Chapter 232: Flower
Chapter 232: Flower
A scorching light—!
Her mouth felt so thirsty, and so dry.
As her consciousness awakened, an intense brightness, almost turning her vision into a field of white noise, struck her open eyes.
She couldn’t help but moan in discomfort.
The girl curled her body and tightly shut her eyes.
A long time passed before she fully woke up.
Opening her eyes, she saw a white ceiling.
“You’re finally awake.”
A voice spoke up, making Satsuki realize something. She found herself lying on a bed with white sheets.
It was a hospital bed, and on the other side of it sat her elder brother, Nishizuka Tsukasa.
He was flipping through a book; because it was a foreign book, she couldn’t tell what he was reading.
Satsuki herself just felt very surprised. She completely didn’t expect to find herself here.
She also couldn’t understand why her brother was here.
“This is a hospital!”
Nishizuka Tsukasa pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose with his fingertip and calmly said, “You’ve been here for a full day and night. But it’s good, you finally woke up.”
“What… happened?”
Her head throbbed with intense pain, and she nearly cried out. She could hardly remember anything.
“So you really don’t remember.”
Fang Jing sighed and explained everything from start to finish.
“Last night, around seven o’clock, the bus number 146 you were on had an accident in the highway tunnel connecting this city and Matsubara City. After the accident, the driver died on the spot. The other passengers were fine, but five other passengers, including you, were sent to the hospital…”
After the accident, everyone was taken to the hospital. Besides the driver who died immediately, some other passengers sustained injuries of varying severity.
“By the way! The people on the bus… they were your friends from the girls’ softball club, right? One of the girls had the surname Kagiyama, you probably remember her, don’t you?”
Memories slowly came back entirely. Countless forgotten fragments.
Under the recollection of her brain, they slowly pieced together like a complete jigsaw puzzle.
Yes, after the softball game ended, she was riding back with her teammates.
On the way, while passing through a tunnel, an accident occurred.
She probably lost consciousness right then.
“There were three other girls, their injuries were more severe. They passed away last night.”
Fang Jing shook his head. “Luckily… you and another unconscious girl seem to have survived.”
“That girl who survived… could she be… President Kagiyama?”
“I think that was the name? I don’t remember very clearly either. She should be called Kagiyama Suzuname, right?”
So, that was it!
So it really was a dream. No, it wasn’t just a simple dream.
Many of the doubts in her heart woke up.
Mikame, Hanakomachi, Serizawa – she remembered all these names clearly.
They were all members of the softball team.
“Alright!”
Fang Jing stood up from the chair.
“Since you’re fine now, I should get going. Later, a doctor named Aoe will come to examine you.”
He took his coat from the back of the chair and moved to the door of the hospital room. Fang Jing suddenly turned around.
“Oh, by the way, is there something on your right hand?”
“Huh?”
She looked puzzled, gazing at her brother with confused eyes.
It was as if she completely didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“Never mind!”
Fang Jing’s eyebrows furrowed slightly, and he turned and left the room.
Right hand… did he mean my right wrist?
Satsuki felt somewhat doubtful. She lifted her wrist and then suddenly discovered a red thread wrapped around it.
And she herself had no idea when this thing had appeared.
It was a red cord, visible on her wrist.
She was sure she had never worn anything like this on her hand before.
And right at that moment, she heard a young girl’s giggle, floating over from somewhere unknown.
————————
Returning to the “base” where he was temporarily staying.
Under the sunlight, the tree shadows swayed, occasionally dropping a few leaves.
The chemical plant outside the green belt had been renovated, with a tall wall built around the perimeter, equipped with numerous surveillance cameras and a full security system.
Security guards were patrolling everywhere. Infrared sensors were placed in corners that were easy to defend but hard to attack.
Several dozen Doberman pinschers were leashed by their collars, their coats shiny, tongues lolling out.
A few black vans quietly drove into this chemical plant.
Two or three dark-skinned men filed out of the vehicles one after another. They carried an item inside.
“Good! The items have been delivered.”
Fang Jing found a chair and sat down. He just gave the order, and the Sunao-gumi had people specially deliver the things for him.
Inside the large room converted from a warehouse, the delivered items were gathered. There was a strange box, and a massive black rock.
These were secretly transported from Naomori Town. He had discovered them earlier and, while meeting with Ōsumi, had instructed his subordinates to handle it.
After Hirakawa Tsurutada was killed, the “Strange Phenomenon” ritual that might have been forming probably collapsed.
