Chapter 448: Chronic Catastrophe-Class Haunting Incident?

Hua City underground.

In a dark, damp sewer pipe, a pitch-black, ugly bizarre fish surged through the filthy, turbid water, muttering incessantly to itself.

“Found it, found it, finally I found someone with a psychic energy fluctuation in this damned place! This time it has to work, right?”

After several days of observation, the systems discovered that, for some reason, the time point of its “rebirth” this time, the long night that would trigger changes in the world, seemed to be arriving later than usual.

At this point in time, the length of night was still at a normal level, hauntings and psychics were still quite rare, and finding a host with psychic potential was not an easy task.

So, its previous efforts had been completely misguided. In this situation, it should target humans who already had psychic energy fluctuations. Compared to ordinary people, they were much more receptive to mysterious things.

Thus, after several more days of searching, it finally found the presence of a psychic energy fluctuation.

“Splaaash–!”

Its tail fin broke the water’s surface as the systems performed a flamboyant tail flick in the sewage, turned a corner, and a faint glimmer of light appeared ahead.

It sped up toward the light, and before long, leapt out from a riverside drainage pipe, greeted by brilliant sunlight.

And then……

It saw a woman lying on the riverbank, covered in blood, clearly on the verge of death.

“Tsk tsk, dying? Good riddance!” the systems muttered to itself, swimming along the shore toward the woman.

Having finally found a human with a psychic energy fluctuation, the systems naturally hoped she could become its next host.

Based on its many experiences selecting hosts, when a person is gravely injured or terminally ill, humiliated without restraint by a rival in love, or after their family or lover is brutally murdered by evil forces, the likelihood of forming a contract and becoming a host is much higher, and their growth potential is also greater.

Although hoping for misfortune to befall a potential host or their family was a bit unscrupulous, the systems still rather wished to encounter such hosts-after all, it would help resolve all their misfortunes afterward.

This method of judgment had never failed, except for that one time with Gu Qianqian. A careless mistake turned what should have been a heavy tragedy into a gourmet comedy.

To this day, the systems still remembered the first time it met the homeless Gu Qianqian, crying like pear blossoms in the rain, calling out for her uncle and brother.

It had thought Gu Qianqian’s wish was to find her missing family, and that this would become the belief supporting her growth in the future. Only later did it learn that Gu Qianqian had been crying from hunger that day.

Ah, that girl Gu Qianqian…… the systems sighed inwardly, suddenly overcome by a wave of melancholy.

Moving forward, just as it was about to reach the woman, the systems activated its innate skill, concealing its form, then transmitted its voice and image into the woman’s mind.

“Ding–!”

“Hello, your [Super Magical Girl Demon-Slaying System] has successfully connected. Would you like to begin loading? [Yes/No]”

Hearing the voice in her ear and seeing the classic translucent pale blue panel suddenly appear before her eyes, the dying woman’s body stiffened, and a strange light flickered in her once-dim eyes.

Sy…systems? the woman thought, shocked and uncertain.

“Hello, I am here.” The systems replied in a synthesized mechanical voice, professionally, “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Really? There are actually systems in this world? Isn’t this a haunting! the woman thought.

The systems, “……” Aren’t you clever!

“Hello, I am not the haunting you imagine, but a systems condensed by the will of the great world to eliminate Calamity and other world-destroying factors. Now that you meet the loading conditions, would you like to begin loading? [Yes/No]”

Although the systems didn’t know what the will of the great world was, at times like this, it could only make something up to gain the woman’s trust.

That voice just now seemed to… mention ‘Calamity’? The woman’s eyes widened, her pupils contracting violently.

The systems, “……”

Wait, how do you know the name ‘Calamity’?

At this point in time, Calamity shouldn’t even exist yet!

As if strongly stimulated, the dying woman suddenly revived, struggling to sit up, her face full of terror, trembling as she asked, “Did you just say Calamity?”

“Hello, yes, I am a systems condensed by the will of the great world to eliminate Calamity and other world-destroying factors…” The systems braced itself and repeated, but before it could finish, the woman suddenly lost control, clutching her head and screaming.

“Ah–! Calamity, it’s Calamity, Calamity is here again! I’m going to die, I’m going to die!”

The systems, “……” Damn! What do you mean ‘again’? Don’t scare me!

Just as the systems was thinking this, it suddenly sensed the woman’s heart rate spike to an abnormal level, her pupils began to dilate, her blood pressure dropped, and her vital signs rapidly faded.

“Warning! Abnormal vital signs detected. Please load the systems immediately so I can repair your body.”

To stop the woman from dying, it had to get her to load the systems first. Without a contract with the host, no matter what methods it tried, it couldn’t save her.

“Warning! Detected you…”

“Gah–!”

The woman suddenly let out a strange whimper, her whole body tensed, her pupils shrank to the size of rice grains, her hands clutched the riverbank pebbles, then her legs kicked out-and she died.

Cause of death: cardiac arrest.

“Uh…,” the system froze for a moment, then revealed its form from the void, leaping onto the woman’s body, frantically attempting CPR while cursing loudly, “Damn, damn, damn! What the hell is this?!”

