Chapter 70 Hello, is this 110? I'm calling the police.

Let's rewind a bit: Qinglan Expressway, Baishui Section.

The dragon knight no. 1, with its futuristic, miniaturized, high-power pulsed electromagnetic drive engine, was running silently.

Long Xiaotian sat in the ergonomic driver's seat, gripping the steering wheel tightly, his small face filled with a focus and excitement that defied his age.

After leaving the villa area, he had followed the AI assistant's navigation completely, weaving through city streets.

But the performance of this dragon knight no. 1 was simply too superior; driving it on city roads with a 60 km/h speed limit was nothing short of torture for him.

"AI, is there a faster route?" he asked impatiently. "My Qingqing is still waiting for me."

"According to real-time traffic analysis, entering the expressway toll station two kilometers ahead and taking the Qinglan Expressway to Linjiang University City can reduce the estimated arrival time by thirty-seven percent," the AI assistant's gentle female voice immediately provided the optimal solution.

"Great! Let's take the expressway!" Long Xiaotian decided without hesitation.

For a nine-year-old child, things like traffic rules were clearly not yet within his scope of knowledge.

He only knew that the expressway was the fastest route.

Under his command, the dragon knight no. 1 silently slipped through a small gap beside the ETC lane and smoothly merged into the expressway traffic.

...

Old Wang was a Master Craftsman who had been driving heavy trucks for twenty years.

At this moment, he was driving his Jiefang J7 heavy truck, fully loaded with fresh vegetables, at a speed of 100 km/h in the rightmost lane of the Qinglan Expressway.

Years of long-distance driving had etched his face with the ravages of weather, and his eyes were bloodshot.

To stay alert, he had turned the car stereo up loud, playing the energetic rhythms of Phoenix Legend.

Just as he was humming along to the music, "You are the most beautiful cloud in my sky," his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of something strange.

A black, hardcore off-road vehicle that looked like a small tank was driving at about the same speed as him, moving unhurriedly in the driving lane to his left.

Old Wang froze for a moment, then rubbed his eyes, thinking he was hallucinating due to fatigue.

He looked closely and found the vehicle was absurdly small, like a large toy, but its muscular lines, high chassis, and thick tires made it look incredibly powerful.

'A toy car daring to drive on the expressway?' Old Wang's mouth twitched, and he felt speechless.

He assumed it was some brat who had snuck out, and was just about to pick up his walkie-talkie to call a nearby friend to warn them to be careful and, incidentally, report it to the police.

But just then, a huge green gantry spanning the entire expressway appeared ahead, covered in dense, red-flashing cameras.

It was at that very instant that Old Wang witnessed a scene he would never be able to forget for the rest of his life.

The surface of the small black off-road vehicle beside him suddenly rippled with water-like patterns.

Immediately after, the deep matte black began to fade at a speed visible to the naked eye, becoming transparent.

The car's outline quickly blurred and distorted, and finally, in less than two seconds, it completely dissolved into the air!

It vanished!

It completely vanished!

Old Wang could even clearly see the white median strip of the expressway and the oncoming traffic whizzing by through the spot where the car had originally been!

'Am… am I seeing things?'

Old Wang felt his blood almost freeze; a chill shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, making his scalp tingle instantly.

He stared fixedly at that empty space, his mind a blank, almost forgetting to keep a steady grip on the steering wheel.

A few seconds later, the dragon knight no. 1 successfully passed through the gantry's surveillance area.

The AI assistant's gentle voice sounded again: "Exited surveillance range, optical stealth mode disengaged."

Under Old Wang's gaze, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets, the empty space rippled with patterns once again.

A blurred outline emerged out of thin air, as if ink had been injected into the transparent air, and the deep black quickly returned.

Two seconds later, that hardcore-styled small off-road vehicle appeared intact in its original position, as if everything that had just happened was merely an absurd dream.

"Ah—ghost!!!"

Old Wang's psychological defenses were completely shattered at this moment; he let out a shrill scream, and his hand gripping the steering wheel jerked violently.

The massive Jiefang J7 heavy truck lost control, drawing a deadly S-curve on the expressway.

The screeching sound of tires and the horns of vehicles behind braking in an emergency merged into a cacophony, and the entire section of the road instantly turned into a chaotic mess.

Fortunately, Old Wang was a veteran driver of twenty years; on the verge of a breakdown, he still relied on muscle memory to slam on the brakes, stabilize the vehicle, and finally park it crookedly on the emergency shoulder.

He sat in the cab, his clothes soaked through with cold sweat.

He stared blankly ahead, gasping for air, his eyes unfocused, muttering incessantly: "There's a ghost... there really is a ghost..."

...

After calming down for a full ten minutes, Old Wang finally reached into his pocket with trembling hands, took out his phone, and dialed 110 to report the incident.

When the call connected, he shouted at the operator in a tearful, extremely terrified, and incoherent tone:

"Hello... is this 110? I... I... I... I'm on the Qinglan Expressway... I saw a ghost! There... there really is a ghost car!"

The female operator on the other end initially tried to soothe him patiently: "Sir, please don't panic, speak slowly. May I ask for your specific location?"

"I... I don't know! I just passed the Baishui Service Area! I saw a black off-road vehicle, very small, driven by a kid! It... right in front of me, it was gone! It just vanished into thin air! And then... then it appeared again! It's true! I'm not lying to you! You have to come quickly! It's too terrifying!"

Hearing this, the operator felt speechless.

Another case of hallucinations caused by fatigue or drunk driving.

She received several similar reports every day.

While recording it in the system, she used a programmed tone to soothe him: "Alright, sir, we have recorded your situation. Please park your vehicle in a safe area, turn on your hazard lights, and do not wander around. We will notify the traffic police on the road to go and verify. Also, a reminder: for your safety and the safety of others, please do not drive while fatigued."

After hanging up, she skillfully typed a line in the remarks column of the report: [Reporter suspected of fatigue driving or hallucinations due to drug influence; suggest patrol police conduct breathalyzer test.]

But according to regulations, she still forwarded this police report, which seemed to have zero credibility, to the expressway traffic command center.

This report was the very same "ghost car" report that, a few dozen minutes later, the young cyber police officer Xiao Wang would dig out from the massive amount of information, eventually waking up the entire special investigation team.