Lie Huo Jiao Chou Volume 1 Chapter 3

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"Sheng Lingyuan." Xiao Zheng said, "He calls himself Sheng Lingyuan"

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　　Before Xuan Ji could escape back to the elevator to make a fresh start, he was directly blocked by Director Xiao.

　　Ten minutes later, he was pushed beyond his limits together with unknown varieties of ''new little brothers'' to the aircraft parking ground of the head office.

　　"Urgent matter," Xiao Zheng gave no explanation and put a folder in his arms. "If you want to resign, say it later. Even if this is a temporary work, you have to manage this for me first. Chiyuan isn't a trivial matter. Even a small mistake must not occur."

　　Xuan Ji was just about to sa.s.s back a few sentences, but upon hearing the words 'Red Lake', he was distracted, his tone immediately turned serious: "What's the matter?"

　　Chiyuan, this place was very extraordinary. Extraordinary in a way that when there was just even a little wind that would blow and movesthe gra.s.s, the whole Deviant Control Office had to tremble a bit.

　　Nowadays, when an average person mentioned "The Great Valley of Chiyuan", the impression in it was the "5A" level scenic area. However in fact, the scenic area was only a very small block of the periphery and the real primitive forest had not been exploited.

　　The environment of that place was extremely complicated — some people said it was an ancient battlefield, and others said it was an ancient cemetery.

　　In written historical records, Chiyuan was once "cracked for a thousand miles/ raging fires overflow/ for dozen of miles across both sides/ not an inch of gra.s.s grow." Contemporary historiography generally believed that this was just a descriptive technique, describing a very tragic war that once happened in this place, and the bloodshed resembled the folklore of "raging fires".

　　However, people who knew the inside story understood that this description was likely to be true.

　　In the abyss of Chiyuan, there was not only Emperor Qi Wu's cenotaph.

　　There were lost ancient arrays and inscription relics everywhere, and up to now, only less than one-tenths of them could be successfully deciphered, and they were inextricably linked to a lot of dilapidated ancient books that were still needed to be completed.

　　There were different opinions inside the Deviant Control Office about what exactly was this complicated and eccentric energy in the hinterland of the Chiyuan. Among these, the most widely spread one was the "Seal Theory", but regardless, everyone agreed that there might be some very dangerous things hidden under the forest and if there was no thorough preparation, it was better not let it see the light again.

　　It's like a dangerous but an extremely attractive living fossil.

　　"I'll make it short," Xiao Zheng said, "During the Golden Week*, there were several old trees in the primitive forest of the Red Lake Valley that suddenly mutated. The reason? It is still unknown. These trees are quite cunning, it can be quite difficult to deal with them since they can move around the forest after the mutation. For the sake of safety, the local security branch had joined with the surrounding scenic areas, allowing them to use 'geological hazard' as the reason and suspended the reception of tourists. But there is a handful of senseless die-hard enthusiasts. The more they are prohibited to enter, the more they want to enter. They sneaked in without saying, just in time for the uprising of the mutant trees."

*Golden Week - annual 7 / 8-day national holiday in PRC

　　Xuan Ji raised his eyebrows: "What does 'uprising' mean?"

　　Xiao Zheng opened the laptop lid and turned the screen to him: "This was captured by the surveillance camera of the scenic area."

　　He saw that the video was shaking and the signal was not stable. Suddenly, a huge shadow hurriedly flashed, thick enough to hug both arms around it, moving with an unusual speed like a hunting python.

　　On closer inspection, the 'python' came out of the ground, and it was actually the root of a big tree.

　　The python-like root firstly crashed a hole into the ground, intimidatingly sliding across and then slammed into the ancient tree which is not far from the camera, promptly entangling and lifting it up. The ancient tree immediately withered down which could be clearly seen with naked eye, as if its vitality had been sucked. It became a pile of dead branches in less than ten seconds.

　　The ''satisfied" root was clearly thick and solid, and then it stretched out into the air, swinging a few times as if it was showing off its strength, and slammed towards the camera. The screen suddenly turned dark. The camera lens must have been broken.

　　Xuan Ji: "Oh, is that a 'Wild Python Disaster' scene?"

　　"This is one of the mutated spruces. After they have collected some energy, they began to expand rapidly outward and plundered the vitality of all living things along the way. It's very dangerous."

　　"Oh......" Xuan Ji quickly looked through the information in his hand.

　　A total of eight trees mutated almost at the same time. The local security branch marked the original location of eight mutated trees on the map. For some unknown reason, Xuan Ji vaguely felt that the connection of these eight points formed a pattern which seemed familiar to him.

　　"What?"

　　"I'm not quite sure," Xuan Ji hesitated, "You go on talking first."

　　"We sent an emergency search and rescue team to save those trapped tourists." Xiao Zheng said, "Luckily, people were rescued. Those people were hiding in a natural cave, having ran away from a catastrophe. However we don't know how much they had seen — the mission of your Reparations Department this time is these few people."

　　Xuan Ji listened to the goal of this inexplicable mission. Because of the perplexity, his expression was blank for two seconds, and then he let out an "Ah", recalling his role.

　　He was not asked to chop down the mutant trees nor was sought for advice about the madness of these evil trees. He was now the head of the 'Someone Else's Mess Clean-up Team' and 'Maidservant Secret Society'. The main mission was to comfort the wounded people's fragile hearts, to ensure that they didn't see anything or didn't remember anything.

　　There was a shining sentence that says "What did I say?" hanging on Xiao Zheng's face. Clearly glancing at him, he vaguely hinted: "Go back quickly, old Song from the Ministry of Security wants to ask you out for dinner."

　　"It's first day at work, the previous work wasn't quite the same, I'm inexperienced, forgive me." Xuan Ji let out a "Haha" and soon after closed the casing and turned to his new colleagues for help, "Comrades, according to usual regulations, how should this situation be handled?"

