4: Chapter 4: The Big Plan Begins

Beneath the bridge, the cold November wind howled through.

Chen Mu was trembling all over because he had just killed someone.

Although he hadn't killed him with his own hands, Old Jim had indeed died because of him.

He sat beside Old Jim for a full forty minutes.

The light from a distant streetlamp drifted over, casting an orange glow across Old Jim's face.

His expression was peaceful, as if he were merely asleep.

But Chen Mu knew he would never wake up again. Looking at that face, Chen Mu recalled some rumors he had never paid much attention to.

Rumor had it that Old Jim loved feeding pigeons; he would always save a bit of the meager relief meals from the church to feed the pigeons in the square.

An old man who loved feeding pigeons should have enjoyed his twilight years in his former homeland, yet in this country, he could only numb himself with drugs every day.

But Chen Mu wasn't worried at all that this corpse would bring him trouble. Before the next day was out, another homeless person would discover the body and hand it over to the pharmaceutical companies for money.

In the end, in some unknown corner, he would become just another number in an annual statistical report.

After all, in the USA, the opioid epidemic was one of the most serious public health crises in American history, killing tens of thousands every year—more than car accidents.

Old Jim was just one of those tens of thousands.

Chen Mu looked away from Old Jim's face.

He looked down at his own hands. The marks of frostbite were still there. There was dirt under his fingernails that wouldn't wash out, the tail cap of his flashlight was loose again, and a corner of the tape was peeling up.

He was currently an invisible person in this city as well.

No one saw him, no one remembered him, and no one would care if he became another corpse under the bridge tomorrow morning.

Just like Old Jim.

This thought rose from the bottom of his chest until it filled his entire being.

He couldn't go on like this. If he spent his days scaring junkies to save up a few dozen points of fear value, eating church relief meals, and sleeping in subway vents...

Then Old Jim's today would be his tomorrow.

Chen Mu stood up, his body shaking uncontrollably. The cold wind by the river in late November was truly too harsh.

He looked at the worn-out coat on Old Jim, hesitated for a moment, then stripped it off and put it on himself.

Without looking back, he quietly walked out from under the bridge, thinking about how to use the 3,000-plus fear points he had on hand to start a grand plan.

“Dong! Dong! Dong!...”

Suddenly, the sound of a bell echoed from the distance—one stroke, then another, until it had chimed twelve times.

Midnight had arrived!

A line of silver-white text emerged in the center of Chen Mu's vision.

[Ding! This month's theme 'ghostly shadows' has expired.]

[New theme 'Alien Invasion' has been loaded.]

[Mall has been refreshed.]

The eerie green shelves on the interface vanished, replaced by a silver-white void. He cast his gaze toward the first slot.

[Micro Gravity Control · F-Rank]

[Associated Theme: Alien Invasion]

[Basic Ability: Can manipulate objects with a mass not exceeding 1kg to move freely.]

[Price: Permanent purchase for 10,000 fear value, single-use rental for 1,000 fear value.]

...

In the interrogation room, Chen Mu looked down at the worn-out gray coat he was wearing. The cuffs were frayed, and a small patch of rust was stuck on the zipper.

“When Old Jim died, no one remembered him. But when I die, the whole world will surely remember,” Chen Mu whispered to himself.

——————

On YouTube, a video titled 'Supernatural Event at New York Times Square' suddenly went viral.

The person who filmed it was named Lucas Oliveira. A twenty-three-year-old Brazilian and an architecture student at the University of São Paulo, he had been holding up his phone to film the night scenery, wanting to show his mother what the real New York looked like at night.

In the video, Chen Mu walked quietly behind him, then reached out toward the fountain as if performing some kind of performance art.

Soon, certain metal parts inside the fountain began to violently pop out, and the entire fountain exploded instantly.

Immediately after, the phone screen shook violently as Lucas cursed something in Portuguese before aiming the camera back at the fountain.

