Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 205 Harmony with light
Lizhou City, temporary command camp.

"Thank you for your support. If you hadn't acted in time and risked your lives, we really don't know how to deal with this situation!" Officials from the Lizhou City Management Committee surrounded Sun Hang and Zhu Long and took turns shaking hands with them - but Sun Hang and Zhu Long looked a little embarrassed: only they knew that in fact they did nothing, and the fireball disappeared completely on its own.

But in the eyes of the others, there was no doubt that this terrifyingly powerful monster was killed by these two hunters. The words of an official with burn ointment on his face made the two people's cheeks slightly hot: "As expected of hunters from Chunming City, their strength is unfathomable! They completed the crusade so quickly! I will arrange for all the media in Lizhou City to make this matter a headline tomorrow... No, Lizhou City alone is not enough, I will contact Tianfu City right now, and I must let all the people in Shuzhou know about your heroic deeds!"

"Uh, have the casualties of this emergency been counted?" Sun Hang's words were like a bucket of cold water poured over the group of people. The originally noisy command center suddenly became quiet. Many people's faces suddenly became ugly, and several people walked out of the tent silently.

"This... has not been counted yet." An official who was just trying to get close to the two said, "The fire caused by the extremely high temperature has not been completely extinguished, so the statistical work cannot be carried out for a while."

"Many of the victims did not even leave behind complete bodies... I'm afraid that at that time we can only rely on household registration to determine who are missing..." said another official.

The missing persons he mentioned are actually equated with death - not only that, there is another problem with household registration statistics, that is, the floating population stranded in Lizhou City and a part of the population without household registration cannot be counted.

For example, a businessman from Tianfu City came to Lizhou City to do business. Due to the long night, the flight was suspended and he was stranded in Lizhou City. In desperation, the businessman could only rent a room in a hotel near the airport.

As a result, the businessman unfortunately died in this emergency...but because he was not a local resident of Lizhou City, he was not included in the statistics, and the merchant's relatives far away in Tianfu City would most likely not receive the news of his death.

What’s even worse is that since civilian communications have not been restored so far, the businessman has not been able to contact his family - from the perspective of his family, it’s as if he had disappeared from the face of the earth.

The businessman's wife and children can only wait in their home in Tianfu City, waiting for the person who will never come back.

"It's so difficult, so difficult..." An official with white hair on his temples frowned and shook his head repeatedly. His whisper with a dialect accent immediately spread the sad expression on everyone's face.

"You guys continue chatting. I have a stomachache and I'm going to the toilet." Seeing that the situation was not good, Sun Hang immediately used the "shit escape" method, pushed away the group of officials who were huddled together, and crawled out of the tent of the command center.

Sun Hang walked out of the tent and looked in the direction of Panlong Airport. The fire in several blocks had not yet reached him. The raging fire dyed the originally dark night sky a bright orange-red, and the choking smell of smoke could still be smelled dozens of kilometers away...

Sun Hang sighed imperceptibly and walked into the temporary toilet made of mobile cabins.

After a while, Zhulong also walked into the toilet.

He knocked on the cubicle door and asked, "Sun Hang, are you in there?"

"Here." Sun Hang's voice came from the cubicle.

"How do you plan to report this incident?" Zhulong asked.

"Report the truth, what else can you do?"

"Based on the signs at the scene, the fireball disappeared rather than escaped. You can take all the credit for destroying the monster." Zhulong whispered, "After all, there were only two of us at the scene. I can write in my report that you destroyed the monster that endangered Lizhou City by your own strength. As for the specific details of the battle, you have to write it up yourself."

"Isn't this a lie?"

"Don't you think that all those officials are convinced that we destroyed the strange creature?"

"if not?"

"Indeed, some people think so... But for more people, it doesn't matter who eliminated the monster, but it is important to have an achievement that can be reported to the federal government, even if the achievement does not belong to them."

"you mean……?"

"To blend in with the world is also a way of dealing with people." Zhulong continued, "Do you still remember the guy with ointment on his face just now?"

"Yes, what happened to him?"

"The wound on his face was not caused by being burned on the front line, but by himself using boiling water. I 'accidentally' passed by his tent before and saw it with my own eyes." Zhulong sighed, "This is also a helpless move... The appearance of the fireball is force majeure, and no one should be held responsible for it... But their position means that even if they have done nothing wrong, they must bear the responsibilities corresponding to their own power."

"You want to help them?"

"This is a great achievement for you," Zhulong said, "and all they want is for us to take the credit."

"I still want to report the truth." Sun Hang said after thinking for a moment, "What if the fireball appears again?"

"you sure?"

"determine."

"Huh..." Sun Hang vaguely heard Zhulong let out a long sigh, "Your choice did not disappoint me... Compared to me, you are a more qualified hunter."

"Oh, so you're here to test me?"

"No, it's not a test. I will agree with whatever choice you make." Zhulong said, "I don't have to give face to the officials of Lizhou City Management Committee... For them, the appearance of the fireball is an unprovoked disaster; but who can the people who died in the disaster go to for justice?"

"Well, there is something I need to clarify." Sun Hang said.

"what?"

"You'd better not imagine that I'm so noble. I simply think that cheating is troublesome... I have no interest in being a hero, and I don't care about the so-called merits at all." Sun Hang said.

This statement is indeed true - after all, in the transaction with Pei Zongjun, the other party had already allowed Sun Hang to propose conditions... The credit for destroying the fireball was indeed negligible to Sun Hang.

"You..." Zhulong was silent for a few seconds before continuing, "You are more interesting than I thought."

"Hey, aren't you leaving yet?" Sun Hang suddenly asked.

"Any thing else?"

"Do you have any paper? Damn it, I think I forgot to bring some."

