Chapter 237 Blue Arc and Makutaki, Day of Revenge (asking for monthly ticket)
On August 2, at 9:30 in the morning, in the square in the center of Lijing City.
In the huge, pitch-black insect cocoon, Gu Wenyu opened his eyes.
The strong wind over the city blew in. At this moment, he was hanging upside down on the surface of a skyscraper, but the glass curtain wall did not reflect his figure because the restraints wrapped around his body were in a chameleon form.
In one minute, the annual Outlier Commendation Conference will officially begin.
The venue was set in the most prosperous central city area, with a large temporary stage set up in the square. Media seats and audience areas were arranged under the stage.
The central city was packed with people. Looking around, even the nearby streets were packed.
In order to prevent the scene from being too chaotic and causing uncivilized phenomena such as stampedes, the traffic police were blowing whistles and directing traffic loudly with red faces. The honking of vehicles and the noise of the crowds were overwhelming and never stopped.
The stage in the center of the square was still empty, but the special seats were already full of people. The invited media were holding cameras and microphones and sitting in their seats with expectant looks on their faces.
It had just rained in Lijing, the sky was a melancholy cold color, and the asphalt road in the city was also covered with a layer of wet blue. The cumulonimbus clouds had not yet dispersed, and the wind blowing from the clouds was wrapped with a wet and salty smell.
Although the weather today was not very cooperative, it did not affect the enthusiasm of the onlookers at all, and the noisy discussions drowned out the world.
This is a glorious moment that only comes once every ten years. The association has not officially announced the winner of this year's "Outlier of the Year", but everyone present knows which Outlier will win the "Outlier of the Year" medal at the 20th anniversary celebration.
So BlueArc's fans swarmed in early in the morning with cameras and cheering signs. I'm afraid that BlueArc's fans accounted for 60, 70, and 80 percent of the onlookers.
One of them was holding a drawing board with a painting on it. It was the painting that Black Pupa had given away for free in the center of the square a few days ago: a silver-swallowing hamster was holding a blue arc battery and attacking bravely, with silver electric currents jumping on its body.
"Brother's appeal is still as terrifying as ever," Hei Pupa said with emotion, "Should we say he is worthy of being a national idol that appeals to all ages? He has blocked the way for those new-age stars."
He turned his head and silently looked at the scene reflected on the glass curtain wall. The people coming and going on the street were as dense as migrating ants.
At this time, after Black Pupa's reminder in the hospital, the four members of the Ghost Train Group were rushing towards the venue;
Just now, after controlling the black pupa to arrive at the scene first, Ji Minghuan found a place to hang, then closed his eyes, and took the time to accompany Ayase Origami to take the cable car on the mountain in Bergen.
Unit 2 and the eldest lady fell asleep in the cable car, so he was able to focus on dealing with Unit 1's affairs.
"Why am I so busy?" Ji Minghuan counted on his fingers. "The Little Garden Incident is over, Unit 2 and Unit 3 are on holiday, but Unit 1 is busy again. I'm the only one who hasn't had a holiday from beginning to end."
At this moment he suddenly felt like the most caring boss in the world. He had arranged a full vacation for every body, but in the end he found out that it was himself who died suddenly in the office.
Shaking his head, Hei Pupa sadly dismissed his messy thoughts and closed his eyes. The restraints fully activated his senses, like a huge gauze net covering the central city, with a full view of the brightly lit square, and even the birds that passed through the cables and wires could not escape.
Soon, with a "click", dozens of spotlights came down.
The stage, which took a day and a night to build, finally lit up. Thousands of LED billboards embedded in high-rise buildings also lit up at the same time, synchronously broadcasting the scene on the stage.
Everything was quiet, and the mayor, dressed in formal attire, stepped onto the stage.
He stopped at the podium, coughed twice, spread out the speech in his hand, and spoke some formulaic words to set the mood. His endless words made people sleepy.
Then he also mentioned that everyone should pay more attention to the recent rising stars, such as Zodiac, White Whale...
At this point, the information of these rising star heroes also appeared on the big screen behind him. Focusing on supporting newcomers is now a development strategy of the Chinese branch.
After all, in recent years, people's attention has mostly been focused on the top figures in the association, and few people pay attention to the newcomers who are just starting out.
A large part of the salary of the outsiders in the association comes from the share of product sales from fans, which leads to pitifully low wages for some newcomers.
