Chapter 417 — Dipping In Again
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 3
"What in the world is all this..." Gao Yang was dumbstruck. "...Can't these cultists just do some proper work, like seriously plotting to overthrow the world? Give them a network and they can't hold back the gossip?"
Though he knew much of this information had simply been posted by some Sleeper or other on a whim, Gao Yang still could not keep the corner of his eye from twitching several times when he saw certain familiar turns of phrase. In his past life as a keyboard warrior, he too had been an aficionado of memes at what might be called a late-stage, full-body-metastasis level—but he had never imagined he would become part of a meme himself, as one of the parties involved!
Still, having spent a million years hanging in the sky as a satellite and seen a thing or two, Gao Yang recovered himself after only a brief stupefaction, then continued browsing the rest of the network with a helpless smile.
He first looked into the Sleepers' overall activities in the South, and found that their operations there seemed to be entering a lull... Their superiors had explicitly ordered the faithful to keep a low profile in the South... Was this out of fear of conflict with him, the "Vagrant from Beyond"?
Gao Yang found this both amusing and exasperating, but at least it was a good thing, so he kept reading.
Next, he saw that the Sleepers seemed to be watching the outbreak of civil war in Ansul as well, though he found no sign for the time being that they had joined in the fighting.
And after that, he unexpectedly came across some news related to the Children of the Storm:
"The Sons of the Storm grow ever more fixated on the deep sea—it seems they mean to abandon the human world for good?"
"A great many of the Sons of the Storm seem to have vanished over the ocean. They may have been drawn into a new war with the sirens…"
"Their course is drifting further and further astray. Perhaps the Sons of the Storm have been beguiled by the storm after all…"
Such intelligence came in scattered fragments, and not one scrap of it looked like a reliable or decisive announcement; they appeared to be things certain Long Dusk cultists in contact with the Sons of the Storm had put out in their own names. Reading through it all, Gaoyang could not help but feel a flicker of curiosity—
Those Sons of the Storm who had, for reasons unknown, taken leave of their senses and plunged headlong into the far-sea region… how had they come to be brawling with those salted fish spirits of the deep again?
Hadn't Tyr said that the sirens would be sprawled flat on the seabed digesting their meals for some time yet, with no leisure to fight the "land-dwellers"? Had those salt-cured fish of the deep finished digesting early?
Carrying all these confusions with him, Gaoyang browsed his way through that information. He wanted to search for more about the Sons of the Storm or the sirens, but it seemed that this was all there was.
After browsing the Sleepers' database for a long while, Gaoyang at last felt his mind growing weary, and so he severed his connection with the node crystal.
The illusions before his eyes withdrew one after another, and the scene of the node crystal plaza settled back into his vision.
A Long Dusk cultist came walking over from one side, apparently wanting to link up with the crystal, so Gaoyang obligingly stepped back a few paces and yielded the place to this Sleeper.
Then he left the node plaza, following the little path along its edge toward the garden district.
As he went, he tried opening the "tracking" channel he had instructed Daniel to set up, and began searching his surroundings for a familiar brainwave.
Ten minutes later, on a tree-shaded walk in the garden district, he saw the person he had been looking for.
The little girl Patty was sitting alone on the swing frame beside a flowerbed.