Chapter 859: Chapter 859
"Did the gendarmerie provide any information on where this strange tale originated from?"
He Ao’s gaze shifted to the computer screen as he asked.
"The disappeared did not mention where the tale came from,"
Jemis took a breath before continuing,
"However, the gendarmerie found some posts spreading this tale on various online forums, but when they traced the IP addresses of these posters, most of them had disappeared."
"What happened next?"
He Ao skimmed through the data on the computer.
"Subsequently, they suspected the case involved elements beyond the ordinary,"
Jemis glanced at Komo, "so they transferred the entire case to the World Tree. However, I asked them for detailed case data, which they gathered in the recent hard drive."
Komo looked somewhat embarrassed.
After the transfer to the World Tree, the investigation had just been piling up there, not progressing.
"Okay, I understand, well done,"
He Ao manipulated the mouse, sharing all the data to the Research Institute’s cloud storage while opening the investigative data from the gendarmerie in the hard drive, he slowly said, "You continue organizing the evacuation of personnel, contact me if there’s an issue."
Jemis nodded happily, left the room, and closed the door behind him.
Meanwhile, He Ao, looking at the dense addresses and various data on the screen, continued, "Contact the captain of the Mote City gendarmerie, we’ll visit the locations of those ’posters’ later. Ask him to prioritize a ’scene’ with minimal ’disruption.’"
Komo, who had been somewhat lost in thought, straightened up immediately and said, "Yes!"
"The data collected in the second round by various branches is much richer than in the first. The data from major city gendarmeries essentially complemented the deficiencies in time, location, and identities,"
a calm and competent female voice rang in He Ao’s headset from the roaring helicopter.
This was the voice of Yan Yue, who was currently in Rodan’s capital city of Eren. He Ao had tasked her with managing logistical resources, coordinating and deploying volunteers and supplies from the Three Major Organizations into the Blood Day Area, ensuring the logistics process ran smoothly.
She was also tasked with coordinating with the Research Institute’s headquarters, having them assist in analyzing data the synchronized by He Ao.
He Ao could analyze this data himself, but it would require more time, and finding extensible data could get even messier.
The Main World lacked an Eve to assist him in analysis.
Thus, using his authority as the head of the joint investigative group of the Three Major Organizations, he had Yan Yue utilize resources from the Research Institute and also granted her the power to access resources from Moonlight.
He Ao lowered his head, gazing at the tablet in his hands, which currently displayed a remotely deployed ’slide.’ Each slide was marked with little red dots, each representing a disappearance case from just before the advent of Blood Day.
"Most of the disappeared people are between the ages of 15 and 40, with deceased family members at home, matching the ’target demographic’ defined by the strange tale,"
"These individuals are heavy internet users, and it’s confirmed that they likely saw the content of the tale online. We searched this tale across the internet and found it mainly posted on websites primarily using the Yika language.
"In the neighboring countries of the Yika Republic, although the tale was also shared, it didn’t lead to noticeable ’disappearance cases.’,
"By tracking the IP addresses of these sharers, we contacted them. According to them, they saw the tale on those Yika language websites.
"Therefore, it is certain that the entire content of the tale spread outward from the ’Yika Republic,’"
The slide on He Ao’s tablet flickered, the ’red dots’ increased in number and a large irregular circle was drawn around these dots.
"By analyzing the locations of all the disappearance cases, we found,"
"All the disappearance cases are scattered in distribution, without any obvious convergence or dispersion on the map. This may be due to the unique nature of network dissemination, but all the locations of these cases don’t exceed the area currently covered by the Blood Day."
"We asked some urban legend spreaders from neighboring countries. Although they all attempted the urban legends, none of them received a call from a deceased relative as the legends predicted."
"Therefore, we currently believe that this ’urban legend’ has an effective area that coincides with the area currently enveloped by the Blood Day."
"As you guessed, this urban legend is very likely linked to the Blood Day in some way."
"I see," He Ao responded, his gaze sweeping over the tiny red dots on the tablet. He then asked, "What are the investigation results for those people who posted or forwarded the ’urban legend’ on the ’Yika language’ forums?"
