Plague Doctor - Chapter 130

Chapter 130: A Word of Spell

When the words left Gu Jun, the weight on his heart instantly lightened. The ray of dawn fell on his body, and it gave him a semblance of warmth. But it was intensely quiet on Elder Tong’s end… This made Gu Jun miss the drunkard.

After a long silence, Elder Tong finally responded in a hoarse voice, “That woman… is an extremely dangerous character. You must have seen the wounds I suffered back then. She delivered those blows. Not only that, she also stabbed me…”

The memory of Gu Jun’s mother appeared in his mind. She was a soft and gentle woman; she would cook delicious food for him and play with him. But at the same time, the fanatical fervor in his mother’s eyes when he was drawing those pictures of the foreign language branded itself in his mind.

He interrupted his confusing thoughts by saying, “Elder Tong, as you must know, I do not know my parents that well. In fact, I do not even remember much of my childhood.”

“Kid, I am not blaming you.” Elder Tong was slowly returning to his usual self. “I have read your file so many times already. To be perfectly blunt, you are also one of her victims.”

“You might be right there,” Gu Jun admitted quite bitterly. He had already lost faith in his parent’s love for him.

Elder Tong’s voice came through the phone again. “This is an important piece of information, but Phecda has investigated everything they could about your parents. They looked into them after the first report of Nightmare Illness. I might as well be honest with you. An investigation opens into your parents whenever something like this comes up, but in this case, that line of investigation went nowhere. This means that for all we know, before your mother joined Lai Sheng, she was a part of a cult, and those people saw themselves as something greater than any of these. In any case, that was the extent of my knowledge. I did not accept the invitation to join them.”

At this moment, Elder Tong chuckled mirthlessly. “The cheek of those people, to think I would even consider joining them after beating me up like that…”

“Sigh…” Gu Jun still felt some loyalty to his mother, but then again, he did not know how to face Elder Tong after what she had done to him. In the end, he sighed. “About the thing with my mother, I apologize to you on her behalf.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Elder Tong sighed in response. “I already told you, that had nothing to do with you. Don’t take on more than you are responsible for. It’s very tiring to live that way.”

“But this is different,” Gu Jun said. “Elder Tong, can you send me the case file for this mission? Now that my clearance is green lit, I wish to know more about it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. You still do not have the necessary clearance, and your mental state is not steady enough to handle it.” Elder Tong’s tone brooked no argument. “Have you taken a moment of sleep since yesterday’s examination? Triggering illusions exhausts your mind, and the only way to recover is through a good sleep. So, listen to my order. Do not do anything. Just go to bed.”

At this point, Elder Tong suddenly screamed, “You hear that, whoever’s listening? Don’t give this kid any more trouble. He just offered us some important piece of information knowing that it will put him in danger, so don’t you go suspecting him for no reason. He’s already shown you where his heart lies. What more do you need? Let the poor kid rest!”

Warmth suffused through Gu Jun. Even though he still did not quite understand Elder Tong, the old coot had put his neck out for him many times already.

“That’s it for now. Remember, go and rest.” Elder Tong was about to hang up.

“Wait!” Gu Jun stopped him. “Elder Tong, there is one more thing that I need to tell you.”

“Kid, can you please finish everything in one go? Just how many things you are hiding in that brain of yours‽” Elder Tong groused with annoyance. Since Gu Jun had already revealed the biggest secret, the one about his mother, he saw no point hiding the others.

“It’s a memory fragment from my childhood that I recently remembered.” He described the scene. “The sentence was written in English, but I feel like that was just an aid for pronunciation. The sentence’s original language is probably something else.”

He then proceeded to spell it out letter by letter, forming the sentence that had been bothering him since he saw it in his memory.

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn”

There was another stretch of silence from Elder Tong. He did not try to repeat any of the words. In the end, he concluded, “I have no idea what that was. It sounded like a spell or an incantation used in some kind of ritual. It definitely deserves more studying, but you’d better not go studying it on your own. I suspect it might carry some kind of unknown power.”

Gu Jun promised. After ending the call, perhaps because his heart felt lighter, the drowsiness immediately hit him. He did have a good sleep. There were still four hours until the surgery.

‘Surgery…’ Gu Jun was reminded of something. He opened the quest tab in his mind and glanced at one of the missions.

“Difficult Mission: Accumulate a personal contribution value of one hundred percent by performing two-star surgeries (success) within a day. Reward: one pair of Carlot Dissecting Scissors.”

‘I wonder if a lobotomy counts as a two-star mission?’

In any case, even if he was allowed in the surgery, he would be there to trigger his illusions. He would not be given any jobs, so how would he contribute? Thus, Gu Jun’s mind wandered to something else.

‘Carlot Dissecting Scissors? Why couldn’t it provide something like Ol’ Uncle Dog’s Diary? That would make things so much easier.

‘Other than the Abyssal Mission about the autopsy of a zombie, which has been there since forever, the rewards for the past two days do not really correspond to the difficulty of their missions.’

Before this, the system would provide him with missions that he had a chance to complete in his daily life, but that did not appear to be the case recently.

‘Why is that?’ Gu Jun wondered. ‘Is it because I am still missing something? Like a connection I had with the foreign world when I was dealing with Malformed Banyan Disease? The foreign world was, after all, the source of that particular disease…’

Following that train of thought, it suddenly hit Gu Jun.

‘Perhaps that is what I am missing! The source of the illness! I still have no idea what happened in that nightmare. Perhaps that will help reorient the system to focus on the Nightmare Illness.’

But knowing that nightmare was also how people got infected by the Nightmare Illness.

…

Lobotomy. This brain surgery was invented by António Egas Moniz. It was an operation meant to cure mental illness by severing the nervous fiber connecting the prefrontal cortex to the rest of the brain. The surgery won António the Nobel prize at the beginning, but his name soured later after the resulting complications of his surgeries surfaced. In the 1940s and 50s where hysteria was prevalent, an investigation into Antonio’s surgeries showed only a third of his patients recovered. One third experienced no change, and one third saw their condition worsened.

Mankind’s understanding of the brain had not improved much since then. The result of destroying such an important part of the brain was totally unpredictable. Furthermore, the patients of brain surgeries often showed a shift in their personality after, and there were many residual complications like splitting headaches, inexplicable behavior, amnesia, loss of senses and emotions, and even dementia. This was no different from using one mental illness to treat another.

With the advancement in technology and the proliferation of information, humans realized the inherent danger in this kind of surgery, and lobotomies were banned across the globe. But for Phecda, which was faced with the Nightmare Illness, they had no other choice. This was honestly a trial to see if it would be effective or not. The patients would eventually die if left to their own devices, so this was truly a final resort.

If this surgery could end that nightmare and prevent their nervous system from atrophying, even with all the post-surgery complications, the surgery would be deemed successful.

There were three patients who were due to undergo the surgery. They were victims of the Nightmare Illness at different stages. Other than the final-stage victim, the other two had signed their consent forms.

The patients of early stage and middle stage were Chen Wenwei and Mai Lei respectively.

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