Chapter 640

When Eric pushed open the door of the old bookstore, the door hinge emitted a long, creaking sound as usual.

He had become so familiar with this sound that it felt intimate.

Two months ago, he had found this sound grating, but now he felt that if this creak were missing, the bookstore would be lacking something.

Just like the fog of Fog City; if there were no fog, Fog City would not be Fog City.

"Boss." He nodded toward Gao Jie Ming, who was in the rocking chair.

Gao Jie Ming gave a hum, lifted his gaze from the newspaper to look at him, and then let it fall back to the newspaper.

As usual, there was neither extra expression nor extra small talk.

Eric had already grown accustomed to this reaction from Gao Jie Ming.

He walked to the bookshelf, but instead of picking out a book, he took the medical book Gao Jie Ming had given him from his bosom and sat down on the small stool by the window.

The book was already worn thin; the creases on the spine were dense, and the edges of the pages had traces of fingerprints and sweat stains.

Actually, reading at home was the same, but he still liked to come here to read.

Although there was the sound of Gao Jie Ming flipping through the newspaper, the occasional whimpering of the wind through the door cracks, and the low echo of factory whistles in the distance.

But these sounds mixed together, forming a background noise that made him feel at ease.

More importantly, when reading here, if he encountered something he did not understand, he could ask Gao Jie Ming directly.

And besides answering questions, Gao Jie Ming would often ask counter-questions based on the problems he raised.

Those questions often left Eric stunned, leading him to go back and flip through the book, finding the answer himself in the process.

This method was torturous, but the results were surprisingly good.

Eric found that he was remembering more and more, and it was not rote memorization, but the kind of remembering that came from true understanding.

"After blood is pumped out from the heart, it passes through the arteries to reach the capillaries, and then returns through the veins." Gao Jie Ming's voice came from the direction of the rocking chair, still in that unhurried tone, as if he were talking to himself and also to him, "In this process, how does blood pressure change?" Eric's hand, which was flipping through the book, paused.

His brain began to spin rapidly.

Gao Jie Ming seemed to have mentioned this question before; what page was it on...

He flipped through the pages quickly, his eyes scanning lines of text and charts.

"Arterial blood pressure is the highest, capillaries are next, and veins are the lowest." He found the answer, but not daring to be certain, he looked up at Gao Jie Ming. Gao Jie Ming did not look at him; the newspaper blocked his face.

"What about the source of power for venous return?"

Eric lowered his head to flip through the book again.

This time he flipped faster because he remembered the keywords.

A few pages later, he found it: "The pumping action of the heart, respiratory movements, the squeezing of skeletal muscles... and venous valves to prevent backflow." "If a person is bedridden for a long time, how will venous return be affected?"

Eric's fingers paused on the page.

There was no direct answer to this question in the book, but he could deduce it.

The squeezing of skeletal muscles had disappeared, so the return should slow down...

Slowing down to a certain extent, blood would pool in the veins, possibly forming a thrombus...

He opened his mouth, wanting to state his deduction, but was unsure if it was correct.

Gao Jie Ming put down the newspaper and looked at him.

That look was very flat, as if he were watching a fledgling bird learning to fly.

Then he picked up the newspaper again and flipped to the next page.

"Chapter 3, Section 3."

Eric nodded, sweating profusely, and buried himself in his studies.

Gao Jie Ming put down the newspaper, leaned back in the rocking chair, and his gaze fell on the lightbulb on the ceiling.

The lightbulb was not on; a wire hung empty from the light fixture on the ceiling.

He was still using that oil lamp, its orange-yellow light dancing on the bookshelves, casting uneven light and shadow on the spines of the old books.

His attention shifted away from Eric and turned to another problem.

Three days had passed.

From the battle in the abandoned industrial zone until now, exactly three days.

During the day, he used his spiritual sense to cover the entire city, scanning every street, every building, and every underground space, trying to find the stronghold of those black-robed people. But he had gained nothing.

Logically, his spiritual sense could cover the entire Fog City during the day.

Even if he were not worried that excessive expansion of his spiritual sense would trigger stress reactions from other anomalies, with Gao Jie Ming's current spiritual sense intensity, covering the entire continent would be no problem.

His vast spiritual sense also allowed him to record information from every corner in minute detail.

Whether it was a conversation happening in a secret room or a secret gathering happening underground, nothing could escape his perception.

But those black-robed people had vanished into thin air.

Theoretically, even if these black-robed people hid, they could not escape Gao Jie Ming's detection.

But even so, Gao Jie Ming still had not found a trace of those people.

This indicated one problem: those black-robed people could only be active at night.

Gao Jie Ming's fingers tapped lightly on the armrest of the rocking chair twice.

