Plague Doctor

Translator: Lonelytree

The scalding sun shone relentlessly on the barren land. The squat mountains stretched down the horizon and all the bushes they saw along the way were wilted and leafless, the place probably had not rained for quite some time already. All signs of life had been drained away. As the two cars raced down the road, a heavy dust storm trailed behind them. Gu Jun and Kathlyn had been driving for about 3 hours on the western desert of Australia already. From uninhabited desert to gradual appearance of transmission towers, from desert roads to tarred streets. The GPS showed that they were only 10 km away from Warburton, this small town was settled not far away from an intersection.

“If only our tribe has this ‘car’…” Along the way, Peacock gave many similar lamentations. In fact Malachite had already come up with battle tactics should they have access to cars in Dreamlands. With cars, they could have easily trample over the horses of the Ossarian riders. Before they departed, they bought a set of walkie-talkie at the gas station and that was how they maintained communication.

“Nightmare Man, we’re almost there.” Kathlyn said, “We will have to turn left at the next intersection.”

“Okay.” Gu Jun answered. He looked out the window and saw more vibrant plant lives but… A strange feeling struck him. There was a transmission tower about 10 metres tall standing not far away from them. He felt like he had seen it before. Any anomaly was worth noting, Gu Jun asked with a frown. “Kathlyn, do you see that transmission tower ahead? Don’t you think we’ve passed it before?”

“Huh?” Kathlyn’s confused response came from the walkie-talkie. “Brother, don’t every transmission tower look the same?”

“Perhaps you’re right.” Even so, Gu Jun could not take his eyes off it. Eventually the Chevrolet drove past it and the tower receded into the background.

“Damn it, the GPS has broken down again.” Kathlyn cursed. The GPS had gone down and she realized she had lost telephone signal too, things were just getting worse. She groused, “You see why I couldn’t wait to get away from this place. It’s been decades since I’ve been here but nothing has changed, it’s still as backwards as ever!”

Gu Jun’s frown locked deeper. The GPS system in his own car had gone down as well, this couldn’t be a coincidence… He glanced at Gold and Aquamarine at the backseat through the rearview mirror and asked, “Did you guys feel anything like any disturbance in the space?”

Gold’s original personality Cers Wang translated the question for Gold. “Why would you suddenly ask a question like that?” Gold, Aquamarine as well as Peacock and Malachite in the other cars were quite confused. To be honest, they had been too focused on sightseeing to notice anything. Regardless, all of them said that they did not feel anything… but they also knew that the Nightmare Man had the most acute senses of them all. The cars drove for a while longer and Gu Jun suddenly narrowed his gaze. Far down the straight highway, there was another transmission tower.

“Look!” He said darkly, “It’s that same transmission tower.” This time he was confident, even though most transmission towers looked the same, the angle the electrical wires were dangling from the tower couldn’t be replicated so perfectly. Combine this observation with the fact that the GPS and phone signal had gone down, his heart tightened with bad omen.

“We’ve passed this transmission power five times already.” Gu Jun thought back.

“Brother…” Kathlyn questioned, “Are you sure it’s not just the desert playing tricks on you?”

Gu Jun had considered that possibility too. Did something interrupt his mind, something like a false impression? False impression was different from illusion, it was a distorted perception of the subjective truth, it normally occurred when the subject was under duress due to nervousness, fear or anticipation. It affected normal people too but they often snapped out of it quickly; some patients at the hospital might take the IV drip as a snake at first glance, it was not that uncommon but if they did not recover from that false impression, then they would be deemed to be suffering from hallucination.

“We’ve been driving for hours, the mind will get tired.” Kathlyn said, “I’ve seen some strange things on the road myself.”

Was his mind playing tricks on him? While Gu Jun was contemplating, the car flew past the transmission tower again at 70 km per hour. Gu Jun hoped that it was just his tired mind… if not it would be too worrying… Yesterday night, members of Phecda received a dream message from ‘Gu Jun’ and now strange things appeared to be happening at Warburton… He did not think the two would be related… but…

“We’ve been driving for 8 minutes already.” He asked, “Where is the left turn you mentioned?”

“Erm…” Kathlyn was stumped. Even Tom asked in confusion. “Based on the GPS before it shut down, we should have reached that turn already.”

Gu Jun’s eyes focused again and a conflicted feeling rose within him. It was that damn transmission tower again. Even though his mental corruption had dropped down to 21.68 percent, he still had trouble managing his emotions. He felt the urge to slam a fist into the dashboard.

“Look.” With jagged breathing, he warned. The space was distorted and so was his mind.

“Motherfucker…” Kathlyn cursed loudly, “It does look like the same transmission tower, the wild grass that grows around the base are the same.” Now even she could notice it, in fact all the land’s travellers noticed it too. From God knows when, their two cars had entered an endless loop.

“We better stop now.” Gu Jun announced. The things that happened here and the things that happened at Phecda’s headquarters were definitely not a coincidence. He could sense the danger around them now… He thought he would have time to launch his own investigation and meet up with Wu Siyu to find the suspects… Find some uses for the two remaining sweet dreams, and get to the bottom of the mystery around the land’s travellers but it appeared like time was not on his side. If this was a ticking bomb, it was about to explode soon.

‘Why?’ Gu Jun’s mind was fuzzy. ‘Why now? What is so special about this timing? Why the desperation? Why make the move now?’ Suddenly he was reminded of something Dirty-minded Yu said, “With her talent and hard work, Wang Ruoxiang was now at fifth chapter and apparently she was close to mastering it already.”

‘After she is done with the fifth chapter, with Ruoxiang’s talent and Phecda’s urgency, she will be the first to engage with the sixth chapter…

‘The traitors do not want that to happen?’ Some thoughts were flitting through his mind but none seemed concrete enough.

By then the two cars had stopped by the roadside and they were about 10 metres away from the transmission tower. They all got down from the cars. The five normal people were confused and the five land’s travellers were serious. Peacock asked the nightmare man, “Should we go over there to take a closer look?”

“Wait a minute.” Kathlyn said nervously, she had a different idea in mind, “Should we try to go backwards to see if we can get out from this loop?”