Chapter 19: Chapter 19 - Gods
Middendorffi said he was "checking on" the doctor, and he did.
He told the doctor, "Don't discuss Creato's second personality with anyone else."
The doctor looks puzzled: "I don't divulge patient information lightly."
Middendorffi doesn't explain more to him and leaves again with Eli and Henry. Seeing that this trip came and went in a hurry, Henry joked in the car, "Bear, you don't want to see your psychiatrist tomorrow; look at him and call him 'seen. '"
"Yeah." Middendorffi responded casually, then asked, "Got a pen and paper?"
"Yes." Henry took advantage of the red light and searched the passenger drawer for a notebook and a pen, handing them to the back seat, "What for?"
"Jotting down some stuff."
I say, jotting down, but in reality, Middendorffi presses out the water-based pen and begins to put it down, swish, swish, swish quickly. Vehicle travelling is inevitably a little bumpy, but Middendorffi is unaffected, without hesitation or correction. Eli swept a glance, a silent smile, "powerful."
Middendorffi stopped her strokes and looked at him, a little puzzled, "It's, like, awesome?"
"Well." Eli said, "Not everyone can draw that well."
His wording had some meaning, but neither of the other two in the car got it, and Middendorffi was still thinking, "Not everyone ..."
Eli was going to compliment him, which went south.
"You draw, Bear?" said Henry, even more confused, "Lend me a look."
Middendorffi then lifted his book and reached for the front seat.
Henry took the time to glance at it, "Drink, that's pretty cool. It hasn't been drawn much yet, but the features are obvious." He mulled it over as he spoke, "I even thought it seemed a little familiar. I didn't think much of it for a while; maybe if you drew more detail, I'd think of it."
Middendorffi said, "I'll finish drawing it on the way then."
"OK, you don't want to get seasick ..."
Henry didn't realise that if he'd seen Creato's psychiatrist's drawings, he'd have realised how similar Middendorffi's words were to the 'image of Suzanne' that the doctor had made with his digital software.
***
Back at the Collector, Lupin and the three have a little case progress meeting.
Mostly, they listen to Middendorffi's description of the thing inside Creato.
What Suzanne had been rambling on about before, Middendorffi had once again reduced to a few words: "She's just something that's attached to a human being. The more details a human knows about her, and the more emotionally attached they are to her, the more obvious her presence becomes to that person. When her presence is obvious enough, she may be able to influence the possessed person. She claims to be the 'god' of that Underworld Revelation Society and uses it to spread her name and image."
"Huh? That's all there is to it?" Henry said, "Mr Jones, anything to add?"
"Not really." Eli said, "Bear was precise and essential."
Lupin said, "Did she confess all this to you?"
"No." Middendorffi thought momentarily, "But that's what it means."
Eli added, "She's been attempting to deceive, there's been a lot of bullshit, but Bear didn't fall for her."
"How's that for sounding pretty smart? Didn't Bear say she was pretty stupid before?" Henry asked, "Since you guys say the deeper you know about this stuff, the more susceptible you are to those human murders. Did she have anything to do with them?"
"Her nature is to spread and not be hostile to other hosts." Middendorffi thought momentarily, "She emphasised that it wasn't her out when those things happened. I'm not sure that's a lie."
"Indeed. Even if it wasn't that burrowed out and did direct harm, it could have let Creator do it and then pretended it didn't know anything about it." Henry said, "In which case, anyone infected by it would be a hidden risk."
"She shouldn't be that powerful." Middendorffi responded objectively, "I went to see Creato's psychiatrist, and that doctor's state is nowhere near as severe as Creato's."
"Even if there were only one Creator, it would be a big mess by now." Henry said, "Also, you know so much about it, so what's your situation now?"
Middendorffi was about to answer that previous question, and when he heard the topic turn to himself, he fell silent.
Henry, of course, then thought there was something fishy going on and added, "What are you hesitating about? Just be honest; even if you run into trouble due to negligence, wouldn't we still not help you?"
"Is that comforting or scary?" Lupin spat at him and looked at Bear and Jones, "But the truth is, if you guys are also in a serious situation, you must speak. We're not asking you to live or die on your own."
"I'm fine, it can't touch me." Eli finally spoke up, "Bear, it'll be fine too. That thing mainly affects the mind; it can't do any real damage directly to a person."
"Bear, you're the one whose memory hasn't fully returned." Lupin looked to Middendorffi, "Affecting the mind is no small thing for you."
