Chapter 235 - 232: Flesh Depot and Net

Chapter 235: Chapter 232: Flesh Depot and Net

When Huang Jiutian arrived at headquarters, Tao Xingzhi was already waiting for him.

He didn’t bother parking in the lot, instead speeding right up to the entrance.

He got out of the car with two Dawn Members dressed in black robes.

There was no time for pleasantries. After a brief greeting and a handshake, they followed Tao Xingzhi to the strategy room.

One of the two arriving Dawn Members was a relatively old acquaintance of Tao Xingzhi’s.

He was the Magic Controller known as Mr. Yan, who had accompanied him on the trip to Russia. The other was a Magic Controller known as the Fortune-Teller.

It was a coincidence that they had run into Huang Jiutian.

Due to the urgency of the situation, they had rushed to Kyoto, only to discover upon arrival that the matter might be even more difficult than they had imagined.

They happened to sense Huang Jiutian’s presence nearby and thought of cooperating with the Special Security Team, which led to the current situation.

Even though the situation was dire, they couldn’t afford to skip this meeting.

This was Kyoto, the most important city in the Hua Country. They couldn’t just roll up their sleeves and act recklessly.

Inside the large, tiered conference room, over a hundred elite agents on duty at headquarters had already gathered in a short time.

This was no time for a lengthy assembly. Tao Xingzhi had already given a simple briefing before Qin Xiaoxia arrived.

So as soon as the people from Dawn arrived, Tao Xingzhi led them directly to the stage of the tiered conference room.

On the large screen behind them was a map of Kyoto.

It highlighted the location where the Soul-Host Spirit Mother Body was first discovered, but since it was on a moving subway train, this information was as good as useless—they had no idea where its journey had begun.

Because a Technique had been prepared in advance within the courtyard house in the Kyoto Secret Realm, everything happening in the Special Security Team’s conference room was currently being projected there via Qin Xiaoxia’s Magic Power, allowing more than seventy Dawn Members to watch the meeting as if they were present.

Qin Xiaoxia only spoke to add a few supplementary points. The key part of the meeting was discussing the most suitable method of cooperation with the Special Security Team. No matter how much authority the Special Security Team had, there were still numerous concerns to address in a major city.

However, Tao Xingzhi had clearly already communicated with the higher-ups. The bottom line was to completely eradicate the Soul-possessing Spirits. As for any disturbances that might occur in the process, the Kyoto government and the national authorities would handle the cleanup afterward.

The biggest concern for the higher-ups was the spread of the Soul-possessing Spirits—had they already gotten outside of Kyoto?

On this point, with Su Su present, it was directly asserted during the meeting that they had not yet spread. However, she couldn’t pinpoint specifics due to a lack of necessary information for divination.

Furthermore, a characteristic of the Soul-possessing Spirits was their reliance on familiar territory. Especially since hosts parasitized by the flesh-and-blood creatures could still think, familiar environments were naturally more suitable for "foraging."

After more than half an hour of mutual discussion and exchange, the meeting was drawing to a close. This time spent was absolutely necessary to avoid them all running around like headless chickens.

One point was unanimously agreed upon during the meeting.

The Parasite Spirits had likely not spread too widely yet. Given Kyoto’s level of surveillance, there had been no major news stories or widespread panic, and the public security system had not received any similar sighting reports.

Tao Xingzhi concluded by saying:

"These horrific, mutated Parasite Spirits are an aggressive threat. Kyoto City, with its resident and transient population in the tens of millions, absolutely cannot be allowed to become their meat locker!"

...

Immediately after the meeting concluded, the Kyoto City public security system received orders to cooperate fully. All sensitive cases, including recent missing persons reports and violent crimes, were compiled.

Within the medical system, personnel were dispatched to investigate every hospital, large and small. They were to compile and centralize the records of all individuals who were recently pregnant, suspected of being pregnant, or had even undergone a pregnancy test. The locations were to be monitored twenty-four hours a day, with indistinctly-faced Dawn personnel arriving at irregular intervals to use their Perception.

Across the various transportation systems, from bus routes to subway station entrances, patrols and inspections began.

Even Qin Xiaoxia and the Red Demoness weren’t idle. They used their Perception, far superior to that of others, to patrol various parts of the city by car.

Only Su Su remained at headquarters, just like Tao Xingzhi.

This was because as soon as a target was killed, someone would immediately transport the body to headquarters. Su Su could then use the corpse as a medium for Magic Divination to locate a significant number of other Parasite Spirits originating from the same mother.

In order to mobilize enough manpower, check a sufficient number of areas, maintain a degree of secrecy, and ensure a clean, one-shot kill without alerting the enemy or leaving future trouble, all preparations were first carried out covertly and intensely.

