491: Chapter 471 Soaring to the Heavens Side by Side

The sound of the police car sirens reached the tourists' ears, but it didn't make the crowd disperse.

In recent months, police officers often came to the resident office for inspections, aiming to ensure the safety of the tourists on site.

Places where crowds gather have great hidden dangers; not only are people prone to physical conflicts, but there are also stampedes caused by chaos. There have been many precedents for such accidents, so precautions must be taken.

Everyone understood this, and the police cars usually didn't disturb them. They would park nearby to observe for a moment, and once they confirmed there were no signs of danger occurring or about to occur, they would withdraw silently. Therefore, no one paid attention to the increasingly piercing sirens.

Until the police car stopped at the intersection, a large number of officers got out and lined up, and the leader turned on the car's loudspeaker to persuade the tourists to leave.

They looked back, then peered left and right. Seeing no public security incidents, they were confused about the purpose of the officers' arrival.

The leader was a bit frantic at this moment.

The questioning call from Zhao Qi, the head of the Special Investigation Bureau, had already reached the Director. Previously, the excuse of a traffic jam could still be used to brush it off, but now, being unable to disperse the crowd for a long time, there was no way to stall anymore.

After another minute of shouting, the crowd still looked around blankly but remained crowded on the street.

Actually, it wasn't entirely like that. Those near the door who reacted quickly tried to move out, while those on the periphery who were slower just stood there, still wondering why the police had come.

In desperation, the leader ordered the officers to step forward to evacuate the crowd, while emphasizing that their attitude shouldn't be too forceful.

The tourists were all law-abiding citizens. If they were roughly driven away without reason, he would likely be demoted from his position as squad leader to some dark archives room to stare at a computer all day.

The evacuation method had to be gentle, relying only on verbal persuasion, so the results were naturally poor.

It wasn't that the tourists were uncooperative, but rather due to the human nature of watching a spectacle. Every person being persuaded to leave had to ask, "What are you here for? What happened?" with expectant eyes.

Explaining took too much time, and if they didn't explain, the tourists would persist. Thus, ten minutes passed, and they had only persuaded a single-digit number of people to leave—originally it was more than that, but some people turned back shortly after leaving to pester the officers with the previous question.

The leader couldn't bear to watch and stepped out from the passenger seat, preparing to assist the officers. Otherwise, at the current rate of efficiency, they wouldn't even be able to clear half the crowd by nightfall.

However, the moment his foot touched the ground, the crowd blocking the outside of the resident office building suddenly all flew several meters off the ground, standing steadily in mid-air.

Before he could react, as if an invisible giant hand were playing a sorting game, the people who had been standing in disorder began to move, forming a neat square formation in the air before landing back on the ground.

"Everyone, please follow the guidance of the Government Personnel and line up to leave the street." A gentle voice echoed in the street, its source unknown.

At this moment, someone finally snapped out of it.

"It's an immortal!"

The foreign tourists were even more pleasantly surprised, shouting in the stiff tones they had learned before coming to China: "Immortal, I saw one! This trip wasn't in vain!"

The officers also broke into smiles. Besides the same reason, it was because their task could finally be completed.

The leader picked up the microphone again and broadcasted in both Chinese and English: "Tourists, please follow the guidance of the officers and exit the street in an orderly manner."

It was much easier to direct them once they were in a long line. In ten minutes, everyone had withdrawn to the cleared lane. Then, the officers took rolls of rope from the trunk and quickly set up isolation lines, and the tourists returned to their original positions.

Seeing this from the roof, Zhao Qi also breathed a sigh of relief and hurried downstairs to find Fellow Daoist Ye standing in the corridor.

"I'm so sorry. I had to trouble Fellow Daoist Ye to help with such a small matter."

"It was just a small effort, no need to worry about it."

"Then..."

"I shall go now."

As soon as he spoke, Fellow Daoist Ye flew out of the half-open window. He returned ten seconds later, and only then did a thunderous exclamation come from outside the window.

