Chapter 487 - Chapter 487: Chapter 487 Happy Birthday (Part 1) (1/2)
Chapter 487: Chapter 487 Happy Birthday (Part 1)
When Mr. Liang returned to the basement of the Brilliant Fortune Building, he saw John sitting against the wall, staring blankly at the rabbit wood carving placed in the middle of the hall, seemingly lost in thought.
Mr. Liang emerged from his invisibility status, walked to the platform, picked up the rabbit wood carving that seemed unchanged, and asked, “What happened?”
John was startled, apparently just realizing Mr. Liang had returned. He pointed to the wood carving in Mr. Liang’s hands, and said with a bit of unease, “It… It has a problem! There’s an evil spirit hidden inside it!”
Then, John hastily explained to Mr. Liang what had happened yesterday, focusing on the significant points of his experience, including how the light flickered, how he saw that piece of rabbit meat, and how the rabbit meat disappeared without any warning.
Mr. Liang wasn’t surprised, but instead nodded approvingly, “Good, you have started to see its peculiarities.”
He knew that “blood-eating creatures” normally don’t need to sleep. John hadn’t reached his feeding and blood-drinking time. While the old vampires of the “Red Rose” had a secret technique for extending their period of extreme limits through slumber, it wasn’t something they could use whenever they pleased, and John couldn’t possibly waste his time sleeping within the 40-day limit. So, it wasn’t in his dreams that he had seen the rabbit meat, but he had been affected by illusions in reality.
This situation was something Dr. Fang Pingfang had encountered in laboratories of the research bases in Bao Wang City and An Tie Town.
One could say that John had proven that the hallucinations brought about by the wood carving affected not only human beings, but “blood-eating creatures” as well.
“Tell me exactly, how did you trigger the hallucination of the rabbit meat?” Mr. Liang asked.
“How did I trigger…” John paused for a moment, thought about it, then said with a little uncertainty, “I bit its ear.”
“Oh?” Mr. Liang picked up the rabbit wood carving, opened his mouth wide, and put one ear of the rabbit wood carving into his mouth – in fact, he could easily swallow the entire wood carving.
After symbolically biting on the ear a few times, Mr. Liang pulled the woodcarving out and asked, “Like this?”
John was taken aback. He had never seen Mr. Liang with his mouth fully open before; the visual impact was quite shocking. So it took a while for John to respond to Mr. Liang’s question. As soon as he came to his senses, he quickly nodded, “Yes, that’s right… just… take a bit.”
But clearly, Mr. Liang’s this instance didn’t trigger any similar feedback. So, he threw the rabbit wood carving to John and said, “You take a bite.”
John glanced at the rabbit ear that Mr. Liang had “bitten”, hesitated a bit, then chose to bite the other ear, but this time again, nothing unusual occurred.
Mr. Liang wasn’t surprised or disappointed as when Fang Pingfang had previously encountered the rabbit meat hallucination, she hadn’t bitten the rabbit’s ear either. The idea that biting the ear of a rabbit carving would trigger a hallucination seemed to be purely coincidental.
“What are your thoughts on the connection between the wooden carving and the hallucination, its trigger mechanism?” Mr. Liang asked.
John repeated his previous words, “There is an evil spirit inside! It… it might be a rabbit, or something else, but anyway it has a direct impact on the soul and influences the mind.”
Whilst saying this, John seemed to think that using “rabbit” to describe the so-called evil spirit might not sound intimidating or terrifying. So he hurriedly gave some examples, such as Annabelle, Chucky, etc., and proposed to send the wood carving to Europe to test some “legendary” methods of “purification”.
However, Mr. Liang hadn’t seen these movies and was further confused. In fact, based solely on John’s earlier account, Mr. Liang understood completely what had happened and also knew that John was considerably shaken.
“Do you think the illusion of that rabbit you saw has any connection with the Eight-Armed Giant Hallucination in Myitkyina?” Mr. Liang suddenly asked.
John was taken aback. Mr. Liang did not seem to accept his “evil spirit” analysis but instead proposed another approach.
Following this line of thought and combining his interviews with some witnesses who had seen the illusions in Myitkyina, last night’s apparition, as well as adding a bit of imagination, he found himself unveiling a more mysterious and profound “scroll”.
Seeing John lost in thought, Mr. Liang didn’t rush him. He walked to the only seat in the hall, sat down, re-entered his invisibility status, pulled out his computer screen, and began to look over the briefings from various bases and field teams collated by “Taia”.
These briefings, usually conveying phased results or routine reports, wouldn’t bear any urgent incidents. Otherwise, the research bases and teams would directly contact him via personal communicators.
Before reviewing the briefings, Mr. Liang had “Taia” perform a security check on itself to confirm that there were no issues concerning hardware or software, as well as the access control and network security systems.
From John’s and Fang Pingfang’s earlier descriptions, it seemed that the rabbit wood carving had an effect on people and created illusions, interfered with surrounding electronic devices and power systems. It’s likely related to the magnetic field, which is quite similar to the environmental impact around the time the Eight-Armed Giant Hallucination appeared in Myitkyina on the evening of March 8th. This was one of the reasons why he linked the rabbit wood carving illusion to the Eight-Armed Giant Hallucination.
However, Mr. Liang had no worries about the security equipment and system security of this location. With “Taia” keeping watch, the worst-case scenario would simply result in damage to some hardware. The vital data was stored in their dedicated network, with multiple servers storing it in various places. The most core and confidential data were stored offline and unplugged— unless one could breach right into the storage space, even an EMP would hardly cause damage.
Mr. Liang had absolute confidence in the AI system which he supervised and watched develop into what it is today. If “Taia” determines there are no issues, then there should be no issues.
“Taia”, one of the mythical top ten famous swords in our country, is a sword of power, invisible and traceless. Its sword energy exists between heaven and earth. When the time, place, people, and the three virtues unify, Taia will be created — as legend has it that Ouyezi and Ganjiang only claim to be carriers of this sword’s energy.
Mr. Liang’s choice of this name shows his confidence in and emphasis on this AI system.
After what seemed to be a psychological struggle, John slowly placed the rabbit wood carving at one corner of Mr. Liang’s operating platform. Then he said, “Five more days until the 40-day deadline… I think I want to choose a different task.”
Mr. Liang was truly surprised this time. The eyeball without eyelids looked at John, and his body “reappeared” on his chair, “You intend to have a battle to the death with that serpent?”
John nodded with difficulty: “Yes.”
Mr. Liang looked at the rabbit wood carving on the platform and said, “If you’re worried about timing, I can extend the deadline for you.”
“No need, I don’t think I can complete this task.” John hesitated for a moment, then made another request. “If possible, can you turn on that ‘screen’ again? I want to take a closer look.”
As the one who had a brief battle with the giant serpent— or more accurately, had been simply chased by it, John was obviously well aware of the serpent’s combat capability. The tasks Mr. Liang had listed side by side for him to select were akin to the “method of assigning math homework by making students copy ten questions a thousand times or solve them”. Mr. Liang used a task that John was deemed impossible to choose as an anchor, creating a sense of pressure and a contrast of hope for him.
But now it seems that the illusion last night had a bigger impact on John than expected?
Mr. Liang was somewhat perplexed, was it not just an illusion of a piece of rabbit meat that terrified him to this extent?
Even an ordinary person like Dr. Fang, who had also seen the rabbit meat illusion, wasn’t scared witless and was still thinking about how to unravel the mystery. And yet, you, a supposed “European bloodline vampire”, are this fearful?