Chapter 600: Encountering the Anomaly
The moment Hou Junji finished speaking, the scene fell silent, as if a pause button had been pressed.
It seemed like no one had clearly heard what Hou Junji just said.
Disappear?
How could it disappear?
A city vanishing into thin air?
Was this a joke? How was that possible?
No one spoke on the scene.
But everyone's expression said the same thing: disbelief!
That was a top-tier city in the country, even in the world. It wasn't just well-known domestically as the nation's financial center; it was also famous worldwide.
How could a city that big just vanish without a trace?
"Ahem... Elder Hou, are you saying that Shanghai is... gone?"
Captain Yang Han, sitting nearby, coughed lightly and asked.
"Elder Hou, perhaps you mean that Shanghai was destroyed?"
That explanation was a bit more plausible.
Could some unknown anomaly have destroyed Shanghai?
After all, Shanghai was already a no-man's land.
For the time being, no one was planning to go there anyway. If it was destroyed, so be it.
They could just rebuild after taking it back later.
Even Chu Che thought the same.
Elder Hou's expression didn't change despite everyone's doubts. His face still carried traces of panic, disbelief, and other emotions.
The bird on his shoulder cleared its throat, but its voice remained hoarse and dry. "Everyone, I mean exactly what I said!"
"Shanghai has disappeared, it's gone..."
As he reiterated this statement, the scene finally fell so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
Those who hadn't believed earlier looked around and found that the captains beside them wore the same expression.
Chu Che's pupils also widened slightly. A feeling of dread suddenly enveloped his heart.
What kind of power was this? How could it make a city as big as Shanghai disappear?
"Everyone, according to intelligence relayed from within our Silent Council!"
"Shanghai has completely, utterly disappeared!"
"This city is gone, as if... as if it had never existed at all!"
The bird spoke extremely slowly, word by word.
By now, no one cared about how human-like that bird seemed.
Captain Yang Han's body had already begun to tremble slightly. Instinctively, he pulled a flat flask from his chest, twisted open the cap, and took a big gulp.
It seemed that only alcohol could dispel the chill creeping into his heart at this moment.
"These are photos taken by our Silent Council. Everyone, take a look!"
With that, Elder Hou Junji pulled out a tablet, opened the photo album...
Tablets weren't unusual before the apocalypse.
But after the apocalypse, no one paid them any attention. No one expected the Silent Council to still have one.
The tablet was passed around among the people in the conference room.
"Everyone, a week ago, our Silent Council observers..."
According to the bird, the Silent Council observers were mainly responsible for monitoring this world as it was being eroded by anomalies and recording these changes.
These observers were mostly composed of superhumans with special abilities.
Although these observers weren't responsible for combat, each had unique skills that ensured their survival in the apocalypse.
When they discovered that Shanghai had disappeared, they were also shocked and quickly relayed the news back to Silent Council headquarters.
In response, headquarters sent an observer team to investigate.
In the end, the Silent Council lost three observers.
No one knew what exactly had happened in Shanghai.
The tablet hadn't yet reached Chu Che's hands.
But Captain Chu's heart was already trembling slightly.
Just how powerful was the Silent Council?
For ordinary superhumans to freely roam this world wasn't impossible, but it was definitely a huge hassle.
Yet the observers from the Silent Council could do it.
According to Hou Junji, they should have quite a few observers.
Could it be that the Silent Council had some way to mass-produce items that could suppress the aura of the living?
If that was the case, this Silent Council's power seemed even greater than he had imagined.
The tablet finally reached Chu Che's hands.
Even people who had never been to Shanghai probably knew about its famous landmarks and locations.
Especially Chu Che, who had spent quite some time in Shanghai. He wasn't intimately familiar with every street and building, but he knew them well enough.
But now...
In the photos on the tablet screen, perhaps due to interference from strange energy during the shooting, the images were very blurry.
Still, it was roughly visible that what should have been a place of towering skyscrapers was now a barren wasteland.
Chu Che's heart shook violently. His fingers trembled slightly.
He swiped to open the second photo.
This one was even blurrier, with strange ripples of energy light in the frame.
There were some buildings in this photo.
But these buildings were old, ramshackle mud-brick houses.
The kind of low, squat houses you'd see in period films.
Where was the international metropolis of Shanghai?
Even calling it a remote village wouldn't convince anyone.
What era was this? How could there still be houses like this?
But even these houses were few, just a scattered handful.
Chu Che's mind was in turmoil, his fingers shaking.
He used two fingers to zoom in on the photo, trying to spot some details.
The low, squat mud houses on the screen grew larger.
Chu Che wanted to examine these houses carefully, see if there was anything unusual about them.
Maybe he could find some clue, some trace of how Shanghai had vanished.
But... just then...
Chu Che saw...
In the window of one of those mud houses, a pair of white eyes were staring right at him, expressionless.
Captain Chu's heart skipped a beat.
He almost dropped the tablet in his hands.
Auntie Zhao, quick-eyed and nimble-handed, caught it in time.
"Squad Leader Chu, be careful. These things aren't easy to come by now!"
Auntie Zhao grumbled as she brought the tablet to her eyes.
When she saw the eyes in the window.
Auntie Zhao sucked in a sharp breath.
Panic seized her heart, and her face turned ashen in an instant.
"What... did you see?"
A curious captain beside them leaned in to look.
A chill running through her, Auntie Zhao handed the tablet over directly.
As if the thing in her hands was filthy, and she wanted to get rid of it as fast as possible.
After the captain took the tablet, he looked at it blankly, then at Auntie Zhao and Chu Che.
"Isn't it just a house?"
Chu Che and Auntie Zhao were startled. They quickly looked over. On the tablet screen, there was indeed only a zoomed-in shot of a mud house.
The eyes were gone.
"How... how is that possible?"
They were both alarmed. They snatched the tablet back.
But on the screen, those horrifying eyes were indeed gone.
Not on the screen, nor on the back of the tablet.
"Chu Che, Auntie Zhao..."
Chu Che and Auntie Zhao exchanged a glance. Both had a bad feeling.
Faced with everyone's questions.
Chu Che and Auntie Zhao naturally had no intention of hiding anything. They quickly explained what they had just seen.
If this were a horror movie, the protagonist and sidekick would probably keep it to themselves and try to handle it alone.
Then everyone would be kept in the dark, and eventually, they'd all die one by one.
But Chu Che and Auntie Zhao didn't think that way.
This matter was so bizarre that the more people who knew about it, the better.
Maybe someone else would know what was going on.
Even if no one could help, saying it out loud might make everyone share the burden. That was still better than the two of them facing it alone.
In less than half a minute, they had explained the whole thing.
The conference room fell silent again.
Chu Che was somewhat frustrated, and Auntie Zhao's expression was grim. They both turned to Elder Hou Junji, seated at the head of the meeting.
He had brought this thing in, so he had to provide an explanation.
Both of them thought of a classic horror movie trope—encountering an anomaly!
Elder Hou coughed dryly, and the bird on his shoulder spoke again. "I had this tablet first. I didn't see any eyes!"
"But we need to seriously look into what Captain Chu and Captain Zhao said!"
"Anomalies can't be judged by common sense. All kinds of anomalies can be encountered!"
Indeed, before saying this, Elder Hou had zoomed in and examined the photos on the tablet multiple times.
But he hadn't seen anything unusual.