　　As he turned around, he saw several people behind him.

　　Just now, Director Xiao seemed to be pressuring him, so Xuan Ji then randomly chose three people and rushed out. This could be just cautious scrutinizing, but then he found out that these people, each of them were hard to explain words.

　　One of them was the elder sister who shouted "one, two". It might be that it was a little bit hot after wearing too many clothes and she had taken off the outermost black suit. The clothes inside were a knitted garment as pink as a Barbie doll's lips, and an even more strange and exquisite full-body undergarment with a lace border on the neckline. She was wearing a pair of reading gla.s.ses where the small word 'paint' was written on it.

　　At the side, there was a well-dressed and steady man. Although his hairline was receding and his elegant hair had already become hollowed out, he still earnestly used hair gel. The hair was neatly fixed and covered the crown of his head effectively. Looking from far away, it seemed there was a row of barcode on his head.

　　The third person was a young woman who doesn't look her age — certainly, she might not be too young, but it was probably because she was too plump and the wrinkles were maintained flat that she looked like she was. This person took up two chairs while listening to Director Xiao, and on the other hand, nervously scooped out snacks inside her pocket. When the new leader turned around and looked at her, she promptly stuffed the remaining half of the chocolate bar back into the pocket, and the corner of her mouth was still stained with a piece of peanut.

　　Xuan Ji : "......"

　　He suddenly felt tired because just by his ability, he single-handedly provoked the department's average attractiveness index and was thoroughly beaten.

　　Bi Chun Sheng — the big sister with reading gla.s.ses said: "You can rest a.s.sured, we all have a basic work process which is to find someone to talk one by one first — nothing to do with deceiving ......then what? Appeasing — psychological trauma is quite critical, sometimes with a 'tiny gadget', it's not complicated. Finally, pay attention to inspect their phones, computers, and so on and especially those connected to the internet, do not leave any trace. This matter, you have to ask Qian Ru's help. These young girls have fun with computers skillfully. When our office's printer breaks down, we all find her to repair it."

　　The plump young woman who was called "Ping Qian Ru" seemed a little introverted. Upon meeting a stranger nervously, throughout the nervousness, her little hand seemed to have their own thoughts, involuntarily arching inside her pocket. Half of the arched hand then turned around and regained its senses, reluctantly pushing back in the pulled out snacks.

　　"Eat, eat. It's alright." Xuan Ji wanted to say a few words, but in front of these people, he really didn't know anything good to say. He forced to smash his mouth close and squeezed out a smile.

　　"One more thing," said Xiao Zheng beside him, "When the report arrived, they said five tourists were trapped. The search and rescue team initially detected life activities of five people as well, but we didn't expect to fish out six people at the end. The other five people sought novelty by live broadcasting and slipped into the scenic area after recording from the beginning to end. But we found out in the field work that all of the images of this sixth man were muddled. From the start to finish,only his voice was recorded — this man's way of speaking is quite fishy. You all listen, and be prepared."

　　As he said this, he opened the video on the computer. It was unknown what was wrong with the camera. The man in the image seemed like he was melting into the light, one can only see the blurry silhouette that was overexposed.

　　The silhouette said: "I , ah, too tired of the nine-to-six life, came out to stroll around."

　　Although it was just a voice, one could feel that the speaker seemed to be laughing. The voice was gentle and amiable, making a favorable impression be born in the listener's heart helplessly.

　　Bi Chun Sheng was puzzled: "What's wrong with this sentence?"

　　"This sentence has no problem," Xiao Zheng said, "the fishy part is here."

　　He said and played the rest of the audio clips.

　　The first one was a sharp and clear female voice, and must be the female anchor: "Well, we've come in. First, let's take everybody here to stroll around."

　　The second one was a deep and resounding male voice: "Travelling, it's from the place you are too tired of to the place where other people are too tired of. And now the public holiday came out and caused even more traffic jam. I think it's better to lie down on a sofa and watch other people run errands. Today we are in charge of travelling and taking your eyes on a tour. If you guys are happy to see it, give some presents, too."

　　The third one was another man with a little hoa.r.s.e voice: "I , ah, actually am not exhausted. Each has its own difficulties, is the nine-to-six life not exhausting? It's exhausting, but at least we're free."

　　"This is the recording of the few trapped tourists' live broadcasting while chatting with the audience. With playing the whole sentence it might not be heard......"

　　"It can be heard," Xuan Ji interrupted him, "The mysterious person cut off the words out of what the others had said and spelled a new sentence out of them."

　　Bi Chun Sheng's reading gla.s.ses slipped off from her nose bridge: "Ah? What? Are you saying he imitated others' words?"

　　"It's not just imitating," Xiao Zheng firstly cut out three words "to stroll around" of the female anchor. And he played the mysterious man saying "to stroll around". These few words in the sentence were not clear and swept past one's ear within a second. But after comparing the cut out words, it gave people gooseb.u.mps.

　　"The speed, tone, pause, and accent are exactly the same. It's like changing the voice frequency of the same audio, and this person is not imitating other people's speech. It's a complete duplication," Xiao Zheng raised his head, "A single word may be a coincidence, but if we keep finding by comparing, every word this mysterious man said was 'copied' from other people's words."

　　I ah......
　　Too tired of...
　　The nine-to-six life......
　　Came out...
　　To stroll around...

　　"Certainly, the main focus is this man," Xiao Zheng glanced at Xuan Ji, "Appearing out of nowhere in Chiyuan, I even suspect that he might not be a human — your plane should be ready."

　　Xuan Ji stopped him: "What's this man's name?"

　　"Sheng Lingyuan." Xiao Zheng said, "He calls himself Sheng Lingyuan."