A column of water from the fountain shot into the sky like an enraged dragon, rapidly reaching sixty, then seventy feet, and it was still going up.

Just as the water column reached its peak, a massive amount of droplets within the water curtain began to deform, arranging themselves into letters against the Manhattan night sky. The light from the advertising screens passed through the suspended water curtain, dyeing them in flowing neon colors.

The Blue Planet is about to be liberated.

The water curtain held for a full seventeen seconds.

This was enough time for Lucas's phone to record it in full, enough for hundreds of nearby phones to capture it from different angles, and enough for this message to travel through undersea fiber optic cables to every corner of the planet.

Seventeen seconds later, the water column collapsed like a sudden rainstorm, splashing onto the intersection of Times Square.

Lucas's camera finally wobbled, sweeping toward the bottom left corner and capturing Chen Mu.

Before he could say anything, sirens pierced the air. Chen Mu was pinned to the ground by nearby police on the spot and finally bundled into a police car.

The camera then moved away. No one noticed a crazed homeless man being taken away; everyone was looking at the sky, at those fading words made of water.

The phenomenon in the video quickly sparked heated discussions online.

["Wait a minute, is this real-time footage from Times Square tonight? Can anyone confirm this isn't some street magic performance?"]

["I was there at the time, about fifty meters from the fountain. It's absolutely real because I'm still wet right now."]

["Special effects, definitely special effects. If this is real, I'll eat shit on a livestream."]

["I work in film VFX. I've been in this industry for at least twelve years. I've analyzed those seventeen seconds from 0:47 to 1:04 frame by frame."]

["The movement trajectories of the water molecules in the footage have no repeating patterns. The light and shadow refraction perfectly matches the light sources from the surrounding billboards. There are no signs of layer compositing; it's not CG. I'll say it again, this is not CG."]

["So? Are you saying aliens are here?"]

["I didn't say anything else; I just said it's not special effects."]

["You're all looking at the fountain, but did no one notice that homeless man in the bottom left at the 23-second mark? Zoom in on his expression."]

Someone took a screenshot of the 23rd second, enlarged it, and brightened it. Chen Mu's face occupied half the screen; the resolution wasn't high, but it was enough to see his expression clearly.

The corners of his mouth were slightly curled up, as if he were mocking something.

["Wait, wait, wait... so a homeless man stands by the fountain, makes a gesture, the fountain explodes, the water stops in mid-air to form 'The Blue Planet is about to be liberated,' and he's smiling? What does that smile mean???"]

["Calm down, it might just be a coincidence. He might have just been high and happened to be standing there. For example, by your logic, that mom pushing the stroller in the top right at the 33-second mark is also a suspect. Something this big happened, and her expression didn't even flicker!"]

["Is it possible she was just scared stiff?"]

["In that case, I think the baby is the biggest suspect. Maybe he's the one behind it."]

The discussion about Chen Mu vanished into the comments section just like that.

["'The Blue Planet is about to be liberated.' Note the choice of words. Not 'invaded,' not 'destroyed,' but 'liberated.' They think we are being enslaved."]

["Enslaved by what?"]

["By ourselves, by our governments, by our technology, by everything we think is freedom."]

["When are the aliens issuing green cards? Waiting online, it's pretty urgent."]

["LMAO, even if you go, you'll still be at the bottom. They're here to liberate the Blue Planet, not to hand out welfare to you."]

In the interrogation room, Chen Mu watched as the system's fear value finally broke one hundred thousand. He clenched his fists in excitement.

There was no turning back now; it was time to launch the second phase of the plan.

System, I want to rent Cosmic Illusion.

[Cosmic Illusion · B-Rank]

[Associated Theme: Alien Invasion]

[Basic Ability: Within a five-light-year radius of the host, any virtual illusion can be deployed.]

[Price: Permanent purchase for one million fear value, single-use rental for one hundred thousand fear value.]