15: Chapter 15 Find him at all costs

3:04 AM.

The door to the large conference room on the 6th floor of the Jingzhou Public Security Bureau was electronically locked from the outside.

The windows were covered with grey electromagnetic shielding film, and the air conditioning vents were set to 22 degrees, but none of the twelve people sitting on either side of the long table were free from sweating.

Section Chief Han Zheng was the last to enter.

Two subordinates in black tactical gear followed him, one holding an encrypted tablet, the other carrying a briefcase.

The three of them entered without making much noise, and the hushed conversations on both sides of the table ceased simultaneously.

He slammed a red-headed document onto the table.

The paper was thin, but the sound of it hitting the table was not.

Jingzhou Public Security Bureau Chief Zhao Guoliang sat at the head of the table.

Fifty-six years old, a veteran criminal investigator who had worked his way up from a local police station to the rank of department head, the documents he had signed in his lifetime could build half a city wall if stacked.

He glanced at the document number in the header.

His hand stopped.

He had seen this numbering sequence before.

The last time was eleven years ago, regarding that incident in the Northwest desert that was still locked in the bottom of a safe, a matter for which all participants had signed lifelong confidentiality agreements.

Zhao Guoliang looked up at Section Chief Han Zheng.

Section Chief Han Zheng did not meet his gaze. He pulled out a chair, sat down, stood the encrypted tablet on the table, and opened the briefcase.

"At 11:37 tonight, an abnormal incident occurred at the Yongchang Steel Structure Factory in the Chengdong Industrial Zone."

"Unknown energy residues were detected at the scene. The testimonies of twenty-three workers are highly consistent. Three were seriously injured, with no fatalities."

His speaking speed was not fast, but every word seemed to nail itself into the tabletop.

The Criminal Investigation Division Chief flipped through the briefing in front of him, his brow furrowing deeper with every page.

The Anti-Terrorism Division Chief leaned back in his chair with his arms crossed, wearing an expression that said, "Which lunatic filed a false report this time?"—until Section Chief Han Zheng spoke the fourth sentence.

"An unknown creature crawled out of a crack in the ground. It had four legs, a reverse-joint structure, and its body was covered in black, mist-like matter. Contact with metal causes instantaneous corrosion."

The Anti-Terrorism Division Chief lowered his arms.

Zhao Guoliang tapped his finger on the table twice.

"Section Chief Han."

He spoke, his voice not loud, but commanding.

"I have been a criminal police officer for thirty years. Homicide, drug trafficking, terrorism, cults, I have seen it all. I have never seen a monster."

He closed the briefing and pushed it aside.

"Twenty-three workers, frightened by an explosion, inhaled unknown gases, resulting in collective stress reactions leading to memory distortion—this is not the first time this has happened in our case database. The 2003 mine disaster, the 2011 chemical plant leak, there are precedents."

His voice was steady and logical.

The thirty-year veteran criminal investigator was using thirty years of experience to provide a fallback explanation.

Section Chief Han Zheng listened.

He did not refute it.

He took a sealed, transparent evidence bag from his briefcase and placed it in the center of the table.

The bag was small, about the size of a palm.

Inside was a small piece of solidified black substance, like a piece of burnt asphalt. It had fine textures on the surface and was no longer flowing, but under the fluorescent light, it reflected an oily luster that shouldn't belong to a solid.

Then he pulled a brand-new pair of medical latex gloves from his pocket.

In front of everyone, through the seal of the evidence bag, he let the edge of the glove touch that piece of black residue.

Less than a second.

The contact point turned yellow.

Cracked.

Pulverized.

The entire glove, from fingertips to wrist, shattered into powder like a plastic film weathered for thirty years, falling onto the table with a rustling sound.

The breathing of the twelve people in the conference room hitched simultaneously.

Zhao Guoliang stared at the pile of debris on the table.

The arms that had been crossed over his chest just a moment ago were lowered, bit by bit.

The Technical Division Director pushed up his glasses and leaned forward.

He wanted to reach out and touch the debris, but pulled his hand back halfway.

No one spoke.

Section Chief Han Zheng swept the debris aside, opened the encrypted tablet, and projected the detector's reading curve onto the wall.

"This instrument was custom-made by the military research institute ten years ago. In the past decade, it has been used at seventy-two abnormal incident sites globally, and sixty-nine times the reading was zero—those incidents were ultimately proven to be natural phenomena or man-made fabrications."

He pointed to the peak of the curve.

"Tonight, full-scale oscillation."

