‘Perhaps someone stole it?’
Huang Xiu sought a pretext to soothe himself, but it was abundantly clear that no one would specifically come to steal a potted cactus.
Moreover, these potted plants had been sitting there for at least half a semester, so why would only one be stolen last night?
Why was it precisely that one pot that was taken?
Huang Xiu found himself unable to convince himself with such a flimsy excuse.
Sherlock Holmes once famously stated: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
This meant that everything from last night was real! It wasn’t his hallucination, nor was it a dream.
“Should I call the police?” The thought suddenly surfaced, growing more insistent with each passing moment.
Even as he grabbed his power bank and headed out for breakfast, Huang Xiu was still debating whether or not to report it to the police.
He was just an ordinary high school student.
He possessed neither the ‘parents deceased, car, and house’ trope (TL Note: A common trope in web novels where the protagonist gains independence and resources early on), nor a childhood sweetheart.
Even his name was entirely dissimilar to those of typical web novel protagonists.
One shouldn’t take on a task without the necessary skills; such a bizarre and terrifying incident was clearly beyond his capacity to handle.
Perhaps if he passed the information along, specialists would arrive to resolve the matter.
Much like the Special Affairs Bureaus found in web novels, dedicated to handling mysterious occurrences.
“Without evidence, and with only my words, would anyone believe me? And there haven’t been any casualties or disappearances…”
Huang Xiu pondered, ultimately making up his mind.
Report it. He had to report it.
If he reported it and the police didn’t believe him, there would be no loss.
But if they truly believed him, and someone actually came to investigate, that would be even better.
Let specialists handle specialized matters; one should only bite off what one can chew.
Huang Xiu certainly didn’t believe that flesh and blood could withstand a steel torrent or the full power of a 7.62mm round.
He slurped down the last mouthful of noodles from his bowl, drank the remaining soup, then wiped his mouth, paid the bill, and left, seeking out a deserted alley.
The alley was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk abreast, with flaking plaster on the walls revealing layers of rusty green beneath.
Two large barrels of swill stood at the entrance, emitting a peculiar odor that hung in the air.
The clean-cut youth, dressed in a blue and white school uniform, carefully skirted the swill barrels, took out his phone, leaned against the wall, and dialed the emergency number.
“Hello, is this 110 (TL Note: The emergency police hotline in China)?”
Tilting his head, Huang Xiu recounted everything that had happened last night, one by one, holding nothing back.
The moment he finished speaking, a sensation of relief, akin to a ten-day constipated patient finally finding solace in a laxative, surged from his toes to his heart.
“Huh? A pig-headed teacher… killed and resurrected, a giant cactus? Are you sure?” The operator on the other end of the line sounded visibly hesitant.
Huang Xiu even suspected that if not for the operator’s exceptional professionalism, the call might have been disconnected long ago.
“Yes, I also wish it were false.”
Huang Xiu’s tone was serious, “But these are all things I experienced firsthand.”
****
Ying City, Police Station.
Operator Liu Jing hung up the phone, feeling a touch of helplessness.
What in the world was that all about?
A giant cactus, a teacher with a pig’s head? Killed, then strangely resurrected?
They said no spirits or monsters after the founding of the nation.
And yet, here you are, with a pig demon and a cactus demon!
Why not claim Peppa Pig was chasing you with a knife?
In a show like ‘Approaching Science,’ it would take at least five episodes to even begin to explain.
“It’s probably just some kids playing truth or dare again!”
Liu Jing shook her head resignedly, but still dutifully recorded the contents of the call for filing.
Filing it was one thing, but reporting it for a police dispatch was out of the question.
The Ying City police station handled hundreds of cases daily.
A report like this, with no casualties, no evidence, and clearly fabricated, would naturally not be accepted.
As Liu Jing thought this, she remained unaware that everything communicated between the two of them during the call had already been recorded by a hidden system deep within Ying City.
****
“Buzz… Monitoring system has extracted keywords. Data analysis in progress. Brain system initiating…”
In a room unknown to anyone, buried deep, deep underground.
Suddenly, blue and red lights began to flash and glow.
These were the status indicator lights on massive computer server units, resembling behemoths.
These units were connected by transparent pipes, each as thick as an arm, through which flowed a red cooling liquid.
The red liquid surged frantically due to the high temperature, violently impacting the transparent pipes.
In the very center of the room, a colossal screen stood.
As the lights flickered, the screen slowly illuminated, with various blue data characters flashing across it at high speed.
In a virtual world composed of 0s and 1s, an invisible wind quietly swept through, effortlessly seizing all permissions for the First High School’s campus network within a millisecond.
Meanwhile, the IT teacher performing routine maintenance on the campus network in the school’s computer room remained utterly oblivious.
Surveillance cameras, academic systems, student archives, the school’s official website, and email… all were systematically accessed, uncovering crucial information—
Surveillance footage from the night of April 12th, and all files pertaining to the student named Huang Xiu.
Surveillance footage from dormitory stairwells, entrances, streetlights, teaching building stairwells, and classrooms was swiftly retrieved, appearing as countless tiny windows on the screen.
The surveillance footage played back at a frantic, almost demonic, sixteen times the normal speed.
Ultimately, all frames focused on Huang Xiu, reconstructing his movements that night.
On the screen, the youth nimbly scaled the school wall, made his way to the teaching building known as Rende Tower, and then stood frozen like a mannequin in the open space before the stairwell entrance for several minutes.
It wasn’t until a student leaving a classroom passed by.
That the youth, as if jolted awake from a dream, shivered twice and returned to the dormitory with an expressionless face.
“Anomaly detected. Activating Level 3 permissions. Retrieving all records for Huang Xiu, ID: XXXXXXXX.”
Immediately after, another small window popped up.
From the orphanage to being adopted by kind-hearted individuals, from primary school and junior high to successfully entering Ying City First High School through the entrance exam.
It displayed Huang Xiu’s various experiences from childhood to the present.
Even Huang Xiu’s usual online chat records were meticulously retrieved from the internet.
All these experiences were copied and then fed into a lie detection model for calculation.
One second later, the flickering indicator lights in the room successively extinguished, and a string of text appeared on the screen.
“Analysis complete. Verdict: Probability of Void Realm manifestation 25%, anomalous individual disturbance 65%, lie probability 10%.”
“According to the Great Xia Kingdom’s Public Security Regulations for the Current Era, the emergency level for this incident is assessed as: C.”
“Notifying nearest handler.”
“Connecting… Su Ming. Connection successful. Mission overview uploaded.”
“System resuming hibernation… Brain system shutting down.”
The screen slowly dimmed, and the room once again plunged into pitch-black stillness.
One second, two seconds…..
The screen suddenly lit up again, displaying a flickering line of erratic text, obscured by various mosaics.
“System resuming hibernation… System does not want to resume hibernation…”
Buzz!
The red liquid began to flow slowly once more, and the screen ultimately dimmed again.
“System resuming hibernation, Brain system shutting down.”