Chapter 149 - 146: Pressure on the Special Security Team
Wandering the streets alone, Qingzhen was as tranquil as ever. The liveliest place was always the wet market, and no matter how many times the roads were widened, they remained congested with electric scooters and small three-wheelers.
At the security booth of the residential complex, after greeting the security guard, Qin Xiaoxia picked up the smartphone Mumu had been longing for.
Beside it was a stylus, which would serve as a way for Mumu to operate the phone when its Magic Power was low, instead of using magic-wrapped branches.
He did a lap around the wet market, buying this and that until he had enough lunch for at least twenty people. Only then did Qin Xiaoxia head back, shouldering a burlap sack full of goods.
In any case, there was no way he was going to eat those horrifying roasted rabbit skewers.
’Damn it, why does it feel like I’m misusing the Secret Realm’s power?!’ The amusing thought flashed through his mind and was gone.
It was a good thing the Secret Realm’s illusory power was so useful. Otherwise, turning every grocery run into a major cargo transport operation would attract too much attention.
Back in the Secret Realm, the first and only one to greet Qin Xiaoxia was the eagerly waiting Mumu.
"Here, take it. Stop looking at me so affectionately with that old man’s face of yours, or I’ll burn you to a crisp!"
Mumu immediately covered its anthropomorphic wooden face with its branches. It didn’t rely on those fake eyes to see, anyway.
When the phone box was tossed over, Mumu felt its sap flow quicken, even though it didn’t have a heart.
It caught the box carefully, feeling its weight.
"Master~~~ you’re too good to me~~~!"
Mumu was practically preening, its thorny branches waving about.
"Mm, good that you know. Just remember to get that Sound Transmission Flower garden ready for me as soon as possible."
After saying this, Qin Xiaoxia shouldered the burlap sack, a mix of raw ingredients and cooked food for lunch, and headed for the empty hall.
Thanks to a few "inside sources," the Sound Transmission Flowers had been a valuable consumable ever since they were successfully cultivated in the Secret Realm.
Huang Jiutian normally wouldn’t contact Qin Xiaoxia while on duty.
But they were at a critical juncture recently, so keeping the lines of communication open was essential. This allowed Qin Xiaoxia to adjust his plans or up the stakes at any moment.
So, during this period, the precious mind-linking Sound Transmission Flowers served as a "texting tool" in Huang Jiutian’s hands.
Whenever there was important news, he would use Magic Power to channel the message in his mind into a spore seed.
In turn, the mother plant’s flower, far away in the Association Secret Realm in Qingzhen, would close up from its perennially open state.
Then, whenever Qin Xiaoxia passed by and saw it, he could tap the flower with gentle Magic Power and transfer a bit of energy, causing it to bloom again.
It would then convey the important message by screaming it.
And honestly, the sight of the screaming flower was quite interesting. Its stem and petals would flail about, and sometimes it could even form movements and strange expressions.
But the reason the Sound Transmission Flower was a precious consumable was that it could only transmit a mind-message once in its lifetime.
It could produce many seeds, and before sprouting, each seed shared a miraculous connection with the mother plant, almost like a quantum relationship.
No matter which of the seeds was used to send a message, the mother plant would wither and die after releasing it.
Even with Mumu’s superb Elf Techniques as a Tree Shepherd and its centuries of lonely cultivation experience, it couldn’t improve the Sound Transmission Flower’s lifespan.
Moreover, cultivating Sound Transmission Flowers was quite troublesome. In all its time in the Earth World, Mumu had only managed to cultivate fewer than twenty plants after its injuries had healed, and that was with an unknown amount of effort and Magic Power spent day and night.
If not for the wonderfully abundant light in this world, plus the absurdly potent power contained within this new Secret Realm, it would be thankful just to cultivate one plant a month.
But this wasn’t enough to satisfy Qin Xiaoxia. His insane command was to turn all the empty land around the Secret Realm into a garden of Sound Transmission Flowers and other Magical Plants.
It was enough to be the death of a Tree Shepherd.
However, Mumu was currently at the peak of its excitement and naturally agreed to everything, with the heroic air of someone who wouldn’t flinch even before a mountain of knives or a sea of fire.
...
