CH 188

In the dim hut of the dilapidated factory building, Xiao Wu recounted what had happened as Xing Conglian continued to smoke. The green smoke was like a fog, suffocating and depressing the entire room.

Xing Conglian didn’t sit on the ground but stood upright, like a javelin, without even leaning against the wall.

The voices of the two people who were telling the story on the ground became lower. At the end, Xiao Wu raised his head slightly and looked at him with a silent and focused gaze.

Xing Conglian squeezed the cigarette pack and found that he had exhausted all the cigarettes inside. He held the shriveled cigarette package tightly in his palm.

He glanced at the doctor standing by the door, and his first words were, “Dr. Guan, please go outside and wait for a bit.”

Duan Wanshan looked at him, then nodded and left.

The wooden door creaked shut, and Xiang Conglian squatted down, looking directly at Xiao Wu.

In Xing Conglian’s memory, Xiao Wu had always been a young and shy boy. Xing Conglian was already in a bad mood, and now the child he raised was suddenly stolen by that pig, Kang An. When Xiao Wu was speaking, he would hide his feelings, giving Xing Conglian the bitter sense of a parent unable to control their child after they grow up and leave home.

“Let’s sort through everything,” he said slowly.

Xiao Wu nodded.

“A week ago, you received a request to arrive in the Dana Region to investigate the Gaomeng massacre. When you passed through the village of the Gaomeng Tribe, the Gaomeng people disappeared. You followed their tracks and encountered the Gaomeng Tribe being besieged by Zaratul’s forces. You accidentally fell into a trap set by Zaratul, and after being injured, you were rescued by Dr. Guan and protected until you arrived here?”

Xiao Wu reluctantly said, “That’s correct, boss.”

Xing Conglian sneered. “Such garbage. Don’t call me boss.”

Instantly, Xiao Wu’s face became ugly. Kang An was also too scared, and he could only hold back his anger.

“Boss…” Xiao Liu said weakly.

“Heh.”

The two people in front of him were silent and cautious, and their posture had changed from sitting to kneeling. Looking at the faint scars on their faces and bodies, Xing Conglian became even more angry and couldn’t help but say, “Come on, you two, tell me. If I’m not senile yet, according to regulations, you’re just here to conduct an observational survey in the Dana Region, which means you’re only supposed to observe if anything is wrong here. If you find something is wrong, you will call back and report it, then fly home. Am I right?”

“Boss, you wrote the charter, so of course you are right,” Xiao Liu said obsequiously.

Xing Conglian didn’t even say a word to this shaved-headed subordinate. He continued to look at Xiao Wu and said solemnly, “Then may I ask, Mr. Lu Zhengyan, you two observers got accidentally swept up in this incident and even stepped on a trap by Zaratul. Is this too much for me to call you useless?”

“It’s our fault, boss. We were greedy and wanted to find the matter out clearly. We accidently strayed into Zaratul’s encirclement trap…”

The words were so fake that Xing Conglian couldn’t bear to listen anymore. He stood up to leave, but his legs stiffened, and he froze in place.

Someone hugged his leg vigorously. The person holding it was Xiao Wu, the young man whom he had raised just like Wang Chao. He reluctantly turned his head and saw Wang Chao trembling as he put down his laptop and squatted beside the three of them. “Boss, although I don’t know what happened, I just saw everyone kneeling, so it doesn’t feel appropriate to stand…”

Looking at four people in a row kneeling on the ground, Xing Conglian missed Lin Chen even more. If Lin Chen encountered such a situation, he would probably cross his arms coldly and leave without turning his head. Once he thought of Lin Chen, he became even more irritable. “What with all this apologizing set? Laozi’s not a gangster!”

“Boss, it’s really miserable. We feel guilty in our hearts,” Xiao Liu said.

Through the door, Xing Conglian pointed at the hundreds of Gaomeng people outside and suddenly became quiet. “In the Dana Region, I have never seen the principle of saving people just out of pity. Since you’re here to observe and investigate, you have to get out after observation. Understand this and don’t cause trouble for others!” Xing Conglian said solemnly. “If you don’t have the ability, don’t take on the work. Otherwise, you’ll just drag others down.”

When his voice fell, the room was silent.

“When we arrived, Zaratul was killing people.” At this moment, Xiao Wu spoke up slowly. “There were the elderly and children. When they fled the village at the beginning, their formation wasn’t good. The young were at the back, while the old were still at the front. Then Zaratul ambushed them in the front. There was a burst of machine gun fire, and many people were shot… When we arrived, this was the scene we saw.” Xiao Wu was injured, so as he spoke, his voice became lighter.

Thinking about it, massacres were like this, and these were words that Xing Conglian didn’t want to hear. When he heard such inhumane stories, it also meant that his conscience would overcome his reason and prevent him from “minding his own business”. “And then what? You guys copied them and picked up your weapons and attacked?” he said sarcastically.

