Reborn Cat Sheriff

Chapter 481 Dream and Reality
Lingo had a very long dream.

The scene in my dream was still the arduous battle against the Tiger virus.

In his dream, the virus seemed to arrive with even greater ferocity and its harm far surpassed reality. Waves of virus carriers and infected individuals surged into the country like a tidal wave, making it incredibly difficult for the police, government officials, and airport staff holding their ground. The already fragile defenses, as thin as paper, resembled a tiny sailboat battered by waves at sea. Although the safe coastline lay ahead, the small boat was on the verge of shattering.

Lin Ge watched anxiously in his dream, unable to understand why the police officers in his dream seemed unprepared. In reality, the support forces from neighboring cities and counties, urgently dispatched to various airports, were still being hastily deployed and en route even at the most critical moment in his dream. Faced with the virus's relentless onslaught, the forces of Chu City alone were struggling to hold out. Police dogs were exhausted, police officers were on the verge of collapse, and airport staff were too tired to even lift their arms and legs. Everyone's energy was at its limit, so much so that the enemy successfully breached the airport defenses several times, but was ultimately stopped before they could enter the city.

This scene terrified Lin Ge, but he could only feel his own consciousness and could not control his body, so he could not help.

This gave Lin Ge a feeling of being detached from the world, as if he were merely an observer. Even though he could smell the danger permeating the entire airport terminal and spot the neglected corners hidden under the trash cans, he couldn't even issue the simplest warning. He could even see the supporting police force from Zhangzhou City speeding desperately on the highway in the distance, with Nie Guoqiang sitting conspicuously in the passenger seat.

Lin Ge knew at a glance that the stern, murderous face and eyes belonged to no one but Nie Guoqiang.

Furthermore, it was only at this point that Mao Qixian and other relevant experts hurriedly gathered in Chu City from all over the country. Although they were extremely anxious and hastily provided information assistance remotely, the distance between them and Chu City still seemed like an insurmountable chasm.

"Why was the Tiger virus discovered so late in the dream world? Is it because I don't exist in this world? Then the only person I'm connected to in this event... is that guy Zhu Wentao?"

Lingo watched this scene quietly from God's perspective, while calmly pondering in his mind.

Only now did he have the time to think properly about what exactly happened in the Zhu Wentao incident, and why that guy had poached so many wild cats and killed them all.

When Zhu Wentao was arrested, Lin Ge couldn't understand why he did it. Was it really just to make some videos that slandered China?

Now, Lin Ge finally had more doubts. Was the fact that cats were immune to the tiger virus related to Zhu Wentao's actions at the time? Could his research at the time also be related to the tiger virus?
Then, because he discovered and arrested himself, the country was able to learn the truth about the Tiger virus in advance and make various deployments and defense preparations in advance.

In the dream world, there is no Lin Ge, and perhaps Zhu Wentao was not arrested. Or perhaps even if he was arrested for the defamatory video, not all of his actions were discovered.

That's why the country was so caught off guard when the Tiger virus struck so fiercely.

Lin Ge didn't know if his guess was right. The only thing he could be thankful for was that he was just dreaming, and the terrible situation in front of him was just a fantasy, completely different from the real reality.

then……

Lin Ge witnessed a scene that filled him with despair.

Just as Nie Guoqiang, along with Li Yiduo and Zhang Ke, and the support forces from the Municipal Bureau, entered Chu City through the highway toll station, less than twenty minutes away from Tianchi International Airport, the airport's defenses were breached!

A dark-haired man who had just been chased back from the edge of the city used a banknote contaminated with the virus to buy a pack of cigarettes at a small supermarket near the seafood market.

When the Chu City police found him and arrested him, the supermarket owner pocketed the banknote and went to the mahjong table next door. Winning, losing, paying—the small banknote passed frequently through the hands of the people in the teahouse, thoroughly infecting them with the virus. Finally, the banknote ended up in the pocket of a seafood shop owner, where a young woman bought prawns from him and received change, including the banknote…

Lin Ge closed his eyes in despair.

Sure enough, the Tiger virus quickly spread from the seafood market to the entire city of Chu. And as people hastily fled Chu, it rapidly caused explosions across the country!
At this time, Nie Guoqiang and his team received the task of helping to investigate the seafood market! The city didn't have enough masks and protective equipment, and everyone knew very little about the threat posed by tigers. Nie Guoqiang, Zhang Ke, and Li Yiduo had no choice but to set off naked, and then…

The three were subsequently infected with the tiger virus. Nie Guoqiang developed severe symptoms that day and was rushed to the ICU.

Lin Ge couldn't bear to look any longer. He strained his gaze upwards, only to see the entire planet covered in countless red spots. These spots expanded rapidly, like devourers, eventually turning the entire planet a blinding crimson...

"Ouch!"

With a desperate roar, Lingo suddenly opened his eyes.

