I Am Your Natural Enemy

Chapter 7 - 7 Deviation

Lying on the hospital bed, Wen Yan stared expressionlessly at the little table at the end of the bed, where three three-inch-tall little people were dancing cheerfully.

As they danced, one of the little people pulled from the side, and another little person appeared out of thin air. Four little people held hands and continued to dance.

Wen Yan stared at the newly appeared little person.

”I’m your dad.”

The little person ignored him and kept dancing. Wen Yan thought to himself, not responding to me—must be another hallucination.

The little nurse nearby was changing Wen Yan’s IV with a new bottle. She looked totally unfazed, as if she’d seen it all before. Compared to others, Wen Yan’s symptoms were already very mild.

Next to Wen Yan, He Jian and Cai Qidong were each lying on their own hospital bed, also getting IVs.

When the nurse left and closed the door, Cai Qidong immediately sighed heavily, face full of bad luck.

”I really shouldn’t have eaten with you. I just knew you were so unlucky, you’d drag me down too.”

”You’re blaming me for this? Have they figured it out yet? What’s going on?” He Jian slapped his thigh and retorted loudly, though his tone betrayed a hint of guilt.

”They’re investigating already. What can be confirmed now is that the old chef definitely didn’t try to poison us on purpose. If he wanted to, he could’ve just thrown in some toxic mushrooms and called it a day.”

”Then what’s the deal?”

”The folks here are basically certain that he really thought his cooking was fine.

Something must have influenced him.

But our people have tested him, and found no trace of him being under any influence.

And everything in the restaurant checks out too, nothing out of the ordinary.”

As they were talking, Cai Qidong’s phone rang. After answering the call, his brows furrowed tightly.

A few minutes later.

”Something’s happened. Now it’s fully confirmed, our poisoning was an accident—nobody was targeting us.”

”What happened?” He Jian immediately sat up.

”So far, in the vicinity of three provinces, there have already been poisoning incidents in six Yunnan cuisine restaurants, and it’s not just isolated cases.

The chefs are all old hands with at least twenty years of experience cooking mushrooms, and none of them think they made mistakes. We also didn’t find any evidence of them being influenced by anything.

But they all have this seriously warped sense of what’s right.

Have them cook again, and they still don’t get rid of all the toxins.

The facts are right in front of them—have them reread the guidelines, adjust, cook again, and then they can use their experience to tweak it and make a non-toxic one instantly.

Even after the fact, when they know that’s the right way, they still get stuck, doubting themselves, still thinking their previous cooking method is... the real deal.”

Wen Yan listened from the side, and the more he heard, the more familiar it felt.

This pattern of losing something but still being able to fix it felt just like that chubby chef from Tianfu Restaurant.

That Tianfu place, Wen Yan went twice more. The boss, seeing the cash, had the chef cook it Wen Yan’s way once. The next time he visited, there was a new ”chili oil” version of boiled beef on the menu for customers to choose from.

The more Wen Yan thought about it, the more it seemed like the Soul Devouring Beast.

Before, he’d thought if the Soul Devouring Beast only ate the ”soul” of delicious food and didn’t eat people’s souls, he could totally accept that.

But now, it seemed even just devouring the ”soul” of food could still cause serious issues.

Good thing this time the poisoning wasn’t severe, and they hadn’t eaten anything like pufferfish.

Wen Yan pondered how to tell Cai Qidong what he knew in the most appropriate way.

Cai Qidong was the head of the Scorching Sun Department in this commandery. According to the director, Scorching Sun Department handles all anomalies—like that time they encountered a zombie apparition in Virtue City Funeral Home, which was under their jurisdiction.

And the Virtue City Funeral Home, besides regular business, also helps the Scorching Sun Department handle things that need to be incinerated due to abnormality.

Including, but not limited to, all kinds of physical corpses, items that can be burned, and sealing artifacts with non-physical anomalies inside, etc.

But figuring out how to say it was a pain.

He didn’t want to say ”I had a dream about a Soul Devouring Beast,” but he also didn’t want innocent people dying because he kept things to himself.

