togophonebook Chapter 577 We've reached a dead end, let's play for a while first.
Chapter 577 We've reached a dead end, let's play for a while first.
How did Garuda pull Bai Lili from Shanghai into the Dreamlike Vision?
This problem had been bothering Su Tianqing ever since she woke up in the morning.
The reason is simple—if Garuda has the ability to drag Bai Lili from Shanghai into the dream world, then its coverage area will be almost all major cities in the country, and countless people will be included in the danger zone.
This is a pretty terrifying thing.
Therefore, Su Tianqing even decided to temporarily suspend her exploration and analysis of the dream imagery, entrusting this matter to Chi Xue, while she went to meet a crucial person—
Chengdu Tianfu International Airport, Terminal 1.
Inside a VIP room firmly concealed by perception-concealing magic, three people sat facing each other across a coffee table. A tall, fair-skinned girl held her phone and carefully looked through it, while the cat and fox on the other side of the table calmly watched her.
After a long silence, the girl looked up, about to say something, when she suddenly met the Hellcat's heterochromatic eyes and instinctively trembled.
"...Can you stop looking at me like that in the middle of the day? Don't you have any self-awareness about how you look at yourself at midday?"
"Hmm?...Is there anything different about my eyes?"
Hearing Bai Lili say this, the catgirl was puzzled and turned to the golden fox girl beside her, asking curiously,
"Fox, can you help me check if I didn't wash my face properly this morning?"
"No, it's perfectly clean." Su Tianqing stared at the catgirl's face for a long time, puzzled, but couldn't see anything wrong.
The two turned their attention back to Bai Lili.
Those cat-like eyes, with their pupils shrunk to a vertical line, had a sharp and oppressive feel to Bai Lili, but Xin Yuehu seemed to be used to it and didn't see anything unusual at all. Instead, she felt a little embarrassed by her own nervousness.
"cough……"
With a light cough, Bai Lili composed herself and placed her phone on the table. The screen displayed a photo of the half-empty egg that the Hero Association had copied.
"I think I understand why you came all this way to pick me up at the airport. You want to get some inside information from me, right?"
"Of course." Hellcat nodded in acknowledgment without any attempt to hide it.
Bai Lili was already used to the catgirl's straightforward personality. She glanced at the unfathomable Xin Yuehu beside her, swallowed hard, and tentatively asked:
"Although according to the rules... as a magical girl dispatched for support, I should first report to the local Hero Association and announce the support period in the newspaper or online media, while conveying relevant information and specific details..."
"This is a special case, so we'll handle it specially," Xin Yuehu replied, still wearing a polite smile.
Although Bai Lili saw the smile as something a fox offering New Year's greetings to a rabbit with ill intentions, in this Rongcheng, if she didn't cooperate, who knew what kind of wonderful little gadget Xin Yuehu might pull out from under her skirt to seduce her?
Not to mention the Hellcat on his face, who looks relaxed and carefree but can actually unleash a whole combo in a second.
"In short, Miss Bai Lili." After exchanging pleasantries, Xin Yuehu got straight to the point.
"When you experienced those dreamlike images last night, could you describe what you were doing at that time?"
"Do something... um... let me think..."
After muttering to herself for a while, Bai Lili softly recounted what had happened before she went to bed last night.
"Last night I had Haidilao with Bladderwort and Clover because we ran into the Sequoia team from the US who were on a tourist trip, so I dragged them along to eat together."
"Redwood Squad? I vaguely remember them. Isn't that the squad that was in the news last time, the one that chases after tornado monsters all over the place every year?" Hellcat quickly said.
"It's that one. Hey, let me tell you, they're actually quite shy, especially Sequoia. When I went up to chat with her, she was very shy the whole time, but she's so likable."
Bai Lili, as if energized, quickly introduced the two people in front of her.
Su Tianqing listened with great interest, not minding that Bai Lili changed the subject. After all, she needed to gather all the information about what happened last night in order to piece together the complete truth.
"We ate until 9 p.m. before going home. I got home and took a shower at 10:30 p.m., so I played some games for a while and went to bed around 11 p.m.
"You've only been playing for half an hour? I bet you lost terribly."
"...Haki Cat, can you be serious for once? Don't bring up things you don't want to talk about," Bai Lili said with a stern face.
"After that, I had a strange dream. I dreamt that I was fighting with a strange person who looked a lot like you in the sky above Shanghai. As we were fighting, a super thick fog suddenly rose around me. I couldn't see anything around me in the sky, so I just stayed still and didn't dare to move."
"After the fog cleared, I appeared in that mental world."
The description was quite familiar; the cat and fox were no strangers to the thick fog in this dream. It seems that this was Garuda's standard starting gesture when dragging the victim into the illusion.
"Everyone knows what happened after that, so I don't need to go into details."
"Hmm, now that you mention it, it seems you haven't done anything special, and you've only met with people you usually know. It's also difficult for the Redwood Squad to have any connection with Garuda in the United States."
