3 Communications Breakdown

The brothers spoke a bit more when shouts could be heard, calling Chen Jing over.

Returning inside his office, Chen Jing asked, "What's up, Bro Xu?"

The one called Bro Xu was a PE teacher nearing thirty.

"Xiao Li from admin just came by. School will be on break and there won't be classes starting tomorrow, although there will be a meeting for teachers tomorrow afternoon. PE teachers like us may leave," Xu Mingzhi said.

"Alright. Thanks, Bro Xu, I'll treat you to something nice someday." Chen Jing smiled.

"Let's go eat for now," Chen Yining told Chen Jing then.

"Didn't you tell Mom and Dad that you're busy at work for the day?" Chen Jing asked.

"I am—more clients during holidays, but I'm definitely going home during the Dragon Boat Festival."

"Don't tire yourself out and take care of your health. Don't earn so much money that you'd only end giving it off to someone else," Chen Jing teased.

"Shush. I was going to treat you to a feast, but now I'm not!" Chen Yining shot back, smiling. "Aren't you going home either?"

"We'll see what the school's arrangement is. I'm going home if there's a long break… wait, what feast were you talking about, Brother?"

"Game! Ever had grilled hare?" Chen Yining asked.

"Not really, but I've seen pictures."

Giving Chen Jing a ride on his landlord's pink electric scooter back to his place, Chen Yining went upstairs and returned the keys back to the landlord.

"The school might be on break starting tomorrow? Okay, got it—thanks, Yining." His landlord gave him a friendly wave.

After returning downstairs, Chen Yining and Chen Jing hailed a cab to go to a restaurant, but there were none passing by.

It took a long time for them to stop one.

"Red Lane, up the northern suburbs," Chen Yining replied after they got on and the driver asked them where their heading.

For some reason, the driver promptly shook his head.

"It's too far and I'm changing shifts soon, kiddo—get another car!"

"…"

"I'm out of gas too and I need to refuel," the driver added when he saw that the brothers were not getting off.

"Don't you think I would know what time you change shifts after living around these parts for so long, Driver? It's half past three to five, and the dashboard shows that you're still at half-tank," Chen Yining said, pointing at the oil indicator.

The driver's expression stiffened at that. Realizing that he had run into the real deal, he could not help saying miserably, "Don't put me on the spot, kiddo. Ask another driver if you don't believe me—no one dares to head out to the suburbs now!"

"Are you taking us for thugs?! We live in a society of rules, and there are cameras in taxis these days. What do you have to worry about this early in the day?" Chen Jing was getting a little impatient and was speaking rather discourteously.

"I don't mean it that way." The driver hesitated for a moment, before saying carefully, "The city administrators are forbidding our taxis from going to the suburbs—the order was just issued just now."

"Moreover, I heard from other drivers returning from the suburbs that forests surround the suburbs now, and the highways are all blocked!"

"Forests? No way, did those trees suddenly grow out?"

"I heard from one of the drivers that it appeared right after the sky turned dark, and that there's no way out of the city now."

Chen Jing noticed an important point at that. "You drivers can still communicate with other? Can your phone receive a signal?"

"It can't—it seems that no one is getting any signal now. The same thing is happening throughout Mountain Water City, but we taxi drivers can still keep in touch since we have walkie-talkies." The driver took his out to show them then.

Chen Yining's heart sunk nonetheless. It was simply outrageous to have an entire tier-two city's network paralyzed—it was basically impossible.

"Where did you get your walkie-talkie, Driver?"

"Online." The driver smiled. "With logistics as advanced as it is now, we naturally buy everything online if we could. Still, I know a place if you two want a pair—Trade City."

"Drive us there, then," Chen Yining said.

"Sure. I won't put the meter on, then, and I'll charge you thirty bucks," the driver said.

"How about I pay you three hundred bucks and reserve your car for the afternoon?" Chen Yining said.

The driver thought about it and soon agreed.

"Huh? I don't really earn much actually, and that's about the amount I earn running around for a whole afternoon," he explained. 

"So, Trade City it is, then?" The driver moved efficiently, promptly releasing the handbrake and jamming his foot down on the pedal.

"Brother?" Chen Jing was puzzled.

"Just play along. We need to buy some stuff first," Chen Yining told him.

"Alright." Chen Jing said nothing else; he trusted his brother.

"What was that about the forests surrounding all of the city, driver?" Meanwhile, Chen Yining continued talking to the driver, jumping erratically between different topics.

"I'm not sure either, but that's what the other drivers were saying through the walkie-talkies. They are saying that trees had grown out of the highways heading out of the city—in fact, it's not just the highways, since every road heading outside the city is now forest."

"It is so weird that there's no telling if it's real." Chen Jing appeared doubtful.

"Hehe! I didn't believe it at first either, but you two should have that Summoner's Grimoire or whatnot right now, don't you?" The driver carefreely gossiped with the brothers. "Think about it. Having a forest surrounding the city is not that hard to accept when something else so mystical has appeared, right? Haha."

Static suddenly could be heard from the driver's walkie-talkie.

Then, a panicked voice spoke, "Don't head to the suburbs, don't bother with making spare change over there! Someone has just died there!"

There appeared to be no deceit in the voice.

Then, concerned voices asked after him.

"Old Huang, are you alright?"

"Where are you right now?"

"Nothing has happened to you, has it?"

It was after a long time that Old Huang's relieved voice could be heard from the walkie-talkie. "I'm alright since I sped off and escaped. I'm telling you—I advised him not to, but he offered to pay more, though it's orders from above. In the end, he told me he would pay fifty bucks more, and that he lives right at the edge of the city, just a little short of the highway exit. So, thinking that it would be alright, I drove him there. He paid and left, while I got off as well because I was feeling thirsty and went to get a bottle of water from the convenience store nearby."

"That was when I saw a bunch of those green-skinned midgets dashing out of the forest and bludgeoning him as if they were crazy."

"Are you talking about the goblins?" Another driver interrupted over the walkie-talkie just then—the description matched his summoned beast.

"Goblin? You know their names?"

"It's the summoned beast called forth from the Summoner's Grimoire."

"Huh. I think it's true now that you've mentioned it."

"No way. What grudge could there be? Is there a bunch of people hiring killers for money?"

"That's horrible."

The drivers discussed away over their walkie-talkies, and all of them believed that the goblins were summoned creatures because of the Summoner's Grimoire.

"At first, the man was protected by a halo around his body and he had sent out his own summoned beast as well, but the poor thing was killed immediately and the halo gone. After that, the goblin charged at me as well, so I promptly drove off."

Chen Yining and Chen Jing traded glances as they listened to the driver's conversation.

They were suddenly glad that they were both in the same city to take care of each other.

After arriving at Trade City, the driver parked the car and got off with the brothers. They had not paid after all… what if they ran off?

It took trips between several shops to find one selling walkie-talkies, and the owner even claimed that he was the only one to sell them in the entire city.

"Huh, there's still electricity here, even though it's out for the rest of Trade City? Do you have a generator?" Chen Yining exclaimed in surprise then.

The shop owner laughed out loud at that. "My friend sells those, so I got one from him. I need to use it so I won't sell it, but I could introduce him to you if you want."