mutated plants in a year: the apple tree at home and the plant heart in the laboratory. Now, after fighting mutated beasts for over a month, Shen Feng's side had discovered three more unknown mutated plants.
Previously, Shen Feng had not paid much attention to plant mutations because mutated plants could not leave the soil. Perhaps after mutation, they could obtain energy without photosynthesis, but mutated plants had a fatal weakness: they could not move!
Even the plant heart could not move freely; at most, it could hide in the soil and occasionally emerge to breathe.
As for these mutated plants, as long as one did not touch them carelessly, there were generally no consequences. If Shen Feng had not entered the mist back then, he would not have suffered any damage later. Of course, Shen Feng would also not have found a new way to produce evolution bases.
At this moment, Shen Feng no longer dared to underestimate mutated plants, because he could not predict the evolutionary direction of mutated plants. Just like the juniper encountered today, it was harmless but capable of widespread hypnosis. If it suddenly appeared on the battlefield, it might cause damage to the soldiers.
Therefore, Shen Feng had people wrap the juniper branches in clothes and send them to the laboratory in Yuzhou. In any case, understanding the composition and effects of juniper pollen was safer, so as not to be unprepared.
Shen Feng had initially thought that the juniper could not cause much impact, as the juniper in the central area was more than ten kilometers away from the front line. At such a distance, except for the south which needed to be wary of pollen, other directions did not need to worry. The juniper grew in a mountain hollow, and the pollen formed a mist in the air. The cold wind from the north could blow away some of the pollen, but most of it would still remain.
However, Guo Pinming from the southwest front line sent a message that the number of mutated beasts killed that day was very small, only a little over eight thousand, and no mutated beasts had come to attack the formation.
The number of these mutated beasts seemed to be a lot, but in reality, for hundreds of thousands of mutated beasts, such a small number was insignificant. In previous battles, there were tens of thousands of spoils every day, but now it was too little.
"Could it be that the mutated beasts, in their panic, broke through in other directions?" Shen Feng asked.
Lu Kaiyang replied, "City Lord, it's not like that. Today, apart from the southwest direction where we fought and killed eight thousand mutated beasts, no mutated beasts appeared in the other directions. Recently, the mutated beasts have been attacking the defense line less and less. Perhaps they are tired of running."
"Impossible!" Shen Feng immediately shook his head and frowned, saying, "They definitely wouldn't be tired of running. They haven't been tired after fighting for so long, so how could they suddenly get tired in the past few days? I know the stamina of mutated beasts very well. Being able to run for several days is not bad, but getting tired after more than a month is unreasonable!"
In the summer, Shen Feng pursued the Yangtze River Dragon King for a week. Even the Dragon King was tired. For a Dragon King with a body length of seventy meters, being able to persist for such a long time was exaggerated. The mutated beasts in the mountains had even better stamina than the Dragon King, and Shen Feng did not believe it.
Lu Kaiyang scratched his head and muttered to himself, "Could it be that the mutated beasts have developed resistance to the millstone tactic? But are these mutated beasts that intelligent?"
Shen Feng thought for a moment, took out his walkie-talkie, and notified Yuzhou to send helicopters to observe the situation of the mutated beasts.
Since he couldn't figure out the abnormality of the mutated beasts, he could only let the helicopters observe.
The pilot received the order and immediately flew a helicopter to the center of the encirclement to investigate. The pilot's recent missions were quite heavy, often transporting supplies, observing enemy situations in his spare time, and transporting important personnel at critical moments. In the current situation, the pilot could only grit his teeth and persevere. Their missions were relatively easy in their spare time, but now that the battle had begun, no matter how many missions there were, they could not refuse.
As a result, the helicopter did indeed capture a lot of enemy intelligence. Among them, the strangest were a group of monkeys with white fur on their faces, completely black bodies, and very ugly appearances. It was said that these were the golden snub-nosed monkeys, the ugliest monkeys among the snub-nosed monkeys. And these monkeys were wielding water ladles in their hands and were even wearing clothes.
The mutated beasts were all subservient to these monkeys, lying on the ground obediently. Even mutated beasts several meters tall could only prostrate themselves before the golden snub-nosed monkeys.
When Shen Feng saw the photos, he immediately understood. The water ladles of these golden snub-nosed monkeys were filled with pale yellow pollen. Although it was winter, the juniper was still producing pollen. The golden snub-nosed monkeys waving branches could easily shake off the pollen, thus hypnotizing other mutated beasts. These golden snub-nosed monkeys were covering their noses while waving branches, clearly aware of the pollen's effects.
"Damn it, these monkeys have this much intelligence?" Lu Kaiyang was astonished. He thought that the millstone tactic, which he commanded flawlessly, could crush the mutated beasts. But when the mutated beasts stopped running around, the encirclement became less effective. Because the numerous mutated beasts gathered together, forming a beast tide, and after being hypnotized, they began to sleep. Once the mutated beasts could no longer be driven away at will, the millstone tactic had failed.
Shen Feng looked at the golden snub-nosed monkeys in the photos and said helplessly, "Don't underestimate these animals, especially primates. They are not completely devoid of intelligence. The result is simple: all these mutated beasts have been hypnotized, and the instigators are these monkeys."
"These monkeys are too detestable. I really want to kill all of them!" Lu Kaiyang said through gritted teeth.
Shen Feng thought for a moment and said, "Instead of killing these monkeys, it would be better to burn the juniper forest. I've seen the terrain; the juniper forest is in the valley, and outside the valley are barren mountains. Even if we set a fire, it will only burn the forest inside the valley, and the fire will not spread."
