The Invasion Day – Chapter 42

Table of Contents | Character Guide

Chapter 42

Miao Jia had noticed Fu Shiwu and Tang Xuhai a long time ago. He was one of the people who accidentally caught sight of Fu Shiwu’s marksmanship.

But unlike other people who couldn’t see through his mysterious technique, Miao Jia spotted that Fu Shiwu’s shooting angles were always carefully calculated. Even the aliens’ actions that followed the shots could be accurately estimated by him.

The little policeman with terrible marksmanship was flabbergasted on the spot. It might be nothing too special to plan the shot’s trajectory based on the target’s current motion, but to make the target hit the bullet was another thing!

Miao Jia could be considered a genius specially recruited by the police. He actually didn’t know his parents and grew up in an orphanage. The orphanage had pretty decent facilities, with a computer room donated by a philanthropist. This gave him access to computers since he was little. 

Miao Jia had an extraordinary talent for computers. At a young age, he was able to write programmes by himself. But because of his youthful ignorance, he used this talent to wreak havoc.

The police were stunned when they found him after tracing his physical address. This kid wasn’t even a teenager.

At that time, because of his young age, the punishment was very light, simply subjecting him to a disciplinary period.

However, this disciplinary period didn’t make Miao Jia any more obedient. Everyday, he had to do labour work and wasn’t allowed to touch the computer, which was no less than torture.

In the end, this kid with a high IQ came up with a clever way to pay for his punishment with his own computer skill. Over and over again, the police learnt to cherish his talent and even agreed to let him off. By the time his disciplinary period was over, Miao Jia had gathered enough experience and headed straight to the police academy.

In order to prevent one more potentially dangerous person from getting out of control, Miao Jia, although young, was specially welcomed by the police academy and was eventually assigned to his hometown after graduation.

Miao Jia had never been one who liked activities that consumed physical energy, so back in the academy, he sweet-talked the teachers into turning a blind eye to the results of his marksmanship and physical tests.

He had also seen some stellar sharpshooters back there, but when compared to Fu Shiwu, they were simply amateurs!

Miao Jia himself was a technical person without any bit of combat ability, one who was doing logistical support at all times. To send him to battle was as good as sending him straight to death. When the apocalypse happened, Miao Jia ran to the public sector’s unit in the central warehouse to get some clothes and food, but no one paid any attention to him. As such, the young man dejectedly left.

Most of the field agents of the police force had sacrificed by now. Those who ended up at this central warehouse were all office and administrative staff who had been assigned here way in advance. The proud Miao Jia scoffed at their technical skills, for they were nowhere comparable to his. Thinking that these people’s positions in the force and strength weren’t much better than him, Miao Jia simply chose to leave the warehouse reserved for civil servants and mix into the civilians’ warehouse instead.

Prior to all this, he entrusted his laptop with someone to customise it into a supercomputer, raising its performance to new heights. As Miao Jia nested in the warehouse, beside eating steamed buns, drinking water and sleeping everyday, he used the laptop to infiltrate the army’s network and borrowed the satellites to read various news from the world out there that hadn’t completely disappeared.

Thanks to his contact with the outside, Miao Jia knew the changes that were happening much better than those kept in this dark, sunless warehouse, who could only shrink in the corner and agonise about the future of humankind.

Using military satellites, he could even see any alarming movement of the alien waves. The army wasn’t prepared to deploy their troops to deal with these alien waves at all, which had Miao Jia’s heart waver and become even more hopeless.

The battle last night gave Miao Jia a hope that if the army insisted to stay here to defend Yun City’s central warehouse, relying on people who were more powerful than him could at least help him keep his life.

So when he spotted Fu Shiwu and Tang Xuhai paying close attention to mutated weeds, Miao Jia felt that the opportunity for him to show off his talent had come!

But he didn’t expect these two tough nuts to be so cruel that they hurt his young and fragile soul. Miao Jia was so scared he could melt into a puddle any time now.

Tang Xuhai declined to comment about Miao Jia’s plea to join them, but Fu Shiwu felt very moved.

Nowadays, apart from watching the TV in the military camp, they couldn’t get any outside news. This made Fu Shiwu very uneasy. Perhaps it wasn’t a bad idea to have an intelligence specialist in their team?

Fu Shiwu glanced briefly at Tang Xuhai and their eyes met. In that split second, he could see an almost unnoticeable nod. The two of them obviously had the same thought, but Fu Shiwu couldn’t just accept Miao Jia’s plea so directly. If he readily agreed, Miao Jia, who didn’t seem to be the easiest to keep in control, might underestimate them and go amok at one point in the future.

Also, facing such a faint-hearted brat, Tang Xuhai just had the urge to educate him properly to let him know what a soldier’s style actually looked like.

Miao Jia was absolutely oblivious to the fact that Tang Xuhai had quietly considered him a new recruit and that soon after, he would receive brutal training, the sort that Tang Xuhai beautifully labelled as ‘legit self-defence class’!

The three men lingered around the place till evening. By the time Wen Zhaoming came back from his talks with others, Fu Shiwu and Tang Xuhai were still learning about the situation outside under Miao Jia’s lecture. As Wen Zhaoming approached them in his electric wheelchair that was almost running out of battery and heard the conversion, he immediately joined in with beaming eyes. 

