I changed the world.

Page 225

"The apartment 401, Unit 2, Building 3 of the Cuixian No. 2 residential complex was originally home to a family of four. The homeowner was a loan shark. At the end of last year, he lent out a loan to a businessman in foreign trade who needed emergency funds. However, the businessman's business failed, and he couldn't repay the loan when it matured. So the homeowner brought his loan sharks to collect the debt every day. But the businessman was heavily in debt and had sold everything he could, so he just couldn't repay the loan. He was beaten several times, but there was nothing he could do."

"Later, they came to the house and vandalized it, threatening to sell the family's daughter... In short, they kept pressuring them. Finally, the businessman came to the loan shark's house at night with a knife. It happened to be a weekend, and the whole family was home. As a result, the homeowner was stabbed to death after opening the door. Then the businessman stabbed the homeowner's wife and two daughters to death before fleeing. It is said that this man was just arrested last month and has not yet been sentenced."

"I remember the case you mentioned, the mass murder case. I saw many reports about it back then." The tall, masked man looked thoughtfully at the building across the street. "No wonder this place has such a heavy atmosphere of gloom; it's definitely a haunted house..."

"Yes, the house was later taken over by the original owner's younger brother, but he couldn't sell it either. Nobody wanted to buy it, and even renting it out was a problem. Later, the rent was lowered again and again, and finally it was reduced to one-third of the market price. Finally, a person from out of town rented it. That person ran a breakfast business nearby and didn't believe in bad luck, so he just wanted to take advantage of the cheap rent."

"and after?"

"This person stayed for about a week, and then disappeared. He was never seen again, neither alive nor dead."

"Later, the neighbors called the police, saying they heard crying coming from next door at night. The police went to the scene but found nothing. However, the next day, the neighbors also disappeared without a trace, neither alive nor dead."

"Afterwards, the downstairs neighbors also heard crying coming from upstairs. Those neighbors were followers of Buddhism and believed in ghosts and gods. They moved out that night and called the police."

"Two patrol officers who were nearby came to investigate after receiving the report, but they also disappeared. This caused a big fuss, so it was reported to the Fourth Division of the Special Investigation Bureau. The information was then classified, and I could no longer access it."

The tall hooded man said nothing more, only nodded. In their eyes, the dark "three buildings" in front of them were filled with a heavy, gloomy atmosphere, especially on the fourth floor, where the gloomy and resentful atmosphere was so thick that it almost solidified...

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Zhu Xuting was the second son of Marquis Jingbei, Zhu Chunchen. Marquis Jingbei had three sons and two daughters. Except for his second daughter, Zhu Yingwei, and third son, Zhu Xutong, who were still in school, the other children were all adults. As the only male heir, he, along with his elder brother, followed the usual path of noble families and entered the army to serve.

As nobles who participated in Emperor Huanzong's Northern Expedition, the Jingbei Marquis lineage has always had a wide influence in the military and even in the southern part of the empire. Joining the army is also the inevitable destiny of the heirs of the Jingbei Marquis lineage. It is a family obligation that cannot be changed by personal will.

When discussing the military service of meritorious officials, one cannot help but mention that after Emperor Huanzong's successful northern expedition, he felt that the military was in disarray and that many of the meritorious officials from the time of Emperor Taizu were incompetent. The descendants of these officials had become gentry, corrupt, and degenerated into pretentious playboys who were jealous of women and occupied high positions without doing any work. This seriously deviated from Emperor Taizu's original intention of establishing meritorious officials to be in charge of military affairs in order to protect the imperial family and check the civil officials.

Therefore, when Emperor Huanzong issued the "Edict on the Rules for the Inheritance of Titles by Meritorious Officials and Nobles," he legally stipulated that the sons of meritorious officials and nobles must have military experience in order to inherit titles, and that the promotion of meritorious officials and nobles must follow the path of promotion in the military, and they could not be appointed to high-ranking positions simply by virtue of their titles.

Of course, even so, it doesn't mean that children of noble families are on the same starting line as children of commoners in the military. The advantages of children of noble families exist in all aspects, from being admitted to advanced military academies without examination, to having far fewer ceilings for promotion, to receiving help from elders, relatives and friends in all aspects... In short, the path for children of noble families in the military is undoubtedly much easier than that for children of commoners.

Even so, Emperor Huanzong's reforms still played a significant positive role in the military system of the Great Zhao Dynasty and in cultivating the atmosphere of the entire noble class. This led to a considerable number of noble families transforming into something akin to the Western "military aristocracy." Of course, some descendants of noble families lacked ambition, couldn't endure hardship, and preferred a life of leisure. However, even these nobles had to complete basic military service in order to successfully inherit their titles.

