CHAPTER 324: CHAPTER 6

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Chunming City, Dubhe Tower, Gengwu District.

"Are you the ones looking for Li Junwen?" A researcher wearing glasses thicker than beer bottles glanced at the documents in his hand, then looked at Wang Xiyi and the others in front of him. "Although you’ve already acquired the permission to make direct contact with him, I suggest you observe him first before meeting him."

"Observe him?" Ye Jiu was puzzled, "Isn’t he supposed to not be infected? Could there still be a risk in contacting him?"

"He indeed is not infected... but his behavior and cognition are already different from ordinary people. Sigh, you’ll understand once you see the surveillance footage."

With that said, the researcher led the group to the surveillance room.

"Put the footage from Camera Four in Li Junwen’s room on the big screen," the researcher instructed his colleague in the surveillance room.

The large screen, originally divided into dozens of segments, suddenly unified. In a luxuriously decorated living room, a bloated figure... no, the word ’bloated’ might not even describe the man’s shape in the footage. Accurately speaking, it’s a large pile of fat wrapped in skin on an enormous couch. Everywhere, on the stretched skin, are stretch marks and red, oozing sores... In fact, even if the researcher told them the person in the footage was an infected individual, no one would doubt it.

"This... is Li Junwen?" Yang Qi looked at the file in her hand, then at the pig-like man on the screen, frowning involuntarily.

There were three photos of Li Junwen in the file: one taken during his service as a temporary investigator, one from his wanted poster when he was pursued by the Federation Government, and the last after he returned from the Surrendered Area to human civilization, taken after being ’sheltered’ by the Dubhe Tower.

The first photo looked like a young, naive boy; the second photo showed a face that hadn’t changed much in shape, but his whole demeanor matured and seasoned considerably; the third photo changed the most... even though he had been bathed, and his hair and beard shaved for the photo, he still embodied a visible decline and fatigue, his skin clean but his entire face gaunt beyond recognition as if a layer of skin was stretched over a skeleton, eye sockets sunken, eyes spiritless, and very apparent ulcers at the corners of his mouth.

But no matter which photo it was, they couldn’t equate it with the person Yang Qi and others were currently seeing.

"How can a guy get that fat?" Ye Jiu couldn’t help but remark, "Are you raising him like a pig?"

"You really can’t blame us for this..." The researcher chuckled bitterly, "Li Junwen seems to have been severely traumatized in the Surrendered Area, leading to a very intense stress response. Among all these stress responses, the most noticeable is his craving for food."

"A craving for food... that’s quite normal," Yang Qi nodded, "Considering the difficulty of finding food in the Surrendered Area, it’s perfectly normal for someone in a prolonged state of starvation to exhibit such a response."

"But his craving for food isn’t normal... When he first arrived here, the total daily caloric intake was at least eight to ten times that of a normal adult... and even so, he kept complaining of hunger. If his food needs weren’t met, he would become extremely irritable, even extremely panicked, and would attempt to attack or destroy anything in sight, even harm himself," the researcher explained.

Ye Jiu instinctively turned to glance at Wang Xiyi, who glared back: "My large appetite is because I have a high expenditure, this person is nothing like me."

"Tranquilizers don’t work?" Yang Qi asked.

"They worked initially, but the effects were limited and resistance developed quickly," the researcher replied, "Moreover, we need to observe his daily life to collect data, so it’s impossible to keep him in a state of dormancy for long periods..."

"So you just keep feeding him?" Ye Jiu asked, astonished.

"Yes... with such binge eating, his digestive system soon encountered issues," the researcher sighed, "He’s already undergone over twenty gastrointestinal surgeries. Currently, more than seventy percent of his esophagus, stomach, and intestines are artificial," the researcher remarked.

"So the digestive system you’ve modified for him is quite strong, managing to allow someone to eat themselves into such obesity..." Ye Jiu commented sarcastically, "People normally have digestive issues and can’t absorb nutrients well, no matter how much they eat, they don’t gain weight. My little sister has that kind of physique, she’s 1.70 meters tall and weighs less than ninety pounds."

"Aside from an unusually large appetite, he has an additional peculiarity of loving to eat raw meat, and it has to be fresh, bloody raw meat," the researcher noted, "Of course, during one experiment, we discovered that if fresh meat wasn’t available, he would also consume decaying, spoiled meat, though he’d become extremely depressed while eating it."

"Who would be happy eating rotten meat... isn’t the latter half of your statement stating the obvious?" Ye Jiu said.

"This peculiar habit might be related to his experiences in the Surrendered Area," Yang Qi expressed, "It’s hard to imagine what he might have subsisted on in there."

"What’s so hard to imagine... Eat whatever is edible," Wang Xiyi stated expressionlessly, "Roots, moss, insects, all kinds of animals... which undoubtedly also include decaying corpses. I can only say he was extremely lucky not to have eaten anything infected by anomalous memes or deadly microorganisms."