Gu Jun was officially declared a missing person. On the afternoon of 21st, after The One rescued him in the jungle, the man requested to be left alone and he promised he’d soon return. They waited at the oak clearing for an hour but Gu Jun did not return. So one hour later, they decided to follow his footsteps to find him. The team eventually found Siyu’s watercolor that Gu Jun held in his hands earlier by a cave. That was also where the man’s trail ended. Nothing of his other affects was found. There were no visible clues. Deng Ximei and Wu Siyu sensed nothing either.
They immediately called for reinforcement. After the larger group arrived, they used canines and devices to launch a carpet search around the forest. They searched for a whole week, and turned the place upside down but there was no breakthrough. Gu Jun might have used a spell to aid in his departure but the satellite images at the time did not capture anything. However, that only proved that he did not travel through the sky, there were other methods he could have used.
“A person cannot just vanish into thin air, can he?” Elder Tong was troubled. The group was stumped too. Gu Jun did not even tell them what he was up to when he left.
“I thought he just wanted to use the toilet.” Lou Xiaoning was confused, “Why else would he refuse to have anyone follow him?”
“It’s that mysterious signal.” Wu Siyu shared her thoughts with Elder Tong for Elder Tong was the only one other than herself who knew about it. “He was holding my painting when he left so he probably intercepted that signal again.” She however did not reveal the painting’s connection to the split cross. She had promised Dirty-minded Jun that. Was the signal part of Gu Jun’s PTSD symptoms or it existed for real? For now, Elder Tong leaned towards the latter, Gu Jun did not appear like he had lost his mind. But what kind of signal was it? Who was this ‘we’? Was it them who stole Gu Jun away?
After another week-long search, Phecda had to accept this bitter truth. They stopped the rescue effort and left behind only a small unit to continue the search.
Gu Jun was missing. After he entered the forest, he was taken away by some unknown individual through some unknown methods.
In this half a month, no trace of the oak witch was found. The witch disappeared and so did all the anomalous activity. Could it be the witch who kidnapped Gu Jun? That was a possibility, a notably bad one. The country did not receive any new Tourette Syndrome cases. The percentage of patients was maintained within the average one percent. However, the 520 girls did not fully recover. When the battle happened on the 21st, none of the girls went missing so it was confirmed that the girls in the forest were disguises taken on by the witch. So far, the girls still suffered from motor and verbal tics but the frequency was not higher than normal Tourette Syndrome patients. Their verbal tic got better as well in the sense that they no longer sounded so creepy. At the same time, their piano talent greatly deteriorated. Only 7 girls retained supernatural talent and one of them was Zhong Lihui.
Arrangement for these girls and their family tested Phecda’s internal management skill greatly. For now they were all still in quarantine for further observation and treatment. However, they were also given the best education. Basically, they were attending a boarding school. Their parents were allowed weekly visits. This was because despite their decreased talent, they still showed great spirituality and that meant that they were an unusual source of potential talent. If they grew up without any further incident, and retained their spirituality into adulthood, they would be recruited into Phecda.
Kedou though was a unique case. She did not suffer from Tourette Syndrome but for all intent and purpose, she was Patient Zero. After much consideration, Phecda arranged for her family to return to Shen Hai City but they had to receive routine S Value check up and stone cleansing.
After everything was settled, Phecda came out with a new announcement. It sent a wave of relief through the country, especially among the parents. Phecda’s announcement stated that there were around 100 children around Eastern State who got affected by an unknown alien transmission. They fell under an illness similar to Tourette Syndrome but the incident was over. None of the young patients died and they were all now in treatment.
Even though there were still the usual conspiracy theories, things were slowly returning to normal. The ban on cartoons was lifted.
The death of 7 hospital staff at Nan Xiang City’s third People Hospital were hushed up but their family was given compensation by the government. The resolution of this issue should be celebratory but Gu Jun’s disappearance cast a pall over those in the know.
“Is it possible that Mr. Gu has gone back to the Dreamlands?” Peacock offered. “Maybe he found a channel that leads back to it?”
That was indeed possible but Lucky, who was threatened by Wu Siyu, admitted in a quivering voice that he would be able to sense the presence of any channel that had appeared in the past month. But when he joined the search party for Gu Jun, he did not sense any trace of Dreamlands in the forest. With regards to the oak witch, he shook even harder, “She must be something evil. I don’t know, I don’t care, I don’t want to know!”
Lucky was just a small Zoog, his knowledge was limited. He was there as an envoy for the Zoog so Siyu did not really hurt him.
If Gu Jun did not travel to Dreamlands, then could he have travelled to another dimension? Deng Ximei said that she did not sense a connection to the foreign world though. The group reached a dead end. They did not expect the hurried farewell at the oak woods would end up to be a permanent farewell.
Phecda launched an intense research into the watercolor. They found nothing unusual about it. Eventually they returned it to the owner to see if Wu Siyu could detect something from it. When Gu Jun first received the signal, she already studied the painting with him. It was a watercolor she did when she was 16 or 17. She could not remember the details that clearly anymore. She kept it because she thought it was quite a good painting. Perhaps, the painting was nothing unique, but the symbol and signal that Dirty-minded Jun managed to intercept through it was.
Regardless, Wu Siyu spent her days staring at the watercolor, waiting for the signal but there was nothing.
“It has been half a month already, it has taken too long…” Wu Siyu now understood why she felt so uneasy back then. If only she had climbed atop him like a sloth and refused to let go. However, she did not think that Dirty-minded Jun was dead and she stopped her mind from going down that road.
Thankfully for now, there was something else that occupied her mind. Since a few days ago, a strange feeling had been bothering her and her monthly visit… did not arrive.
Her boyfriend was a doctor but he was missing. Thankfully she was surrounded by other doctors. She went to Zixuan’s girlfriend, Jiang Banxia for advice.
The test result could be checked within 10 days of conception. It had been 3 weeks since the Chinese Valentine. Wu Siyu bought a pregnancy test kit and returned to her hostel.
Wu Siyu slumped on the couch and studied the stick in her hands.
“Erm… It’s positive.” She rubbed her stomach, “It’s not a food baby but an actual baby this time.”
Once the shock passed, Wu Siyu was confused. She remembered Dirty-minded Jun taking all the precautions so why would this happen? She looked online for answers. Turns out condoms were only 85 percent effective. For some reason, she felt cheated. Wu Siyu closed her eyes and her mind started to wander.
‘An ace in the hole, that’s impressive.
‘With the amount of exercise we’ve done, the probability increases by each instance.
‘The probability of one getting synaesthesia is 1/10000 so what is 15 percent really?
‘I will have to take maternity leave. At least that means I’ll have 6 months of paid holiday…
‘Single mother at 21. Sure, why not? It’s nothing unusual and perfectly salty.
‘But the biggest problem is…where is the baby’s father?’