Surveillance

"Huh, why is this fusion rate so low?"

Looking at the drunkard whose breathing had returned to normal, Ning Xiuyuan frowned, falling into self-doubt.

Healing Orlando and killing Orlando had each fused him with one-eighth of his extraordinary characteristic, totaling about a quarter.

This was the fundamental reason he could now easily deceive the drunkard's organ failure!

In other words, the previous two uses of Disease Deceiver had directly fused him with a quarter of his extraordinary characteristic.

Yet this time, the fusion rate was outrageously low!

Less than one-thousandth.

Could it be that deception varies from person to person?

Or does fusion become more difficult in the later stages?

Ning Xiuyuan took a breath, his thoughts racing, but his hands didn't stop. Another rat crawled to the drunkard's mouth and urinated.

This time it was a different virus.

As a Plague Disciple, Ning Xiuyuan couldn't create plagues out of thin air, but he could control them.

—Any plague he had come into contact with would be used by him, becoming his "Believers."

Currently, Ning Xiuyuan had collected hundreds of viruses from himself, rats, flying birds, and other sources. His virus library wasn't extensive, but it was enough for him to experiment for a while.

Before long, the drunkard was failing again. His mouth was covered in dense, horrifying blisters.

Ning Xiuyuan sighed helplessly, a swift chop of his blade killing the virus and deceiving the diseased organ. He continued to direct the rats to urinate, repeating the cycle.

But the drunkard wasn't repeating.

One moment he was suffering from respiratory failure, the next his body was covered in pustules, then vomiting and diarrhea, then fever and convulsions…

Various disease symptoms played out on him in turns.

As soon as one subsided, another would appear.

Expressions of pain and relief vied for dominance on his face.

It wasn't until the faintest hint of dawn appeared in the east that Ning Xiuyuan, still not entirely satisfied, smacked his lips and ended the experiment.

"Brother, thank you for your selfless contribution. In return, I'll take care of all your ailments, big and small. No need to thank me."

Ning Xiuyuan performed the final deception on the drunkard, feeling the Disease Deceiver fuse by another point. Finally satisfied, he melted into the night.

—·—

"Aubrey? Aubrey?"

A faint call, coming from the boundless void, grew louder and louder, pulling Aubrey out of his nightmarish abyss.

He groggily opened his eyes, looking at the familiar person before him, and trembled as he asked, "Where is this?"

His wife, her face contorted with anger, sternly berated him, "Look where this is! Sleeping by the roadside, didn't come home all night, not only did you soil yourself, but you also vomited all over yourself. How dare you ask me?"

Hearing this, Aubrey suddenly broke down and sobbed uncontrollably, "Wuwuwu, I'll never drink again, I'll never drink again!"

His wife froze.

She never expected her usually stubborn and hot-tempered husband to cry like this.

She had no idea how agonizing this night had been for Aubrey! He had experienced unspeakable, indescribable, and bizarre nightmares all night long.

So much so that whenever his drinking buddies later asked him why he quit drinking, he would always turn pale and remain silent.

If pressed, he would simply say—That is the Lord's punishment upon me!

—·—

Ning Xiuyuan clearly didn't know the severe psychological trauma his night of experimentation had inflicted on a middle-aged man.

However, even if he had known, he wouldn't have cared much—the progress of medicine always comes with sacrifice, doesn't it?

Returning to the inn, Ning Xiuyuan began to sort through the night's gains.

First, he had screened out several low-lethality viruses.

At least on the drunkard, besides causing mild symptoms like fever, they hadn't further harmed the patient's body, or rather, the degree of harm was not deep.

With modern medical means, healing them was not a problem.

Next, he needed to release these viruses to test their transmissibility.

Secondly, the Disease Deceiver extraordinary characteristic had fused by another one percent. Although not as much as the two fusions in the supernatural world, it was still a fusion, which made his power grow stronger.

Ning Xiuyuan felt that if he could promote the prestige of healers in this world, his fusion efficiency would be even higher, and his power would undoubtedly become even greater.

As for the last gain, let's call it a gain for now.

Ning Xiuyuan discovered that his Plague Disciples showed almost no trace of fusion after the night's ordeal, and their power had not increased. The only fortunate thing was that the Plague Disciples had not become restless.