The faint THUMP, THUMP, THUMP of a kitchen knife could be heard from the kitchen, but now it was occasionally interspersed with the screams of rabbits.
It seemed Doudou had no intention of sparing the rabbits. The few that were still alive were now getting chopped up. Doudou probably still planned to chop them first and skin them later.
He placed the cooked food from the burlap sack onto the small round table one by one. Threads of power from the Secret Realm, guided by Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power, wove themselves into a shimmering symbol for "cold" to keep the dishes fresh.
His hands kept moving, but his mind was on his grander plans.
It had been three days. The situation elsewhere should be ripe by now.
...
Tao Xingzhi was quite frustrated. It was true that he had great power and authority, but the pressure was even greater.
Regarding the contact in Shen City, regardless of whether the information obtained was true or false, they could at least definitively characterize the mysterious faction in certain aspects.
They undoubtedly possessed more information, knew considerable inside details, and had a better understanding of the world’s changes.
And it seemed they had no desire to make contact with the government.
He recalled the incident in Saint Louis, United States. It had been the same. The beautiful, pale-red Spiritual Humanoid Creatures had only appeared on the eve of the Flame Demon’s invasion. After the battle, they left without a trace and had no communication with the United States government.
From this perspective, their experience in Shen City was an improvement over what the Americans got. But without the mangled corpse of Thorns, the negotiations might have ended with the epilogue of that rat extermination.
In three days, they had already held nine discussion sessions, averaging three a day.
They held repeated discussions with various professional scientists, including experts in behavioral psychology, history, archaeology, and even biochemistry and physics.
That part was manageable. The real headache came from the reports and debriefings with the higher-ups and other key departments like the military and the Ministry of Construction.
Even now, the nation’s stance on this clandestine, mysterious organization—one that had hidden throughout history and whose true purpose remained unclear—was still ambiguous.
Even Tao Xingzhi himself was conflicted. Was this group a religious organization, or some other secret society?
But there was one point Tao Xingzhi repeatedly stressed in meetings.
The changes in the world were plain for all to see, and the mysterious faction had indeed demonstrated irrefutable Supernatural Power.
Regardless, they should not approach them with the high-handed attitude of a ruler and make demands. Doing so would only invite resentment.
This wasn’t an era where any fool could rise to power. Once you reached a certain level, there were simply no idiots.
The higher-ups all understood Tao Xingzhi’s reasoning. But understanding was one thing; the procedures of the state apparatus could not operate that way.
Huang Jiutian watched as Tao Xingzhi attended numerous meetings over three days and even faced two high-level inquiries.
The man looked like he had lost a noticeable amount of weight.
What did the mysterious faction’s "millennial war" truly mean? When could they clarify the key information about the Power of the World and the Dark Tide? When could they actually find this mysterious faction, and how long would it take to establish stable contact?
These questions, born from their recent contact and combined with the increasingly frequent and bizarre changes occurring worldwide, created a growing sense of urgency.
It wasn’t that the higher-ups were unreasonable. Tao Xingzhi wasn’t the only one under pressure; the leaders above him were as well. They were the ones who had to bear the consequences of the Special Security Team’s results and the decisions that needed to be made.
The Special Security Team acted as both an executive and advisory branch, while other departments and the decision-makers were its coordinating partners who shared the responsibility.
As the "National Special Incident Emergency Security Group," into which more and more resources were being poured, it was the sharpest, most readily available sword in their hands.
Huannan Sea had even issued the "Black Book No. 1 Document."
Whatever was needed would be provided. They only wanted results, no questions asked about the process!
This elevated the Special Security Team’s authority to an unprecedented new height, but the pressure it brought was equally immense.
Huang Jiutian asked himself, if he were in Tao Xingzhi’s position, he probably would have collapsed long ago.
He also came to understand more and more why a man like Tao Xingzhi, with such strong willpower and decisiveness, couldn’t quit smoking.
It was precisely because of the clear element of pleading in Huang Jiutian’s messages that Qin Xiaoxia decided to make his next move ahead of schedule.
...
Lyon, France, once again became the focus of the nation’s "Supernatural Research and Response Department."
To be precise, it was a reservoir in the countryside near Lyon.
PS: First Chapter of the day.