He struggled to save Nie Guoqiang, but inadvertently fell from Li Siyu's arms. Fortunately, he had the agility of a cat, and with a flick of his tail, he spun around in mid-air and landed steadily on the ground.

"Ah! Mimi!"

Li Siyu, who was awakened by Lin Ge, was a little confused but quickly regained her senses.

Looking up at the flight schedule hanging on the wall in the distance, Li Siyu rubbed her eyes and stood up with difficulty, saying, "Mimi, are you awake so soon? There are still more than ten minutes until the next international flight. Why don't you take a nap? It's daytime here in the US, and there are many more planes coming later. If you don't rest more and regain your strength, you definitely won't be able to hold on!"

"Phew... Am I back from the dream already?"

Looking around at the familiar surroundings, Lin Ge let out a deep breath. He had been awakened by the doctor's death notice for Nie Guoqiang, and even now his heart was still pounding and aching.

Confirming that everything he had seen before was just a dream, Lin Ge couldn't help but feel a little relieved.

He couldn't imagine just how terrifying the Tiger virus, which had already completely contaminated the world, truly was. Nie Guoqiang wasn't in the best of health, but he was still a strong and healthy policeman in his prime! Yet, this guy, who almost never caught a cold, was easily knocked down and even collapsed after contracting the Tiger virus. One could only imagine how terrible the situation must be for other people infected with the Tiger virus.

Throughout history, every major pandemic has resulted in deaths in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Given the global reddening I saw in my dream, heaven knows how many innocent people will die in this catastrophe.

"Such a tragic scene must never be allowed to happen in the real world! It doesn't matter whose conspiracy or trick it is, we must stop it!" Taking a deep breath, Lin Ge tried to cheer himself up.

But just as he was about to pull himself together, the exhaustion and depletion emanating from his body and even his bones made Lin Ge sway, almost collapsing to the ground with all four legs giving way.

He strained his limbs to keep his balance, and only then did he realize that it was already the eighth day after the opening of the Military World Games!

Eight days and eight nights without sleep, even if you include every few minutes you manage to snatch a nap, you can't get more than three hours of sleep a day! This is terrifying for a cat; what cat wouldn't need to sleep more than twenty hours a day to feel comfortable?
But Lin Ge didn't have enough rest. To hold his post, he couldn't even manage an hour of continuous sleep. For eight days and eight nights without sleep, he didn't miss a single flight or a single passenger leaving the terminal. Chu City Tianchi International Airport, as the largest civil aviation hub in Chu Province, handles an astonishing number of aircraft takeoffs and landings and passenger throughput every day. Even under such intense conditions, Lin Ge persevered. And it wasn't just Lin Ge; all the police officers, airport staff, and related anti-epidemic personnel, including Li Siyu and Wei Zhengxun, were also engaged in extremely high-intensity continuous operations. They couldn't even lie down and nap as easily as Lin Ge; they even had to expend physical energy patrolling and disinfection, making their efforts far more arduous than Lin Ge's.

Despite Wei Zhengxun's deployment of reinforcements and his mandatory shift work, a large number of police officers refused to carry out orders and even secretly joined the patrols, refusing to leave the front line until they were completely exhausted and unable to move!

The foresight of the old leader in keeping all 130-plus police dogs was now proving invaluable. Fifty dogs alone couldn't possibly maintain seamless operation, given their inability to patrol and fight for extended periods. The 130-plus dogs were now divided into three shifts for rotating rest, but even eight hours of continuous patrolling a day exceeded their physical limits. This was under the extreme condition of the old leader deploying all elite dogs to the airport and leaving the city to other dogs at the training base. If it weren't for the unexpected obedience, docility, and perseverance of the over 400 cats Lin Ge brought, barely compensating for the dogs' exhaustion, and if Lin Ge himself hadn't stayed at the service counter for thirteen days straight, no one knew if any had slipped through the cracks and secretly escaped from the crumbling defense line.

Lin Ge remembered the scene in his dream very clearly: on just the sixth day, everyone reached their limit, and the defense line began to crumble. Although a second line of defense was urgently deployed to reinforce the defenses, the enemy ultimately took advantage of the situation and broke through…

"The despair in my dream must never become reality! I must fight through the next few days no matter what!"

Lin Ge gritted his teeth, his sharp canines biting into his lips, using the pain to regain his composure.

He then turned to look at the airport staff dormitory in the distance, where he could see a corner through the glass windows. Nearly a hundred people under quarantine had already moved in there. The two large hotels that had been allocated earlier were also completely full of people being forcibly quarantined in recent days.

The initial assessment was that there wouldn't be too many waves of terrorist attacks, so four or five hundred rooms would have been more than enough. However, with more cross-infection cases arriving from the US, and several days to come, who knows if the remaining hundred-odd rooms will be sufficient! Unfortunately, small hotels and inns can't be used as makeshift solutions, as each hotel requires at least ten police officers and four police dogs working in shifts day and night. Using too many small hotels would require a massive deployment of police resources, enough to overwhelm the command center. Even if they could deploy armed police or even the military to enforce a lockdown of the quarantine area, their resources would be limited, and other factors also need to be considered…

Furthermore, given the severity of the situation, it's impossible to place any trust in these infected individuals. Firstly, they come from a paradise of freedom; secondly, no one knows which of them is actually infected; and thirdly, we cannot allow any relaxation here to undo all the hard work of the past few days and plunge the entire city of Chu into the danger of Tiger virus infection.