Miao Jia gave Wen Zhaoming a concise summary of the situation and showed him the pictures.

“Plants are the latest to start going through mutations. Before that, animals, especially mammals and birds, were already affected by the heterogeneous molecules. In fact, in the first seven days, when everyone thought it was a large-scale epidemic, there were a large number of mammal and bird deaths, but this matter didn’t attract much attention. Back then, most people’s attention was all on those who got sick, while some were watching the changes in the sky.” Miao Jia licked his lips as he had talked until his mouth turned all dry.

Fu Shiwu glanced at him, then turned around and poured him some water.

“Thank you, Fu ge.” After being continuously ‘interrogated’ by the two in the afternoon, Miao Jia felt touched with just this little gesture of care from Shiwu.

After taking a big mouthful, Miao Jia let out a long breath and said to Wen Zhaoming: “Later, poultry started dying. After various farm and factory owners complained, the government finally issued an order to destroy all the dead livestock on the spot. This matter was also on the news but was mentioned only briefly. It never made any big deal at all.”

Wen Zhaoming understood and nodded at once. At that time, people were panicking and focusing on the whole situation and the astronomical phenomenon. Who would have the time to take care of livestock?

“The first mutated animals that appeared in Huaxia were from the Capital Zoo.” Miao Jia switched to a new set of pictures that showed several large animals: “This brown bear and Asian elephant suddenly increased their strength, then they destroyed their cage and ran out. Some wild antelopes mutated and straight away jumped over the railings.” 

“This is only the earliest stage.” Miao Jia emphasised, then he moved on to another set of pictures: “Look at these, these are all special ability animals found in S province, the nearest to our H province.” 

“Special ability animals?! Are you saying they have special abilities?!” Wen Zhaoming exclaimed in bafflement.

“Indeed, I meant exactly those words.” Miao Jia nodded solemnly: “Although I don’t know how these heterogeneous molecules make people mutate and awaken their special abilities, they are being fair to all lives on Earth. Not only animals but also plants with special abilities have appeared. Now scientists have categorised humans, animals and plants that have awakened into heterogeneous humans, heterogeneous animals and heterogenous plants respectively. It’s just that the those who know things are accustomed to directly calling them special ability users, special ability animals and special ability plants.”

“Not only that, they even accurately classify mutations and abilities. It’s said that it could be predicted based on the number of heterogeneous molecules in the human body, but this procedure hasn’t been officially announced. Even I don’t know much about it.” Miao Jia said.

Wen Zhaoming looked at the naive-looking young man in horror, then he cast a strange glance at Tang Xuhai and Fu Shiwu.

Before Wen Zhaoming came back, Tang Xuhai and Fu Shiwu had already learnt of similar information, so by now, they could silently hold back their astonishment.

Wen Zhaoming blinked and quickly calmed down. Miao Jia had a very useful talent, but if they wanted to keep him in control, at least they shouldn’t lose their cool in front of him.

“The primary forest in S Province has very rich flora, which is probably why the first animals with special abilities emerged there. At first, only larger animals had them, like tigers, wolves, and deer, until the situation spread also to cattle in the farm…”

Tang Xuhai and Fu Shiwu had heard it once before, but they were both shaken when they listened to Miao Jia one more time.

Wen Zhaoming swallowed hard: “I think I need to brush up my persuasion to get more people to join our team.”

Tang Xuhai said with a low voice: “You’re right. If we leave Yun City and go into the wild, beside facing the threat of alien waves, we might encounter plants and animals with special abilities.”

“The threat posed by special ability plants isn’t the most severe now. Experts predict that within a short time, the chance of plants evolving into having special ability is pretty low. These days, large animals, except those raised by humans, are rarely found in the wild, so the odds of encountering them are also low, at least lower compared to encountering a wave of aliens.”

As Wen Zhaoming heard those words, the corner of his mouth twitched. Wasn’t this nature’s payback after humanity had over-exploited it all these years?

Fu Shiwu pushed up his glasses and said: “Also, we need to modify the vehicle a bit more.” 

Wen Zhaoming looked back at the almost unrecognisable SUV. Just within the last day, Tang Xuhai had brought in lots of iron bars and used his metal-control ability to turn them into accessories, directly integrating them into the car.

Their black off-road car that used to carry a calm and high-end aura had now turned into a sturdy-looking car that seemed to be used for escorting prisoners.

But Wen Zhaoming didn’t agonise over the current state of his car. He asked: “How are you planning to modify it?”

Fu Shiwu seemed to think of something and turned to look at Tang Xuhai: “I think we’re still quite restrained with the modifications.”

“Restrained?” Looking at the car, Miao Jia wouldn’t describe it as impenetrable, but it seemed at least secure at all angles. How was this ‘restrained’ at all?

But Tang Xuhai didn’t question Fu Shiwu. After all, Fu Shiwu studied landscape design. Although it was very different from industrial design, from a designer’s point of view, maybe he could come up with some whimsical ideas that a layman wouldn’t think of?

Fu Shiwu said: “Yes, we can be bolder.” He turned around to tell Tang Xuhai: “Since you already use your metal ability to modify the accessories, why can’t you just directly modify the vehicle?”

“Huh? “Tang Xuhai straightened up at once: “Tell me more.”