Forbidden Zone of the Human Race

Many media sources had sniffed out the internet celebrity, which was Xiang Ning. A rare event like this beast stampede shouldn’t have been reported by just one department; it should have been played across China.

All of China was already paying attention to the invasion of Tranquil City anyway, and every media institution wanted a share of the pie, which was online traffic. Officially, these media personnel were operating on the heroic mission of spreading awareness of the tragedies of war and the suffering of martial artists protecting their homes.

Li Zimo, Liu Ruoxue, and Lu Shiyu were standing under a tree. The reporters were annoyed because they were looking for someone specific—any idiot would know that they were looking for Xiang Ning, because he was great for publicity. A young teenage hero, risking his life to save a stranger and working with another soldier to kill a Kaiser Aurumsaur, despite being poisoned himself. After Wang Han’s livestream, many people wanted to know what had happened to Xiang Ning next.

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Liu Ruoxue weakly asked.

“Let’s hope everything goes smoothly.” Li Zimo facepalmed. If what they were doing was discovered, with so many reporters here, the headlines of a heroic teenager saving a stranger would instantly change to “The Ugly Truth: This is Who The Teenage Hero Actually is”. It would be a nightmare.

But the universe had its own sense of humor. Barely an hour after Xiang Ning entered the base, a siren sounded from within. Anyone who had been there for more than three days could easily distinguish between the sirens. This siren wasn’t to signal an invasion, but that there was a situation within the base.

The reporters didn’t know that, so they grabbed a random person and asked, “May I ask if there’s another stampede?”

“No, that siren means something happened in the fortress.”

The reporters were mildly disappointed, but then wondered to themselves what kind of problem there could be with so many powerful masters in the fortress. The reporters were sniffing for news once more. If it was breaking news of a hidden danger within the fortress, imagine the traffic they’d gain from their reporting!

Most of the martial artists were indifferent to the reporters, though they underestimated their ability to collect and disseminate information.

Within twenty minutes, they found the reason for the alarm. Somehow, footage from the security cameras had fallen into the hands of the reporters.

In the video, Xiang Ning’s face was clearly shown as he stole the beast core. Like wolves picking up on the scent of blood, the reporters grew hungry as they wove dramatic stories from the footage. In an instant, headlines started questioning whether Xiang Ning was a teenage hero or a rebellious teenager.

“No way, even if the beast core is priceless, based on his actions on the battlefield, he shouldn’t be doing something like this.”

“Have they made a mistake? What if it’s a guy that just looks like him?”

“Didn’t you read the article underneath? He recently woke up and the reporters couldn’t find him. There hasn’t been a stampede lately, and this incident happened. Is this all just a coincidence?”

“You make sense.”

The internet erupted in discussion. Netizens were most interested in topics like these as they put their imaginations to work. They could say whatever they wanted on the internet, and it entertained them.

“Oh no, what are we going to do?” Li Zimo was at a loss.

The other two girls’ brows were tightly knitted. There was still wiggle room in other places, but this was a high-level military zone so he was definitely a fish in a barrel. They only hoped that Xiang Ning didn’t do anything else and could lie his way out of it, claiming ‘teenage angst’. Perhaps he could ride the wave by borrowing his relationship with Mr. Dong.

But Li Zimo’s face darkened when he saw Xiang Ning knock a soldier unconscious on screen. You could’ve just entered without doing anything, so why’d you have to knock someone out? This is going to go on the headlines!

“What now? WHAT NOW?” Li Zimo panicked, while Liu Ruoxue lowered her head in thought. Lu Shiyu remained calm. She wasn’t worried about Xiang Ning, because she saw him as an invincible figure who could do no wrong.

After some thought, they still couldn’t find a solution. Seeing that Lu Shiyu was calm, they asked her, “Lu Shiyu, aren’t you worried?”

“Hehe, what’s there to be worried about? Have you forgotten about the time someone spread gossip to defame him in Marsh City? I believe he’ll get out of it.”

“This is quite different. He might be sent to military court, it’s a serious issue,” Li Zimo said worriedly.

“This is nothing when you compare it to Xiang Ning’s contributions. Don’t worry, if this were a month ago he would’ve needed the people behind you two to bail him out, but now.... He might not be aware of the prestige of his position. Once that thing is announced.…” Lu Shiyu smiled, but didn’t finish her sentence. That was confidential information, after all. The breeze blew her pink pair around. Supposedly it was a calm, poetic scene, but Li Zimo and Liu Ruoxue only felt goosebumps.

‘The people behind you’…. It wasn’t strange that Lu Shiyu knew about it. There were rumors in school, after all. Although they weren’t true, they were still not too far from the truth. No one knew their true identities. Lu Shiyu seemed like she knew everything and they couldn’t figure out what Xiang Ning’s position was, based on what she said.

Liu Ruoxue looked at Lu Shiyu. This transfer student had shown Xiang Ning what was basically a tsunami of friendliness since the day she’d arrived. It wasn’t normal at all; did they used to know each other? But based on how Xiang Ning acted, it didn’t seem like that.

Liu Ruoxue asked in a small voice, “You seem to know Xiang Ning well.”

Lu Shiyu smiled sweetly without a word.

Both grew more curious.

......

Meanwhile, in the research facility, Xiang Ning knew they had been discovered the moment he heard the sirens. He was anxious—although he didn’t know what the consequences were, they would definitely be bad.

“Don’t get distracted. Unless they have my consent, even the commander of Fortress Three has to wait eight hours to be able to open the laboratory doors for safety reasons,” said Alia. This was a confidential and high-level military research facility, after all. What if they were conducting research on a virus, or something else huge? If they could be disturbed at any time, it could cause experiments to go south; who would bear the costs of that?

Xiang Ning heaved a small sigh of relief. Eight hours should be enough.

Doge & Chacha's Thoughts

Aight nothing much this chapter, move along.