Chapter 26
Operations Department
On the conference room's display screen was a bus with its doors wide open, and four photos taken from different angles were also displayed. The bus was filled with corpses scattered on the chairs and in the aisles, and next to the corpses, a swarm of insects flew around, like flies attracted to food.
The flying insects on the screen were very small, just a tiny black dot, looking like the kind you could easily swat dead. But every officer who had been to the scene felt a chill run down their spine.
How could such a tiny thing kill so many people, and all of their internal organs just vanish into thin air!
The most concerning aspect of this pollution incident is not the cause of death, nor the pollutants, but rather—
Ye Ting enlarged one of the pictures, showing bright red flowers in full bloom, similar to roses.
"This is the fifth pollution incident this month. As you can see, the pollutant this time is insects, and they are extremely deadly. But that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is the flower we found at the scene."
"Research has shown that this flower can attract pollutants and make them more agitated, similar to insect pheromones. The mechanism by which it attracts pollutants is not yet clear. The research institute has named it 'false rose,' and someone has been secretly distributing it throughout the city, which is why there have been multiple cases of pollutant attacks."
Attracting pollutants...
No one spoke in the meeting room. Everyone was shocked by the terrible news; the worst fears had come true.
The destructive power of pollutants is self-evident, but fortunately there haven't been many pollution cases in the past two years, so S City has barely maintained a peaceful state. However, the appearance of this substance is like a catalyst, causing the situation to deteriorate rapidly.
The flowers were initially sold by a florist, and then randomly bought by customers. It was as if those people brought the devil home, turning every place into a crime scene.
The enforcement officer located the flower shop, but when he arrived, the owner was already dead. The owner was the victim in the first case this month.
These victims had nothing in common, and the killer was chosen randomly, since no one could predict who would buy the flowers.
The killer probably wanted to create chaos and distract the operations team.
Even if they guessed Ye Ting, they had no other choice. This thing was no less dangerous than a bomb. They had to find the other buyers first, and then conduct a large-scale search of the city to ensure that the fake roses would not enter the market.
This is an enormous amount of work, and the only thing we know is that these cases are related to that secret church.
What exactly are they trying to do?
...
"Ahhh—"
"Let me go home!"
"Waaah, where am I?"
All the wails were drowned out on the eighteenth underground floor.
Yue Ning lowered her head, no longer looking at the tragic scene before her.
At first, she thought it was an ordinary organization made up of polluters, but as the investigation deepened, what she found became increasingly alarming.
It took her a year to become a core member of the church, and this was her first time here.
This place is located on the ground floor of a building. The space is huge, but there are only a few lights. Not far away, many people are trapped in cages, emitting mournful cries.
Behind the dim light, terrified faces appeared and disappeared, and sounds kept reaching her ears. Yue Ning clenched her fists.
She couldn't save those people.
Not at least not now.
In the middle of this floor, enormous trees grow in a way that defies common sense, as if they were dark things that forcefully squeezed into this ordinary world from the abyss.
Its trunk is thicker than imagined, its surface covered with dense, uneven nodules, like countless swollen eyeballs peering around in a chilling way. The bark has a mottled and eerie color, like old, rotten leather mixed with dried blood, its texture winding and intersecting like ancient and forbidden runes.
Above this, countless branches spread out, and at the ends of the branches hung corpses.
Or rather, a puppet.
These people have been completely contaminated, their bodies becoming one with the trees.
The leaves and vines replaced the internal organs, stuffing their bodies bulging.
The bodies and flesh of these people nourished this strange tree, causing it to grow taller and taller until soon even a hundred meters underground might not be able to contain it.
The thick stench of blood in the air made Yue Ning want to vomit.
The cult leader was not far ahead, and he seemed very happy. Even without facial features, Yue Ning could still feel his excitement.
Her heart clenched. She kept telling herself it was just a contaminant, but the moment she saw it, an indescribable fear overwhelmed her.
Like a mayfly trying to shake a tree, can we really defeat this level of pollution?
"It's feeding time again." The cult leader stretched out his hand, and a branch of the giant tree stretched down and gently rubbed against his palm.
