Chapter 192: Their Perfect ■■.

Chapter 192 Their Perfect [Redacted]

A revolting stench oozed from the door crack, but the moment Meng Siyou stepped into the office, the anomaly disappeared completely—replaced instead by a faint, sweet fragrance, perhaps from some brand of scented air freshener.

Before him appeared a spacious, bright, and impeccably tidy office.

Behind the large solid wood desk sat the middle-aged Founder Wen De, with brown hair and eyes, wearing metal-framed glasses. His mature and composed demeanor made him resemble the archetypal image of a scientist and successful figure often seen in films and TV shows.

"Good morning, Mr. Edmund," he said with a smile, greeting Meng Siyou naturally, betraying no sign of anything unusual. "I apologize for not being able to personally guide you through Wan Neng Chao Xi due to my poor health. Otherwise, we could have shared a pleasant experience together."

"Mr. Wen De," Meng Siyou nodded, mimicking Edmund’s usual languid, theatrical tone, "these days, your name and the Universal Capsule have been plastered across every headline… I’ve been curious about you for a long time."

"Is that so? Thank you," Wen De gestured to the chair opposite his desk. "Please, have a seat."

Meng Siyou walked to the desk, his eyes fixed intently on Wen De, when he suddenly noticed something strange—

Whether during conversation or as Meng Siyou moved around, Wen De remained facing forward, never turning his head to look at him even once, appearing eerily rigid.

This defied natural human instincts.

In everyday interactions, people often make unconscious movements—following with their gaze, turning their necks, tapping their fingers… These are almost instinctive behaviors humans can’t suppress.

But Mr. Wen De—remained completely motionless.

If not for the fact that he could speak and move, Wen De seemed less like a living person and more like a wax dummy propped in a seat.

…Something was wrong.

Meng Siyou sharply raised his guard while subtly observing his surroundings. He sat down at the other end of the desk, pretending to be the oblivious trust-fund brat as he continued making small talk with Wen De.

The cloying sweetness hung thick in the air, but no matter how hard he tried, Meng Siyou couldn’t detect any further anomalies from Wen De.

Meng Siyou began fishing for answers: "Though there are many reports about you, the public rarely sees you in person. It’s said no journalist has ever managed a face-to-face interview with you—Mr. Wen De, you’re quite the recluse."

"I neglected my health when I was younger, and now my health’s gone to hell. I simply don’t have the energy for those events, so I leave them to my subordinates to handle."

Wen De’s tone was indifferent, his answer flawless.

Throughout the conversation, he remained reclined in his chair, looking exhausted and weak—consistent with his claim of poor health.

After a pause, Wen De added with a smile, "The coffee in front of you was freshly ground by my assistant. Please, help yourself."

Under normal circumstances, Meng Siyou would never casually accept a suspicious offer in an unfamiliar environment—let alone a liquid like coffee. Who knew if it contained something as sinister as those fish eggs?

But perhaps due to the increasingly heavy fragrance in the room, the sickly sweetness clung like syrup, choking him, stealing his breath.

The sweet scent swirled like a smothering shroud, coiling tighter layer after layer around his face, seeping into his nostrils and mouth, as if trying to drown him in its depths.

So stuffy… So thirsty.

Meng Siyou’s throat grew parched, scorched raw, his voice turning hoarse.

His mind blanked for a moment—perhaps he had zoned out—but before he knew it, his fingers had curled around the cup’s handle, lifting it.

As the rim neared his lips, Meng Siyou felt a ravenous need to gulp it down.

Just then, the liquid inside trembled slightly. The reflective surface acted like a tiny mirror, suddenly revealing a pair of golden-red eyes.

Those vibrant, unnatural eyes cast a sharp glance at him.

In that instant, it was as if a golden bolt of lightning had cracked through the haze, illuminating his increasingly muddled consciousness.

Meng Siyou shuddered, his fingers trembling as he set the cup down, jolting back to reality.

Once lucid, the rotting stench that had seeped through the door earlier crashed over him anew, now impossible to ignore—a thousand times worse.

Meng Siyou stiffly looked up. The once-pristine desk was now covered in a blanket of filth. Clouds of flies swarmed around the opposite side, where Wen De remained motionless in his chair.

His face had rotted to ruin, the skin dissolved, leaving only shreds of flesh that exposed the bones and muscle beneath. The mummified flesh withered, its surface pockmarked with lesions from fly infestations.

