Plague Doctor

Translator: Larbre Studio Editor: Larbre Studio

As soon as he returned to the campus of Eastern University, Gu Jun got off the bus and watched the car drive away before walking off. After confirming that no one was following him, he immediately went to the Laboratory Animal Research Center and headed straight for the naked rats room.

He had thought about it repeatedly. It was impossible to conceal the truth about brainstem tumours, and it was better to take the initiative to confess than to have the truth get exposed eventually. Even if the tumour was in its advanced stage, it was uncertain how long each person could live. In this case, being able to live for two or three more years was an exceedingly rare case. Now that the country urgently needed manpower, there was a large possibility that the department would continue to hire him seeing that his condition was still stable.

Furthermore, when pitting his disease against the mysterious world of the Malformation Banyan disease and other abnormal illnesses, his own illness did not seem like a dead-end without any hope of survival.

Anyhow. In this dangerous line of work, can the department ensure that everyone can live for another two or three years in the future even if he had no terminal illness?

Gu Jun felt that this was not possible. If there was a labour contract, there must be a clause in the contract stating that death was voluntary by Party B.

There was no need to conceal his brainstem tumour, but the experiments regarding drugs targeting the malformation disease cannot be made known for the time being. He won’t be able to explain, and the naked rats cannot be kept as well.

Gu Jun went to the room where the naked rats were kept. He underwent ultraviolet sterilization and put on full-body protective clothing. He then went to the rack containing rat cages in the backroom to retrieve a few cages of the naked rats and put them on the experiment table. The tumour size of the naked rats continued to remain unchanged for those administered with medicines. As for the mice that had not been administered medication, they died one after another.

He looked at the fifteen naked rats and thanked them silently. “Thank you, mice friends. Thank you for your contribution to medicine. Be reborn as a human being.”

Gu Jun picked up the sick, dying mouse first, then pressing its head between his left thumb and index fingers. He grasped the root of its tail with the other hand and pulled back with force. KAH!

The spinal cord and brain marrow of the naked mouse dissociated. It died instantly without any pain. This was the method of cervical spondylectomy.

KAH, one, KAH, two, KAH, three ...

KAHKAHKAH, after a while, all fifteen naked rats were euthanized. They were horizontally lined up on the experimental table in a straight row, bereaved of any signs of life.

“Thank you.” Gu Jun gathered all of the corpses inside a yellow disposable medical bag and retrieved the foreign medicine powder stored there. He then proceeded to walk out of the naked rats room with the bag and left the research center.

On the way back to the dormitory, Gu Jun called Senior Brother Zhang Lin. His senior brother did not participate in the competition this time, but Professor Qin said that this would not be the only round of competition that would be held. Senior Brother Zhang Lin should also be participating in the future and even join the department. The call was connected. “Hey, Senior Brother.”

“Ah Jun, were you looking for me?”

The two hadn’t contacted each other for a while. Zhang Lin had been busy with his graduate student experiment the entire day. Gu Jun had already invited him to come out for dinner several times.

“My experiment is over.” Gu Jun heaved out a long sigh. This sigh was packed with emotion.

“Oh, what were the results?” From Zhang Lin’s tone, he was obviously pretending to be interested. What old Chinese TCM, old military doctors, ancient remedies, ancestral secret recipes, these were all the equivalent of cheating money. “I’m too busy, I haven’t had the time to check on the progress.”

“I understand.” Gu Jun said, “They’re all dead.”

“So fast? It seemed that your medicine had toxic components.” Zhang Lin was not surprised at all, and he sighed a bit annoyedly. “Ah Jun, don’t blame me for speaking too much. There are positive aspects of TCM, but it was definitely not all-encompassing or a cure for all kinds of diseases. The reputation of traditional Chinese medicine is tarnished by these so-called old traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. Don’t believe in it next time.”

“Senior Brother, what you said makes sense. Traditional Chinese medicine should also catch up with the times. I don’t see Western medicine being engaged in research involving body fluids.”

They continued chatting about TCM while heading to the hospital without bringing up the experiment.

When Gu Jun returned to the dormitory, he had just ended his conversation with Brother Zhang Lin.

The moment Gu Jun stepped through the door, Gu Jun rushed to Cai Zixuan’s rice cooker and placed a pot of water in it, then poured all 15 naked mouse corpses into it. He poured in all kinds of messy seasonings and boiled them in one pot. This was of course not for making soup or drinking, but rather destroying their components or “hiding the corpses”.

“Hoo,” Gu Jun let out a heavy sigh as he wiped his forehead and continued to his next task, taking care of Li Yuerui’s cell phone.

Because of Li Yuerui’s background, Gu Jun intended to hand the phone over and confess the incident that occurred during the deep dive in Longkan and the disaster on the seabed whether or not the state department was chasing after this mobile phone. This was something which could not be concealed.

The most important thing was not this phone, but rather the last video captured on the phone.

