Chapter 93

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Chapter 93: Control

El recognized Ji Yongxing’s voice. Facing a barrage of questions, he chose to answer the most significant one:

"Other than me and another superpowered individual, everyone in the gangs has developed various illnesses. The main symptoms are: hallucinations, numbness and coldness in the limbs, loss of control over their bodies, and…"

Just then, a loud and vulgar noise erupted from the public restroom El was passing by.

"And severe diarrhea and convulsions."

Ji Yongxing noted with some surprise that El’s education level had improved slightly, showing signs of professionalism in his choice of words as they arranged a meeting place.

If he guessed correctly, El’s subordinates must have been affected by the mycelium, which caused their current state.

He was unsure of what would happen next, but since they were members of a mysterious organization that knew each other well, it was best to stay together in the potentially dangerous outer city.

On the other side of the outer city, inside a mental health clinic,

Lin Qingliu watched the patient lying on the Examination Table and skillfully activated his Chaotic Dream ability to explore the man’s In Dream.

This patient had knocked on his door that morning, claiming a voice had been babbling inside his head all night long.

The man hadn’t been able to sleep at all and, worried he might collapse from illness at work, decided to take a day off to seek treatment here.

Seeing the man’s near-collapse state and that he was at his limit, Lin Qingliu immediately took him into the Clinic.

After a brief moment of reassurance, Lin Qingliu seized the opportunity when the man closed his eyes, striking the back of his head with a well-placed chop.

The force was just right—enough to daze him without causing harm.

The man fell into a deep sleep, and Lin Qingliu smoothly entered his dream.

It was a small house, where two adults and two children were having breakfast together.

Lin Qingliu subtly altered the dream, making the three family members disappear while he took the place of a family member himself, sitting at the dining table and eating nutritional paste.

Suddenly, a voice thundered in the room, oddly reminiscent of a school bell ringing unexpectedly.

Lin Qingliu looked up, but he couldn’t find any source of the sound; every point on the walls seemed to be a source of it.

The voice spoke in a language he couldn’t understand, while the man across the table clutched his head in pain.

Although he couldn’t comprehend it, the voice sounded like a speech or perhaps issuing commands, occasionally rising in fervor.

Lin Qingliu sensed that this was problematic, as it didn’t seem to be a psychological issue with the patient, but a physical one instead.

That was beyond his scope of treatment.

With that in mind, Lin Qingliu withdrew from the dream.

As he looked at the patient affected by the mysterious voice, a memory suddenly flashed in his mind.

It was Fulan’s experiences before she became his cat.

Could it be…?

He quickly activated his knowledge path ability, using enhanced vision to search the man’s body for that familiar sensation.

The man’s body appeared unproblematic, but when Lin Qingliu scanned his head, he found a long strand of mycelium sprawling over the surface of the man’s brain.

Despite his physical strength, the chill that this revelation brought made Lin Qingliu instinctively take a step back.

After a moment’s thought, Lin Qingliu decided to try to help the man in the same way he had helped Fulan before things escalated to the worst possible outcome.

After all, his seedlings now faced some risk of infection, and the number of people affected in the outer city might have already reached tens of thousands.

Activating the ability of the third pathway, Lin Qingliu quickly found that familiar sensation.

In his perception, all the materials in the world transformed into layers of stacking, allowing him to freely control any part of his body to pass through, take away, or block whatever he wished.

Soon, a small cluster of mycelium, no bigger than a fingernail, was extracted from the man’s head.

He quickly woke up, shook his head, and looked gratefully at Lin Qingliu.

"Divine doctor!"

Lin Qingliu chuckled a bit awkwardly as he silently crushed the struggling mycelium.

"The treatment fee is one hundred."

The man cheerfully pulled out the money and intended to leave.

Lin Qingliu thought for a moment and asked,

"Right now, we have a high-end service package that is beneficial for both physical and mental health, only selling for two thousand. Would you like to try it?"

The man turned around and smiled,

"Doctor, let’s talk about it next time; I’d lose half a day’s wage if I go to work now."

Lin Qingliu didn’t say anything more. After sending the man off, he returned to his seat to contemplate the next developments.

He paced for a few steps, then walked to the window to look outside.

The outer city was as calm and peaceful as ever today, but it seemed as if a terrible storm was brewing within.

Lin Qingliu quietly flipped the "open for business" sign around, changed into a different outfit representing another identity on the second floor, and disappeared into the crowd on the street.

—

"Hey, are you hungry?"

A guard tasked with watching the madman turned to his companion.

"I think I am. What’s going on?"

"I don’t know; we definitely ate this morning."

"…How about we grab a little more? Didn’t they say patients need a lot of nutrition? Look, both our feet are injured from the last fight."

"Ugh."

The man who first raised the question fell into hesitation.

It was understandable; the Ashes, a relatively small organization, had no proper rooms for detention.

The room they were using as a makeshift prison was merely a storage area for the nutritional paste they usually consumed.

The recent batch of supplies they had confiscated and their rations for the time to come were quietly stored inside.

With that thought, the two exchanged a glance. Since that man was tied up, they might as well go in and have a little snack.

What they didn’t notice was the starry crimson hue emerging in their eyes.

The two opened the door behind them, and the scene before them shocked them into silence.

The madman, once tied up, was now devouring the piles of nutritional paste in an extremely wasteful manner.

He tore open the packaging with his visibly sickly right hand, pouring the substance directly into his mouth, seemingly forgetting the step called chewing.

Then, after obvious contractions in his abdomen, he vomited the nutrition paste mixed with gastric juices.

However, this grotesque scene surprisingly didn’t impact the two at all.

The guards seemed to have grown accustomed to everything before them, as something swiftly coursed through their bodies.

A few seconds later, they exchanged glances.

This time, they both saw the crimson glow in each other’s eyes.