CHAPTER 249: CHAPTER 249: FIGHT POISON WITH POISON

EDITOR: DRAGON BOAT TRANSLATION

In the "Mysterious Phenomena" section of the intranet, discussions about Demons and Ghosts are essentially the most common content, with Demons and Ghosts being the most frequently occurring mysterious phenomena. The category "Strange Creature" is rare and typically classified as "confidential," with very little information about "Strange Creature" publicly disclosed.

However, among Demons, Ghosts, and Strange Creatures, it is the "Demon" that is the key research focus of the nation.

Sky Capital’s Third Underground Research Institute is located next to the Sky Capital West Suburban Prison, which specifically incarcerates superpowered criminals who have violated laws in the northern regions of Mysterious Country.

"Aaaahhhh—"

The crew-cut Great Han on the electric chair screamed and roared, his eyes bloodshot, his body trembling with incontinence. However, when the healing staff and researcher Li Wenxin stopped the electricity, the crew-cut Great Han immediately spat saliva at Li Wenxin.

This spit was like a sharp arrow, very forceful, instantly forming into ice. Even with the transparent tempered glass in the way, it still gave Li Wenxin quite a shock.

A DING was heard as the tempered glass remained unharmed, but the ice arrow formed from the saliva got embedded in the glass, its power almost comparable to that of a small-caliber bullet.

"If you don’t kill me today, I’ll kill you later—" the crew-cut Great Han cackled menacingly, the venom in his words enough to make anyone’s hair stand on end. "You’ll die torn and shattered like a rag!"

But Li Wenxin, having worked here for so long, was already used to these threats. She merely sighed and looked at the document in front of her:

Robbery, murder, rape, abuse, intentional injury...

Li Wenxin wrote down the experimental results: "Experiment number 721, subject number 1841 still hasn’t recovered normal sanity, hasn’t submitted due to their situation, assessment: increased demonic nature."

After the experiment was over, Li Wenxin immediately left the experimental site and returned to the office. Upon entering, she said, "Wasn’t the Spiritual Energy Suppression device turned on?"

"What happened?" asked a colleague.

"Subject number 1841 could still spit. Gave me a fright. We’ll need to call someone to check the bulletproof glass later; such a hassle." Li Wenxin sat down and entered the experimental results into the computer.

"He’s directly burning his own Cyclone Spirit to launch attacks. That’ll happen regardless of whether the Spiritual Energy Suppression device is on or not," said the colleague helplessly. "That’s the thing with Demons; the stronger their demonic nature, the stronger their ability to draw on Spiritual Energy. He burns his own Cyclone Spirit as if it’s nothing. Be more careful in the future."

"How’s the experiment going? Any slight changes with the three subjects you’re responsible for?"

"Fat chance!"

Li Wenxin retorted, "Apart from becoming more and more perverted, there’s no other change. I’m shocked, too. Despite electrocution and water torture, how can they still say things like, ’If you don’t kill me today, I’ll kill you later’? Do they think they’re in a TV drama? Would any regular person be this vicious?"

"Relax, if this job were easy, it wouldn’t be our turn to do it," the colleague consoled. "If Demons could feel fear, they’d have been sent out to serve already. Our job is to find their weaknesses."

The primary research project of Sky Capital’s Third Underground Research Institute is the "Demon," with subjects being criminals who’ve developed a demonic nature, all transferred from the neighboring prison.

Demonic nature is a psychological term characterized by ’criminals being able to commit crimes calmly and without any psychological fluctuations,’ also described as ’antisocial personality.’

However, this differs from antisocial personality. Antisocial personalities are rational and can become builders of society. As long as the government and legal powers are strong enough, individuals with antisocial personalities will weigh the pros and cons and typically not actively break the law, choosing to behave honestly.

But with superpowered individuals who’ve developed a demonic nature, like the case of subject number 1841 that Li Wenxin just dealt with, although they have some rationality, they mostly act on whim—I want to kill you, and I want to say it right now, I even want to do it!

This is the bastion that Sky Capital’s Third Underground Research Institute has always sought to break through.

People who are fearless and lack faith are truly ’worthless,’ employing nothing but pure violence, acting solely on their inner whims and moods.

The value of a person lies in the sum of their social relationships. For instance, a castaway on a deserted island holds no significance to human society, regardless of what they discover or write there. Unless they encounter a ’Friday’ and are eventually rescued, they are effectively ’dead’ to human society.

And that is what Demons are like, ’castaways’ in human society.

Demons don’t need to take anything from others nor do they want to give anything to others. What they want, they take by force, and they cannot be controlled or influenced—even if they are so tortured they become incontinent, they still don’t show the slightest hint of softening. Who would dare let them out?

"Months have passed, and we still haven’t broken through on this topic, not to mention the ultimate topic..." Li Wenxin sighed, and the colleague jokingly said, "There are over a dozen research institutes across the country studying the ultimate topic, we can’t be that lucky."