Zhu Xuting is currently a squad leader in the Special Operations Team of the Fourth Division of the Special Crime Investigation Bureau. He was originally serving in a unit of the Southeast Military Region's National Defense Force, and was recently transferred to this newly established unit. In fact, his father, the current Marquis of Jingbei, Zhu Chunchen, played a key role in this transfer. The reason is simple: rumors are circulating among some high-ranking officials that the Fourth Division of the Special Crime Investigation Bureau is about to be spun off into a completely new, high-ranking department, reporting directly to the highest levels.

For noble families, information that could potentially alter the balance of power in the court, such as changes in high-level power or the establishment of new powerful institutions, is of great concern. Making arrangements in advance when such events occur is a common tactic used by some noble families.

Although this newly established institution seems somewhat risky at present, Zhu Chunchen does have more than one son, so it's worth taking a gamble. Of course, the eldest son, as the heir of the Marquis's mansion, seeks a more stable path for advancement, while Zhu Xuting, the second son, was cleverly placed into this institution.

In fact, after entering this newly established secret organization, Zhu Xuting's entire worldview underwent a complete transformation. He had never imagined that the world before him could have such a completely different side. Even those seemingly ordinary Taoist priests and Buddhist monks might have entirely different sides to them.

How much truth is there in those ancient myths and legends that seem more like tales?

These questions have been lingering in Zhu Xuting's mind lately. To address them, he even bought a considerable number of books on religion and history to read and intensively increase his knowledge in the relevant areas. In fact, this is a common action and mindset among many staff members in the Fourth Division.

Chapter 413 The Fourth Division in Action

As a newly established organization, everything is in its infancy, especially the plans and equipment for dealing with various strange events. They are being explored and adjusted as they go. At present, although strange events occasionally occur in Dazhao, they are not very common. Therefore, most of the time, the fourth branch, which is distributed in various places, focuses more on improving the organizational structure and staffing, as well as the research on contingency plans and solutions for various situations and personnel training.

For Zhu Xuting, this was his first real combat deployment, so it was inevitable that he was a little nervous.

Three armored vehicles stopped, and twelve fully armed soldiers wearing exoskeletons jumped off the vehicles and quickly formed a combat formation downstairs. The leader of the team was Zhu Xuting.

They were ordered to carry out "harmless treatment" of the building.

Two miniature drones rose silently and began to fly around the building from two directions, monitoring for any movement on the building.

Next, instead of immediately going upstairs, the soldiers, under Zhu Xuting's orders, released a series of beetle-sized robots. These robots crawled into the open building doorway and flew up the corridor. At each floor, a "beetle" would stop and attach to the ceiling, then become bright, radiating a warm light like a light bulb.

This light is extremely similar to sunlight, and quite intense, just like a high-intensity sun lamp, illuminating the entire hallway.

In fact, this "sunlight beetle" was specially developed, and its emitted spectrum is modulated according to the spectrum of sunlight. This is also an experimental device, and its main principle comes from folk mythology describing some ghosts, which includes many descriptions of ghosts fearing sunlight. Therefore, the principle of this device is to use artificial sunlight to subdue ghosts.

This equipment has reportedly been tested in an operation with good results, so its deployment is now being expanded.

Soon, the entire building was lit up. So far, nothing unusual had happened. Zhu Xuting then gave the order to leave four team members downstairs to provide support, while the rest of the team, armed with weapons, began to climb the building.

In addition to the regular personnel, two self-propelled light weapon companions, which the team members called "robot dogs," also accompanied them up the building. These were combat-type quadruped robots with a certain degree of autonomous target setting capabilities, and were about the size of an average wolfhound. Because the technology at that time had not yet developed to the point where the robots could fully define the battlefield situation autonomously, these robots required human assistance in command.

As soon as the group entered the building, an inexplicable chill enveloped them, and some soldiers even felt a sudden urge to shiver. Even though the surroundings were brightly lit by the "sunshine beetles," it did not prevent this feeling from arising, as if the brightly lit corridor was even colder than the dark night outside.

However, the data collection system built into the exoskeleton clearly told them that the surrounding temperature had not changed at all, and was even 0.5 degrees higher than outside the corridor.

This unusual contrast clearly indicated that they had entered an area prone to anomalies. These soldiers were trained and understood some known methods for identifying anomalies.