"From all perspectives, even though Chu City's defenses held out for two more days than in the dream, they are still in a precarious state. Under these circumstances, I have no time to rest. I absolutely cannot add any more pressure to everyone from my position."

Taking a deep breath, Lin Ge straightened his back, flexed his limbs, and stretched in an exaggerated way, trying his best to get back to a normal state.

Looking at Li Siyu beside him, whose eyes were bruised and looked like she had been beaten up, Lin Ge couldn't comfort her or persuade her to rest. He could only silently squat down again and stare intently at the exit direction, which he had grown tired of seeing for the past ten days.

The staff there have changed several times. On the fifth day and yesterday, a desperate person attacked the exit. Although they were subdued in time, it still forced several staff members to leave their posts to undergo quarantine and inspection.

The seemingly endless and frequent disinfection work has exhausted more than a dozen ground staff responsible for this task, causing them to fall ill and be forced to leave the battlefield.

The personnel were already stretched thin, but now they are facing various unavoidable casualties and forced rest, which further reduces the combat effectiveness of the on-site position and further exhausts the energy of everyone who is still stubbornly defending the position.

"Siyu, why don't you go and rest for a while?"

Sun Chang staggered over, leading Bei Bei by the hand, and gave a forced smile before whispering words of concern to Li Siyu.

This best friend's good friend arrived at a very inopportune time. Already exhausted, the added physical strain made her look even worse, which alarmed Sun Chang. She had tried to persuade Li Siyu several times, but the girl just wouldn't listen.

"I'm fine! It's not like this is the first time a young girl has encountered something like this, there's nothing to be surprised about!"

Li Siyu didn't dare stand up, obediently sitting and waving to Sun Chang. She only regretted not thinking to take a birth control pill, delaying her period for a few days; even if it caused problems later, she would have accepted it!
Sun Chang ignored her explanation and just nudged her shoulder, saying, "I'll cover for you for two hours, go take a nap in the rest area over there! I'm begging you, you're scaring me a little, if you keep this up I'm going to call an ambulance!"

"You're still covering for me! Don't think I didn't see it. You haven't closed your eyes for over a day, have you? When Beibei was on shift just now, did you secretly wear protective clothing to help with disinfection? I could smell the alcohol on you from far away."

Li Siyu rolled her eyes at Sun Chang, knowing that her good friend had also reached her limit.

Seeing that Sun Chang was about to say something more, she quickly pointed to the exit and said, "Don't waste time. Sit down and catch your breath, then get ready! The plane has landed, and everyone will be out soon. This flight is from the US again; who knows what might happen. Then there's another flight from the US, two from Japan, two from Thailand, one from South Korea, one from France, one from Russia, and one from Singapore. We're still busy!"

After holding her position for more than ten days, Li Siyu had almost memorized all the flights that went in and out of the airport every day. She paid special attention to the international routes, and every single one of them was a key focus, so Li Siyu couldn't afford to be careless.

Hearing the announcement over the loudspeaker, Sun Chang knew that Li Siyu couldn't leave right now. Mimi's condition seemed equally dire; it was such a small, pitiful cat, and the mission was irreplaceable and extremely important, so someone definitely needed to help. Since cats can't speak, the person beside it had to be someone familiar with Mimi's daily movements and cries, someone who could react quickly—there were very few suitable candidates. In the entire Chu City, only she and Li Siyu fit the bill.

Although Zhu Jun and Jiang Yiyi came to Chu City to provide support, they were reassigned to the Military World Games site to help out, so that the local police officers who were most familiar with the situation and road conditions in Chu City could be transferred to the airport and surrounding intersections.

"Ow~"

Hearing the tired footsteps echoing across the thin metal walkway, Lin Ge lowered his head and took a big bite of the cat food bowl. He didn't have time to chew slowly and swallowed it whole, his eyes fixed on the exit.

Yesterday, I never expected someone to sprint this way like a 100-meter dash. I was thinking of eating a few more bites to regain my strength, which led to him coming into contact with security personnel and even getting into a physical altercation, resulting in an unavoidable staff reduction. This time, Lin Ge absolutely will not allow himself to make the same mistake again. From the moment the corridor door opens, there can be no second of negligence. If a similar situation occurs again, he must provide timely warnings in advance!
The footsteps were getting closer and closer, and Lin Ge could even tell whether there was a malicious entity hiding among them by the frequency of the footsteps.

After listening intently, he breathed a slight sigh of relief. This time he should be able to relax a little, which was good.

(End of this chapter)