Chapter 402: Fortune and Misfortune

Reality is like a low-budget film forced into production without a script; sometimes, the plot unfolds in ways entirely beyond expectation.

For the longest time, spiritual plagues like Dream-Loss Syndrome have been troublesome precisely because they can spread through the circulation of spiritual essence. And spiritual essence is a substance whose properties are always in flux.

No matter how strictly one guards against it, if the lingering thoughts, obsessions, or memories of the deceased remain attached to some object, and that object falls into another’s hands, the plague can spread just like that.

Whether it be banknotes, plastic bags, or old clothes...

But the protection of the Heavenly Governor’s Law is equivalent to a repulsive field covering the entire city. Ordinary people can hardly perceive it, yet it is omnipresent, constantly shifting itself to counter anomalies. Even without being fully activated, such minute residues of spiritual essence from a plague would be thoroughly dispersed, unable to persist.

There is simply no foundation for it to spread.

From this perspective, the City Hall stands as stable as a mountain; there is actually no problem.

This is the confidence Tianyuan has given me!

Unfortunately, confidence is often hard to maintain, and Tianyuan is not always omnipotent. Beneath seemingly rigorous rules, there may be countless loopholes waiting to be exploited.

The first to suffer were the Beishan District, where foreign immigrants and a massive number of undocumented residents huddled together in crowds.

When the first and second Dream-Loss Syndrome patients were discovered, it could still be treated as an isolated incident. But when the hospital found dozens or hundreds of patients queuing up to buy sleeping pills, the situation began to turn grave!

"Yes, it’s right here, Sister Wen."

Tong Hua, the expert guide, easily locked onto the source of the infection.

A minivan screeched to a halt in front of a dilapidated office building, its entrance hung with a mess of signs like [Six-Dimensional Super-Magnetic Soul Healing Center].

Located in a remote suburb, with sparse traffic, secluded and run-down—this kind of place is the absolute favorite for pyramid schemes, fraud gangs, and cult groups.

Outside, a loudspeaker was cheerfully playing songs for the elderly...

But inside, the lobby was dark and empty, with only a few stumbling, staggering figures wandering back and forth.

A stench of rot faintly permeated the air.

"God damn it..."

Wen Wen glanced at the scene inside, then could no longer hold back, sighing wearily.

First, it was the Bai Bang terrorists, then a large-scale roving Mind-Pivot fraud ring, and now a suspected cult spreading among immigrants. A mountain of issues had erupted in these past few days, like playing whack-a-mole—press one down, and two more pop up.

The Beishan team, which had been lying low for a while, was already running around in circles. As it turned out, they hadn't even caught those fleeing suicide bombers from Bai Bang, and now Dream-Loss Syndrome was starting to spread.

Having rushed over, exhausted, everything was already beyond saving.

One look was all it took.

There were no living people left inside...

"Notify the police station, put up the cordon first; the inside needs a complete cleanup." Wen Wen waved her hand and sighed as she got out of the car.

"Uh..." Tong Hua hesitated, wanting to say something.

"What is it?" Wen Wen asked, puzzled.

"The security department for this area has already been disbanded."

Tong Hua shrugged: "After Xu Chaoxian outsourced the police station, this sector couldn't afford the security fees either, so it’s been outside the governed zone... After all, it’s the Beishan District."

BOOM!

The ground beneath Wen Wen’s feet cracked open with a loud roar.

Her face turned livid.

"Son of a bitch..."

Wen Wen gritted her teeth, said nothing more, and silently rolled up her sleeves, walking straight toward the office building. With one kick, she shattered the teetering glass door. Amidst the piercing sound, those wandering figures stiffly turned their heads.

Their hollow faces were devoid of any spirit.

Inside their flesh-and-blood bodies, they were already hollowed out; all that remained now was the pure, biological craving that followed their distortion.

Hunger.

"Hungry... so hungry..."

Those blood-stained mouths opened instinctively. Behind the counter, two corpses lying on the ground slowly crawled up, and even the fragmented, cannibalized shells were wriggling, crawling forward with their hands.

Yet, even having fallen to this state, those faces still carried a faint, lingering smile.

Eerie and terrifying.

It’s just a pity they picked the wrong person...

Wen Wen closed her eyes in frustration, took a deep breath, and then stomped her foot.

BOOM!

