Qingmu and Su Huilan examined the scene again, confirming that their previous analysis had no flaws. The person kidnapped by the islanders was likely a woman, and the one who came to rescue her was a large man. They headed towards the front of the valley, where there was a stream.
The only uncertainty is whether the person roasted over the fire was a modern person or someone from a different tribe. If they were enemies of the island's tribes, why would they appear alone? If they were captured modern people, no clothing, watches, or tools were found at the scene. Logically, modern people should have something on them that cannot be destroyed by fire.
However, this was not what Qingmu and Su Huilan were concerned about. They had no interest in taking down the already roasted corpse to study it. As long as they knew that the islanders here still lived a primitive life of eating raw meat and cannibalism, that was enough. They absolutely could not fall into their hands. Once captured, they would most likely become their meal.
The important thing now is to learn as much as possible about the situation here through the two natives on the ground, such as where their tribe is located, how many people they have, and how many tribes there are on the island in total. Also, are the two people who escaped members of the research team? How did they get here?
Su Huilan walked to the stream and said with some worry, "Their escape route is too obvious. I don't know if this stream leads to the lake in the center of the island. If they can reach the lake, the water can help them hide their tracks, but then we won't be able to find them. How about we split up? I'll go after them, and you stay here?"
Qingmu shook his head and said, "No, we don't have any communication equipment. It's best not to separate. We can't lose those two. The Boss Coal isn't here; he must have followed us."
Su Huilan nodded. "Alright, then..." She pointed to the unconscious man and woman on the ground and said, "Should we provoke them a little?"
Qingmu knew what kind of stimulus she was referring to. Generally speaking, subconscious activity during sleep follows a cyclical pattern. Dreams usually occur during REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. Even if subconscious activity occurs during orthopneic sleep, the person is usually unaware of it upon waking. Except for Awakened who can control the timing of their dreams, the patterns of subconscious activity are difficult to grasp. However, if we encounter external stimuli while sleeping, the subconscious is awakened and amplifies these stimuli in the dream. If the stimuli are deemed dangerous, the person will wake up.
Often, nightmares are simply the subconscious amplifying minor stimuli to wake a person from a nightmare. For example, if your mouth and nose are covered by a pillow, or your chest is pressed down by your own arm, your breathing and blood circulation are affected, often leading to nightmares. Sometimes, you might even feel like you've opened your eyes and see something pressing down on you. What this thing is depends on what terrifying things your subconscious has retrieved from your memory—perhaps a dark shadow, or perhaps a female ghost.
Appropriate stimulation can induce dreams in a sleeping person, but if a person is in a coma, even mild stimulation will not be effective.
Qingmu considered for a moment and said, "A person who is unconscious is different from someone who is asleep; it's difficult to control the level of stimulation."
Su Huilan said, "I once saw a prison interrogation record from the 1940s, which recorded many methods for getting the enemy to confess, including hypnotic interrogation."
"Isn't the 1940s during World War II?"
"That's right," Su Huilan said. "Only during World War II were Awakened allowed to participate in secular affairs without being bound by the Alliance."
"Hypnotic interrogation isn't unusual, is it?" Qingmu recalled that he had once helped Shi Dazhuang with a case.
Su Huilan said, "Hypnotic interrogation is not uncommon, but you should know that during World War II, both enemy and Allied forces conducted many strange experiments, some of which were inhumane. The interrogation record I saw included a section about testing how to induce a subconscious state through physical stimulation."
"They experimented on prisoners who refused to confess even after severe torture. They would first knock the prisoners unconscious, and then continuously stimulate their bodies, such as by pouring cold water on them, burning them, or pricking them with needles. The hypnotist would wait nearby, ready to access the prisoner's subconscious at any time."
Qingmu found it a bit strange and asked, "Since you're Awakened, wouldn't it be simpler to just enter the dream?"
"I guess they want to improve the efficiency of wartime interrogations. After all, masters like you who can enter other people's dreams at any time are rare, and there aren't many of them in the entire Alliance. They're scattered across different countries and regions, and not every Awakened is willing to do this kind of thing. For the government and the military, if they could train a group of low-level Awakened to be specifically responsible for interrogations, it would not only improve the efficiency of interrogations but also reduce costs, which is much better than relying on torture."
Su Huilan said, "At first, they used those stubborn war criminals for experiments, but later they started using normal people. After a long period of experimentation, they discovered that pricking certain parts of the body with needles could quickly induce a subconscious state in a person, regardless of whether the person was asleep or awake at the time."
"Needle acupuncture?" Qingmu immediately thought of acupuncture in traditional Chinese medicine.
Su Huilan seemed to know what he was thinking and said, "It does resemble acupuncture in traditional Chinese medicine. I suspect they also drew inspiration from traditional Chinese medicine. In those days, China laborers had already spread traditional Chinese medicine to Europe, especially scraping, cupping, and acupuncture, which were commonly used, inexpensive, and effective methods."
"But we don't have any needles right now!" Qingmu said, spreading his hands.
Su Huilan smiled, took out a Switzerland from her backpack, shook it a couple of times, and pulled out Datou and toothpicks.
Qingmu immediately thought of an advertising slogan, "Truly an essential tool for home and travel, murder and arson, disposing of corpses, and robbery!" (m•hetushu. com•com)
Su Huilan was right next to the male savage, but she bypassed him and squatted down next to the female savage.
At first, Qingmu didn't understand why she insisted on using the savage woman for experiments, but he understood after seeing her next move. Su Huilan lifted the savage woman's grass skirt, poked her lower abdomen a few times with a toothpick, and then stuck a Datou into the woman's temple near her ear. Perhaps because there was only one pin, she pricked back and forth between her temples several times, finally piercing the woman's brow and not pulling it out.
Qingmu had been observing closely, especially trying to detect fluctuations in Mental Power. Since the islanders were immune to hypnosis, he didn't know what their subconscious mental fluctuations were like. Under the interference of the island's strong mental energy field, it was hard to say how obvious these mental fluctuations would be.
Moreover, dreaming while unconscious, just like dreaming during sleep, usually occurs most easily just before waking up. Subconscious activity feels like it lasts a long time in a dream, but in reality it might only be a fleeting moment. If we don't seize that fleeting opportunity and enter her dream state, she might wake up soon afterward. We can't just wait until she wakes up, then knock her unconscious again, and give her another acupuncture session.
After Su Huilan inserted the needle into the woman's brow, Qingmu saw her eyeballs move slightly, and then he sensed a very faint mental fluctuation.
Following the energy fluctuations, he found the woman's subconscious and the dream space she had just constructed.
This is a very strange sight--
Before me lay a vast lake, a lake that contained the ocean...