white night syndrome

Chapter 219 187. Unexpected confession (please order in full)
"This is the secret code used by the cult, and its meaning is for grinding."

When everyone was looking at each other, Jiang Wenkan stood up, broke free from the shackles of the rocks, and strolled to Li Ming's side.

"Cult? What do you mean..." Li Ming was a little confused.

"You saw the hint in that Bible a long time ago, Li Ming, please stop pretending to be stupid." Jiang Wenkan raised his eyebrows, "I am an undercover agent."

"I did think that you were an undercover agent. Although I didn't collect all the evidence, I didn't expect you to confess so quickly." Li Ming naturally took a step back and said in a calm and cold voice, "Then now... Does it mean that you want to help Professor Takei? Or use that magic circle to summon strange creatures...?"

"As expected of Li Ming. Although he is usually as dark and damp as a mushroom in the corner, his mind is still moving very fast."

Jiang Wenkan opened his hands, as if embracing the world.

"The first time I came here, or in other words, the motive for constructing this dream was to kill Kuranosuke Shirai in a white dream. Now that Shirai is dead, what motive do I have to harm you?"

"Shirai?"

Li Ming suddenly recalled that Jiang Wenkan was indeed right. These inexplicable dreams were all caused by his hatred.

But... Shirai, how could he die?

Jiang Wenkan made a gesture, pointing to the wound on his body that had just been bitten by the ghoul, then spread his hands and smiled helplessly.

So that ghoul just now... was Shirai?

"So now, is it my turn to have a one-man show?"

Jiang Wenkan put his right hand on his left chest, leaned forward and made a gentleman's salute. Then he took out his glasses from his pocket and placed them on the bridge of his nose.

"Due to some kind of opportunity, or coming into contact with the ultimate reality of this world, I became a fanatical believer of the Ancient One."

"I belong to a cult called the Ruined Hand. The masterminds of the cult summon the mythical creature Shoggoth to learn more about the Cthulhu civilization."

Cthulhu civilization...

It’s Cthulhu civilization again…

Li Ming raised his eyebrows when he heard this. It seems that a large part of the themes of white dreams are related to the Cthulhu civilization. Is this a coincidence or... a premeditated construction?

"In the sect, we believe that "the sect is everything, and the representative who is at the top of the sect is the son of God. No matter what the cost, even if you have to burn your own life and that of your loved ones, you must complete the summoning practice. "This is the purpose" of the doctrine. "

"From the moment I joined this sect, from the moment I firmly believed in it from the bottom of my heart, I have long lost what can be called human rationality."

"I came to Ikebukuro with the religious group. It's autumn now, and we have unprecedented good news..."

Jiang Wenkan paused and seemed to enjoy the storytelling atmosphere.

"The religious group, which was suffering from a lack of venues and fresh sacrifices, suddenly received assistance from an organization. The name of the organization is the Folk Culture Research Association affiliated with Shangying University. It is an academic institution composed of scholars and doctoral students."

"The person who contacted the sect was Professor Mitsuru Takei, the head of the research association. Because I am a relatively low-level member, I have not met her in person."

"Takei promises that all members of the research association will voluntarily become living sacrifices, and is also willing to provide the underground space of the facility for Shoggoth summoning."

"Voluntary? How is that possible!" Lin Lu rushed forward and shouted. She seemed to get a little emotional when this topic was mentioned, but this was understandable, because it was related to her biological sister.

"If you think it's unreasonable, you can confront Zhujing personally." Jiang Wenkan spread his hands, "The higher-ups of the cult believed her, but I doubt whether she should be worthy of credit. I don't know the details of the handover. I just I know this old guy saw something decisive for my superiors."

"The renovation of the underground of the Research Association has been completed, and the date for performing the summoning ceremony has been set. In order to supplement the insufficient sacrifices, the religious group sometimes kidnaps some homeless people. I heard that although there is no case registered in the city, there are still some homeless people. The commotion made some people panic.”