In order to survive, they either become people who rely on extreme images to attract attention, with only traffic and popularity in their eyes. Before each fight with criminals, they have to pick up a selfie stick to start a live broadcast and perform a standard finishing move in front of the camera to end the fight;
Or they will lose confidence in themselves over time and choose to resign, never stepping into the world of outsiders again.
Therefore, in response to the abnormal ecological environment of the association where there is a lack of young talents, the top management of the association applied for a number of salary subsidies for new aliens, while reducing the allocation of resources to top aliens.
They were all worried that once the popular veterans like Blue Arc and Silver Tun retired, the association's financial situation would never recover, so creating the image of a new generation of heroes became a top priority.
Even at an award ceremony like this one for the elderly, the mayor has to cater to the association's requirements and find an opportunity to specifically mention the newcomers, using the popularity of the award ceremony to increase their exposure in front of various media as much as possible.
However, in such an environment, Blue Arc's popularity continues to increase and remains high. This is the most surprising thing. The title of "National Hero" is well deserved.
Black Pupa yawned, untied the restraints covering his right hand, took out his cell phone, lowered his head and wrapped himself in the giant pupa to play Minesweeper. After a while, just when he accidentally exploded the mine digital area, the mayor finally talked about the key point:
"Based on the influence of the Outliers and their comprehensive achievements in various fields, the Association has decided on the 'Outliers of the Year' for this 20th anniversary celebration..."
When the mayor said this, the crowd below the stage held their breath. No one made a sound, but their expressions became more and more excited. Some held up their support signs with a blue mouse on them, while others opened their eyes wide and covered their mouths.
In dead silence, they were all waiting for the name that the mayor would utter.
The old mayor also pretended to be mysterious and raised his reading glasses, looked up at the audience, then lowered his eyes to look at the speech manuscript, smiled, and was forced to work at his age, so he raised his hoarse voice and shouted:
"Without a doubt, this year's Outlier of the Year is - 'Blue Arc'!"
As soon as he finished speaking, before the crowd could cheer for joy, a deafening roar suddenly came, attracting everyone's attention.
“Wow…”
Hei Pupa finally came to his senses. He lowered his eyes and looked, only to see a deep blue streak of lightning shooting out from outside the city center. It passed through the streets and crowds unhindered like a gust of wind and lightning, and finally reached the venue.
"Oh my god, he's so unfashionable, twice as unfashionable as the tough guy Ghost Zhong... Can you use your superpowers less to show off and make a more plain and simple entrance? If you accidentally kill a spectator, today's good day will turn into a fucking car accident scene."
Looking at this scene, the black pupa muttered to himself, then held his forehead and sighed.
In fact, ever since he saw the path that was deliberately left empty in the middle of the audience area leading directly to the podium, he knew that Blue Arc would definitely appear in this form from now on.
Although he knew in his heart that this kind of appearance must have been arranged by the authorities to heat up the atmosphere, Gu Wenyu would sigh for his brother every time, thinking that no matter how famous the alien was, he was still a worker after all, and commercial business behavior was inevitable.
In an era where value is measured by traffic, Blue Arc, a company with both strength and popularity, naturally cannot avoid a lot of commercial behavior.
Gu Qiye actually had no objection to this. Ever since his father ran away from home, he had been thinking about making more money to prepare for future troubles. Otherwise, if Gu Zhuoan suddenly stopped sending money back one day, the family would not even have enough money to pay for his younger brother and sister to go to college.
So in the first two or three years after his debut, he took on advertising and marketing activities very diligently, and reached a win-win situation with the Alien Association. It was not until this year that he restrained himself, mainly to comply with the official strategy of cultivating new talents.
But according to official data, various BlueArc peripheral figures account for a large part of the income of the Chinese branch of Alien.
In recent years, all the marketing staff of the Association of the Different needed to do was to send orders to various manufacturers, have them fill their warehouses with Blue Arc fan items, and then sit on the sofa in the office and wait to collect the money.
I'm afraid that if Blue Arc accidentally dies in battle one day, they will have to make money from the corpse, hold a Blue Arc memorial meeting regularly, and sell related fan items.
The roar died away. Like a gust of wind, the damp air was torn apart by a trace of deep blue electric arc that remained in the air, and was replaced by a faint smell of burning, as if the morning breeze had been burned by the terrifying lightning.
Black Pupa observed carefully and saw a barely visible black color hidden in those deep blue arcs.
As he expected, after the auction incident, the color of Blue Arc's lightning changed slightly.