An invisible ripple spread through the matter, sweeping forth with immense power. Wherever it passed, the corpses and shells collapsed to the ground, one after another, with a continuous, muffled thud from the bottom floor to the top.

Amidst the roaring, the floorboards shook violently. The surging power, transmitted through the medium, destroyed every body, plunging the entire office building, shrouded in heterodox spiritual essence, into dead silence.

Dust to dust, earth to earth.

No more sound.

Only a light, hallucinatory chuckle echoed from behind.

Wen Wen turned her head abruptly, but behind her, it was empty; there was no one there.

She remained silent, clenching her fists.

In the dead silence, a sound like a bubble bursting rang out... wisps of illusory light rose from those corpses.

Spiritual essence was leaking out.

From the mouths, noses, and eye sockets of those remains, something was wriggling. Gradually, it crawled out, like tiny, damp, twisting insects. After completing their incubation, they shed their final shells.

Thin, delicate wings slowly unfolded and fluttered.

Amidst the swirling rainbow light, they were eerie yet dazzling.

One by one, they rose, and just like that, amidst the hallucinatory laughter, they spread their wings and headed toward the free sky.

Regrettably, before that could happen, Wen Wen had already reached out her hand.

She clenched it silently.

————Wasteland · Stasis Zone!

The building froze in an instant. Not just the matter, but even the spiritual essence could not escape from the eternal stagnation.

Then, the Myriad Phenomena shook.

SNAP!

Outside the office building, as Tong Hua was quietly opening a bag of potato chips, he heard the sound of footsteps returning.

Behind Wen Wen, the massive office building slowly collapsed in the wind, turning into billions of grains of sand, scattering silently and aimlessly.

"Holy crap!"

Tong Hua was dumbfounded: "Sister Wen, have you finally achieved divine mastery? When are we going to conquer the world with our literary and martial virtues?"

"Cut it out."

Wen Wen tapped his forehead irritably, pulled out a cigarette case, and instinctively put a cigarette in her mouth, but her movement froze in mid-air. After a long while, she took the cigarette down, crushed it into powder, and threw it away.

"This is going to be trouble..."

In the sky, a faint wisp of rainbow light flickered. In the chaotic slums in the distance, amidst the mud after the heavy rain, several fully developed spiritual-essence insects rose into the sky.

As their wings opened and closed, they scattered specks of phosphorescence.

The outbreak had come with unexpected violence and speed.

The wilderness, which had only flourished for a few months after the rainy season, fell silent once more, sinking into isolation. All settlements closed their gates or cut off their roads.

Panic spread like a physical entity, even developing to the point of expelling all outsiders and besieging stowaways.

Even the operation of the Courier Logistics briefly ground to a halt.

No orders to take.

Compared to the stability brought about by the Security Bureau's full-scale mobilization in the city recently, the wilderness was already in chaos; countless flying insects spread their wings, rising and falling incessantly, gathering together to form a magnificent, enchanting, yet hair-raising disaster.

Even animals could not escape.

In fact, signs had already appeared of them specifically besieging and parasitizing small creatures.

In the massive amount of footage sent back by drones, one stiff-postured animal after another would sometimes collapse on the side of the road while walking. Within their rapidly rotting corpses, a large number of insects would quickly hatch and spread wildly.

This wave of disaster caught everyone off guard.

Fortunately, thanks to the coastal region’s forceful promotion of vaccines earlier, not many people were harmed in the first wave of impact. But according to those fleeing from other states, several unlucky settlements there had already been completely wiped of all living people; they were empty, with insects flying everywhere.

As panic spread, a large number of people began to gather toward Xinquan once again.

But they were blocked by checkpoints, wandering around, unable to leave.

Xinquan was already under martial law.

Now, it was the turn of those settlements and "smart alecks" who had mocked and even violently driven away medical personnel during the vaccine rollout to start regretting.

Unfortunately, it was already too late.

A sea of black heads gathered together; even knowing there was a possibility of infection, they could no longer care.

"Please, brother, let me in; the goods are going to spoil."

"The children are innocent!"

"You wouldn't just stand by and watch us die, would you?"

"I knew it, how could you be so kind? You must have released it!"

"Make that guy named Ji come out and give everyone an explanation!"

"Everyone, don't be afraid, let's charge together..."

The clamorous, noisy voices overlapped, boiling over with agitation, and the restless crowd gradually turned frantic.

From beginning to end, the security guards with guns on the sentry posts remained expressionless.