"Today the summoning will be carried out underground. As a lower-level personnel, I have no authority to enter the underground, but I saw my companions carrying several familiar figures..." Jiang Wenkan grinned, "Obviously These are you."

"I heard my companions say this... Of course, this is not my companion... I can only say that this is the identity I was given."

""They're in the way.""

"These people said so, so I guess you may be the new living sacrifices."

"I was doing my work on the ground floor of the facility. However, the moment I heard footsteps, I lost consciousness due to severe pain in the back of my head. When I woke up, I was wearing a white garment made of non-woven material. , all personal belongings are also missing.”

"When he lost consciousness, the order uniform he was wearing was nowhere to be seen. Looking around, he was in a place that looked like a museum exhibition hall."

What follows is clear to everyone.

"What's the use of all this... There is no detailed information or more details in it." Li Ming squinted his eyes.

"That's true, but there are more details about Shirai. Although he is a member of the fresh living sacrifices, the details and clues I found on him are far more than what we see now."

Jiang Wenkan took out a piece of white paper stained with black mucus from his pocket. A few words were stained on it, but it did not affect reading.

Yuan Qingyu wanted to take it over and take a look, but was stopped by a young man wearing glasses. He pushed up his glasses: "These black mucus have the effect of infection. If ordinary people encounter it, they are likely to be assimilated into ghouls. Yuan Qingyu Dr. Yu, if you are not afraid of death, then go ahead and give it a try."

After hearing these words, Yuan Qingyu gave up the idea of ​​going forward and taking it away. He took a few steps back and crossed his hands with a contemptuous attitude.

"I read a lot of details and clues from these white papers. Next, I will use my own narrative tone to tell you everything I read. I think this is the key to escape."

get out...

Are you escaping to an underground facility?

Or escape from the white dream?
Li Dang didn't know why he had such an idea.

"As the saying goes, there is a fine line between genius and madness. This is exactly what happened with Professor Mitsuru Takei, the head of the Folklore Research Society affiliated to Joeying University and an archaeologist. She was studying the subject of immortality myths. During a field survey, she accidentally He found the relics of the great race of Yis in time, and has since fallen into a crazy obsession with the Cthulhu mythology." "The Broken Hands of the cult that planned to summon the mythical creature Shoggoth seized this opportunity and reached an agreement with Takei In a cooperative relationship, the cult gave Takei knowledge of mythical creatures, while Takei was responsible for providing the venue and human sacrifices as summoning materials."

"For this reason, Takei did not hesitate to brainwash the students and teaching assistants of the seminar, coaxing them to voluntarily participate in rituals that can obtain eternal life, and then kill each other as sacrifices."

Is the Cthulhu Mythos civilization really so fascinating...

Li Ming frowned, feeling more and more ridiculous that the world actually had ideas and interests because of an extremely absurd civilization, even at the expense of the lives of its kind... and even had to be brainwashed.

This is what cults are supposed to do, this is what they do.

But Takei...

"What is the great race of Yis?" Li Ming asked, "And what is that relic?"

"I know this. The great race of Yis is a type of creature in the Cthulhu mythology. They are an interstellar race from the universe. They can project consciousness across time and exchange bodies with other creatures.

At some time in the distant past, the consciousness of the great race came across the stars, exchanged bodies with a cone-shaped creature on the earth, and established a prosperous civilization on the primitive earth. "

As expected of a loyal reader of the Cthulhu Mythos, Kurosawa Mika quickly reacted and spoke to everyone.

In other words, this Yisi people... their civilization is higher than that of the earth, and it is normal for weird things to appear.

Li Ming nodded thoughtfully and spread his hands to show respect.

"In the 28th year of Heisei, the professor discovered a mysterious artifact in the western wilderness of Australia. It should be a device component left by one of the great race Yis in this era."

"Although it was damaged when it was purchased and should have been thrown away casually, there is still effective technology in the device, which can contain one person's will, which is what humans commonly call souls."

