Chapter 003 Despicable Outsider
The real world is in chaos at this time.
Xu Yuanhe was once again invited to the special response department's reception room for tea.
The last time he sat here was when he staggered out of the Misty City, starving to the point of dizziness. When he was discovered by the guards at the Misty Border, he hugged them and shouted, "Give me food!"
Sitting opposite him was also an old acquaintance, Lin Qing, the operations director of the special response department.
Lin Qing wrote a few words on the document and looked up: "Old Xu, why is it you again?"
Xu Yuanhe: "Do you think I want to?"
Lin Qing put the document aside and said, "When I received your application to meet with me, I thought you had finally lost your mind and wanted me to arrange the best psychiatrist for you."
Xu Yuanhe sighed softly, "It's a shame that my mind is very healthy, but I'm about to get scared to death now."
Linqing already understood what had happened.
The live broadcast room is not very popular at the moment, and most of the people who come in by mistake think it is a niche documentary.
Only experienced pioneers can recognize at a glance that this is the interior of the foggy city.
"You're right. This matter cannot be spread directly. It will easily cause panic. It needs to be properly guided under supervision. I will study this live broadcast room and figure out this..." Lin Qing paused, "What's the situation with the person named Rong Le?"
When Xu Yuanhe heard Lin Qing say this, he felt relieved. He knew Lin Qing's abilities well, and the special response department had become a behemoth under his leadership.
Since he said he would take over this matter, he will definitely do it well.
He looked out the window and saw the distant scenery shrouded in white mist, as if isolated from the world.
People all over the world have long been accustomed to such scenes.
At first, when a light mist appeared, no one paid any attention to it, thinking that the damn environmental pollution problem had become more serious.
Soon, a strange fog enveloped almost the entire world.
The fog became increasingly severe, reducing visibility to a terrifying level.
The fog was so thick that you couldn't see your hand in front of you. People couldn't notice any movement around them if they were more than one meter away from each other. The obstruction of vision had an immeasurable impact on people's lives.
After living in the fog for a few days, residents in some areas reported feeling increasingly heavy. The hospital could not find any problems and could only allow the residents to continue to become weak for unknown reasons.
Many people speculate that it may be some unknown air pollution that damages the body through the respiratory tract, while others believe that this is a new type of influenza. Regardless of the cause, it has had a huge impact on life.
Until the white fog exceeded the standard in many areas around the world, collective disappearances occurred, and people in the entire area were completely out of contact. The relatives of the missing people kept calling, but even the signal disappeared completely.
At this time, everyone realized the seriousness of the problem and evacuated the areas with severe fog.
No one knows what happened to the people who disappeared in the fog, and the city shrouded in fog has become an uninhabited area that no one dares to enter.
Judging from the pictures taken by satellites, nearly half of the earth is covered by white fog, and even satellites cannot capture the inside of the fog.
These uninhabited areas are called foggy cities.
The sharp reduction in living area has made cities more crowded and the population density has increased, bringing more problems to be solved.
In such an environment, only a few cities are large enough for people to survive safely and barely maintain the operation of human society.
Until the first person who returned safely from the City of Mist to the human world appeared.
After that, people began to come out of the fog one after another, and everyone was surprised to find that the fog had shown signs of dissipating with their return.
Xu Yuanhe is just an ordinary worker who works in a private company. The city where he lives was also the first to have a case of disappearance.
Some of the people around me moved away, while others stayed for various reasons.
The reason why Xu Yuanhe stayed was very simple. He was an orphan. The house and job he bought with a loan were both local. He had no extra savings to support his survival in another city.
The White Fog Era arrived, and Xu Yuanhe was also passively drawn into the Fog City.
【Please follow the rules of role playing.】
The gods whispered in my ears.
...At that moment, Xu Yuan and his ordinary life were caught in a turbulent vortex.
-
Linqing crossed his hands on the table and looked at the young man in front of him.
No one knew that Xu Yuan and this decadent old man who relied on hiding to pass the module were actually the first people to walk out of the foggy city.
Currently, players who come out of the City of Mist and are registered and controlled and join the official team are called pioneers.
The Special Response Department is fully responsible for all matters related to the Pioneers and the City of Mist.
In addition to the players who accidentally entered the Fog City, there were also special response personnel who took the initiative to enter in order to complete the most basic role tasks in the Fog City, delaying or even reducing the growth of the fog to a certain extent.
This is the important information that Xu Yuanhe, the first person to return, allowed the special response department to discover.
Although it was a very small change and insignificant compared to the area of their land covered by fog, it gave people a glimmer of hope.
The cumulative success of more and more pioneers has brought about considerable changes.