Zhao Qi blinked: "It's over?"

"I have but two hands and two feet, no different from a mortal. Surely everyone will understand once they see me, so why stay long?"

Zhao Qi really wanted to say that they didn't care about Fellow Daoist Ye's appearance or physique, nor did they want to see him smile; they wanted him to show off a skill.

Of course, he wouldn't say that out loud.

"Brother Zhao."

"Ah?" Zhao Qi came back to his senses. "What is it?"

"Senior Uncle Xu has an important matter to convey. Please relay it to your bureau's Director."

"Immortal Xu has something?" Upon hearing this, Zhao Qi decisively pulled out his phone to contact the mountain forest base.

Ten minutes later, a helicopter with a specially approved flight route landed on the helipad on the roof of the resident office. The Director squinted his eyes into slits against the fierce wind kicked up by the propellers. If he hadn't needed to see the path to avoid falling, he would likely have closed his eyes to resist the gale.

Hurrying to the office, Fellow Daoist Ye sat behind the desk, while Zhao Qi leaned against the wall with a thoughtful look on his face.

What was the situation?

The Director looked suspiciously for a moment before greeting Fellow Daoist Ye.

"Fellow Daoist Ye, what instructions does Immortal Xu have?"

"I wouldn't call them instructions. My Senior Uncle's meaning lies in that." Fellow Daoist Ye smiled, pointing his index finger at the blue sky outside the window.

The Director was a bit dazed, looking through the window at the azure sky where soft, pure white clouds floated: "That?"

"Not that, but that." Fellow Daoist Ye adjusted the angle of his finger slightly, avoiding the cloud. "The Moon."

"Senior Uncle means that your progress on the lunar works is slow and needs to be accelerated."

Accelerating the establishment of the lunar base and increasing ore mining were Zhang Mu's main purposes for returning to Blue Star this time.

While inspecting the current layout of several countries, Zhang Mu took a moment to look up at the moon. With the Magister's terrifying boost to vision and being free from the restrictions of the Saul Continent, even from the ground, he could clearly see the Chinese astronauts on the moon sitting on long benches having a meal.

The construction of the base, the digging of the mines, and so on—naturally, nothing escaped his eyes.

It was too slow.

Seeing that China's first mine was still reinforcing the tunnels and hadn't started mining ore yet, Zhang Mu felt the speed was a bit too slow.

It wasn't that China was being lazy. Planetary colonization technology on Blue Star was still in the theoretical stage. If Zhang Mu hadn't stepped in to help, the top countries on Blue Star would still be researching how to send a single physically strong human to the moon.

Under such a premise, sending a large number of ordinary people to the moon was just empty talk.

Given time, China's technology would surely mature, and one day humans would completely conquer the moon, with exploratory footprints covering the entire planet's surface, but Zhang Mu couldn't wait.

The rhenium metal required for the magic guidance sniper rifle, the First Army's stock was already exhausted. Admittedly, the new generation of sniper rifle hadn't been developed yet, so the demand for raw materials wasn't urgent, but Zhang Mu couldn't wait until the last minute to start preparations.

The Director scratched his head awkwardly: "Fellow Daoist Ye, well, you know, we've already been working at full speed, but due to technical limitations..."

Fellow Daoist Ye smile and said: "You've misunderstood. Senior Uncle isn't blaming you; he intends to take action."

"Really?"

"What does Immortal Xu plan to do?" Without waiting for Fellow Daoist Ye's reply, the Director turned around in a hurry, intending to take a plane immediately to the Mountain Gate to see Immortal Xu, but he was called back by Fellow Daoist Ye.

"Senior Uncle is not at the Mountain Gate right now."

"Where is he? I'll go find Immortal Xu."

"There." His index finger pointed to the sky again.

The Director stared for a moment and said in surprise: "The moon?"

"Indeed."

"That's a bit far... but it doesn't matter. The xuan niao ship takes off tomorrow. I'll apply to the higher-ups for a seat."

