Chapter 82: Chang'an, War Readiness

The Macau region is not large, and this time, its convenience was once again highlighted.

The local garrison quickly dispatched a portion of their troops to the scene to control the situation, and afterward, they transported the five hundred-plus people in batches to a military base for shelter.

By the time the entire matter was settled, it was already past three o'clock in the afternoon.

Fang Jun stood in the corridor outside the military base's morgue, watching the extremely bright afternoon sunlight streaming in through the small window at the end of the hall.

"Living openly under the sun, without a single worry, is already a form of enjoyment. Why bother with so much scheming in the shadows?"

Fang Jun poured out a few pieces of chewing gum, tossed them into his mouth, and chewed silently.

Dr. Jiang walked over from around the corner, her gaze falling on the gum in his hand: "That doesn't look like the brand I recommended to you last time?"

Fang Jun smiled: "Your taste is too sweet."

Dr. Jiang held out her hand, and Fang Jun poured a few pieces for her as well.

"What flavor of gum is this?"

Dr. Jiang chewed twice, then pursed her lips: "Why does it taste so much like... beer?"

Fang Jun said: "Yeah, I rarely see beer-flavored gum, so I bought it specifically."

"If you have troubles, you can just drink alcohol. Don't buy this weird, neither-fish-nor-fowl stuff to torture your mouth."

Dr. Jiang pulled out a tissue, spat out the gum, and her eyes wandered, lingering on Fang Jun's face.

"Come to my place for a drink in a few days. It's a pity, I definitely don't have time today or tomorrow."

"You can go find your partner to drink with first. I've heard about that Mr. Chu; with such formidable martial arts, his tolerance for alcohol must be terrifying."

Fang Jun laughed: "According to my observations, although he has some research into medicinal wines, he doesn't actually like drinking himself; he only takes small sips."

"If you want to compete with him in beverages, he might prioritize various carbonated drinks."

A large group of people walked around the corner, dressed similarly to Dr. Jiang, each carrying a case in their hands.

"Oh my, no wonder you ran over here first, Team Leader. So Fang Jun is here."

A burly male colleague teased, then immediately cast a heated gaze toward the morgue.

"The corpses contaminated with the thick aura of the Spirit Realm are in there, right?"

They put on their gloves and masks, opened the morgue door, and walked inside.

The morgue was quite spacious. The corpses stored inside included not only Nie Longding, Xia Houwei, and Mai Danhong, but also nearly twenty puppets with green-stained wrists.

The purpose of Dr. Jiang and her team's trip was these people who had unfortunately been infused with Spirit Realm impurities, turning them into combat puppets.

Everyone set down their cases, pressed their palms together, and recited a line in unison, their movements synchronized.

"Offense taken."

They opened the cases and took out small, precise instruments. They looked like compasses on the outside, but were entirely silver-white, outlined with a large number of symbols in deep blue light-silk.

Inside each case were numerous components, with a tube extending out to connect to the center of the compass.

Dr. Jiang lifted the white sheet, saw the scarred-face corpse, and pressed the compass against its forehead.

The assistant beside her tore open a vacuum-sealed package, took out a well-preserved green-paper gold-seal talisman, stuck it on the case, and chanted in a low voice.

A large amount of glowing green dust was drawn into the transparent tube, flowing into the storage device inside the case.

The scene looked like countless tiny fireflies dancing within the tube.

The speed of extracting these Spirit Realm impurities was also related to the ability of the person performing the task.

By the time Dr. Jiang had extracted from three corpses, the fastest member of the team hadn't even finished the second one.

She saw sweat on her forehead and walked out of the morgue to take a short break.

Fang Jun had left for a moment at some point and returned with a whole case of mineral water, opening a bottle just in time to hand it to her.

"Those five hundred-plus victims still carry a large amount of resentment in their bodies. It needs to be guided out as soon as possible and stored separately."

Fang Jun asked, "You're the team leader, why aren't you busy over there instead of working on these things?"

