Monitoring

"Why is the fusion level so low?"

Watching the drunkard's breathing return to normal once again, Ning Xiuyuan furrowed his brow and fell into self-doubt.

Healing Orlando and killing Orlando had each allowed him to fuse one-eighth of a supernatural characteristic, adding up to roughly one-quarter.

That was the fundamental reason he could now easily deceive the drunkard's organs into failing!

In other words, his first two uses of Disease Deceiver had directly fused one-quarter of the supernatural characteristic.

But this time, the fusion level was shockingly low!

It was not even one-thousandth.

Could deception vary from person to person?

Or did the difficulty increase the further the fusion progressed?

Ning Xiuyuan drew a breath. His thoughts churned uncertainly, but his hands never stopped moving. Another rat crawled to the drunkard's mouth and urinated.

This time, it was a different virus.

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

—Any plague he had come into contact with would become his to command, transformed into his "believers."

By now, Ning Xiuyuan had collected over a hundred viruses from himself, rats, birds, and other sources. His virus library was not particularly rich, but it was enough for him to experiment with for a while.

Before long, the drunkard was in bad shape again. Dense, frightening blisters began to sprout around his mouth.

Ning Xiuyuan sighed helplessly, brought his knife down, killed the virus, deceived the diseased organs, and continued ordering the rats to urinate. The cycle repeated again and again.

But the drunkard himself was not repeating the same cycle.

At one moment, he suffered respiratory failure; at the next, his body was covered in lumps; then he vomited and suffered diarrhea, followed by fever and convulsions...

Every kind of disease symptom took turns appearing on his body.

As soon as one subsided, another emerged.

Expressions of pain and relief alternately fought for dominance over his face.

Only when a faint streak of dawn appeared in the east did Ning Xiuyuan smack his lips in satisfaction and end the experiment.

"Brother, thank you for your selfless contribution. In return, I'll conveniently cure all the big and small ailments in your body. No need to thank me."

Ning Xiuyuan completed one final deception on the drunkard. Feeling Disease Deceiver fuse by another fraction, he finally slipped into the night, completely satisfied.

--·--

" Aubrey? Aubrey?"

A faint voice came from the endless void, growing louder and clearer as it dragged Aubrey out of a nightmarish hell.

He opened his eyes groggily. Looking at the familiar person before him, he trembled all over and asked, "Where is this?"

His wife wore a furious expression and berated him harshly. "Look around! Where do you think this is? You slept by the roadside and didn't come home all night. You soiled your pants, not to mention vomiting all over yourself, and you still have the nerve to ask me?"

But upon hearing this, Aubrey suddenly broke down and began sobbing loudly. "Waaaah, I'll never drink again! I'll never drink again!"

His wife froze.

She had never imagined that her usually stubborn and hot-tempered husband could cry like this.

She had no idea how agonizing this night had been for Aubrey! He had endured an entire night of indescribable, unspeakably bizarre nightmares.

So afterward, whenever his drinking buddies asked why he had managed to quit drinking, his face would turn pale and he would keep silent.

If they pressed him too hard, he would say, "That was the Lord's punishment!"

--·--

Ning Xiuyuan clearly had no idea what kind of severe psychological trauma his night of experimentation had inflicted on a middle-aged man.

But even if he had known, he would not have cared too much. The advancement of medicine always came with sacrifices, didn't it?

After returning to the inn, Ning Xiuyuan sorted through what he had gained that night.

First, he had screened out several viruses with low fatality rates.

At least on the drunkard, aside from causing mild symptoms such as fever, they had not caused any further harm to his body—or rather, the harm had not been severe.

With modern medical methods, curing them would not be a problem.

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

Second, Disease Deceiver's supernatural characteristic had fused by another one percent. Although this was less than what it had fused during the two occasions in the supernatural world, it was still a fusion, making his power that much stronger.

Ning Xiuyuan felt that if he could promote Healer Prestige in this world, his fusion efficiency would be even higher, and his power would inevitably grow stronger as well.

As for the final gain, he could only call it a gain for the time being.

Ning Xiuyuan discovered that after all that activity during the night, his Plague Disciple had shown almost no signs of fusion, nor had its power increased. The only thing worth celebrating was that Plague Disciple had not become restless.

