Plague Doctor

Chapter 138: Flexed Burial

Elder Tong’s case was a long-winded tale, and it involved pictures and symbols that could not be described with words. Therefore, Elder Tong did not reveal everything to Gu Jun then but told him that he would arrange everything. The next afternoon, the people from Eastern State’s Medical Department came. Another new batch of patients arrived during midnight. Seven new cases were recorded within the Medical Department, and morale was sinking even lower.

But when Gu Jun came to the entrance of the Psychology Building to intercept the people from the headquarters, he felt slightly better. It was Wu Siyu and a group of people carrying a few leather cases.

“Wu Siyu, why are you here?” he asked. “This is really not the time to come travelling.”

“I’m here to keep an eye on you,” Wu Siyu said as she looked around. She did not seem to be affected by being physically in the middle of a ghost town; she was still her usual self, which was a sense of normalcy that provided some comfort to Gu Jun. “The original files from the case are all here. Elder Tong forbade me from looking at them, so you’d better not discuss them with me. My mission here is to whack you out with a baseball bat once you showed any sign of madness.”

Despite the joke, Gu Jun knew the severity of the situation. He led the group into the Psychology Building. They headed directly to the research center and then entered a smaller office. The cases of files were placed on the table. The others guarded outside the door while Wu Siyu placed herself comfortably on the sofa, ensuring her eyes did not wander away from Gu Jun, who was seated behind the table. She was studying his expression closely.

By then, Gu Jun had opened the case numbered one. It revealed to him a huge stack of old newspapers. The smell of dated paper hit him. The copy on top came from Guang Ting Daily. The black headlines on the front page caught his attention immediately. “The disappearance of the tenth child this month has caused unrest among the people of Guang Ting.”

‘So, the case happened in Guang Ting.’

Gu Jun picked up the old newspaper to study it closer. The article mentioned numerous inexplicable disappearances of children all over the city. There was even one instance where a baby was taken from a hospital nursery. The article featured the pictures of several grieving parents. The media suspected that this case was related to a human trafficking ring, and the police were trying their best to investigate it. Gu Jun’s brows pleated into a frown. He was instantly reminded of the children in that classroom. Were they the kidnapping victims?

That naturally led to another logical suspicion.

‘Am I my own parents’ child?’

But based on those blurry childhood memories, he should be their biological offspring.

The incident was clearly suppressed after the newspaper followed it for a few days. It was wrapped up with the statement that it was all a rumor. Some hospital staff were too careless, and a toddler had gone missing, but the latter had been safely found. That was that. Even today, Phecda’s Public Relations Department would silence a news story easily, much less back then when there was no internet. Therefore, the issue blew over quickly, and it became another urban legend in Guang Ting. But the files at Phecda proved that it was not a rumor; it was all real. In less than three months, Phecda had recorded the disappearance of 156 babies and 183 toddlers.

Gu Jun’s hands that gripped the file popped with green veins. The nerves on his forehead were pulsing. It might just be a number there, but it represented the heartbreak of so many families, the despair and endless sleepless nights suffered by the parents...

These disappearances were the start of the case. Due to the severity of the situation, Phecda sent out a Special Mobile Force unit to aid the police in their investigation. The unit was none other than the Phoenix unit headed by Elder Tong. They were then a general unit, with 105 permanent members. At the time, Elder Tong was only twenty-seven. He graduated from the Investigation Department. Despite his youthful impetuousness, his talent was undeniable. He was bound for a bright future. However, even with the intervention of the Phoenix unit, the case did not solve itself that easily.

This was because this was not a simple kidnapping ring; there was no connection between the families with the missing children. They were not blood-related, and they came from different education backgrounds and careers. The targeting appeared to be completely random. For a long time, the investigation reached a dead end.

According to the files, the breakthrough came from somewhere completely unexpected. There was an archaeological professor tenured at Guang Ting University called Liu Daze. He was quite famous within the academic field. Some of his students came to the police to report that in their recent visits to Prof Liu’s home, they could hear the sound of babies crying, but to their knowledge, Prof Liu was single and had no family staying with him. They said that Prof Liu gave off a ‘strange feeling’. The students felt anxious in his presence and made the connection to the recent disappearance cases.

After the Phoenix unit paid Prof Liu a visit, they understood what his students meant by ‘strange’. In a surprisingly calm tone, the archaeologist invited them in for a lecture. Before the arrival of human beings on Earth, the planet was inhabited by a higher presence. Their influence was visible through human history, but their touch was so light that normal humans would not notice their existence.

“The children have been sent to a location that no one will be able to reach,” the archaeological professor informed them. “But I know where they are safely buried.”

That was basically a confession, but one would not think so based on the look on the professor’s face. It sounded more like the ravings of a madman. But with no other lead to follow up on, Phecda arrived at the location provided by the old professor. They started the excavation at a mountain in the countryside of Guang Ting. To their surprise, their digging revealed an ancient tomb. Initial dating put it from the Early Qin Dynasty. It was not decorated and prominent enough to be the tomb of any prominent figures but instead...

“Hmm...” Gu Jun frowned as he studied the pictures of the tomb from the files. His mind was practically resonating with the pictures. Images started to jump out at him.

“Wait.” Wu Siyu sensed something, and she instantly told Gu Jun, “Take it easy over there.”

Gu Jun responded with silence. These were pictures of the unearthed bodies. They had decayed to white bones already. The pictures were labelled with the term ‘flexed burial’. Flexed burial was a type of burial method back in the Early Qin Dynasty. Unlike modern funeral arrangements, the tradition of flexed burial first bent the dead’s lower body up to their chest and then bound them together with ropes before burial. Flexed burial was a unique mark on the history of funerary study. Its history, locale, meaning, and so on were still shrouded in mystery. However, looking at the pictures, Gu Jun had a premonition these bodies were not bent into these strange unyielding shapes post-mortem. He could imagine the bones creaking and cracking as they were twisted into unnatural forms...

Accompanying these corpses was not the keeper of the tomb but a strange stone statue.

“But where’s the picture?” Gu Jun mumbled as he searched through the files. He failed to find any recorded picture of the stone statue. In fact, there was not even a written description on it. The only thing he had to go on was the quick mention of it.

Other than the buried dead and the stone statue, there was nothing else inside the ancient tomb. After some research, it was confirmed that they were buried alive while in a kneeling pose. It would explain the strange position their bodies were found in. This was clearly some kind of sacrificial ritual, but that led to another question to be answered. How would that mad archaeologist know about the existence of this old tomb? The tomb showed no sign of being broken into, so that eliminated the possibility that he had been here before.

The question remained unsolved to this day because no matter how many interrogations Phecda put him through, Liu Daze did not confess. In the end, the old archaeologist died inside his cell from a sudden cardiac arrest. During first aid, he left the world with some strange last words. No one knew what he was talking about, and there was no recorder nearby to record it. In fact, the doctors at the time assumed it was just the incoherent mumblings of a dying man.

But with the unearthing of new information and with the confirmation from Elder Tong, who was present at the time, the last words that the dying archaeologist was mumbling were: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”