“If you’re going to die, then just die, but at least tell me clearly before you go-at this point in time, where did this Calamity come from?!”

“Isn’t she supposed to still be under her father’s strict watch? How did she turn into a Calamity?!”

“……”

Five minutes later.

The system finally confirmed that the woman was, for the most part, truly dead. It wobbled its dark and ugly body, jumped off her, sprawled on the riverbank, and stared at the sky like a dead fish.

“At times like this, I really wish I had a cigarette to calm down…” the system sighed weakly.

As soon as it finished speaking, a faint clinking of glass suddenly reached its ears.

“Bang-bang-bang-!”

With the soft sound, a crystal container filled with dark red flesh rolled out from the woman’s arms, fell onto the rocks of the riverbank, and shattered.

The system steadied itself, looked toward the sound, and the moment it saw that mass of dark red flesh, its chubby body jolted as if electrocuted, fish body trembling, it leapt backward in shock.

“Damn! Profane flesh!”

As it cried out, the mass of dark red flesh suddenly shot up and flew straight toward it.

“!!!”

It’s over, it’s over!

I absolutely can’t let that thing touch me, or else, before this even starts, it’ll be over again!

If everyone in the world had systems, this world would be doomed for sure!

The system was scrambling away in a panic, inwardly crying out in alarm.

Just then, it suddenly noticed that after the dark red flesh caught up to it, it didn’t, as it expected, try to copy its power, but instead hovered above its head.

Then…

A few seconds later, the mass of dark red flesh suddenly plummeted, diving headfirst into the soil of the riverbank.

“……”

It… it didn’t copy my power?

The system paused, cautiously approached, and saw that the dark red flesh had left a fist-sized, unfathomably deep hole in the riverbank, falling into deep thought.

It burrowed underground?

How could this be?

Could it be… that beneath this land, some power of haunting even better than mine is hidden? The system wondered, its mood growing heavy.

—-

Hua City Central Hospital, emergency department of the outpatient department. Attending physician Cheng Zhiyu was examining an emergency patient.

A seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boy lay on the examination bed, his face twisted in pain, constantly moaning in agony.

“It hurts so much, doctor, my head hurts so bad, it doesn’t even feel like my head anymore…”

The boy’s name was Lin Weimin, a university student.

At this moment, his face was pale with a bluish tinge, his slightly contracted pupils filled with the anxiety and fear common among emergency patients. There were no obvious external injuries on his body, but his hands gripped the edge of the bed so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

The doctor asked him several questions in a row, but he didn’t seem to hear, only kept crying out in pain.

Cheng Zhiyu made a preliminary observation of Lin Wei’s symptoms. Seeing his pale face, obvious pupil contraction, shallow and slow breathing, and somewhat clouded consciousness, he thought it resembled a concussion.

But that was only his initial judgment.

The brain is the most complex part of the human body, and for a suspected concussion like this, no easy conclusion could be drawn. To know the specifics, one of the quickest and most convenient methods was a cranial CT scan.

Cheng Zhiyu filled out the order for a cranial CT scan, then looked at the three other boys of similar age who had come with the patient and asked, “What’s your relationship with him?”

“We’re all students at Hua City Normal University, and we’re Lin Weimin’s classmates,” one of them said.

“We’re also roommates in the same dorm,” another added.

“Alright,” Cheng Zhiyu nodded. “Then two of you take him to the CT room for the scan, and one of you stay behind to tell me the details.”

The patient was gasping in pain and hadn’t responded to several questions just now. He was clearly already confused and unable to communicate well, so the only way to understand the specifics of his injury was through those around him.

One of the boys glanced at the other two, then at the doctor, and volunteered, “I’ll stay and talk to the doctor. I was with him all last night.”

“Okay.”

The other two boys responded in unison, then, together with the nurse, lifted Lin Weimin onto a mobile stretcher and took him to the CT room.

Cheng Zhiyu looked at the boy who stayed behind and asked, “You just said you were with him from last night until now. Do you know how he got hurt?”

“He… he wasn’t hurt,” the boy replied.

“Doctor, here’s what happened. The two of us pulled an all-nighter at the internet cafe by the school gate last night. As soon as we left the cafe this morning, he told me his head hurt, and said it felt light, like it was about to float away.”

“Wait, did he bump his head when you left the internet cafe?”

“Absolutely not!” the boy said firmly. “When he first came out, he was full of energy, even wanted to drag me back in for another two hours.”

“Sigh! You young people these days…” the doctor sighed helplessly. “Go on.”

Spending a whole night in an internet cafe is bad enough for your health, but staying out all night and not returning to the dorm-aren’t you afraid of running into a haunting?

The boy smiled awkwardly and continued, “Oh, at first I thought he was just dizzy from staying up all night and not having breakfast, so I went back to school with him to rest.”

“Around noon, I woke up and was about to go to the cafeteria for lunch, only to find him curled up in bed, crying out in pain. When I asked, I found out his headache had been getting worse since we got back to the dorm in the morning, and it got so bad it woke him up.”

“I felt something was wrong, so I called our other two roommates and had them help me bring Lin Weimin over. When we left the dorm, he could still talk to us, but on the way, he got worse and worse, and then he ended up like you just saw.”

