Plague Doctor

Chapter 129: Coming Clean

“That is how Ol’ Uncle Dog looked!” Chen Shu’s indication caused Yao Sinian’s expression to shift immediately.

After putting the phone away, he walked to a confused Gu Jun and whispered, “Ah Jun, your ESP power has done it again. The sketch was the professional reconstruction of an old man that every patient of Nightmare Illness encountered in their dream.”

Gu Jun felt chilled to his core when he heard that. ‘Ol’ Uncle Dog appeared in these people’s dreams?’

But according to what Elder Chen said, Ol’ Uncle Dog should have died more than seventy years ago. In fact, they were standing right before his grave...

He turned to study the broken coffin, and a creepy thought appeared in his mind. ‘Was it really Ol’ Uncle Dog who was lying inside all this while? In fact, was there really a body inside it at all?’

Gu Jun turned to Elder Chen to inquire more about Ol’ Uncle Dog’s funeral. Chen Shu huffed rudely. “Why would you think I would know anything about that? The rest of the villagers weren’t a part of his funeral. As I’ve said, they kept to themselves.”

In Chinese culture, funerals were bad Feng Shui. If not truly necessary, it was something to be avoided. Since none of the villagers could be called close to Ol’ Uncle Dog when he ‘died’, none of them paid a visit to his funeral. In any case, Yao Sinian said with renewed spirit, “We have finally found the breakthrough we need. Ah Jun, your ESP is a precious weapon. Ol’ Tong was right all along. We need to get into action immediately. We’d better keep Ol’ Tong up to speed on what’s happening here.”

Yao Sinian immediately gave orders to the people and made many calls—to the emergency unit, the division at Eastern State, and the headquarters. If the research base for Malformed Banyan Disease was at Gu Rong Village, then the research base for Nightmare Illness would be at this Nan Tang Village.

However, there were still too many mysteries surrounding this. For one, how trustworthy were Chen Shu’s words? After all, the man was in his twilight years, so he might not remember things correctly. Assuming his stories were all true, then other than Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family, this ‘Grandfather’ character was suspicious as well. Why would Grandfather try to convince Chen Shu that all he had seen was a dream after talking to Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family? Why would he come to those outsiders’ aid so many times and open up the village for them to stay? What kind of role did Grandfather play in all that? Was it related to him being a target for the grave robbery? Speaking of which, there were three other graves that were disturbed as well, so they had to fit into the picture somehow. Other than that, what was the explanation behind the sudden death of all the livestock over the village that day? Was it an aftereffect of the summoning ritual? But how come it only targeted the animals and none of the villagers? What kind of ritual was it? How did this relate to Lai Sheng Company, if it even did?

Yao Sinian knew that there were too many questions to be answered, and the investigation would be difficult. The obvious reason for this was that the actual incident had happened much too long ago, in the 1980s. At the time, Phecda had not been established yet and the country was not how it was today. Nan Tang Village at the time was a backward village without any means of communication with the outer world. Hoping to chance upon written records of Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family was practically impossible.

But they could at least work backward from what they had now. The people from the Scientific Research Department and the Archeology Department would canvas the graveyard, focusing on the five disturbed graves. Their goal was to find DNA related to Ol’ Uncle Dog’s dead body. The linguists would start studying the language on Ol’ Uncle Dog’s tombstone to try to decipher its meaning.

The Investigation Department would be sent to inquire after the history of Ol’ Uncle Dog’s family, where they had moved to after his death, and inspect all the surveillance around the area to find the possible grave robbers. The guards would lock down Nan Tang Village and start reviewing every villager, including those who currently resided there and those who had already moved away. Not only would they need to get their testimonies, a physical check would be performed on all of them to see if there was any difference between them and normal people. The villager that they needed to focus on... was the elder, Chen Shu.

If he was telling the truth, he was the currently only known person who had been in close contact with the mysterious summoning ritual, so why was he spared? The old man was worth studying...