"No rush, no rush." Fellow Daoist Ye waved his hand, and the Director, who had run to the door, flew back to the desk. "You all may go, but there is no need for the xuan niao."

Beside him, Zhao Qi's eyes lit up.

Fellow Daoist Ye had told him earlier that Immortal Xu planned to go to the moon personally to help advance China's mining work.

Since it had always been the people from the Special Investigation Bureau who dealt with the Chinese officials, Immortal Xu felt that changing the personnel in charge would require getting to know each other again, which would be very tedious, so he planned to have them go to the moon as well.

Currently, there were only two ways for humans to go to the moon: one was to take the xuan niao ship, and the other was... to "hitch a ride" with Immortal Xu.

Initially, Zhao Qi speculated it would be the former, that Immortal Xu would probably go to the moon in advance. Losing the precious experience of crossing space with his physical body, Zhao Qi was very disappointed. He couldn't help but fantasize that Immortal Xu, knowing they had long looked forward to this, would take this opportunity to bring them along.

After snapping out of it, Zhao Qi shook his head dejectedly, dismissing his own thought.

Even for the wish of his direct disciple Luo Xiling to go to heaven in the flesh, Immortal Xu could never find the time to satisfy it. As an outsider, his own yearning would have to wait even longer.

Who would have thought Fellow Daoist Ye would say "no need for the xuan niao"? The sighing Zhao Qi immediately became excited.

"Fellow Daoist Ye." Zhao Qi approached the desk with a smirk. "No need for the xuan niao ship means Immortal Xu will take us there."

Fellow Daoist Ye didn't speak but nodded with a smile.

"That's great!"

Hearing this, the Director's eyes also widened. In his fifties and about to enter old age, the Director was also full of fantasies about space. Especially soaring in the universe relying only on physical strength without the help of machinery—how could that not fill one with longing?

"Isn't Immortal Xu on the moon? It would be too much trouble for him to have to come back to get us. Actually, it's the same for us to take the xuan niao ship."

"Actually, it's the same for us to take the xuan niao ship."

Seemingly worried that Fellow Daoist Ye would take his politeness seriously, he followed up with: "At most it'll be a bit slower, Immortal Xu just needs to wait for us for a few days."

Fortunately, things didn't develop into the situation the Director was resisting. Fellow Daoist Ye said directly: "For Senior Uncle, traveling back and forth is just a matter of a single thought. Mr. Director, you worry too much."

"I see, that's good, that's good." The Director was a good leader who cared for his subordinates. He didn't forget them when something good happened. "By the way, Fellow Daoist Ye, did Immortal Xu say how many people from the Special Investigation Bureau should go?"

"Should all the higher-ups go, or did Immortal Xu specify?"

"Mr. Director, you may use your own discretion according to the situation."

"You mean I should arrange it myself?"

"One more person or one fewer makes no difference to my Senior Uncle. Please rest assured."

"Alright, I'll go prepare immediately."

It was unknown how many days the trip to the moon would last. For ten days or half a month, the Special Investigation Bureau could rely on its momentum to function. If it were half a year or a year, without the decision-making and command of the higher-ups, the Special Investigation Bureau would likely come to a standstill, so someone had to stay behind.

On his way to the helicopter on the roof, the Director scratched the tip of his nose in distress.

If I don't let Yue Ruo go, she'll tear my office apart. Zhao Qi is about the same. As for Lin Miao and Ye Ming... these two have easygoing personalities and will surely obey orders without complaint, but if I arbitrarily leave one of them behind, that would be too unfair.

Both the palm and the back of the hand are flesh. The Director had a headache over how to be fair and not cause a commotion.

Zhang Mu didn't have similar troubles. He made up a random excuse to send Zhao Qi away, took out the Fellow Daoist Ye Puppet to restart it, and used the Shadow Technique to fly to the moon himself.

The plan was set, but the implementation still needed to be figured out. Zhang Mu had to conduct a field inspection.