“The numbers… they feel like coordinates to me.” Gu Jun’s hypothesis hung heavily inside the conference room. The sky was still dark, and Gu Jun’s revelation appeared to carry palpable weight. Gu Jun had spent a lot of his childhood studying his parents’ nautical chart. They would have coordinates similar to this set of numbers on them. The place he visited in his dream was an island in the middle of the ocean. Then, the connection was made to the Seagull, how it had traversed the various corners of the world in the name of scientific research. Could this abandoned island in his dream have been a stop during its nautical journey?

“I believe they are the coordinates for that island in the dream,” he said.

‘Nautical coordinates?’ Yao Sinian and Prof Qin’s expressions changed. They knew not to treat Gu Jun’s ‘instinct’ lightly. Before this, the researchers leaned toward the belief that the numbers were some kind of countdown because they appeared in a descending order.

“I will have everyone redirect their research down this new angle and try to figure out the coordinates.” Yao Sinian nodded. “This hypothesis has been brought up before, but with just 74, 31, and 12, it will only make up a latitude at most. It is not enough to pinpoint an exact location.”

To acquire an accurate coordinate of a location, one needed two axes: longitude XX°XX’XX” and latitude XX°XX’XX”.

If it was for a zone as big as the Eastern State, then the axis would cover one degree to another degree: XX°XX’ – XX°XX’, XX°XX’ – XX°XX’.

Furthermore, they needed to find out whether it was northern or southern latitude and eastern or western longitude. The standard coordination format used positive and negative markers to designate the four nautical directions. Negative numbers meant western longitude and southern latitude, with the number for latitude posited first. So, if the set of numbers were part of some coordinates, it would only be logical to believe they represented latitude, specifically latitude 74°31’12”, which was situated around the northern arctic ocean…

But without the longitude, they could not pinpoint the exact location. In their previous research, Phecda had used a military satellite to scan the whole strip of land and ocean along the specified latitude, but there were too many icebergs to make a detailed search possible.

“Ah Jun, why do you think there are no coordinates for the longitude?” Yao Sinian asked.

Inspiration struck when Gu Jun was mulling over that question. “Is it possible that Ol Uncle Dog requires the Nightmare Illness to spread further before he can give us the longitude coordinate? It could exhaust him to give us these numbers through the dream.”

Once he said that, the faces of the people in the room chilled. Prof Qin heavily said, “So far, every new number appears between each interval of up to a thousand patients, and the longer the illness progresses, the larger the number between each subsequent interval…”

Gu Jun’s heart sank. If it was really part of some coordinates, how many people would need to fall victim before Ol Uncle Dog was willing to part with the three other numbers? But why would Ol Uncle Dog reveal this location? Was he hoping to lead people there? Why? Questions upon questions, and the most worrying thing was, the price that they needed to pay for the answer appeared to be human lives.

A collective lethargy settled over the room. They had been working non-stop, sacrificing their sleep. The exhaustion was particularly clear in Prof Qin and Yao Sinian’s faces, people in their advanced age. The bags under their eyes were so heavy that it was worrying. Who knew how much long they could hold on under this kind of high pressure?

After their meeting ended, Gu Jun was sent back into quarantine again. He was assigned an isolated room in the psychology building. According to standard practice, he needed approval before he could make contact with anyone. It was not that Phecda did not trust him; they were worried that he would succumb to madness like the other victims. Gu Jun lay on the bed and slowly descended into slumber with the cocktail of emotions swirling inside him.

…

Three days passed, and the Medical Department only got more hectic. On the night that Gu Jun was suspected to be infected, some of the patients were arranged to consume sleeping pills for the sake of experimentation. They still experienced the same nightmare. The four patients who had undergone lobotomies also had sleeping induced to test out the experiment results. Yang Jianming, the patient in the later stage, did not improve at all. No one could tell whether he had fallen asleep or had even a dream. On the afternoon of the second day, eighteen hours after his surgery, Yang Jianming passed away due to failure of multiple internal organs.

Mai Lei, the patient in the middle stage, was still suffering from the nightmare. There was no visible change to his condition. However, the two patients in the initial stage, Chen Wenwei and Zou Xinyue, did not have the nightmare for three consecutive nights!

This was something that brought joy to research centers across the country. This seemed to prove that lobotomies could effectively sever the patient’s mental connection with the mysterious existence that tormented them with the nightmare. Even though Chen Wenwei and Zhou Xinyue suffered from post-surgery complications similar to MSA and Parkinson’s, compared to other patients in the initial stage who would progress to the middle stage in two days, the worsening of their condition had conspicuously slowed down.

The parapsychology research group led by Elder Tong had a theory regarding this.

“Since the connection was severed, their soul cannot be consumed anymore, as if the faucet has been closed. But the mental power that they have lost and the nerve endings that have shrunk might not recover immediately, if ever.”

The other negative outcome was the side effect of lobotomies. Both Chen Wenwei and Zou Xinyue reported headaches that were different from before. Their personalities experienced a tremendous shift as well. One became extremely introverted while the other started to act strangely. Even so, at least the doctors had a solution. They would treat the Nightmare Illness like how they would tackle MSA.

The catch was currently there was still no targeted treatment for MSA. It was mainly a combination of treatment methods for both Parkinson’s and dysautonomia. Victims of MSA would take two years to see their condition worsen to Chen Wenwei’s pre-op stage, which only took the Nightmare Illness five to seven days. Victims of MSA would have an average lifespan of nine years after the paroxysm of the disease. In contrast, according to the doctors’ observation of the two patients after their surgery, they would hold on for another one or two years.

“This is a huge breakthrough,” Prof Qin told Gu Jun with some relief. “The surgery is effective. It means that the illness can be cured.”

That was the hope they needed.

The Medical Department had already arranged for the second batch of victims to undergo the surgery. The earlier they got the surgery, the better it would be for the patients. However, the Medical Department still needed to find a method that could apply this surgical method on a larger scale. The four people who had collapsed in the first surgery were still in ICU. They could not allow that to happen again.

Gu Jun spent three days in the isolation room and listened to the news that came to him patiently. He took this chance to get some rest. Ever since that day, he did not encounter that dream again and did not show any clinical symptom for the onset of the Nightmare Illness. Elder Tong and the rest were greatly relieved.

New patients kept appearing, but there was no sign of any new numbers.

On the morning of the fourth day, Gu Jun was allowed to leave the isolation room. As he walked down the corridor, he saw the drawn-out faces of Tang Zhifeng and a few other people from the psychology group. There was a sadness around them that was different from usual.

“Leader Tang, what happened?” Gu Jun’s heart tightened. It felt like years even though he had only been quarantined for three days. Did someone among their circle fall ill?

At that moment, the words from Raybundy’s diary flashed across his mind like a ghost.

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