The Method of Awakening

From Dr. Qian's professional perspective, Tong Qian's condition was not serious; it was simply a case of excessive blood loss and scalp tissue damage. Although there were multiple fractures, these were easily treated. The only thing that left them helpless was Tong Qian's brain.

"What happened to her brain? Was it severely damaged?" Yang Jian pressed.

Dr. Qian said, "No, that's not the reason. I examined the patient's head and there was no particularly serious external injury. The extensive damage to the scalp tissue did not affect the brain. However, our hospital has used instruments to repeatedly test the patient's brain for several days, but strangely, no matter how we test, we cannot detect the patient's brain waves."

"Well, to put it simply, the patient is in a state of brain death. This condition generally only occurs in dead people. I'm sorry, it's a bit impolite to describe it that way, but it's true. Even patients who have been paralyzed for more than ten years in a vegetative state still have active brainwaves."

"Medically, death is defined as the cessation of brain activity, also known as brain death. But the patient was strange; although she was in a state of brain death, her body was still maintaining normal bodily functions. If this weren't the case, I think I should have issued a death certificate."

"Dr. Qian, perhaps the patient's brain is in a deep dormant state, with very low brain activity. Should we perform another test?" an expert nearby suggested.

Another doctor said, "We've checked several times, but we can't detect any brain waves at all. It's a medical mystery."

Yang Jian frowned upon hearing this diagnosis.

This is not an unsolved mystery; it is a lingering effect of Tong Qian's attack by a ghost.

If nothing unexpected happens, Tong Qian will likely remain in this deep sleep forever, until her bodily functions cease and she dies in her hospital bed.

"I understand the general situation. Thank you all for your hard work, experts and professors. If possible, I would like to spend some time alone with the patient. Would you please step out for a moment?" Yang Jian suddenly said.

"Of course," Dr. Qian nodded.

Soon, the group of experts and professors in the ward left one after another.

It wasn't that their medical skills were Gao Ming; they were simply powerless in this unusual situation. The surgery could only heal Tong Qian's physical body, but it couldn't cure her current strange symptoms.

After everyone else left, only Yang Jian, liaison officer Zhang Gao, and Tong Qian on the hospital bed remained in the ward.

"Yang Jian, although there are some things I don't know much about, and my questions may seem a bit foolish, do you think you can solve Tong Qian's situation?" Zhang Gao asked earnestly. "Tong Qian is, after all, the person in charge of Z City. If there's a way to save Yang Jian, I hope you can help."

Yang Jian glanced at him. "Some things can't be changed by human effort, but I can only try in Tong Qian's case. If it doesn't work, she'll be stuck like this for the rest of her life. After all, you know that the mortality rate in our line of work is very high. From the day you become Ghost Tamer, your life is already on a countdown, and you could die at any moment."

"Tong Qian is like that, and so am I."

"I understand," Zhang Gao nodded.

Yang Jian said, "Let me be alone for a while."

"Then I'll have to trouble you," Zhang Gao said sincerely, and then left the ward.

Yang Jian's gaze then shifted to the unconscious Tong Qian. He wasn't very confident he could wake Tong Qian up, given her current condition, but it was worth a try. After all, if Tong Qian could wake up, it would greatly help his next move.

But how to save her is a huge problem.

This isn't something that can be accomplished simply by having the ability; it requires the right methods.

"Based on the test results from those experts, I can confirm that Tong Qian's mind is currently blank. She has lost all her memories, so her brain is in a state of stagnation. The only way to save her is to recover her memories."

Based on his understanding of the ghost, Yang Jian came to a conclusion.

But the memory must be in the hands of that ghost.

Retrieving these memories is incredibly difficult, and even if they are retrieved, will they still be Tong Qian's own memories? What if the ghost alters them again? If Tong Qian wakes up, she might be a Ghost Slave instead of the original her.

Unless you can control that ghost and change Tong Qian's memories back.

Yang Jian's eyes flickered slightly as he thought of a solution that was extremely difficult yet perfect.

"That's almost impossible. That ghost can alter other people's memories, how could it be controlled by an ordinary person? Even if they were forcibly combined, it might be the ghost controlling the person, rather than the person controlling the ghost."

However, this bold assumption later revealed a very serious flaw.

Because not just any ghost can be controlled by humans, the difficulty of controlling a ghost that can alter memories must be extremely high, so his conjecture is completely impossible.

"No, with my current information and capabilities, it's indeed impossible for me to do this, but with its help, it would be a completely different story."

Sitting beside the hospital bed, Yang Jian suddenly took out a gold box from the body bag he was carrying.

The tightly locked box was possibly welded shut inside because there was some possibility that it was.

But Yang Jian only needed to gently pry it open; with his strength, he could force the box open.

A dark brown, old-fashioned parchment scroll, folded up, came into view.

Once unfolded, it looks like an old piece of paper.

However, the paper was made of human skin, and it felt somewhat cold to the touch, with mottled patterns that exuded an ominous aura.

This is human skin paper.

Since the Dachang City Starvation Ghost Incident ended, Yang Jian hadn't used this thing much. It was too eerie, and Yang Jian felt he couldn't control it and didn't want to be led by the nose by it, so it had been kept sealed away. However, this Z City incident was very significant, not just a simple A-class supernatural event, so he chose to bring it with him.