If the state department got their hands on the footage and saw him muttering that sentence in a foreign language, would he be incarcerated? Or even dragged off to have his brain dissected?

For his safety, he definitely must dispose of this mobile phone. 𝑓𝒓𝚎e𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯𝘰𝐯𝒆𝑙.c𝚘m

Gu Jun inserted an old SD card and turned it on. He transferred the video and Li Yuerui’s contacts, as well as other sensitive information into the SD card before removing the card. He proceeded to delete the video and formatted the phone, even downloading a bunch of movies that he would never watch to fill up the memory. Formatting, then downloading. Formatting, then downloading...

After repeating this several times, it would be an insurmountable task even if one wanted to restore the data.

Furthermore, this was under the premise that the storage chip was not physically damaged.

Gu Jun disassembled the phone, took a hammer, and viciously swung at the motherboard. He had to be precise yet disorganised with this hit. This was not only to destroy the storage card, but other places had to be damaged as well. He had to make it seem like the phone had been smashed at the point of impact.

As he swung the hammer, he was also thinking back about his own life experience. “No matter what organization Lai Sheng is and what role my parents played, they will invariably display their stance towards him after the state knows about it. These stances can vary... ”

A) His parents belonged to the “good” camp. Or they were, in fact, evil, but outsiders mistakenly thought they were good. The country continues to hire him.

B) His parents belonged to the “evil” camp. Or they were, in fact, good, but outsiders mistakenly thought they were evil. The country continues to hire him.

C) His parents belonged to the “evil” camp. The state thinks that the apple never falls far from the tree, and will seek to bury his existence. They would use and even confine him. Perhaps to use in their investigations, or even use him as a hostage?

Thinking about it, there was a 66% chance of being hired, and it seemed to be worth the risk of confessing. If the worst case happened, he simply could not afford the repercussions.

After Gu Jun utterly destroyed every component of the motherboard, especially breaking the storage card into irreparable bits, he reassembled the mobile phone. He ferociously smashed it against the ground several times. The mobile phone had been distorted out of shape after having been crushed so many times. He then pressed the power button again, and there was an utter lack of reaction.

“Huff, huff.” Gu Jun tossed the broken phone aside before finally sitting down at the desk while tightly gripping the SD card. The data is all here. Let’s store it somewhere safe.

The rice cooker let out a crackle as it went about its task. The dense aroma of soup permeated the air. Even though he knew the truth and felt a little nauseous, he still exclaimed, “It’s really fragrant.”

Each mouse cost 120 yuan. This soup was worth at least 1,800 yuan.

Gu Jun resisted the impulse to take a deep whiff of the aroma and opened the system interface in his mind.

[Hands of Dexterity

Rarity: ★ (From Lowest to Highest, 1★ to 10★)

Cultivation Potential: 3rd Tier

Host’s Ability Tier: 2nd Tier (1000/30000 Proficiency)]

“Completing a DIFFICULT mission only caused the proficiency to rise by 1000. Moreover, I have to restart from the beginning of the second tier so it will definitely be more challenging to increase the proficiency further on. At this rate, I have to complete a hundred DIFFICULT missions before I reach the third level. I wonder how much the ABYSSAL mission will cause it to rise.”

Gu Jun closed the ability list and brought up the task list. He then clicked on “Receive Mission Rewards”. The strange feeling suddenly resurfaced inside his mind, as though some sort of light flooded in. As the light gradually condensed, the phantom image of the three-page diagnosis and treatment diary were suspended above the sea of ??knowledge.

He willed the leftmost page to open. The material was also made of parchment paper and was filled with densely scribbled foreign texts; about thirty lines per page. The middle and rightmost pages were the same as well.

“What could all of this mean?” Anxiety filled Gu Jun’s face as he studied the texts. He could not even distinguish whether the three pages of the diary were continuously arranged or just scattered pages.

However, he was still able to pick out something different. “The handwriting is different.” The handwriting of the three-page diary was consistent. Unlike the writing on the incomplete anatomical reference, it did not appear to be scribbled in a hurry. Instead, the penmanship was impeccable, and the ink depth in some areas varied. The pages should have been carefully written alone in a non-hazardous environment.

“Wait... I can understand some words.”

Gu Jun scrunched his brows together. He was able to understand some bits of the foreign texts from the incomplete anatomical reference. He was able to crack a few concepts: bone, muscle, chest, nerves.

There were two more sentences, the visions deeply engraved them in his brain. He vaguely understood what they meant: “The fruits of darkness sprouts, shrouded by the darkness of the Abyss. The parasites of death will live with the Heavens and Earth forever.” and “Are they better than us?”

Some of those concepts resurfaced in these three pages of diaries. Gu Jun carefully compared them and soon discovered that in a row of foreign texts nearing the end of the diary’s third page, these concepts were used most intensively by the author. He could intermittently piece together half the meaning of the texts.

Gu Jun started to murmur softly.