The Creature Keeper - chapter 40

“Could it be the recent Sonar tests?” Aselan suddenly asked.

“You mean the whales beached themselves because of the Sonar?”

Sonar experiments occasionally affected whales and dolphins, but the current situation was not a case of beaching.

Tang Rou looked out at the sea.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that something in the ocean was sending a warning to humanity.

Not far behind them, several damp figures were slowly making their way ashore.

Their bluish-gray skin and dripping bodies gradually became indistinguishable from ordinary people as they walked, until they entered the city and blended into the crowd.

Except for their slightly vacant eyes, no one could tell anything was amiss.

The world was undergoing secret changes.

The gears of fate had quietly turned to the crossroads of great upheaval, yet before disaster struck, everything seemed so peaceful and calm.

The chicken soup wonton shop Aselan mentioned was indeed a famous internet hotspot, with a long line stretching endlessly inside and out.

Tang Rou and Aselan sat on a bench outside, waiting for their number to be called. Tang Rou glanced down at her list and said, “We still need to buy two bags of candy later.”

“Oh, is it for your dear, dutiful sons again?”

Tang Rou smiled, neither confirming nor denying.

Aselan’s eyes darted around, and she suddenly said, “There’s a mixer this Friday. Come with me.”

Tang Rou shook her head. “I’m not going.”

“Come on!” Aselan tried to act cute. “It’ll be awkward if I go alone.”

Tang Rou asked, “What’s in it for me?”

Aselan flared up. “You want a reward just for going to a mixer with me!”

Tang Rou looked down. “Oh, then I’m not going.”

“I’ve decided to forget that bastard Xiao Ning. Won’t you support me?”

“…”

Xiao Ning was also an engineer at the Base, Aselan’s Unattainable Flower Capricorn ex-boyfriend-a world-class ice block.

Because of him, Tang Rou had been dragged by Aselan to buy heartbreak drinks more than once.

As she hesitated, the sound of sirens wailed past.

A police car sped down the nearby road. Many people craned their necks curiously, murmuring, “What happened?”

“Could it be a robbery?”

“No way, with the Sky Eye System everywhere, who would do something that stupid?”

Tang Rou glanced over, then lowered her head, not paying it much mind.

But soon after, a second and third police car passed by in succession.

When she looked up again, it wasn’t just police cars anymore-there were also Military Tanks and Riot Control Vehicles from the Babel Tower Bio Base.

Such a display was extremely rare in peacetime.

Tang Rou stood up and saw that not far away, Military personnel had begun to clear out the crowd.

A long Cordon was drawn across the far end of the street, and Armed Personnel jumped down from Military pickups, starting to evacuate people.

“Everyone, stay back! There’s an incident ahead. Leave this area quickly!”

The glass windows emitted a faint vibration at a certain frequency, their reflections murky and unclear.

The ground beneath their feet also began to tremble, as if the earth itself was shaking.

“Could it be an earthquake?”

People inside clearly felt the tremors too and rushed outside in panic, only to be driven back by the Armed Personnel.

A loudspeaker blared from the Riot Control Vehicle, echoing through the noisy street.

“There is an emergency ahead. Please take shelter indoors!”

“Repeat, there is an emergency ahead. Please take shelter indoors!”

“Everyone, lock your doors and windows and stay inside. Do not remain outdoors.”

Tang Rou and Aselan were pushed into the wonton shop by the crowd. Through the transparent glass, they could vaguely see someone running at the far end of the street.
Some were driving cars, some were running on foot, some were picked up by military vehicles, and others were clutching their children and running frantically.

A woman came running from afar, holding a seven or eight-year-old boy in her arms. She had lost one shoe, and her hair was disheveled.

The door of the wonton shop had already been closed, but the woman rushed over and pounded on it desperately, crying and shouting, “Let me through, let me in! Please!”

The owner hurriedly unlocked the door and let the woman in.

As soon as she entered, the woman shouted again, “Pull the curtain! Stay away from the window!”

“What’s going on?” someone asked. “What’s happening?”

“What happened outside?”

Tang Rou noticed there was blood on the woman.

The noise suddenly grew louder.

“Could it be some lunatic out for revenge against society?”

“Is it a terrorist attack?!”

Someone held up their phone, their voice trembling, “Look, look at this!”

“What is it?” someone leaned over to see.

More people pulled out their phones. Someone shouted, “It’s trending!”

“Oh my god! What is that!”

“So scary! Is it special effects?”

Tang Rou also opened her phone. As soon as she tapped into her social media, she saw several explosive trending topics.

“Sea Monster”

“Sea Monster Attack”

“Monster Destroys City”

“Unknown Creature Appears in Binhai District”

Tang Rou clicked into the top trending video, but it showed a 404 error.

She found another, but it also couldn’t be played.

She scrolled through a dozen more, all unavailable. This meant the Superiors had intervened to stop the spread of information, and also suggested that whatever was in those videos would likely cause public panic.

“Why can’t we watch them!” someone shouted.

“I just saw it! It was terrifying! Something so huge you couldn’t even tell what it was rolled over and crushed a lot of people!”

“What I saw looked like a centipede blown up a hundred times! So disgusting!”

A sense of unease suddenly welled up in Tang Rou’s heart.

She thought of the whale in Binhai District.

She remembered its bitten-off, bloody cross-section.

In the silence, someone trembled and looked up, “Look… what is that?”

Everyone turned to look in the direction he was pointing.

At the end of the road, in the center of the towering modern buildings, a huge dark brown shadow bulged up like an inflated hot air balloon. Its sticky skin glistened with a crystalline, moist texture under the sunlight.

Slowly, the gigantic creature turned its body, revealing three enormous, side-by-side crimson eyes.

“M-monster!”

Someone collapsed onto the floor, the child in the woman’s arms wailed, the glass vibrated at a high frequency, and the crowd erupted in chaos, overlapping voices of discussion and horrified gasps composing a cacophony of noise.

In the distance, the giant creature crawled past, its figure disappearing into the concrete jungle.

Following closely behind was an even larger, more ferocious silhouette, making the ground tremble.

Gunshots rang out from afar.

Or perhaps, not just gunshots, but even more dangerous weapons.

Someone covered their ears and backed away from the glass window, anxiously asking the owner, “Is your glass bulletproof? Is it safe?”

The owner glanced at him silently, not answering.

How many civilian restaurant windows are actually bulletproof?