Chapter 178: Chapter 177: Evil Spirit
(Chapter 176 was blocked. It’s been completely revised and will probably be released tomorrow... Writing this book has been really tough, so I hope everyone will subscribe to the official version to support Dream Catcher!)
~
Shen Feng hadn’t originally paid much mind to the incident at the New York Airport.
After all, there was no telling how many Westerners died from drug abuse every day, and there had been plenty of incidents before with so-called "bath salt" drugs causing hallucinatory cannibalism.
The behavior of that Hatanaka Takuya on the flight seemed just like a drug overdose.
However, since the incident had quickly become one of the top international news stories, Shen Feng decided to divert some of his Consciousness Antennae to see what was really going on.
The moment he saw Hatanaka Takuya in the footage, he immediately sensed that the man didn’t look like a drug abuser.
Shen Feng himself had some skill in Hypnosis, and after everything he had been through, he had a decent grasp of human psychology.
Looking at the man’s appearance, he didn’t look like a lunatic at all.
You could say he was a diligent, hardworking businessman, and people would believe you.
But Hatanaka Takuya’s words showed a severe lack of logic, almost as if he had brain damage.
It seemed like certain areas of his brain had been damaged, causing his current condition.
Then, Jingwei discovered that the female reporter who interviewed Hatanaka Takuya had a rapidly rising body temperature, which seemed unusual.
They immediately started monitoring the reporter’s movements, which led to the discovery that the reporter, Corina, had taken her assistant, Ed, back to her apartment. Then they heard those horrifying sounds coming from inside.
With his experience from the Petrification Disease apocalypse, Shen Feng was already well-versed in virology, biology, and related fields. He quickly made a judgment.
’This must be a new type of virus, capable of airborne aerosol transmission!’
’But why were only Hatanaka Takuya and Corina infected?’
’Perhaps everyone’s constitution is different, leading to different infection speeds? Maybe the others are infected too, but the symptoms just haven’t manifested yet?’
Shen Feng then began to quickly trace Hatanaka Takuya’s movements.
Yesterday, Hatanaka Takuya had been at his company’s headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, preparing for today’s business trip. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. According to company surveillance, he worked overtime late into the night before going home to rest.
This morning, he went to Kanagawa to take care of some personal matters, had breakfast, bought a few things, and then rushed to Haneda Airport to catch his flight.
Airport surveillance showed that Hatanaka Takuya was completely normal all the way up to boarding. He was polite and quite likable.
The full onset of the illness happened on the plane.
’But where did he get infected?’
’At the airport?’
Shen Feng reviewed the surveillance footage, checking everyone who came into contact with Hatanaka Takuya, but saw nothing unusual.
Although the airport’s surveillance had blind spots, Hatanaka Takuya was in a hurry and didn’t go into any of those areas.
When he was having breakfast at the restaurant in Kanagawa, there was also nothing unusual.
When he left his company, nothing was out of the ordinary either.
’Could it be that the virus has an extremely long incubation period? That he was infected days ago and it only just now fully erupted?’
Shen Feng gently shook his head.
’Judging by the time it took from Corina’s infection to the onset of her symptoms, that’s clearly not the case.’
He then began to map out Hatanaka Takuya’s movements over the past few days, arranging everything on a timeline in cyberspace and comparing all relevant surveillance and audio data.
Suddenly, something caught his attention.
It was a piece of street surveillance footage.
When Hatanaka Takuya entered the restaurant to eat, the street in Kanagawa was already bustling with people, and many shops were open.
But when he came out after his meal, some of the shops that had been open were now closed.
By the time he went into a convenience store and came back out, most of the shops had closed their doors again.
Hatanaka Takuya walked out of the convenience store covering his nose and mouth, a look of displeasure on his face, as if he were complaining about something.
’That’s really strange...’
Shen Feng immediately pulled up all relevant surveillance footage and information for that street and discovered something unusual.
The elderly.
A group of elderly people had suddenly appeared on the street, looking cheerful. They then walked in twos and threes into the shops and rooms along the street, and then the doors all closed.
Up until now, almost a full day later, none of those shops had opened again.
This included several private residences.
Shen Feng immediately hacked into the indoor surveillance systems of these shops and residences, and one bloody scene after another appeared before his eyes!
"What the fuck..." Watching the scene unfold, Shen Feng couldn’t help but let out a curse.
