Mysterious Awakening

Chapter 344: Chapter 343 The Method of Awakening

From Doctor Qian’s professional perspective, Tong Qian’s condition was not severe; it was simply excessive blood loss and scalp trauma. Although there were multiple fractures, these were treatable. The only thing that left them helpless was Tong Qian’s brain.

"What’s wrong with her brain? Did she suffer a heavy blow?” Yang Jian pressed for details.

Doctor Qian said, “No, it’s not for that reason. I’ve examined the patient’s head and there are no particularly severe external injuries. The extensive damage to the scalp tissue did not extend to the inside of the brain. However, our hospital has used instruments to repeatedly check the patient’s brain over several days. Strangely enough, no matter how we check, we can’t detect the patient’s brainwaves.”

"Well, put simply, the patient is likely in a state of brain death. Generally, this condition would only be found in a dead person. Sorry, this description is a bit impolite, but it’s the truth. Even people who have been paralytic and in a vegetative state for over a decade have continuous brainwave activity.”

"Medically, death is determined when brain activity stops, also known as brain death, as mentioned before. But the patient is strange. Although she’s in a state of brain death, her body is still maintaining normal physiological functions. If it weren’t for this, I think I would have had to issue a death certificate by now.”

"Doctor Qian, maybe the patient’s brain is in a deep dormant state with very low brainwave frequency. Should we check again?” proposed another expert beside him.

Another doctor said, “We’ve checked several times already and can’t detect a hint of brainwaves. It’s an unsolved medical mystery.”

Yang Jian frowned upon hearing this diagnosis.

This was not an unsolved medical mystery; it was an aftereffect of Tong Qian being attacked by a ghost.

If nothing unexpected happened, Tong Qian would likely sleep forever, until her bodily functions ceased and she died in her hospital bed.

"I’ve understood the rough situation now, thank you for your hard work, experts and professors. If it’s possible, I would like to spend some time alone with the patient. May I trouble you to step outside for a moment?” Yang Jian suddenly requested.

"Of course, that’s possible,” Doctor Qian nodded in agreement.

Soon, the group of experts and professors filed out of the hospital room one after another.

They were not incompetent; they were simply powerless in the face of this peculiar situation. Surgery could only treat Tong Qian’s body but not her current baffling condition.

After the others left, only Yang Jian, the liaison officer Zhang Wei, and Tong Qian on the hospital bed remained in the room.

"Yang Jian, although there is a lot I don’t know and my questions may seem foolish, do you think there’s a solution for Tong Qian’s condition?” Zhang Wei asked seriously, “Tong Qian is, after all, an international ghost controller from Z city. If there’s a way to save her, we hope you can lend a hand.”

Yang Jian glanced at him: “Some things cannot be changed by human effort, but I can only try for Tong Qian’s case. If it doesn’t work, then this is how she’ll be for life. After all, as you know, our line of work has a high mortality rate. From the day one becomes a ghost controller, their life is already on a countdown, and death can come at any time.”

"Tong Qian is like that, and so am I.”

"I understand that,” Zhang Wei nodded.

"Let me be alone for a while,” Yang Jian said.

"Then I’ll leave it to you,” Zhang Wei said earnestly, then he also left the hospital room.

Yang Jian’s gaze shifted back to Tong Qian, who was unconscious. He was not very confident about waking her up; after all, it had come to this point. However, it was worth a try, as it would be very beneficial for his future actions if Tong Qian could wake up.

But how to save her was a significant problem.

This was not something that could be done with just strength; it required a method.

"Combining the results from those experts’ tests, I can affirm that Tong Qian’s brain must be a blank slate right now. She has likely lost all her memories, which is why her brain is in a state of inactivity. The only way to save her is to retrieve her memories,” Yang Jian reasoned.

Based on his knowledge of the ghost, he came up with a conclusion.

But the memories were likely in the ghost’s possession.

The difficulty of retrieving the memories was enormous. Moreover, would the retrieved memories still be Tong Qian’s own? If the ghost had altered them, then Tong Qian might wake up as a Ghost Slave instead of her true self.

Unless… he could control the ghost and return Tong Qian’s memories to their original state.

Yang Jian’s eyes flickered as he thought of a very challenging yet perfect solution.

"This is almost an impossible task. If the ghost can change other people’s memories, how can it be controlled by an ordinary person? Even if forced to combine, it might turn out to be the ghost controlling the person, not the person controlling the ghost,” he mused.

Then, this bold hypothesis had a very serious flaw.

Not every ghost can be controlled by a person, and the difficulty of controlling one that can alter memories must be exceptionally high, making his speculation utterly impossible.

"No, with my current information and abilities, it’s indeed impossible to accomplish this. But with its help, it would be completely different,” he reflected.

Sitting next to the hospital bed, Yang Jian suddenly took out a gold box from the body bag he carried with him.

The locked box was sealed shut by welding because of certain circumstances.

But Yang Jian just had to give it a light tug to open it. With his strength, the box could be forcibly opened.

A piece of dark-brown, ancient-looking material that resembled a folded sheepskin scroll appeared before him.

Unfolded, it looked like an old piece of paper.

However, the material of the paper was human skin, which felt somewhat chilly to hold and bore blotches that exuded an ominous aura.

This was People Skin Paper.

