Floating Corpse

"Name?"

"..."

"Not talking, huh? Very well!"

"Your name is Daniel, you're seventy-nine years old, from Commus Town. You and a group of townsfolk worship an entity known as the 'God of Abundance,' the 'Verdant Form.'"

"You think silence will let you get away with it?"

"Speak, why did you shoot Gresham? He was a high-ranking member of your church. You shouldn't have had a reason to kill him."

The interrogator paused, then said meaningfully:

"After all, your rejuvenation is precisely what Gresham was working on. You should have supported him, shouldn't you?"

In the temporarily requisitioned school classroom, Ning Xiuyuan, or rather, the puppet man he was controlling, sat with his hands cuffed, undergoing interrogation.

The puppet man's expression was blank, but Ning Xiuyuan's true self, hidden within the puppet's home, wore a thoroughly bizarre expression.

When he left the hospital, he was suddenly held at gunpoint.

Then, two men in black uniforms rushed forward, swiftly and expertly tackling him to the ground and cuffing him.

Ning Xiuyuan thought he'd run into military police, but the reality exceeded his expectations.

He was taken to the town's school and only brought in for questioning after dawn.

The interrogator was none other than the young girl who had acted so cautiously, as if trying to please her boyfriend, the last time he saw her—Ji Zijun.

The difference was, today, she no longer displayed that same timid caution.

She wore a black uniform, a pistol at her hip, her small face stern, making her look quite intimidating.

After pushing open the interrogation room door, she bypassed pleasantries and went straight to the point, spitting out enough information to shock most ill-intentioned cultists.

Unfortunately, Ning Xiuyuan was not a cultist.

After a brief silence, he controlled the puppet and said, "It was all the will of God!"

Ji Zijun's expression suddenly turned serious, her heart pounding: "You can hear... the will of God? The God of Abundance?"

Ever since she had successfully pacified a potential Keter class humanoid anomaly last time, she had begun to make a name for herself at the site.

But she wasn't content to be a behind-the-scenes psychological counselor.

The fearless drive of a newborn calf made her crave the front lines, so she came.

Unfortunately, newcomers were just that, and she was assigned to the rear of the front lines, responsible for interrogating a group of insignificant cultists.

To her surprise, she had managed to catch a big fish again.

In fact, it wasn't just her; the two field agents guarding the classroom door also had their expressions turn serious.

Their fingers instinctively relaxed, lightly resting on their triggers, ready to fire at any moment.

The reactions of Ji Zijun and the field agents made Ning Xiuyuan's true self frown.

He hadn't expected such a strong reaction from a generic, catch-all answer?

Right, he had been careless. This wasn't the Church of Dawn.

His generic answer, in this context, was being taken entirely literally!

"Of course. God loves all people. Gresham violated the doctrine; he deserved to die!"

Ning Xiuyuan continued his lie. What did it matter? It was just a puppet; it was fine if it died.

"Doctrine?" Ji Zijun's expression turned odd. She tilted her ear slightly, listening to the information coming through her earpiece, then concentrated and asked, "Were you monitoring an Asian tourist before this?"

Daniel nodded.

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?" Ji Zijun's tone suddenly sharpened.

"Clang!"

The classroom door burst open, and a middle-aged man was pushed in by two field agents.

—He was the third person, after old man Pika and Daniel, to have been monitoring Ning Xiuyuan. Later, Ning Xiuyuan had used two stray dogs to distract him, slipping away from under his nose at the inn.

The middle-aged man's panicked gaze swept the room, and his eyes suddenly stopped on 'Ning Xiuyuan.'

"Daniel, how... how are you?"

He stared at Daniel's youthful face in disbelief, then, after a long moment, as if remembering something, his expression turned furious.

"I get it! I get it! That yellow-skinned devil was sacrificed to the god by you, right? You deliberately tricked me into taking the night shift just to get me away from Gresham!"

"Why? Why would you do this? Don't tell me... you want to become a priest?"

The middle-aged man roared in anger... Daniel's rejuvenation could only mean one thing: he had offered a sacrifice to the god and received a divine gift.

But where did this sacrifice come from?

In this town where everyone knew each other, the answer was obvious.

Daniel remained silent in response.

Far away in a residential house on the edge of town, Ning Xiuyuan looked bewildered.

He never expected that his deception regarding aging, making his puppet body younger and easier to control, would lead the cultists to misunderstand something.

However, this conveniently covered up the secret of his main body's disappearance.

