by <unknown>
Without waiting for Chen Chen to react, the four FBI agents swarmed toward him and pulled him up forcefully.
"Your mission has come to a close. Head back out and gather with your department members, hurry!"
Shen Qi turned to the five soldiers in charge of monitoring Chen Chen and dismissed them. The soldiers quickly obliged.
Chen Chen was slightly upset by this. He was forcefully dragged out of his bed and escorted through the door against his will.
It had been a month since Chen Chen had stepped out of the interrogation room. It was only now when he noticed that the psychologists monitoring him had long left. The room was vacant and stacks of papers were scattered chaotically all over the floor.
Clearly, something had happened in this FBI branch.
Chen Chen noted silently.
Shen Qi was close to breaking off into a sprint along the narrow corridor. Troops of soldiers passed through them. They seemed to be trying their best to keep the branch coordinated.
"What's going on?"
Chen Chen asked again.
"You don't need to know, just follow me."
Shen Qi answered without looking back at him. She had zero intention of explaining anything to Chen Chen.
Chen Chen was quickly escorted outside the FBI branch building. The piercing sunlight quickly penetrated his eyes which made him stretch his hands out on impulse to shield his eyes. His nose also caught the scent of a sharp smell pouring out of the city.
It was the smell of rotten meat.
The foul scent was carried here by the wind. On both sides of the roads, vehicles were arranged disorderly. It was a chaotic scene.
Chen Chen would see the occasional car passing through at full speed. There was not a soul to be seen on the roads and all of the windows in the neighborhood were clamped together tightly. Soldiers could be seen patrolling the streets.
The restlessness in Chen Chen's heart had mounted to its peak when he saw this. He could not believe in what he was seeing. Just what in the world could have happened to an international metropolis that would reduce it to such a state?
This thought ran through Chen Chen's mind.
"You guys are here!"
While Chen Chen was still taken by shock, the director stepped out from somewhere inside the building as well. The director quickly turned to Shen Qi. "The helicopter will be here shortly, you and Chen Chen should leave with the documents first. Chen Chen is a VIP and we've received authorization from the higher-ups. No one will stop your aircraft from leaving."
"Mr. Director, are you still not going to tell me just what is going on?"
Chen Chen quickly asked, "Where did things go wrong? Could you not find a suitable movie? Or was it that the tool extracted by the USB drive was unable to erase the memetic force?"
"There's no time for me to explain now. Direct your questions to Shen Qi, she'll explain everything to you."
The director only left him a short remark before stepping away in a hurry again.
After that, Chen Chen was taken to an elevated helipad. The helipad was constantly flashing red lights, signaling the arrival of a helicopter.
Several agents were carrying various objects of different sizes as well as a great deal of documents. More than ten people were silently waiting here.
"Can you explain the situation now?"
Chen Chen asked again, "The director himself permitted me to know about the ongoings. Unless you're telling me that you're trying to disobey your superior's orders?"
"What did you say!"
Shen Qi flicked her eyebrows and rebuked him harshly. "Chen Chen, don't cross the line."
"I'm not crossing the line, you're the one crossing the line here."
Chen Chen returned with fiercer aggression. "I'm not a prisoner, so don't you dare treat me like a prisoner or I'll make you regret it."
"I'd like to see how you'd make me regret it!"
This only enraged Shen Qi further. Just as she was about to erupt, another agent who looked to be considerably high ranking as well approached them. He turned to Chen Chen. "The director wanted me to give you this document so that you can coordinate with the next part of the operation."
The man handed a stack of documents approximately twenty pages thick to Chen Chen.
Chen Chen took the document. "Thank the director for me. Without this document, I'd probably be left in the dark until I die."
"No problem."
The agent shot a glance at Shen Qi before leaving.
Chen Chen ignored Shen Qi's deadly glare and started flipping through the documents without a word between them.
Chen Chen turned pale before he even reached the end of the first paragraph.
Just as he feared, the city was brought to such ruins due to the memetic abnormality going out of control!
Till now, the catalyst for this destruction had not been identified. After what they thought was the first batch of students infected by the meme was quarantined in a large local hospital, thousands of people still went missing regardless.
To counteract the effects of the Ju-on meme, the officials even specifically designated individual rooms for each student. This was done to prevent students that were otherwise not infected to become infected as well. What they never expected was for something far more haunting to occur…
According to the official's initial estimation, only one-tenth of the student population was infected by the Ju-on meme. This meant that only slightly above a thousand of these ten thousand students should be killed by the meme. Meanwhile, the rest of them who had survived the incubation period should be allowed to leave safely.
This was what happened: initially, two to three hundred students went missing every day. This trend only lasted until the third day when the total missing population had reached a thousand when the cases began to slow down. However, by the fourth and fifth day, the numbers had ramped up again. Additionally, even the research staff and the soldiers appointed in the hospital had started to disappear as well.