Many people on the Internet have also noticed this anomaly, but most of them are fanatical fans who enlarge the images frame by frame, and only a few people care about it.
"The question is, is this a sign of an upgrade in my ability?" Black Pupa thought, "Sometimes I really hate that I'm a cheater. I don't have any bottleneck period, and I can't empathize with Comrade Blue Arc."
In the deathly silence, thousands of LED screens in the square focused on the stage. At this moment, the figure wearing blue armor slowly stopped, looked up, nodded to the mayor, then took the microphone from him, turned his head, raised the corners of his lips, and faced the camera with his usual confident smile.
At this moment, in the audience seats, the carnival-like cheers once again drowned the world.
However, just as Blue Arc took the microphone and was about to say something, a cry of surprise suddenly came from the crowd: "What is that-?!"
Lan Hu was slightly stunned, then he looked up and saw a figure wearing a gray cloak and a medieval knight's helmet appearing on the top of a tall building behind the venue.
Above the city, the endless fierce wind blew his figure.
"Maku...Taki?" Blue Arc murmured.
In an instant, Mu Taki jumped down from the aerial work platform, his gray cloak fluttering in the air. He was like a giant black eagle descending from the sky, and finally landed above the conference venue. At the same time, the screen behind him suddenly dimmed.
"Makutaki?"
The mayor frowned. The script he received did not mention that other aliens would appear, and Mu Taki looked like he had bad intentions.
"Mayor...you go down and have some rest first." Lan Hu suddenly remembered Black Pupa's reminder a few days ago, so he became alert and approached the mayor and whispered in his ear.
The mayor nodded, took a few steps back and left the stage. Then only Lan Hu and Mu Taki were left on the stage, with the blue-green and iron-gray figures standing opposite each other.
Makutaki raised his head and stared at Lan Arc expressionlessly. His gray cloak dragged on the ground like a crow's tail feathers, and the tip of his medieval helmet looked like a bird's beak, making him look extremely aggressive at the moment.
The scene was extremely tense, and the spider-web-like deep pit above the venue reminded the spectators below the stage that some unexpected events seemed to have occurred at this award ceremony.
For a moment, there was a lot of discussion among the crowd.
"Is this a show of the Association of the Different?"
"Didn't the authorities say that only those who are selected as 'Outliers of the Year' will appear at the celebration?"
"Maybe it was added temporarily to stir up the hype."
"I thought this was Blue Arc's home ground, but I didn't expect to see other Outliers!"
"Don't you think it's a little strange that the mayor came down without saying a word?"
"It's a bit strange..."
Under the spotlight, Blue Arc was silent for a moment, then took the initiative to move forward and said:
"Makutaki-san's way of appearing is more imaginative than mine. If I had known earlier, I should have discussed it with the association and run down the wall directly from the top of the tall building. However... it might cost a bit of glass."
After these teasing words were spoken, there was a burst of laughter at the scene. Mu Taki remained silent, standing there like a statue. But the next moment, the huge display screen on the stage suddenly lit up, and then played a surveillance video with blurry picture quality and flickering images.
"It took me a long time to find it..." Makutaki finally spoke, his voice slightly hoarse.
Blue Arc frowned and looked up at the surveillance video on the display.
The screen showed a corridor in a residential building. The ceiling collapsed, crushing a boy's feet underneath. His father growled and pulled him hard.
It was a massive earthquake, and the whole world seemed to be shaking. After a while, the two of them seemed to hear some noise, so they turned their heads to the figure outside the window for help:
"Blue Arc-! Save us!"
Lan Hu was stunned. On the surveillance video, the father and son were shouting his name. The floor was still shaking, tiles on the ceiling were falling off, and the exhaust pipes were cracking layer by layer. They were calling for help hysterically.
But the next moment, the screen suddenly went dark, and a beam of deep blue lightning pierced through the wall and shot out, blowing through the father who was pulling his son like a gale of death.
Then, the tall figure on the corridor instantly turned into a bloody wind and rain, splashing towards a corner of the corridor entrance. The child trapped under the rubble was stunned, and then let out a belated scream.
The hysterical screams broke the momentary silence, and the crowd in the square began to become restless.
Lan Hu's pupils contracted, and he froze in place. His lips moved slightly under his helmet.
"…How is that possible?"
Mu Taki still lowered his head, standing in front of the screen motionless, staring at the blue arc like an upright black crow. After a while, he finally spoke:
"Outlier Blue Arc, this is... the crime you committed a few years ago."
(End of this chapter)
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