Chapter 121 – Why don't we escape to Mars?
Sky Eye Society.
Mr. Lou, who had just finished a tiring day of travel, got off the car with sleepy eyes and could hardly remember how he returned to the office.
He vaguely remembered meeting someone and having a conversation before entering the office, but he couldn't recall who said what.
Then, he started practicing his nodding skills in the office.
Tang Wen walked through the corridor, holding a stack of documents in his arms, and arrived at the office. As soon as he entered, he saw Mr. Lou almost falling onto his desk, with drool at the corner of his mouth.
Tang Wen paused at the door, cleared his throat, and lightly tapped on the open office door with his knuckles.
Mr. Lou suddenly woke up, instantly brought back to reality. After waking up, he rubbed his eyes, which were as puffy as small beans.
"You look exhausted from the business trip," Tang Wen smiled.
"It's alright. If it were someone else, they would definitely be exhausted, but for someone like me, it's just a piece of cake. Hah~ yawn~ a piece of cake."
He yawned and smacked his lips twice.
His face looked like it was written with "a piece of cake".
Tang Wen smiled strangely, "I think so too, sir."
"I thought it would be some difficult task, like hunting down dangerous Cunning Beasts. But it turned out to be much easier than I imagined. I solved the problem within three minutes of arriving and spent the rest of the time socializing with the sub-branches."
He yawned again.
It was evident that he was truly exhausted, and he almost blurted out the truth without realizing it.
Tang Wen nodded understandingly, "Indeed, it's very exhausting, sir. As a leader like you, there are always countless responsibilities and sacrifices for the people."
Mr. Lou straightened his back a bit, "I think so too."
"So, what can I do for you, sir?" Tang Wen asked with a smile.
"Well, it's not a big deal. It's just... something that needs a little... discussion."
The more Mr. Lou spoke, the lower his head drooped, until his nose almost touched the desk.
Tang Wen furrowed his brows and tentatively called out, "Mr. Lou?"
The only response he got was a series of snoring sounds.
Tang Wen: "."
After a moment of silence, he turned to Li Xiao'an, "Did he tell you why he wanted me to come?"
Li Xiao'an showed a helpless expression, "He said he fell asleep earlier."
Tang Wen shrugged and picked up the documents he had just put down, "Then remind me later, call me when he wakes up."
He had a whole department to manage, and he couldn't afford to waste much time. As he spoke, he had already left the room.
Mr. Lou's head drooped lower and lower, until his nose hit the desk with a thud. Then, he suddenly sat up and saw Li Xiao'an when he raised his head.
"Ah, it's you. Good morning," he greeted and yawned again.
Li Xiao'an really wanted to say that it was too early for greetings since they had already greeted each other before, but he managed to hold back for the sake of his job.
"Oh, by the way, remind me to find Tang Wen today," Mr. Lou said, squinting his eyes. He had an expression as if he was constipated, trying hard to think.
"Um... Did I have something to say to him?" he asked.
Li Xiao'an: "."
Footsteps could be heard outside the door, in a hurry. The office door was pushed open directly, and Tang Wen, who had just left for a few minutes, appeared in the room with an extremely rare sense of urgency.
"Ah, Tang Wen," Mr. Lou waved, "You're here early today. It's a coincidence. I was just thinking of finding you to discuss something."
Tang Wen ignored his words and his face turned gloomy, "Something big has happened. It's a suspected containment breach accident, a Class 9 incident."
Mr. Lou listened with a bewildered expression. Obviously, he didn't have enough understanding of containment incidents. But Li Xiao'an quickly reacted, "Are you saying it's the disappearance of individuals caused by the special nature of the containment?"
"No."
Tang Wen's voice was low and solemn, his face serious as he spoke word by word.
"It's not the disappearance of individuals, it's an entire missing town."
Li Xiao'an widened his eyes and after a while, he said, "But... but..."