Dr. Jiang tilted her head to drink the water, squeezed the bottle flat, and then let out a sigh of relief, saying: "The manpower over there is barely enough, and only our team can skillfully operate these instruments for now, so naturally, we were assigned here."

"Don't underestimate this matter. Our work this time isn't the usual harmless processing of corpses from ordinary evil spirit incidents."

Dr. Jiang turned her head to look at the morgue.

"After we produce some simple research reports on the things extracted just now, they will be sent by special plane to the mainland, directly to the Chang'an Science Park headquarters."

Although the headquarters of the Special Capture Division is in the capital, their most cutting-edge scientific research power is in Chang'an.

Among the eight highest-ranking adjudicators internally, one is stationed in Chang'an year-round.

Fang Jun asked: "Is it to be used to make some Dharma artifacts?"

"Not Dharma artifacts, but it is indeed related to weapon manufacturing."

Dr. Jiang snapped her fingers: "You know that electronic equipment and even the vast majority of thermal weapons cannot exert their intended effects in overflow zones."

"But this isn't because gods and ghosts are deliberately suppressing human weapons; it's because environmental differences make modern weapons difficult to adapt, leading to frequent malfunctions."

Malfunctions aren't even the worst of it; some early human firearms would become useless just by being splashed with water.

Finding the problem and improving it is enough.

However, in the process of improving these problems, too many experiments are needed.

The outbreaks of overflow zones are random, and people simply don't have the opportunity to conduct experiments. That is the biggest difficulty.

"The emergence of overflow zones will be a global trend. Even if overflow zones are cracked, as more and more break out, the overall environment of reality will sooner or later be affected."

"If we drag it out until then, there will naturally be a good environment for experiments, but if we really wait until then, it might be too late."

"So, in Chang'an, they are attempting to artificially simulate the environment of overflow zones and even the Spirit Realm, conducting experiments in simulated indoor environments, striving to have a batch of next-generation weapons ready as soon as possible."

Fang Jun understood: "The things you are extracting are materials used to simulate special environments?"

He sighed with emotion.

"Chang'an is truly worthy of being the headquarters in terms of technology; their vision is long-term. They are already making preparations to this extent."

Dr. Jiang smiled, leaned closer to Fang Jun, and whispered: "I'll tell you, the popularity of this Spirit Realm weapon development project only ranks second in Chang'an right now."

Fang Jun didn't ask further, just looked thoughtful.

"Looking at these response methods from above, I'm afraid they also have the intention of 'going with the flow' to make certain things public. So, will this incident..."

Dr. Jiang shook her head: "Things always advance through twists and turns."

"I see that those above would rather go around in circles, adding more workload for their own people to achieve partial goals in an orderly manner, than throw out a bombshell message at this current juncture to confirm anything."

Base Sanatorium.

Seeing Chu Tianshu was sitting on the flowerbed tiles in the courtyard, scrolling through his phone.

"Wow!"

An exclamation of unclear meaning escaped his lips.

The official spokesperson who arrived at the scene told the media that it was a criminal gang conducting illegal chemical experiments and also defrauding and abducting a large number of elderly people. That still had some rationality to it.

But why, later on, did the official account post an article solemnly claiming it was due to weather conditions?

Seeing Chu Tianshu scrolled a few more times.

Fine, fine, fine. The experts in these videos must be working twenty-four hours without rest; they found their way to a live stream so quickly.

Weather conditions led to strange fog, which led to pressure differences between inside and outside, which led to the elderly in the building collectively feeling suffocated and falling ill...

One person said it was the influence of warm, humid air currents from the sea; another said it was the fault of the recent sudden drop in temperature.

Isn't this deliberately leading everyone to dig for the truth?

Seeing Chu Tianshu discovered that there were already quite a few videos online, some filmed by residents of nearby buildings at the time, and others filmed with cameras.

Someone even managed to film the scene of two cars crashing through the guardrail and breaking into the strange fog.

That fog was so dense it looked like a white curtain raised from the ground; both its density and the speed at which it rose were full of a supernatural feeling.

Among those leaving comments, a portion were genuinely analyzing the abnormal aspects of the videos.

