Superman Termination Manual

Chapter 238: Chapter 162: The True Face of Gastella

Five minutes after Che Zhengchen was kidnapped by the Dice Monster, in a hidden underground room connected by an alley in the Hongdeng Commercial District.

This cramped and damp basement had been fashioned into an operating room, with a bed covered in pristine white sheets set up in the center, and nothing else.

At this very moment, the Dice Monster and Fan Quan stood beside the bed, while Che Zhengchen lay unconscious upon it.

Fan Quan was still wearing his trench coat, now with an Ultraman mask on his face.

Neither of them spoke, maintaining their silence.

Fan Quan wrote on his notebook and lifted it, on it was written, “This is the first time I’ve seen you show up in front of me like this.”

The Dice Monster curled the corners of his mouth as he typed on a spare phone’s memo app, lifting the screen to show, “So what? You think you’d get scared of me?”

To prevent Gastella from eavesdropping on their conversation using the bugs inside Che Zhengchen, the two resorted to this way of communication, like two mutes talking or a comical pantomime.

“Just not used to it,” Fan Quan wrote.

The Dice Monster typed and lifted the screen again, “We need to move quickly. Who knows if Qing Ya will find this place in the next second.”

Fan Quan went to adjust his glasses, only to touch the Ultraman mask instead. He wrote, “There’s no need to worry. This place is very secret; otherwise, I wouldn’t have specifically bought this basement from those drug dealers.”

“So what’s your plan?” asked the Dice Monster through text.

“Upon seeing the news, Gastella would normally take control of Che Zhengchen’s body with the bug right away to check the situation,” wrote Fan Quan. “But since Che Zhengchen is unresponsive, it means the bug can’t control someone who is unconscious. We can take our time, no rush.”

“Alright, alright,” the Dice Monster stood with a hand on his hip, typing on the phone and lifting the screen, “Then let’s see some action.”

“First of all, we need to remove that bug from his body.”

After writing this, Fan Quan showed it to the Dice Monster and then took a pair of crimson gloves out of his trench coat pocket and slid them on his hands.

The Dice Monster watched silently.

Fan Quan told him that these gloves, named “Blood Erosion Hand,” were a B-ranked tool capable of penetrating directly through human skin and bones to touch organs.

From a combat perspective, this glove allows one to ignore the opponent’s outer defense and directly crush the internal organs;

From a medical angle, the glove can manipulate problematic internal parts without the need to cut.

The current situation was different, however. Fan Quan aimed to extract the bug from Gastella’s body.

After returning to the city this morning, he had caught an ordinary person infested with the parasite, killed them for dissection, and found that Gastella’s parasitic worm typically resided on the heart, coiling around it like yarn.

Thus, with the Blood Erosion Hand on, Fan Quan reached out towards Che Zhengchen’s chest. The crimson glove, ignoring skin and bones, went straight into his body.

Fan Quan grabbed Che Zhengchen’s heart, gently cradling the thick “black membrane” encircling it.

With a slight tug, the black worm revealed itself, struggling frantically within Che Zhengchen’s body.

But no match for its adversary, the worm was eventually dragged out of Che Zhengchen’s body by Fan Quan and pulled into reality.

At the same time, Che Zhengchen coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Fortunately, he remained unconscious, steeped in slumber.

The Dice Monster, watching with alarm, clicked his tongue secretly. He shot out a strand of webbing, sticking to the worm and pulling it into his hand before crushing it forcefully.

Amidst the worm’s shrill cries, black blood splattered, staining the floor of the basement.

The Dice Monster sighed with relief, thinking he could finally speak, then asked, “The worm is out. What’s next?”

“This is the hypnotic tool.”

As he spoke, Fan Quan took off the Blood Erosion Hand gloves, stowed them in his bag, and took out a pocket watch from his coat.

The copper lid snapped open with a click, revealing a small clock ticking inside, the second hand tirelessly moving around.

Right after, Fan Quan pried open Che Zhengchen’s eyelids, forcing him to stare at the clock for a moment until his eyes gradually hollowed, turning into whirlpools.

Seeing this, Fan Quan pulled out his phone, unlocked it, entered the photo gallery, and played a pre-recorded video.

He then angled the video toward Che Zhengchen’s propped open eye.

The video showed a black worm wriggling on a dirty ground, repeating two or three frames over and over.

In the background, a magnetic mechanical voice kept repeating, “Think back, have you seen such a worm before? Recall from your mind the memories that were hidden, imagine the situation when you encountered this worm.”

As the video played, the Dice Monster picked up the brain imaging helmet from the floor, slowly and gently placing it on Che Zhengchen’s head.