"Fucking idiots."

On the watchtower, Lu Feng finished his cigarette and waved his hand with zero interest.

Then, in front of the checkpoint, the high-pressure water cannons on the armored vehicles activated, spraying, and amidst the blaring of warning sirens, they forcibly dispersed the crowd.

We gave you vaccines for free before and you wouldn't take them; now that something has happened, you turn around and blame us.

It’s like they’re fucking sick in the head.

Besides... the vaccines had long since run out.

They hadn't even fully covered the people of Xinquan.

"Can't get through."

Yu Shu put down the phone and shook his head wearily: "At first, when I called, they would make excuses, but yesterday, they even returned all the prepayments and breach-of-contract penalties."

No production capacity, no logistics, couldn't get them over, and still had to wait in line.

There were as many excuses as one could want.

As a result, they dragged it out until now...

But in reality, how complicated could vaccine production be?

It was nothing more than those pharmaceutical companies wanting to seize the opportunity to loot a burning house, selling the waste piled up in their warehouses for the price of gold.

Even worse, they were fanning the flames.

Currently, the television was running at full power every day to publicize the dangers of "new encephalitis," with mouthpieces blowing up the tragic aftermath of the disease, and the price of vaccines on the black market began to skyrocket crazily.

Over in the Old Town, Chen Hangzhou had managed to transfer a batch of generic drugs from the Thousand Islands out of friendship, but alas, it was a drop in the bucket.

Among the people Ji Jue knew, Xie Lan did have the ability, but he was just one person without professional equipment; how much could he hand-craft in twenty-four hours without sleep?

For several days in a row, Ji Jue’s expression grew increasingly gloomy.

Everything could have been saved, yet he could only watch helplessly as it all rotted to this point.

Unable to watch any longer, he turned to look at the names of those pharmaceutical companies and insurance financial groups, reading them over and over from top to bottom, memorizing them in his heart.

He drew Pan Ying and sheathed it, repeatedly honing it, yet he still found it hard to restrain himself.

Amidst the ticking of the clock, on the other side of the office, Yu Shu, who was processing documents behind the desk, suddenly stiffened and glanced down at his phone.

He hesitated, wanting to speak.

Ji Jue looked up, glancing over, discerning his situation: "What is it?"

"Something happened."

Yu Shu’s words were stuttering and hesitant.

Just a moment ago, in Xinquan Town, the first case of an infected person "dying" due to the spiritual plague appeared...

Ji Jue remained silent for a long time before slowly rising.

He walked out the door.

The market was silent, and the cordon had already been set up.

Not far away, there were still people looking on in terror, their lingering fear not yet gone. Thanks to the previous preparations and arrangements, the death of the infected person did not cause large-scale chaos and panic.

The crowd had been evacuated and the situation handled at the very beginning.

At the stall, the soup was still bubbling away, but behind the table, the gaunt man lay on his chair, curled up, as if he were sleeping and would never wake up, devoid of any breath.

In a short nap, he had fallen into a long, eternal sleep.

It was as if he were still immersed in a beautiful dream, the corners of his mouth carrying a slight, hooked curve.

As if smiling.

In the silence, only the huge soup pot, about to boil dry, was bubbling and emitting sound, with wisps of steam rising. The rice cakes on the basket that hadn't been cut yet were already stuck together.

Ji Jue looked at that face on the recliner, finally discerning the appearance and traces of the past. In a moment of realization, he suddenly remembered that the man had even treated him to rice noodles before.

It was just that, at the time, his smile had been too worldly and mature; it was hard to tell whether it was fawning, awe, or tearful gratitude.

Now, he looked much more relaxed when smiling.

"...Didn't you say he got the vaccine?" he asked, turning back.

"The vaccine isn't a hundred percent guarantee." Yu Shu’s expression was complex: "If the physical and spiritual condition is too weak, there will also be a lack of resistance... besides..."

He paused and sighed silently.

This body was already at the end of its rope.

His Qi and blood were weak, and breathing was difficult.

It was like a candle in the wind...

Even without this incident, he might have died at any time; the so-called spiritual plague was just the last gust of wind that happened to blow by.

Ji Jue turned back to look at the market manager who had just arrived: "What’s his situation?"

"It’s him."

After the market manager figured out who the deceased was, he was stunned for a moment, his expression complex, as if he had expected it all along. He sighed softly: "At least he can suffer a little less; it can be considered a release."

