Stone Statue Disease Epidemic Prevention Work Notebook

This was an ID card.

Qi City Epidemic Prevention Center?

And what kind of position was a Level One Incinerator?

When he flipped the ID card over, three crooked words came into view.

Kill me

The three words had been written in blood, though it had long dried to a brownish color. The twisted handwriting conveyed endless pain and struggle.

These Skinners had once been human!

Shen Feng suddenly realized that the ID card was shaking violently.

He froze for a moment, then raised his left hand and grabbed his right wrist.

His hand was shaking.

Now that he had confirmed his own safety, the fear inside him began to seep out bit by bit.

For someone who had still been living in a peaceful era yesterday, all of this was simply too overwhelming.

After all, he was only an ordinary high school student.

Fatigue gradually washed over him. Clutching the battered ID card and hugging the heavy shotgun, Shen Feng fell into a deep sleep.

Only the smell of gunpowder could make him feel at ease...

Early the next morning, Shen Feng jolted awake from his deep sleep, raising the shotgun toward the front as he prepared to pull the trigger.

Only when he saw the tightly barricaded door ahead did he finally relax.

There was already a faint light in the police equipment room, enough to see everything around him.

It was daytime already.

He took out his phone and checked it. It was 8:17 in the morning.

Perhaps because it had been modified by the game app, the phone's battery life was astonishing. It was still at 99 percent, with barely any power drained.

Shen Feng had previously worried that if his phone shut down in a couple of days and he could no longer open the Real Doomsday Game app, he would have no idea how to get back.

It seemed he no longer needed to worry about that.

He pulled out jerky and plain water from his backpack, ate and drank his fill, then packed up and moved the barricades away from the door.

He first pressed against the door and listened for several minutes. After confirming there was no sound outside, he opened it and walked out.

The building was utterly silent, as though everything that had happened yesterday had merely been a dream.

When he reached the second-floor lobby, the sickly sweet stench of blood hit him in the face, revealing a scene straight out of hell.

The firelight had gone out last night, and later he had only been able to make things out by the faint starlight. Shen Feng had no idea what the exact situation had been.

Only now did he finally see the horrific scene in the lobby clearly.

More than a dozen Skinners lay on the ground. Their blood had dried into a thin layer stuck to the floor.

Yet every one of them wore an expression of relief...

Upon closer inspection, the Skinners looked even more horrifying than he had imagined.

They had no external sexual characteristics, so it was impossible to tell male from female. Most of the Skinners were completely naked, with only two or three still wearing tattered clothes, some of which had been torn into strips.

However, one tall Skinner was particularly unusual. He was still wearing a worn leather jacket on his upper body.

Though it had been rubbed through with several holes, the leather jacket was of excellent quality and was still mostly intact.

Shen Feng approached with his gun raised and saw several faded words on the jacket's chest:

Qi City Epidemic Prevention Center Incineration Department

This was a uniform.

A faint smile still lingered on the tall Skinner's face. Though he had no facial skin and his eyeballs bulged outward, he looked remarkably peaceful.

A palm-sized rectangular object bulged from the jacket pocket.

The pocket zipper had been pulled tightly shut. Shen Feng took out his knife and cut open the jacket before retrieving the item inside.

It was a small black clasp notebook, with the words "Work Notebook" embossed on its cover.

Shen Feng's eyes lit up. If this person had been an employee of the Epidemic Prevention Center's Incineration Department, then his work notebook must have recorded the cause of the Skinners' mutation!

He set the notebook aside. Shen Feng did not have time to examine its contents yet.

Yesterday, he had accepted the game's mission to "collect ten Skinner brain tissue samples." He needed to complete it as soon as possible.

He was also extremely curious about what reward he would receive.

"How should Skinner brain tissue be preserved? Can tissue samples be extracted now?"

Shen Feng opened the Real Doomsday Game app and asked directly.

It seemed this thing could respond by voice.