As he was mulling it over, Cai Qidong looked at Wen Yan, who had his brows furrowed tight.

”Wen Yan, what do you think?”

”Ah...” Wen Yan looked up at Cai Qidong. In his vision, Cai Qidong’s face was lit by neon rainbow lights, and two little people were squatting on his forehead, pooping rainbow-colored turds.

Wen Yan could hardly bear to look; his face looked constipated.

Cai Qidong didn’t ask what hallucination Wen Yan was seeing, but kept pressing.

”What do you think this situation might be? Just say whatever’s on your mind—more ideas are better, no right or wrong here.”

Wen Yan looked at the director, who nodded toward the end of the bed.

”Xiao Wen, just say what you’re thinking. The way young people see things is definitely different from us old guys.”

”I feel... like it’s lost its soul.”

”???” The middle-aged director and Cai Qidong both looked at him with a bunch of question marks over their heads.

”Like, you know, the way young people talk. For example, there’s this song that blew up online recently—the singer’s voice cracks, but the cracks are the soul of the song. Hard to explain in detail, it’s just a vibe.”

Cai Qidong still didn’t totally get it, but when he saw He Jian staring thoughtfully at the end of the bed, dead serious, he nodded and made a note of Wen Yan’s idea.

That night, after confirming the issue wasn’t too serious, Cai Qidong was discharged and left—tons of things waiting for him.

Back at headquarters, Cai Qidong sat in his office, coordinating work. Tonight’s news would definitely cover mushroom poisoning, along with safe cooking methods.

The whole commandery would also get text alerts, and in the morning, the relevant departments would do in-person inspections.

After a round of meetings, Cai Qidong looked at his schedule—things to handle and to follow up on.

Top priority was the Soul Devouring Beast.

Below that was a detailed note about the tip they got from wondrous items at the time.

Trait one: Devouring, devours souls.

Cai Qidong looked at this line and waved over his new secretary.

”Xiao Song, what do people online mean when they talk about ’soul’?”

After relaying Wen Yan’s explanation, the younger secretary instantly got it, pulled up a video for him—it was a band, and sure enough, the singer’s voice cracked.

But the bullet comments kept saying, ”Cracked vocals are the soul.”

Cai Qidong finally understood—for the chorus, to really show that unyielding spirit, the cracked voice wasn’t a flaw but the exact finishing touch it needed.

He looked at the first page of the documents on his desk, tapping lightly on the words ”soul.”

”Xiao Song, do you think this soul... might not be the same one we think of?”

”Minister, you mean...” The secretary was shocked, but linking it to what Cai Qidong just said, he got it.

Cai Qidong’s face grew dark, as if talking to himself.

”The Soul Devouring Beast has definitely descended. We absolutely can’t afford to get complacent.

We haven’t found it yet, and nothing unusual has surfaced—so it’s only possible we haven’t noticed the anomalies yet.

We’re not like those Southern Hemisphere idiots who got cocky back in the day, and still, we haven’t found any trace—must mean our direction is wrong.

No matter what, any possible lead can’t be brushed aside.

Pass the word—meeting. All the young folks in the department must attend, no absences.”

Half an hour later, Cai Qidong still hadn’t left the conference room; he kept his IV going and video conferenced with HQ.

When the others arrived and saw this scene, no one dared complain.

Cai Qidong looked solemn and tapped his fingers on the table.

”You all know what my mission here is. I’ve already shamelessly asked for help from other departments, and if needed, we’ll get support.

Right now, look at the data in front of you. We’re going to discuss one question.

Is our idea of ’soul’ the same as the one mentioned in the tip?

Speak freely, whatever comes to mind.”

After an hour, with everyone’s minds unlocked, they re-examined the clue, and a bunch of new theories and directions came up as ideas collided.

When the meeting ended, Cai Qidong knocked on the table.

”Based on today’s planned actions, expand the scope—start by investigating other chefs to see if any have shown symptoms like the ones we saw today.

As for the other lines of inquiry, assign staff to follow up in parallel. If anything suspicious pops up, report immediately.”