Chapter 54: Celebration Banquet

After the captain finished his speech, the celebration banquet officially began.

Since there were only people involved in this mission, there were only about ten people at the table, but the legendary secret-level investigator was nowhere to be seen.

As if seeing my confusion, the captain explained, "Secretary-level colleagues are handling the finishing work, and the chemical plant needs to be temporarily sealed off."

This was within my expectations, but I was still a little concerned about the follow-up of this matter. Taking advantage of the captain's mention, I asked:

"Captain, I heard GUD-005 has been recovered?"

GUD-005 refers to the "Broken Statue". I had seen it once before when I entered the mirror world.

The captain nodded, his face a little serious.

"We have recovered it, but we haven't developed suitable containment procedures yet. We can only assign personnel to strictly guard it. 005 has independent consciousness and needs the nourishment of faith to stay in place. The personnel in charge of supervision will be hypnotized by our special personnel and worship the statue once a day."

"Hypnosis?" I was a little confused.

The captain took a piece of tofu and put it in his mouth, then continued:

"We've tried this before, but pretending to believe in it doesn't stop 005 from moving around randomly. The only way to stop it is to actually build a shrine for it and have people worshipping at it all the time."

"For safety reasons, we had our special psychiatric investigators hypnotize the investigators in charge of the statues beforehand. We'll then cleanse them of the contamination and erosion they've been exposed to during the shift adjustments."

"We have sent six investigators to be in charge of the supervision. Each investigator can only supervise for three days before he or she needs to change shifts. After that, he or she needs to rest for about five days to clean up the relevant pollution before they can continue their shifts." The captain explained patiently.

"When you were sent back, you also suffered some mental erosion, so when you were unconscious, they also gave you the relevant cleaning." The captain said, stuffing another piece of tofu into his mouth.

Judging from the information the captain just said, it can explain why the statue stayed in the same place when it was in the mirror world, but the person in charge of guarding it was a bit too pitiful.

But there is still one point that doesn't make sense. If the statue needs offerings from believers to stay in the same place, then why was it suddenly stolen when it was well kept by the Investigation Bureau before?

Unless there is really a problem with the person in charge of supervision.

"What about the investigator who was in charge of the custody before?" I asked hesitantly.

Hearing this question, the captain's tone became serious:

"Even with a rotation system, the long-term contamination of the idol and repeated hypnosis has caused irreversible mental damage. Some of them have died, while others have been completely transformed into monsters and taken into the Monster Prison..."

"Until we assigned a new investigator to replace the one who went crazy. After that, 005 was stolen and the investigator disappeared."

I nodded thoughtfully, thinking while eating, and suddenly I realized something.

"Captain! Is the missing member An Weier?"

The captain was a little confused, as if he didn't know why I asked this question. He shook his head and said, "Ann Wei'er disappeared later. This person was a male team member before."

Not the same person? This is strange. If An Wei'er wasn't the first one to take the statue away, then where was the person who took the statue away?

It's necessary to check in the archives again.

Seeing my serious expression, Song Nanxing finally couldn't bear it anymore. He stretched out his hand in front of me and snapped his fingers, saying, "Okay, stop thinking about it. I finally have a chance to relax. Let's eat first."

That’s true. I stopped worrying about it, put aside these doubts and started to concentrate on eating.

The table was filled with steam, which stimulated my taste buds. I set my sights on the chicken in one of the dishes and quickly picked up my chopsticks.

The moment the "chicken" entered my mouth, tears blurred my eyes, and the next second I quickly turned around and spit out what was in my mouth.

I'm so stupid, really.

It was a piece of ginger that looked like chicken.

Seeing me like this, Song Nanxing couldn't help but chuckle, looking at me with a gloating expression, and said teasingly: "Oh my, I never saw you cry like this when I was killing those mutant monsters."

Gang Jue even added: "Don't worry, there's more."

As he spoke, Gang Jue also picked up a piece of potato and put it into his mouth. The next second, his expression changed again and again, and he swallowed it very stiffly.

"Oh my god, who cooked this? They put so much ginger in it, maybe they pulled out all the ginger in the base."

I took the opportunity to retaliate: "God will punish you, and no one will be spared."

Chen Yubing watched us arguing with each other with a smile in his eyes.

Everyone was chatting and laughing at the dinner table, relaxing after a long time, and I was also enjoying it.

I have had team-building activities with colleagues in the company before, but it was just like a routine. Everyone was harmonious but also felt a little distant.

Before I met them, I never thought that I would be able to experience such an atmosphere one day.

This emotion came too suddenly, so suddenly that it even made me feel a little at a loss.

I slipped out of the room under the pretext of going to the bathroom to calm down.

I let out a long breath, and the corners of my mouth unconsciously turned up.

"Like a dream..."

I whispered to myself.

After a while, Chen Yubing also came out and chuckled, "If you don't go back to eat now, there won't be any food left later."

"I'm coming." I smiled knowingly and returned to the room with her.

After sitting down, everyone raised their glasses at the same time. The crisp sound of glasses clinking together was heard, and along with it came everyone's cheers.

"cheers!"

After having a good meal and a good drink, everyone chatted for a while and then packed up together.

After all, the Investigation Bureau is not a hotel, and you still have to clean up after eating.

After finishing their work, the team members returned to their rooms to rest.

Song Nanxing walked up to me as if nothing had happened, winked at me, then hummed a slightly off-key tune and walked away with quickened pace.

I looked at his back thoughtfully.

…

I walked out of the room after everyone fell asleep. Song Nanxing was on night patrol at the time. When he saw me coming out of the corridor, he waved at me and motioned me to follow him.

"You have to say everything now." I walked up to him and said.

"Two things. First, regarding the follow-up of the Apocalypse Sect, this matter is not over yet. I always feel that they can't be destroyed so easily."

I nodded. This was consistent with my thoughts. An organization that existed for many years, had been eliminated so many times, and could still establish a base in the mirror. It was impossible for it to be completely wiped out so easily.

Secondly, although I was unconscious, I paid special attention when I returned to the Investigation Bureau. Apart from bringing back the "broken statue", I did not arrest any believers, and there was no trace of those core members.

"You can look at the information on this matter when the time comes. You have enough authority. We can look at some of the information sent back by the secret-level personnel. In addition, in order to avoid causing unnecessary trouble, the bureau did not give too much description, but the relevant investigation is indeed still ongoing." Song Nanxing added.

Needless to say, I also had some plans of my own, so I didn't dwell on this issue too much and asked:

"What's the second thing?"

Song Nanxing paused, then said, "Those friends of yours, Jiang Wang and Mo Junfan, are no longer in the western suburbs."