"The gendarmeries provided some relevant materials, but not all.
"Therefore, we also contacted all forums where the urban legend posts appeared and obtained the IP addresses of all ’posters’ and ’forwarders,’ along with their real addresses and contact details. We then collaborated with the gendarmerie’s data to contact these ’urban legend related individuals’."
Yan Yue quickly answered,
"These people who posted urban legend information online show no obvious pattern in their distribution. Excluding those not within the Blood Day range, look," He Ao’s tablet screen changed, displaying the same maps, but now with tiny red, green, and gray dots.
Yan Yue’s voice rose again,
"Red dots represent those confirmed to have disappeared before the Blood Day event; green dots represent those who posted relevant posts but are still contactable; yellow dots represent those who aren’t in the data of the gendarmerie or the World Tree but are now uncontactable.
"Most of these people are either missing or uncontactable." He Ao watched the screen filled with tiny dots of red, yellow, and green.
The green dots were the fewest and were sparsely distributed, spread throughout Mote City and other small cities; the number of red and yellow dots was about the same.
Yellow dots signify uncontactable people, which likely means they have disappeared, although they might have disappeared before Blood Day or after it happened."
There was a pause in Yan Yue’s voice through the earpiece, as if waiting for He Ao to finish viewing the slides, then she continued,
"By interviewing those who haven’t disappeared, we found that all those who haven’t disappeared are ’forwarders’ of the urban legend,
"They saw the urban legend elsewhere and found it interesting, so they shared it,
"And those who posted the ’original posts’ have, without exception, either disappeared or are uncontactable."
"Have those who haven’t disappeared been controlled?" He Ao asked in a low voice.
"As per your previous instructions, the list has already been sent to Jemis," Yan Yue answered.
When giving the command, He Ao had mentioned that if Yan Yue found any suspected ’informants,’ the list should be sent to Jemis to have his team ’control’ and ’protect’ them.
Hearing Yan Yue’s response, He Ao looked down at the assorted tri-colored dots scattered irregularly on the map, pausing briefly before raising his hand and zooming in on the center of the map, which was Mote City.
"Where is the internet address of the person who posted the oldest post among these forum posts?"
"Let me check," There was a pause on Yan Yue’s side, seemingly checking the information, then she quickly responded, "The earliest known address of the post we found is in Mote City. The poster was a vagrant and has already disappeared."
"How many posts from the earliest ten are from Mote City? How many people have disappeared?"
He Ao continued to inquire.
"There are three from Mote City, and all ten people from the earliest ten posts have disappeared."
Yan Yue quickly responded.
The population of Mote City is about one-sixth of the entire Blood Day Area, but the overall education level is higher, and more people use the Internet, with three out of ten posts being relatively reasonable.
After a brief moment of thought, He Ao continued, "Among the eleventh to twentieth posts, how many are from Mote City? How many people are missing?"
"There are, there are five,"
Yan Yue’s voice paused for a moment, "Among the posters of the eleventh to twentieth posts, only one is not missing; he is now in a city near Rodan in the southern part of Yika."
Strictly speaking, five is not a lot; the posting of these posts is somewhat random, and twenty is not a large sample size.
"What about the twenty-first to thirtieth posts?"
He Ao thought and continued to ask.
"There are two from Mote City, and three of these ten posters are not missing, but none are in Mote City."
Yan Yue quickly responded, then paused, and asked softly, "Minister He, is there a problem with Mote City?"
He Ao shook his head as the roaring helicopter began to hover, "Send me the addresses of the publishers of the ten posts from Mote City among the first thirty."
Yan Yue quickly responded.
He Ao hung up the phone; the piercing siren echoed in the darkness as he lowered his head to glance below.
Beneath the bright streetlights, cars had blocked all interconnected roads.
Without any organized efforts, the people of Mote City could only try to find their way out of the darkness on their own.
And the disorderly ’panicked fleeing’ often significantly reduces the efficiency of the escape.
At this time, Jemis should be arranging for people to clear the traffic.
