Chapter 90 - 89: Scarecrow
The Jia City construction site was well-equipped. Soundproof walls encircled the area, muffling the noise from the massive volley of gunfire to a bare minimum.
Besides, construction sites were inherently loud and clamorous places. It wasn’t unusual to hear sounds coming from that direction—pile drivers, excavators, and even the sound of explosions were commonplace. So, even though some people in the distant suburbs heard the noise, they didn’t give it a second thought.
The insect monster carcasses had all been collected. Even the spilled blood was meticulously siphoned away by personnel in hazmat suits using suction equipment, and the areas where the bodies had lain were thoroughly disinfected.
The body of the unfortunate engineer was also taken away. His family still had no idea that their loved one had perished.
Prefab Unit 1 was also temporarily cordoned off with a simple barrier, not for quarantine purposes, but to study the insect monsters’ method of travel.
For instance, by examining the marks left on the prefab building, they could determine the monsters’ stride length and jumping ability, as well as deduce their speed and movement patterns.
As one of the three major pilot construction sites, the project had to continue, despite the major incident that had occurred.
When his subordinates asked Li Donglai if they should temporarily halt construction, Li Donglai gave a direct answer: "This project will be completed on time, even if the sky falls."
That same day, the construction site’s upper management held a detailed discussion about the incident with their superiors and Tao Xingzhi’s department.
The appearance of the insect monsters could be categorized with previously recorded mutations. As for why they were at the construction site, it was unlikely they had "discovered human intentions." It was more plausible that, as Huang Jiutian had suggested, they were attracted by something.
Regardless of the circumstances, the Jia City construction site could not be shut down; in fact, construction had to be accelerated.
There were two reasons for this. First, the resources invested were too great to be abandoned, and they never expected the base to remain hidden for long once completed. The whole point of a pilot project was to identify problems.
Second, if the construction site was indeed what attracted the monsters, then why would they want to remove the bait?
Thus, the site resumed operations with incredible efficiency. Work restarted in less than half a day, almost before the research team had even departed. The number of security personnel around the perimeter appeared unchanged, but some members had been rotated out, heavy weapons had been brought in, and they were now equipped with individual night-vision devices and team-based thermal imagers.
To the military police, and especially the Officers, the higher-ups’ intentions were crystal clear.
...
In the Secret Realm, Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou both backed away, feeling a faint tremor from beneath the ground.
The former—Qin Xiaoxia—could directly sense a change underground, like a network of veins spreading out.
It wasn’t growing outward from the center bit by bit as he had imagined. Instead, countless crystal-like tendrils were continuously extending outward.
The tendrils stretched for a full hundred meters before stopping, each one forming a terminus and coiling back on itself slightly.
The Mother Crystal Ore had now shrunk to the size of a fava bean. If Qin Xiaoxia couldn’t still sense it, he might have thought it had disappeared.
’Out of power?’
A layer of purple flame ignited on his arm as he released his Magic Power toward the Mother Crystal Ore deep underground.
Sure enough, the Magic Power was quickly absorbed. Although the "little fava bean" didn’t grow any larger, the outlying tendrils began to move again.
Even finer filaments branched out from the main tendrils.
Within a short time, a large area underground began to resemble a sparse cotton candy ball embedded in the soil.
After that, no matter how much Magic Power Qin Xiaoxia channeled into it, nothing more happened. The Mother Crystal Ore could no longer absorb his Magic Power, and a small accident even occurred.
Though he had tried his best to suppress some of his Magic Power’s unique properties, it still managed to scorch a small portion of the tendrils, startling Qin Xiaoxia into quickly retracting the excess energy.
’It’s still missing something.’
The sheer magnitude of his Magic Power was too much for the fragile Newborn Crystal Ore. It worked as a catalyst, but it couldn’t serve as a main course.
’It needs some proper "crop fertilizer."’
Qin Xiaoxia had never missed the corpse of the Faceless Shadow Ghost from that wine bottle as much as he did right now.
