Chapter 483 Secret Realm 3

Mand had seemed a bit absentminded lately.

He used to take little March out for a walk every day after dinner. Occasionally, he would run into Mr. William, the sheriff who lived next door and was out for a stroll as well, and they would even make plans to go fishing on the weekends.

But as his conversations with Old Mark deepened, Mand no longer liked going out. He locked himself in his study whenever he came home. Sometimes he even forgot to feed March, only remembering when the dog whimpered and scratched at the door.

The bookshelves had become a mess. Volumes he had once obsessively organized by category were now haphazardly piled on the floor and desk. The leaves of the potted lily of the valley by the window had turned yellow, and dirty dishes in the kitchen sink gave off a faint stench...

A few days ago, he had even written the wrong prescription for an old woman with a cold and fever, only realizing his mistake when the nurse pointed it out.

As for himself, perhaps because he had delved too deeply into Old Mark's medical records, he had actually begun to develop symptoms similar to his patient's. He occasionally heard strange noises, caught glimpses of bizarre shadows at the edge of his vision, and invariably woke up at three in the morning.

Mand was a bit worried at first, but after going through a mental health self-assessment he had learned from his professor, he found his mind to be perfectly healthy. Seeing no issues, he stopped fretting and simply chalked the symptoms up to extreme exhaustion.

After all, it was all worth it.

As Old Mark's condition progressively worsened, Mand became increasingly convinced that he had discovered a complex mental illness entirely unprecedented in the medical community.

He had even written a letter to his professor at the Royal Medical Academy in hopes of receiving his assistance, though he felt a twinge of regret right after sending it.

Today was Old Mark's ninety-fifth visit to the clinic.

The middle-aged man who had once been so active on the docks, battling the ocean with his bare flesh, now looked like a corpse fresh out of a freezer.

It was as if all the vitality had been squeezed out of him. His muscles had atrophied, and his pale skin showed not the slightest hint of color.

A pair of lifeless eyes bulged from their deep sockets, looking as though a mere sneeze would pop them right out. His body hair was gradually falling out, and he emitted an indescribable, murky stench of decay.

Strangely, Old Mark's mind grew increasingly active alongside this rapid physical aging, displaying a bizarre manic energy pushed to the absolute limits of exhaustion.

"Mr. Mand, what are we talking about today?"

Old Mark sat completely relaxed on the consultation room's soft leather sofa. Gone was the restraint of his first visit; he asked the question with a smile.

The tip of a pen tapped lightly against the already full medical record book. Mand pondered for a moment, then raised his head, staring straight into those terrifying, corpse-like eyes.

"You seem to be overly tired. Today... let's talk about something light."

"I remember you mentioning a few days ago that you were once swept off a fishing boat by the waves during a storm?"

"Oh..." The smile on Old Mark's face remained unchanged, but a subtle shift in his facial muscles gave his grin an eerie devotion—the kind often seen on the faces of church believers. "Of course, Mr. Mand."

"The wind was very strong that day. The dark clouds blocked out the sun completely, and the waves were like small mountains."

"The net ropes got tangled under the fishing boat's keel. I went to cut them with a knife, but a wave crashed over just then and swept me down."

Old Mark paused inexplicably. Looking into Mand's focused eyes, he suddenly asked, "Mr. Mand, do you know what it feels like to fall into the sea?"

"First is the quiet. The howling winds and the noise of raindrops slapping against the deck were all shut out above the surface."

"It was as if something had covered your ears. You could only hear the churning hum of the water and the 'thump, thump, thump' of your own heartbeat."

"I tried to swim up, but the currents were too rapid. They kept dragging me deeper, and I could only watch helplessly as the faint light of the fishing boat on the surface grew further and further away."

"It was black down there, darker than the darkest night you've ever seen. No stars, no moon, no lights. I can't even begin to describe that bottomless feeling to you—it was as if you could fall straight through to the other side of the world."

"Falling into the water during a storm is very dangerous, isn't it?" Mand asked in confusion, looking at the man's pale skin, which looked as though it had been soaking in water for a long time. "How did you get back up in the end?"

"Mr. Mand, I don't know."

Old Mark slowly shook his head. Those exhausted yet manic eyes lost their focus slightly, as if he were recalling something, while the curve of his smile quietly grew wider.

"It was like someone blowing a conch shell far, far away. Under the water, I heard a muffled, continuous, strange noise, and all my bones trembled with it."

"I followed the direction of the sound, faced the seabed, and looked down..."

"Oh, please forgive me. I haven't had much schooling, so I don't know how to describe it."