However, due to the traffic congestion, He Ao could not move by car within Mote City and had to use the helicopter from above.
He looked up at the rooftops of the buildings ahead, where a man dressed in the uniform of the captain of the Yika Republic gendarmerie was standing below the helicopter, holding the brim of his cap and looking up at the roaring helicopter blades.
Several people in the gendarmerie uniform stood behind him.
"Get ready to go down."
He Ao looked at Komo beside him, leaped down agilely like a nimble dragonfly, and landed on the rooftop.
Meanwhile, Komo glanced briefly below the helicopter, jumped behind He Ao, and steadied himself after a slight shake.
The captain dressed man approached He Ao and extended his hand.
"Mote City gendarmerie captain?"
He Ao looked at the man in front of him and shook his hand.
"Your Yika language is very impressive."
The gendarmerie captain said with a smile.
"Thank you for the compliment,"
He Ao released his hand and smiled, "You are impressive too."
A significant reason for the chaos in Mote City was that senior city government officials had run off in the first moments of the Blood Day; the gendarmerie captain in front of him was now one of the highest-ranking officials still in Mote City.
The gendarmerie captain clearly understood what He Ao was implying, gave a bitter smile, straightened his cap brim, and said, "Wearing this uniform, I have to take responsibility to the very end."
He then led He Ao towards the building’s staircase, "I’ll take you to the home of the ninth missing individual."
"The ninth missing individual?"
He Ao followed while looking at him.
"The ninth missing individual is the ninth disappearance we discovered,"
the gendarmerie captain explained,
"He is one of the earliest publishers of peculiar tales we found. He disappeared about five days after posting. By the time we reached his home, he was already missing,
"However, compared to other publishers who disappeared in parks or hotels, his home environment is relatively well-preserved,
"We’ll head straight there; we’ve already contacted and coordinated with his family before coming."
The group quickly arrived at an apartment on the fifth floor of the small building.
A gendarme stood at the door and gently knocked.
A hoarse female voice came from inside the apartment, followed by somewhat hasty footsteps.
After a brief pause, the old, rusted door slowly opened.
A wan woman dressed in a simple purple sweater appeared before everyone.
Seeing the gendarmes standing outside, she paused momentarily, then slowly said, "My son’s room is in the back; I’ll take you there."
With that, she turned and led everyone inside.
The apartment wasn’t large, and the lights were dim; the ceiling’s fluorescence seemed to be half broken, offering a weak glow.
Under this faint light was a television set with its plug pulled out, casually resting on top and seemingly broken, and a visibly old and slightly dark sofa across from it.
A little girl with two braids, wearing a red jacket, was now gently leaning against the edge of the sofa, holding on to the upholstery and half-hiding behind it while cautiously observing the people walking into the room.
"That’s my daughter,"
the leading woman said with a slightly awkward smile as she pushed open a nearby door, revealing a bedroom slightly brighter than the living room, "This is my son’s room."
The gendarmerie captain led He Ao towards the bedroom.
The bedroom wasn’t spacious, featuring only a wooden bed about one and a half meters wide and a computer desk directly opposite the bed with an old desktop computer on it.
"After the father of this child died, I’ve been busy with work and haven’t had time to chat with him; he wouldn’t tell me anything,"
the woman leaned against the door, her hands clasped together, rubbing the calluses on her fingers as she spoke softly,
"That Saturday I had the morning shift and didn’t wake him up. When I returned in the afternoon and found the door still closed, I discovered he was gone...
"This room, I haven’t touched it; he didn’t like me to touch his room, other than your previous visit, no one else has come."
"The disappearance likely occurred at midnight,"
waiting for the woman’s words to finish, the gendarie captain turned his head and explained to He Ao, "This child must have tried that ’peculiar tale’,"
he then pointed at the computer, "The forum post about the peculiar tale was posted from this computer; we’ve checked, and this computer hasn’t been infected with any viruses."
He Ao nodded lightly, his gaze sweeping across the whole bedroom.
Under the influence of the Eye of Truth, faint ’glows’ hidden in the void revealed themselves.