Chapter 79 – Chaos Is Coming, and No One Sleeps Tonight

For the residents living near Zelong Trading, tonight was destined to be a sleepless one…

Less than twenty minutes after all sorts of strange noises and screams rang out, the entire area had been sealed off by large numbers of police cars and officers.

Even special forces arrived at top speed and entered Zelong Trading.

All the nearby streetlights had been shut off. Residents peering down from high-rises in the distance could only make out vague, shadowy figures.

Judging from the bags they kept carrying out, there were probably bodies inside.

Su Lifeng sat in the car, listening to the local radio station the taxi driver had on. The host suddenly took a call from the hotline. “There’s a new video that just came out, and the forum’s blowing up over it. Is it real? The location looks like it’s right here in our city!”

The host did not seem to know much about it yet. After brushing it off with a couple of vague remarks, he took the next call, only to find that this caller was asking about the exact same thing.

“What video? These days, plenty of them are staged to fool people…” The taxi driver shook his head and muttered.

Su Lifeng’s heart stirred. He took out his phone and checked.

Soon, he found the video being reposted by many people on : “Surveillance camera captures shocking scene: dozens flee as if hunted for their lives, shouting that monsters have appeared.”

Su Lifeng tapped it open and saw that the footage had been taken at an intersection in front of Zelong Trading. Sure enough, many survivors were sprinting out of the area. Several cars slammed on their brakes, and some pedestrians stopped in surprise. A few people clutched their heads and screamed, shouting at the drivers in the cars and at passersby. But most of the drivers immediately rolled up their windows, while some pedestrians took out their phones to film…

“Are they still going to keep hiding it…” Su Lifeng stared at the screen, the thought running through his mind.

At that moment, a black van suddenly pulled up to the cordon.

The first thing the man who got out of the vehicle did was unleash a furious question. “Why weren’t the surveillance cameras in the shops along the route checked?!” After he roared, no one present dared answer.

Deputy Director Wang was furious. He was still gripping his phone. Just now, an even higher-ranking superior had called and demanded to know why those videos had been allowed to spread.

Now it was not just Ningnan. Videos like this were circulating across the entire country.

The state had established a dedicated task force, and massive amounts of manpower and resources had been mobilized for this matter.

And the “big shots” in charge of handling these incidents would not show the slightest mercy on matters like this.

It was the first time Deputy Director Wang had ever been chewed out so thoroughly…

But he was not angry about that. He could understand his superior’s feelings.

For something like this to happen in the urban district might mean that the speed at which they could contain things had already fallen far behind the speed at which the monsters were spreading.

This was a catastrophe for all of humanity…

A police station chief who had rushed over after hearing the news, only to be stopped outside the cordon, came forward and suggested, “Things like this can all be deleted and blocked…”

“Deleted? Can you delete them all?” Deputy Director Wang shot him a glare and snapped.

He rubbed his brow and said, “Have the city bureau’s account issue a statement. Say that a number of extremists were causing trouble and have already been brought under control by the police in a timely manner. That place is called Zelong Trading, right? Get me all the information on the company, its owner, and its employees. Also, everyone who appeared at Zelong Trading tonight must be found. Every single one of them.”

After he finished, Deputy Director Wang glanced at the station chief, who was still standing there in a daze, and at the assistant beside him. His anger flared at once. “Well? Get moving!”

“Yes, sir!” The assistant quickly nodded, turned around, and took out his phone to get to work.

The station chief, however, looked stunned. “Director Wang, we haven’t even investigated yet. Isn’t it a little hasty to draw a conclusion so soon…?”

“Investigate? Hmph…” Deputy Director Wang looked at him as if he were an idiot. “There’s nothing for you to do here. Go help search for people. The Special Ops Team is in charge of the operation. You just assist with the screening.”

“Move!”

After Deputy Director Wang sent the station chief slinking off, another figure who had gotten out of the black van walked over to his side.

He was watching the video too…

“Captain Lv, didn’t you say you already had some leads? But look at this. Things are getting bigger and bigger. The warehouse incident was only discovered today, and now this has happened right in the middle of a busy commercial district. If this keeps up, we won’t be able to keep it under wraps much longer…” Deputy Director Wang said.

Lv Zifeng’s gaze was still fixed on the screen. The screams coming through the video seemed so full of terror that even the people watching could feel it.

“Director Wang, have you noticed what these two incidents have in common?” Lv Zifeng suddenly asked.

Deputy Director Wang froze for a moment. “Weren’t they both done by those Xenospecies? Aside from being bloody and brutal, what else could they have in common?” The moment he mentioned the Xenospecies, his teeth clenched, and his scalp prickled.

“No. These two incidents are very different from the other cases I’ve experienced.” Lv Zifeng raised his head and said, “In both of these incidents, quite a few people survived. I’ve already told you that the Xenospecies are intelligent. Their actions are highly coordinated and extremely efficient. You’ve noticed it too. In the city, they don’t expose themselves on their own initiative. Even in the suburbs, mountain villages, and small towns where we found them, it was only because they had already replaced the entire local population without anyone realizing it, resulting in population losses of more than half, sometimes even more…”

“What exactly are you trying to say?” Deputy Director Wang cut him off.

Lv Zifeng said, “What I mean is that, according to the Xenospecies’ usual habits, before they slowly devour an entire city, they should hide themselves and avoid giving anything away as much as possible. Even if you know the ones around you are all Xenospecies, even if one of them brushes right past you, they still won’t expose themselves in front of you on purpose. Unless you’ve already become their prey. But in these two incidents in Ningnan, the survivors all saw the Xenospecies and still lived. What does that tell us?”

“When something abnormal happens, there must be something wrong. Ningnan is not a simple place,” Lv Zifeng said to himself with a sigh. Then he turned back to Deputy Director Wang. “You want to maintain stability and control grassroots panic, but I’m afraid you won’t be able to control it for much longer. Prepare yourselves. You may have to adopt the plan you’ve been refusing to face all this time. Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, this world can no longer maintain the illusion of peace on the surface.”

Deputy Director Wang stood there blankly for a while, then let out a long sigh. “It’s difficult…” In that instant, he seemed to have aged several years. He looked like nothing more than an ordinary old man, his back filled with bone-deep exhaustion.

“Wooo-!”

Police sirens wailed on and on. Tonight was destined to be sleepless.