Having sat dead in the chair for so long, the rotting flesh on his back had fused with the fabric of his clothes and the chair itself, the seepage of bodily fluids staining the upholstery with slick, yellowish stains.

Much of the stench emanated from Wen De’s corpse.

It was like heaps of rotting fish left under the scorching sun in a marketplace—the stench so dense he could taste it, assaulting Meng Siyou’s senses.

No wonder Wen De hadn’t moved during their conversation…

Because he had been dead all along!

—Meng Siyou had just been talking to a corpse!

Looking down again, he realized the cup in his hand was also coated in dust. The fetid sludge inside had likely been sitting for so long that mold had begun to grow on its surface—a layer of grayish-green fuzz blooming like fungus over the bone china.

Amid the overwhelming stench of decay and fish, the "coffee’s" foulness seemed almost negligible, yet its bitter, sour reek still stood out, reminiscent of sweat-soaked gym socks stewing for days in a boys’ dormitory during summer.

"Ugh—"

The thought that he had nearly drunk this aged concoction made Meng Siyou’s chest heave as he retched violently.

Past the revulsion, a question surfaced:

If Wen De had been dead for so long, who had been keeping up the company’s facade, maintaining the illusion that the Founder still existed?

Most importantly—who was supplying the fish eggs?

After a moment’s thought, Meng Siyou abruptly turned toward the door.

He remembered clearly that when the door had first opened, he had detected the rank odor of death. Yet once he stepped inside, his senses dulled as if drugged, preventing him from perceiving the truth—even allowing him to chat amiably with a rotting corpse without realizing it…

Could there be some drug or occult influence at work in the room?

Steeling himself against the reek, Meng Siyou frowned as he scanned the room, soon noticing a large, half-person-tall humidifier hissing softly in the corner, emitting wisps of white mist.

…In a room left to decay untouched for so long, where even the corpse remained undisturbed, why was a humidifier still running?

Doubt ignited. Meng Siyou immediately approached the humidifier. The closer he got, the stronger the overpowering, chemical sweetness became.

He was certain—this sickly-sweet scent, so out of place in the room, was clearly the source.

Prying open the humidifier, Meng Siyou indeed found something unusual inside its water tank.

A pile of fish scales, glass-clear, like the eggs, submerged in clear water. Only at certain angles did they reflect light, glistening with nacreous light.

When the humidifier was active, the rising mist carried an eerie potency from the scales, dispersing the sweet fragrance throughout the room. It trapped visitors in waking delusions, making it impossible to perceive the long-dead state of Wen De.

Meng Siyou didn’t dare touch the unknown object directly. He found a hard folder from the bookshelf and used its corner to poke at the fish scales.

The topmost scales, perhaps already overly degraded, were soft in texture, their edges damp and clinging together.

With just a light press, they crumbled into dust, glistening with scattered flecks of white light in the water, resembling fine pearl powder—ethereal and beautiful.

But Meng Siyou knew that these seemingly fragile, beautiful things were, in fact, deceptively dangerous.

These scales might be... from oceanic divine beings.

Why would such things be hidden in Wen De’s office?

Brushing away the powdered fragments on top, he exposed the still-intact scales beneath and murmured, "Fish scales shouldn’t have life signs..."

"Can they be identified by the system like mystical items?"

When it comes to looking to gain an advantage, people are fearless of hardship or exhaustion.

After some effort—ensuring no direct contact—he fished out a few intact scales from the water tank and tried storing them in his system backpack.

—Success!

His heart leapt with excitement, Meng Siyou quickly checked the identification results:

「Item: ???? Juvenile’s Scales (C+)

Status: Cannot be bound

Description: For ■■■■■■■■, they gradually evolved hallucinogenic scales to numb pain, dull senses, and create illusions—they would create Their perfect ■■.

Usage Condition: Dissolve in water; the hallucinogenic component spreads through gas or liquid before taking effect.」

Well...

Though the identification was riddled with question marks and redacted text, he could at least confirm that these scales came from juvenile divine beings and had potent hallucinogenic and analgesic effects.

At the same time, Meng Siyou couldn’t help but wonder: Could the unidentified divine beings in the system identification be the second form of the mature fish eggs?

What kind of evolutionary need drove them to evolve such an ability?

Noting these clues and doubts, Meng Siyou turned his gaze to the corpse behind the desk.