Finding the weakness of Demons is the subject of Li Wenxin’s research team. There are five other teams like hers in the institute, all with one goal: to find a way for Demons to revert back to being human.

In the research of Demons, the state has poured in a lot of funds and power. The fact that research institutes can directly utilize Demon prisoners shows a glimpse of it: although the institutes certainly won’t kill people, necessary harm tests are still needed.

But Li Wenxin knew it wasn’t just Mysterious Country. The Federation, Europe, and other regions were all researching Demons using various methods. News about Demons was almost never found in newspapers, nor did any human rights organizations raise objections. In fact, many international conglomerates actively donated funds to accelerate the research.

As for why all forces and organizations were so concerned about this matter, researchers like Li Wenxin understood all too well: that tycoon’s Awakener son turned into a Demon, kept locked in a basement without seeing the light of day; that president’s Awakener relative turned into a Demon, causing a tremendously negative incident that led to the president resigning...

Every Awakener had the potential to become demonized...

Not only is demonic insanity a hidden bomb within the heart of an Awakener, it’s also a shackle: even those aware of the existence of demonic insanity couldn’t avoid losing themselves and turning into heartless, tearless, murderous monsters when they harmed their fellows and committed crimes.

Currently, only one theoretical method exists to prevent demonic insanity. This involves truly believing, from the depths of one’s heart, that one’s actions are as clear as a Clear Mirror—not for personal gain, but for justice. Simply put, if an individual possesses a faith and responsibility transcending personal interest, they might avoid demonic insanity even when committing harmful or murderous acts.

Looking at the current situation, the Awakening Monks of the countermeasure system and the soldiers from the Yellow River and Yangtze River Cultivator Troops showed no symptoms of demonization, which could be considered as effective confirmation.

However, researching the healing and prevention of demonization still holds great practical significance. Demonized Persons possess combat power far exceeding their peers. If a corresponding psychological observation mechanism could be established to detect early signs of demonization, timely treatment and interrogation could prevent more bloodshed.

For instance, Li Wenxin had once seen a powerful individual sitting amid the Dispersing Spirit Space. She dared not imagine what would happen if that individual were to fall into demonization...

When Li Wenxin opened the internal network, the system automatically pushed five posts to her. As a level 3 Researcher, Li Wenxin set which topics she followed, and upon accessing the internal network, it automatically pushed the latest and most popular discussions related to them.

The first post wasn’t novel, with the poster compiling which regions had more occurrences of Demons, and the thread eventually turned into a flamewar over maps.

The second post, "Eat Shit to Save the Demonized Person," made Li Wenxin wonder if the poster had a personal vendetta against Demonized Persons.

Yet after she read through the post carefully, she found herself deep in thought.

She pulled up file number 1841 and asked, "Has 1841 undergone any emotional tests?"

The colleague flipped through some documents and said, "Yes, his elderly father once visited, but it had no effect."

"Is there anything about his childhood experiences?"

"What do you need that for?"

"Hmm—" Li Wenxin said, "I saw a post that mentioned, ’Throughout their lives, people pursue what they sought in childhood, and fear what they feared in childhood.’ Knowing about his childhood might be useful."

"That sounds quite reasonable." After a few minutes, the colleague said, "I’ve sent you a statement from 1841’s neighbor."

"Thanks."

After spending half an hour reading the material closely, and then pondering for a moment, Li Wenxin suddenly said, "Do you have any porn on your computer? The kind with a strong attacker and a weak receiver?"

The colleague was startled and immediately responded, "No. Why, are you interested? I thought you were into yuri."

"It’s useful; just download one for me. If possible, try to Photoshop the receiver’s face to look like that of 1841."

"What are you planning to do?"

Li Wenxin said, "According to his records, 1841 was robust even as a child and liked to bully others, especially girls. In middle school, he even made a girl get an abortion for him."

"So, he has probably never considered that he could be ’bullied’ by another male, nor has he watched such films. For him, this should be a completely different experience, right?"

Feeling somewhat confused, the colleague nevertheless did not object, "Will that really work? I can’t do a face swap; we’d have to ask the tech department to handle that. If it ends up being useless, the guys in the tech department will probably kill you—they’re all men, you know."

"Fight poison with poison; let’s try it," Li Wenxin suggested. "Demons fear nothing because their demonic nature takes root deeply in their personality, not in their flesh, and certainly not in their memories. What we have to combat is their personality."

"For the tough guys, we’ll make them more womanly; for the neat ones, we’ll make them dirty; for those who like standing while peeing, we’ll make them squat; for those who dislike communal living, we’ll have dozens of them live together; for those who love to sleep, we’ll wake them every 45 minutes..."

"We made a mistake focusing on stimulation of the flesh and persuasive speech in the past. Demons are not fixated on the past, nor do they fear physical harm. The only remnants are their ’habits’ as humans. We should aim to break these habits, awaken their humanity, and get them to cry out, ’I want to start over and be a better person’!"