It had remained in a cycle of "active—calm—active."

"Looks like my previous understanding of plagues was wrong. I always thought that a plague was simply another name for a virus, but that isn't actually the case."

Ning Xiuyuan leaned against the window, letting the morning breeze wash over him as he pondered.

"Plague, plague—the name itself already explains everything. Only 'large-scale' infection, even 'exponential' infection, qualifies as a plague. A single infection isn't a plague. It can only be called a contagious disease."

"In other words, if I want to fuse with Plague Disciple, I have to spread a plague on a large scale. Small-scale infections are completely meaningless. At most, they can soothe the supernatural characteristic!"

Ning Xiuyuan muttered to himself, feeling that he had grasped roughly a third of the principles behind Plague Disciple.

The reason he said a third was that Ning Xiuyuan remembered Bird-beaked Monster had once controlled a cow's corpse, and even an armed man, to open his door and attack him.

Since Plague Disciple had been obtained from him, why couldn't he control corpses as well?

Ning Xiuyuan felt that there was still potential to uncover here.

Perhaps the moment he completely fused with Plague Disciple would be when this question was finally answered!

After finishing his thoughts, Ning Xiuyuan commanded the rats and birds to spread the plague while turning to leave and get breakfast.

Unexpectedly, just as he turned around, his body suddenly paused slightly. Then he returned to normal and left the window.

Downstairs at the inn, a gray pigeon flapped its wings and landed on a roadside trash can. Tilting its head, it stared at an old pickup truck in the distance.

Inside the truck, an elderly white-haired man with a full beard was staring fixedly at Ning Xiuyuan while making a phone call.

To be honest, if the pickup's windows had not been untinted, Ning Xiuyuan might not have noticed the old man at all.

Was he merely curious about the appearance of this foreigner?

Or... was he monitoring him?

Ning Xiuyuan's heart suddenly tightened. Apart from leaving birds to monitor the necessary chokepoints, he summoned all the birds he had scattered throughout the town and had them carry out a sweeping search around the inn.

"Flap, flap!"

A flock of sparrows flew across the street and landed on the ground and rooftops, chirping noisily. Yet they did not cause the slightest stir.

Birds that liked to gather in groups occasionally covering rooftops with their chattering before flying away together were perfectly normal. No one would pay any attention to their appearance.

"Everything seems normal. Could it have just been an accident?"

Ning Xiuyuan frowned. He had not discovered any suspicious people nearby.

By then, the old man in the pickup had finished his call, but he did not drive away. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the inn's entrance, seemingly waiting for Ning Xiuyuan to appear.

This sight made Ning Xiuyuan even more suspicious.

Ever since entering this small town, he had been using birds to monitor his surroundings. He had not noticed any sign of being followed.

If so, what was the explanation for the person downstairs?

Was it really a coincidence?

Or was he a member of the mysterious Foundation?

Had he deliberately appeared in the guise of an old man to lower Ning Xiuyuan's guard?

One question after another surfaced in Ning Xiuyuan's mind. After pondering briefly, he simply went downstairs to find the innkeeper, Elisa, and used gestures to ask her to send breakfast up.

—He had decided to respond to change with constancy.

If the other party really was a member of the Foundation, at worst he could present the lantern and expose his identity. After his previous containment experience, he believed the Foundation would not dare do anything to him lightly.

If not, then he would have to see exactly who had set their sights on him.

Breakfast was soon delivered.

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

The combination of sweet and savory was quite sumptuous.

Ning Xiuyuan used Plague Disciple to inspect the food. Only after confirming that it was not poisonous did he eat with peace of mind.

A little after ten in the morning, the old man who had been monitoring him drove away.

However, Ning Xiuyuan soon discovered another old man in a vintage car in a different direction. The man's gaze drifted toward the inn's entrance, and his behavior was highly suspicious.

By this point, Ning Xiuyuan could basically confirm that he was being monitored.

I'd like to see who you really are.

Ning Xiuyuan muttered to himself.

As the pickup truck sped away, a rat clung to a gap in its undercarriage. Three sparrows and a pigeon alternated through the air, following it.