"It was a mass, uh, or rather, a gigantic puddle of something even more profound than darkness."

"I don't know what it was, but it was just there, slowly squirming. It was too big—so big that I couldn't see its edges, yet I could vaguely make out its contours, as if it covered the entire ocean floor."

"It knew I was looking at it, because it was looking at me, too."

"After that... I don't know."

"By the time I woke up, I was already lying back on the deck of the fishing boat."

"According to the other crew members, they saw my floating body on the surface of the sea after the storm had passed. They thought I was dead, but to their surprise, I still had a breath left in me."

Mand didn't pay too much attention to this bizarre story.

After all, what old sailor who had braved the seas for years hadn't seen a few strange things?

He was far more interested in the connection between the encounter Mark described and his subsequent mental issues.

Were the almost hallucinatory things this old sailor heard and saw when he fell into the ocean the root cause of his ensuing psychological illness?

Mand pondered this question right up until nightfall.

Until he checked the mailbox as usual and saw that pristine white envelope bearing the familiar seal of the academy.

He froze.

His expression, however, was a far cry from the excitement and ecstasy he would have shown three months ago; it shifted into a bizarre sense of unease and worry.

Walking into the house with a heavy heart, he ignored the scratching of claws against the wooden gate outside and headed straight back to his study.

He sat down at his messy wooden desk piled high with books and opened the envelope.

...

Dear Mand, I was surprised by the discovery you mentioned in your previous letter regarding a suspected new mental illness with a large array of symptoms. In fact, while compiling some reports recently, I have come across several similar medical cases. However, they all originate from different regions and countries, and the patients' identities are all varied.

The only common thread is that the patients have all visited or permanently reside by the sea, and the vast majority of them have experienced falling into the water.

I suspect this is a mass delirium originating from the ocean. Of course, the specific etiology still requires in-depth research.

As it happens, I will be traveling to Klar next week to attend a conference. If conditions permit, I will make a detour to visit you.

If things are truly as you described, without any exaggeration, then perhaps we can collaborate on a paper capable of shaking the entire academic community.

Looking forward to meeting you.

Your professor, Adonis Pope

...

There was a lot of information to glean from the letter, but to Mand, only a few key points truly made him nervous:

1. His professor was coming in person;

2. His professor possessed materials on similar cases that he had never seen before;

3. His professor wanted to collaborate with him.

Collaborate?

Mand stared at that word for a long time.

What he pondered, however, was which of the records and analyses he had spent so many days compiling could be stolen once his professor arrived.

The answer was all of them.

Old Mark was right there. As soon as the professor met the man, everything Mand could obtain, his professor—a senior professor of psychiatry—could obtain as well, and in even greater and more profound detail.

With his professor's prestige and connections in the academic world, he could easily turn all of this into the paper he claimed would "shake the entire academic community."

As for himself—an unknown intern doctor treating peasant women and blacksmiths in a remote fishing village—whether he would ultimately get his name listed in the authors' column of the paper would depend entirely on the other man's mood.

"No!"

"I won't allow it!"

His bloodshot eyes, suffering from a long lack of sleep, appeared even redder under the glow of the candlelight.

He tore the letter from his professor to shreds.

Mand felt a boundless gloom, like descending darkness, accompanied by a hostility breeding and spiraling up from the bottom of his heart.

He stood up abruptly, knocking over the cushioned wooden chair beneath him.

He had to finish this paper before his professor arrived and submit it to a medical journal in the big city through the safest, fastest means possible.

No... considering the time it took for the envelope to arrive, his professor would reach Fishhook Town in three days at the latest. There was absolutely no time!

"I have to... have to..."

The flickering candlelight in the study was suddenly blown out by a cold wind seeping in through the window.

Illusory, indistinct murmurs echoed in his ears, and in his pitch-black vision, countless silhouettes more profound than the darkness squirmed.

The front door slammed shut, and hurried footsteps vanished at the end of the street.

...

...

Three days later.

Fishhook Town, main street.

Accompanied by the rattle of wheels rolling across marble bricks and the snorting of horses, a carriage bearing the Medical Association logo pulled up outside a two-story building on the street.

A decently dressed coachman jumped down from the front, trotted over to the side of the carriage, and opened the door.

Polished leather shoes stepped out slowly from within, touching down lightly on the ground.

Adonis nodded in acknowledgment to the coachman, adjusted his collar slightly, and tipped his top hat.

Gripping an exquisite cane in his right hand and carrying a small portable Briefcase in his left—which bore obvious signs of use and was engraved with the dark gold stethoscope logo of the Medical Association—he walked straight up to the front door.