Sure enough, a line of text appeared on the phone screen:

Brain tissue samples are about to completely lose activity. Please extract samples immediately. Each sample must weigh over one hundred grams, be placed in a glass cup, and be put in the safe in the director's office on the second floor once collection is complete.

What kind of absurd requirement was that?

Shen Feng froze, then continued asking:

"Will ordinary glass cups do? Could the brain tissue samples become contaminated?"

Even as a high school student, he knew about bacterial contamination.

And what was with putting them in the safe in the director's office? Was someone actually going to come collect them?

Another line appeared on the screen: Strictly follow the mission requirements.

Fine. You're the boss. I'll listen to you.

Shen Feng found several glass cups in a nearby office and set them aside. Taking his knife and axe, he crouched in front of a Skinner's crimson head, took a deep breath, and muttered:

"I'm a doctor... I'm a doctor... I'm a fearless forensic examiner... I'm going to uncover the truth behind this case..."

The blade fell.

About an hour later, Shen Feng carried ten glass cups on a dust-covered tray into the director's office and found a large, rusted safe.

Each glass cup held a small strip of brain tissue, all freshly taken.

Shen Feng placed the ten samples into the safe one by one, then shut its door.

After staring at the safe door for about ten seconds, Shen Feng took a deep breath and opened it again, only to find it completely empty!

All ten brain tissue samples had vanished!

Sure enough, just as he had guessed, the mysterious force behind Real Doomsday Game could directly take these things away!

He had thought he might be able to meet the mastermind behind it in this world, but it looked like there was no chance of that.

He then returned to the police equipment room, took off his bloodstained clothes, changed into clean ones, and finally let out a long breath.

During the dissection just now, he had no idea how many times he had vomited. Fortunately, he had gradually adapted toward the end, and his movements were no longer so rough.

I shouldn't have eaten breakfast.

Setting the shotgun within reach, Shen Feng took the little black notebook he had obtained from the Skinner out of his pocket and began carefully flipping through it:

Work Notebook

Zhang Hui

Stone Statue Disease Epidemic Prevention Work Notebook

"Today was the first day the Epidemic Prevention Center's Incineration Department was established, and also my first day after being transferred from the Disease Control Division to become an incinerator...

Researchers from the National Academy of Sciences came specifically to give us professional training...

The newest mutated strain of Stone Statue Disease is airborne. Every severely ill patient becomes a massive source of infection once completely petrified.

Burying them would only contaminate the soil and groundwater. To cut off the source of infection, the stone statues must be completely destroyed. At present, the cheapest and fastest method is incineration...

The city's crematoriums have all been requisitioned, and many crematorium workers have temporarily transferred into incinerator positions.

What kind of disease is this? It's even more terrifying than Ebola!"

"After putting on the specialized incineration suit, you're covered in black from head to toe. The filter on the custom gas mask looks like a bird's beak. They say people outside have started calling us crows—anyone who gets near us is bound to have bad luck.

Haha, who would've thought that I, a former medical worker, would one day become an ominous sign of feudal superstition...

It's only been a week, and they're already issuing us guns...

Incinerators are infected every day, but according to news from headquarters, the National Academy of Sciences' first batch of vaccines is about to be successfully developed. Incinerators in incineration departments across the country will be the first to receive the vaccine.

That's the only good news. I hope that when all this is over, we'll be remembered as heroes, rather than forgotten like the heroes of Chernobyl..."

"It's been over two months since I joined the Incineration Department. Every day, I drive around the city looking for stone statues. I've already lost count of how many I've burned.

That guy I encountered today, who was hiding a stone statue, had a death wish. He kept saying his wife was still alive, only alive in the form of a stone statue... What a pitiful madman. Didn't he know that hiding stone statues was punishable by immediate execution?

He was infected too. His skin had already begun to harden. Pitiful..."

"Something strange happened today! A stone statue! The statue I personally pushed into the incinerator, that little girl's stone statue, seemed... seemed to cry out in the fire!"