"My Yang Jian. By the time you see this, I will already be dead." A line of black characters appeared on the parchment like a watermark.

But that was all; the rest was omitted, as if concealing information or refusing to reveal more.

"Tell me, how can I save Tong Qian?" Yang Jian asked directly, without any pleasantries.

This isn't the first time we've dealt with each other.

The writing on the parchment began to gradually disappear, even the first sentence vanished, and then it fell into a long period of calm.

"Are you refusing to share information with me? Or have you realized you can't deceive me anymore, so you've changed your attitude towards me?"

Yang Jian's gaze turned cold. "If that's the case, then you're of no value to me. Do you think I'd keep something worthless? Last time I was able to put you ten thousand meters underground, and this time it'll be the same. Moreover, this time I won't retrieve you."

Opening one's mouth is a threat; there's no room for negotiation.

Dealing with this kind of bizarre thing requires absolutely no mercy.

With Zhao Kaiming's fate still fresh in his mind, Yang Jian did not want to follow in his footsteps.

The silent paper figure seemed to have chosen to compromise once again, perhaps sensing that Yang Jian's attitude was different this time.

What was once a feigned threat is now a genuine consideration by Yang Jian to abandon it, since he still has the Ghost Cabinet as a backup plan.

What Yang Jian didn't know was that the existence of the Ghost Cabinet was also revealed to him by the human skin paper.

No one knows what this means.

Gradually, black writing reappeared on the parchment. It was as if someone had written on it with an invisible pen; the writing had always been there, but it suddenly appeared at this moment.

"On this day, I arrived in Z City with worries about a certain ghost. Although I was unwilling, I knew that Zhao Lei's existence was a potentially huge threat."

"If I remember correctly, the paranormal event in Z City was called the 'Head Balloon Incident.' It was a terrible curse, and no one who was afflicted could escape its effects. But at the time, I wasn't concerned about that; I was more interested in Tong Qian's situation."

"Ghost-faced Tong Qian was attacked at the Caesar Hotel. Her ghost face seems to have been removed, and she has lost her memory. She has become a vegetable."

"I should think of a way to save her, but I realized at the time that it wouldn't be so easy. To save Tong Qian, I had to find the newspaper that belonged to Tong Qian. That strange newspaper had stolen Tong Qian's memory. If I could get it back and put it on her face again, maybe I could wake her up."

"I didn't succeed at the time because the newspaper was still in the Caesar Hotel, still with that ghost. This meant I had to risk going back to the hotel to find it again, which wasn't a wise choice, because I later realized that there was something even more terrifying in the hotel than that ghost."

"I must not disturb it."

The passage filled the entire parchment, leaving no room for further writing, so the conversation ended there.

Although there was a lot of nonsense, the human skin paper revealed two very important pieces of information: the newspaper that stole Tong Qian's memories, and the existence of an unknown ghost in the Caesar Hotel.

"Would finding the newspaper that stole Tong Qian's memories and putting it back on her face restore them?" Yang Jian pondered.

This is almost identical to his deduction.

However, the challenge is how to determine whether Tong Qian's memories are complete and have not been altered.

Yang Jian raised this question.

This time, the human skin paper cooperated by erasing the original writing and revealing new words. "At the time, I wasn't sure if Tong Qian's memories had been altered by a ghost. If so, the person who would wake up after I helped her retrieve her memories wouldn't be Tong Qian, but an unknown personality controlled by a ghost. That's not what I wanted."

"To solve this problem, I have no choice but to find the source of that ghost, restrict it, and then forcibly modify Tong Qian's memories according to my will. However, this is very dangerous."

The conversation stopped there.

"After all this talk, are we back to square one? Or do I still need to deal with that ghost first?" Yang Jian felt that although he had gotten the answer, he had also gone in circles.

It seems like we've found the answer, but we haven't.

He wanted to wake Tong Qian to get information to deal with the ghost, but to save Tong Qian, he had to deal with the ghost first, so the information became less important.

The method described on the parchment became a useless tool.

"A troublesome thing." Yang Jian squinted at the human skin paper in his hand.

Dealing with this thing is indeed an intellectual challenge; most people really can't handle it.

Otherwise, when Yang Jian chose to hang himself in front of the Ghost Mirror, he wouldn't have entrusted it to Zhang Wei, asking him to pass it on to Wang Xiaoming after his death.

Of all the people Yang Jian had ever met, only Wang Xiaoming was qualified to deal with the human skin paper. Anyone else would have been completely fooled by this human skin paper.

However, just as he was pondering this, the old writing on the human skin disappeared, and new writing appeared.

This is a very rare instance of proactively revealing information.

But when Yang Jian saw the new information on it, his face showed surprise and he suddenly stood up.

"Tong Qian's situation made me realize that I possessed the necessary conditions to perfectly control the two ghost faces in that situation. Although the conditions for achieving this were somewhat demanding, if I succeeded, I would have a very powerful subordinate. Tong Qian, who had lost her memory, was qualified to control the two ghost faces. Once she successfully controlled them, I could ensure her loyalty to me by modifying her memories."

"It all depends on whether I can restrain that ghost."

The next line describes another special method.