Chapter 34: Cautious and Prudent

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After discovering that there was no way, no matter what he tried, to record Its name, Xu Chen realized that he was completely helpless.

Old Master Yang had also warned him not to spread it.

In that case, Xu Chen felt it would be best to keep his mouth firmly shut.

Someone knocked on the door.

Xu Chen went over and opened it. Captain Chu stood outside.

He looked Xu Chen over, concern showing on his face. “Xu Chen, are you all right? You look terrible.”

Xu Chen had no idea what he meant, but he still shook his head. “I’m fine. I’m perfectly normal…”

“That’s good. Also, since you can speak again, can you continue telling us what you know?”

Xu Chen hesitated, but after thinking it over, he nodded. “All right.”

“Then go to the conference room from last time. I’ll be there shortly.”

“Okay.”

With that, Xu Chen left.

Captain Chu glanced around the room. After making a full circuit, he noticed the shredded letter on the table. His instincts told him it might contain something important, so he hurried over and carefully examined the scraps. Once he realized they could be pieced together by hand, he cautiously selected those bearing visible marks.

There were not many marked scraps among those he had sorted. He studied them and seemed to be able to make out some characters.

After fitting them together along their irregular edges, Captain Chu wore an expression of bewilderment.

The scraps bore patterns written in an unknown script—a pictographic writing composed of countless sharp angles and intricate curves. It was almost identical to the things Xu Chen and Master Ge had written before, looking more like meaningless doodles than actual writing.

Although he could not understand it, he found some wide adhesive tape and preserved the scraps, ordering a soldier to send them to the think tank…

Xu Chen waited for a long time in the empty conference room before Captain Chu finally arrived.

He took out a notebook and looked at Xu Chen. “I don’t have much to ask. Once we’re finished, you’ll be free to go, and your compensation will be paid.”

Xu Chen nodded.

“All right. At the last meeting, you seemed to be trying to say something, but then you lost the ability to speak. When we examined the room afterward, we found that it was as if a section of time had been carved out of it. Do you know what happened?”

Xu Chen thought about it. The question was difficult to answer; he himself was utterly confused. “I don’t know.”

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Captain Chu nodded to show that he understood. “Fine. Then tell me what you were trying to say.”

Xu Chen glanced around. Captain Chu was alone. He had not intended to say anything, but with only one person present, Xu Chen could not help entertaining the thought.

“I can answer that question, but I’m afraid you won’t believe me.”

Captain Chu merely smiled. “I’m only responsible for asking questions and taking notes. Say whatever you want.”

“All right. In fact, I wasn’t merely trying to say something at the time. I had already said it.”

“Hm?” Captain Chu looked surprised. “What did you say?”

“I said a name.”

“What name?”

“Captain Chu, if you’ve risen to your current position, you must have seen and heard a great deal, right?”

Captain Chu looked at Xu Chen, not understanding why he had brought that up. “I’ve taken part in many battles. You could say that.”

“Then have you ever heard this story?”

“Go ahead. Just don’t make it too long. We don’t have a recorder now, so I’ll have to write it down myself.”

Xu Chen glanced at Captain Chu’s notebook and smiled mysteriously. “It is said that an American psychologist named Martin Gallard once conducted an experiment.

“Before a condemned prisoner was executed, a judge brought him into a dark room, blindfolded him, tied him to a bed, and told him that he might die from blood loss. Then someone drew a line across the prisoner’s left wrist with a piece of wood. Afterward, they turned on a tap and let water drip into a copper basin beneath the bed, producing a tinkling sound. The dripping gradually slowed.

“The condemned man became terrified. He felt an intense pain in his wrist and believed that his blood was slowly draining away. A day later, the judge returned and found that the prisoner was dead. The monitoring records showed symptoms identical to those of death by blood loss. In reality, however, he had not lost a single drop of blood.”

Captain Chu scribbled furiously and eventually finished writing it all down. He frowned at the page. “What? Are you trying to tell us that this may have something to do with psychology?”

“No. I’m trying to tell you that there may be harmful information capable of affecting the human body—even causing death.”

Captain Chu froze for a moment. He felt there was no need to take the idea seriously. It was obviously impossible. The story itself was merely hearsay, after all, and had never been verified.

Then, moments later, his expression suddenly changed.

He was still wearing an earpiece. Whenever he spoke with Xu Chen, the think tank on the other end provided him with all kinds of informational support. Just now, the experts there had told Captain Chu that such a thing was possible.

The reason was that the patients in the Taihao coma under Captain Chu’s jurisdiction had suffered precisely in this manner.

“And there’s the rubber-hand illusion…” Xu Chen continued. “That one is real. If you conceal a person’s actual hand and replace it within their field of vision with a realistic rubber hand, then repeatedly brush the real and fake hands in perfect synchrony with two small brushes, the person may remain intellectually aware that the rubber hand is fake and belongs to the outside world. Yet on a sensory level, they will involuntarily and irresistibly perceive it as their own hand, accepting it as part of their body.

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“You will feel the brush’s touch coming from the rubber hand, and when asked to point at your real hand with the other one, you will usually point toward the rubber hand instead.

“If the fake hand is struck with a hammer or pricked with a needle, the recorded galvanic skin response and the areas of brain activation shown by functional magnetic resonance imaging will be identical to those produced when the real hand is stimulated.

“All of this has to do with the information people receive.”

“All right, I understand. Stop telling me little stories. If I submit this record, people will think I’m padding it for length.”

“There’s nothing wrong with padding it a little.” Xu Chen smiled. Then he looked at Captain Chu in puzzlement. “Still, you don’t seem surprised at all. You accepted my idea very easily. Did someone tell you about it?”

Captain Chu hesitated. “No comment. Continue.”

Xu Chen frowned and stared at Captain Chu, saying nothing.

This man was not being honest. He had not given a serious account of himself and might well be carrying some kind of transmitting or listening device. If Xu Chen truly let something slip, the consequences would be disastrous.

Even as he expressed his displeasure, he felt relieved. Fortunately, he had not blurted everything out at the beginning. Otherwise, that person he had never even met might already have been taken down in one sweep.

“I suggest you cooperate. Otherwise…”

Xu Chen met his eyes, entirely unafraid of the threat.

“All right. To be honest, the reason I accepted your idea so readily is that I already knew about it. And you should know about it too—the typhoon wind-field map.”

The moment it was mentioned, Xu Chen immediately remembered. Thinking it over carefully, he realized that it really did seem to be the case.

The Taihao illness had originally begun with the wind-field map, and had ultimately spread through inexplicable muttering. By any definition, this harmful information belonged to the most outrageous kind.

Moreover, it seemed to bear some resemblance to his own state of being unable to speak…

But before Xu Chen could think any further, the questioning continued.

Xu Chen still did not fully trust Captain Chu. He looked at him. “You’re wearing an earpiece. Take it off, or I won’t cooperate.”

With a sharp scrape, Captain Chu started to rise from his chair, but in the end he forced down his temper and removed the earpiece.

Xu Chen still shook his head. “No, no. I’m not reassured yet. Find a metal detector, then go to the room we were just in.”

“…”

Was I interrogating you, or were you interrogating me?

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