After he returned, the little girls affected by the “Strange Phenomenon” gradually recovered.
Considering safety, Fang Jing used the “Resonance Field” to check the body of Shiori, who had regained consciousness.
She and the other little girls had fully recovered.
This trip to “Naomori Town” was quite rewarding for Fang Jing.
During the process of dealing with Hirakawa Tsurutada, he also gained a general understanding of information related to the “Clan”. For example, he finally learned about the “Clan’s” Espers and had essentially fought them.
The special abilities of the Espers couldn’t really be considered pure combat power, but they possessed some indescribably bizarre skills, which gave them a kind of ability that made them very hard to kill.
For instance, Hirakawa Tsurutada could continuously transform into something like a “mud-sand mixture”. No attack could physically shatter him.
If not for the “Primal Rage Resonance Field” and the “Anomalous Martial Art: Extinction Wheel Fist” as his trump card, Fang Jing wouldn’t have had a good way to kill this enemy.
“However… whether it was Hirakawa Tsurutada or the people who came later, their combat power was rather mediocre. It’s hard to believe that just this group could suppress the Nocturnal, Evil Filth, and Strange Phenomenon that have spread from ancient times to the present.”
Fang Jing had deliberately acted then to test the strength of those three people.
Although he was ambushed, he just used the opportunity to act, taking the chance to probe the strength of these three “Dharma Protectors” from the Clan.
He wasn’t worried about killing them outright, because he guessed that members of the Clan who possessed “Curse Entanglement” might not die even after being killed once or twice.
The result of his probing left him greatly disappointed.
Based solely on the strength of that group just now, he couldn’t connect it at all to the idea that the “Clan” would produce any powerful experts.
(Of course, there’s another possibility: that he simply hadn’t encountered any truly powerful figures. The real strong members of the Clan hadn’t appeared yet. Thinking about it carefully, this possibility seems more likely!)
Since the “Clan’s” influence was so vast, it couldn’t possibly be this weak. Since they were entities far surpassing Strange Phenomenon like the Corpse Hound, one could imagine their hidden cards were probably significant.
Setting that aside for now, it was time to examine these items.
He bent down and touched the massive black rock, which weighed nearly one or two tons. Analysis of its composition showed it was pure black basalt. But the basalt was painted with countless crimson symbols. Those symbols were constructed line by line, but Fang Jing couldn’t recognize what the crimson symbols on the black basalt meant or what they symbolized.
“What exactly is this thing… used for?”
Fang Jing studied it carefully but reached no conclusion. He thought about it and decided to first take a few photos with a camera.
Next… he examined another item that had been “recovered”: that wooden box he encountered earlier.
This wooden box carried a bit of Yin Energy, though not much, only about 10 points of Growth Value.
This also proved that the wooden box had a long “history”; a small amount of Yin Energy only accumulates in items that have passed through long years.
Apart from Yin Energy, the wooden box also emitted a strange smell.
He reached out and flipped open the lid of the wooden box.
The box was empty except for a single shriveled, mummy-like “foot” inside.
It was a very small “foot”, with skin nearly grey, a desiccated mummy, but only a “left foot”.
“How strange! Speaking of this, I think I have something similar?”
He did indeed have a similar mummified hand claw, also the same size, like a monkey’s paw after being dried.
Adding this left foot, it seemed like they came from the same “source”.
“Hand” and “foot”… could they be from a complete corpse?
But why?… On this black basalt Altar, why would there be such a box, and inside it a “dried” mummy’s right foot?
Fang Jing’s questions naturally found no answers.
He took out a metal cylinder; this thing was also a mystery.
The metal cylinder clearly contained a stone, or perhaps a heavy metal item.
Anyway, if you shook it in your hand, you could hear a rattling sound.
Fang Jing wasn’t in a hurry to take out what was inside.
He repeatedly tested the metal cylinder by submerging it in water, burning it with fire, and using wind.
But it was no use; the metal cylinder showed no special reaction.
“Well then, let’s try another method. I wonder if it will cause any reaction?”
He activated the “Primal Rage Resonance Field”, starting to slowly operate it, using his own field to stimulate the metal cylinder.
Through this action, a marvelous phenomenon occurred.
The embossed patterns on the metal cylinder floated up one after another. They were dark golden patterns, and dense, tadpole-like characters drifted out from the patterns, swimming up and down continuously, before converging at his fingertips to form a pale golden “metal flower”.