Knock, knock, knock.

His gaze swept over the weeds in the front yard on both sides as he knocked lightly on the door.

He waited.

No one answered.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

He knocked three more times, but there was still no answer.

Adonis frowned slightly, turned around, and walked over to the window.

Through the gap in the curtains, he could clearly see the exceptionally messy living room inside.

His attention quietly focused, and his dark green, swirling pupils dilated slightly.

The eyes of the Iron Peak Giant Eagle, transplanted many years ago, allowed him to capture with unparalleled clarity the layer of fine dust covering the dining table.

Thoughts flashed through his mind.

Adonis returned to the front door.

He carefully opened the Briefcase in his left hand, took out an exquisite Pocket Watch that refracted a faint glimmer under the sunlight, and pressed his fingertip lightly against its surface.

Buzz—

Light flashed, and space distorted.

The next second, a supremely sharp, silver-white Scalpel was already clutched in his palm.

He stuffed the Pocket Watch back into the Briefcase.

Adonis approached the door holding the Scalpel, brushed his right hand lightly across the crack, and pushed inward with a bit of force using his left hand.

With a crisp click, the door opened.

Leaning his wooden cane against the doorway, he walked in slowly, carrying the Briefcase in one hand and hiding the Scalpel in his sleeve with the other.

As if already prepared, he was not surprised by the putrid stench permeating the air that rushed to greet him.

Instead, he followed the source of the smell all the way to the study.

The door was unlocked; he gently pushed it open and entered.

Books and paper notes were scattered across the floor.

Through the window, a scrawny, shriveled golden retriever lay motionless on the lawn of the inner courtyard; the potted plant by the edge of the bed was completely withered and dead.

The bookshelf had been pushed aside, revealing a half-open hidden door behind it.

Having undergone modifications as well, his keen hearing allowed him to faintly hear strange noises coming from deep within.

Adonis's expression remained unchanged. He stepped lightly over the clutter on the floor and walked through the hidden doorway.

Behind the hidden door was a long, dim corridor.

The air was as cold and gloomy as a morgue. The wall lamps on both sides, which should have been lit, were all extinguished, leaving the corridor in near-pitch darkness.

This, of course, posed no problem for Adonis, who possessed the eyes of an Iron Peak Giant Eagle.

At the same time, he heard a very familiar, rhythmic, and repeated scraping sound.

It was the sound of a Scalpel slicing through flesh and blood.

Adonis's eyes flashed, but he didn't mask his footsteps as he continued forward.

He followed it until he reached the end of the corridor, where a wooden door stood ajar, light spilling from the crack.

Creak...

He pushed the door open with one hand.

An operating room appeared in his line of sight.

It looked very formal, with iconic white and green tiles covering the floor, walls painted pure white, and several metal instrument cabinets placed to the side.

A marble operating table sat squarely in the center of the room. Judging by the design, it was an old model abandoned by the Medical Association many years ago, highly likely a black-market good obtained through underground trades.

The pale-skinned, muscle-atrophied corpse of an adult man lay quietly on the operating table.

Beside it, with his back to Adonis, was an exhausted figure wearing a bloodstained doctor's uniform.

He naturally recognized his student.

"Mand."

It was the first word Adonis had spoken since arriving in Fishhook Town.

His tone was calm, but it caused the busy figure beside the operating table to suddenly pause.

He slowly turned around.

He revealed a pair of pitch-black eyes, like two hollow voids, filled with endless, maddening desire.

"It's right here..."

"I found it, Professor..."

...

...

Flowing space and time came to an instant halt.

Xia Nan could even see the sharp silver gleam flashing from the Scalpel in the palm of the Medical Association professor named Adonis, as well as the viscous blood slowly dripping from the corner of the operating table ahead.

But everything abruptly paused in this moment.

The rock walls of the Canyon rose up from both sides. Surging air currents blew away the putrid stench, replacing it with a faint, fishy scent from the ocean.

The white and green tiles were once again pierced through by fish bones and coral, and cracks surfaced on the marble operating table.

And the corpse with the familiar face that had been lying on the table dissipated along with the other two figures in the room.

All that remained was the leather Briefcase bearing the Medical Association logo that had been in Adonis's hand, now resting quietly on the sofa.

Xia Nan gently opened the Briefcase with both hands.

What greeted his eyes was an exquisite Pocket Watch that refracted a faint light, along with an Attribute Panel that quietly surfaced in the void as his attention focused.