Plague Doctor

Translator: Lonelytree

Over the past few days, Gu Jun had been busy attempting to ‘accept’ the power at the similar yet unfamiliar Mysterium World. His method of choice was to constantly expose himself to various visual cues to actively trigger the symbol and signal to use mental assault to blast at the chaos in his mind. The side effect was it brought with it plenty of headaches. He might lose his mind from this, Gu Jun knew that risk. This action was not at all medically-appropriate but he did it nevertheless.

Yu Chi followed his example. Normally they would do this together, hoping that their combined effort would strengthen the signal. Furthermore, Gu Jun felt like he needed to keep an eye on Yu Chi. The man would probably go insane before he did.

In any case, the exercise was not futile. He could feel his mind become more stable and the ache decreased with each exercise. His body would not go into palsy when he encountered abnormal events anymore, instead there was merely some discomfort. The chaos in his mind started to take on some signs of life. However, ever since their contact at the summit of Peach Mountain, neither of them had gained communication with the mysterious signal again. This drove Yu Chi up the wall. “What exactly is the problem?” He mumbled to himself, “We’re mentally more stable and the signals are getting clearer. We heard more terms in the broadcast but how come we are unable to form a communication anymore?”

They repeated their effort on the summit of Peach Mountain but there was nothing. Gu Jun actually had another issue on his mind. On that night, when they communicated with the signal, he felt something was different. The force from the split crosses was no longer as strong. In the following days, the symbols still pulsed with yellow light but something was missing. He was unable to transmigrate through the world anymore. Why? Was it a problem with the medium? The first three times, the mediums were respectively a watercolor, a poster, and a countryside painting, what was unique about them?

“Captain Gu, could there be a different form of energy? An energy that we’re not familiar with! Let’s call it communicative energy for now. To achieve communication, the strength of the signal is not the only factor, the communication will exhaust this communicative energy as well. In other words, we have exhausted all of our energy during our previous communication so the contact cannot be built anymore.” Yu Chi pondered on this hypothesis. “Accept, find, more. Is it possible that the three terms are not chronological in order but are meant to be understood simultaneously? We have to accept the power and find something so we can gain more communicative energy? That way, we can form a more stable communicative channel and we might even trigger that shadowy door…”

Gu Jun concurred, of course, anything was possible at a time like this. Then again, did his transmigration require energy as well? One similar to this communicative energy?

“But what energy is it?” Yi Chi fretted anxiously. Ever since Gu Jun arrived, Yu Chi had stopped taking his medication. The man was now teetering the line between sanity and insanity. When he slept at night, he did not use the bed but squeezed between the hoarded trash in the room. This meant that Gu Jun could not have a good sleep either. This was his seventh day at the Mysterium World. The longer he was away from the Phecda World, the more anxious he became. He was particularly concerned these past two days as if something was warning him of possible danger at Phecda World. The other reason for his lack of sleep was Captain Yu’s snoring and somniloquy. The man rambled in his sleeps and the words he said were loud and unfathomable.

Every late afternoon, the young woman by the name of Feng Peiqian would arrive at the rental like clockwork. She’d bring over delicious food every time. Sometimes, she moved to clean up the space but Yu Chi always stopped her. He’d stop her from messing up his mess.

Gu Jun knew better to get between these two. However, he could not help but make comparisons between them and his relationship with Dirty-minded Yu. If this situation happened to them, he’d be the one cleaning up and she’d be lying there, saying ‘o well’.

“Ah Jun.” At that moment, while Yu Chi went to use the bathroom, Feng Peiqian finally had the chance to have a private moment with Gu Jun. She asked with a friendly smile, “Do you really have no memory at all of your background?” Gu Jun was familiar with her goal. Yu Chi already told him that his rental had been watched by Mysterium but he placed anti-bug devices in the room.

“We’ve checked the traffic surveillance from that day.” Feng Peiqian spoke as if to herself, “You appeared practically out of nowhere. Granted the spot you appeared at is a surveillance blind spot but we should be able to see you move towards that spot from the other cameras. But that was not the case, so where did you come from?” Her face chilled and she moved from friendly conversation to sharp interrogation, “Who exactly are you?”

Gu Jun continued to smile dumbly. Now was still not the time. But certainly, the attitude Mysterium had towards him was turning more aggressive.

“Is it because we are too normal?!” Yu Chi suddenly burst out from the bathroom. He rushed to the corner to look for the medicine he abandoned. Feng Peiqian stood up to watch over her former captain while keeping an eye on Gu Jun. ‘What is Captain talking about? Who is too normal?’ “Captain, what do…” She was about to ask when Yu Chi once again pushed her towards the door. “Peiqian, it’s getting late, you should go home! Ah Jun and I will be fine…”

‘Too normal?’ When Gu Jun heard that, a thought came into his mind. ‘Is it possible that this communicative energy derives itself from a pained and abnormal mental state? For example, certain mental patients will gain access to unusual sensitivity to things. Activities like hypnosis and religious rituals would induce the participants into an abnormal mental state to achieve certain goals… Like Elder Tong once said, there’s benefits to having low S Value…’ The more he considered it, the more Gu Jun wanted to give it a try…

“These things originate from the illusory.” Gu Jun said with a frown. “So for us with actual flesh and blood, we might really need to be in an abnormal state to gain access to them.” After all, if they showed the recording of themselves at the Peach Mountain to others, no one would say they were sane. But they indeed saw and heard something that night.

“This is such a paradox…” Yu Chi had already sent Feng Peiqian away. His expression pinched from hearing Gu Jun’s opinion. “The more we accept the power, the more normal we’ll be. That means we’ll become saner and have less communicative energy. Then how are we supposed to contact them again?!”

“No, Captain Yu, there’s still a way.” Gu Jun shared his idea. “I am more familiar than you in the field of psychology. It doesn’t matter that we have a stronger mental power as long as we can induce ourselves into a temporary abnormal mental state during point of contact.”

“Ah!” Yu Chi’s mind came to. He said excitedly, “You mean like through drinking and taking drugs?”

“Indeed.”

But Yu Chi had new problems. “But if we take drugs, how can we tell which illusions are real and which are drug-related? We can’t possibly record what we saw and heard either!”

Gu Jun sighed. “Captain Yu, we are not going to take hallucinogenic drugs, it’ll harm our brain and cause addiction.”

“Then what should we do?” Yu Chi scratched his head.

“We’ll just use abnormal creatures as stimulants.” Gu Jun asked with a raised brow. “Captain Yu, are there creatures like zombies and Deep Ones in this world? Preferably alive ones.”