Chapter 32: Excellent, the silence makes my brain work.

After the meeting, everyone in the conference room seemed to have completely blacked out, losing all memory of the three words Xu Chen had spoken. They exchanged uneasy glances, sensing a profound disconnection.

They then urged Xu Chen to explain what had happened.

Xu Chen tried to speak but found he could only move his mouth without producing any sound. A brief medical assessment suggested he was suffering from aphasia.

Captain Chu asked Xu Chen to try writing down what had happened. Yet, when Xu Chen put pen to paper, all he could produce were the same enigmatic circles that Old Ge had drawn.

Not convinced, Xu Chen tried writing out the poem “Invitation to Wine” by memory, but the entire page was filled with dense, overlapping O’s.

The gravity of the situation dawned on everyone in the room. While adjusting the surveillance footage, they encouraged Xu Chen to type on his phone. Although Xu Chen felt he had typed clearly, the screen displayed nothing but gibberish.

When trying to look up characters in a dictionary, he could not find the ones he clearly intended to write, as if his hands no longer obeyed him.

Once the surveillance was properly set, it became clear that the audio recording had frozen the moment Xu Chen spoke those three words, only resuming when Xu Chen cursed the national treasure. The room was chilled to the bone.

They began to understand why the recording device failed to capture his voice.

No one in the room was foolish. Failing to find clues on the monitors, they devised a manual communication method for Xu Chen: one person would browse a dictionary, while Xu Chen indicated numbers from 0 to 99 by combining one to ten fingers. Nod or shake of the head would confirm or deny, and the dictionary reader would double-check before recording the characters.

Yet, this too proved futile.

Xu Chen stared at the recorded text in confusion. He could not fathom how he had made mistakes even in something as simple as counting.

“It seems that Old Ge was silenced because he uncovered something. Whatever Xu Chen initially wanted to say was twisted into this,” someone murmured.

“Indeed. The enemy employs unheard-of tactics, capable of distorting one’s cognition.”

“You should visit the Military Industry Institute and the Academy of Sciences. Ask them how such a weapon works, its principles, and whether it can be countered.”

“It’s difficult. We don’t even understand why we’re affected.”

---

“There are so few clues…”

During heated discussions at the table, some noticed that Xu Chen’s overall understanding was sound. Once it was clear he wanted a certain book, they laid out the library’s catalog before him to search by process of elimination.

Chinese literature… classic foreign novels… tags… first letters…

Xu Chen looked bewilderedly at the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales in his hands—completely at a loss. What he wanted was the Cthulhu Mythos.

In the end, confirming that he could not convey any information, he had no choice but to give up.

Others debated whether binary code could serve as a communication method, but Xu Chen fell silent.

Because just moments ago, a few doubts had crystallized in his mind.

They concerned Old Ge’s actions.

After their previous meeting, Old Ge had learned about the special corrosion. He had already suspected that the spread of the plague and the creation of this corrosion were orchestrated by the same shadowy force, aiming to destroy human civilization.

This conclusion was drawn from his notes.

Xu Chen realized that, no matter how bizarre his handwritten circles were, a single poem only occupied a small area. But if written in Old Ge’s style, it could fill an entire page.

Such information would expose the mastermind. Upon learning this, the enemy not only disrupted Old Ge’s cognition but sought to kill him outright.

It seemed terrified of any information leaking out.

Originally, Old Ge was to die from a mysterious illness. But when Xu Chen was summoned here, the mastermind feared Old Ge would reveal more, so it engineered a more violent, unnatural death.

To ensure Xu Chen would not disclose anything either, they inflicted cognitive disorder upon him as well.

As for why they hadn’t simply killed Xu Chen outright, perhaps it was to avoid triggering a state emergency response.

One death might be tolerable, but two silent shootings would be a blatant provocation. With all government agencies mobilized, what organization could withstand the steel tide and the swift “Dongfeng” delivery?

---

Perhaps there was no time for that. Xu Chen doubted the entity cared for such concerns.

As for the mastermind… it might be something from the Cthulhu Mythos… or perhaps Cthulhu itself? After all, the name called was His. Xu Chen had only seen derivative works and knew little in detail. When he looked up at the stars, perhaps the stars were watching him in return.

This conclusion seemed fitting. After all, the Cthulhu Mythos rarely contains anything benevolent toward humanity. Destroying human civilization for amusement? Quite natural.

Moreover, this method of annihilation matched Xu Chen’s imagination of Cthulhu perfectly.

Dark, twisted, howling, crawling.

Erasing signs of civilization, spreading plagues…

Too bad he couldn’t communicate this.

Speaking of which, he was quite unlucky. He had thought this life would be smooth—study medicine, become a doctor with a good salary, find a girlfriend, and live out his days.

Never had he imagined ending up in a world inhabited by Cthulhu and octopus-headed horrors.

Xu Chen drifted into a daze for a moment before recalling another puzzling detail.

Old Ge had seemingly never explained what the special corrosion actually was.

It was widespread among artifacts, and it was foreseeable that the world’s relics continued to be destroyed. This was a form of destruction belonging to Cthulhu. If its mechanism could be understood, it might be curbed or countered—a crucial step in halting the mastermind’s plans.

Yet Old Ge never mentioned it. Had he forgotten? Or was it more important to reveal the presence of the mastermind itself?

Or perhaps, he had already conveyed the message he intended.

Xu Chen pondered Old Ge’s words over and over, but found they were no more than meaningless murmurs.

No useful information was gained.