207: Chapter 207 Strange Discovery

As dawn broke, the old fisherman Tavo Nalu and his son were out on the Pacific Ocean aboard their weathered fishing boat, the "Sea Breeze," searching for schools of fish.

They were traditional fishermen from Tuvalu. Tavo's calloused hands skillfully manipulated the steering wheel, while his sixteen-year-old son, Marku, leaned against the gunwale, his fingers tapping rapidly across his phone screen. He was obsessed with a game called Plants vs. Zombies, where hordes of zombies shuffled from the edge of the lawn, and Marku was busy planting greenery to block their advance.

Between that and collecting sunlight, his fingers were moving so fast they were practically a blur.

Tavo looked at Marku, whose mind was clearly not on fishing, and let out a deep sigh. He regretted buying his son that phone; not only had it cost three months' worth of income, but it had also caused the already somewhat shiftless Marku to become addicted, to the point where he didn't even want to touch the fishing boat anymore.

If it hadn't been for his father's stern insistence, he wouldn't have even boarded the boat.

"Marku, stop playing and get ready to cast the net," Tavo said.

The boy ignored him.

"Marku!"

The father's voice turned stern.

"I know, I know," Marku said, pausing the game and reluctantly putting down the phone. Phones were just too much fun; no wonder everyone wanted one.

Marku stood up sluggishly and began to half-heartedly organize the fishing net. Just then, out of the corner of his eye, the young man suddenly spotted a black dot in the distance.

What was that? A whale?

Marku widened his eyes, trying to see the object clearly. When that didn't work, he pressed his palms together with thumbs crossed, looking through the small hole between his hands. Sure enough, it became a bit clearer.

Marku realized it wasn't a whale; whales weren't that big. How could there be a section of black wall on the surface of the sea?

"Father, look, what is that?" Marku said with a hint of novelty, his eyes sparkling with the excitement of discovering something interesting.

Tavo impatiently looked in the direction his son was pointing. The reprimand he had intended to deliver died in his throat; there really was something wrong over there.

After steering the fishing boat closer,

The black object finally revealed its full form: a pitch-black barrier standing vertically above the sea surface, about a meter away from the water. Its edges were irregular, clearly not a natural phenomenon.

Marku's sharp eyes also noticed that when the waves splashed up, the seawater that entered the black barrier simply vanished, failing to fall back down on the other side.

"What is this thing?" Tavo's expression changed. As an old fisherman who had dealt with the ocean his entire life, he had never seen such an eerie sight.

No one answered him.

But as a young man, Marku's ability to accept new things was much stronger. He rummaged around the boat, found a discarded bottle, and threw it forcefully at the barrier. The bottle vanished just like the seawater.

"Cool!" Marku shouted excitedly. He grabbed his phone and began filming the black barrier, saying as he recorded,

"Father, quick, move the boat closer! I want to take a video. This will definitely get a lot of views if I post it online!"

Tavo disagreed, saying, "That looks dangerous. We shouldn't get close."

Marku grew anxious and shouted, "You don't understand! I could become an internet celebrity. I'll make so much money—more than you've made fishing your whole life!"

Tavo, who had originally intended to leave, paused his hand.

...

At noon today, a video suddenly appeared on Facebook, the world's largest social networking site.

It was a vertical video clearly recorded with a mobile phone. The image quality was average, and it was posted by a user with only a few followers.

In the video, the person filming stood on a fishing boat. Ahead on the surging sea, a black barrier stood tall. The footage was quite shaky, but one could still see that when the waves hit the barrier, the seawater vanished as if swallowed by an invisible force.

The person filming seemed unsatisfied. After shouting something loudly, the boat moved toward the edge of the barrier. Upon reaching the edge, the camera panned, and the audience discovered another oddity: the barrier was about as thick as a piece of paper—extremely thin, or rather, it had no thickness at all.

Then, an even more astonishing scene occurred. The person filming muttered something, picked up a wooden stick, and poked it toward the screen. At close range, they clearly saw the other end of the stick bizarrely disappear...

The video went dark at that point.

This video, barely five minutes long, quickly drew a massive amount of discussion:

Old John from New York: [Is this real or fake? I've never seen such realistic special effects. Awesome!]

JustTuna: [Oh my god! A supernatural phenomenon! Where did you film this, OP? I want to go see it; I can pay!]

Account Deleted: [So, what exactly is this? Isn't anyone going to explain?]

CHAONIMA: [Definitely fake.]

Strategic Fooling Bureau Agent: [You call this fake? I zoomed in to look; if this is CGI, I'll eat my keyboard!]

SciFiLover_Emma: [My god! Is this a spatial portal? Or is the military testing some new type of weapon?!]

At first, the video didn't attract any special attention, but because of its strange content, it began to spread rapidly. In a short time, it climbed to the top of Facebook's trending videos for the day.

Just as everyone was desperate to find the truth,

A famous film director shared the video and wrote: "Thank you all for your enthusiasm for the trailer of our new movie 'The Abyssal Gate'! It's a wonderful surprise that this special effects test clip could cause such a heated discussion. The official trailer will be released next month; please stay tuned!"

The clarification from this director, who had 2 million followers, combined with the push from several influential accounts, was like a bucket of cold water poured into a boiling pot of oil. Public opinion shifted instantly.

So it really was special effects.

Many people who felt deceived went to the director's account to vent their anger, with one condemnation after another. It wasn't until the director posted an apology online and promised not to do such a thing again that the public's anger at being fooled slowly subsided.

The account that had just gained tens of thousands of followers was subsequently deleted...

But as for the owner of the account,

In the nation of Tuvalu, the young Marku Nalu sat before the police, hardly daring to breathe. Their skin color made it obvious they weren't from his country; they looked like they were from America.

The stern middle-aged white man said, "Have you ever gone inside that black barrier? Answer truthfully!"

The unquestionable aura radiating from him filled Marku with fear, making him stammer as he replied, "Of... Officer, I haven't."

"I just filmed the video and left immediately."

Marku added, trying to make his words sound more believable.

He indeed hadn't gone in; he had only reached his hand in to feel around. He didn't know what he had touched, but it felt somewhat slimy and disgusting, so he had pulled it back.