Paying the Price

Captain Chu faced Yang Tianyou. His heavy Class A chemical protective suit made it impossible for him even to sit, but he still stood straight and questioned him in a voice muffled by the suit.

"You've concealed too much information. I could tolerate it before because nothing had happened to these people, but I'm not going to tolerate it anymore. You have to tell me what you know!"

Yang Tianyou looked at him blankly, as if wondering what Captain Chu was talking about. Yet Captain Chu could see what seemed to be a vortex of suppressed madness in Yang Tianyou's clouded eyes.

"Xiao Wu..." Yang Tianyou suddenly spoke.

Xiao Wu, who was leaning against the doorframe, jumped in fright. "Dean Yang, I'm here."

"Go... find the farthest ward... Don't listen to our... conversation."

"All right, Dean Yang."

Xiao Wu didn't have a death wish. If he said he wouldn't eavesdrop, he wouldn't eavesdrop. He obediently took a book and jogged all the way to the farthest ward, intending to continue roaming the ocean of knowledge and let it drown him.

"Captain Chu... I wonder if you've ever heard that sometimes ignorance is bliss?"

"Twisted logic! I didn't come here to discuss that with you. No matter what, you're going to explain yourself clearly today!" Captain Chu said firmly. "This terrorist attack involving that supernatural entity has already caused more than a hundred casualties within our borders. Taihao disease, fungal infections—even Academician Ge has fallen victim to it. We can't stay on the back foot like this!"

"Sigh... Sometimes the more you do, the more mistakes you make. You already know part of the truth. You should understand that what we're facing is an unconventional entity..."

"No matter how unconventional it is, are you saying I can't kill it? To tell you the truth, the 112th Regiment was recently granted special approval for three additional missile launch vehicles, Dongfeng-15s and Dongfeng-16s. If necessary, I can even get missile warheads with a greater yield. As long as this supernatural thing is alive, I can make it dead."

"Death has no meaning to it, no meaning. That which sleeps eternally is not dead, and in strange eons even death may die. As it is one way, so it is the other."

As soon as he finished speaking, a monitor suddenly sounded a continuous alarm outside the ward.

Hurried footsteps came from the hallway, followed by the sound of a door opening.

"Dean Yang! Something's happened to a patient in here!" Xiao Wu's shout came faintly from outside the door.

Captain Chu watched Yang Tianyou, hoping to see how he would react. But Dean Yang showed no intention of rushing to save the patient. Instead, he looked at Captain Chu and continued.

"In His eternal house at R'lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming for thee!"

Another monitor began sounding a continuous alarm outside the ward. The two alarms rose and fell in succession, setting the nerves on edge.

After hearing the whole passage, Captain Chu suddenly felt a wave of disorientation.

Then his memories shattered like glass.

This time, he too felt that indescribable terror.

It was the fear that unarmed ancient humans had felt when faced with a pack of beasts in the distant past, a fear born of instinct.

He couldn't help trembling and freezing in place, his heart pounding and his eyes vacant.

Then he felt a pain in his arm, like a needle prick. It startled him, and he let out a terrified scream.

Anyone could hear the pain in his voice. It was a warning of terror, a dying warning, a warning from ancient times. Every human who could hear the scream understood that someone was in danger.

It called for the strong to come to the rescue and warned the weak to flee as quickly as possible...

But then he felt a strange calm. The sense of impending danger remained, yet his heart inexplicably settled.

He noticed that he seemed to be surrounded by a strange color, and that the color was gradually fading.

When it had faded completely, Captain Chu was gasping for breath, his mind blank.

It took a long time for him to recover. He looked at Dean Yang, wanting to ask something, only to find himself as if stuck. He had no idea what to ask.

Thinking back, he remembered that Dean Yang had said two crucial things, but he couldn't recall what they were at all.

He also discovered that his protective suit had been opened, and there was a needle-prick pain in his right arm. Dean Yang was putting away a syringe that had been used.

Captain Chu asked instinctively, "What did you inject me with?"

"Propofol, a short-acting sedative. The dose was very small, enough to calm you down quickly," Dean Yang explained. After putting away the syringe, he helped Captain Chu put his protective suit back on properly. "I judged that you were in a state of extreme terror and that it was already putting a great strain on your heart, so I administered the drug."

Removing a protective suit in a hazardous environment and then putting it back on was against protocol, but neither of them cared.

Hurried footsteps approached, and Xiao Wu opened the door and glanced into the room. When Dean Yang hadn't come and a scream had sounded from the room, he had worried that something had happened and come to check.

Dean Yang scolded him and sent him away.

A moment later, Captain Chu frowned and said, "What did you tell me earlier?"

"What you wanted to hear."

"Then those two people in the wards just now..."

"Were the price."

Captain Chu's face turned ashen. He seemed to understand something, and then a question occurred to him.

"If... those people hadn't been there, what would have happened if there were no way to pay the price?"

"There would have been a way," Dean Yang said with certainty. Then he sighed. "Your inspiration isn't high enough, and you can't withstand the scouring. You've already made us pay two prices for nothing, yet you didn't gain any information. It was like trying to draw water with a bamboo basket.

"Besides, you already bore His traces, and He has noticed you now. Death will follow you like a shadow, unavoidable. In other words, for someone who shouldn't know to learn something they shouldn't know is utterly meaningless."

"No! It has meaning." Captain Chu retorted through gritted teeth. "I'm going to take Him on, whether I live or die. If my death can make Him expose a trace, that will be my victory!"

Dean Yang gave Captain Chu a surprised look, then nodded in agreement. If he could put life and death out of his mind, what could prove too difficult for him? It was just that such people were rare.

The two of them then composed themselves and looked calmly at each other.

"Neither you nor Taihao actually stopped us from learning the truth. Our inspiration was simply too low?"

"That's right."

"Then the words he wrote?"

"Meaningless to humans."

"In other words, Taihao was the reason Xu Chen couldn't speak at the time?"

"The price was lower that way."

"Xu Chen could speak once you got hold of that pendant?"

"There's a connection, but it has another use. Xu Chen can make use of it."

"You're no longer reluctant to tell me this much?"

"You've already had a bucket of water dumped over you, so there's no need to fear the rain. He's noticed you, so this little bit makes no difference. Now that you know the consequences, are you planning to report it?"

Captain Chu shook his head. He knew that if he reported it directly, there was a chance it would be just as Xu Chen had said: the higher-ups would all be wiped out in one fell swoop.

"One last question. If you didn't pay the price, what would happen if we heard what Xu Chen had to say?"

"Your forms would be destroyed and your bodies obliterated. You would seek death but find no life!"

"You would die for nothing!"