Translator: Lonelytree Editor: Lonelytree
Inside the sprawling interrogation room, the eight interrogators were silent. Their faces gave away nothing. Gu Jun looked them in the eye fearlessly. He was, for the most part, telling the truth. He even told them about the truth where the members from Lai Sheng Company that they encountered were souls from a different world, and they intended to summon the demon and take his power for their own use. But he did not go into detail about the demon; he hid the facts about Landon, the Son of Misfortune, and the system that he had bound to him.
He made it sound as if he was not so different from the other Demon Hunters, other than his special instinct and latent memory about the foreign civilization caused by the experiment done on him as a Spirit Child. It was this special instinct that allowed him to trigger the spell-based mechanism, use his mind to break the shackles around the shrine by interrupting the Lai Sheng Company’s spell, and activate the banyan tree channel. They were not spells; he did not know how to cast any spells, and that was the truth.
The truth that he did not specify was that this sensory instinct originated from the two sides of Landon. Removed from Landon, Gu Jun was just a normal human. He had no powers like superhuman strength or laser beam eyes. Gu Jun had considered long and hard before deciding to go with the truth. Of course, he could have lied, and no one would have been able to fact check him. But he wanted to show good faith. Perhaps he did omit some things, but his goal was similar to Phecda’s—to preserve the peace among humanity.
“I believe that forest has been burnt to ashes now,” Gu Jun said seriously. “The source of the Malformed Banyan Disease is all dead. I believe there should be corresponding changes to the progress of the disease here on Earth, right? Did the trees self-immolate or collapse? I sure hope so.”
In the past few days, Gu Jun had not been given any updates. He was not even given back the things they had confiscated from him, which meant that he had not taken the drug to stop his brain tumor for a week.
The eight interrogators did not answer Gu Jun’s questions. Instead, they jotted something down on their files. It was still Chen Yaoyan who spoke first. “Ah Jun, we will ask you some questions now. I hope that you will give us the truth. First, don’t you think that foreign world possesses a great worth for us to explore?”
“I told you earlier,” Gu Jun immediately replied. “That is a death trap, an abyss. What we need to do now is not explore it but avoid it and stop it from overflowing to our world.”
“What you mention are natural risks that come with exploration,” Ding Jinling, another interrogator from the Scientific Research Department, countered. “The risks taken when human beings discovered the new world and the frontier of space would not have been smaller than the risk that comes with this exploration. But isn’t it due to these explorations that human beings have reached the state of advancement we enjoy today?”
“That’s completely different.” Gu Jun shook his head. “Apples and oranges.”
Gu Jun knew that inside the helmets, the interrogators must have been equipped with communicators. Their reaction carried with them the attitude of their superiors. It was clear that the superiors did not like the decision that he had made, so they pressed him about it. The lack of information could make the brilliant mind as dull as an idiot. Gu Jun did not resent them because they did not have the information that he had, information like the horror of disease like hemoptysis. But he had to make them understand the severity of the situation.
“If you are looking for an analogy, human beings are not a good comparison here. A wild boar might be better. One day, say, a wild boar decides it wants to explore the world beyond its lair, so it ventures into the city. The first building it enters turns out to be a slaughterhouse. That’s what my instinct told me. So, in my opinion, it is better for that wild boar to stay in the protection of the jungle.”
After hearing what Gu Jun had to say, the group was silent again. ‘A wild boar… one armed with a nuclear weapon?’
“Don’t you think your view of humanity is a bit too cynical and pessimistic?” Liu Mian from the Review Department asked. This question already included an assessment of Gu Jun’s personality.
Gu Jun gave another heavy breath. “What would happen if cancer could be transmitted through the air? Think about it. Even the process of putrefaction is sped up in that world. Who knows what kind of tragedy an exploration might unleash?”
He was feeling agitated. Pride was always humanity’s sin, the first sin at that.
Right then, the interrogator from the Investigation Department, Yang Xinsan, asked, “Now that you have blown up the channel, how can you be sure the people from Lai Sheng Company have no access to other channels?”
“There won’t be any other channel because those wormholes can only be created in that banyan tree forest,” Gu Jun explained. “Those banyan trees have been transmuted by what we call abnormal energy and what the foreign civilization called the demon. The demon… yes, I know how ludicrous that sounds, but that is the truth. Now that all the banyan trees have been burned, those kinds of channels won’t exist anymore.”
“Then, what is your reasoning for the destruction of the five pages of parchment?” Yang Xinsan pressed. “Do you plan to keep the content on them to yourself?”
“Of course not.” Gu Jun chuckled lightly. He knew this accusation was coming. “But the words only have power when they are written on those parchments, especially the spell that summons the Malformed Banyan Disease.”
He held nothing back. Even though he was outnumbered, Gu Jun felt at ease. “In fact, I can write down the spell both in the foreign language and in English now, but it will only be powerless fraud. No one will be able to make use of the Malformed Banyan Disease again.”
“Hmm…” Liu Mian was silent. If that was the truth, then Gu Jun truly wanted to destroy everything. A person with high spirituality with the desire for absolute destruction… Liu Mian opened his lips to ask, “What kind of reason or rationality influenced this instinct of yours? What is your personal assessment of your current mental state?”
“Previously, my mental state was rather dark and bleak,” Gu Jun answered honestly. “But after burning down that forest, I feel much better.”
Liu Mian turned to Chen Yaoyan inquisitively. The latter nodded, so Liu Mian continued. “Ah Jun, do you know how you scored during this S value assessment?”
“I don’t.” Gu Jun frowned. From the sound of it, it was very low. When he joined Phecda, his score was 75…
“51.”
“…” Gu Jun was stumped. Was this an interrogation tactic? Using false information to break him? How could he have scored 51? He felt perfectly normal.
The eight interrogators stared at him with a mixture of concern and worry.
If a member scored lower than 50, they would be forced to retire. 51 was actually a code from the reviewer. It meant that the subject was at the edge of madness, and his mental state was highly unstable, but there was still a chance of recovery. This was the window of chance that Liang Jiahui reserved for Gu Jun.
“51?” Gu Jun said with disbelief. The statement that Xue Ba gave bubbled up in his mind. ‘People who have lost their mind will not realize that they have lost their minds’.
No, he shook the thought of his mind. “There has to be something wrong with the result.”
Perhaps the contradiction of light and darkness in his heart had distorted his physical data, causing this miscalculation. Gu Jun was certain that he was mentally sound.
The group of interrogators paid close attention to Gu Jun’s response. This was also part of their critical review.
“Ah Jun, there is no need for you to worry,” Liu Man consoled. “51 does not mean that you are crazy. It just means that you are in danger of acting more radically.”
“I know what I have done.” Gu Jun straightened up in his seat. He told him in the sincerest tone he could muster, “I am a doctor, and I acted to save people. I am not crazy.”