At present, this is also the main way to control the growth of fog.
Linqing: "How long will it take for you to be summoned by the mist?"
Xu Yuanhe: "There are still five days left. I only managed to get through the most basic tasks last time, so there's not much time left."
Lin Qing thought for a moment and said, "It just so happens that a group of pioneers under my command are also about to return. I hope that one of you can meet the person in the live broadcast room and add some more information."
Xu Yuanhe waved his hands repeatedly and said, "Please don't let me go back to Portland. That damn place is very dangerous. I didn't even dare to explore the surroundings. I barely made it back."
Lin Qing nodded, without expressing any opinion on his attitude: "Okay, then, I'll wait for your next return report."
This is a cryptic blessing.
Xu Yuanhe smiled and said, "Of course."
…
After Xu Yuanhe left, Lin Qing sighed, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and rested for a while.
After a few minutes, he opened his eyes, his eyes looking a little tired, and opened the live broadcast room link sent to him by Xu Yuanhe.
Even though I have seen it once before, when I look at it again now, there are still a lot of questions waiting to be answered about Linqing.
How did this live broadcast room appear and what is its purpose?
The name of the live broadcast room seems to have some meaning.
This live broadcast room is not under the control of the online platform. It is more like an electronic ghost that exists only on a carrier. Linqing has no way to block it and can only allow tourists to click into the live broadcast room to watch.
The camera in the live broadcast room was obviously following the young man named Rong Le, but he ignored the angle of the camera.
Lin Qing could tell from her micro-expressions that Rong Le was not pretending not to see the live broadcast room.
He really didn't know that the camera was recording his every move.
"There are more and more strange things..." Lin Qing couldn't help but whisper.
First, strange changes occurred from time to time in various places.
Recently, he has received many survey reports, all of which show that residents often experience so-called cognitive confusion at certain times of uncertain frequency.
For example, an elderly person who has lived in the area for many years suddenly lost his way home. A woman wanted to go shopping at the large shopping mall near her home, but when she looked up, she found that the mall had suddenly turned into a technology group building...
Many small things that seemed like urban legends appeared like mushrooms after rain, and Linqing had a sense of déjà vu just like when the fog descended.
Perhaps, the world in the fog is gradually affecting the real world, and the two are constantly merging.
That is why buildings and roads appear to change from time to time.
If this is true...will the monsters in the foggy city also appear in the real world?
But until there is sufficient evidence, everything is just speculation.
Linqing did not tell anyone else about this guess.
Now there are still more difficult problems to be solved before him.
There was another knock on the door. Lin Qing said, "Come in." The secretary came in with coffee and put it on his desk, reporting to him that he would need to attend a meeting soon.
"I understand." Linqing said.
He took one last look at the live broadcast room, picked up the coat on the back of the chair and pushed the door open to go out.
-
Rong Le and Bai Yue walked along the next street and vaguely heard a quarrel.
Soon, Cohen, who was mediating between the two parties, appeared in front of them.
Rong Le: “…Wow.”
He sighed.
One of the people in the dispute had extremely sparse hair and cheeks like some sea creature, which looked strange and disgusting on a human.
Rong Le thought of the captain almost instantly. They had some surprising similarities.
At this point, the two men became more and more excited as they talked, their arm muscles bulging, and they looked like they were about to start fighting at any minute.
Cohen stood between the two men and tried to mediate. His short brown hair made him look particularly gentle. Even in the black uniform of the military police, he looked like a harmless, good guy.
Passersby didn't even bother to look at the dispute and walked past indifferently.
"I feel like I'm going to lose my love for fish." Rong Le covered her eyes and sighed.
Baiyue: "Unbelievable, is this a follower of some god?"
Rong Le was under an invisible mental attack, and even her tone was a little gloomy: "There's nothing wrong with this appearance. Anyway, I don't believe that a normal human being would look like this."
"…After all, Portland is surrounded by sea."
He looked around with a playful gaze, as if he could penetrate the peaceful surface of the town and glimpse the unknown secrets hidden within.
Gods cannot be understood, named, or described by humans. They are neither good nor evil. To them, humans are just the smallest ants.
Rong Le lived in the church when she was young and had access to many mythological texts that others could not.
The image of the person in front of him was obviously the one described in the book as a typical case, a relative of the gods sleeping in the deep sea.
They rely on humans to reproduce, and the hybrids they give birth to will gradually develop the characteristics of the monster race as they grow older.
Until they become real monsters, are summoned by the deep sea, and return to the embrace of their race.
During their most glorious period, coastal human towns almost became their gathering places, causing great panic in human society and eventually leading to their encirclement and suppression.
