Chapter 354: The Missing Corpse, Tomb Raider

Laughing gas.

Something similar once appeared in a well-known Western television series.

The one with the famous clown and a dark bat, where the burning, killing, and looting left viewers utterly baffled.

In one particular storyline, a character inhales a special gas prepared by his brother, causing him to become violent, extreme, and mentally unstable, eventually transforming into a second clown.

That gas was very similar to laughing gas.

In some ways, this stuff is even more dangerous than illicit drugs!

It directly damages the body’s nervous system. Long-term abuse can lead to facial paralysis in mild cases, or even hemiplegia—paralysis of one side of the body.

Of course, if you inhale a large enough dose at once, you might just drop dead.

Worse still, its primary target demographic is teenagers.

The most critical part is that this substance is practically a gateway, paving the road for people to become full-blown addicts later on…

It’s cheap, it’s widely available—anyone can buy it, and anyone can get hooked.

But a person’s tolerance for the high builds over time.

The moment one use doesn’t feel like enough… that’s when they become a true, down-and-out addict!

That’s why the government has tried to ban it before, prohibiting its private sale.

Before that, you could buy this stuff anywhere. It came in boxes of ten, twenty, or thirty canisters, and the price was incredibly cheap, ranging from twenty to three hundred yuan.

So, why not ban it completely?

This substance is also a widely used and incredibly important industrial material with enormous value.

It’s commonly used in gourmet cooking, automotive applications, and even rocketry.

It can’t be banned. The repercussions of a total ban would be far too great.

However…

But right now, in the Eastern Country, it hadn’t been banned yet.

Even the bar manager had no idea just how much Shen Fei and Wang Wei had been using.

When a person is in a daze, their mind reduced to something less than an animal’s, the most efficient way to get information out of them is…

Deception.

Of course, you might not get the answers you want by trying to deceive a madman.

And it’s even more impossible to get a normal person to reveal something they desperately want to keep hidden.

The human mind has a memory-related defense mechanism, known as the ‘biological self-preservation mechanism.’

After you suffer significant psychological trauma, your brain will instinctively suppress that memory, letting time erode the associated emotions, allowing you to gradually forget the event as a means of self-protection.

So, if an event is traumatic enough to drive you insane…

…you might forget it entirely before that happens, or at least seal away the emotions connected to it.

This is called ‘selective amnesia.’

But even if the memory is gone, they might still know *what* to fear, just not *why* they fear it.

Of course, amnesia doesn’t just affect memories; it can affect emotions, too.

A common example is when, after the death of a loved one, you feel no sadness. You might even laugh and chat as usual. But then, sometime later, you see a falling leaf…

…and even though it has no connection to the person you lost, in that instant, a sudden, inexplicable wave of grief washes over you, and you break down sobbing.

Xu Huo was about to interrogate someone about an event that could drive a normal person mad.

A normal approach wouldn’t work, so he was prepared to…

…resort to other methods.

…

…

「January 9th.」

11:30 PM. Night had fallen.

“Ugh…”

A soft groan escaped.

Eyelashes fluttered.

Shen Fei’s brow twitched, and he slowly opened his eyes.

He didn’t know how long it had been since he’d slept.

‘Was it three days? Or four?’ Ever since he went into hiding, he hadn’t managed to fall asleep.

‘How did I fall asleep?’ He had no idea. His mind had already forgotten what happened right before he passed out.

But the long-overdue, deep sleep left him feeling slightly refreshed, so he didn’t dwell on it. However…

In a daze, Shen Fei froze. He looked around, his expression one of utter bewilderment.

‘Where am I?’

‘This is…’

…a charred, abandoned home.

The surrounding walls were scorched and peeling, covered in blackened marks. You could still make out the patterns left by the flames.

Before him lay what looked like the ruins of an abandoned living room. The entire space was deathly silent.

The sofa had been burned away, leaving only its metal frame.

The ceiling fan’s wiring was gone, leaving only a blackened, soot-stained hook hanging from above.

The television was a melted lump. Stains on the floor looked as if they were left by dried blood.

There was no doubt about it.

This living room was dead. It had died, just like a person…

He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the eyes.

But the scorch marks on the walls seemed to shift and writhe.

It was as if demons were dancing within them, the great fire from years ago rekindling before his eyes.

In the haze of his memory…

Shen Fei froze. He felt like he had forgotten something, but in the next second, a jolt of shock ran through him. The scene before him felt… familiar.

“The scorch marks…”

Shen Fei opened his mouth and swallowed hard. He didn’t know why, but a chill ran down his spine.

He looked at the house, which had been burned to cinders. As if compelled by some unseen force, he turned his head to the side.

There, a doorway stood charred to ash. The blackened wood frame sat there like a coffin, radiating a deathly stillness.

Fragments of a memory seemed to surface in his mind.

A flicker of fire reflected in his eyes. A great fire, burning a kitchen, turning a once-luxuriously decorated room into a ruin.

GULP…

Shen Fei swallowed hard, his eyes glazed over as he stared fixedly.

He didn’t know why, but he found himself unconsciously taking a step forward, then another.

CREAK~

The door swung open.

Through the gap was only pitch-black, deathly silence.

The kitchen cabinets were blown to smithereens, and the obvious blast marks from an exploded gas canister scarred the surrounding area.