Middendorffi remembers a Suzanne quote and returns, "She said she doesn't care to respond to believers who don't thirst for her in their hearts, and she won't respond to me if I don't thirst for her."
"And you reason with a weird thing!" Henry tsked, "Maybe it's lying to you guys again?"
Eli said, "That's just her boasting. You can think of this 'thirst' and 'call' as a bond, and if that bond isn't strong, she can't tie or hold onto this human. She will not disappear, but she cannot be strong either."
"Right, right." Middendorffi nodded frequently, "That's it. The human does not actively seek her out, and she cannot actively approach."
"So that's why it uses the Church, to prompt humans to 'call out' to it?" Henry figured that out in a flash, "So what happened when you guys came out and said it couldn't be solved?"
"It's that it can't be solved for now." Middendorffi corrected him again, "It appears to extend from the human brain patch and draws its energy from there. You can think of it as a ... thought energy; we can't, I mean, I don't know, don't know how to rip the link from the mind."
Eli followed him, "I can't think of any way to cut it off at the moment either."
Henry frowned, "Is there nothing we can do with it ..."
The four were silent for a moment; Eli glanced at Middendorffi to make sure he wasn't about to speak and spoke again, "Maybe there is."
The other three looked at him.
"Go ask the core members of the Underworld Revelation Society who are still alive how that thing appeared." Eli said, "Knowing its source might tell us its weakness."
Middendorffi blinked once and seemed to follow his thought, "Hmm. When I asked her where she came from, she was vague or didn't confess. But she revealed two things for sure: Creato was upgraded from a peripheral member to a core member in half a year because she was 'possessed' by her. Two is that everyone in the Underworld Demonstration Society knows about her, and the more core the members know about her in more detail."
"According to this, it's most appropriate to ask the Creator. But according to his previous attitude, it won't work." Henry said, "Fine. The police will investigate this Underworld Revelation Society anyway, so if they can ask where that thing came from, let's try to gather as much information as possible."
Middendorffi said, "Better yet, let's see it ourselves."
"Well, I'll ask along." Henry responded smoothly, then remembered something, "By the way, have you finished the portrait you drew in the car? Didn't you say you wanted to record something, so you painted it?"
"Finished painting." Middendorffi took the book next to him and flipped it open. Henry took this moment to turn his head and said to Lupin, "I've looked at it, and I always feel like I've seen that portrait somewhere before, but I can't think of it for a while ..."
I said that Middendorffi had already pushed the page with the portrait drawn in front of the two.
It was a female portrait with long dark hair, deep eyes, and gentle eyes.
"Crap, you're still really good at drawing!" Henry was stunned for a moment, forgetting to think about why this portrait looked familiar, "You were so godlike in that previous frame; this finished drawing after adding 'billions' of dots of detail, it's almost like you're catching up to manual printing!"
"Is that, like, an exaggeration?" Middendorffi said, "Actually, I'm all about random brushstrokes; I don't know much about painting strokes ..."
"Hey, I don't know much about drawing, but you draw quite clearly. And what's with the brush strokes when you're drawing with water brushes ..." Henry laughed, then looked at Lupin, "Why aren't you saying anything? See anything?"
Lupin looked like he had just returned to his senses and twisted his head back to him, "I think she resembles a person."
"Oh? Maybe the one you're thinking of is the one I think she looks like." Henry said, "But I can't remember where I've seen her before, so just say it."
Lupin did not speak directly but asked Middendorffi, "Why did you draw her? Who is she? Where did you see her?"
"Have you all seen her?" Middendorffi, also taking a rare tone of surprise, asked the same rhetorical question, "Who is this?"
Henry was speechless, "Will you two stop with the riddles? Say the answer, okay?"
"You forgot yourself, and you still have the nerve to rush me?" Lupin glanced at him and said, in a bad mood, "Did you take a good look at the photo I showed you just a few days ago? Doesn't this look exactly like Deng Wenwen!"
Henry was stunned momentarily, then suddenly realised, "Oh right, right! I told you it looked familiar; there was a photo of Deng Wenwen's ID in the information the police showed us!"
"Wenwen Deng? The victim of the missing and dumped body case?" Middendorffi knew about the case but relied on Lupin and Henry's word of mouth and had not seen the material. Therefore, now that the two said that the portrait was "Deng Wenwen", Middendorffi could not help but scrutinise the picture for a while.
Henry asked him: "Bear, what are you doing with her?"
Middendorffi says, "I'm not drawing Wenwen Deng."
Henry: "Huh? Then who is it?"
Middendorffi: "On Creato, that thing."
Henry: "... Huh?!"
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