"However, things aren't as simple as that, nor are we just sitting here waiting to die. Our current effort isn't a hasty rescue, but a planned, purposeful gathering of all of you here. This is a brand-new world war, and we still have a very good chance of winning—"
"Enough out of you!" A young man in the crowd suffered an emotional breakdown, leaping up with tears streaming down his face and roaring, "Liars! You're all liars! It's over, everything is finished! Without a country, what can people like us do? The whole world is full of monsters! Tell me, what do we have that can win?!"
"Let me finish speaking." Su Jin tapped on the megaphone.
"Speak about what?! I don't fucking want to hear it! What more do you have to say—"
Su Jin's expression hardened at once. Turning toward Fu Hu, he pointed at the young man and ordered angrily, "Go give him two slaps across the face!"
Fu Hu strode toward the crowd with heavy steps.
Those nearby moved to get up and stop him, but seeing his menacing demeanor, not a single person dared to step forward after all.
Fu Hu glared fiercely at the youth, swung his hand left and right, and slapped him across the face twice with loud cracks, roaring a curse!
"If you don't want to win, then get the hell out!!"
Left seeing stars from the slaps, the young man was cast to the ground by Fu Hu with a shove.
With that display of violence, the entire room fell dead silent.
Su Jin said coldly, "What I have to say today concerns the future fate of everyone present, including myself, and even the whole of humanity! This is by no means an exaggeration or a joke. If there really were no hope, I wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to rescue you.
"Returning to the main point, the country has fallen, but it hasn't completely perished. That brings us back to the National Intervention Bureau where I serve. From its inception, the bureau's sole purpose was to resolve phenomena and risks that science could not explain.
"Over thirty years have passed since our founding, and we have been scouring the globe for ruins and deciphering the occult. Through years of accumulation by the state, we once excavated a critically important ancient civilization: the Maya civilization.
"The ancient Maya civilization was exceptionally advanced. Thousands of years ago, their astronomical calendar was already on par with our development level today. Most importantly... the destruction of the Maya civilization followed the exact same process we are experiencing now."
Eyes widened across the entire room, and a suffocating sensation gripped everyone's chest.
The Maya civilization? An ancient civilization had suffered the exact same disaster?!
If such words had been spoken in peacetime, people would only sneer and treat the speaker as a fraud.
Yet after living through a mysterious apocalypse that obliterated their nation and turned living humans into monsters, the Maya civilization didn't sound outlandish at all.
"You're probably thinking, if the Maya civilization is already extinct, what does that have to do with our survival?" Su Jin's expression was grave, his voice rising. "Though the Maya perished, the world did not fall entirely into the hands of those zombies, and we are certainly not the descendants of zombies.
"This proves beyond doubt that the Maya brought hope to later generations and won that war! Although we have yet to uncover why the Maya civilization was lost afterward.
"Furthermore, we excavated devices left behind by the Maya in the ruins, and we succeeded in reading and decoding their contents!"
Su Jin raised the Mi 6 in his hand, displaying it to everyone.
"Though this device is small, by our understanding, it is closer to a supercomputer. According to the National Intervention Bureau's research, its technological path was completely different from ours. Based on the naming of the excavation site, we call it Zonai technology.
"Preserved inside this device is an important recording left behind by a Maya before their death. Today, with our country gone, I believe it is time to formally share it with all of you. Please listen closely."
The few people who lived in the same room with Su Jin every day were already dumbfounded.
Sun Ya and Wei De in particular leaned in and whispered to each other.
"Is Maya his country, or the name of a planet? And that Zonai..."
"I haven't got a clue. I can't even tell which of his words are true, but he's definitely an alien, no doubt about it!"
Su Jin fiddled with his phone, feeling a surge of anxiety inside.
Much of this fabricated nonsense might seem useless, but piling on convoluted, difficult-to-understand details was remarkably effective when people's minds were shaken.
More importantly, everything was laying the groundwork for Fu Qingdai's identity as the prophesied Child of Prophecy, lending it credibility.
Yet why was it so damn hard to find a suitable sound clip right now?!
Music wasn't right, and videos with background music wouldn't work.
Any plain video of someone talking would do; nobody in this world could understand whatever came out of his phone anyway.
However, when he previously deleted adult films, he had also wiped out the regular movies on his phone—a detail he had completely forgotten.
Frowning, a stroke of inspiration struck Su Jin!
Douyin cache! Douyin still had cached videos!
Opening Douyin and tapping through, he locked onto an appropriate video in an instant.
Over two hundred people held their breath, blinking with anticipation as they waited for Su Jin to play the mysterious ancient data.
Under all their expectant gazes, Su Jin held the phone up to the megaphone.
"Please listen carefully to this audio. This is crucial information left behind by a Maya on the verge of death. Though our languages differ, our emotions are shared. Afterward, I will interpret it for you in detail."
After a brief pause, a recording of a bizarre language sounded in everyone's ears.
"Listen up, my brothers! There's nothing Lao Ba can't do, only things you can't imagine... It might not be at the same time, but it's the exact same toilet... Today I'm once again taking the challenge of eating crap... Aoli-gei, bottoms up! ...*Gag*... *cough*... *urgh*!!"
As the recording ended, Su Jin observed the crowd's reaction. His face flushed bright red, his teeth clenched tight, and he forced his eyes shut with immense difficulty.
The entire hall was gripped with sorrow, and people wiped away tears in unison.
Though they could not understand a single word of the recording, almost everyone felt the pain in their bones.
Through the raw emotion in the audio, they had reconstructed the scene in their minds.
The owner of this recording must have been preparing for a desperate, final stand against the zombies, shouting at the top of his lungs after delivering his last words to steel his courage.
Yet clearly, that desperate struggle had failed. Perhaps his throat had even been torn open... How tragic.
Su Jin lowered his phone and cleared his throat. "Now that we have heard the recording, I believe everyone feels the emotion deeply.
"However, you still don't know the full story. This was a Maya warrior sacrificing his life to protect an essential figure among their people. Based on our extensive cross-referencing with Maya records, we confirmed ten years ago that the person being protected was the Maya's Child of Prophecy and Savior—the core figure destined to end the entire disaster.
"Relying on this information, our National Intervention Bureau drew up an apocalyptic contingency plan ten years ahead of time. Yet due to rapid scientific progress in recent years, the state never took it seriously. That does not mean our bureau did nothing. Over those ten years, we made vast preparations for this plan, and now, we await only its activation!
"The apocalypse has arrived, and the Child of Prophecy, the Savior spoken of by the Maya, has already appeared in our current world... In fact, many of you sitting right here have likely seen her, or even know her personally."
Chapter 62