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Chapter 110: 110

Chapter 110: Mental Illness

The silence stretched out for a while .

“Wu Siyu, may I ask you a few questions?” Gu Jun asked, his tone laced with curiosity .

“Sure . ” Wu Siyu looked at him . “You want to know what your friends or girlfriend’s names taste like, right?”

“Erm… Yes, but they are just my friends . ” Gu Jun both wanted to know the answer and wanted to get to know Wu Siyu, so he began this topic . He decided to leave Xiao Xu for now . People with AS had their own rhythm . Clinical research showed that they would not voluntarily interact with other if they were not familiar with other people .

“Fine, I’m used to being treated as a parlor trick anyway . ” Wu Siyu sighed as she slumped in her chair weakly . “Give me their names . ”

Gu Jun obliged . “Okay, what about Cai Zixuan?”

“Hmm, Cai Zixuan…” Wu Siyu moved her lips and narrowed her black eyes . “Tastes like homemade soup, not bad . ”

Gu Jun was instantly startled as surprise overwhelmed him . ‘This girl… If this is a not a set-up, then she must have read Cai Zixuan’s file before…’

In any case, he understood why Wu Siyu had been invited her . Her synesthesia must be the kind that was very intense .

“What about Wang Ruoxiang?” he asked .

“Hmm . ” Wu Siyu started to munch again . “What is this? So strange… Damn, formalin!”

She almost rolled down from her chair . Her face paled, and she coughed with difficulty . Her eyes reddened like she was hit with a mist of formalin . She repeated to herself, “Yao Ming, Yao Ming!”

Gu Jun’s heart raced even faster . He had the urge to peel open her brain to inspect it . How did her neural sensors connect to certain specific information about the stimulus? His name was salty? It suddenly hit Gu Jun . It was the sea . Seawater was salty . Longkan seabed…

But…

“Yao Ming?” he asked .

After calling Yao Ming as if her life depended on it, Wu Siyu slowly calmed down . She groaned with bitterness . “Is your friend dead? Of course Yao Ming . Yao Ming is the most delicious name I’ve tasted . Tasty and incredibly fulfilling . ”

She adjusted herself and slumped back in her chair .

“Okay…” Gu Jun answered . The girl could literally survive on names . People needed imagination still, but she only needed to think about people’s names .

“That’s enough out of you . ” Wu Siyu rubbed her belly and sighed . “I’m too full already . ”

The perceptive experience of a synesthete was as real as it could be; some could even close bodily reactions . This kind of ‘illusory effect’ was not limited to people like Wu Siyu . It worked on normal human beings too, albeit not to such an extreme extent . The most common example would be the placebo effect . Patients were offered vitamins in the guise of actual medicine, but they often reported actual recovery in their symptoms . Some clinical tests of new medicine would have placebo groups for comparison to lessen the bias the testers might have toward the drug . Even though medicine had not arrived at a conclusive consensus about this phenomenon, they were certain it had something to do with psychological influences .

“Let me tell you, ‘Yao Ming’ tastes like the best food in the world,” Wu Siyu said as if making a recommendation . “Shark fin soup, bear paw…”

“Okay…” What else could Gu Jun say? ‘I will try it next time’?

If he was not a medical student and his own S value was only 51, he would have run out of the room there and then . If Wu Siyu was placed in public and exposed as a mental patient, people would buy his story, and with current medical standards, she would be diagnosed as one too . But then again, following current medical standards, he himself would not only be diagnosed as a patient of mental stem tumor but of schizophrenia as well .

‘Schizophrenia? Now that does make me feel like I belong here,’ Gu Jun thought self-deprecatingly .

“Your instinct was very accurate,” he told Wu Siyu . “Cai Zixuan likes to cook, and his specialty is soups . Wang Ruoxiang is a medical student like me, and she encounters formalin a lot . ”

“Hmm, hmm . ” Wu Siyu closed her eyes lazily . “It used to be not so accurate, but lately, it has gotten so much more on the nose . Oh well . ”

‘If this was not a set up, then some kind of incident must have happened to her recently too,’ Gu Jun thought . ‘Some kind of incident like his . ’

He did not bring that up but continued to chat casually with Wu Siyu . She was not particularly a chatter box, but at least she made an interesting chatting partner . On the one hand, she was mysterious and hard to read; on the other hand, she was strangely boy-hungry .

Xiao Xu continued to maintain his silence . Gu Jun noted that the boy had not moved a muscle . He was like a statue, and that could not help but draw attention .

Right then, the door of the room creaked open . Gu Jun and Wu Siyu turned to look and saw a middle-aged man walk in . It was the Elder Tong they had seen in the picture . Currently, Elder Tong was casually dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and flip flops . He held a beer bottle, and a drunken smile hung on his face .

“The three of you are all here, wonderful! I am Huang Guotong . ” Elder Tong walked over happily . “I’ve heard so many things about the three of you . ”

Elder Tong walk up to Gu Jun and landed a sound slap on his protective gear . “Gu Jun, remove this thing . It gets in the way . ”

“Er…” Gu Jun had not encountered a superior like this before . Even though Brother Qiang and Uncle Dan were kind, they were sticklers for the rules . But this Elder Tong was completely different… Gu Jun was reminded of what Prof Qin had said . ‘He is a very unique person . ’

“Do you need me to help you?” Elder Tong wiggled his fingers and grinned salaciously .

“Elder Tong!” Gu Jun hurried to stop him . “Please don’t . I know you are only helping me, but I volunteered to be isolated . This is for the sake of everyone’s safety . ”

“You sure are one hell of a cautious dude . ” Elder Tong halted, but he landed another slap on his helmet . He chuckled . “But this thing can only isolate micro-organisms . Can it isolate the other things? Micro-organisms are not the only way to transmit diseases in this world . ”

Gu Jun was startled . ‘A transmission method or source that’s not a micro-organism? How much does Elder Tong know?’

Xiao Xu’s presence was still not noted . Slumped in her chair, Wu Siyu looked at their exchange with some interest .

“All of you are seen as crazy or almost crazy, a virus that should be swept out of Phecda,” Elder Tong said as he walked to the corner to pull out the movable whiteboard . “Back then, I was just like you, but I was actually kicked out of Phecda . However, now, I am here . As you must’ve noticed by now, I share a philosophy different from them . I know each and everyone of you here is a priceless treasure . ”

Elder Tong regarded them like how one would look at three gold nuggets, his eyes overflowing with greed .

“I wish to create a new Special Mobile Force unit with you three as the core! Temporarily, we only have three members, but more will join in the future . I am sure of that . But how is it that our unit will be different from others?

“Burp…”

Elder Tong burped from the beer . He grabbed the marker pen and wrote down a term on the board .

‘Spells . ’

“Other than fighting ability and survivability, we are going to become a super unit that possesses the ability to use spells . ”

The three others were silent, like cynics at an MLM meeting, but Elder Tong was filled with determination and continued with passion .