178: Chapter 178 Old Zhang and His Daughter

"What? I'm mutating?"

"President Qin, you wouldn't happen to be joking, would you?"

Old Zhang's lips curled into a somewhat incredulous smile.

He raised a trembling hand.

Pointing at Qin Feng:

"Could it be that even you, President Qin... you've..."

Suddenly.

Old Zhang's words faltered.

His gaze fixed upon his own hand.

He saw that this hand... was now withered and gaunt, the skin ulcerated and covered in folds, yet the nails were thick, sharp, and blackened, resembling a monster's claws.

The undersides of the nails were caked with blood-stained blackish-gray hair and sludge-like flesh.

And... slimy brain matter!

Thump, thump, thump!

Seeing the brain matter.

Old Zhang backed away abruptly.

His pupils constricted.

He instinctively reached for his own head.

However.

He didn't feel a solid skull, but only a layer of viscous, soft substance; it was, shockingly, his exposed brain!

This brain had already been scratched until it was riddled with holes, mangled beyond description, yet it wriggled and twisted incessantly like a living thing, with scarlet tentacles resembling horsehair worms growing out of it one after another.

The tentacles were dense and continuously extending.

Like the countless snakes atop Medusa's head, they brushed downward, clinging to the front of his body.

Old Zhang lowered his head.

Looking at these tentacles wriggling densely before his eyes.

His slightly parted mouth.

Trembled and quivered in disbelief:

"So..."

"So the one who mutated into a monster..."

"Was indeed me..."

"But..."

"Why?"

"I was clearly in a good mental state, I clearly still have a daughter, I clearly still have to watch my daughter get into an Upper City Academy and become a proud citizen of the Upper City!"

"Why?!"

Old Zhang's murmurs grew louder and louder.

By the end, they turned into a roar, whipping up a wave of tangible scarlet energy that rippled outward!

Boom!

The ground actually cracked open!

Gales of wind surged in all directions!

"Holy crap!"

"Old Zhang has gone completely mad!"

"He's insane!"

The workers in the Dissection Workshop were all terrified by Old Zhang's sudden mutation.

They had been peeking forward to see what was happening.

As the sound waves and gales spread, the few in front were immediately blown back.

Instantly, they all shrank back again.

The mutation symptoms of the pollution disease were varied and strange.

But mutating into the form of a monster... except in those online horror videos defined by Upper City authoritative experts as 'special effects' or 'AI-generated'.

In reality.

This was the first time they had ever seen it!

They couldn't help but be curious, afraid, and worried, hardly daring to believe their own eyes!

"Why did Old Zhang suddenly mutate like this? He clearly looked like a normal person when I saw him early this morning..."

"Actually, I've thought Old Zhang wasn't normal for a long time. He's probably caught that ghostly disease, 'whispering syndrome'. Didn't his daughter pass away because of that..."

"Right, I heard that the ghostly disease makes you mutate into a monster. I heard people say that on the night Old Zhang's daughter passed away, she turned into a terrifying, eerie form, and a monster crawled out of her belly..."

"Sigh, such a good girl, dead just like that. Old Zhang's mind also broke; he's been fantasizing that his daughter is still alive..."

The coworkers discussed amongst themselves.

Though their voices were low.

The current Old Zhang.

His senses, like hearing, had somehow become extremely acute; his ears twitched and suddenly elongated, catching every single word without missing a beat.

When he heard the matter concerning his daughter.

Old Zhang's breathing became rapid.

His face began to contort.

On his already aged, wrinkled face, twisted and chaotic lines of shadow were etched, eventually... merging into an eerie expression that seemed like madness, crying, and laughing all at once:

"My daughter died?"

"My daughter died?!"

"Impossible!"

"I clearly bought her so much genuine medicine! I clearly gave it all to her! Her ghostly disease... should have been cured any moment now!"

As if grasping for a final lifeline.

He suddenly looked up.

Looking at Qin Feng with hopeful eyes.

He said:

"President Qin, you be the judge, aren't they all talking nonsense?"

"Those bonuses, I didn't spend a single cent on myself; I used it all to buy medicine!"

"It was all genuine medicine!"

"With so much genuine medicine in her stomach, my daughter... could definitely be cured, right?"

Looking at Old Zhang's hopeful gaze, Qin Feng was speechless for a moment; he only took a deep breath.

Then.

He sighed softly in his heart.

He had known for a long time.

Whether it was the knock-off medicine of the Lower City or the genuine medicine of the Upper City, they were all merely catalytic drugs used in conjunction with the 'Demon Food Festival' ritual to catalyze the revival of the dead egg of the demon god within the bodies of the Lower City people.

The so-called specific drugs were nothing more than a scam to fool the people of the Lower City.

However, on the surface.

This catalysis could indeed alleviate the symptoms of the ghostly disease to a certain extent.

Thereby bringing about a 'curative' effect.

If the catalysis failed.

Then everyone was happy.

The adverse symptoms of the ghostly disease were 'cured', and the dead egg of the demon god failed to revive successfully.

The person with the ghostly disease could continue to live healthily.

But if the catalysis succeeded...

Then the result.

Would inevitably be the revival of the dead egg of the demon god, becoming a live egg, and then... the tragic outcome of a demon bursting out of the person's belly!

In fact.

Even with the ritual effects of the 'Demon Food Festival'.

Combined with the catalysis of the drugs.

The probability of the dead egg of the demon god reviving was still very low, not high at all.

Most people in the Lower City with the ghostly disease, as long as they took their medicine on time and weren't tortured to death by the 'whispering syndrome', would likely recover in the end.

But he never expected...

Old Zhang's daughter.

Would happen to hit the 'jackpot'.

The dead egg of the demon god inside her, under the catalysis of the massive amount of genuine medicine Old Zhang had spent all his money to buy... revived!

The result...

Naturally went without saying.

Qin Feng had heard this news from Liu Shuaijie a few days ago.

As for Old Zhang.

Since his daughter passed away, his mental state had become abnormal. On the surface, nothing seemed wrong, and he would talk and laugh, but he had been fantasizing that his daughter wasn't dead, was still taking medicine, and was still... waiting to recover to take the college entrance exam.

"If we're talking about whose mental state is the worst in the entire Rising Sun Behemoth Factory, it's undoubtedly Old Zhang."

"But even if Old Zhang's mind is abnormal, he wouldn't suddenly mutate into a monster. Old Zhang didn't have the 'whispering syndrome', and this clearly isn't a symptom of 'whispering syndrome' either..."

Qin Feng's eyes narrowed slightly.

His gaze became profound.

Staring at the Old Zhang before him:

"So... this situation is very likely the work of Lu Yunsong's special 'friends'."

"How did they do it?"

"How did they make Old Zhang mutate?"

While pondering.

Qin Feng looked into Old Zhang's eyes and ultimately decided to stabilize the other's mental state first.

"Old Zhang, you're right. Your daughter can be cured."

"Your daughter isn't dead."

Hearing this.

Old Zhang's eyes immediately lit up.

The gloomy lines on his face faded slightly.

The mutation on his body also eased to an extent.

But just then...

Another accident occurred in the Dissection Workshop!