Seeing Chu Tianshu also saw users with the classic lotus flower as their avatar directly stating the term "overflow zone," followed by a long paragraph of annotations.

Flipping through different videos, one could find these types of users, and their nicknames also looked quite quirky.

"Boss is a super singer," "Old bald head is making me work overtime again"...

"Coach, I want to learn fortune-telling," "Those repressed, cold-faced battle-maniac colleagues," "Serious person!!!"...

Seeing Chu Tianshu pondered and got a taste of it.

"Could these people all be internal staff?"

Seeing Chu Tianshu stared at those hot comments and scrolled down, feeling a bit confused as well.

Under those comments, a large number of replies followed the pattern, and it was already impossible to tell if it was spontaneous quirky pasting by netizens or something else.

Most people were still joking about the inconsistent performance of this "makeshift troupe."

"Sigh, the reward for me bringing Zhu Heng and the others to justice still hasn't finished the process."

"I heard that this overflow zone incident is to be settled together. I don't know if it will be delayed for many more days."

Seeing Chu Tianshu closed his phone and rested his chin on his hand, deep in thought.

From this point of view, at least the part of the people in charge of rewards is indeed quite a makeshift troupe.

Fortunately, the token shows that he does not need to travel within three days this time.

This time, after the Qi count column is full, if he doesn't choose within ten days, it will force a travel.

I don't know if the buffer period after filling the Qi count column is different in length each time.

Or if it's ten days in the local world and three days in other worlds.

"Speaking of which, although Nie Longding's strength is quite good, in terms of influence and such, he is far worse than Brother Shan Jun."

"Can this incident get so much Qi count progress? It shouldn't be because of him. Could it be because of... Long Hua Shen?"

Seeing Chu Tianshu pondered, "To be able to turn believers into jade-bodied evil spirits, not dying for hundreds of years, and even actively wanting to maintain the ritual."

"In every aspect, this Long Hua God is indeed far stronger than the Five Demon Art worshipped by the old eunuch."

Although this guy can't reach reality yet, it's hard to say about the future.

Very challenging.

Seeing Chu Tianshu summoned the token screen.

【Evil Spirit Material: Long Hua Kidney Jade... Willow Spirit Old Body...

Jade-Bodied Infant (Remnant): A profound cultivator of the Long Hua Dharma lineage, soul turned into an evil spirit, body turned into jade.

Does not use postnatal breathing at all, surviving only on a glimmer of spiritual light, not dying for hundreds of years.

Characteristics: Body is like jade, does not drink or eat; being an evil spirit, it must receive incense; can project mental power outward, interfering with the perceived temperature of living beings within the mental power field.

Heroic Sword Soul: Had many distracting thoughts during life, only one sword after death; worries turned into heroic spirit, sword technique is quiet and pure.

Characteristics: Possesses living people, can make them feel abnormally excited, possesses profound sword techniques, requires exchange with physical strength or mental power.

Fierce Butcher: Gifted, descendant of the Snow People, addicted to killing, self-healing from blades and guns, died and became fierce, savage intent is even more refined.

Characteristics: Possesses living people, strength like a lion, pain sensation greatly reduced, accelerated healing, requires exchange with mental power or physical strength.】

【Cultivation Method Material.

"Record of Breaking into Shaolin": Pulling nine cows backward, supporting beams and replacing pillars, gallbladder like iron, bones like refined steel.

Within two hundred steps, fought through Shaolin with bare hands.】

"The previous Kidney Jade and Willow Spirit were already quite good, but these three evil spirit characteristics feel even better!"

Seeing Chu Tianshu recalled his first deduction, feeling that none of those evil spirit characteristics were of much use.

It's truly the exact opposite now.

Flip a coin.

Heads, choose Heroic Sword Soul; tails, choose Fierce Butcher.

If the coin lands on its edge, choose Jade-Bodied Infant.

Seeing Chu Tianshu took out a coin and flicked it with his thumb.

Ding!!

(End of Chapter) ===== CHAPTER 83 =====