Not too long after that, Chen Shu and the other village elders were escorted away by the people from the Action Department without knowing what was happening. They were to be taken back to the Medical Department.

Gu Jun’s group moved to Ol’ Uncle Dog’s old family address. The place was overgrown with grass, and no sign of human activity could be seen. Gu Jun stood at this place and looked around. There was barely a whisper of disturbance to his mind. He could not tell whether it was the chilling wind or the illusion. In any case, he came up with nothing.

The investigation into Nan Tang Village would begin, but they would still continue their search of other graveyards in the Eastern State. For Phecda’s Eastern Division, it would be another sleepless night.

“Ah Jun, why don’t you go back to the Medical Department for now?” Yao Sinian wanted to stay back to monitor the progress, and the Demon Hunters would be staying to conduct their investigation. “This is a huge breakthrough, but our focus now is still to come up with a cure for the patients. Why don’t you go back to the Medical Department to attend to the surgeries?”

With that, Gu Jun was escorted into a helicopter and ferried back to the base. Along the way, his brain was piecing clues together—the zombies, the abnormal activities, and Lai Sheng Company, whom his parents were members of. He was sure that the same questions were hounding Commander Yao. The current clues were like a fraying rope, forming a noose around his neck, an appropriate analogy, considering one of the clues could turn Gu Jun into a hanged man.

When he arrived at the base, it was already dawn, but there were still hours until the surgeries. Gu Jun thus decided to return to his own dormitory, which he had not seen in forever. He slid the door quietly open and made his footsteps as soft as possible. He did not want to disturb Cai Zixuan’s rest.

Gu Jun paced around in his own bedroom before he reached for Phecda’s satellite phone and called Elder Tong.

“They have gone about this the wrong way. A big search party is not going to find those zombies.” Elder Tong had already been updated on the latest news and spoke disapprovingly. “How dumb do they think these zombies are? These things... are definitely smarter than they appear. Kid, don’t waste your time at Nan Tang Village. You won’t find anything there.”

“Elder Tong.” Gu Jun took a deep breath. “I have something that I need to tell you.”

Gu Jun had chosen to omit this detail earlier due to caution and anxiety, but now he realized that this could be an important link to everything. He knew that the phone conversation would be monitored by Phecda, but he was hoping that this revelation would be of help to people. Supposedly, if Elder Tong realized there was some problem, like his personal experience was different from what Gu Jun had seen in his illusion, then at least that would help clear something up.

“When Siyu and I conducted the Ganzfeld Experiment for the first time, we both triggered an illusion. We saw some images about you back then...” As he described the illusion, he noticed that Elder Tong’s breathing had gotten conspicuously faster, but Elder Tong did not stop Gu Jun from continuing. “The reason we chose to not say anything about it was... Well, it was my idea. At the time, I still did not have enough trust in you.”

“Kiddo, you suffer from paranoia. That much is written in your S value assessment report.” Elder Tong chuckled lightly. “In any case, this proves that you two have even greater talent than I anticipated. This is truly a great discovery. You guys weren’t wrong. That’s exactly what had happened back then. I reported the same thing to Phecda, but they would not believe me.”

Elder Tong’s voice petered off to some incoherent mumblings. “So, they had me inside a classroom then...”

Gu Jun instantly remembered that Elder Tong was basically blinded throughout the whole process, so he added, “Siyu got a better glimpse of the articles stuck on the back wall.”

He recited the contents of the article fully. While he did not particularly stress the statement ‘to train our hearts to listen to the voices in our dreams’, anyone could tell that was something important.

There was one last revelation. It could be very important, but it would also put a target on Gu Jun’s back. Then again, this was the reason he had returned to the Eastern State. His determination to save people had not changed, and the responsibility of a doctor meant that he was to put his patient’s lives before his own.

“Elder Tong.” Gu Jun walked toward the window, watching the sun rise. “The woman in the classroom, I believe that was my mother. I was able to recognize her voice.”

Gu Jun could hear Elder Tong’s voice catch on the other end.

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