Chapter 141 - 138: Perception Failure
Two firefighters opened a manhole cover, tossed in a few pieces of raw meat mixed with cheese, then put the cover back on.
They braced the edges with support struts and used weighted bags to seal the manhole cover.
"Alright, on to the next one."
Just as they were about to get up and move to the next location, a rustling sound reached them.
"Wait, did you hear that?"
One of them pressed his body low, placing his ear against the street.
A few seconds later, cold sweat beaded on his forehead. He motioned for his partner to back away as he cautiously stood up, his movements as gentle as if he were carrying a child to its nap.
On Orange Street, a young man in a special operations uniform jogged up to Liu Yue.
"Instructor, I have some bad news. Their numbers are likely much greater than we thought. We’ve found nine suspected rat colony locations!"
The young man handed his tablet to Liu Yue, who looked to be about the same age. The map on the screen was marked with nine flashing red circles.
Liu Yue’s heart skipped a beat. He carefully examined the red dots and realized that if they followed the five-kilometer diameter lockdown protocol, the area covered by these nine circles was several times larger than their current projected zone.
He looked up at the young man, then glanced at the reinforced manhole cover not far away.
Liu Yue sighed.
"In Leader Tao’s words, if there’s still no solid evidence to disprove our ’Tenth Man Theory,’ we were bound to face something like this sooner or later."
But despite saying that, Liu Yue was now facing a massive headache.
Shen City wasn’t some rural village like Rong Town back then. Shen City’s population was too dense and it was too high-profile. Evacuation or quarantine would be no small matter.
And this was different from the Flame Demon incident in the United States. Before that, the new pneumonitis had already been in the news several times, and most of the city’s residents were already aware of it. The establishment of the quarantine zone had also been a gradual process.
You could say that quarantine and evacuation was a process the citizens of Saint Louis gradually adapted to.
Immediately evacuating citizens to establish a lockdown was clearly not the best option now. They could only pin their hopes on Huang Jiutian’s arrival to get the situation under control.
If worse came to worst, they’d probably have to pull the old "toxic chemical leak" trick again.
...
Huang Jiutian arrived in Shen City around 7 p.m., just as dusk was settling.
But it wasn’t long after he stepped into the designated activity zone of the mutated rats that he felt something was wrong.
The problem wasn’t that the rats had failed to stick to the five-kilometer radius as predicted by behavioral studies; it was that he could barely perceive them.
Originally, his Perception stemmed from Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power. Although frequent use had shown signs of developing his psychic senses, his heightened sensitivity was still only effective against existences with special energy.
For example, the Tree Shepherds and their Demon Vines, the Flame Demon, or New Humans like Ben.
But creatures like rats, even if they grew as large as dogs, seemed to be of little interest to Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power.
Even when Huang Jiutian actively expended his energy to wield this Magic Power, it only produced a vague sense, allowing him to feel the spiritual fluctuations of living things in the sewers below.
Then, to his dismay, he discovered that these spiritual fluctuations were basically the same as a small house mouse’s. It was possible that even though the big rats’ bodies had changed, their spirits hadn’t.
And these kinds of fluctuations were present almost everywhere beneath Shen City, making it impossible to distinguish which were the giant rats.
When Jiutian told Liu Yue and Tao Xingzhi about this, they were both dumbfounded.
The ever-reliable Huang Radar was actually having signal problems. Now they were in trouble!
Shen City’s sewers weren’t like the ones in Europe and America that you could walk through. At best, a grown adult could only crawl inside. Under these circumstances, if a person went down there, it would be tantamount to tying themselves up and serving themselves to a pile of rats.
The thought alone was terrifying and deeply unsettling.
After nightfall, even worse news arrived.
The sewers were like a crisscrossing highway for rats.
Now, the Special Security Team and the other armed or medical units cooperating in the operation had only two paths forward.
Inside the on-site command vehicle, Tao Xingzhi held a video conference with Liu Yue, Huang Jiutian, and representatives from the Public Security Bureau, Fire Department, and Armed Police.
Of course, several animal experts and specialists on rodent infestations also joined the video call.
"Comrades, the situation has become very grim. I assume you’ve all seen the report from the animal experts."
"The reproductive rate of these rats is terrifying. If we don’t eliminate them quickly, I’m afraid Shen City will soon belong to them."
"So, if you have any ideas, don’t hold back."
A criminal investigation expert representing the Public Security Bureau, after discussing the matter with municipal personnel, proposed the two best options they currently had.
"First, we find a way to seal off a larger section of the sewer network. We send people down outside the maximum projected area to block all connecting lines."
"At the same time, we seal all the manhole covers on the surface. Then we start by putting down poisoned bait, followed by flooding the sealed-off underground tunnels to drown all the rats. Or, we could just pump in poison gas."
"Second, we prepare to evacuate the public from this area. The sealing process would be the same as in plan one, but instead of using poison, water, or gas—methods that are time-consuming and either not potent enough or carry significant risks—we use infrasonic vibrations directly. We drive them toward an advantageous position and then eliminate them en masse. We’d just need to station flamethrower operators and gunmen at a few deliberately-left-open manholes."
Huang Jiutian listened quietly, remaining silent.
"Jiutian, do you have any thoughts?"
Tao Xingzhi noticed Huang Jiutian’s silence, but it didn’t seem to be born from the disappointment of not being able to help.
"I’m wondering... will *they* come?"
As soon as he said this, everyone except the Special Security Team members was completely baffled. ’Does the country have another special department with an even higher security clearance?’ they wondered.
But every member of the Special Security Team was startled.
They knew that when it came to minimizing public panic and maintaining secrecy, that mysterious organization was second to none.
Regardless of whether they were human or how many humans were among them, they undoubtedly possessed incredible powers.
Like the legendary Immortal Techniques and Magic of the East, or the Magic of the West.
"They probably don’t know, right...?" Liu Yue said uncertainly.
"I wouldn’t be so sure!"
Huang Jiutian’s addition made Tao Xingzhi’s heart leap.
"Jiutian, is there something you know?"
Huang Jiutian looked up, his gaze sweeping over everyone in the command vehicle before settling on Tao Xingzhi’s face on the video feed.
"A gut feeling. It’s just a gut feeling. No, to be more precise, it’s a premonition. The key right now is, how do we get them to lower their guard around us? Otherwise, they might not show themselves, right?"
If anyone else had told Tao Xingzhi and the members of the Special Security Team something about a ’gut feeling,’ they would have treated it as a joke on a normal day, and as utter nonsense right now. But Huang Jiutian was different.
Because he was currently the world’s only Perception Type New Human, and as long as his Perception confirmed something, it had never been wrong.
It had to be said, Jiutian had a strong sense of justice. He did Mrs. Huang proud.
The moment he learned that the underground of Shen City could potentially turn into a nest of mutated rats, he had notified Qin Xiaoxia immediately.
On a small scale, it was about his image in Jiutian’s eyes. On a grander, more dramatic scale, the lives of tens of millions in Shen City were at stake.
For both personal and logical reasons, Qin Xiaoxia couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.
’Besides, I’ll have to make contact with the government eventually. Maybe this could be a test run.’
And so, that led to Huang Jiutian’s question in the meeting. The real purpose was to prime their nerves a little, to ensure they wouldn’t just start fighting the moment they met.
PS: Chapter Two.