The "signal interrupted" message coming through the headset undoubtedly confirmed their assessment. Several communication spheres to enhance signal strength were quickly released. However, even so, only inter-squad communication was restored, while communication between the squad and the outside world remained very blurry and intermittent.

However, all of this was mentioned during the training and was considered a "normal phenomenon," so it did not cause any trouble for the action team.

The eight team members moved up quickly and cautiously, soon reaching the fourth floor without encountering any unexpected situations.

The chill here was even more intense than downstairs. Room 401 was located on the left side of the corridor, and under the sunlight, numerous red splatter-like marks could be clearly seen on the floor and walls.

According to previous information, these red splatter-like marks are likely human blood, traces left from a previous murder.

However, based on the information gathered by the task force, they were able to clearly determine that because the original homeowner had killed his entire family, the property rights of the house were inherited by the original homeowner's younger brother. After inheriting the house, in order to "get rid of bad luck," the younger brother specially invited a monk from a nearby Buddhist temple to come and chant sutras for the deceased. In addition, he also spent money to clean the bloodstains inside and outside the house and repaint the walls.

Therefore, theoretically, these bloodstains should no longer exist. So where did these splattered bloodstains come from?!

In fact, these marks were so red they looked like they had just been splattered, and you couldn't tell that several months had passed.

A team member quickly stepped forward and carefully photographed all areas showing splatter marks. After he finished, Zhu Xuting gave a signal, and another team member swiftly stepped forward and attached a device the size of a cigarette pack to the door of room 401. He then pulled up a retractable flexible screen on his arm, and the outlines of objects inside the room behind the door immediately appeared on the screen. However, the image didn't last more than a few seconds before it began to shake, followed by a large number of jumbled lines appearing on the screen—a typical characteristic of strong interference.

To date, humanity has not found a good strategy to deal with the intense interference caused by such bizarre events. While increasing the workload of components may be effective in some situations, firstly, high-power components inevitably increase size, affecting the weight and portability of equipment; secondly, it still cannot truly solve the problem; and finally, if electromagnetic waves and transmitted signals exceed safe limits, they can have uncontrollable effects on the health of soldiers.

Therefore, the development of next-generation communication and detection technologies has become one of the important topics in academia, and two main directions for breakthroughs have emerged: one is ultra-long-distance interplanetary communication, and the other is ultra-strong anti-interference.

The soldier tried several times but couldn't restore the image from the equipment, so he turned to Zhu Xuting and made a "no" gesture.

Zhu Xuting took a deep breath. The situation was now quite clear: behind this door lay some danger that defied common sense. However, this was something he had planned for. After a brief moment's thought, he used sign language to rearrange the arrangements.

Chapter 414 Light Pressure Bomb

Some soldiers began changing their equipment and lining up in a certain formation. Finally, one soldier took out a lump of clay-like material, stuck it to the door lock, and then stepped back.

Three seconds later, a muffled thud was heard, the door shook slightly, and a fist-sized hole was blown through the lock. Then, the door opened slightly.

One soldier kicked the door open and, without even looking closely, threw a grenade-like object into the room. Simultaneously, another soldier kicked open the door and threw in another grenade-like object.

After doing this, the two soldiers immediately stepped back, making a gesture of protecting their eyes with their arms.

At the same time, the two grenades thrown into the room exploded almost simultaneously. One of them exploded with a burst of sparks, and at the same time, a powerful electromagnetic pulse spread out in all directions from it, sweeping across all objects in the room.

The other flashbang, upon exploding, emitted a dazzling flash of light and a low-frequency noise. Unlike ordinary flashbangs, its spectrum was similar to sunlight, and at the moment of explosion, the light intensity exceeded that of normal midday sunlight by several times. If any living organisms were present in the room at that moment, the low-frequency noise could cause severe eardrum damage in an instant.

Both the "electromagnetic bomb" and the "light pressure bomb" are weapons prepared to deal with unpredictable and bizarre events. They are weapons developed by the research and development department to deal with supernatural "ghosts" whose causes are still unknown.

Just as the two bullets exploded, a series of unusually sharp, angry roars echoed in the room. The sound was so terrifying that it evoked an instinctive sense of fear in anyone who heard it.

If I had to describe it in one word, it would be "the howling of ghosts and wolves".

Immediately afterwards, in the still-lingering flash of the explosion, two dark figures darted out of the room with lightning speed and rushed toward the soldiers at the door.

