“Don’t worry, this mist isn’t dangerous. You can come in too,”
In a single step, the scene of the world changing dramatically – Li Fufeng thought that those who hadn’t experienced it personally probably could never imagine it.
This made him swallow the words he was about to say.
He froze in place.
One moment it was a vast expanse of mist, and the next it was a blazing sun hanging high, with emerald grass spread like a carpet. Li Fufeng looked up at the clear, bright sky and the large sun embedded in the center of the sky dome, then looked down at the small path covered with gravel and soil under his feet. His gaze then moved to the large patches of paddy fields filled with rice ears beside the path, and the faint figures of people moving along the paths between the fields… The sudden change in time and space in an instant was overwhelming, and even someone who prided himself on being calm like him couldn’t help but feel a great wave of turmoil in his heart.
“Hiss!”
A sharp pain came from his arm. The very real pain made Li Fufeng, who had still been doubting whether all this was real and thinking he might have fallen victim to some special technique causing hallucinations – perhaps the special mist had such an ability – suddenly come to his senses. He temporarily suppressed the shock and awe rising in his heart, only to discover Liu Ningshuang, who had appeared in this place with him, and her hand pinching his arm.
The pain made his face contort. “What are you doing?”
“So it’s not a dream!” Liu Ningshuang first exclaimed, then reacted to Li Fufeng’s angry glare. She sheepishly withdrew her hand, pretending nothing had happened, and while looking around, she exclaimed in an exaggerated tone, “Huh? Where is this? How did we suddenly move from the mist area to here? Could it be that a new otherworld space has descended?” Having personally experienced the appearance of the mysterious inn and knowing the identities of K and the Puppet Master as visitors from another world, Liu Ningshuang immediately made a practical association. Her exaggerated tone suddenly became nine-tenths genuine, and her whole body shuddered, “Could this be the reason for so many people disappearing? Were they all swept into an otherworld space?”
Her topic change was successful, and Li Fufeng couldn’t be bothered to dwell on the small matter from earlier. Even though he knew Liu Ningshuang’s exaggerated tone had a certain performative element, following her train of thought, Li Fufeng had to admit it made sense.This made his gaze take on a grave color. “It’s very possible. Such an instant, earth-shattering change – apart from the descent of another world, I really can’t think of any other possibility.”
As they spoke, the two turned back and walked a few steps in the direction they had come from, but they didn’t return to the mist area. Instead, they remained on this unknown country path, and didn’t see any “portal” to return. It was as if they had been thrown into this world by some invisible force, with no way of leaving.
Reaching down to touch the rope at his waist, which should have been long enough to extend outside the mist area, Li Fufeng found that it now seemed to have been cut off by some force, leaving only a small section at the waist. He guessed that the force might have been the spatial cutting power during the time-space transfer. He shook his head and suggested to Liu Ningshuang. “It seems we have no way to go back for now. Why don’t we first see…what’s going on here?”
Liu Ningshuang naturally didn’t object to his suggestion.
Out of curiosity and caution towards the unknown, before figuring out the attitude of the local inhabitants towards outsiders, even though they vaguely saw the outlines of a village in the distance and figures moving between the rice paddies, they didn’t intend to rashly appear before the people of this world.
As members of the Special Case Investigation Team selected from the elite, and former police elites, excellent investigative skills were a must-have for both of them. They planned to observe quietly and gather information first.
Fortunately, where they had landed was a large expanse of fields, with an ancient-looking village in the distance. For a moment, it almost made one think they had traveled back several hundred years… If they weren’t mistaken, the people of this world were clearly still in a backward feudal era, and the common people at the bottom of the feudal era were apparently the lowest difficulty targets for their observation and information gathering – if they had descended from the sky into a place like an imperial palace, directly facing the elite figures at the top of an entire world, that would have been the highest difficulty challenge.
Several hours passed, and the two became more certain of their judgment.
This was indeed a world in the feudal era. Whether it was the style of the village buildings or the dress of the villagers in the fields, everything was similar to the Yao Country of several hundred years ago.
Even just quietly observing from the outskirts of the village for an afternoon, the information they gathered was enough for the two to fabricate identities for themselves that wouldn’t be seen through by the villagers in a short time, and to seamlessly integrate among the local villagers.
If it weren’t for the clothes they were wearing that were out of place in this world, even their colleagues from the Special Case Investigation Team standing before them would have found it hard to believe that these two individuals, whose every move carried an ancient charm and whose demeanor was almost indistinguishable from the local villagers, were actually the experts from their team.
Now the only flaw was the clothes they were wearing.
The two exchanged a glance and simultaneously set their sights on a small dwelling at the very edge of the village – through the low fence, they saw a row of clothes hanging to dry in the yard, and the empty yard without a single person in sight. This was also the best target the two had chosen after observing for an afternoon.
