Chapter 5138 — Call Me the Black-Clad Mystery Man
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"The Black-Clad Mystery Man?" Brother Dafeng was taken aback. He figured the fellow was simply worried about exposing his true identity and had no wish to show his real face, which was why he had cooked up such an outlandish code name.
Little did he know, the real reason Dr. Glasses had done so was chiefly to imitate, on purpose, the black-clad figures of Cloud Terrace Island. These days every move the secular world's Central Headquarters made was modeled on Cloud Terrace Island—not only the technology, but even the staffing and the methods of operation followed the same fashion. Of course, Dr. Glasses had another, even more important motive for this: showing off.
Yet it was not entirely about indulging his vanity. To put it plainly, Dr. Glasses meant to use this chance to reinvent himself. He had, true enough, proposed the Antiquity Project, but if he went on forever under the name of Dr. Glasses, people would inevitably keep pigeonholing him as a researcher. He lacked a background like Lan Xiaoru's, after all; a handful of research achievements alone could never truly get him into the upper circles. So the reinvention was imperative—and this was the perfect opportunity.
"Remember, whatever you do, don't call me by the wrong name again," Dr. Glasses reminded him, patient as ever.
"Yes, yes, Dr. Glasses—oh no, I mean, Black-Clad Mystery Man. So what do we do next?" Brother Dafeng asked for instructions. He was merely the front man, the decoy in charge; every specific step had to be cleared with Dr. Glasses. If he acted on his own and aroused suspicion, the consequences would be unthinkable.
"We'll camp on the outskirts of Shennongjia first. Then send Jing Taiyang inside to scout the situation—get a clear picture of what's real and what's not before we decide the next move," Dr. Glasses said after a moment's thought.
Among these fifteen Foundation Establishment experts, Jing Taiyang was not the strongest, but he was the most reliable. He had been the first to be captured and had spent the longest under drug-induced brainwashing; over the past month his monitoring responses had been the steadiest, the drug's side effects had been reduced to a minimum, and even if he were sent out to act alone, there was little chance of an accident. With any of the others, without someone watching over them, it was hard to say.
"Understood." Brother Dafeng nodded and went at once to make the arrangements.
A day later, Jing Taiyang returned from deep within Shennongjia. The news he brought shocked them all: the mountain gate that served as the gathering point for the Antiquity Alliance's trial disciples had been abandoned—not a soul in sight. Jing Taiyang had wandered all around and, try as he might, had not found a single living person.
"How can this be?" Dr. Glasses was utterly baffled.
"Could the intelligence these people provided be wrong?" Brother Dafeng could not help speculating. He meant, of course, the Antiquity Alliance Foundation Establishment experts who had been brainwashed by the drug. After all, the Shennongjia gathering point had been learned from their own mouths.
"Impossible," Dr. Glasses said with a decisive shake of his head. It was true that drug-induced brainwashing was bound to have side effects, especially irreversible damage to the brain. Even with Central Headquarters' technology, they could only minimize those side effects—never eliminate them completely.
Take Jing Taiyang, the most stable of them all. At present he looked almost exactly as he had before being controlled, but anyone who spent much time with those familiar with him would notice: Jing Taiyang was long since no longer the original Jing Taiyang. There were too many tells.
Ultimately, drugs really could brainwash a man—but that was only a crude, low-grade means of controlling the mind.