Chapter 45: CVA-C-888 - "Lilliput"

[Transaction Notice]
[April 8, 1664, 11:25:09]
[Income: 30,750 yuan]
[Account Balance: 47,208 yuan]

No emotional fluctuation experienced today could compare to the raw, visceral shock of seeing hard cash hit his account.

Clutching his new phone, Shi Rang counted the five-digit balance over and over again, staring at it until the invisible doors in his mind were unlocked by the key forged from those digits.

It felt as though he had achieved some profound epiphany, yet he could not articulate it for the moment.

"The reimbursement hasn't cleared into the account yet—it won't be that fast. Actually, the bonus is supposed to be larger; municipal definitely wanted to issue you a commendation bonus." The accountant from the newspaper office's finance department pushed the transfer receipt across the desk, placed a signature pen next to it, and lowered her voice slightly. "Considering your real name can't be made public, the funds will end up coming through the newspaper anyway... I doubt the Editor-in-Chief will hand that money over to you. Shi Rang, he has a massive reputation in the industry. If you butt heads with him like this, no newspaper office will dare hire you even if you jump ship."

"I don't plan on continuing as a reporter." Once the money was in his hands, Shi Rang's state of mind grew peaceful.

Shedding a heavy burden was an immense relief to him.

The accountant looked up at him in surprise.

"Oh, so you're going to... return to your original field? I remember you studied history—are you going into archaeology?"

"Not decided yet. I'm heading back now, thank you."

Shi Rang picked up the cardboard box filled with his belongings and left the newspaper office without looking back.

Stepping out of the building, he felt as though he had returned to a free world.

He had experienced a similar sentiment years ago when he fled the Second District.

At what point had he willingly plunged himself back into a cage?

"Hey, don't leave yet! We haven't gathered everyone, hurry back to the stairs and wait for them!" shouted the miniature person clinging behind his ear.

Confused, Shi Rang retreated to wait for a long time, repeatedly explaining to passing colleagues that he had resigned, until the miniature person finally told him it was okay and he could leave.

He had bought the new phone while waiting for the finance department to process his paperwork, and now he hurried all the way back home, shutting the rest of the world outside.

"You're way too dawdling! My hands went numb from holding on. Lift your hand up... higher... higher still... Alright, put me down on the sofa!"

Holding his hand high as he crossed the living room, Shi Rang for the first time examined this "little thumb-sized person" closely.

The counterpart was a blond boy who looked no older than twelve or thirteen, and the polo shirt he wore was of a style popular in recent years. Shi Rang noticed countless ant-sized fine color spots writhing across the boy's clothes, which involuntarily gave him goosebumps. He set the boy down, retrieved a magnifying glass from Yingshang's room, and aimed it at them, only to discover that all those tiny color blocks—whether ant-sized or even smaller—were actually miniature people.

Their ages had nothing to do with their height; there were men, women, the elderly, and children, all dressed in modern attire, and among them was even a pregnant woman!

Once they reached the flat surface, all the tiny figures slid off the boy, landing in the folds of the sofa fabric to rest. Their slit-like mouths opened and closed, eventually clustering together into a杂-colored patch that resembled fine sand.

Shi Rang removed the magnifying glass.

Without a careful look, anyone would have assumed someone had spilled some dirt in that spot.

Were they the legendary sprites?

"Thanks for your help, so you are...?"

"I'm Jack, and they are the Tinies!" The blond boy's conversational volume was so tiny that Shi Rang had to squat beside the sofa and press his ear close to catch it. "You helped us, and we helped us, so we're even now! Um... although you don't have a decent house here, we can make do with local materials. Just give us a place free of mites and mosquitoes, plus some food and water, and—"

"Wait a minute, I don't get it. Why are you so small? And how did you get into my house?"

This question caused Jack and the rustling Tinies to freeze and stare straight at him.

After a few seconds, the tiny figures began to argue, but their voices reached Shi Rang's ears as no louder than the indistinguishable buzzing of insects nearby.

"Quiet, quiet, you're making too much noise! I'm the big guy, I'll explain!"

Acting as the relay station who could understand both Shi Rang and all the Tinies, Jack was driven dizzy by the chatter and stamped his feet in anger. The tiny indentation he made on the sofa cushion bounced off several tiny figures, and Shi Rang reached out in panic to catch them, though he still missed a few. Fortunately, they drifted slowly down to the floor like torn paper scraps, quickly climbing back to their original positions along the sofa leg.