They had caught thieves countless times before, but this was the first time they were playing the role of thieves themselves. For a moment, they looked at each other, each seemingly wanting the other to make the first move.
In the end, it was Liu Ningshuang, with her superior physical skills, who stepped up to take on this task. She crouched low and quickly ran to the fence, casually propped herself up on a wooden post, and nimbly vaulted over.
But as soon as she landed, she froze.
A small figure was standing in the previously empty yard, no more than three meters away from her, and Liu Ningshuang hadn’t even heard the slightest sound of her appearance.
The suddenly appearing little girl swayed her small braid and curiously tilted her head. Her large, bright eyes looked directly at Liu Ningshuang. “Big sister, what are you doing?”
A gentle breeze lifted her red dress, and the girl’s shadow flickered in front of Liu Ningshuang for just a moment before reappearing on top of the fence wall, like a feather lightly falling on the wall’s edge.
“And there’s a big brother too…” She looked down at the startled Li Fufeng, blinking her eyes with a sweet smile. Deep dimples appeared on both her cheeks. “You’ve been wandering outside the village for almost three hours. Are you playing hide and seek?”
****
[Ghosts! It must be ghosts! Those people were all swallowed by ghosts, that eerie thick fog must be the ghost realm of evil spirits…]
[How could there be ghosts in this world? It must be aliens! Perhaps aliens came to this planet many years ago and have been secretly conducting various terrifying experiments. Their black technology laboratory was designed under the Five Mountain Ranges, and unexpectedly, a sudden earthquake caused the mysterious gas from the lab to leak. So the aliens simply took all the people who accidentally entered to do experiments, and also scared others from daring to explore the mist, protecting their secret laboratory from exposure…]
[There are no ghosts, and no aliens. It’s all nonsense~ This is probably a promotional stunt by some film company. They’re likely filming a doomsday or fantasy movie. Some blurry photos, seemingly plausible guesses online, a big move to spark global discussion – looks like it’s a big production! Let me guess how they’re going to promote it: natural disasters, earthquakes, demons invading from the abyss, or strange mist enveloping the globe, virus infection, human mutation… These tropes are too common, right? It’s happened before, I won’t fall for it again!]
[That does sound reasonable. We haven’t heard of any major incidents so far. Those photos of mist in the mountain areas online aren’t worth getting worked up about. It’s not like we’ve never had fog before, it’s just that this time the mist is a bit thicker.]
[Then how do you explain the sword shadow in the sky over Kunshan? It was on satellite broadcast, clearly a sword falling from the sky…]
[At that time, it wasn’t just Kun Mountain. People saw the exact same scene in all the places where the Five Mountain Ranges are located. But afterwards, no one found the sword that fell from the sky. Besides, if there really was a sword falling from such a height, the kinetic energy produced would surely cause a big commotion on the ground, but there were no corresponding traces… This is probably just a phenomenon similar to a mirage, not real! It should be environmental pollution affecting the atmosphere, sunlight entering the cloud layer, and then being refracted by special pollutants to create a mirage, which is why so many people saw the false image…]
[Experts have come out to explain, here’s the link. They used a lot of incomprehensible technical terms, involving complex crustal movements and environmental pollution… In short, to summarize what the experts said, everything is very scientific and reasonable. The thick fog is caused by environmental pollution. The Five Mountain Ranges happen to have special geography, and then there was seismic activity. A bunch of factors mixed together formed the current strange phenomenon. Those missing people are also due to the severe impact of the thick fog on visibility, plus the mountain environment became more complex after the seismic activity, so they’re temporarily lost in the thick fog. That’s very reasonable! All countries have sent rescue teams, believe in the rescue teams!]
[Really? There are still people who believe the experts’ ghost stories?]
[At this point, I have to come out and be honest. This is a secret hidden from everyone in the world, related to a war that decided the fate of humanity many years ago…]
“How is it?”
“The public opinion on the internet is under control. Although this incident was sudden, the number of people missing from our five domains added together is only a few hundred, and it’s just missing, not dead. With all countries working together, we can still suppress other voices in the short term.”
Chu Xingrui, receiving the report from below, temporarily breathed a sigh of relief.
It had been a week since the seismic activity in the Five Mountain Ranges, which was also the second day since Li Fufeng and Liu Ningshuang entered the mist area. There had been no news from them, and Yin Xubai was also muttering incomprehensibly, doing who knows what. Chu Xingrui, acknowledging that he had neither outstanding physical skills nor a mind for research and exploration, could only do his best within his abilities, striving to guide public opinion on the internet.
The internet users wouldn’t know how much of the information they were receiving was orchestrated by the Special Case Investigation Team. Many seemingly opposing viewpoints engaged in endless arguments might, on the other side of the screen, all be the same person.