This observation went on until the eighth day until the hospital had turned into a ghost town…
Chen Chen frowned when he saw this. He continued reading and saw the document clearly stating that the soldiers and doctors had never stepped foot into the room of the missing students. Despite their caution, they still went missing all the same, just like the ones infected by Ju-on…
Even the district and shop lots nearby the hospital began reporting cases of disappearance. It was a deeply discomforting situation.
"What's the explanation of this, could it be that… The infection zone can expand?"
Chen Chen continued reading. He noted a similar speculation, hypothesizing that perhaps once the death toll of Ju-on in an area surpassed a certain threshold, the phenomenon would begin spreading on its own. This made it so that the meme was no longer restricted by common concrete walls and could seep outward. Anyone within a certain vicinity of this spread zone would also undoubtedly be affected by the Ju-on meme!
Chen Chen felt a chill in his heart when he saw this. This explained why the situation went out of hand so quickly. To think that something like this would happen…
As he continued to flip through the document, Chen Chen found out that as the FBI furthered their investigation, they managed to find out the whereabouts of the disappearance victims.
It first started around the fifth day. That was when the staff in the hospital started noticing that whenever the infected went missing, drops of blood would start to seep through some parts of the walls and ceiling in the hospital. After they employed machines to tear down the walls, they finally found the missing people…
The people who went missing over the last few days had been crushed between the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Some of them were even crushed into the sewer!
The ones crushed had become pressed into mere layers of skin several centimeters thick, mixed with a substance flesh and bones. There was simply no way to distinguish who they were
while they were alive.
It was horrifying for the ones crushed into the sewer as they had been shaped into a tube of flesh nearly ten meters thick. One could only guess what happened to them that turned them into this state.
This bizarre state of death had Chen Chen sweating bullets.
After that, the official started to lock down the epicenter of these events, only entrance was permitted from here on. The inhabitants of the city were evacuated as well. More than a good half of the tens of millions of people in the city were dispersed. However, there were still up to five million people trapped in the central city.
The number of missing cases had ramped up to tens of thousands…
Continuing down the section of reports, now contained details concerning the USB drive. These were confidential information that Chen Chen would otherwise not be given access to if he was not the owner of the USB drive.
It was stated that the officials had attempted with more than a dozen movies which all failed. They were prepared for this outcome and had made preparations to film movies of their own to combat this problem.
The officials used the information provided by Chen Chen and included the relevant elements into the movie. They shot four separate movies to combat Ju-on, Final Destination, One Missed Call, and Ring.
Instead of using the original ending of the respective movies, they had included alternate endings in which the protagonist found solutions to combat the memetic images.
Just like how Chen Chen was previously able to acquire the vaccine for the Basilisk patterns, the protagonist of the four movies also found the vaccine for the four Basilisk patterns. They were respectively known as Harmony, Civility, Integrity, and Affection.
Any individual could become immune to the curses if they looked at these memetic patterns beforehand. It was equivalent to being injected with the vaccine for their respective curses.
The person who came up with this idea was truly a genius since not much energy would be required to instantiate these objects as they were mere pieces of paper. It would not even need to be mass-produced since they could simply be uploaded online to be spread and eliminate the four memetic curses.
Also, to prevent any discrepancies with the patterns, the images themselves were never actually shown inside the movies. Whenever they appeared in the movies, they were turned the other way so as to not face the audience. This was done as a way to cement that —"we're only providing the general outline, the USB drive can decide the specific imagery of the pattern". After all, Chen Chen had mentioned that the USB drive had the built-in ability to fill in gaps on its own.
Everything worked out as planned and the four movies were all verified by the USB drive. The four instantiated patterns were intricately arranged patterns as well.
Chapter 376: Kill |
Although it was embarrassing to speak of, this was the truth.
The four pictures were indeed extracted but they were of no use. Even if the people infected by the meme saw these pictures, the curse was not neutralized, and they would still be killed by the Ju-on meme.
Why was this?
Chen Chen could not figure it out.
At this moment, the sound of propellers was heard over Chen Chen's head. At the same time, a medium-sized helicopter descended from above, stirring up gusts of wind.
"Let's go!"
Shen Qi yelled and got on the helicopter first. Without another word, the four agents once again dragged Chen Chen onto the helicopter.
A group of employees on the side also passed on items and files to the helicopter, but they did not board it and turned to leave.
They were not qualified for the first evacuation.
Then, the helicopter quickly lifted off and flew in the direction of the suburbs of Shangdu. It was as if staying for one more second would cause one to be infected by this curse…
It was not until after they had flown away from the city for more than an hour and when swathes of countryside appeared under their feet, that Shen Qi looked relieved. She touched her pocket, then leaned her head back on the seat, and began to close her eyes to rest.
However, she did not realize that her little gestures were all exposed before Chen Chen's eyes.
'As I thought, they didn't separate me from the USB drive? If I'm too far away from the USB drive, it will shatter?'
In one look, Chen Chen understood this.