Gentle, like a domesticated pet.
The scene is somewhat unbelievable; this level of pollutant has actually succumbed to the control of a human.
“Rose, congratulations, everyone here is one of us. But to become a core member of the church, there’s one last ritual.” Crow said with a chuckle.
"Rose" is Yue Ning's code name in the game.
"What ceremony?" she asked.
"You'll see when you get there," the crow said mysteriously.
Yue Ning walked to the cult leader's side, the two of them only three steps apart.
This was the second time she had met the cult leader.
Yue Ning really wanted to take out a gun and shoot a hole in the culprit who had harmed countless people.
But now is not the time.
She needs to remain in hiding and wait for an opportunity to spread the news of the massive pollutant.
The cult leader's entire head was made up of dark green vines, without a skull, skin, or facial features; he didn't even have a brain.
How does the cult leader think, with his head full of green leaves?
Yue Ning smiled inwardly. She had a very stable mindset, which she had honed through countless brushes with death.
The polluted branch was handed from the cult leader to her, and the ceremony was about to begin.
Yue Ning felt her heart pounding wildly as she wondered what would happen next.
*Pfft*
The branch pierced through her heart.
She hung her head, the branch piercing her chest right in the center of her vision, the intense pain only becoming apparent belatedly.
That's it, the message can't get out now.
This was Yue Ning's first thought.
How was it exposed?
She was confused, but her body ached as if it had been cleaved open, and her beating heart was entangled by vines, like a venomous snake.
When a person is near death, they think about many things, and she suddenly thought of Yue Jing.
The name was somewhat unfamiliar because the mission was dangerous, and Yue Ning's mind was constantly on edge, leaving her no time to reminisce about the past.
But as he was about to die, this name, which he hadn't thought about for a long time, suddenly appeared in his mind.
She embarked on this path with a burning desire to investigate Yue Jing's cause of death.
But after all these years, no clues have been found. If she has any regrets, this is probably it.
The venomous snake coiled around the heart began to slowly slide away, and a green seed was placed inside the flesh. The seed sucked up a large amount of blood and began to take root and sprout.
Yue Ning opened her eyes and saw the white ceiling of the hospital.
She stared blankly at the ceiling lights for a long time before she came to her senses. There were no pollutants, no wails, and the sunlight streaming into the ward from the window almost made her cry.
Yue Ning sat on the bed for two hours, her brain still throbbing, and some memories still hadn't returned.
She didn't get out of bed until the door was pushed open.
Then he knocked down the person outside the door.
This is a conditional launch that has been practiced over many years.
The doctor, who had been thrown to the ground, got up and instinctively reached for a sedative, thinking the patient was going crazy again.
They failed to get it, and after a few exchanges, the doctor realized something was wrong.
"Where is this place?" Yue Ning guessed that it was probably a hospital, but he didn't know any specific details.
"You, you, you're awake." The doctor was stunned. A person who had been insane for three years had suddenly become lucid. This was too outrageous.
"You stay here quietly. I'm going to call the director now. Stay here quietly and don't wander off." The doctor didn't even bother with the medicine scattered all over the floor and hurriedly ran out to report the news.
Yue Ning picked up the medicines from the ground: sedatives, antagonists, monitoring devices...
She knew where she was.
Upon hearing the news, Li Qianfang rushed over; this person was a key person under observation at the hospital.
"Captain Yue, you're awake." Yue Ning used to escort polluters to the island nation frequently, and he knew this hospital director.
"You're awake, thank you. I will report what I know as soon as possible, but I still have some memory loss, and I will need Dean Li's care in the days to come."
Her tone was extremely serious, which made Li Qianfang straighten his back and stop being his usual carefree self.
“Of course, I will contact Ye Ting as soon as possible. Oh, you probably don’t know, he’s been promoted now, and he’s in charge of this part of the task,” Li Qianfang said.
Yue Ning nodded.
The two did not have much of a personal relationship, and Li Qianfang left in a hurry after confirming Yue Ning's current situation.
After he left, Yue Ning sat on the bed.
After a long while, she placed her hand on her heart, where it was quiet and she could not hear her heart beating.
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