"What did you say?" Xuan Ji couldn't believe it when he answered the phone.

He never expected that Xiao Zheng would urgently contact him about something related to the aftermath department.

"Who leaked what online?"

"It should be Luo Cuicui, who has been spreading all kinds of true and false sensational videos," said Xiao Zheng in a deep voice. "This morning, the internet was buzzing about the out-of-season growth of plants, mixed with some news related to the bizarre deaths of those True Nature Sect believers. Fortunately, this event didn't gain much attention because it was too bizarre for anyone to take seriously. Our people have already suppressed it.

"But the abnormal plant issue cannot be suppressed. Everyone can see it with their own eyes. At first, people may have shared photos of mutated plants near their homes just for fun, like collecting a botanical guide. But later, things started to take a turn for the worse. Go ahead and play the video."

Xuan Ji propped up her phone and started the video call. The conference room was filled with busy aftermath personnel.

"Director, you have to see this!" Ping Qianru's voice came through the phone, "There's a video that might be real."

It was a small video that had gone viral online.

Pedestrians on the street had filmed it with their phones, but the camera was shaking so much that it was hard to see.

Suddenly, in the middle of a tall building, about ten floors up, there was an explosion. A fireball burst through the windows and shot out into the air, spewing flames into the sky.

To make matters worse, the building was covered in ivy, which had grown from the greenery in front of the building. It seemed as though the ivy had suddenly been injected with chicken blood, as it climbed up the building and covered the windows of the lower floors.

The vines had grown all the way up to the exploding top floor, and in an instant, they were set ablaze. The flames quickly spread along the ivy, creating a golden-red totem on the outside of the building.

The fire consumed the entire building in an instant.

In the chaotic background of the video's audio, with intermittent cries of "Call 119!" and "Oh my god!", someone suddenly shouted, "Someone is jumping off the building!"

The camera suddenly lifted up and captured a figure leaping from the tenth floor window, engulfed in flames, and crashing towards the ground like a shooting star.

"Stop, stop right here!" Xiao Zheng exclaimed, and Ping Qianru immediately paused the video.

In the video, it was clear that the person who jumped was indeed a human, but the shadow on the wall was not human - its four limbs were almost the same length, it had a pair of animal ears on its head, and three noticeable tails behind it.

Even if the angle of light could distort the human figure, what about the ears and tails?

Xiao Zheng saw it, and at the same time, millions of eyes that clicked on the video also saw it. There are always sharp-eyed people.

Within two minutes, someone pointed out that the color of the flames didn't look like a typical household fire.

Then, the eerie shadow of the person jumping from the building was screenshot and forwarded countless times, causing a stir.

"This shadow looks fake. Who photoshopped it?"

"No, look at the video and the GIF. I have another angle of it. If you want to see it, message me."

"What kind of animal is that? The shape of the tail looks like my cat at home."

"Even a chinchilla doesn't have three tails!"

"I looked it up. The keyword 'three tails' is mentioned in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, referring to a creature called 'Huan' that has 'one eye and three tails'..."

"Come on, citing the Classic of Mountains and Seas is too far-fetched."

"Let's go upstairs, the wintersweet in our school bloomed together with the lotus today! There are so many dead branches and rotten mud in the lotus pond, we don't even bother to clean it up. The flowers have been dead for years, and it's freezing cold, minus ten degrees, but they still bloomed! What's the point of talking about the Classic of Mountains and Seas? I believe in the Investiture of the Gods now!"

There were various opinions and jokes flooding the internet.

Some were made up just for fun, while others were surprisingly close to the truth.

With an organization as large as the Bureau of Paranormal Control, even if they were extremely secretive, it was impossible for them to leave no trace after decades. Moreover, there were also public activities of the folk sects and the True Nature Sect lurking in the dark, stirring up trouble...

In situations like this, the standard procedure was to contact a few special ability experts hidden among ordinary people through the aftermath department. They would propose several hypothetical scenarios of fighting to stir up confusion.

Public self-taught scientists hated seeing arguments the most and would always roll up their sleeves and join in once they saw one. The onlookers would be bewildered by their jargon and convoluted logic, and in the end, they would simply choose the explanation that seemed the most pleasing to them.

However, this protocol was familiar to the aftermath department, and Luo Cuicui was even more familiar with it. A group of experts each had their own field and style.

When they proposed hypotheses, it was always consistent with their usual thought framework. The troublemakers seemed to know them very well.

More and more videos of special abilities were being released in batches, overwhelming and focusing on blocking the few explanation directions that the experts were used to.

The experts were momentarily speechless, and the topic was out of control.

"I'm just a temporary worker," Xuan Ji sighed. "Who says that the 'butt-wiping department' doesn't require technical skills..."

Suddenly, Sheng Lingyuan said, "Stop the car."

"You can't stop on the highway..."

"Hush," Sheng Lingyuan rolled down the window. "Don't you hear it?"

At the same time, at the temporary headquarters of Yong'an, Yang Chao, who was busy following Ping Qianru, suddenly fell down without warning.

Wang Ze was the first to react. He shouted for someone to call the special abilities medical team while pulling out several spiritual protection gear from his pocket.

Without hesitation, he stuck them onto Yang Chao's body and asked, "Is there a spiritual attack? Where did it come from? What is it targeting? Captain Shan, come and take a look!"

In the chaos, Xiao Zheng, who was holding his phone, hadn't had a chance to go and check when one of his subordinates from the central dispatch office came running towards him, gasping for breath. "Director Xiao!"

Xiao Zheng was on the verge of collapse. "What's happened now?"

"Sixteen sub-bureaus across the country have simultaneously sent out abnormal energy alerts, saying that they have detected a sound wave similar to 'Echo Sound' in their local areas."

"What?" exclaimed Xiao Zheng.

Xuan Ji didn't care about traffic rules and slammed on the brakes.

"What's going on?"

As the car noise faded away, a faint buzzing sound suddenly caught Sheng Lingyuan's ear from all directions. He focused his attention on listening carefully for a while and said, "This is troublesome."

It was a big problem.