Good afternoon, listeners. It is now 2:00 PM on October 16, 2014. Here is the weather report... static... Thin fog has appeared around Shanghai, with the mist covering the entire Outer Ring Expressway, parts of the Shenhai Expressway, and most of the Huxiang Expressway... static... Although the highways remain open, all drivers, please be careful... static...
The radio was playing a somewhat garbled news broadcast, the broken, intermittent sound making anyone listening a little irritable. The old security guard in the school's guard office slapped the radio a few times, but it did nothing, so he grumbled, "It's been two days already, can't the station fix a single antenna?" He tried switching channels, but every station was full of static and crackling, so he gave up.
He didn't know that someone had already driven dozens of kilometers through the fog, racing toward the locations mentioned in the broadcast.
Jasper Xiao and Bobby Brooks were once again paired up for fieldwork. They couldn't help much in other areas, so they focused all their energy on these strange phenomena.
"This is so weird. Just a few steps back, everything was fine, and the city center is clear as day. But here, all of a sudden, there's fog everywhere." Abo adjusted the radio while driving, trying different channels, and finally said, "The signal here is super weak. If you catch half a sentence, you're lucky. And the GPS is basically blind."
"This fog forms an almost ring-shaped, irregular pattern." Jasper Xiao traced lines on the map, looking serious. "If you follow the foggy areas in a loop, it pretty much circles the entire Shanghai city center." He pointed to the area inside the ring. "The electronic blackout zone is inside this line. Let's go, drive out of the fog zone."
The Mercedes SUV's powerful engine provided excellent speed. The car shot onto the Huning Expressway, quickly escaping the fog zone. They pulled into the Westfield Service Plaza, got out, and started their routine observations.
First, they looked around—the area had a faint, hazy mist.
"There's haze all around, but the city center is totally clear..."
Jasper Xiao fiddled with the radio again. After listening to a few more stations, he muttered, "The outside stations sound totally normal, but the Shanghai channels are all stuttering messes..."
He gazed toward the city. In the faint haze, the mist wasn't obvious—ordinary folks probably wouldn't notice it at all. But Jasper Xiao knew that not far from here, a wall of fog was wrapping around the city like a barrier. Thinking back to what Ethan Zhuo said last night about the thick clouds overhead, it really felt like someone had thrown a giant dome over all of Shanghai.
This whole thing was starting to feel more and more ominous.
"Hm?" Jasper Xiao suddenly sensed something. He looked over at a nearby guy who seemed perfectly ordinary.
"What's up?" Bobby Brooks followed his gaze. The guy was also looking toward the city, holding what looked like binoculars and checking something out.
"He's a Fated One." Jasper Xiao's eyes flashed with a faint silver light—he could see the man's black boundary mark. "Looks like we're not the only ones who noticed something's off."
The man kept watching for a long while. Just as Jasper Xiao was debating whether to go over and chat, the guy seemed to reach a conclusion, hopped back into his car, and drove off—straight toward the city.
Even knowing things were sketchy, some people just couldn't stay away. For Fated Ones, after surviving the weirdest White Night, nothing could stop their curiosity.
Sometimes, you could also translate this behavior as "asking for trouble."
While Jasper Xiao and Bobby Brooks were racking their brains for ideas, another man arrived beneath the Huangpu River. It was Zhu Ming, and he showed up much earlier than Dave expected. Who knows what kind of inner struggle he went through, but coming just a day later was still a surprise to Dave. Dave was both shocked and excited—after all, Zhu Ming was a crucial part of their research.