Plague Doctor

Translator: Lonelytree  Editor: Lonelytree

‘Members with an S value higher or equal to sixty are not allowed entry.’

A piece of A4 paper was pasted on the activity room’s wooden door. The handwriting on the paper was uneven and ugly. Gu Jun walked down the corridor, and his heart quivered when he saw this sign. ‘My S value is 51, so I can enter it…’

The desert stretched endlessly. Yellow sand blew into the sky, ravaging the barren land. A secret Phecda base was built deep within the desert, within the territory of Northern Desert’s Chi Lin City. The base was well-equipped. Considering how low this place’s population was, it had a natural sense of isolation to it, and according to rumors, many of Phecda’s more unsightly experiments were conducted there. This was a place more mysterious than the Eastern State’s Medical Department. After Gu Jun arrived at this place, before he could get much of a tour, he was escorted by the workers into the small flat that looked so abandoned from the outside and deposited before this activity room. Gu Jun was still wearing his orange-yellow protective gear, lending him the appearance of an astronaut. He carried an oxygen tank on his back that provided circulation, and his voice was mainly broadcast through a speaker.

“Mr. Gu, this is it,” the worker explained. “Two of the trainees have already arrived. Why don’t you familiarize yourselves with each other first? Elder Tong will be here soon. You will have to go in on your own. My S value does not fit the requirement.”

Meaning, not low enough.

“Okay, thank you.” Gu Jun raised his hand to knock on the door before pushing the door and entering. This was a rather spacious room. The four walls were covered in yellowing white paint, some miscellaneous objects were placed at the corners, and there was a movable white board. In the middle of the room were three wooden chairs, forming a triangle. Currently, there were already two people sitting there.

Gu Jun took a look around. One of them was a young lady in her twenties, and the other was a little boy who could not have been more than ten. The boy had his head lowered. His body movement appeared to be ungainly and awkward. The lady’s eyes were on him the moment Gu Jun walked into the room because she was seated facing the door.

“Nice to meet you. I am Gu Jun.” Gu Jun offered his self-introduction as he walked over. “Er, this whole getup… is just a protective measure, to prevent a possible infectious disease. But I am a doctor, a clinical doctor from the Eastern State Medical Department.”

“Hmm, tastes quite salty…” the woman murmured softly, her red lips moved as if tasting something. “Salty voice too.”

She had a slight frame, short hair, and somewhat elfish facial features. Her dark brow was arched high, and her pair of beautiful eyes appeared to glowing with some kind of mystical glint.

Gu Jun was confused. ‘What does she mean by that?’

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The lady stood up and extended her hand to him. “My name is Wu Siyu, a G grade member from Shen Hai City’s Relic Department. I’m an art student.”

“Nice to meet you.” Gu Jun shook her hand. Not every Phecda division had a Relic Department because the appraisal and study of relics would normally be handled by the Archaeological and Scientific Research Departments. Relic Departments only existed as a faciliatory department in super metropolises like Shen Hai City. Gu Jun technically had no idea what their job responsibility was.

Just as their hands touched, Wu Siyu yelped in pain. She took her hand back, and her face grimaced from intense pain. “Just… what are you?”

“Huh?” Gu Jun was made even more confused. ‘Just what is she doing? Is she pulling some kind of prank on me?’

“I have synesthesia. I was born with it.” Wu Siyu was still sucking in cold breath from the pain. “You doctors say it is a kind of mental illness, but I feel perfectly fine. I merely have perceptive experiences that are different from normal people. When I was shaking your hand earlier, it felt like I was holding a knife. Damn, that was painful.”

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‘Synesthesia?’ Gu Jun was instantly reminded of the rare mental illness that he had studied during his training. First, ‘perceptive experience’ was a common human psychological phenomenon. For example, you would feel a certain way when presented with different colors; that was how we differentiate between warm and cold colors. Red would give a feeling of excitement and alert; blue would invoke a sense of serenity and calmness. The same could be said for music. Hip hop could get people into the mood to dance while classical music could help induce slumber. These feelings were perceptive experiences unique to human beings. It was not something material. If you played Beethoven to a mouse, the mouse would probably hear white noise.

For people with synesthesia, however, might feel a very strong and involuntarily cross connection between the perceptive stimulus and the sense(s) that it triggered. For example, they could taste music and see colors in numbers or feel like they were touching a knife when shaking someone’s hand…

“And that was through a layer of protective gear.” Wu Siyu shook her hand helplessly. “If I’d made direct contact with you, I would be bleeding now.”

“So, you were saying earlier that my name and voice are both salty?” Gu Jun finally understood it now. Names would cause perceptive experiences, too. For example, Pennywise would invoke the image of a scary clown, but other names would not. In essence, Wu Siyu would have these perceptive experiences so much more intense than others, so much so that it was like she was experiencing them in person.

“So, you heard me.” Wu Siyu rolled her eyes to make an ugly expression at Gu Jun. “Yes, it was very salty, like I shoved a handful of salt into my mouth.”

‘Haha,’ Gu Jun grumbled internally. ‘That’s probably because you were feeling salty at how handsome I look…’

He took the chair that was left empty for him. He turned to the boy. “Nice to meet you.”

“I… I am Xiao Xu.” The little boy kept his head lowered. He froze and refused to have any eye contact with the rest of them. “I know… math.”

“Xiao Xu has Asperger Syndrome. He was born with it too,” Wu Siyu explained. Her tone suggested that she thought this was nothing unusual.

“Okay, understood.” Gu Jun nodded. No wonder his body language was so awkward.

Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger’s, is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It is also often related to geniuses because some patients have shown remarkable intelligence and have superhuman talent in certain fields. For example, Einstein might have been a patient of AS.

Gu Jun had not conducted deep research into this, but he did understand that Xiao Xu would not be considered an average human being either.

After the brief introduction, silence descended upon the room. The three looked at each other on the chairs, each with their own thoughts.

Gu Jun was still quite confused. ‘There couldn’t be a team with just three members, right? And if they are the standard for choosing the members…’

One of them was a child with AS, another a synesthete, the last a victim of brain stem tumor, and all of them had S value lower than sixty. What was this? What kind of Special Mobile Force unit would this be?

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