Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 406 - 47: Radio

"Team leader, don’t you think you’re setting yourself up for failure?" Yin Xiang had a wry smile.

"Whether you believe it matters. If you don’t, it doesn’t." Ding Chao said casually.

"Alright, alright..." Yin Xiang nodded. "So what do we do now? Go straight in?"

"Check around the warehouse perimeter first." Ding Chao instructed, "Three people to a group, act separately, but make sure you’re always within each other’s line of sight and in the drone’s field of view. We’ll meet back here in fifteen minutes."

Ding Chao picked two field agents, then turned to Yin Xiang and said, "You take Ling Xiao and Jiang Yu and check the cargo loading area over there."

"Understood." Yin Xiang nodded, gesturing to Ling Xiao and Jiang Yu, then jogged towards the loading area where two semi-trailer trucks were parked.

Before Yin Xiang even reached the semis, a nauseating smell hit his nostrils — the closer he got to the loading area, the stronger the smell became.

"Ugh... What’s that smell?" Yin Xiang was taken aback at first, then quickly reacted by strapping on his gas mask and glancing at the multifunctional wristwatch on his wrist.

Apart from the common functions, these multifunctional wristwatches issued to field agents could automatically detect air quality. If the oxygen level was low or the air contained toxic elements above a dangerous threshold, it would alert the wearer.

Yin Xiang turned the air filter valve to its maximum capacity, but even then, the red warning light on the watch didn’t light up.

The watch malfunctioned? Or is it just that... this smell is merely unpleasant but harmless to humans?

"Team leader, there’s a weird smell in the loading area. It’s really bad." Yin Xiang pressed the talk button and said over the team’s communication channel, "It’s hard to describe what kind of smell it is... like spoiled eggs soaked in swill for days, mixed with the stench of an old, unwashed outdoor toilet... Just a whiff makes me feel like throwing up last night’s dinner..."

"That’s not a weird smell." Ding Chao’s tone was calm, "That’s the smell produced by FL09 reagent deteriorating and volatilizing in a non-low-temperature environment. It’s harmless to humans. It’s normal to smell that odor from the reagents stored in the loading area if they’ve already deteriorated."

"...Team leader, you did this on purpose, didn’t you? Sending me to check the loading area?" Yin Xiang’s face darkened, "I now... feel like my stomach is churning... I’m a bit worried I might puke inside the gas mask."

"I only heard it described by researchers. I haven’t smelled it directly, and didn’t know it would be so intense. Sorry, just hang in there for a bit." Ding Chao said.

"Forget it, given that you... ugh... apologized quite sincerely... ugh... damn it, I can’t... keep talking... or I really will... throw up... I’ll... I’ll just... take a breather..."

Yin Xiang pressed his chest with one hand and patted Ling Xiao with the other, signaling him to take over leading the team temporarily.

Ling Xiao didn’t say anything, quietly moving to the front and peeking into the open trailer of the truck.

"There’s something inside." Ling Xiao said.

"What is it?!" Yin Xiang was startled, quickly lowering his assault rifle and aiming it at the compartment.

"Some foam insulating boxes and plastic support structures." Ling Xiao added.

"...Whew." Yin Xiang let out a long sigh of relief, lowering his gun somewhat dejectedly, "I thought... there was something unusual. Next time, give me a heads-up... say it like that, you might scare someone to death..."

"Alright." Ling Xiao nodded, "I’ll go check the cabin."

Ling Xiao swiftly climbed the ladder in a few quick steps and opened the door on the side of the driver’s seat.

"Any findings?" Yin Xiang asked, looking up from beside the truck, "I mean — any unusual signs? Like bloodstains, body parts, signs of a struggle... If there’s nothing wrong, no need to report it."

"There’s a radio." Ling Xiao said.

"Isn’t a radio quite a normal thing?" Yin Xiang murmured, "The driver gets bored driving and listens to the radio, it’s as common as it gets... probably the truck’s built-in radio broke, so the driver bought one for the cab."

"The radio is on." Ling Xiao said again.

"The truck isn’t even locked... everyone in the whole facility disappeared so suddenly, otherwise, I wouldn’t be smelling this nauseating stench." Halfway through, Yin Xiang’s expression suddenly changed, "Wait, the radio is on? What’s playing on the radio now?"

For the purpose of information control, most radio stations in the Shuzhou Region have been shut down, leaving only a few government-run stations for important announcements and notices. Except for repeating a couple of hundred-word notices thousands of times a day, there’s no hope of hearing music, comedy, or talk shows. Logically, no matter how bored the driver was, he wouldn’t listen to repetitive notices every day, right?

As a driver for "Tianfu Special Medicine," they have more accurate, detailed, and faster channels to get these notifications. They don’t need to listen to the radio — after all, the stuff on the radio is intended for regular citizens, and the content is surely "modified" to some extent.