"Good idea. If we burn all the junipers, I don't believe these monkeys will still have a way to hypnotize mutated beasts." Lu Kaiyang agreed with the decision. After all, they were mutated plants, and burning them was the safest course of action.
For the next two days, the golden snub-nosed monkeys continued to use juniper branches to hypnotize the mutated beasts, stopping the mutated beasts from charging wildly, which caused Lu Kaiyang's millstone tactic to fail.
The most important aspect of the millstone tactic was to drive away the mutated beasts, making them spend their days in constant flight. This way, it would consume the mutated beasts' stamina without forcing them too hard, which might lead them to a desperate struggle.
However, Lu Kaiyang had not expected that his perfect plan would be ruined by a group of monkeys with obviously poor intelligence. Therefore, the simplest way to continue the millstone tactic was to burn the juniper forest. This way, they could continue to drive away the mutated beasts and keep the millstone tactic going.
Shen Feng originally wanted to do this himself because he was very fast and could fly into the sky at critical moments. He could also use the "Wind King Barrier" to isolate himself from the pollen.
Lu Kaiyang disagreed. He felt that Shen Feng staying in the military camp could stabilize morale. If Shen Feng went out personally, he might not be able to control his soldiers. Therefore, Shen Feng could not leave casually. Then, there were two other candidates for setting the fire: Chang Haojie, who had been affected before, and the helicopter pilot.
Finally, the helicopter departed from Yuzhou, carrying many incendiary bottles. If they dropped the incendiary bottles from the air, they could directly ignite the juniper forest. It was early winter, and the weather was dry, so if a fire was started, the forest would easily catch fire. This was also why Shen Feng had people build firebreaks.
After three days of analysis, the laboratory had also clarified the true effect of juniper pollen, which was sedation and hypnosis. This pollen was a powerful sedative. After inhalation, it would have a calming effect on the nerves. Sedation and hypnosis are closely related; sometimes, a smaller dose would produce a calming effect, while a larger dose would produce a hypnotic effect.
The laboratory reached its final conclusion. Although there were slight discrepancies with Shen Feng's guess, overall, Shen Feng had not been wrong.
The plan to set the fire was to proceed, but on the Yuzhou side, the hospital director personally came to the front line to find Shen Feng, saying that the mutated plants could not be burned.
Shen Feng frowned and asked, "Director, these mutated plants have already affected the progress of the battle. We don't know how much time has been delayed. If the battle cannot be concluded soon, winter will come, and the war will enter a very difficult stage."
The director said, "City Lord, Yuzhou is currently short of medicine, especially anesthetics. These mutated plants are a gift from heaven. With these gifts, surgeries in the hospital can be more smooth. Such a large amount of pollen, as long as it can be collected, is a natural anesthetic. Please do not burn these junipers."
Shen Feng understood the reason for the director's plea. It seemed that he was not an environmentalist, but simply wanted to obtain anesthetics.
However, after thinking about it, Shen Feng said to the director, "How about this, Director? I will temporarily postpone the plan to burn the forest. I will go to the forest and find some juniper seedlings and seeds for you. This way, as long as we have the seeds, we can plant junipers ourselves, and you will have enough anesthetics in the future. How about that?"
Shen Feng was determined to burn the juniper forest, but he also had to consider others' opinions. For now, a compromise would be made. After taking the juniper seedlings to Yuzhou, they would have seedlings, and then he could burn the forest. This would be the best of both worlds.
With Shen Feng saying this, the director found it difficult to persuade him further. After all, the most important matter for Yuzhou now was the war. The sooner the war ended, the sooner Yuzhou would have peace. If the battle failed now, even by next year, Yuzhou would not have peace and would still be harassed by mutated beasts.
"Then I wish the City Lord success," the director said quickly.
Shen Feng put on a gas mask and a paraglider and set off. He planned to find juniper seedlings in the forest. As long as he could find a few small seedlings, it would be enough to satisfy the hospital director.
However, when Shen Feng arrived in the forest, he immediately noticed something was wrong because the forest was very quiet, and there was a lot of pollen in the air, which led to very low visibility. After walking not far, the mask on Shen Feng's face was covered with yellow pollen, and he could only wipe it off as he walked.
Earlier, Shen Feng had heard from Chang Haojie that there were mutated beasts entering and exiting the forest. He thought the forest would be lively, but after entering, he found many corpses on the ground. He had to watch his step while walking, otherwise, he would trip over the corpses.
"What's going on? Didn't they say the pollen only has a calming and hypnotic effect? Why are there so many corpses in the forest? Could the pollen also be toxic?" Shen Feng thought to himself.
At this moment, Shen Feng couldn't figure out the reason for a while. His only task now was to find the juniper seedlings and take them back to plant somewhere.
There were many mutated beast corpses in the forest, and many of them had been rotten for a long time. Although he was wearing a gas mask, Shen Feng could still faintly smell the stench. This was likely a psychological change, as the gas mask was of good quality, and generally, gases were blocked outside, so it shouldn't be possible to smell the stench. On these corpses, there were many roots and stems wrapped around them, like a spider web, seemingly absorbing the nutrients from the corpses.
Seeing this scene, Shen Feng couldn't help but frown. It seemed that mutated plants had similar characteristics, which was that they were not limited to photosynthesis and could absorb nutrients from corpses. They had changed from producers to producers who also acted as decomposers.
In nature, animals and plants can generally be divided into producers, consumers, and decomposers. Most plants are producers, meaning they gather energy through photosynthesis or nitrification. However, since plants began to mutate, they could directly absorb energy from corpses, which was abnormal.