Another problem was that he had not found any place in Fog City suitable as a "stronghold."

It was not that he had found one but lacked evidence, but rather that, analyzing from the perspective of physical space, there was no place in this city that could accommodate those black-robed people without being discovered by him.

Abandoned factories, underground passages, vacant houses in the old city...

He had checked them all with his spiritual sense; they were either too small, too empty, or simply not suitable as a base for long-term activity.

Unless... the enemy's stronghold was not in Fog City.

Either in the endless wilderness outside the city or in another city.

But Gao Jie Ming quickly ruled out the latter possibility.

Because of the rampant anomalies, there was not much contact between cities in this plane.

Except for fixed communication and transportation channels between the official Psychic Associations, ordinary people had almost no contact.

The relationship between cities was somewhat like isolated islands on land, each governing itself and dealing with its own anomaly problems.

Would a cult organization from another city run to Fog City just to sabotage the Fog City Psychic Association's efforts to seal anomalies?

The probability was too low.

Why would they do that?

What benefit would it bring them?

The risks and costs of cross-city operations were extremely high, and once exposed, they would face the combined strike of two cities' Psychic Associations. Unless there was an extremely sufficient reason, no one would do such a stupid thing.

Then what about the wilderness?

Gao Jie Ming closed his eyes, sketching the geographical environment around Fog City in his mind.

To the east of Fog City was the sea, to the west and north were rolling hills and wilderness, and to the south was a swampy area.

These places were sparsely populated, resource-poor, and occupied by many bandits.

If ordinary people entered the wilderness without preparation, their survival rate was less than thirty percent.

But if a group of psychics established a hidden stronghold in the wilderness, it was not entirely impossible.

The problem lay in resources.

Resources in the wilderness were extremely scarce; food and water were not too big a problem, otherwise there would not be so many bandits.

The focus was on medicine, experimental materials, and various experimental equipment...

All these things needed to be transported in from the city, which would significantly increase costs.

And the danger of being discovered would also increase; after all, transportation meant routes, and routes meant they could be tracked.

Gao Jie Ming opened his eyes.

He suddenly thought of something.

Those black-robed people, he actually "knew" them.

It was not that he knew them in reality, but that his spiritual sense had "seen" them during his daytime scans.

Those people had actually been living in Fog City all along... as ordinary people.

Factory workers, dock laborers, street vendors, or even the owner of some shop.

These people lived exactly the same lives as ordinary people during the day, without any abnormalities.

But at night, they changed into black robes, picked up kerosene lamps, and became those well-trained, fearless cultists. Gao Jie Ming's fingers stopped tapping.

"Overall, there are two possibilities." Gao Jie Ming calculated in his heart.

First, those black-robed people had informants in Fog City.

And they were the kind of people who could transport large amounts of resources and intelligence to their base in the wilderness for them.

Second, the other party used some means to cut off his spiritual sense detection.

Perhaps it was a special anomaly capable of shielding spiritual sense scans; perhaps it was a sealing array capable of hiding their stronghold in some interlayer space he could not see.

The characteristics of anomalies in this world were strange and varied; what he had come into contact with was only the tip of the iceberg.

Before fully understanding them, Gao Jie Ming did not dare to say that he could indeed discover all places hidden using anomalies.

Both possibilities were very high.

If it were the first, then the status of those informants would definitely not be low.

After all, if they were ordinary people, just trying to survive would have taken all their effort; it was almost impossible for them to provide large amounts of resources to be transported out of the city.

If it were the second, it would be even more troublesome.

The other party possessed means capable of shielding spiritual sense scans, the specific situation was unknown, and he needed to prepare for the worst.

Perhaps the wizard who was cooperating with them had already taught them some basic detection and counter-detection means from the Wizarding World. Gao Jie Ming stood up from the rocking chair, walked to the door, and pushed open the wooden door.

The morning in Fog City was the same as usual; gray-purple daylight leaked through the gaps in the thick fog, casting blurred light and shadows on the wet stone road.

He stood at the door, hands in his pockets, watching the sparse pedestrians on the street.

Since the previous thoughts could not be determined, Gao Jie Ming turned his attention to another known clue.

The clues exposed during the previous battle all pointed in one direction: there was a mole inside the Psychic Association.

The black-robed people knew the Association's operation time, deployment positions, and the weak defense in the direction of the sea.

This intelligence could not have been obtained through external observation. Someone inside the Association must have provided them with this information.

That person might not have a high position, but they must have been able to access the operation plan.

Gao Jie Ming felt that if he wanted to catch the other party's tail, he still had to investigate from this mole.

The Psychic Association's capture plan for the Shadow Stealer had not been too confidential before, so it was quite troublesome to investigate.

However, it would likely not be long before the Psychic Association took action.