……

Hearing this, Cheng Zhiyu thought to himself, Maybe I should consider a cerebral hemorrhage. Many young people die suddenly after staying up all night, all because of this kind of illness.

As he pondered, the boy paused and cautiously asked, “Doctor, Lin Weimin won’t die, right?”

“We’ll have to wait for the scans to come out…” Cheng Zhiyu was halfway through his sentence when a new file popped up on the computer in front of him. He clicked it open for a glance, and his eyes immediately widened.

Up to this year, this was already his tenth year working in the emergency department. In that time, he had seen all sorts of bizarre cases: someone who sneezed and broke their ribs, someone whose athlete’s foot led to acute sepsis, even someone who claimed to have accidentally fallen and sat their pet hamster into their anus.

But after all these years, it was still his first time seeing a person with another head growing inside their own skull.

Staring at the CT scan showing two overlapping skulls, one large and one small, Cheng Zhiyu fell into deep thought.

This is just too strange! Damn it, this must be some kind of Nocturnal Syndrome, right?

—-

At the same time, in the orthopedics department of Hua City Second People’s Hospital.

“Doctor, doctor, please help me, I feel like my leg isn’t my own anymore!” a middle-aged man cried out in pain.

The doctor sitting across from him saw how much pain the patient was in. Although he felt sympathetic, he hadn’t examined the affected limb yet and didn’t dare make a rash judgment. He could only comfort him, “Don’t worry, just hold on a bit longer, let me take a look at your leg first.”

As the doctor spoke and was about to reach out to roll up the patient’s pant leg, the patient screamed in terror, “No, no, you can’t touch my leg! If you touch it, this leg… it won’t be mine anymore!”

The doctor gave a wry smile and turned to the intern behind him, saying, “Xiao Liu, help me hold him down, I need to check his leg.”

Many patients babble nonsense when they’re in pain. For the sake of their health, you can’t just let them have their way at times like this.

However, the moment the intern held the patient down and rolled up his pant leg, the doctor gasped in shock.

On the patient’s instep, three tender toes, as delicate as those of a newborn baby, were wriggling non-stop like some kind of parasite…

—-

At 3:07 p.m., Hua City Folk Culture Administration Bureau.

An Qing leaned back in her chair, eyes closed, one hand rubbing her brow, her face full of exhaustion.

Since around four o’clock yesterday morning, she had been staying in the dissection room of The Midnight Watchers Society. At first, she was just dissecting animal corpses sent by Jiang Li from the old cement plant mining area. By morning, before she could even rest, several more corpses of Nocturnal Syndrome patients arrived, and only now did she finally get a moment’s respite.

“Might as well just kill me, even landlords wouldn’t dare exploit their laborers like this…” An Qing complained weakly.

A soft “pa” sounded from the desk.

An Qing opened her eyes, glanced at the file on the desk, then looked at Jiang Li, who sat across from her looking a bit haggard, and sighed silently.

“Another new corpse delivered?”

“Mm.” Jiang Li nodded slightly.

An Qing sat up straight and skimmed through the file on the desk. “Good grief, two more corpses?”

“I remember, since we found that Eclipse Society member’s body, this is the tenth and eleventh Nocturnal Syndrome patients with similar symptoms, right?”

“No.” Jiang Li shook her head gently. “If you count the animals and plants from last night, the teaching building, and the abandoned factory and scenic area with abnormalities discovered this morning, it’s already the one hundred and seventeenth case.”

Although last night Jiang Li and the special task force members had sealed off the area around the old cement plant mining district as quickly as possible,

that strange situation still quietly spread throughout Hua City.

It was like some kind of chronic infectious disease with unknown cause and unknown transmission route, but with an extremely high fatality rate.

……

If this situation can’t be controlled, it might develop into a catastrophe-class haunting incident, right?

Uh… a chronic catastrophe-class haunting incident?

Besides the X Taisui incident, has there ever been another precedent?

An Qing fell silent for a few seconds, her expression grave, then tilted her head and asked, “After you reported the situation, what did the higher-ups say?”

“The inspector got the message and has already dispatched some detection-type and healing-type psychics. The earliest they’ll arrive is tonight, the latest by tomorrow morning. Before then…”

As Jiang Li spoke, she glanced at the file on the desk and raised her eyebrows at An Qing.

“Let’s deal with these corpses first, then archive them, okay?”

An Qing, “……”

See that?

This young lady is the landlord of The Midnight Watchers Society in Hua City, Miss Jiang.

An Qing thought as she stood up and stretched. Under her white coat, her fitted white shirt tightened, accentuating her proud curves.

“By the way, Landlord Jiang, after Li Xuan and Bai Kai come to take over tonight, let’s go relax a bit together, okay?”

……Jiang Li hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, two hours.”

“Two hours it is. Suddenly I feel like playing Mahjong. How about a girls’ game?”

Jiang Li shot An Qing a disdainful look. “Rest is rest, let’s do something healthy, okay?”

An Qing, “?”

Something’s not right! Who was it that taught me to play Mahjong in the first place?