Xin Yuehu pinched the tip of her tail and said, as if deep in thought.
"If that's the case... according to the analysis, you shouldn't have been considered a victim by Garuda. You had absolutely no chance of coming into contact with it."
"That's right, I also find it quite strange. I didn't even know what Garuda was before you guys told me about it, so how could I possibly attract its attention?"
Bai Lili crossed her arms over her chest and said, puzzled.
Now things have completely stalled. Bai Lili, as the victim, had no idea of Garuda's existence, and Maomao and Tutu hadn't done anything special. Why would these three people, who were so far apart, be chosen as Garuda's targets at the same time?
After thinking it over and over, Su Tianqing still couldn't figure out what had triggered Garuda's gaze, so she asked about other things that were less likely to happen.
For example, the specifics of what was eaten for dinner, the type of games played before bed, and the gameplay experience still didn't yield any reliable conclusions.
The questioning and analysis ended in complete bewilderment when both parties said their goodbyes and Bai Lili rushed off to report to the Hero Association.
"We didn't get any conclusions in the end." Standing on the villain's rooftop, Su Tianqing said helplessly to the people in front of her.
Cheshire Rabbit silently jotted down Bai Lili's dictation as relayed by Su Tianqing in her notebook. After only glancing at it twice, she quietly turned the page and categorized it as a meaningless draft.
What is the selection criteria Garuda uses to choose its victims? This makes things even more mysterious.
Even the usually reliable intelligence rabbit was stumped by a problem. Staring at the summary of the experiences of all the victims before they were dragged into the dream, he still couldn't find a common pattern.
It has absolutely no pattern whatsoever, much like the "chaotic and disorderly" presence of Garuda itself.
"Tsk...that guy is too cunning..." The gray wolf girl peeked out from behind the rabbit girl and whispered.
"It's a sinister infiltration, hiding in places no one can find, and we don't even know how it got the victims there. This situation, where we can't deploy any defenses or know in advance who will be attacked... it's terrible no matter how you look at it."
The rooftop fell into an unusual silence.
Everyone racked their brains trying to think, but no one could come up with a reliable answer.
The villain squad decided to disband and go home to rest, preparing themselves to deal with the possible dream attack that night.
But to say it's a rest... after experiencing such a perplexing and even terrifying event, who can truly relax and rest peacefully?
"Why don't we go find Xiaofeng or Hualing to play with?" Su Tianqing suggested to Nan Jiayu beside her.
Nan Jiayu readily agreed. After all, as long as she was with the fox girl beside her, she would be full of energy no matter what she did. Chatting with a few friends and relaxing was also a good option.
Without hesitation, Su Tianqing immediately contacted Hua Ling, and Nan Jiayu also called Nan Xiaofeng.
Upon learning that the latter's recent exam results were somewhat shaky, and that she had been criticized by the teacher for playing on her phone in class, Nan Jiayu, as the older sister, immediately scolded Nan Xiaofeng again over the phone.
"Goodbye to your allowance this month!"
[Sister Jiayu, no!!!!]
Nan Xiaofeng ultimately lost her allowance.
"Very well, since she's excluded today, she can only go play with Hua Ling," Su Tianqing thought to herself.
With the biggest fox-sniffing monster gone, Su Tianqing immediately felt that her tail was much safer. She leisurely pulled the cat girl onto the subway and headed to the place Hua Ling had arranged to meet.
The agreed-upon location was a fairly well-known temple scenic area nearby.
When they met at the temple entrance, the two other figures beside Hua Ling startled Su Tianqing and Nan Jiayu, who had just stepped out of the subway.
"Good afternoon, Sister Tianqing and Sister Jiayu."
Hua Ling politely stepped forward to greet me, wearing a simple and neat spring dress, and said with a smile.
"Good afternoon~ I heard your school had exams recently, right? You must go out and relax after the exams~" Su Tianqing said with a smile, peeking out from next to Hua Ling to look at the two figures behind her.
The taller one was about the same height as me when I stood up and put my ears up; its wings were fluffy and full, making the whole bird look very plump.
Winged Sasha.
Standing beside her was another petite and adorable woman—also a winged human, dressed in flamboyant attire, adorned with various sparkling trinkets. However, her wingspan was much smaller than Sasha's, the eagle owl, and she was even shorter than me, making Sasha look like a giant bird in comparison.
"Hello, Hua Ling told me about you. Your name is Sasha, right?" Su Tianqing waved and greeted her.
"Ah...you, hello..." Sasha belatedly realized what was happening and awkwardly raised her wings to greet them.
The winged girl felt a strange sense of familiarity with the petite and adorable fox girl before her. Was it just her imagination?
The tiny winged creature beside her peeked out from behind the eagle owl's enormous wings, staring curiously at Su Tianqing and the catgirl for a long while before spreading its wings to greet them.
"Chirp chirp~ Good afternoon!"
"Let me introduce myself! I'm Sasha's dad!"