Wen De’s corpse was tightly fused with the chair’s backrest, his left hand resting on his thigh, fingers curled like claws, gripping the fabric of his pants as if enduring some excruciating pain before death.

Looking further down, Meng Siyou noticed that his left leg below the knee was in fact a prosthesis...

Had Wen De suffered chronic pain from his prosthesis during his lifetime?

What solace might someone forced to endure chronic pain seek?

Typical diversions, alcohol, painkillers—or perhaps those scales capable of creating perfect illusions?

Meng Siyou pondered.

Initially, he thought the scales might have been added to the water tank after Wen De’s death by someone else, to hide the Founder’s death.

But now, he wasn’t so sure.

Was it possible that Wen De himself had placed the scales there?

He might have needed them to cloud his vision, forget his pain, and revel blindly in blissful illusions until death.

Wen De’s right hand lay stiffly outstretched on the desk, a travel flyer beside it.

Meng Siyou leaned in and saw that it was a promotional flyer for a coastal town—the hometown where the receptionist had mentioned Wen De discovered the "Deep-Sea Substance."

Against a sky-blue background, the flyer bore white artistic lettering: "Welcome to the West Coast Town of Wald State," exuding a dated, retro design.

Reading the contents carefully, Meng Siyou learned that Wen De’s hometown was an economically underdeveloped, remote fishing town now attempting—and failing—to promote tourism.

The flyer was likely sent by his townsfolk, hoping he would return triumphantly to support local development. A handwritten note at the top read:

"To our most beloved and respected Mr. Wen De..."

Skimming past this, Meng Siyou focused on the nail marks beneath the address in the bottom-right corner.

Before death, Wen De seemed to have strained to lift his hand, frantically scratching at the paper, leaving a vertical crescent mark—as if drawing a curved moon.

"What a person desperately leaves behind in their final moments must be an important clue for the living..."

Staring at the arc-shaped scratch, Meng Siyou slowly formed a guess.

"Could this mark be... a number? Pointing to a more specific location?"

Tracing the arc with his finger, he completed the digit: "6."

If the town numbered its buildings... was Wen De indicating Building 6?

......

When Meng Siyou stepped out of the office, the receptionist had been waiting by the elevator for some time.

"Mr. Wen De is truly a genius of unparalleled wisdom," Meng Siyou praised without missing a beat. "His vision is something I’ve never imagined, even struggled to comprehend. Though our conversation was long, the time flew by. I’ll likely need considerable time to digest the depth of his insights..."

"I’m curious—has anyone ever kept up with such a brilliant mind, maintaining a lasting connection with him?"

Unaware of Meng Siyou’s probing intent, the receptionist’s eyes brimmed with admiration for the Founder. "Perhaps geniuses ahead of their time are destined to be lonely. To my knowledge, Mr. Wen De lost both parents, had no close friends, didn’t employ a personal assistant, and rarely attended social events."

No regular connections...

Meng Siyou nodded inwardly, thinking it more likely that Wen De himself had placed the scales.

The receptionist continued, "He always stayed alone in his top-floor office, yet he was the idol and moral compass of the entire group."

"..."

Meng Siyou’s mouth twitched. Of course a corpse could only stay alone in an office.

If it could wander around, that’d be absolutely terrifying.

After listening to the receptionist’s reverent speech, Meng Siyou pressed further: "If the Deep-Sea Substance in the Universal Capsules truly cures all ailments, it must be more precious than gold or oil... May I ask where your company extracts and processes it?"

The receptionist faltered.

In such a fanatical atmosphere of admiration, employees never questioned the Founder’s decisions or actions. No one even investigated the exact handling of the Universal Capsules’ key components—they simply accepted their existence and use as naturally as daybreak.

"...Sorry, I’m not quite sure," the receptionist replied uncertainly, looking confused. "I’ve heard our group has coastal operations... There must be a dedicated department for extraction and transport?"

Then a visit to Wen De’s hometown was necessary.

Meng Siyou began to ponder whether Edmund's sudden trip to a remote coastal town, given his aristocratic background, would seem too abrupt.

Just then, the elevator doors opened.

The receptionist stepped out naturally, but Meng Siyou stood frozen in place—in the side mirror, the prophet reappeared, smiling at him.

"The time to change fate has come again," the prophet said cheerfully. "What role should we take this time to get closer to the target more easily?"

Somehow, as Meng Siyou stared at Wu Suer's smiling lips, a sudden sense of foreboding crept into his heart...