This brain imaging helmet came from the three giants of the Magical Girl Alliance; Xizi Yue, to test if Xiaohongmao was a player, handed the helmet over to Magical Girl Ash, entrusting her with using it on Xiaohongmao.

So after passing the test, Ke Mingye borrowed the helmet from Ash, using the alias Xiaohongmao.

Since Ash had said it could only be used for one day, Ke Mingye had to make his move today; after all, he would have to return the brain imaging helmet tomorrow. Such an important item couldn’t simply be kept without returning it.

At this moment, as Dice Monster placed the brain imaging helmet on Che Zhengchen’s head, he walked behind the bed, slowly lifted Che Zhengchen’s body up, and then looked at the screen image on the back of the brain imaging helmet.

What he activated was the helmet’s second function: this feature allowed capturing the user’s brain signals, replicating the images they were imagining in real life.

This function had been used by Ke Mingye and Bai Ziling among others at Yandai Cinema City before.

So now, Che Zhengchen, who was in a state of hypnosis, was listening to the mechanical guiding voice coming from the phone.

“Think back, have you seen this kind of insect? Recall the memory hidden in your mind, imagine the scene when you saw this insect.”

At the same time, his forced-open eye was intently watching the black insect in the video.@@novelbin@@

After this combo, Ke Mingye didn’t believe Che Zhengchen couldn’t recall the memory of being infested by the insect. But the screen of the brain imaging helmet was still slow to respond, only flickering with black and white static.

“He seems to be short-sighted. Maybe he can’t see the phone screen clearly. Should I give him your glasses to wear?” Dice Monster said.

Fan Quan shook his head, “That’s unlikely. Don’t joke around at a time like this.”

While they spoke, the screen on the back of the brain imaging helmet gradually revealed Che Zhengchen’s imagined images. It seemed that under the influence of this set of hypnotic suggestions, his brain was finally responding.

The scene that appeared was from Che Zhengchen’s first-person perspective: he was sitting inside a private tavern, drinking sullenly, picked up his phone, and quietly looked at a photograph. The photo showed a rather handsome young man.

“The guy in the photo, that should be his son,” Dice Monster said while looking at Che Zhengchen’s memory images.

“How do you know?” Fan Quan asked.

“He said his son is Qing Ya, you know?”

“Oh, the hero who was dismembered by Timekeeper?”

“That’s the one.”

“No wonder Che Zhengchen is so partial to you. It seems it’s mostly for emotional reasons. I thought someone really appreciated your super hero image with that so-so kung fu.”

“That’s enough, my friend. My blue owl is rated D- level superhuman in the system’s rating, not as worthless as you make it sound.”

“Not as weird as strange things.”

“The strange thing is right here. It says thank you for the compliment, but it doesn’t affect the fact that you’re a taciturn sort.”

“Stop talking, pay attention, and don’t miss the clue to Gastella’s true form.”

In the brain imaging display, Che Zhengchen was staring at his son’s photo when suddenly, a girl in a wheelchair entered the tavern. She turned the wheels with her hands, pushing the wheelchair over to his side.

Seeing this scene, Fan Quan and Dice Monster both focused intently.

Che Zhengchen, drowsy, turned his head, removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and put the glasses back on again. The image of the girl in his eyes gradually became clearer.

She had shoulder-length red hair, was dressed in a classic British-style cloth dress, and held a cane in her hand. Her face was lovely, but her clear eyes contained an indelible sense of mockery.

The girl said something, then lifted her cane, blocking Che Zhengchen’s throat.

The next moment, a black insect crawled along the handle of the cane towards the end, quickly stuffing itself into Che Zhengchen’s mouth.

Che Zhengchen clutched his throat, collapsed backward onto the floor, and slowly closed his eyes, losing consciousness. The brain imaging display also grew dark.

Fan Quan and Dice Monster turned to look at each other.

They had already captured the face of the girl in the brain imaging screen on their phones.

And, even assuming the girl was wearing a human face mask at the time, at least they now had her main identifying feature: a girl in a wheelchair, disabled.

“This must be Gastella herself,” Fan Quan said.

Dice Monster nodded silently, looked at the photo they had taken on the phone for a while, and then said, “So next, the task of finding Gastella should be handed over to Cai Bing.”

“Then I’m off, you figure out how to take Che Zhengchen back by yourself.”

“Okay, thank you for this, cultured man.”

“It’s no trouble. Covering for you has already become a consensus between me and Cai Bing.”

As he spoke, Fan Quan turned his head, glanced at Dice Monster, and walked slowly out of the basement.

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