What the Special Case Investigation Team was doing was simply muddying the waters. They didn’t need the public to believe any particular judgment, just to see a variety of explanations and become more confused. In the end, most people naturally viewed it as an absurd and bizarre incident, and led by humorous netizens, apart from the friends and family of the missing, almost everyone else was caught up in the atmosphere of meme-making. Those still concerned about the truth behind the incident were few and far between, not enough to affect the big picture.
Chu Xingrui believed that not just Yao Country, but other countries were likely responding in similar ways.
Although they had temporarily resolved the impact on public opinion, avoiding unnecessary attention from too many ordinary people, as long as the missing were not found and the secrets behind the mist not revealed, the Special Case Investigation Team’s mission was a failure. And those whose attention had been temporarily diverted couldn’t be kept in the dark forever.
The invisible pressure made Chu Xingrui feel urgent.
Just as he was considering making decisions he had never had the heart to make before, perhaps sacrificing more lives to probe, news from the northern countries made him shudder.
“…They found the body of one of the missing?”
“–Killed with one strike, head and body separated?”
Chu Xingrui almost stood up at once, his raised voice clearly revealing his suddenly fluctuating emotions.
He forcibly suppressed his emotions and asked carefully, “How did they discover the body? Are they sure it’s one of the missing?”
“Because the rescuers lose contact upon entering the mist area, they tried using large vehicles, parking the body outside the mist area and extending a crane arm inside to sweep. Although the area they could sweep was small, basically just the outskirts of the mist area. Unexpectedly, they actually swept out a section of a body — after identification, it turned out to be one of the people who went missing during the Tani Mountain earthquake,” the person being questioned related all the known information without omission. “According to the investigation, this person was originally a small-time hoodlum who had recently attached himself to a local nobleman’s son. He participated in a camping trip organized by a group of young nobles as a follower, and then disappeared along with them.”
“–Who would have thought that when he appeared again, he’d be a corpse!”
Hearing mention of the tiny country that was barely a speck on the world map, Chu Xingrui understood. “No wonder they risked potentially harming the missing persons by crudely sweeping the outskirts of the mist area…”
When they had arranged for Li Fufeng and Liu Ningshuang to enter the mist area, it wasn’t a completely impulsive move. Before that, Yin Xubai had already used animals as pioneers to conduct corresponding experiments.
They had put animals with ropes tied around them into the mist area, from small animals like rats and rabbits to large animals like cattle and horses. Under the constraint of the ropes, they were eventually able to accurately pull all the animals back — even though they were so unwilling, struggling and resisting almost desperately.
These animals, which had stayed in the mist area for periods ranging from a few hours to a day, underwent comprehensive testing upon their return — the results showed that a kind of special energy seemed to have been injected into their flesh and blood. Not only were their old illnesses and injuries greatly alleviated, but they had also become younger at the cellular level. A vibrant vitality radiated from within them, making them full of energy.
The one that had stayed the longest seemed to have become noticeably smarter.
In short, from all aspects of the test results, they had not suffered any negative effects, but rather gained long-term positive changes. It was because of this that Chu Xingrui felt comfortable letting Li Fufeng and Liu Ningshuang enter the mist area to try.
Even if they ultimately never returned.
The mist areas in other mountain ranges had undoubtedly also been met with research and exploration from various countries, and the benefits the mist brought to the human body surely couldn’t have gone unnoticed by other countries. As for the special rule that animals could freely come and go in the mist area while humans never returned, everyone had probably figured it out by now.
Everyone had reason to suspect that deep in the impenetrable mist, there existed a special screening and identification mechanism that only targeted humans.
Moreover, no matter how much research was done, it was found that the mist only benefited the human body without any harm. Therefore, many people had already guessed that this was some kind of special selection, and those selected would, like the animals, undergo a transformation of life.
— This was enough to give rise to special expectations in some high-ranking individuals plagued by serious illnesses or natural aging.
However, speculation was just speculation. As long as it wasn’t proven, they wouldn’t rashly try it on themselves. But the desire to uncover the truth had undoubtedly become more intense and urgent.
The larger countries were still okay, with various forces keeping each other in check, making it difficult for individual ambitions and selfish desires to immediately drive a country’s decisions. But in those small countries where those in power could cover the sky with one hand, the will of those in power could be implemented at the fastest speed.
“But, are they sure that the decapitated body wasn’t caused by their crude sweeping?”
Even as he criticized this way, Chu Xingrui knew in his heart that those people couldn’t possibly have mistaken the cause of death for a corpse.
This made him worry for Li Fufeng and Liu Ningshuang.
Chu Xingrui’s gaze turned towards Kun Mountain in the mist.
… It seemed that within this thick mist, there might be dangers beyond imagination!
He hoped…they wouldn’t come to any harm…
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