Missing

What was going on?

In order to save the dying and heal the injured, a doctor wouldn't hesitate to transfer the patient's illness to themselves?

Yue Shi didn't believe it.

Two and a half minutes later, he roughly understood the principles of 【Plague Doctor】.

【Plague Doctor】 could not directly transfer a target's illness to another target. Instead, it had to use Yue Shi as a human storage vessel, absorbing and gathering the illness before it could be transferred.

He had already used the ability on the orange cat.

The cat's illness was gone, but a small mark had appeared on his wrist. It was in the shape of a bird-beak mask, very light in color, like a patch of gray that hadn't been washed clean.

The "illness" was stored within this mark.

The kitten didn't understand what had happened. It stood up in confusion, limped to Yue Shi's feet, tilted its head, and rubbed against him.

Yue Shi noticed that the wound on the kitten's back leg had neither disappeared nor healed; only the infection and inflammation were gone.

An "injury" didn't count as an "illness"?

With this doubt in mind, Yue Shi left the apartment and went to the hospital to register for a physical examination.

The checkup was merely an excuse for him to enter the hospital legitimately.

In the corridors, people passed him by. As long as they were within the twenty-centimeter range, he could successfully activate 【Plague Doctor】.

But he didn't act recklessly. Instead, he first selected several specific targets.

He needed to confirm one by one what kinds of "illnesses" could be affected by 【Plague Doctor】.

Common bruises and injuries? Headaches and fevers?

Congenital malformations?

Genetic diseases?

Cancer?

Soon, Yue Shi reached a conclusion.

【Plague Doctor】 could not fundamentally transfer any disease. What it transferred were only... the symptoms of the illness.

Just like the kitten before, Yue Shi could transfer the inflammation caused by a wound, but he could not heal the wound itself.

He could transfer the headaches, allergies, and high fevers of someone with a parasite infection, but the parasites remained active within the patient's body.

He could transfer the pain of a cancer patient, but the cancer cells continued to proliferate and ravage the body.

It treated the symptoms, not the cause.

Theoretically, if supplemented with modern medicine, 【Plague Doctor】 could be considered a decent treatment method.

But Yue Shi felt that healing was merely a secondary attribute of 【Plague Doctor】.

Its true purpose should be—silent killing!

Yue Shi subsequently canceled his appointment and left the hospital to visit a mental asylum.

Regrettably, 【Plague Doctor】 did not treat mental illness. It only worked on physiological diseases with a physical form.

Despite the many limitations of this ability, the pros far outweighed the cons. Silently transferring numerous symptoms to someone else, even if it didn't kill them directly, would still leave them burdened with a mountain of negative statuses.

Over the next few hours, Yue Shi wandered through crowded areas, doing some shopping along the way. He also exchanged some change to donate to the poor beggars on the roadside.

The bird-beak mask mark on his wrist gradually darkened, turning from a faint gray to an inky black.

Absorbing illnesses on a large scale at a hospital might attract attention and bring unnecessary trouble, but there were no such concerns when blending into a crowd...

“There really are quite a lot of corporate drones working while sick,” Yue Shi lamented, casually buying a watch to cover the pitch-black mark on his wrist.

He grabbed lunch and dinner while he was out. By the time he returned home, it was already dark.

After a quick wash, Yue Shi lay on his bed, idly scrolling through his phone.

It had to be said that the internet censorship in this world was extremely strong; almost no inappropriate remarks could be seen on public platforms.

He was thinking about how to release the information about Boss Pi.

As he thought, he began to feel drowsy.

His last thought before falling asleep was—should I just report it directly to the Investigation Bureau?

...

He had a good night's sleep.

The next day, Yue Shi went out as usual to collect symptoms.

He wondered what kind of terrifying thing would be created when countless symptoms merged. Perhaps he should find some time to test it on someone.

His short break ended amidst his busy schedule.

The following day, he went to work and clocked in at the company.

Yue Shi arrived just in time. By eight-thirty, almost everyone was present, and the company's second-in-command, Pei Yue, immediately called an emergency meeting.

In the conference room, as Yue Shi sat down, he noticed a new face in the seat next to Bai Qingyu.

It was a young woman wearing a grayish-blue denim jacket. Her skin was a healthy tan, and while her appearance wasn't exceptionally striking, her broad forehead, high nose, and upturned eyes gave her an air of heroism and wildness.

“This is Fang Jianxin, a new transcendent employee recruited by the company,” Pei Yue said.

Fang Jianxin had been with the company for several days, but she had been involved in the investigation of the Bee Woman incident with another group as soon as she arrived, so she hadn't shown her face much at the office.

Compared to Group A's swift resolution of the Heart Thief case, Group B's progress in investigating the Bee Woman was going very poorly.

Pei Yue had called the meeting specifically for this matter. After briefly introducing Fang Jianxin to everyone, he dropped a piece of bad news with a heavy expression:

“Jiang Cifei is missing!”

What!

Everyone was shocked to hear this.

Jiang Cifei hadn't come in today, and they had assumed he was just late or taking leave. They never expected him to be missing.

Yue Shi and Zhong Mo looked at each other. Although Jiang Cifei was usually a bit eccentric and immature, his strength was quite good. How could something like this happen?

Gaze after gaze fixed on Pei Yue. Even the members of Group B looked at him with confusion; they hadn't known their teammate was missing either.

Pei Yue cleared his throat and gave a brief overview of the situation.

“While the members of Group A were investigating the Heart Thief, Group B was also starting its investigation into the Bee Woman. The several Bee Women who have appeared so far were all transformed from ordinary women. They were contaminated by a certain source supernatural creature and subsequently mutated.”

“A typical characteristic of a Bee Woman is a transformation in physical appearance. After an ordinary woman is contaminated, her originally plain features will become extremely beautiful and alluring in a short period of time.”

“We used this as a breakthrough point, investigating women in the city who suddenly became beautiful. This should have been a massive and time-consuming task, but those contaminated women are no different from normal people before they fully transform into Bee Women. When they suddenly possess peerless beauty, some of them can't help but show off, wanting more people to admire this beauty and wanting to receive flowers and praise.”

“So, through the internet, we easily identified several suspects. Our original plan was to seize one of them, pry key information from her mouth, and then follow the trail to find the source.”

Hearing this, Zhong Mo stole a glance at Yue Shi. When it came to extracting information, Yue Shi was the best.

However, if Yue Shi didn't volunteer, Zhong Mo would certainly not run his mouth.