As a result, it became rare, gradually disappeared from public view, and became a recorded legend. * (Note 1)
"I didn't expect to see something like this in such a remote town. Baiyue, should we arrest him?"
"He's going to turn into a monster soon anyway. I haven't seen what these followers look like in their final transformation yet."
Rong Le suggested enthusiastically.
Baiyue: "I hope you remember that I am the employer. Our purpose is to find people, not to explore."
"Even though you're interested, monsters don't have human rights. Once they're transformed, they'll rise from the sea and slaughter humans. They're our mortal enemies."
Rong Le's tone was somewhat lively, and if you didn't look at his expressionless face, you would even think that he was very happy at the moment.
Bai Yue noticed his emotionless eyes, sighed, and rubbed his head fiercely: "Since you've resigned from that place, just be a detective and don't get involved in this kind of thing too much."
Rong Le let Bai Yue ruffle his hair without resistance. He lowered his eyes slightly to hide his true emotions, but appeared expressionless on the surface.
There is indeed a secret behind his identity. Baiyue is an insider, and this case is probably not that simple.
Their blatant movements also attracted attention from that side.
Cohen was stunned when he saw them, as if he just remembered that he had let two strangers go. "You..."
"Mr. Military Police, our ship encountered a storm last night. The time of docking is unstable, so we are a little late."
Baiyue said politely.
Cohen remembered that these two were the family members of the missing girl and the hired professional detectives.
He was obviously here to receive them, but he wasted a lot of time here and let these two outsiders come here by themselves.
"I'm so sorry, please wait a moment, I'll take care of it right away!"
"Please do as you please."
Perhaps because he still had work to do, Cohen pulled out the electric baton hanging from his waist and shouted, "Alright, no fighting on the streets. If you don't behave, you'll be sent to the detention center!"
Threats are always the most effective solution. Although the two were unhappy, they had no choice but to leave.
Cohen put away the electric baton and walked over quickly, apologizing to them again.
He took the two of them to a hotel in town first so that they could store their luggage and rest.
Perhaps because they had a guide by their side, Rong Le and her friend were finally not avoided like bacteria by the surrounding residents.
As they walked, Cohen introduced, "If you stay in this town for a few days, you'll basically be familiar with the surrounding buildings. The library is our landmark building and is also located in the center."
"The archives are on the next street. Everything big and small in Portland is well-documented there. If you and Detective need to investigate, it should be helpful."
"Thank you, Mr. Military Police. The archives are very useful to me." Rong Le poked her head out, her tone gentle and harmless.
Baiyue: "Cohen, can you tell us about the clues the military police currently have?"
"Of course you can. It's better to say that we are bothering you because we are not capable enough."
Cohen initially felt a bit guilty, then said, "After the incident, we investigated the victim's relationships. She lived in a hotel in town with a small social circle. Because she was traveling and collecting folk songs, no one noticed she was missing. A few days later, the hotel owner noticed she hadn't returned and reported the case."
"We've compiled a map of her movements on the day of the incident. Witnesses say the last person she saw was Roland, a crew member who also served as the victim's guide."
"The day of the incident was a rest day, and Roland and the victim went to the beach to experience the unique charm of the seaside town."
Rong Le: "Is the last sentence from the military police investigation or Roland's confession?"
"It was Roland's confession. He said he took the victim for a walk and then left. The victim asked to go around on her own. He knew nothing about the victim's disappearance."
While they were talking, the three of them arrived at the hotel.
After Cohen checked in, Rong Le indeed heard the voice of mission completion in her mind.
[Role Mission: 2, find the guide before dark and check into the hotel successfully. Completed.]
Their rooms were side by side, and Baiyue was right next to the room on the second floor where Bai Tutu lived before he disappeared. Of course, that room had now been blocked off by the military police.
Rong Le noticed that Cohen had specifically requested these two rooms.
After Bai Yue put away his luggage, he saw Rong Le opening the suitcase and looking for something. "What are you doing? Cohen is still waiting for us downstairs. We have to go find Roland."
Rong Le didn't even raise her head: "Wait, I want to go take a look next door first."
He walked to the next room and fiddled with it for a while, and the locked door suddenly opened.
Baiyue: "...You are too skilled, aren't you?"
Rong Le said as a matter of course: "Isn't lock picking a necessary skill for a detective?"
…I can’t refute it, but I feel like something’s not right.
Bai Yue followed Rong Le and sneaked into the room. It was not until Rong Le started searching the room that he suddenly came to his senses.
"Wait, this isn't a private investigation, why are we picking the lock like thieves?!"
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