The soldiers reacted quickly; even as the roar erupted, before they could even clearly see what was inside the room, they instinctively raised their guns and began firing. Their weapons and ammunition were special models; the bullets would ignite upon contact with objects.

The two dark figures were hit by a barrage of bullets, and their movements slowed down instantly. At the same time, the light in the room began to dim. The grenade was still shining steadily and was still quite bright, but it was now within the range of what the naked eye could see.

At this moment, the soldier standing at the front also clearly saw the faces of the two dark figures. They were clearly two humanoid creatures on all fours. The reason they were called "humanoid creatures" instead of "humans" was because their mouths were split open to their ears, revealing sharp fangs, and their eyes were completely black. They did not look like normal humans at all.

The monster was emitting wisps of visible black smoke and some blistering, clearly indicating that the two special grenades had been effective.

After being targeted by concentrated fire, the two monsters advanced a few more steps amidst the hail of bullets, but ultimately failed to reach the soldiers and were reduced to dust with a "bang".

For safety reasons, the soldiers did not enter immediately. Instead, they threw two more grenades inside. After waiting for about a minute and seeing that no more monsters rushed out, the soldiers began to systematically enter the house to clean it up, following Zhu Xuting's sign language command.

Room 401 was a residence of about 150 square meters with three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a balcony. After entering the house, the soldiers began to search each room one by one.

They operate using a fixed pattern: first, they throw "light pressure grenades" into the room to be searched; when any potential ghosts are provoked and rush out to attack, they unleash concentrated fire. The special coating on their exoskeleton armor masks makes it easier for them to see their surroundings in bright light.

While searching the kitchen, a monster lurking in the ceiling tore through and rushed out, injuring one soldier, but was quickly killed by another soldier who smashed its head into ashes.

About five minutes later, all the rooms were "cleaned up," and after destroying another monster in the master bedroom, the soldiers found no other monsters in the rooms.

Meanwhile, communications, which had been severely disrupted, were restored. All the team members breathed a sigh of relief, as the situation seemed to have been resolved.

After giving a brief report to headquarters, Zhu Xuting began directing his team to conduct a thorough search and cleanup of the house, while also notifying the team members waiting downstairs to come up and assist with the search.

The scene was cleaned up, all suspicious items were searched, and taken back to headquarters for safekeeping. This was the final task the operatives had to perform after completing their main mission. This was primarily because, given the current level of human understanding, the mechanisms underlying paranormal events were unclear. Therefore, collecting and analyzing items from paranormal event sites became a research method. At the same time, sealing these items also served as a security guarantee.

Soon, the soldiers responsible for providing support downstairs quickly went up to the fourth floor and entered the building. Besides providing support outside, these soldiers were also responsible for calling for reinforcements from headquarters should their comrades at the front become trapped. Now, after the incident was resolved, they would also help clean up the scene.

A soldier was carrying a metal briefcase. He opened it after entering the room. Inside the briefcase were rolls of thick, black bags made of a special material. These bags looked somewhat like plastic bags, but they were actually different. They were containers woven from a special material, which had great strength and could insulate against various magnetic fields and radiation.

After the soldiers took the bags from him, they went to their respective rooms to clean up the items. Even so, each room had at least three people in each group, with one of them always keeping a gun on guard to prevent any unforeseen events from happening.

While his subordinates were cleaning the rooms, Zhu Xuting also walked around the various rooms, observing their actions while also taking in the house.

The light pressure grenades that had been thrown into the house earlier had not yet extinguished, but the light and flame were already within the range that could be seen by the naked eye. After the momentary burst of intense light, these grenades would transform into a stable light source for a considerable period of time, thus providing a stable lighting source for the battlefield.

At this moment, it was as if a bright fluorescent light had been turned on in several rooms, illuminating every detail inside.

Chapter 415 The Girl in the Picture Frame

The living room, master bedroom, and study were quickly cleaned up, and some items that might be valuable or suspicious were collected, labeled, and returned to the car.

Zhu Xuting followed the three soldiers into the second bedroom, the last room in the residence to be cleaned. Against the west wall was a spacious bunk bed for children, with a bedside table at the head. On the east side was a cabinet full of drawers. Judging from the room's layout, it had clearly been a children's room before; the walls were covered with crayon drawings, and the south wall was decorated with certificates and other items.

Upon entering the room, the three soldiers began to organize the items. Two soldiers started searching through the drawers of the cabinets one by one, while one soldier, holding a weapon, looked around to prevent any potential problems.

However, since the whole incident seemed to have been resolved, the atmosphere at the scene appeared quite relaxed.