"The original function of the device is unknown, but Takei found that the current device functions as an effect that allows "the entire world except the will of accommodation" to travel through time and space to continuously write a certain period of history, so she experimented with it and constructed it. our current situation. "

"Next let's talk about Takei's experiment."

"Although the cult believes that Takei is the perfect collaborator in the summoning of evil spirits, she is not a loyal believer in Shoggoth. Unlike the students and subordinates who became victims, she is mentally sound, evil and calm."

"As he grew older and weakened, Takei became obsessed with discovering the technology of immortality. However, a big problem in using the relics of Yis is how to let human consciousness enter the device."

"If you have the complete technological level of the Yithians, it should not be difficult to do it, but this guy lacks this condition, so the Folklore Research Association turned to research on the Cthulhu Mythos."

Li Ming thought of the handbooks and ridiculous jokes he saw. This was the evaluation given by Sakuma.

"What the professor found was a spell called soul binding, which uses a ritual to separate consciousness from the body. To achieve this ritual requires a large number of living sacrifices, so she coaxed the mentor and students, whose sanity had been destroyed by the content of the myth, to kill each other."

"Out of interest and the reason to increase the number of sacrifices, she also accepted the summoning plan of the Order of the Broken Hand, but did not tell them the truth of the matter. The summoning of Shoggoths and the ritual of binding consciousness were carried out on the same day, and Takei used a camera from a safe location to observe whether IS Technology could succeed."

So that means they are now in a state of using each other.

The last sentence seems... a little scary.

If these clues are true, then this old madman may have observed everything happening now in the security cameras.

"Then what are Shoggoths?" Hoshino Katsura asked.

"The Shoggoth is a creature in the Cthulhu mythology created by American novelist Howard Philip Lovecraft, who first appeared in his 1936 work "At the Mountains of Madness."

As an amorphous protoplasmic creature, it is one of the most terrifying beings in the Cthulhu mythology. It looks like a giant amoeba made of tar, with glowing eyes on its surface. "

Kurosawa recalled it for a while and then explained to everyone.

Jiang Wenkan nodded in agreement: "This is also a creature in the Cthulhu mythology. Now comes the most critical part."

"The old woman transformed the underground part of the institute into a summoning place. The brainwashed researchers and students were divided into several groups and held an immortality ceremony as a cover in the room of the facility. After the death of the victim who was a living sacrifice, the ruined The cultists of the Hand chant the incantation of the Ancient One to complete the summons.”

"Behind the secret door of the Folklore Society, a huge artificial cave was prepared as a summoning site, and a huge magic circle was drawn... What you have all seen is the place where the central pattern has been washed away by the rain. "

"The material used to draw the magic circle is the powder of some kind of meteorite that is actually the fossil of the ancient one. Because India is not within the range of common sense materials, it needs to be crushed with a special pestle and then used to draw the correct pattern. .”

Everyone turned their attention back to the pestle with different expressions.

"My words end here. These are all the clues I have got so far. What I didn't expect is... the person who provided these clues was actually my old enemy Shirai, which is really annoying."

Before that, everything was broken.

After Jiang Wenkan said this, the rationality of all connections gradually became apparent, so they became more determined to leave here.

In addition to the pestle, there is also a cyan notebook in the briefcase. It looks very neat and the handwriting is orderly.

On the first page of the diary is a postcard of a snowy scene in Hokkaido, with a completely dried-up forget-me-not affixed to it. The paper of the postcard is yellow, and the flower is withered and brittle, but it seems to have been carefully preserved.

Written on it in child-like pen handwriting——

"Don't forget each other, forever."

Signed by Mizuno Ruri and Mizuno Rinji.

Liuli's handwriting is square, but Linlu's is crooked.

A photo of two little girls was pasted on the postcard. One was wearing glasses and had her hair combed like a child's hair, smiling happily at the camera. One looked older, with her long hair hanging around the other's shoulders. Here is a friendly smile.

(End of this chapter)