Still, when he thought of this, Chen Chen suddenly had an idea — when he was charging the USB flash drive, as the power reached a certain level, it would start to flicker with dots of light, just like stars in the night.
At the same time, the USB drive would enter its second form, which gave its owner the opportunity to travel into the movie's world.
The amount of power that the authorities had transferred could be said to be ten times or hundreds of times more than what Chen Chen did. In such circumstances, how much power was there in the USB flash drive at this time? Did they discover the second function of the USB drive?
The answer was basically no.
If the authorities had discovered the ability to open the passage, they would naturally get more information from him. It was impossible that they would overlook him.
In other words, the USB drive did not activate this ability when in other people's hands.
However, what if Chen Chen used it for himself?
A subtle smile flitted across Chen Chen's lips and he closed his eyes.
At the same time, a crackling sound suddenly came from the helicopter's fuel tank and a crack seemed to appear. At once, drops of fuel dripped out ceaselessly like an opened faucet.
The rate of leakage was not fast, but it was not slow either. It would take only about ten minutes for the helicopter to completely run out of fuel.
However, the sound of the fuel tank cracking was directly drowned out by the loud sound of propellers. It was not until ten minutes later that the pilot turned his head and said loudly, "Our fuel tank has leaked and the fuel is running out. We're preparing to make an emergency landing!"
"What's going on! How can a perfectly good fuel tank start to leak?"
Shen Qi immediately shouted this question to the front.
Even so, both pilots had no time to answer. The pilot focused and started to control the helicopter's descent while the co-pilot took out the communicator and started contacting the headquarters.
"D*mn it!"
Seeing no one was paying attention to her, Shen Qi could not help cursing. She touched her pocket a little uneasily and only breathed a sigh of relief when she felt the item in the pocket.
"Boom!"
With a heavy thud, the helicopter landed successfully. As the fuel was not used up all at once, the helicopter had time to land but it was a little rushed.
None of the eight people on the helicopter was injured but the drop was a little uncomfortable.
Shen Qi was particularly woozy. She hurriedly jumped out of the helicopter and vomited in the grass.
"Director Shen, are you okay? Director Shen?"
The pilot and the four agents who were in charge of Chen Chen got off the helicopter and comforted her.
Chen Chen looked around. This had been a town but because of the official evacuation, it had been deserted and there was no one.
"Since the helicopter has stopped, I happen to have something to do as well, so I'll be leaving now."
Chen Chen got off the helicopter in his own sweet time, walked up to the group, and said, "Shen Qi, the USB flash drive is on you, isn't it? Now it's time for it to return to its original owner."
Shen Qi and the other agents turned their heads to look at Chen Chen in disbelief. Among them, Shen Qi frowned. "What are you talking about, what USB flash drive? I don't understand what you mean."
"Of course I mean the USB flash drive in your left pocket."
Chen Chen said nonchalantly, walked forward as he spoke, and reached out one hand to grab Shen Qi.
"Stop right there!"
One of the agents closest to Chen Chen saw this and rushed directly to him, starting to twist Chen Chen's outstretched arm.
As an FBI agent who had received military training for a long time, his combat capability was by no means inferior to that of a soldier and it might even be superior. If any ordinary person was caught by the arm, they would likely be subdued immediately!
Nonetheless, faced with Chen Chen, he was destined to encounter despair!
At this point, Chen Chen did not hesitate anymore. He just kicked his back foot and his body instantly sprang up, like a sharp arrow released from the string, bypassing the agent next to him. He instantly landed before Shen Qi. With a slight gesture from his hand, the USB flash drive flew out of Shen Qi's pocket as if by magic, and landed in Chen Chen's hands!
"Stop him!"
All this took barely a second. It was not until then that Shen Qi reacted. She looked at the USB flash drive in Chen Chen's hand in shock and then lowered her head to touch her pocket in disbelief. Only then did she say in horror, "Don't let him take the USB flash drive!"
Upon witnessing Chen Chen's movements, the expressions of the four agents shifted. They never dreamed that this person who looked so frail and weak would suddenly make a move, not to mention that he was not an ordinary person. His skill was so far beyond them that they could barely follow what was going on.
Nonetheless, as military members, obeying orders from above was their duty. At this time, the four of them gritted their teeth and rushed toward Chen Chen from all directions, preparing to take Chen Chen in one fell swoop!
"You're asking for it!"
Chen Chen's eyes turned cold. Although he only had an ordinary physique at this time, the power of his Field energy was not only restored but was also several times stronger than in reality. He only glanced at his opponent swiftly and the agent in front screamed as he was sent flying backward as if he had taken a heavy blow in the chest!
However, at the same time, the other three were already upon Chen Chen. Among them, the person behind him took advantage of the momentum and kicked up a storm, aiming straight for the private part of Chen Chen's lower body. If this kick landed, even a wild beast would immediately lose its combat effectiveness, and its life might even be in danger!