Xiao Wu shook his head. “Not at first. We also wonder why the intelligence was so different from the actual situation, so we just helped them behind the scenes.”

Xiao Wu said it tactfully, but the help they provided wasn’t that simple. Xing Conglian had already listened enough to their nonsense and didn’t need to listen to it again. “Okay, Mr. Lu Zhengyan, no need to keep repeating yourself. You have said so much, you’re circumventing a problem.”

“What?”

“Kang An said you went crazy and lost contact with him. What the hell happened?”

Xiao Wu lowered his head. He was quiet for a moment and was just about to speak when the wooden door was pushed open.

Duan Wanshan appeared at the door on crutches. He looked at the two people kneeling on the ground and said, “I appreciate your kindness, but it looks like your boss is more difficult than you think.”

After he finished, he slightly turned and bowed to Xing Conglian and slowly said, “If you want to know the truth, please come with me, Captain Xing.”

Duan Wanshan walked in front, and Xing Conglian followed behind. He had already walked through most of the factory, and now Duan Wanshan took him out again and walked to the warehouse in the corner of the floor. He suddenly realized that Duan Wanshan’s arrangement for the crowd gathering area in the factory seemed to have a deeper meaning.

“Just now?” he asked.

“Those are all patients with mild symptoms.”

“What about here?”

“Intensive isolation.”

Before Duan Wanshan’s voice fell, he opened the heavy iron door in front of him.

Because the door was too heavy and the chain was too old, it made a sound like an earthquake when opened. Xing Conglian quickly realized that the muffled sobbing sound that followed the roar didn’t come entirely from the door in front of him but from something behind the door.

Behind the door were rooms in which some people were locked up, or rather, could be considered people.

Xing Conglian followed Duan Wanshan and looked at all the rooms. Everyone in the room was bound by heavy cotton gauze. In addition, each of them had an iron chain tied to their feet to limit their range of activities. If it weren’t for knowing that this was an abandoned factory deep in the Dana Rainforest, Xing Conglian would have thought he had stepped into a mental hospital.

Of course, psychiatry wasn’t his specialty, but the situation in the room may far exceed ordinary mental problems.

It was difficult for Xing Conglian to describe the people he saw.

Some of their feet were worn by the iron chains, but they were gnawing on their ankles in an extraordinary, twisted position. When Xing Conglian walked by, they raised their heads and showed him their teeth full of gaps and their bloody lips.

Others tried their best to rush to the door, but because of the chain restrictions, they could only maintain a one-foot-forward posture. The distance between their legs grew larger and larger until they tripped and fell with a clatter, then they quickly got up again.

However, most of the people in the room were looking at them with vigilant eyes. That kind of vigilant eye was different from that of humans, looking more like a natural beast. Some of them curled up in a ball, while others squatted in a corner, posing like an animal about to attack.

Xing Conglian had seen many distorted humans, but he never even imagined that normal human joints could be folded to such a point. People whom he couldn’t identify by gender were entangled together in twisted poses, seemingly as if they’d been dead for a while now.

Xing Conglian stared at everything in front of him in a daze, and finally his gaze moved to the doctor, who had been silently walking in front of him on crutches. “What’s wrong with them?”

“I can’t separate them. Although it’s inhumane, we’re almost at the point of cannibalism now, so it doesn’t matter.” Duan Wanshan stopped walking, turned around, and explained to him with a determined expression. “The man’s name is Kachu and the woman’s is Soren. They were a pair of ordinary fisherman couple from the Gaomeng tribe. I won’t talk about how happy their lives used to be, because their happiness is insignificant to outsiders. When I saw them, they were arguing endlessly. Their neighbors had put up with them for three days and were about to take an ax to chop them up. At that time, I happened to be investigating at the residence of the Gaomeng Tribe. Their neighbors came to me and asked me if there was any medicine that could poison them.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him that an ax was more useful.” Duan Wanshan looked at the two people in the room and continued, “But an ax doesn’t work either. The actual situation is that as long as he leaves Soran, Kachu will quickly grab something on the ground and bash his head in.”

Duan Wanshan paused, then said calmly, “Captain Xin, I’m not going to beat around the bush anymore, as I don’t have much time left. About a little over half a month ago, I became aware of a strange madness in the Dana Region, and during my epidemiological investigation of the cases, I found that the source may be in the Gaomeng Tribe’s settlement. By the time I arrived here, the situation had already become uncontrollable. Roughly ten percent of the population of the Gaomeng Tribe has varying degrees of mental abnormalities. When this happened, my first consideration was food and drug factors. However, at that time, the Gaomeng Tribe’s outpost had learned that the Zaratul Tribe was going to encircle and suppress them. For various reasons, the Gaomeng Tribe decided to migrate as a whole. Before the migration, my investigation wasn’t yet complete. After discussing it with the tribal chief, we decided to bring along those mentally ill patients.”

Xing Conglian titled his head and said seriously, “The kindness of women*.”

*Phrase used to describe a situation where a person shows excessive mercy or compassion, to the point of neglecting practical considerations or even causing harm to oneself or others.