Once everyone quieted down, Jack patted his chest and introduced himself.

"I'll go first, I'm Jack, and I'm in the fifth grade of elementary school." Jack pointed to a pair of tiny figures sitting on his shoulder. "This is my dad, and this is my mom."

Shi Rang: "...... You've developed quite well."

"I'm not done yet! We all used to live in the same town, but then we shrank, and we were captured by the bad guys. We barely managed to escape... Right, that Management Bureau! Do you know about the Management Bureau? Including me, there are 326 of us here. We all clung to that red meat lump and escaped from the facility!"

Why did this sound so familiar?

If these people weren't sprites, and they mentioned the Management Bureau and a meat lump, could it be...

The strings in Shi Rang's brain showed signs of snapping once more.

He raised a hand to signal Jack to wait, rubbed his temples, and opened his new phone to type in the bookmarked URL, only to discover the website had returned a 404 error.

No matter how many times he refreshed, it wouldn't log in, but a "distant" memory gradually surfaced.

"Escaping from the facility, moving alongside the stitched-up corpses, you... could you possibly be... C-888?"

"How do you know that designation?" Jack was horrified, looking very much like he wanted to pick up the Tinies and run. "You're a person from the Management Bureau!"

"No, I shouldn't be. Damn it, my head is going to explode. If the Management Bureau really exists, doesn't that mean I—"

So, Agent Kyle was actually an agent?

The other party had truly almost lost his life at the hands of the "Midnight Visitor"?

And Robin's escape from Facility 031 was real too?

That wasn't just a tabletop RPG session?

What the hell, did his random scribbling almost get them killed?

Most importantly—if the Management Bureau's main site was a real secret website, how on earth had he gotten in???

Shi Rang tried to get up and walk a few steps to steady his racing heartbeat, but as soon as he stood up, a wave of dizziness hit him. He forced himself to avoid the miniature people and collapsed sideways onto the other side of the sofa.

-----------------

[Warning: The Management Bureau Archives are highly classified. Unauthorized access is strictly prohibited. Violators will be monitored, tracked, and processed.]

-----------------

The blood-red notice of the main site's homepage flashed in his mind. Shi Rang shuddered, hurriedly rushed to the window, pulled open a crack in the curtains, and peered outside cautiously, terrified that a fleet of black luxury cars would pull up to the residential complex to arrest him the next second.

No strange vehicles, no armed forces...

No one came to arrest him, for now.

Shi Rang wandered unsteadily back to the living room, staring blankly at the patch of "colorful sand" on the sofa.

He had a deep impression of C-888 because Robin had mentioned that the containment cell door with this designation had been left open. Time was limited then, so Shi Rang had only briefly read the description part of the file.

[CVA-C-888 - "Lilliput"]

The anomaly is a small town in the Third District that shrank due to unknown reasons, including its buildings, flora, fauna, and inhabitants. The Management Bureau relocated the entire town into a containment cell for the Tinies to live in, though the cause of the shrinkage and the method of reversal remain undetermined. Because researchers developed eye and lung adverse reactions after interacting with them, they were judged to emit harmful gases and must wear protective suits to interact with them.

Harmful gases? Was that why the Editor-in-Chief kept coughing endlessly?

And what about that coffee mug?

Shi Rang glanced at the tightly closed doors and windows of his home.

If the miniature people could produce toxic gas, having stayed here for so long, he should have fallen victim to it long ago.

Or perhaps this was an optional "active ability"?

"Are you alright... You see, I told you he'd be fine. He's the one who knocked down that red meat lump!" Jack eagerly reported the good news to the Tinies. "Since he can grow his arm back, the Management Bureau is a piece of cake for him."

These words hit Shi Rang like a heavy hammer.

"What did you say?"

"What?"

"I grew my arm back?" He pulled up his sleeve to inspect his right arm, but could detect no trace of any injury.

"Yeah, after you knocked down the meat lump, you got back up, took its suitcase, and drove its car back. You even took a bath when we followed you home clinging to your clothes. When you came out, your arm was already grown back—oh right, we didn't peek, we jumped down the moment we got inside..."

Shi Rang rushed into the bathroom, circled around finding nothing, and then looked up.

Wedged in the gap between the shower glass and the ceiling frame, sat a blood-stained suitcase.