CIATB Chapter 203: A Cover-Up!
Chapter 203: A Cover-Up!
The night wind swirled up a few withered leaves.
Su Wanqing stood atop the canopy of the tallest pine tree on the barren mountain in the eastern suburbs, looking down at the brightly lit Qingcheng Medical Center.
He didn't make a sound, nor did he move an inch.
The White Tiger mech extended its mechanical arm and crushed the polluter wearing a hoodie, sending a burst of blue-gold energy light soaring into the sky.
She witnessed the entire scene.
She admitted that she lost because she underestimated her opponent.
Thirty thousand years is too long, so long that she thought there was no longer any power on this planet that could threaten her.
Who could have predicted that the embers left behind by those stubborn old men of the Mohist school would be rekindled in the hands of a mere young man?
The suppressive power of the Heavenly Craftsman's Heart is undeniable, specifically designed to counter her high-dimensional energy form.
Su Wanqing raised her hand and looked at her pale, slender fingers.
Beneath the skin, a scarlet glow pulsed like blood vessels.
This body incorporates most of the core power she accumulated upon awakening.
In other words, the current "Su Wanqing" is the true form of the Void.
If she had impulsively rushed into that third underground level and faced the fully armed mechs and the Heart of the Sky, her fate wouldn't have been much better than that of the woman in the hoodie.
She is very shrewd and calculating.
She had already eradicated the emotion of impulsiveness tens of thousands of years ago.
As for the unlucky guy who was purified, and the ordinary people in Jinghai City who went mad one after another.
They're all bait.
Creating panic? Forming an army of polluters? That's too simplistic.
The pitiful negative emotions of ordinary people are not even worthy of being mentioned in her mind.
She went to great lengths to select hosts, deliberately exposing these unfinished products to surveillance, all for one purpose.
The Chinese government's attention and the energy of that Mohist successor were firmly fixed on the city of Jinghai.
As long as they continue arresting people and cleaning up the streets, they won't have the time to care about what's going on outside.
This is a smokescreen with the truth clearly out in the open.
"Take your time," Su Wanqing said, turning her gaze away.
She needs a larger, purer source of energy to reshape her body.
Jinghai is a modern city with a large population, but its energy is too diverse.
What truly enabled her to recover quickly were those ancient relics buried deep underground.
Kunlun isn't the only place on this planet that holds good things.
According to the remaining star map coordinates in her mind, there is a ley line node deep in the mountains of the southwest.
The place is shrouded in miasma year-round and rarely visited by people, making it the perfect place for her to "eat" in her current state.
Before leaving, Su Wanqing snapped her fingers.
A faint wisp of red light flew from the fingertip and precisely entered the body of an owl on a nearby branch.
The owl let out a mournful cry, its eyes instantly turning blood red, and flapped its wings as it flew towards the center of Jinghai City.
This bird will move on to find its next mentally vulnerable prey.
In the coming months, unusual events will continue to occur in Jinghai City. Zhang Yan will be very busy.
Su Wanqing turned around, her figure transforming into a blurry red shadow, and sped off towards the southwest.
The night quickly swallowed her up completely.
……
Jinghai University, Room 302.
Wang Hao lay sprawled on the bed, holding a tablet and scrolling through short videos. "It's so strange," he muttered, "the news lately keeps reporting people going crazy in the streets. Yesterday it was a delivery guy smashing his electric scooter, and today it's a company executive running naked at an intersection. Is everyone under this much pressure these days?"
He muttered a couple of things, turned over, and picked up his phone to send a WeChat message to Zhang Yan.
"Godfather, have you been drained dry in bed by that rich woman? You haven't been back to your dorm for a week."
"The braised chicken at that cafeteria has gone up in price again. If you don't come back and treat us soon, I'm going to starve to death at Jiangda University."
I waited for ten minutes, but there was no response.
Wang Hao pursed his lips, tossed his phone aside, and continued watching his bizarre videos.
He had no idea that his godfather was now doing something no less important than saving the world.