The blue projection curve jumped on the white wall for more than forty minutes before returning to zero.

The numbers in the peak interval were so large they lost intuitive meaning, but the shape itself was enough—like a mountain rising from the ground.

"The elemental analysis of the residue has been sent to the Chinese Academy of Sciences."

Section Chief Han Zheng's voice dropped half a tone.

"Preliminary feedback—three unknown elements were detected in the sample, which do not belong to any numbered sequence in the periodic table."

He paused and looked around.

"It is not something from Earth."

The conference room fell into a stifling silence.

It was not the silence of "no one has anything to say," but the silence of "there is too much to say, but every word makes one afraid."

The Deputy Chief broke the ice first.

"Then... what about the person the workers mentioned?"

Once this question was asked, the atmosphere at the table changed again.

A person who could disappear into thin air, control fire, and mold molten iron into weapons.

Who could also make the flames avoid all living people during an explosion.

The Criminal Investigation Division Chief said in a low voice,

"It's unscientific."

The Anti-Terrorism Division Chief frowned,

"The 749 Bureau has studied this for decades—"

"The 749 Bureau's conclusion is that it is inconclusive, not that it does not exist."

Section Chief Han Zheng interrupted him, his tone as flat as if he were reading a report,

"There is a big difference."

The Technical Division Director tapped his index finger on the table twice,

"If such an individual truly exists, all our existing security systems, force evaluation models, and emergency plans—everything needs to be overturned and rebuilt."

Section Chief Han Zheng did not respond to this.

He waited until everyone's voices had died down before speaking.

"The monster thing can barely be crammed into the framework of an unknown creature. Genetic mutation, deep-sea species, extreme environmental evolution—although that doesn't explain the corrosion mechanism and energy characteristics, at least there is a shell for it."

His gaze swept from the end of the table to the head.

"But that person, he doesn't fit into any shell."

The encrypted phone on the table vibrated.

Section Chief Han Zheng picked it up and looked at it for three seconds.

He put it down.

"Instructions from superiors."

His voice turned completely cold.

"First, this incident is classified as S-level, initiating the highest confidentiality protocol. All witnesses are to be immediately isolated for observation and sign confidentiality agreements, with a term of ten years. The injured workers are to be treated according to the highest standards, and all expenses will be covered by a special fund."

Zhao Guoliang's back straightened.

"Second, a three-kilometer radius around the incident area is to be closed, a five-kilometer no-fly zone for flights is to be established, and the subway will skip the Chengdong section. SWAT and chemical defense troops will take over site control tonight."

Zhao Guoliang said nothing. This scale of deployment was far beyond the municipal bureau's authority. There was only one thing he could do—execute.

"Third."

Section Chief Han Zheng's gaze swept across the room.

"Regarding that person."

He articulated clearly,

"The state's attitude is—find him at all costs. The goal is not to capture. It is cooperation."

The last two words landed in the conference room.

Cooperation.

Zhao Guoliang's hand froze on the table, no longer tapping.

The Anti-Terrorism Division Chief sat up straight from his leaning position.

The Criminal Investigation Division Chief's briefing fell back onto the table, and he didn't pick it up.

No one replied.

The silence of the twelve people was heavier than any time before.

4:17 AM. The meeting ended.

The twelve people filed out of the conference room.

The fluorescent lights in the corridor were coldly white, and footsteps followed one after another on the terrazzo floor, with three or four steps of distance between each person.

No one walked side by side.

No one spoke.

Section Chief Han Zheng was the last to come out.

He stood at the door for two seconds, then pulled a folded slip of paper from his pocket.

It was a printout of a photo, tire tracks captured from outside the collapsed entrance during the on-site investigation.

A silver-grey BYD, the angle at which the front of the car crashed into the pile of broken bricks just revealed the last three digits of the rear license plate.

It was not a clue about the monster.

It was about that person.

Section Chief Han Zheng walked out of the Public Security Bureau building, got into his car, and closed the door.

He pulled the silver suitcase from the trunk to the front seat.

He opened the combination lock and flipped to the yellowed document at the bottom.

"Blue Star Abnormal Incident Warning · Memorandum No. 0"

He flipped to the blank page at the end.

The pencil tip fell, and he wrote down tonight's date.

Then four words— "Supernatural Individual".

He closed the document and started the car.

The phone screen lit up.

A message from a subordinate, one line:

"BYD owner information locked—Wang Hao, ride-hailing driver, lives in the Chengdong Industrial Zone."