All one hundred thirty-two people had been rescued.

Ninety-eight of them had only been trapped and were uninjured. The other thirty-four had sustained injuries of varying severity, with Gao Zhixing being the most critical case. However, Taoist Ming Yu easily healed all of them with the Profound Essence Curse.

Once everything was over, Taoist Ming Yu and Taoist Yan Qi didn’t even stay for lunch. They simply performed the Invisibility Skill right in front of Zheng Hongsheng and vanished with a WHOOSH.

Zheng Hongsheng, "..."

"I’m not the Men in Black! I don’t have any memory-wiping devices!" Zheng Hongsheng lamented, then set about dealing with the aftermath.

In truth, Zheng Hongsheng had already discussed matters concerning the Taoist Research Institute with Taoist Ming Yu. They had concluded that the Daoists would neither go out of their way to reveal their powers to the public nor would they deliberately conceal their existence. It was best to let things develop naturally.

The Daoist way emphasized following the Natural Daoist Law and keeping one’s Dao Heart unobstructed.

The Taoist Office, however, had much more to consider. They couldn’t give the public too great a shock all at once, but they also couldn’t maintain complete secrecy, lest they be left with no options later. After all, various speculations were already circulating after the Berkeley incident.

’So I need to make more preparations on my end, and draw up all sorts of plans and contingencies.’

"As expected, the Research Institute just has to focus on their work, while the Office gets all the grunt work," Zheng Hongsheng lamented.

Thus, he had the rescued miners sign non-disclosure agreements, arranged for them to be sent to the hospital for thorough check-ups, and then held a press conference. He announced that, thanks to the efforts of the rescue teams, all the trapped individuals had been saved.

The official statement was watertight, but behind the scenes, he let the rumors spread freely.

And so, after the press conference ended, the rescue workers were utterly dumbfounded. They had been working tirelessly through the night for nearly twelve hours, but they had only just managed to clear the surface debris and had dug less than twenty meters into the shaft. They hadn’t seen a single trapped person!

However, they were quickly gathered by the rescue chief, who issued a gag order. He simply stated that all the trapped individuals had been rescued by a "relevant department," but that this department was highly classified and couldn’t be revealed, so they needed to let the rescue teams take the credit.

"Something this good exists? We get the credit for doing absolutely nothing?" someone said with a laugh.

But others were curious. "We get that there are classified departments, but what kind of department can rescue people from hundreds of meters underground? Honestly, even in a world war, we’re the professionals at rescue work. It can’t be that our technology has advanced so far that we’ve developed some kind of earth-diving vessel, like a submarine for the ground, right?"

"A super tunnel-boring machine?" someone quipped.

Still, some were skeptical. "The miners were three hundred meters deep. What kind of department could get them out in such a short amount of time? This isn’t some kind of shady cover-up, is it?"

"Shut your mouth!" the rescue chief furiously rebuked the man. "I saw them get rescued with my own two eyes! You think I was bought off, too?"

"No, no, I wouldn’t dare! If you’d said you saw it yourself earlier... I just didn’t know, right?" the man immediately shook his head and said weakly. "But for news this explosive, it’s only natural for me to have some doubts."

The magical scenes of Taoist Yan Qi performing the Earth Escape Technique and Taoist Ming Yu casting the Profound Essence Curse flashed through the rescue chief’s mind, and a look of shock appeared in his eyes once more.

"In any case, I saw it with my own eyes. This classified department’s capabilities are far beyond your imagination," the rescue chief said. "It’s not time for you to know yet, so don’t go snooping around."

"From the sound of it, does that mean we’ll get to know in the future?" someone asked.

"Technology is always advancing, right? Sixth-generation fighter jets used to be a classified project, and now everyone knows about them, don’t they?" someone else explained.

"Makes sense!" everyone nodded in agreement.

The rescue chief watched them all seriously pondering some kind of rapid tunneling device and couldn’t help but shake his head and chuckle. But then he thought of Zheng Hongsheng’s promise to issue a batch of Vajra Profound Talisman work badges to them soon, and his eyes gradually lit up with excitement.

Meanwhile, the reporters who had just left the press conference swarmed the hospital, only to learn that it had indeed admitted one hundred thirty-two of the trapped miners that morning.

"Is this for real?"

"The official report is out, so of course it’s real."

"But it sounds so fake. I know our rescue teams are fast, but this is *too* fast, isn’t it?"

"Maybe there was an advance warning, so everyone had already made their way up close to the exit?"

"That’s the only explanation."

"But I just interviewed a few of the rescued miners. The moment I started asking for details, they got really vague."

"I got my hands on the mine’s duty roster through an inside source and cross-referenced it with the hospital’s admission list. It checks out—one hundred thirty-two people, not one missing."

"Have you guys noticed? Not a single one of the people they brought out was injured!"

"Huh?"

The group of reporters stared at each other.

"Could it be the collapse wasn’t actually that serious, and the rescue was simple?"

"They made it sound serious, but it was actually simple?"

"So they just made a big fuss over nothing?" someone said, exasperated. "Are they out of their minds? If they exaggerated how serious it was, their own liability would be huge!"

"It was an earthquake, a natural disaster. So they just fabricated a crisis to claim unearned glory?"

"No, no, let me tell you a secret!" someone said, slipping into the room. "I’ve got an inside scoop!" he whispered.

"What is it?" The group immediately crowded around him.

"I have a source who was helping at the disaster site. He told me the collapse was extremely serious, and the part about people being trapped hundreds of meters down is true. The rescue teams worked all night without a moment’s rest, but they didn’t manage to save a single person."

"Then how...?"

"But this morning, he saw two Daoists outside the command tent!"

"What?"

"And not long after that, the entire group of trapped miners just... appeared. All together, in a temporary camp that had only been set up this morning. They walked out of the tents one by one, boarded a bus, and were taken to the hospital."

"What?!"

"I suspect there’s a supernatural element to all this!" the man said conspiratorially. "Just like those incidents with the Qinling Dragon Vein and the Shanghai Dragon Pillar."

The crowd fell silent. "..."

"You dare put that theory in your report?"

"I’m not insane!"

"Speaking of which," another reporter added, looking puzzled, "when I went in for an interview earlier, one of the rescued miners was chanting ’Amitabha Buddha,’ but his companion cut him off and told him to chant ’Blessed Infinite Celestial Venerable’ instead."

"Huh?"

The reporters stared at one another, a collective chill running up their spines.

Those among them with ulterior motives, who had been planning to question the official story, couldn’t help but gulp nervously.

They had their own special channels. They’d heard about an incident that occurred in Huaqi Country a few days prior—the real story was different from what was circulating online. It seemed to have an... ineffable quality to it. And their contacts over there had specifically told them to keep an eye on the famous mountains and temples of Daoism on this side.

Connecting that to today’s events... could it be...?