Mr. Lou seemed to instantly wake up from his drowsiness, "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what it means," Tang Wen said with a gloomy tone, "The local Sky Eye Society has determined it to be an extremely rare containment with possible special spatial properties. But for whatever reason, the entire Wangshan Town has disappeared. Over two thousand people in the town, including a nearby excavation team, are all gone."
"Uh, maybe we can go to the excavation site to take a look?" Li Xiao'an suggested, "Because obviously, if there's a problem near the archaeological site, we should always consider if the problem lies there. Because they always say that the ones who dig are the ones who trigger the end of the world."
Movies, animations, and even tabletop role-playing games all follow this rule. The beginning of the apocalypse often starts with a bold excavation. Whether it's ancient wizards, monsters, aliens, spaceships, robots, belts, giants, or stone statues, there's nothing that can't be found if you think hard enough.
Anyway, if you're on the set of a Transcendent film and an archaeologist excitedly waves a shovel at you and says, "Look at what treasure I dug up today," you can start preparing to evacuate in advance.
"The site has already been controlled by the Sky Eye Society, and we gained nothing," Tang Wen said.
"An entire missing town," Mr. Lou felt sweat starting to form, "Damn it. Has something like this happened before?""There's only one similar record. The containment of object B-987, which happened twenty years ago," Tang Wen said, "But that incident occurred in a remote area, only three households living in the mountains were affected and disappeared."
"How did we find them afterward?" Mr. Lou asked.
"That's the problem."
Tang Wen said in a low voice.
"They haven't returned to this day."
A man sat on the sofa, staring blankly at the television in front of him, with a cup of cold tea in front of him.
The television was broadcasting an emergency news bulletin, something about an urgent abnormal situation occurring in Wangshan Town, and the relevant departments were dealing with it, urging the public to stay away.
The news didn't provide more specific details, probably because the relevant departments hadn't made them public yet. But one could imagine that it was either the appearance of a containment object that could cause widespread adverse effects, or another incident involving Shadow Demons and Cunning Beasts.
But the man had already zoned out, not paying attention to the content on the television.
His codename was "Wizard", one of the main high-ranking members of the secret organization "Electronic Wizard".
However, he was no longer sure how much longer he could hold this high-ranking position.
The Mind Master had been captured. This news came from another high-ranking member of the organization, Phantom. The headquarters always knew that the two of them were close, and although Phantom was not powerful, he was generally considered to be quite clever and smooth, so there should be no mistake.
So now, the outside branches might not have noticed yet, but there had been a huge upheaval in the core of the organization.
Overnight, the entire headquarters had been emptied. The high-ranking members were in great danger and had fled, leaving the place completely deserted.
There was no choice, the capture of the Mind Master meant that there was a breach within the organization. No one wanted to be sitting there stupidly when the red-cloaked freak tore open the ceiling of the base, that would be a disaster.
The Wizard was now hiding in one of his own bases. Theoretically, this place should be very safe, only two people in the world knew about it. Besides him, there was only the high-ranking member of the organization codenamed "Black Wind".
And now, both of them were here. Even if there were traitors wanting to inform, they couldn't reach this place, so it should be absolutely safe.
It should be.
Clang!
It sounded like the shattering of glass. The Wizard was startled and jumped up from the sofa, looking around warily.
Searching for the figure of that blue-uniformed, red-cloaked monster behind any of the windows.
But there was none.
Instead, Black Wind appeared behind the door: "Sorry, I accidentally broke a plate."
A false alarm.
The Wizard let out a sigh of relief, sat back down on the sofa, his face weary.
After a moment, he sighed softly.
"We can't go on like this," he rubbed his temples, feeling mentally exhausted as if he had aged ten years.
"Like what?" Black Wind asked.
"Living in fear, worrying about being found by the red cloak every day."
As he spoke, he glanced at the television out of the corner of his eye.
The news about Wangshan Town had ended, and now a space news was being broadcast. A reporter was saying that Transcendent technology had made some progress in the field of space exploration, and a new project to launch a probe to Mars was about to start.
An idea occurred to the Wizard, and he turned his head and said.
"Why don't we escape to Mars?"
Black Wind: "???"