Chapter 30#
The Forum#
A video released by the Forbidden Zone of the Gods?!
A wanted order spanning seven sections?!
The instructor’s words fell like a bomb, blowing Cheng Ze’s mind blank. She gripped her phone tightly, pupils dilated, and suddenly turned around, looking at the two parties involved with disbelief and fear.
Golden sunlight pierced through the high-altitude clouds, through the rose bouquets decorating the floor-to-ceiling windows, shining on everyone’s face in the room.
After the video finished playing, the expressions of the people on the scene varied.
“…”
The expressions of the group from the Non-Natural Bureau were hard to describe with words. Their faces went from serious and earnest at the beginning to shocked and confused, then to twisted. Their moods rose and fell like a roller coaster.
No one could have imagined that the video sent over by the General Bureau with an urgent secret order would be such a scene.
Is this really not flirting?!
As expected of the Crown Prince’s three-day-and-three-night romantic encounter.
It’s just fucking ridiculous.
“…” Ye Sheng also felt it was ridiculous.
Ye Sheng didn’t expect that the scene of him and Ning Weichen in the carriage would be filmed. Perhaps the event of “chongxi” at the Qin family yesterday had exercised his ability to accept things. After a brief speechlessness, Ye Sheng quickly realized something was wrong and frowned slightly.
The angle of this video was very strange, and the time and place were not right—there was no surveillance in Carriage 44, and there was no one else besides him and Ning Weichen at that time. Who filmed it?
The other party involved, after watching the video, looked very calm, calm to the point of being almost eerie. Ning Weichen leaned back, the corners of his thin red lips still hooked up, but his lazy and affectionate peach blossom eyes slowly turned cold.
After the General Bureau sent this video, no new news came. Yuan Chun was anxious. Just as he was about to ask the director what exactly happened.
Cheng Ze had already walked out from the corner holding her phone. She looked at Ye Sheng with a extremely complicated expression, was silent for a long time, and said in a dry voice: “Little friend, we might have to invite you to the Non-Natural Bureau again. Something very serious has happened this time.”
Ye Sheng pursed his lips and didn’t speak. Since he opened that box, his resistance to the Non-Natural Bureau and Anomalies had decreased a lot. Ye Sheng even vaguely had a premonition that mercy of god might be related to the “forum” that the Non-Natural Bureau kept mentioning.
Ning Weichen tapped the table with his finger, his tone smiling: “Director Cheng, whatever you want to ask him, can’t you ask it here?”
Cheng Ze’s gaze towards this young master became even more complicated this time. The information Turing obtained, the Ning family would definitely know immediately as well.
She said: “It’s not very convenient to ask here. Young Master Ning, please pay attention to your messages later. I think your family will definitely contact you very soon.”
Ning Weichen raised an eyebrow.
As it turned out, speak of the devil and he shall appear.
Ning Weichen’s phone rang at this moment.
There were very few people in the world who knew his real contact information. Apart from his doctor, only his parents could call this number. Taking the phone handed over by Butler Li, Ning Weichen looked at the contact on it, lowered his eyes, his expression unreadable.
After a long time, he answered the phone and said, “Father.”
The moment Ning Weichen answered the phone, Butler Li looked at everyone with a kind smile, looking like he was about to see the guests out.
Cheng Ze didn’t want to stay and listen to the conversation between the Ning father and son either.
“Then we won’t disturb Young Master Ning. We’ll take this little friend and leave first.”
Ye Sheng was curious about what Director Cheng wanted to say to him. He got up from his seat, but was suddenly grabbed by the wrist by Ning Weichen.
Ning Weichen temporarily put the phone aside, raised his head, and said softly with worry in his eyes: “Don’t be afraid, I will come to pick you up very soon.”
Ye Sheng was not comforted by his acting skills. Anyway, even if Ning Weichen didn’t come to pick him up, he would come back to find him.
But everyone was watching the two of them entangled.
Thinking of his current ambiguous relationship with Ning Weichen, Ye Sheng could only bite the bullet, nodded and said indifferently: “Okay.”
Ning Weichen revealed a beautiful smile, and only then let go of his hand.
Watching this scene, Cheng Ze’s mood became even more complicated.
When driving, Cheng Ze sat in the driver’s seat, and Ye Sheng sat in the passenger seat.
Yuan Chun and the other two squeezed in the back seat.
“Do you know where that video came from?” Cheng Ze held the steering wheel and asked Ye Sheng.
Ye Sheng shook his head honestly.
Cheng Ze sighed and gave him a smile that wasn’t very good-looking: “Little friend, you’ve really got yourself into big trouble this time.” Thinking of the instructor’s words on the phone, her emotions were complicated again, and she said softly: “But for us… it is an opportunity.”
Cheng Ze took a deep breath: “Ye Sheng, do you remember the corpse stitcher and the monster you met on the train?”
Ye Sheng nodded.
“They are all called Anomalies here.” Cheng Ze changed the subject: “Your performance at Huaicheng North Station surprised me quite a bit. Have you come into contact with Anomalies before?”
Ye Sheng didn’t even think about it: “I could see ghosts when I was a child.”
Cheng Ze was surprised: “You have Yin-Yang eyes?”
Ye Sheng nodded: “Mn.”
After experiencing this series of events, Ye Sheng also knew that things that seemed very strange in the eyes of ordinary people were nothing to the Non-Natural Bureau.
Cheng Ze was stunned, and immediately said to Cheng Fa sitting in the back seat: “Cheng Fa, help me say hello to the branch bureau. We might have a congenital ability user here. Let them start the pre-operation of the detector first.”
Cheng Fa said: “Okay, sis.”
Ye Sheng frowned: “Yin-Yang eyes mean an ability user?”
