The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

The evening wind howled, and icy rain pounded against the windows.

They have been discussing this matter for a long time.

Lin Zheng rubbed his temples wearily, the rustling of pages turning and Evelyn's calm analysis coming through the receiver.

On the screen, Arthur Morgan's weathered face appeared somewhat blurry. The glass in his hand reflected the dim light of the room, and the swaying ice cubes tapped lightly against the glass, making a dull sound.

"Kid, Finch is a cunning old fox, he's got a trick up his sleeve."

Arthur's voice, hoarse from a hangover, came through the radio waves.

He paused for a moment, seemingly considering his words.

"I just used some old connections and went through some files that have been gathering dust for many years."

"More than a decade ago, this guy had close ties with a biotechnology company called 'Gene Weaving'."

"'Gene Weaving', that name doesn't sound like a place for doing good."

He spat, his voice filled with obvious disgust.

"The company was later suddenly seized by the FBI, its top executives mysteriously disappeared, and all project documents were classified as top secret, leaving no trace."

"Back then, one of the missing persons cases I was in charge of was vaguely related to that company."

Arthur sighed, his gaze piercing through the screen and landing on Lin Zheng's face.

"My men can only dig this far. If they go any deeper, they'll hit an invisible wall, and all the information will be washed away."

His words conveyed a deep sense of helplessness.

"Do you understand what I mean? These guys have been working underground for years and are far more dangerous than they appear on the surface."

On the other side, Evelyn Reed wore black-rimmed glasses, had short, neat brown hair, and her eyes were focused yet slightly melancholic.

"Arthur is right."

Her fingertips drew circles lightly in the air.

"The project title itself, 'Emotional-Intellectual Dynamics in Urban Environments,' has an eerie feel to it."

"I reviewed existing psychology and neuroscience literature, and there is currently no publicly available research that has achieved quantitative and dynamic analysis of 'emotion' and 'reason'."

"Not to mention Professor Finch's so-called 'stripping of reason,' which is by no means a great invention for the 'mental health of urban residents.'"

Evelyn adjusted her glasses, her voice becoming more serious.

"Based on several cases of unnatural death I've recently handled, the victims all exhibited symptoms of extreme mental disorder and mental breakdown before their deaths."

"If my speculation is correct, this 'emotion-rationality dynamics' is likely studying how to precisely stimulate, extract, and even harvest human emotions and reason."

Her gaze drifted across the screen, traversing time and space, and she saw a chilling future.

"This is no longer a simple academic study, but a kind of overdraft and exploitation of the soul."

Evelyn's breathing became rapid, and she seemed to feel a chill run down her spine from her own deductions.

"The problem is that these are all just my theoretical deductions, and there is no direct physical evidence to prove that Professor Finch actually did these things."

Arthur added at the opportune moment, shaking his head with a wry smile, indicating that all he could dig up were these vague connections, while Evelyn frowned, muttering about the terrifying nature of the theory.

Lin Zheng looked at the two faces on the screen, their worry and helplessness enveloping his heart.

His anxiety spread like wildfire, and these vague speculations and indirect connections were simply no match for Professor Finch's hypocritical yet powerful presence.

He suddenly remembered the things he had extracted from Josh Vick earlier; he had been so busy with Gundam's inventory that he had almost forgotten about them.

He took a deep breath to calm himself, raised his trembling left hand, and carefully took out two items from his inner pocket.

In front of the screen, he gently unfolded his hand, revealing a dark, glowing crystal and a small piece of microfiber entangled with blood vessels in his palm.

Both of these items were taken from Josh Vick's remains.

"This one is a 'crystallized nerve sample'."

When Evelyn's gaze fell on the crystal that emitted a faint, eerie light, her pupils contracted sharply.

She gasped sharply; through the video, Lin Zheng could almost hear her rapid, uncontrollable breathing.

Upon seeing the two pieces of evidence, Arthur paused in his drink, his weariness instantly replaced by vigilance and seriousness. He straightened up abruptly, his eyes fixed on the screen, without uttering a word.

The atmosphere froze instantly, so heavy it felt like it could crush everything.

Lin Zheng's voice was deep and firm. He raised his right hand and carefully pointed at the crystal with his index finger.

"It was found in Josh Vick's left temporal lobe, right next to the memory center."

He flipped the crystal over, allowing its different facets to display a faint, dim sheen in front of the camera.

"Look again, the internal structure is like countless tiny nerve fibers that have been forcibly compressed and twisted, and finally crystallized."

His finger moved to another piece of evidence, a tiny, blood-streaked fiber that appeared grotesque and twisted when magnified.

"This section is about 'micro-implants'."

"It runs through Josh Vic's entire spine, from the cerebral cortex all the way to the nerve endings in the spinal cord."

Lin Zheng displayed the two pieces of evidence side by side. They seemed so out of place in the picture, yet they were cruelly real.

"When I dissected Josh, I read his fragmented dreams."

Lin Zheng raised his head and looked directly at the shocked faces of Arthur and Evelyn on the screen.

"These 'implants' and 'neural samples' are evidence of Professor Finch's 'sensory stripping' experiment on Josh."

"Josh's mind was systematically guided and stimulated, and then a certain energy, perhaps reason, was forcibly extracted from his memories and emotions, which eventually condensed into this crystal."

Lin Zheng's words echoed in the quiet room.

"This is not caused by any known disease or mental disorder."

"This is a deliberate, purposeful, and profound intervention and stripping away of human reason."

Evelyn's breathing became more rapid, her fingertips trembling as she pointed at the evidence on the screen, her voice hoarse and incoherent.

"In other words, they are not limited to meat processing plants; they are trying to create a new process that will further improve efficiency."

Arthur's throat bobbed, and the words were squeezed out from between his teeth.

"A more 'elegant' way of fucking cannibalizing people!"