Tianji Security Company, three underground floors.
A faint smell of ozone permeated the air.
These are the traces left by the high-frequency operation of the Heavenly Craftsmanship.
Qin Xiao was wearing a training uniform and carrying a bottle of mineral water, which he gulped down half of.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and gave Zhang Yan, who was in front of the control panel, a thumbs up.
"Brother Yan, that's amazing, this is the seventh one this week."
"That bastard was really strong; four retired special forces soldiers almost couldn't hold him down."
"It's all thanks to your equipment. The moment the red light flashes, it turns into a limp shrimp."
Zhang Yan leaned back in his swivel chair and didn't reply.
On the large screen of the control panel, there were more than a dozen red dots densely marked.
Those were the locations of polluters they had apprehended and cleaned up throughout Jinghai City over the past week.
The keyboard typing stopped.
Zhang Yan stared at the fluctuating coordinates on the screen and tapped his finger twice on the desktop.
"Completely wrong."
He threw a stack of printed tracking charts onto the metal table with a crisp snap.
"Qin Xiao, we've been made a fool of."
Qin Xiao was stunned. He walked over, picked up the blueprints, and flipped through them. "What does this mean? They've all been caught, haven't they? There wasn't any major trouble."
"Take a close look at these people's background information." Zhang Yan pointed to several lines of data. "Their ages range from seventeen to sixty-five, and their occupations include students, small vendors, and white-collar workers."
"The locations of the outbreak are in the east and south of the city, the CBD, and old residential areas."
"There is no pattern whatsoever; it's a purely random event."
"Isn't randomness good? It means that even a random event is just a lucky guess." Qin Xiao scratched the back of his head.
"No good. Too much regularity in randomness is itself the biggest anomaly."
Zhang Yan stood up, walked to the edge of the energy matrix, and looked at the crystal emitting blue light. "Seven days, twenty-one targets."
"On average, three a day, no more, no less, the intensity is extremely low, not even as good as that first fake doctor."
Zhang Yan paused for a moment, then turned to look at Qin Xiao.
"This is not called spreading infection, this is called feeding on a schedule."
Qin Xiao's expression changed.
He's not stupid; his brain, which grew up in the military compound, works incredibly fast.
With Zhang Yan's prompting, he immediately realized what was going on.
"You mean... the Void is using this junk to buy us time? Its true form isn't even in Jinghai?"
"Yes." Zhang Yan nodded. "It used Su Wanqing as its main vessel and took away most of its power."
"What's left behind are nothing more than pre-written automated scripts."
"We arrest people and clean up the mess here every day, thinking we have the situation under control, but we are actually just playing house with them."
The basement fell silent, and the hum of the exhaust fan became exceptionally clear.
The automatic door slid open.
Nie Qingcheng walked in carrying two custom-made insulated boxes.
The high heels clicked on the metal floor.
Today she wore a very fitted black trench coat, her hair casually tied back, looking less sharp in the business world and more gentle and domestic.
She pushed the lunchbox to Zhang Yan's side and sat down in the swivel chair next to him.
Without mentioning work, they only asked, "Shall we eat first, or check the intelligence first?"
"Eat while you watch." Zhang Yan opened the insulated box.
Sweet and sour pork ribs, cooked to perfection.
He knew that Nie Qingcheng had asked the chef at Cloud Top Manor to make it; her own cooking skills were currently only at the stage of blowing up the kitchen.
Nie Qingcheng took out an ultra-thin tablet from her bag and handed it to Qin Xiao, indicating that he should project the screen.
"Qingcheng Group's intelligence network is a bit faster than the official actions." Nie Qingcheng leaned back in her chair, her hands crossed on her knees. "While you were catching rats in Jinghai, I had someone check the national geological data and data on missing persons with unusual circumstances."
A map of China appeared on the screen.
Nie Qingcheng swiped her slender finger across the screen, and the map quickly zoomed in, locking onto a vast mountainous region on the southwestern border.
One hundred thousand mountains.