Plague Doctor
chapter-296

“Then tell me the truth.” The wind chilled. Gu Jun no longer trusted anything that came out of Deng Ximei’s mouth. He would suspect any of her explanations.

“I do not wish to go into the details.” But to his consternation, she did not even try to explain herself. “Isn’t it the same with you? After our childhood separation, too many things have happened that made it difficult to go back even just mentally.”

‘Oh?’ Gu Jun stared with both eyes as his right thumb placed gingerly over her pulse. Her pulse was even and strong... Indeed, everyone had their secrets. They might be about their parents and many other different things. But could someone be so unfazed when their bold-faced lie was exposed? Gu Jun did not think he could have accomplished that.

“Despite what Phecda thinks, I am not their caged bird.” Deng Ximei suddenly professed. “Should I wish to leave this place, death is my ultimate ticket.” Gu Jun caught the threat. The profile stated that Deng Ximei was a person with integrity despite her apparent shyness. She responded to respect and not intimidation. Gu Jun let go of her hand.

“Alright then, tell me what you’ve remembered about the Lai Sheng Company.” There was no harm in hearing her out first.

“To be frank, you are not the only one who ‘saw’ things earlier, I did too. I ‘saw’ the voices that appeared in your mind during this one occasion where you were faced with a gauntlet of reporters.” Deng Ximei moved forward, the fallen leaves crunching under her feet. “The voices echoed with some of the locked mental documents my parents had left with me. It was like the key was found and I saw some numbers. I am no mathematician but these mental documents were poured into my brain so I can recite them at will.”

Gu Jun’s heart arose with suspicion. He was supposed to be the only one who knew about the strange voice. Was this a connection between Spirit Children? And what about those mental documents? How would one ‘pour’ them into one’s mind?

He was once again reminded of ‘those documents’. Could the documents Lai Sheng Company had been looking for all these years were poured into his mind?

While Gu Jun was contemplating, Deng Ximei rattled out two very long strings of numbers, they started with XX and followed by 10 numerals. Due to his research during the Nightmare illness, Gu Jun caught the meaning instantly. “They are coordinates.”

“I think so too.” Deng Ximei looked at him. “I have 15 such coordinates in my mind.”

“Where do you think they will bring us?”

“I believe these locations will contain the communicative device the voice used to contact you and the others. It is to my knowledge that Lai Sheng Company consists of multiple departments. Before they left, my parents worked under the Communication Department, so I knew a little about these communication bases.”

Gu Jun thought back to the voice. At the time, he felt like the voice originated from a faraway location and the long distance prevented him from triangulating its location but now, could the difficulty in triangulation due to the multiple sources of transmission?

He had another question, “The location of that base at Eastern State was really dug out from your memory?”

“Yes.” Deng Ximei admitted. “But communication bases are different from those hideout bases. The former is more numerous, and smaller in size.”

The press conference where the voice appeared to Gu Jun happened quite a while ago so he sighed. “The bases are probably empty now.” They would find nothing there like they found nothing at the ambushed base.

“That’s not important.” Deng Ximei shook her head. “These communication bases are important in the sense of their locales. As you know, certain locations are reservoirs of power, they can be a tree, a cave, or a house... Forming a mental network is not easy and it will take more than a year to channel the energy to set up the necessary devices. This proves that Lai Sheng Company has been in existence for a long time already.”

Gu Jun did know that. Take for example, that lighthouse at Jiang Xin Municipal, it radiated strange life energy. If these communication bases were places of rituals, then they would still find something there even if the place was vacated. Certain traces were not so easily removed.

“How did they channel the voices into my head? Is it through an ESP connection?” He asked. The government found no unexplainable communication signal during the press conference.

“I suppose, I’m not really sure.”

“You sure know quite a bit.” Gu Jun could not help but note, “Why didn’t you reveal these to the investigators earlier?” This meant that her previous confessions like incomprehension of the foreign language and non-participation in any evocation ceremony would all be brought under question.

“Some really just came to me, while others...” Deng Ximei paused. “What do you think?” This young woman was too unreadable, much harder to deal with compared to the land’s travellers. In any case, Gu Jun felt like at a time like this, after he had gotten to know more about Deng Ximei, he believed honesty was the best policy. “Miss Deng, I wish to trust you but I can’t because I cannot ascertain what kind of person you are. But I assure you that I will not disclose the superficial impressions that I saw about you to any other. With regards to the authenticity and value of your latest information, we will find out eventually.”

“A clever decision.” Deng Ximei said as she reached out to pluck a falling leaf from the air. “The season of change has arrived.”

Gu Jun looked at her and was reminded of another sentence that she wrote. “Flowers will wilt, trees will die, but the season of change shall remain unchanged.”

...

After he returned, Gu Jun kept his promise. He told Elder Tong that Deng Ximei was willing to cooperate but he still could not tell where her loyalty lay. Elder Tong showed great interest in the new information provided by Deng Ximei. If this was true, then the Afterlife Cult was up for a big loss, they wanted to use invasive voices to muddy his thoughts but they had inadvertently exposed their own lairs. If they could take over these communication bases, it would be a big victory for Phecda.

However, with the experience from the previous mission, Phecda knew to treat the information offered by Deng Ximei carefully. Could it be a trap? Would there be mutated creatures or bombs waiting in ambush?

Deng Ximei wrote down all 16 coordinates of the communication bases and they proved to be quite troublesome. 5 of them were located in the wilds, 11 were inside big cities, including Eastern State City and Da Hwa City. In fact, the one at Da Hwa City, was inside a shop lot along the most bustling merchant street.

Was this an example of it being easier to hide a tree in a forest?

Through satellite imagining, Phecda started surveillance of these places, every individual that came in and out were monitored. At the same time, profiles were made of the owners of these locations.

As Deng Ximei said, these bases were places of power so they would be well-protected and sustained by individuals with high spirituality. This did not work out well for Phecda as any sudden movement would be detected by the enemy immediately. They had to be careful to not allow the cultists time to destroy the bases so that important clues could be preserved.

Timing was important, they had to ensure the missions went smoothly while protecting the lives of their members. For these reasons, Phecda opted for a stealth mission and all 16 bases would be hit at the same time. Phecda wished to clean them up in one fell swoop. For this mission, the headquarters set up a command central, it would be jointly led by Elder Tong, Xiao Sihui and Yao Sinian.

The best Special Mobile Forces across the nation were mobilized, as were the members from the Ancient Seal Department and Spell Department.

At Da Hwa City, the unit of Special Mobile Force reporting for this mission was none other than the Problematic Team led by Gu Jun.

...

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