Plague Doctor

Chapter 160: Departure

The walls were pale, and the silence was palpable in the air. In his patient’s garb, Elder Qin was deposited on the sickbed. Gu Jun had come to say goodbye before departing on his next mission. After the proposal was made the night before, Phecda had agreed to it after some internal discussion. A team of five, including Gu Jun, would head toward Wrangel Island to join up with the rest. Their plane would be leaving that afternoon.

“Ah Jun...” Elder Qin breathed out his name. This time, he managed to recognize Gu Jun. After the lobotomy, he seemed to be taken over by dullness and emptiness. His memory had greatly deteriorated and he would be found staring at nothingness most of the time. He also showcased many symptoms of MSA. Compared to the weeks right after the surgery, his eyes had gotten brighter, but it did nothing to take away the blankness around his general feature.

“Elder Qin.” Gu Jun placed thermos that he brought on the bedside table. “I brought some Ling Nan Soup for you. Cai Zixuan cooked it himself.”

Some of the patients had shown signs of recovery after their lobotomies. Gu Jun hoped that was the case with his respected teacher as well.

“Cai Zixuan...” Elder Qin’s face scrunched up with difficulty. It appeared like he was trying hard to fetch the name from the swirl of his confused mind. “He is...”

“He is also from our Medical Department, he joined Phecda the same time as I did.” Gu Jun choked back a sigh. Elder Qin was famed for his ability to remember everyone’s name even after just one encounter, but now... Gu Jun went forward to help the senior move into a seated position. He poured a bowl of soup for Elder Qin and handed it to him, “This is pig’s brain soup, I hear it’s good for people who have undergone brain surgery.”

“Good, good.” Elder Qin’s hands that reached out for the bowl were shaking, a sign of someone suffering from Parkinson’s. But at the very least, he could feed himself. The fragrance of the soup soon filled the air. Seeing Elder Qin enjoying the soup, the tension in Gu Jun’s heart loosened somewhat.

Honestly, Gu Jun was not sure about the restorative properties of the soup, but he was certain that it tasted wonderful. After all, he had finished a few bowls of it himself. In fact, Wu Siyu would have finished the whole pot if Gu Jun had not stopped her. Before he came to visit Elder Qin, Gu Jun had said farewell to his friends. For some reason, Wang Ruoxiang appeared to be able to sense that he was again going on a dangerous mission, and there was concern in her eyes.

“I have heard some updates... about the current...” Elder Qin wanted to say something, but his verbal faculty was not working well. “Situation... Ah Jun...”

“The current situation is under control,” Gu Jun said sincerely. “We have a new lead. I will be going to pursue it this afternoon. I promise there will be a breakthrough.”

Elder Qin’s wrinkled face was empty for quite a short while before he said, “Okay... Take... Take care...”

Gu Jun nodded silently. For that moment, Gu Jun could see many complicated emotions from the elder’s face. They included approval, anticipation, and worry.

After his visit to Elder Qin, Gu Jun went to the nearby sickrooms to visit Brother Qiang and then Surgeon Zhu. As understaffed as they were, Phecda ultimately placed their trust in him. They were going to move the patients into isolation. These people would be moved away soon. Gu Jun’s old mentors were in rather stable states, but their mental status was far weaker than before. In fact, it was as if they had changed into completely different people.

When he left the building, Gu Jun really hoped for some kind of recovery spell common in games, one that could heal every sickness. The spell book had stated clearly that such a spell did not exist, but perhaps the foreign civilization had not managed to master it because they had not encountered an existence that could grant them such power. The essence of spellcasting was similar to the law of equivalent exchange in alchemy. One had to sacrifice something in exchange for power.

Sacrifice... Gu Jun was reminded of Landon’s notes

‘How many more sacrifices do we need? Have we not sacrificed enough?’

Everyone had sacrificed to a certain extent.

“Doctor Gu, it is time to go,” a member from the Action Department reminded him. He still had to attend the pre-mission briefing. Gu Jun thus hurried to the Nightmare Illness Research Center on the twelfth floor. Other parties involved in this briefing included Commander Yao, Elder Tong, and the others from headquarters as well as the other members of this joint unit. With regards to the dream world that Gu Jun posited, the people here had no question about it, but they did have plenty of questions on the exact method Gu Jun would use to locate it.

“We’ll see when we land there.” Gu Jun actually did not have any real plans. “My ESP will kick in only when I’m physically there.”

“The place is very cold. The average temperature is below twenty degree Celsius.” Elder Tong sighed. “You’d better wear some extra layers.”

“Be careful,” Yao Sinian told Gu Jun and Wu Siyu before turning to Xue Ba and the rest. “We will provide any technical support that you request.”

The atmosphere in the conference room was rather heavy and low. The question of whether they could reach the dream world aside, even a trip of the Arctic Sea was no joke. Wrangel Island had officially entered the winter solstice the previous month, and that meant extremely long nights, in fact there would be days where there would not be daylight. It was a frozen hell with nothing but darkness. The arctic sea would be freezing and harsh. The local weather reported a big snowstorm every two days.

It was quite frankly a large isolated island. It was not inhabited when it was first discovered by the Europeans. When it became part of Russia, the Kremlin tried populating the island by migrating some Inuits there, but that population plan failed. The island was deemed inhospitable for human beings. Wrangel Island had zero human population, but there was a marine base that was built near Ushakovskoye, a rural locality that was supposed to accommodate the natives. It was generous calling the place a military base. It was more like a patchwork of shambles grouped together. If not for the request from Phecda, Russia would not even have people there in the winter season. The place would be marked only by the Russian flag.

Venturing to Wrangel Island during this kind of season was in itself something very dangerous. The constant snowstorms meant the satellite pictures wouldn’t be of much help. Furthermore, they would be in foreign territory. This meant that the jurisdiction of Phecda would be limited. There was only so much Commander Yao could do when push came to shove.

“We will try our best,” Gu Jun promised. There was no other option anyway. Xue Ba, Lou Xiaoning, and Uncle Dan did not say anything as they prepared for the rough journey ahead. They had not faced such weather conditions before, but from their experience inside the banyan tree hole, they knew how difficult this kind of mission could be. Nonetheless, they had survived the mission through the banyan tree hole, and there was no reason they could not repeat their success with this one.

Suddenly, Wu Siyu piped up to ask, “By the way, will we see penguins there? Oh, I can’t wait to see those cute birds waddle!”

“No, penguins live at the south pole, but we might encounter polar bears,” Gu Jun answered. “In fact, the last villager at Ushakovskoye was mauled to death by a polar bear right before his doorstep.”

“Hmm, I suppose that’ll work too.” Wu Siyu nodded. “When I see a polar bear, I’ll be able to sense the penguins, so it’ll be the same anyway.”

Then the girl started to hum cheerfully to herself.

‘Does she think we’re going on some kind of holiday?’ Gu Jun couldn’t help the smile coming on his face. Even the others allowed some chuckles. The girl’s cheeriness infected the room, and the mood lightened substantially. Who would have thought before the departure, the one who was the most excited would be the one who was normally the laziest?

After the briefing, the group headed to the airport to get on the plane that would take them to the military base at Cape Schmidt along the Russian Arctic line. The place was about two hundred km from Wrangel Island. That would be their first stop, and then based on the local weather, they would decide when to fly to Wrangel Island.

In terms of weather, the one at Eastern State was beautiful on the day of their departure. The sky had never been so clear. When the plane rushed into the air, every member of the team had different thoughts, but they shared the same belief, their destination might be bone-chillingly cold, but their heart was burning with the passion to save those tormented by the illness.

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