Just as he finished speaking, a small pack of tissues was stuffed in from the gap under the cubicle door. "If that's not enough, there's more."

"Enough, enough... You came to the toilet to smell the stench just to tell me this?" Sun Hang asked in confusion, "Aren't you going to the toilet yourself?"

"What else? We both have to unify our statements in the report we submit. Otherwise, if we contradict each other, wouldn't it be very embarrassing?" Zhulong said with a smile.

"That's right." Sun Hang nodded, but after nodding, he realized that the Candle Dragon outside couldn't see his nodding at all. "Speaking of which, where are Zhong Ling and Yang Qi? Where did they go?"

"The puppet master and the strange skeleton are helping the Lizhou City fire brigade to put out the remaining fire. As for Researcher Yang, he should be with her."

"Can you please follow them?" Sun Hang said, "If a few more strange creatures emerge from the ruins..."

"Well, even if you didn't say it, I was planning to go there." Zhulong replied, "If it's used to put out the fire, I can still be of great use."

The sound of footsteps gradually faded away. Sun Hang glanced at his phone and found that the local media in Lizhou City had promoted him and Zhulong as heroes who saved the entire city. The headline of the news was the backs of him and Zhulong diving into the sea of ​​fire.

"The photos are well taken." Sun Hang commented.

The civilian communications network has not been fully restored, but in order to stabilize public sentiment, the federal government has still opened a number of portal news websites that are completely controlled by the government, which are specifically used to publish various notices, reminders and positive news... I think it won’t be long before this set of photos will appear on the homepages of various portal news websites.

Sun Hang suddenly realized something... Based on the federal government's style of doing things, even if he reported that the fireball disappeared on its own and he and Zhulong did nothing, the federal government would most likely forcibly pin the credit on the two of them.

Just as Yang Qi once said to Sun Hang—the Federation needs heroes, and the people also need heroes.

Zhulong must also know that no matter what choices the two of them make, the final result will be the same.

“How humorous.”

Sun Hang flushed the toilet, rubbed his numb knees, pushed open the door and walked out.

The camp was still busy - medical personnel, city defense forces, people from the Investigation Bureau, sheriffs and firefighters, all kinds of people were walking quickly between the tents, telephones were ringing one after another, and from time to time you could hear sheriff's vehicles with sirens blaring speeding past the camp.

Sun Hang stood among the busy crowd, and he had an illusion that he was like an alien, out of tune with this world.

News has come from Tianfu City, asking Sun Hang and his team to stay in Lizhou City temporarily and return to Tianfu City when the aftermath work is almost completed. Lizhou City has also provided a five-star hotel for Sun Hang and his team to stay.

There was no point in staying in the command camp, so Sun Hang sent a message to Zhulong and Yang Qi respectively, then opened the navigation app and entered the name of the hotel.

The hotel was not far from the command camp, only less than 500 meters away... However, when Sun Hang arrived near the hotel, he found that there was a heavy chain lock hanging on the door of the hotel, and a sign on the side also read "Special period, temporary suspension of business."

Just when Sun Hang was thinking about whether to go back and ask, the door of a black car parked nearby opened, and a young man in a black suit and bow tie ran towards Sun Hang in small steps.

"Hello, are you the special guest that the management committee arranged to stay in our hotel?" The young man said to Sun Hang very politely, "I am the lobby manager of this hotel, and I am waiting for you here."

"Uh...isn't your hotel closed?" Sun Hang asked, pointing at the locked door.

"It's not just us. All hotels in Lizhou City have stopped operating." The lobby manager said, "But we have already packed up the rooms you need. Where are the others?"

"They are still busy. I came here alone."

"Okay, please follow me."

The lobby manager took Sun Hang around to the back of the hotel and walked in through a small door with "Employee Passage" printed on it. The two passed through the utility room and the employee locker room, and then through a warehouse filled with various materials, before arriving at the lobby which was completely dark with only two small lights on at the front desk.

The lobby manager ran to the back of the front desk, took out a room card and a set of toiletries from the cabinet, put a business card on top, and handed them to Sun Hang, saying, "All the service staff in the hotel have gone home. Now the only ones who are still maintaining the operation of the hotel are me, two security guards, two cleaners, and a chef in the kitchen. If you need room service, just use the internal phone to call the number on this business card."

"By the way, why don't you go home?" Sun Hang took the things and asked curiously, "Do you get overtime pay for working at this time?"

"Alas..." the lobby manager sighed, "To be honest, it's not that we don't want to go home, but we can't go back. Those who stayed here are not from Lizhou. We usually eat and sleep in the hotel. For us, this is our home in Lizhou."

"Oh, so that's it..." Sun Hang didn't ask any more questions and walked towards the elevator with his things.

In order to save energy, the entire hotel building maintained only minimum lighting. As Sun Hang walked, his shadow on the wall of the corridor became longer and shorter, making him look like some strange creature lurking in the shadows.

"It feels a bit like the paranoid feeling in horror movies." Sun Hang smiled self-deprecatingly and walked into the elevator.

The lighting in the elevator was quite bright. Sun Hang looked at himself carefully through the mirror-like inner wall of the car.

"What on earth are you?" Sun Hang asked his own shadow.

Shadow also asked Sun Hang.

Sun Hang did not answer.

Shadow didn't answer either.

With a "ding" sound, the elevator stopped on the 22nd floor.

The room card the lobby manager gave to Sun Hang had "2201" written on it, so the first room he saw when he walked out of the elevator was his room.

After opening the door, Sun Hang didn't even bother to take off his clothes and just threw himself onto the bed.

A wave of sleepiness came over him...If he counted carefully, he hadn't had a proper sleep for almost forty-eight hours.

But the moment he closed his eyes, the figure of the white-haired girl suddenly appeared in his mind.

(End of this chapter)