In his limited understanding of horticulture, it seemed the more disgusting the substance, the better the fertilizer.
Outside the Secret Realm, the afterglow of the setting sun painted the horizon with fiery clouds, as brilliant as flames, as sinister as blood.
...
「Shen City. The editorial office of *Where the Nightingale Flies*.」
Cui Ying was scrolling through reader comments on their social media page and official account.
Her eyes stopped on one particular message.
"Count, we’ve got another reader asking for help..."
Count was the nickname of one of the male editors, and he had been handling all the reader requests for help lately.
Hearing Cui Ying’s words, he stood up from his desk, looking pained.
He walked over to the chief editor’s desk and peered at her computer screen.
"I knew it was this guy!"
Cui Ying found that strange. Why "again"?
"Has this person asked for help many times?"
The Count nodded.
"You could say that. But this person never leaves any contact information or calls us. We’ve sent messages online, but they never reply."
At this, the Count filled Cui Ying in on this person, who went by the name "Scarecrow," and took the opportunity to vent about his workload.
In the Count’s own words: "We did say we’d do our best to help—whether we actually *can* help is another story. But come on, dude, at least give us a way to contact you! Are you just messaging us to mess with us? Watch out, or you’ll make even our ’Nightingale’ mad!"
Cui Ying soothed him as if he were a child, then asked a question.
"How many times has this person sent a message?"
"I haven’t kept a precise count, but at least four or five times. A few more messages and I’m tempted to block them."
"Did they say anything abusive?"
"No, but it is strange. They always seem to send the messages around the same time, usually sometime after dusk."
The Count glanced at his watch—7:20 PM. He then checked the message’s timestamp: 6:52 PM. Sure enough, it was right around 7 PM again.
Cui Ying listened to all this, then looked again at the message in the special section for reader help requests.
(Scarecrow: help me help...) The rest was a jumble of random letters and symbols.
For some reason, a strange feeling welled up inside her. She unconsciously rubbed her arms, only to find they were covered in goosebumps.
The Count was still muttering to himself.
"Honestly, I don’t get what’s so fun about this kind of prank. If they were really in trouble, wouldn’t calling the police be more effective?"
Cui Ying suddenly asked him.
"Do you remember the first issue of our *Strange Tales and Ghost Stories*?"
The Count froze. How could he forget? Just the mention of it made another wave of goosebumps crawl over his skin.
"What if it’s not that Scarecrow doesn’t want to call the police, but that calling them is useless? Or what if they’re physically unable to?"
Cui Ying offered this unsettling hypothesis.
"That’s not very likely, is it? If they can get online, how could they be unable to call the police..."
...
「Far from Shen City, in a tile-roofed house on a private farm full of greenhouses...」 A figure sat slumped in a chair at a table, their body rigid and overgrown with vines, their eyes vacant and lifeless.
Elsewhere in the room were several other, similar figures.
Everything inside the room looked as if it had been reclaimed by nature. Branches and green leaves were everywhere, creating a scene of perverse vitality.
A hand, capable of only the slightest movement, was pressed down on a mobile phone that was also entangled in vines.
The phone had no reception, but the room’s Wi-Fi signal flickered in and out. Luckily, its charging cable remained connected to the outlet.
The screen, flickering as if it might die at any moment, was open to the new app for *Where the Nightingale Flies*.
The greenery in the room seemed to have frozen time at the very moment of the transformation.
For days, the figure could only move for a brief moment when the evening glow filled the sky, like some green, vegetative version of Stephen Hawking. A single, mechanical obsession to call for help repeated in its mind. The act of leaving a message was less a desperate plea for survival and more like a pre-set alarm going off.
As the last of the sun’s afterglow faded completely, the figure’s fingers and body grew increasingly stiff, as if turning to wood.
Outside in the greenhouse area, a green shadow that had been staring blankly at the sunset broke through the soil, burrowed its way underground, and vanished.
P.S. Thank you to readers Forerunner 3 and Book Friend 20180629000800172 for the 100-coin donations!~~