Chapter 78: Supernatural Event?
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
Inside the Xia Du Base.
“Do you think the aliens are aware we’re building the Buried City?” Councilman Zhou asked with a hint of concern.
“I do not believe so!”
Colonel Chu shook his head. “Zhang Tao flew a s.p.a.cecraft to the moon. We set particles on it and five minutes later, they indicated they were observed. This suggests the aliens have not made any advancements in quantum entanglement.”
“The thirteen secret bases in the uninhabited lands have the same particles, yet they remain un.o.bserved…”
These particles were set up very discreetly. Even the local troops were not aware of them. Initially, they were used to determine whether they were under surveillance by foreign forces. Now, they could be utilized to monitor alien activity.
The double-slit interference experiment had proven that human observation and machine observation would yield two different states. Consequently, the principle of quantum entanglement had become a crucial tool for detecting information theft.
•
“The new boss is quite demanding. Even when it is time to knock off, he insists we continue working. And there has not been a word about a pay raise…” Sun Fan muttered, operating the digging equipment in the underground base located in the uninhabited lands.
Suddenly, something flickered on the device.
“What is that?!”
Sun Fan exclaimed, staring at the screen, but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
He leaned out of the vehicle, switching on his cap’s light to survey his surroundings. After finding nothing unusual, he resumed his seat.
“You are spooking yourself, Sun Fan! You must be seeing things!” he chided himself, shaking his head and chuckling at his overreaction.
They were one thousand and five hundred meters underground. What creature could possibly survive at this depth? If anything lived here, it would be microbes.
“Whoosh!”
As soon as he sat down, the screen in front of him flickered again, startling Sun Fan so much that he bolted upright, banging his head on the roof of the vehicle.
“Ouch!”
Rubbing his throbbing head, he glanced at the vehicle’s roof, then at the screen. Still no activity.
But now he could not just sit back and ignore it. Grabbing a shovel, he jumped off the excavator, marching towards the hole.
” Who is there?!”
Sun Fan called out, straining his ears for any response. After hearing nothing, he cautiously continued to approach.
Sun Fan was on high alert, his body tense and sweat slicking the shovel handle in his hand.
Regardless, he could hardly pay any attention to that now. His eyes were peeled wide open, continuously scanning the area illuminated by his cap’s lamp.
Once he reached the spot where the detection equipment had signaled, he prodded the ground a couple of times with the shovel. Seeing no response, he dug a little deeper.
The unearthed soil looked ordinary.
“d.a.m.n, that really scared me!”
Sun Fan exhaled, realizing his nerves had been on edge for the past couple of days. It was high time he calmed himself.
Just as he turned around, the wall behind him seemed to come alive. A hole appeared, shooting out a net.
“What the…”
“Help!”
Sun Fan’s call for help was cut off too late. In a flash, the hole vanished, leaving the wall as it was.
• •
“If only I had that projection touch control watch now…”
Zhuge Tao sighed, leisurely donning his earphones and settling in to watch a short video on his phone.
Just as he was enjoying himself, a sudden urgent knock disrupted the moment.
“Boss, we have got trouble!”
d.a.m.n!
Zhuge Tao was startled, his body shaking. Quickly, he gathered himself and opened the door.
“What happened? I was just taking a nap…”
Outside, two supervisors stood panic-stricken, “Boss, Sun Fan’s gone missing…”
“Sun Fan, from our team?”
“Yes, he is in charge of the lowest-level work. He did not show up for the night roll call…”
“We thought he might have lost track of time and sent someone to find him…”
“But he was not at his desk or in his quarters…”
Zhuge Tao furrowed his brows, “With a base this size, he might just be wandering somewhere…”
“No, Boss. We have surveillance in our base. The footage shows that Sun Fan hasn’t come out since he went into the bottommost working area!”
“What?!”
Zhuge Tao’s eyes narrowed. His once casual demeanor changed as his curiosity was piqued.
“Take me to the surveillance room. I want to see the situation for myself!”
Soon, he locked his office and hurried to the surveillance room.
“Look, after the meeting, Sun Fan went to the bottom floor in his work clothes and he hasn’t emerged since…”
Zhuge Tao skimmed through the footage and indeed, apart from the staff that had gone in to look for Sun Fan, he had not appeared again.
“Are there other ways out?”
“No, this area only has one entrance…”
“Take me there!”
Zhuge Tao was skeptical. He needed to see for himself what had transpired.
Meanwhile, he pointed at the few people in the footage who had gone looking for Sun Fan and said, “Have them come along too…”
If someone had indeed vanished from a secret room like this, the culprit was likely among them.
Zhuge Tao led his team deep into the building. After a thorough look around, it was clear there were no other exits.
“Check the pit. Maybe someone buried him there…”
Everyone was stunned.
Regardless, they kept quiet. Forming small groups, they started searching the entire tunnel.
Half an hour later, everyone was covered in grime, but there was no sign of Sun Fan.
Zhuge Tao was now visibly concerned. He thought of another possibility and hurried back to the surveillance room.
After a series of checks, his confusion deepened.
“The surveillance footage is intact. There’s no evidence of tampering…”
“A perfectly healthy man disappearing into a pit.”
Just then, a supervisor rushed in and reported, “Boss, one of Sun Fan’s shovels is missing…”
“An engineering shovel?
The supervisor speculated, “Could it be that Sun Fan couldn’t handle the pressure and used the engineering shovel to dig his own grave?”
“Ridiculous!”
Zhuge Tao drummed his fingers, stating decisively, “I want everyone to search the base thoroughly for Sun Fan. I need to know whether he is alive or dead!”
With that, he rose and headed towards the base’s entrance.
He asked the guard if anyone had exited the base, but the answer was a firm no.
Suspicion piqued, Zhuge Tao decided to verify the information himself by checking the entrance’s surveillance footage. As it turned out, no one had left.
Considering the base was built underground with just one exit, it meant Sun Fan had to still be inside. Either he was hiding, or someone else had hidden him.
Six hours later, despite the base being searched four or five times over, there was still no sign of Sun Fan.
The light-hearted mood that Zhuge Tao had started the day with was long gone, replaced by an intense sense of intrigue.
He considered all possible scenarios, even going as far as to investigate Sun Fan’s social circle, but to no avail.
In the office, all the staff were huddled together, whispering about Sun Fan’s mysterious disappearance.
In the midst of this, a supervisor dared to suggest, “Boss, could he have run into a ghost?”
“Nonsense!”
Furious, Zhuge Tao rebuked him, “Stop spreading superst.i.tions. As a supervisor, you should know better!”
Scared into silence, the supervisor said no more.
Surveying his staff, Zhuge Tao saw that most of them were visibly scared, seemingly genuinely afraid of some supernatural ent.i.ty.
Disappointed, he shook his head and retreated to his office. He doc.u.mented the situation and sent the report off to Xia Du..