“Of course. I am a doctor, and doctors are like this,” Duan Wanshan said confidently. Perhaps he spoke too strongly when he said “I am a doctor” and didn’t sound at all like a dying person, so the sobbing sound in the space was completely suppressed by this strong tone, and the surroundings became very quiet.

The doctor continued, “Taking mentally ill people is actually a big part of the army’s itinerary. During the march, we also considered giving up those people, but when the Zaratul Tribe asked us to hand over all mentally abnormal patients and they’d let the rest of us leave, I was very surprised. It turns out that the reason for their big fight was actually that they wanted the patients. Considering the current situation, I suspect that all patients with mental abnormalities have ingested high-purity drugs.”

“Drugs?” Xing Conglian interrupted him.

“Specifically, drugs referring to all chemicals that can cause harm to the human body.” Duan Wanshan’s thoughts were clear, and he didn’t end his narrative because of the interruption. “Therefore, I cross-examined some patients with mild symptoms about their diet and medication. The people of the Gaomeng Tribe said that before I came, a group of Doctors Without Borders would regularly come to examine them and distribute vitamins. However, some of the users didn’t have mental problems, while others had severe problems.”

Xing Conglian was shocked. “There were people pretending to be Doctors Without Borders who used the rainforest nation to conduct illegal drug experiments?”

“This is also my guess,” Duan Wanshan said solemnly. “I met your men after that. After learning that they were investigating officials, I asked them to return to the village and destroy all the drugs we didn’t bring out, because there may be poisonous drugs mixed there, and those poisonous drugs are exactly Zaratul’s goal. In fact, your subordinate, in the process of helping me destroy the drugs, had a fight with the Zaratul Tribe and accidentally ingested high-purity drugs, but his intake was very small. After a simple withdrawal treatment, he’s no longer affected.”

From start to end, Duan Wanshan’s tone was calm, without much change in feelings. The processes of blood and fire, death and pain that came from his mouth were said as if they weren’t such a big deal.

Xing Conglian thought that most likely Duan Wanshan also used this tone when he announced to a patient that their life was coming to an end, which was why he could treat his own death in such a calm manner.

“I understand,” Xing Conglian said lightly.

There was no clear statement in his words, but a gratifying smile suddenly appeared on Duan Wanshan’s deathly gray face. He said, “I can understand why you blame your subordinate. Because if my student kept doing CPR for an hour after I told him that the patient was already dead, I would also have a similar attitude as yours. In any case, they are indeed helping me. They made up the lie by saying I saved them. They probably just know you very well and want to stay to help solve the problem.”

“No,” Xing Conglian interrupted Duan Wanshan. “Didn’t you give them withdrawal treatment?”

This time, Duan Wanshan finally smiled bitterly. “It’s just a simple treatment.”

“What happens if they weren’t treated?”

“It’s hard to say…”

“Alright, I see.” Xing Conglian waved his hand. “It’s only natural to pay off debts. I’ll pay off the debts they owe you before you die.”

He didn’t know if it was because his words were too simple, but before his voice fell, there was a renewed noise around him. Xing Conglian pursed his lips and listened carefully for a while before realizing that the noise wasn’t coming from the space where they were located but from outside the factory building in the open space.

Duan Wanshan looked at his watch. His face suddenly sank, but there was no expression of grief, only disgust.

“What’s going on?” While Xing Conglian spoke, he walked towards the window, following the sound.

“During our migration, some tribal residents were captured by Zaratul as captives. They would kill one person in front of us every day to force us out of the building,” Duan Wanshan said calmly. “Now, it’s the killing time.”

……

When Duan Yang heard the noise outside the laboratory, he was inspecting the monkey room. The monkeys seemed to sense something and suddenly squeaked like crazy.

Cruel laughter came through the walls. It should be human laughter, mixed with a language he couldn’t understand. He walked carefully to the window and looked out. In the open space downstairs, the militants dragged a black woman to a dilapidated factory building.

For the first time in his life, Duan Yang saw such an inhumane scene.

Someone put a gun against the woman’s head.

The woman was dying, and her nose was pinched, forcing her to open her mouth…

Duan Yang looked away. The scene downstairs was too cruel and terrifying. Then he heard someone appear to be counting down.

He looked back at Lin Chen, who was asleep in the laboratory, hesitating whether he should wake Lin Chen up.

……

Xing Conglian was also standing by a window. He tried to hide himself as much as possible to avoid being discovered by the not-so-outstanding snipers on the opposite floor.

Duan Wanshan stood beside him against the wall, as if he had watched this scene for many days, and lightly closed his eyes. He didn’t want to watch the scene downstairs.

Gunshots rang out as blood splattered, followed by resounding laughter that filled the sky.

But the air around them seemed to drain in an instant, and all sound disappeared. Xing Conglian looked at the corpse downstairs, then slowly raised his head and glanced at the transparent blue sky in Dana.