They had been cycling through a state of "active—calm—active."

"It seems my previous understanding of plagues was mistaken. I always thought plagues were synonymous with viruses, but that's not the case."

Ning Xiuyuan leaned by the window, feeling the morning breeze, and mused.

"Plague, plague. The name itself says it all. Only 'large-scale' infections, or even 'exponential' infections, qualify as plagues. A single infection isn't a plague; it's just a contagious disease."

"In other words, to fuse with a Plague Disciple, I need to spread the plague on a large scale. Small-scale infections are meaningless; they might at best appease an extraordinary characteristic!"

Ning Xiuyuan muttered to himself, feeling like he'd grasped a third of the Plague Disciple's secrets.

He called it a third because he remembered the bird-beaked oddity controlling cattle corpses and even armed personnel to open his door and attack him.

Since he obtained the Plague Disciple from that entity, why couldn't he control corpses himself?

Ning Xiuyuan felt there was still potential to be tapped here.

Perhaps the problem would be solved once he fully fused with the Plague Disciple!

After finishing his thoughts, Ning Xiuyuan directed the rat swarm and flying birds to spread the plague while turning to leave, intending to go out for breakfast.

Unexpectedly, the moment he turned, his body paused slightly before returning to normal as he moved away from the window.

Downstairs at the inn, a gray pigeon flapped its wings and landed on a trash can by the roadside, tilting its head to look at a dilapidated pickup truck not far away.

Inside the truck, a white-haired old man with a full beard was staring intently at Ning Xiuyuan while on the phone.

To be honest, if the pickup's windows hadn't been tinted, Ning Xiuyuan would have almost missed seeing the old man.

Was he curious about his foreign appearance?

Or was he... monitoring him?

Ning Xiuyuan's heart suddenly tightened. Apart from the necessary throat passages where he left flying birds for surveillance, all the flying birds he had sent throughout the town were recalled to conduct a grid search around the inn.

"Flutter flutter!"

A flock of sparrows flew across the street, landing on the eaves of the houses on the ground. They chirped noisily, but it didn't cause any alarm.

It was perfectly normal for these flocking birds to occasionally land on the eaves and then fly away in groups. No one paid any attention to their presence.

"Everything seems normal. Could it have just been a coincidence?"

Ning Xiuyuan frowned. He hadn't detected any suspicious individuals nearby.

At this moment, the old man in the pickup truck had finished his call, but he didn't drive away. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the inn's entrance, seemingly waiting for Ning Xiuyuan to appear.

This scene made Ning Xiuyuan increasingly uneasy.

Ever since he entered this small town, he had been using his flying birds to monitor his surroundings and hadn't detected any signs of being followed.

If that was the case, then what was going on with the person downstairs?

Was it really a coincidence?

Or was he a member of that mysterious Foundation?

Was he deliberately appearing as an old man to lower his guard?

A series of questions arose in Ning Xiuyuan's mind. After a moment of thought, he decided to go downstairs and find the owner, Elisa. He gestured and mimed, asking her to send breakfast up to his room.

—He decided to meet force with non-force.

If the other party was indeed a Foundation member, he could simply offer the Lantern, revealing his identity. With his previous containment experience, he believed the Foundation wouldn't dare to do much to him easily.

If not? Then he would have to see for himself who was targeting him.

Breakfast was delivered quickly.

A glass of milk, a sweet bread roll, a savory bread roll with sausage and bacon, and two blueberry tarts.

A rich combination of sweet and savory.

Ning Xiuyuan checked it with the Plague Disciple, and after confirming it was not poisoned, he ate with peace of mind.

Around ten o'clock in the morning, the old man who had been watching drove away.

However, in another direction, Ning Xiuyuan spotted another old man sitting in a vintage car, his gaze lingering on the inn's entrance with an ambiguous intensity. His behavior was highly suspicious.

At this point, Ning Xiuyuan was almost certain he was being monitored.

'I'll see who you really are,' Ning Xiuyuan murmured.

On the speeding pickup truck, a rat clung to a gap in the undercarriage. In the air, three sparrows and a pigeon took turns flying, tracking it.