Cheng Ze said: “Not sure, but ordinary people can’t see wandering ghosts. The possibility of you being an ability user is very high.” Later, she had to tell Ye Sheng about the forum and persuade Ye Sheng to cooperate with them. Cheng Ze thought for a moment and decided to tell Ye Sheng everything from the beginning.
“Whether it’s wandering ghosts or those things you encountered on the train, they all belong to Anomalies. But Anomalies also have levels. The wandering ghosts you saw are all F-rank Anomalies. Their spiritual values are very low. Ordinary people can’t see them, and they can’t hurt ordinary people. After reaching E-rank, Anomalies have intelligence and ‘form’, can be seen by people, and have attack power. The ghost child in the Qin family’s western building belongs to an E-rank Anomaly. Under normal circumstances, Anomalies below C-rank cannot kill people. Tianshu detects spiritual values, and can only detect Anomalies above C-rank.”
Ye Sheng said: “What is Tianshu?”
Cheng Ze smiled and said: “It’s our command center. You can also view it as a detector covering the entire China. Once a spiritual value fluctuation above C-rank is detected, Tianshu will quickly notify the local Non-Natural Bureau to handle it.”
“Last time, the Train 1444 at Huaicheng North Station was an order given to us by Tianshu. There we detected…” She pursed her lips, hesitated for a long time, and said: “Detected the aura of the Story King.”
Story King?!
A thousand waves surged wildly in Ye Sheng’s heart, but he pursed his lips tightly and didn’t say a word. Afraid that his acting skills were not good and his expression would give him away, Ye Sheng lowered his head and said hoarsely: “Story King?”
Fortunately, Cheng Ze was looking at the traffic light ahead and didn’t notice anything wrong with him.
She nodded: “Yes, Story King. The things I’m going to tell you next might exceed your cognition.”
“Ye Sheng, there are many unnatural things in this world. Some of them have intelligence, some don’t, but they all undoubtedly live in those corners unknown to us. In the beginning, we fought against Anomalies through ‘Tianshu’. They had to emerge from the darkness before we could find their traces. But in recent years, we discovered a huge empire, a base camp for Anomalies.”
“These Anomalies are active inside, using a ‘forum’ as a medium. Here they trade items, plan murders, and even bewitch desperate desperadoes in the human world to use for them, resisting the tracking and investigation of the Non-Natural Bureau. The man named Li Jianyang you met in Carriage 44 was a ‘pawn’ bewitched by Anomalies. Of course, we suspect that in this forum, there must be other humans besides ‘pawns’.”
Even though Ye Sheng was mentally prepared, hearing this, he still felt it was absurd.
The absurdity lay in the fact that an empire belonging to Anomalies actually existed in the form of a ‘forum’.
Ye Sheng: “Have you gone inside to look?”
Cheng Ze pursed her lips and shook her head: “Only entered twice, and it was the same S-rank executor who went in.”
“The first time we went in, we officially learned the full picture of this forum. It has seven sections, and each section has a moderator. The Story King I just told you about is the moderator of the seventh section. All Anomalies in the seventh section have a common attribute, which is that they happen to ‘people’. Whether it’s the corpse stitcher, the ghost child, or the teratoma, they are all things related to people in human cities. It’s like an origin of urban legends. All the ghost stories you hear on the radio broadcast might find their counterparts here.”
“As for the second time entering, it was today. Turing… saw this video inside.”
Cheng Ze didn’t say the rest of the words.
The infiltration this time was too easy, even Turing felt surprised.
He said it was very strange—it was like this empire actively opened up to him, just to let him see this scene.
“If we can conquer this forum, we won’t always be in a passive position in the confrontation with Anomalies.”
Ye Sheng: “…”
Concerned about his own safety, Ye Sheng couldn’t help but say: “Have you never thought about impersonating desperadoes like Li Jianyang to sneak in and investigate?”
Cheng Ze shook her head: “The forum’s review of identity information is very strict. You have to pay a great price and get the approval of the moderator to get inside.”
Ye Sheng: “Disguising identity doesn’t work either?”
Cheng Ze: “No.”
Ye Sheng: “…Is the technology of monsters so advanced now?”
Cheng Ze was suddenly amused by him. The car just stopped at the intersection, waiting for the traffic light.
“Ye Sheng, if you knew who the moderator of the fourth section is, you wouldn’t ask this question. Their technology is of course advanced; they are even technology itself.” Cheng Ze looked complicated and said softly: “The moderator of the fourth section is ENIAC.”
Ye Sheng: “…”
Ye Sheng: “???”
Cheng Ze laughed and said: “On this Internet created by humans, there are many things you can’t imagine active. We call those things Digital Evil Spirits. The ENIAC section is full of these Anomalies. They might be a piece of data that came to life, a conscious ‘message’. Maybe a malicious Anomaly lives in your computer. After all, we have handled many cases of computers killing people before.”
“…”
Ye Sheng took a deep breath and closed his eyes, thinking of the thick-browed, big-eyed E-rank Anomaly Red-Eyed Monster in his phone, and only felt very painful.
Cheng Ze thought he was scared and smiled to comfort him: “Don’t worry. A plan was introduced many years ago. Now electronic products that can reach ordinary people have ‘protective barriers’. Anomalies can’t easily enter your phone.”
But after saying this, Cheng Ze was stunned.
Because this ‘protective barrier’ came from the Ning family.
The reason they called Ning Weichen the Crown Prince was because the Ning family’s influence on this world had long penetrated into every aspect.
To a degree that normal people could hardly imagine. Even secure communications and network facilities had their involvement, plus unmatched financial power and unknown military force. The relationship between the Ning family, the government, and the Non-Natural Bureau had always been very, very subtle.