Even the Soul-Host Spirit Mother Body that Mo Shaoge and his team had been tracking was now being controlled by the Red Demoness’s Magic Power. They hadn’t killed it yet, nor had they let Su Su blindly use her Magic Power to attempt divination on it, to prevent the Parasite Spirits’ hive-mind-like senses from causing unforeseen complications.

The military had also quietly moved into the outskirts of Kyoto City over the past two days. Military forces and Dawn personnel were deployed at every highway entrance, airport, and station.

The process of fully deploying all these major systems throughout Kyoto City had already taken more than two days, but no matter how urgent the situation, this tight dragnet absolutely could not be pulled in while it was still full of holes.

...

The moonlight streamed into the room, coating two naked bodies in a silvery sheen.

It was already 12:00 AM.

The man caressed Lu Li’s soft chest, already hard again as he pressed against her from behind.

"Mmm! What are you doing? You want to go again...?"

Lu Li had been on the verge of sleep. Feeling her boyfriend’s restlessness, she grabbed his roving hand.

"Well, Lily, what can I do? I can never control myself when I’m with you!"

"I don’t care. I have to get up early tomorrow. It’s too late to be fooling around with you... Hey, hey, don’t... Ah..."

Before Lu Li could finish, he pinned her down on her stomach. But before the man could chuckle slyly and put his hips into it, a wave of nausea suddenly washed over Lu Li.

"BLECH—No, Brother Yan, wait, GACK—I need to go to the bathroom!"

Seeing that the girl wasn’t faking it, her boyfriend immediately moved aside. She dashed naked into the bathroom, and the sound of violent retching, "GACK... URP...", followed.

When she came out rubbing her stomach, the girl’s face was pale.

"Brother Yan, I’m not... pregnant, am I?"

Actually, her stomach had been feeling uncomfortable occasionally for the past two days. Her appetite had been poor, and besides meat, she could barely stomach vegetables or rice. She had felt nauseous before, but had always chalked it up to a loss of appetite or an upset stomach.

Now, it seemed she might actually be pregnant.

"Huh?"

The man was also stunned for a moment.

"No way... Don’t you take the pill?"

"Yeah... but the pill isn’t a hundred percent effective! It’s all your fault, why don’t you ever wear one of *those*!"

Her boyfriend felt a little wronged and muttered under his breath.

"You’re the one who doesn’t want me to wear one..."

"What did you say?"

"N-nothing. Lily, how about I take you to the hospital for a check-up tomorrow?"

Her boyfriend’s words reminded Lu Li that she’d had a pregnancy scare before. She thought she still had a pregnancy test stick she had bought back then.

She ran into the bathroom again. When she came out this time, she was sighing.

"Sigh... I really am..."

Her boyfriend looked at the pregnancy test she handed him, stunned for a few seconds.

"Why don’t we get married? Let’s have the baby!"

Lu Li was touched that her boyfriend’s first reaction was to get married rather than get an abortion, but then she thought about their current situation.

"We can’t afford to get married or raise a child... Forget it, let’s just sleep for now. We have to get up early tomorrow. It’s not like we have to decide whether to keep it tonight."

The two of them embraced, facing each other as they lay down, temporarily setting their worries aside.

About ten minutes later, her boyfriend was already asleep, but Lu Li couldn’t calm her mind. Whenever she closed her eyes, all she could see were images of a butcher’s stall at the wet market.

She couldn’t help but open her eyes, her heart in turmoil as she looked at her sleeping boyfriend.

’What’s wrong with me? Does getting pregnant do this to you? Meat... I feel like I need to find some meat to eat... Meat...’

’Compared to pork, meat that’s still alive seems so much more appealing...’

The girl suddenly shivered, startled by her own thought. She quickly squeezed her eyes shut.

’Sleep, just sleep!’

But half an hour later, Lu Li, still tossing and turning, slowly opened her eyes again. Her gaze was fixed intently on her boyfriend.

...

At 7:00 AM, Lu Li got up, washed her face, and got ready. After coming out of the bathroom, she returned to the bedside, picked up her boyfriend’s phone, and dialed a number from his contacts.

"Hello, is this Manager Lu? Ah, I’m Brother Yan’s girlfriend. Yes, that’s right. It’s like this, Brother Yan is sick. We went to the hospital for a check-up last night... Mm, it’s nothing serious, but he might need to take a few days off. He was insisting on going to work sick, so I secretly used his phone to call you... Uh-huh, thank you, sir. I’ll be sure to tell him!"

She hung up the phone and reached out to wipe away a drop of blood on the edge of the bed.

"Ah, off to work, off to work... Time for the morning meeting~"

Lu Li’s abdomen showed no sign of swelling at all, but if one were to lift her shirt to expose her stomach, they would discover a massive "scar."