Plague Doctor - Chapter 114

Chapter 114: New Way to Trigger Illusion

The illusions before his eyes overlapped with reality from the past.

Gu Jun’s heart dropped in confusion seeing the young Elder Tong’s bruised face twisted in extreme fear.

“Let him see.” It was his mother who was directing the group of children to send some kind of information to Elder Tong through ESP, information that ravaged his mind. Gu Jun had no idea what happened that year. All he heard was that after a mission, Elder Tong’s S value was found to be extremely low. He was thought to have gone crazy and was thus asked to leave Phecda. So… was this what happened during that mission?

It was about thirty years ago when Elder Tong left Phecda, and Gu Jun was currently twenty-one, so in other words, that case happened nine years before he was born. At the time, his mother was probably just a young woman around twenty. Based on this timeline, it appeared like she already belonged to some kind of organization before she joined the Afterlife Cult, and she was responsible for parapsychological experiments. She probably had her own secret mission for joining the Afterlife Cult later.

‘Did those children… call her mom as well? Who or what exactly were my parents?’

Gu Jun saw the young Elder Tong’s face turning increasingly scary. Blood leaked out from his eyes that were covered by the ping pong ball goggles. Right then, a sharp pain shot through his brain as if he was given a taste of what Elder Tong was going through. It severed the illusion, and the red light once again flooded his sight.

“Phew, phew.” Gu Jun was covered in cold sweat. No matter how hard he tried to clear his mind, his body physically wanted to get out of this seat. The static still rang in his ears, and redness assaulted his every sense like it was about to consume him. Redness… he almost reached out to pluck away the googles.

Suddenly, the red light faded. A lab member’s voice said, “Okay, Gu Jun, it’s over now.”

Gu Jun immediately yanked away the tape that secured the goggles in place, and his sight returned to normal. The lab member walked over to help him remove the earphones. The agitation in his heart receded. He saw that Wu Siyu outside in the other room was struggling on the couch, wailing painfully. The lab members were bustling around her, trying to calm her down.

Seeing Elder Tong and Prof Shen walk over, Gu Jun asked in a hurry, “What’s wrong with Wu Siyu?”

“She suddenly suffered from an extreme migraine when she was transmitting the fifth set of pictures,” Prof Shen said with a dark face. “Her heartbeat went over the threshold of 180 beats per minute.”

Gu Jun was instantly reminded of the time he actively triggered the illusion at the morgue. At the time, his heart rate had reached 185 beats per minute.

“It’s fine. She’s just too weak in terms of mental power.” Elder Tong did not seem worried at all. If anything, he was urging him to go to the computer to make his selection. Gu Jun turned his gaze on this old man again, and he realized that he actually had no idea what kind of man Elder Tong was. The salaciousness, the drunkenness… these were probably all a disguise or a way to numb the darkness in his heart. He thought back to what Prof Qin had told him. Elder Tong had been through quite a lot. But Elder Tong and Phecda probably did not know that among the five people in black robes, his mother was one of them.

“Hurry, come on.” Elder Tong was still urging. Gu Jun decided to focus on the mission on hand first. The devices had all been removed. He stood up and moved to the computer not far away. He grabbed the mouse and made his choice. He picked five pictures based on his feelings. Other than the illusion, he did not see any pictures. A book, a long slide at a theme park, some street in the city, some human face, and some lines and shapes…

After he was done, he turned to the two seniors. “So, how did I do?”

Their expressions were completely different from before. Prof Shen could not hide his suppressed grin. “Five out of five, one hundred percent.”

Even though he expected this result, Gu Jun was still quite surprised. He even managed to get those featureless pictures correctly. Had the information been transmitted to his subconsciousness?

“Hahaha!” Elder Tong guffawed. He raised the bottle and finished it in one gulp. “I knew it. That’s right… I was not crazy!”

If this was before, Gu Jun would not have read too far into this proclamation, but now… after knowing the whole incident about the forced feeding of information by more than ten children through ESP… Elder Tong had probably been questioning the authenticity of that whole incident himself. This result sent a wave of excitement through the crowd. This had multiple meanings for them. It was a big step for Phecda and the field of ESP.

“It works on anyone, but they must be of high spirituality, low S value, have ESP talent, and be mutually trusting, but the last might not be a necessary requirement. Making a forced entry into another’s consciousness appears to be possible.”

After moving out of the room, Elder Tong announced the results happily to the room. By then, Wu Siyu had settled down, and she was listening in.

“The experiment tonight is just the beginning. The two of you need to train your mental power. Without sufficient mental power, you won’t be able to utilize spells, or else it’ll be like playing with fire. Raising your mental power will help stabilize your S value as well.”

Elder Tong and Prof Shen could not wait to do more experiments on Gu Jun and Wu Siyu, but considering they had had a full day of training and had just exhausted themselves greatly mentally, they decided to play it slow.

Slow and steady wins the race.

So, they had the two go for meditation training. It was akin to stretching after physical exercise. There was nothing too special about meditation; a normal person could do it. Consistent meditation exercises could help strengthen mental power. Before joining Phecda, Gu Jun had been taught some meditation, but now he was given some new skills from Prof Shen. After a peaceful meditation session, he effectively cleansed the dust that had collected in his mind.

After the meditation exercise, the night was officially over. Elder Tong and the rest needed to stay behind to do research on their experimental result, so Gu Jun and Wu Siyu were given the chance to get some early rest. The two walked down the quiet corridor. There were no other members around them. Gu Jun had put the protective gear back on.

“You saw the illusion earlier as well, right?” Wu Siyu suddenly whispered to him.

“What?” Gu Jun’s heart quivered. He turned to look at her. ‘Don’t tell me…’

“Oh well.” Wu Siyu sighed lazily. “The illusion about Elder Tong in the classroom and a bunch of kids.”

Gu Jun’s expression remained unchanged. However, he did understand that the illusion earlier was indeed different from the type of illusion he had triggered on his own. It was a joint illusion that was triggered by both him and Wu Siyu when their mental power was combined in the ESP experiment. It was like they had experienced a joint dream. Perhaps because of that, he did not feel that exhausted this time and did not have the same drastic reaction as Wu Siyu. After all, he was already an experienced illusion connoisseur.

“I did see it,” Gu Jun admitted. “I believe it’s related to Elder Tong’s case from way back when.”

“Then, what should we do?” Wu Siyu frowned slightly. “Should we tell him?”

To be honest, this was the real experiment result, but they had silently kept it to themselves.

“We’ll keep it on the down low for now.” Gu Jun based his decision on a feeling. Perhaps it was just his usual suspicion and caution talking. “We are not sure why Elder Tong refused to let us know about what happened back then. After all… there are still too many things we do not know about him.”

“Oh well, you’re the leader. Your words are the law.” Wu Siyu shrugged casually. “Although, what do you think those words written in the articles meant?”

Gu Jun was given another shock. He stared at her. “Happy Mother’s Day?”

“I meant the ones under those greetings.” Wu Siyu stared at him. “You didn’t see them?”