Those elderly people had all become infected. They had killed their victims in a clean and polite manner, and were now using them as ingredients!
From the video and audio he obtained through smart home devices and cameras, the strength and speed displayed by these assailants were far beyond what an elderly person should be capable of.
Even healthy adults couldn’t compare. They were like a pack of wild beasts!
Their seemingly frail, withered arms unleashed tremendous force, so much so that some of them dislocated or broke their own limbs in the process.
The cooking methods they used were very homey, mainly Japanese-style hot pot with various side ingredients. If you didn’t see the raw materials in the kitchen, it would look just like a scene of elderly friends enjoying a delicious meal around a hot pot.
However, Shen Feng also noticed that dark veins had appeared on the foreheads, faces, and bodies of these elderly people, like a web lurking just beneath the skin. A closer look was horrifying.
Their eyes had also become bloodshot. And judging from their conversations, while they had lost some of their logical reasoning, they were able to maintain normal politeness, and even rationality!
Aside from being completely unaware that their actions were abnormal, these elderly people were practically just a group of ordinary folks.
That was secondary. What was more serious was that murder cases had started appearing in many parts of this neighborhood.
However, all the perpetrators seemed to subconsciously want to avoid being discovered, so up until now, no one in society had noticed anything was wrong!
Everything was proceeding as usual. People went to work, to school, and did business as always. Apart from the fact that a few more shops than usual were closed today, no one had noticed that anything was amiss.
It was just that a salaryman returning home from work might be carved up and eaten by his smiling wife and daughter, and a child coming home from school might become his parents’ next meal...
Other than that, all was well.
It seemed to have all started with these elderly people.
Shen Feng began carefully searching the video footage for clues and soon found something.
The clothes these elderly people were wearing looked like a uniform from some institution.
They were very loose-fitting, like pajamas or a patient’s gown.
Ota Elderly Care Home.
Shen Feng quickly found the source.
Just one second later, he was connected to the surveillance and office systems of the Ota Elderly Care Home.
The nursing home was empty and silent. Not a soul was in sight.
It was as if nothing had happened there.
The kitchen was also spotless, with nothing left behind.
However, the surveillance recordings had captured the morning’s massacre.
’This might be where it all began. After all, infecting hundreds of people at once isn’t so easy...’
He checked the footage from the past six months, but found nothing out of the ordinary.
And the elderly who led the charge had, until recently, been lying in their hospital rooms like corpses.
They had changed overnight.
Shen Feng rewound the surveillance footage further, and finally saw the scene from late last night.
Sato Ken was holding two boxes of syringes, staggering from one patient room to the next.
In the last six months of surveillance footage, there were no records of injections being given late at night.
This was clearly an unexpected event.
’The root of all this is very likely in those two boxes of syringes he’s holding...’
Having temporarily uncovered the truth, Shen Feng didn’t hesitate. He immediately sent an alert directly to the Kanagawa Prefectural Police Headquarters and the New York Police Department. At the same time, he anonymously sent a plague warning to disease control agencies and news media around the world:
"Outbreak of unknown infectious disease. Source is the Ota Elderly Care Home in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. The Ogre incident at the New York Airport is also related to this disease.
Known patient symptoms include logical-cognitive impairment, an intense desire to consume human flesh, while retaining partial rationality and maintaining a ’normal’ disguise. No information on further evolution is currently available.
Preliminary assessment indicates the virus spreads via airborne aerosol and contact transmission.
Virus biosafety Level is... 5 or higher, exceeding that of the Petrification Disease.
Temporarily designating this virus: Evil Spirit.
SERIOUS WARNING! SERIOUS WARNING!
Please disseminate this information immediately! Please disseminate this information immediately!"
Along with the message, Shen Feng also sent out several surveillance camera videos he had obtained from the web, mostly showing infected individuals in the middle of ’feeding’.
At the same time, Shen Feng also used the cloud-based "True Apocalypse Game 1.0" system to send this warning to players all over the world.
After doing all this, he immediately began to pack his bags, preparing to leave.
"Jingwei, get me a new identity and book the fastest flight to East Japan. We have to be quick, before they lock down East Japan’s airspace."
As he spoke, Shen Feng took the "Antiviral Serum" from the freezer and injected it into his arm.
’I hope there’s still time...’