And from that day on, she sporadically posted photos on her account taken in Lijiang, Tibet, and Jiuzhaigou, mostly travel pictures. There were also photos of her practicing guitar alone at home, group photos with classmates at school, and so on.
If Diya's identity as an undercover agent wasn't known, Haibaihe would have believed it!
These days, it's not easy to come up with an identity for an undercover agent.
Haibaihe admired the person who assigned them this mission, casually liking the photo of them eating crayfish yesterday.
In comparison, Liang Xiao's WeChat account wasn't as active, it was empty... If it wasn't intentionally blocked, then it meant he hadn't posted anything at all.
In terms of importance, Diya was probably more important than Liang Xiao. She was like "Diaochan" and when necessary, she would be an important pawn infiltrating the target.
For a moment, Haibaihe felt that the person who arranged this task was crazy, putting Liang Xiao and Diya in the same team and even having Liang Xiao cover for her, letting her use seduction tactics.
Who could tolerate seeing their girlfriend seduce another man? Isn't that crazy? It was not considerate of their team members' emotional well-being.
She opened the chat window with Liang Xiao, thought for a while, and realized she didn't have the heart to tease him. She simply closed WeChat and started searching for information online.
At first, she searched for "Hu Yangxiang water pollution zombies," but there was no content. She didn't give up and removed the word "zombies" and continued searching. There was indeed water pollution, and there was a certain township, but unfortunately, it wasn't Hu Yangxiang.
Finally, she searched for Hu Yangxiang alone and found a encyclopedia entry mentioning that Hu Yangxiang had once produced rare metals, and that was it.
Haibaihe had to change her search to the subway. This time, more news came up. The subway, as a hotspot for urban legends, had many unverified rumors circulating.
The most famous one was the Ru Yue Station, where a Japanese girl arrived at a mysterious subway station and left a message that made people fantasize, but she never appeared again.
Haibaihe felt that this matter was not relevant for reference because the places she was in, whether it was Hu Yangxiang or the subway station, were real, but there were differences in time and space.
With her train of thought, she couldn't figure out what was really going on.
Was it a parallel dimension? She hadn't heard that fighting monsters was popular in parallel dimensions!
Haibaihe fell asleep while contemplating. Tonight's dream was still about hunting, big fish eating small fish, so simple and straightforward, without any technique.
But when she was full and floated to the surface under the warm sunlight, it was truly a beautiful thing.
Haibaihe realized that she had never seen land or encountered humans. But considering the era of megalodon sharks... perhaps humans were still monkeys at this time.
Her lineage was truly ancient and long.
She slept so soundly that she woke up at noon the next day. Haibaihe blinked her eyes vigorously to confirm that she wasn't seeing things. She had actually slept until twelve o'clock.
"I don't even need sleeping pills with you around." Haibaihe wiped off the drool from her tail and calmly tucked it under her pillow. She got out of bed, pulled open the curtains, and found the glass window blurred by raindrops. She opened the window, and the strong wind carrying rainwater rushed in, fully awakening
her.
"Such a big typhoon, such heavy rain." She closed the window, went to the bathroom to freshen up.
On the dining table downstairs, there was lunch covered with a cloth. Haibaihe heated it up and ate casually.
In the afternoon, she played games for a while, and suddenly, she had a strong, inexplicable craving for duck neck. This impulse came out of nowhere, without any reason, but she couldn't suppress it. Even after eating two bags of potato chips, the thought wouldn't go away.
She struggled for three minutes and decisively decided to brave the rain and go buy duck neck.
Life should be enjoyed with occasional surprises.
But life often takes a turn because of a seemingly insignificant thought.
Braving the rain, Haibaihe went to a nearby braised meat shop and bought some duck neck. She covered herself with a raincoat and walked through the storm. When she passed by the subway station, she hesitated for a moment.
The area where the resettlement houses were located was on the outskirts of Haicheng. That's why she rarely went home during school days. It was too far away, taking an hour by subway, plus a transfer to a public bus. If there was traffic congestion, it would take even longer.
But this year, Line 17 was going to be extended, and Haibaihe's neighborhood would finally have subway access. The new station would be called Wanghaitai, named after the landmark building in this area, which was near the port and offered a view of the sea.
The subway station was currently under construction.
Because of the typhoon, there wasn't a single person at the construction site.
Haibaihe decided to go in and take a look.
The construction fences only served as a visual barrier and couldn't prevent people from entering. She easily entered the site and saw a lot of machinery and building materials whose names she couldn't identify. The station had been mostly constructed, although it hadn't been decorated yet, the main structure was complete, and the tunnels had been excavated, ready for the installation of the tracks.
Haibaihe confirmed that there was no danger of being buried alive and looked around. When she didn't see anyone paying attention, she climbed down along the scaffolding.
Wanghai Tai was a small station, only served by Line 17, and was the smallest subway station. It had four exits and was two floors underground, with the same structure as the Gongyuan Road station.
The drainage system in the subway station was well-designed, so despite the heavy rain outside, there wasn't much water inside. She jumped into the tunnel, intending to explore.
The newly excavated tunnel was no different from others except that some sections hadn't been fitted with tracks and lacked lighting.
After walking for a while, Haibaihe realized that she was being foolish. She stopped and thought for a minute, then decided to head back and enjoy the duck neck earlier.
Just as she was turning around to go back, she caught a glimpse of a figure from the corner of her eye. Without thinking, Haibaihe ran after them, "Stop!"
The person ran fast, and from their running posture... it resembled the strange creature she encountered that day. Haibaihe's scalp tingled, and she wanted to slap herself. What was she doing, running over to investigate for no reason? But since she was already in this situation, giving up wasn't her style. She could only chase after them.
While chasing, she had a moment of inspiration and took out her phone, turning on continuous shooting mode. When the flash went off, she saw a creature similar to the one she had seen before.
It was extremely afraid of light and
swiftly burrowed into the ground, disappearing.
"Damn it!" Haibaihe stopped to catch her breath, feeling a bit foolish. She thought about it and didn't dare to pursue further. She turned around and ran back, silently praying she wouldn't encounter it again.
Fortunately, she didn't.
She successfully ran out of the subway station, almost getting caught by a staff member. "Hey, you can't come in here!"
Haibaihe pulled down the brim of her raincoat, ran into the curtain of rain, and the staff member could only watch her leave.
The first thing Haibaihe did when she returned home was to open a can of cold beer to calm her nerves. It scared her so much. How could she see that creature in this world? In that case, could there be zombies too?
Just the thought made her shudder.
Could it be that she was mistaken? This wasn't a parallel dimension but an entirely different world? Then why did she wake up in a hospital when she had clearly gone to Hu Yangxiang? And why did people who had died come back to life?
After finishing a can of beer, she still couldn't find an answer.
So she decided to start by eating the duck neck.
In the evening, while eating grilled fish with Hai Youyu, she asked, "Dad, have you ever encountered something scientifically unexplainable?"
"Plenty, which one are you referring to?" Hai Youyu chewed on peanuts without even lifting his eyelids.
Haibaihe was dumbfounded, "You've encountered many?"
"Just look at yourself, and you'll know." Hai Youyu pointed out that having a daughter with a long tail was the most unscientific thing, everything else was not worth mentioning.
Haibaihe said, "...Makes sense."
Since she had a girl with a long tail, what was so strange about having land jīng? There are countless wonders in the world. Who knows, there might even be water monsters in Loch Ness.
But... she still couldn't help but be curious.
Haibaihe looked at the photos she had taken on her phone. The dark underground, a creature about to burrow into the tunnel, only revealing its scaly legs and half of its body. It didn't resemble a human at all but more like an armadillo.