Plague Doctor

Is the past real? What is your earliest memory? Can you remember anything before you were three?

All the stories that you know from before you can recall anything, did others feed them to you, or are they recollections told you by your parents? What kind of food you liked to eat, how naughty you were, how clever you were…

Did those things actually happen? Those stories that you do not feel like you have been a part of, are they real?

When Gu Jun walked out from the assessment room, his face was somewhat ashen. The memory fragment that he had fished out from his subconscious had become his latest obsession. He did not tell Sister Liang the truth about the situation with the foreign language, but then again, how much of what he knew was the truth?

After ending the hypnosis, Sister Liang had said, remaining the honest consultant that she was, "Ah Jun, it is clear that the abnormal memory that you have is related to your childhood. Your parents will come into it somehow. I will report this to my superior. You have a good S value, but you might need to receive some treatment. For now, however, don't think too much about it. Go back and get some rest."

After Gu Jun came out, he followed Brother Qiang. He was the last to complete the assessment and took the longest time, one and a half hours in total. The result of the assessment would be released the following morning. Before that, Brother Qiang had everyone sent back to the dormitory to rest.

Thus, the group returned to the dormitory. Cai Zixuan wanted to invite everyone over to their place to hang out, but Gu Jun said that he wanted to lie down for a quick nap, so they went over to the Senior Ma's unit on the other side. Gu Jun locked himself in the bedroom. Ignoring the possibility of spying, he landed one heavy punch on the wall after another. Alas, the pain from the fist was never enough to dull the pain of his heart that was close to being shattered. Even so, he needed to think back to the meaning of that memory that he had evoked.

"Mother obviously did not understand that foreign language, but she knew about its existence and then made use of me… to write it out for her?" Thinking back to those memory fragments, Gu Jun felt like his head was about to split open. "But why would I know this language? Who taught it to me? Or did I come up with it myself?"

He thought that was too preposterous. When he was trying to make heads or tails of the foreign language initially, he had studied some linguistics. He understood that creating a new language was not that difficult, but one had to follow many grammar rules so that it would make sense. From the clues that he had solved, the foreign language had its own set of language rules, and its structure was extremely complex.

The complexity meant that it was impossible for it to be a creation of a child when he was doodling. And in his memory, he was not doodling; he was writing the character down from his understanding. Furthermore, this language was applied on the packaging of some medicine, as well as blueprints and a dairy… All these things were obtainable to him via some mysterious and powerful force through a gaming system. The reason behind this force, well, that was something that eluded him thus far.

But with regards as to why it was a foreign language, Gu Jun could think of two possibilities. One was that the things given by the system came from a foreign country; or, after the system combined with the subconscious, it selected this form of language from his subconscious.

Gu Jun personally believed the chance of it being the former was larger than the latter because as crazy as this whole gaming system was, if it wanted to make things more streamlined, it would have chosen the most common language in his life.

"Is it possible that due to some kind of incident, like some kind of experiment at Lai Sheng Company, I was given the chance to study this foreign language? Even though, at the time, I was still a child, I am one of the few, if not the only person, in this world who could understand this language… and then mother decided to dig it out of my head?"

He tried to arrange his thoughts. He felt that this possibility was the highest. After all, the fervor in his mother's eyes suggested that she was laying her eyes on the divine gospel.

This foreign language must carry some kind of important significance to the Afterlife Cult. By now, he had to admit something that he had been blocking out of his mind because of its severe implication. His parents might have a direct relationship with the Afterlife Cult, and they might have dragged him into it as well.

"Could 'those documents' refer to…" An idea suddenly came to Gu Jun. "… the drawings of those foreign words?"

A new hope rose in his heart. Perhaps his parents did not hand over the document. Regardless of their reasons for claiming the stacks of foreign words, the ultimate goal of the Afterlife Cult, and the collapse of the relationship between the two, his parents ultimately ended up in the adversarial position against the Afterlife Cult.

Perhaps, at the beginning, his parents did not know about the Afterlife Cult's evil nature or perhaps they were just used. And after they found out the truth, they escaped. This new theory gave Gu Jun a much-needed breath, and he found his spirit returning.

This recovery of partial memories allowed him the recognition of a few new foreign words. From the moment he exited the assessment until now, the amount of vocabulary was still increasing. He found an inexplicable familiarity toward it, like what one would have toward one's mother tongue. Scientifically speaking, this was called implicit memory. For example, one could not explain how one picked up languages; it just came naturally.

However, the recovery speed of the foreign language in his mind was also dropping.

"For now, I still have a deep connection to that particular piece of memory, but as time passes, I am sure that feeling will fade and the number of words I can remember decreases… and since the 'abnormal memory in my subconscious' might contain more than this particular fragment, perhaps there are others and they might be related to those illusions I have been having…"

One could not always run away from the truth. Gu Jun walked to the bedside and sat down. Leaning against the bedside, he started to meditate on those memories. Meditation was a skill he had picked up during psychology class—breathing exercises, how to relax the body, and letting the mind wander…

The feeling that he was holding on was instantly amplified. As he meditated inward, the terms of the foreign language started to leap forward again: flowers, birds, weapon, doctor, police, teacher, food, faith, life, story, secret, war…

Gu Jun submerged himself in the whirlpool of memories, and the foreign words burst across his eyes like fireworks. After who knew how long, he eventually felt the urge to return to the real world. Meditation's purpose was for one to clear one's mind, but now he felt a raging headache coming, and his spiritual state was worse than when he began. Furthermore, he believed that he had exhausted that piece of memory, because as much as he tried, he could not filter any more new foreign terms from it.

Glancing at the time on the alarm, Gu Jun was shocked. "it's already late afternoon? Jesus, time flies…"

He massaged his temples and went around to clean up the room. This time, he had obtained more than one hundred terms. Combined that with the ones he already knew, he had around five hundred to six hundred new words. However, like English, some of these terms had multiple meanings. For example, apple and fruit were written the same way, and darkness could refer to night as well. Abyss also shared the same meaning as the sea.

So, that bloody sentence could very well mean: "The fruits of darkness sprouts, shrouded by the darkness of the sea."

This naturally led Gu Jun to another supposition. "Is this the reason behind mom and dad's voyage to the sea? They were in search of the fruit of darkness?"

Worm and parasite, they were written the same way, too. They also had the meaning of servant.

Death, strangely enough, also carried the connotation of ascendency. "The ascended servants shall live with the Heavens and Earth forever."

Gu Jun churned this statement over in his mind, and he felt a chill run down his body. He was reminded of that man's curious statement. "Death? No, you don't understand."

"The death of the physical body… is a kind of ascendancy?

"Argh, this makes no sense."

Gu Jun shook his head and opened the system interface in his mind. He planned to look over the tattered blueprint and the three diary pages again. He first opened the blueprint and studied it. Now he could understand the label of the structure on the unknown creature's chest specimen! Chest, muscle, bone, nerves, lymph… all his previous translations were correct.

Gu Jun could not help but be excited. Then, he turned toward the messy notes that were just below the blueprint…