Ever since the Hungry Ghost incident in Dachang City, Yang Jian hadn’t used this thing much. It was too eerie, and he felt he couldn’t control it, nor did he want to be led by the nose by it. So, it had been kept in storage. But given the significance of the event in Z city, which wasn’t just a simple A-level supernatural occurrence, he decided to bring it with him.

"My name is Yang Jian. When you see this sentence, I am already dead On the People Skin Paper, a line of black text emerged like a watermark.

But that was all, just that one sentence—the rest was omitted as if it was concealing information or refusing to reveal more.

"Tell me, how can we save Tong Qian?” Yang Jian asked directly, foregoing any pleasantries.

This was not their first encounter.

The writing on the human skin paper began to fade gradually, even the first sentence disappeared, then it settled into a prolonged silence.

"Refusing to reveal information to me? Or have you realized you can no longer deceive me and thus changed your attitude towards me?”

Yang Jian’s gaze was icy, “If that is the case, then you are of no value to me. Do you think I will keep something of no value around? Last time I could put you ten thousand meters underground, I can do the same now, and this time, I won’t be retrieving you.”

He opened with a threat, leaving no room to negotiate.

Dealing with such a strange entity required no mercy.

Zhao Kaiming’s fate was a stark reminder to Yang Jian, who did not wish to follow the same path.

The silent human skin paper seemed to compromise once again, perhaps sensing a different attitude in Yang Jian this time.

Previously it was a bluff, but now Yang Jian truly considered discarding the thing for he still had the Ghost Cabinet as a backup.

What Yang Jian didn’t know was that the existence of the Ghost Cabinet had also been revealed to him by the human skin paper.

No one knew what that implied.

Gradually, black characters appeared again on the human skin paper, as if someone were writing with invisible ink that had been there all along, just emerging at this moment.

On that day, I arrived in Z City with worries about a certain ghost, albeit unwillingly. I knew Zhao Lei posed a potential grave threat.”

"If I remember correctly, the supernatural event in Z City was called the Human Head Balloon incident, a terrifying curse that spared no one it touched. Yet, what concerned me at that moment was not this, but Tong Qian’s situation.”

"Ghost Face Tong Qian was attacked in Caesars Hotel, seemingly stripped of her ghost face, losing her memory, and became vegetative.”

"I should have thought of a way to save her, but then I realized it was not going to be easy. Saving Tong Qian meant finding the newspaper that belonged to her, that cursed paper that took away her memory. Perhaps overlaying it on her face again might awaken her.”

"I didn’t succeed at the time, as the newspaper was still in Caesars Hotel, still by the side of that ghost. It meant risking another venture into the hotel to search for the item, which was not a wise choice because I later realized that there was something even more terrifying than that ghost in the hotel.”

"I must not rouse it

The message covered the entire human skin paper and left no room for more writing, thus abruptly ended there.

Though there was some irrelevant chatter, two crucial pieces of information were revealed on the human skin paper: the newspaper that stole Tong Qian’s memory and an unknown ghost presence in Caesars Hotel.

"To retrieve Tong Qian’s memory, find that newspaper and cover her face with it again?” Yang Jian murmured to himself.

This was almost in line with his deduction.

However, the challenge remained: how to ascertain that Tong Qian’s memory was still intact and not altered.

Yang Jian raised this issue.

The human skin paper cooperated this time, dissipating the original writing and new characters emerged: At that time I wasn’t sure if Tong Qian’s memory had been modified by the ghost. If that was the case, the person waking up after retrieving the memory for her wouldn’t be Tong Qian, but an unknown personality controlled by the ghost, which is not what I wanted.”

"To solve this problem, I had to find the source of that ghost, contain it, and then forcibly modify Tong Qian’s memory according to my wish. But this was risky

The message stopped there.

"So after all this talk, we’re back to square one? I still need to deal with that ghost first,” Yang Jian felt as though he had circled back despite having an answer.

It seemed like he had an answer, when he actually didn’t.

He wanted to wake Tong Qian and gather intelligence to confront that ghost, yet to save Tong Qian, the ghost must be dealt with first, rendering the intelligence inconsequential.

The method suggested by the human skin paper turned out to be a pointless option.

"Onerous thing,” Yang Jian squinted at the human skin paper in his hand.

Indeed, interacting with this entity was an intellectual battle, not something just anyone could handle.

Otherwise, Yang Jian wouldn’t have entrusted it to Zhang Wei, asking him to pass it to Wang Xiaoming after his own death by hanging in front of the Ghost Mirror.

Among those Yang Jian had met, only Wang Xiaoming qualified to deal with the human skin paper, as anyone else would assuredly be hoodwinked to death by it.

Yet as he was deep in thought, the old writing on the skin paper vanished, and new characters surfaced.

This proactive revelation of information was very rare.

But upon seeing the new information, Yang Jian’s face showed shock, and he abruptly stood up.

Tong Qian’s situation made me realize that at that time, I was perfectly positioned to command two Ghost Faces. The conditions were somewhat stringent, but if successful, I would gain a powerful subordinate. Tong Qian, having lost her memory, was qualified to control two Ghost Faces. Once she succeeded, I could ensure her loyalty by altering her memory to my advantage.”

"It all depended on whether I could contain that ghost.”

…

The following line contained a special method.

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