Ji Jue was silent for a moment, his voice growing colder: "Was anyone extorting him?"

"No, no, no, there’s no such thing in our market; even if there were, they’d have had their legs broken by the security team." The manager hurriedly explained, wiping his sweat, sighing with emotion: "This guy was just too hardworking. Selling noodles morning and night, going to deliver trash in the middle of the night, and every time he went back and forth to Yacheng, he’d bring a bunch of odds and ends to sell. He did this every day... I told him many times that his body wouldn't be able to take it, but he wouldn't listen.

I heard the coast was paying by the piece plus a base salary, and he went to sign up many times. The recruiters all knew him and would only advise him to come back every time, saying he was too old and couldn't handle it at all.

A few days ago, he even came to ask me if delivering goods made money; it’s a good thing I stopped him from going."

"Did he owe debts?" Yu Shu asked.

"Yeah, more or less; everyone has a bit these days, but his gap wasn't small."

The manager brought over a few people who were sweeping the floor to answer, and they spoke all at once: "Besides earning money to pay off debts, he had to pay for his wife’s treatment, for that thing called moss..."

"Moss disease?"

"Right, the one that broke out a few years ago; there wasn't a family outside the city that didn't have someone die from it."

"It bankrupted him; he couldn't buy medicine. I heard that besides his wife, everyone else in his family was gone."

"How pitiful."

The auntie smoking a cigarette leaned on her broom and shook her head: "A few days ago, his wife died too."

"Didn't they say she was getting better?" The manager was also stunned: "He was happy for a long time last month and even gave me candy..."

"She was almost better, yeah." The auntie glanced at him and said in a low voice: "But... encountering this kind of thing, it’s inevitable. If you ask me, he’d suffered enough; he couldn't hold on anymore, right?"

Yu Shu was stunned.

His eyes lowered.

Long before going to the Thousand Islands, he had flipped through the records of the Chongguang Church.

In the hundreds of years, the records of numerous spiritual plagues were as vast as the sea. Dream-Loss Syndrome alone had several shelves, with dozens of large-scale outbreaks, all occurring during chaotic times and intervals of war.

Compared to the tragic situation recorded in the books where entire islands were silent, today was just a small skirmish.

In the statistics of the Chongguang Church, the incubation stage of Dream-Loss Syndrome was actually very long, and there was no lack of asymptomatic carriers. The causes of the outbreak were also diverse, but among them, the most common cause was only one...

————Wanting to die.

After losing all attachment to living, a desire for death would sprout. As consciousness gradually evaporated, the self would leave along with the dream, never to be seen again, leaving behind only an empty shell in the mortal world.

Never to feel pain again.

In the silence, Ji Jue was silent, staring at that peaceful face covered in wrinkles. It was as if he were still immersed in a beautiful dream; all the suffering and creases had been smoothed out into a curve, slightly bent upward.

Using up the smile he had saved for a lifetime.

"Mr. Ji..."

Yu Shu gathered his courage and called out in a low voice.

"Don't worry, I’m not that fragile."

Ji Jue slowly shook his head, "I was just thinking... in the end, what did he see?"

Yu Shu’s lips moved, and for some reason, he suddenly recalled himself: back on the sea, when a gun was held to his face.

The corpses drifting in the ocean, the singing in the mist, it was as if an unprecedented peace was calling out to him...

When the end came, what he felt was not fear or unwillingness.

But a certain sense of relief.

"...Probably happiness."

He murmured softly, instinctively.

Looking at that face.

The suffering had ended; from now on, there was no need to worry.

That was why he was smiling...

"Happiness?"

Ji Jue seemed to smile.

He finally turned back, looking at him, but there was no smile on his face, his pupils pitch black: "Is there no one who thinks it’s a problem that a world only feels happy when you’re dead?"

"..."

Yu Shu was stunned, silent.

Only his fingers trembled, instinctively clenching.

Being looked at with such eyes, he wanted to answer but couldn't speak, nor could he find an answer.

And Ji Jue had already turned and walked away.

Leaving decisively.

Unable to bear it any longer.

"Isis."

"Sir, I am here."

"Prepare mercury for me, activate the workshop, adjust the sequence, mobilize the spiritual quality reserves, and open material vaults four and seven..."

"Understood, large-scale alchemy project preparation, preheating started."

Isis asked one last question, "What is the project name?"

"[Worm]."