I Am Your Natural Enemy

Recently, Nanwu County only just discovered a wondrous item in a herbal tea shop: the owner parked his small e-scooter inside, plugged it in to charge, which led to a fire. After putting out the blaze, they found that only a stainless steel kettle was completely unharmed.

The Scorching Sun Department offered to renovate the shop in exchange for this stainless steel kettle.

After testing it extensively back at the office, they found that this kettle could withstand flame cutting, holding up under extreme conditions. Even with only a thin layer of stainless steel, the temperature on the other side barely changed.

After the Scorching Sun Department’s people tested it, they figured it blocked heat conduction, but aside from that, they couldn’t find any other features.

The material of this wondrous item itself wasn’t special either—it was just the typical stainless steel kettle you’d find in any herbal tea shop, looking like any ordinary boiling kettle from decades ago.

Its research value actually wasn’t very high.

Until someone pointed out, ”Isn’t this thing supposed to be for holding herbal tea? Why not give it a try?”

So they started trying all sorts of things, and finally discovered that only when filling the kettle with herbal tea, and drinking a standard serving from the shop, could someone gain an extremely strong high-temperature immunity lasting between 12 and 24 hours.

Test results showed that, as long as the effect lasted, flames under two thousand degrees wouldn’t harm a person; if the temperature went higher, then to a person it would feel like the temperature was only then starting to rise from normal room temperature up.

It didn’t matter what herbal tea was put in the kettle—any recipe from any shop worked. As long as it was brewed, put in the kettle, and poured out shortly after, the effect would still work if consumed within a day.

But there’s one major restriction: no sugar allowed. Adding sugar greatly reduces the effect and the duration.

Researchers at the Scorching Sun Department kept experimenting, and finally determined: it’s just high-temperature immunity within a certain range, fire immunity, but it’s not effective against smoke; one can resist the heat in hot smoke, but not the smoke itself.

The single effect is outstanding, but in practice, the limitation is pretty significant.

But no matter what, for the firefighting folks, this was a divine artifact.

Once it was confirmed, the first large-scale field test was sent straight to Guanzhong County.

They even purposely didn’t tell anyone what it was, just handed it out as ordinary herbal tea so no one would get complacent.

After one mountain fire-fighting operation, there were zero injuries—no one even had a single burn.

By acting according to standard protocols, maintaining precautions, and with immunity to flames and heat, the chances of getting hurt plummeted.

The only captain who realized this was a big live field test had eyes full of shock as he tailed the Nanwu County Scorching Sun Department staff, peppering them with questions, and then quickly started reporting up the chain.

Meanwhile, some people started encouraging the Guanzhong County Chief: since the thing is already here in Guanzhong, why not just keep it?

They even brought up how Nanwu County had ”hacked” wondrous items from Guanzhong more than once in the past, goading the Guanzhong County Chief—if they’ve been robbed before, what’s wrong with ”borrowing” something from Nanwu County this time?

It’s not like they’re outright stealing it—just borrowing it for a while.

The Guanzhong County Chief took three calls in a short span, feeling at a loss for words.

Cai Heizi just died, and you people are already making me do this—don’t you think that’s a bit inhumane?

Besides, he’d only just heard about the headquarters meeting today.

Originally, the meeting agenda was supposed to include discussion about Nanwu County’s new Chief.

But when the meeting actually began, everyone noticed this item was missing from the agenda.

Finally, when someone asked about it, the General Director said that Nanwu County had been through a lot these past few months, and for many issues, Cai Qidong had already set the strategy in advance.

If they switched Chiefs now, and some plans changed, it could lead to unintended chain reactions.

So, for now, keeping things as they are is the best outcome.

Although it wasn’t spelled out, anyone in the know was well aware just how complicated things were in Nanwu County.

Not only are there issues with the West River Water System—there’s a bona fide Dragon King revival over there.

There’s also a Demon King with totally inscrutable ideas and a passion for actually going to work.

On top of that, Nanwu County has two individuals classified at the top secret level.

One is the Great Killer Star who carried out an Evil Ghost massacre in Virtue City.

Even though everyone knows about it—and on paper there should be lots of footage—

Unfortunately, so far, headquarters doesn’t have a single video as solid evidence.

Only a handful of people know the specific details.

Within headquarters, only the General Director knows the specifics, with Cai Qidong having reported directly to him alone.

There’s also Nanwu County’s Tuoba Martial God, whose information is even more classified—still only the General Director is in on it.

The General Director only told Cai Qidong after he was appointed there.

That agenda item ended up shelved with just a couple of sentences—no one brought it up again.

Because anyone eligible for the position already has channels to find out what’s going on, and not just anyone can keep that place under control.

It’s not really about ability—actually, someone too capable might not be suitable for the job.

Unless someone’s personal Power is so strong they could single-handedly crush every single one of the chaotic figures in Nanwu County—

Otherwise, whoever goes is doomed to fail.

Among the backup candidates, honestly, none of them actually wanted to take over; none believed they could just drop in from above and keep everyone behaving as before.

But if you do absolutely nothing, is there really any difference between being Chief and not being Chief?