"Speak!"

The middle-aged man roared in frustration but was immediately dragged out by two field agents.

—Clearly, he was brought here solely to confront and verify certain matters.

The classroom fell silent.

"Actually, we're not very interested in you shooting Gresham or even kidnapping foreign tourists. What we're truly interested in is whether you know the location of the altar of the God of Abundance?" Ji Zijun said with a knowing look.

Daniel grew even more silent.

"Not talking? It doesn't matter, silence is the best answer. We have only one request now: bring our people in to meet the great God of Abundance, the Verdant Form."

Ji Zijun uttered the titles "God of Abundance, Verdant Form" with a hint of mockery.

"Alright!"

Ning Xiuyuan pondered for a moment and nodded.

Even without coercion, he had actually planned to have his puppet go in and take a look.

"Good, you know what's good for you!"

Ji Zijun snorted coldly and got up to leave, feeling a bit regretful. She had originally intended to use severe interrogation to extract information.

She hated these cultists who didn't value human life.

To her surprise, Daniel agreed so readily, which was a pity!

Not far from the classroom, Ji Zijun encountered a middle-aged man with a clean face and no beard.

He was Mister Gaden, the deputy director of the NERC site's medical department. Under normal circumstances, a senior member of his rank shouldn't be appearing on the front lines.

But this time, the situation was rather unusual.

Commus Town had broken out with a large-scale infection, which had even spread to neighboring towns. Considering the sudden appearance of the cult organization here, the Foundation had reason to suspect an anomalous event.

"Mister Gaden, what's the situation with the town's infection?" Ji Zijun couldn't help but ask.

"It's been contained," Gaden nodded, though his expression wasn't relaxed.

"Is this... an anomalous event?" Ji Zijun sensed something and asked cautiously.

"Hard to say."

"Hm?"

"The source tracing team has already found that the source of the infection came from the tap water. We also found that the main water supply pipeline was gnawed through by rats. The primary infectious disease outbreak this time was hemorrhagic fever, and the logical chain is quite complete. But this infectious disease outbreak wasn't limited to just hemorrhagic fever. Do you know what the second most widespread disease was?"

Ji Zijun shook her head.

Gaden looked meaningful. "Avian influenza."

Ji Zijun was stunned at first, then realized, "Avian influenza? Rats? Are you implying this was man-made?"

Gaden shook his head. "That's why I say it's hard to say. If humans can be infected with avian influenza, rats can too, as it's an RNA virus. But to have rats as the source of infection, and for it to spread and cause illness so quickly, this is the first time I've encountered something like this in my life. I heard that the evil god these people worship can grant special abilities to their believers, and this might be the work of that murderous doctor. Of course, this might all be me overthinking things; perhaps it's all just a coincidence. In any case, the specific results will depend on the containment outcome on the front lines."

Ji Zijun nodded and let out a small sigh of relief.

She knew that whenever containment of an anomaly was involved, it was always accompanied by strangeness and absurdity.

On the eaves not far from the two, several sparrows chirped, their small black eyes reflecting the figures of Ji Zijun and Gaden.

Ning Xiuyuan, hidden in the darkness, also let out a quiet sigh.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, several Foundation personnel entered the classroom where Daniel was being held and began installing various electronic instruments on him.

A pair of invisible wireless earphones were also inserted into his ear canal.

After the installation was complete, Daniel was escorted into a vehicle and taken to the cult's headquarters.

In the accompanying escort vehicle, besides two individuals suspected of being cult members, there were also six Class D Personnel wearing orange uniforms.

These six individuals, four men and two women, varied in age, with some appearing refined, others having rough faces, and some looking elderly.

They had clearly been briefed beforehand. Upon boarding the vehicle, their gazes fell upon the three people led by Daniel, scrutinizing them repeatedly.

This made the other two elders look uneasy.

As for Daniel?

Under Ning Xiuyuan's control, he maintained a poker face, appearing calm and mysterious.

"Creak—"

The escort vehicle stopped, and the rear door opened.

"Ning Xiuyuan" was the first to jump out of the car, his gaze involuntarily drawn to the cult's villa.

Above the villa, nestled amidst the surrounding green trees, more than a dozen corpses were suspended in mid-air, appearing exceptionally clear against the leaden sky.

They exuded a solitary, perverse aesthetic that only a devil's sensibility could appreciate.

This was the art of death!

Chapter 2 will be a bit later.