Hunter of Mysterious Creature

Chapter 854 - 95: Appeal

If it’s the former, wouldn’t that be equivalent to a disguised kind of "wishing fulfillment"?

And it’s the kind of wishing fulfillment that doesn’t require Sun Hang to pay a price.

As for the side effects of this thing, from the memory information of this gambling dog, it mainly affects people’s mental emotions—but with Xue Yue around, this side effect is practically nonexistent.

"Is it really possible to have such a good thing?" Sun Hang muttered softly.

Sun Hang looked at Candle Dragon, scrutinizing him from head to toe until Candle Dragon felt a bit uneasy, then Sun Hang asked, "What is the thing you want the most? Think carefully before telling me, follow your heart’s truest desire."

"The thing I want the most..." Candle Dragon was slightly taken aback, "There are so many... but if I were to rank them one by one... honestly, it’s hard to rank."

"Why?"

"In different environments, under different emotions, people’s desires also change," Candle Dragon said, "For example, a person crossing a desert about to die of thirst would probably only think of a clean glass of ice water, and nothing else. As the old saying goes, ’When one’s belly is full, one’s mind turns to lustful thoughts,’ and here lust can represent many things: sex, status, power, fame, wealth... but no matter what kind of desire, it only arises from a person’s heart after the basic conditions for survival are met..."

"Even during different periods, as social experience, cognition, and ways of thinking change, people’s desires change too." Candle Dragon shook his head with a wry smile, "Take an ordinary little boy for example, when he’s young, his dream might be to become a special forces soldier, scientist, astronaut... and when he reaches adolescence, he might crave a passionate love or getting into his dream college; and after the boy grows up, after facing the harsh realities of society, his desires might shift from those grand ideals to the simplest two words—’make money’."

"So, you can’t even determine what you want most now?" Sun Hang asked.

"I can’t determine, but I can try to induce my thinking, to discard other desires as much as possible, artificially creating a ’most wanted thing’." Candle Dragon said, "But I’m not sure if this method can fool the mysterious creature below."

"The desire you plan to artificially create is..."

"The other half of the Sphinx’s brain," Candle Dragon said seriously.

...

...

The three of them continued to walk deeper along the well path. Due to the memories of that gambler Hunter, the entire well path gave Sun Hang a faintly familiar feeling, but within that familiarity, there was also a slight touch of strangeness.

The well path seemed to have undergone some subtle changes, with slight discrepancies from the impression in memory.

But this was normal, after all, it’s been more than a year since the time in memory, and it’s natural for some subtle changes to occur in the well path during this year—no changes at all would be abnormal.

After walking a little further, Sun Hang stopped and went to the wall—the "prohibited" symbol painted with a paint marker on the wall was still there, but compared to its image in memory, its color had dulled significantly, and even a small part had cracked and flaked off, giving it a "weathered" look.

"What’s this?" Candle Dragon also noticed the symbol on the wall and asked out loud.

"It was left by the Hunters who explored the well path before," Sun Hang said.

"Judging by the traces, this symbol shouldn’t be more than five years old... no, two years," Candle Dragon said, "Paint marker doesn’t adhere well to this type of rock surface, if it exceeded five years, this symbol should have completely peeled off, it would be impossible for us to find it."

"Your judgment is very accurate." Sun Hang nodded.

"Was it left by that Hunter just now?"

"No, it was from the previous group. The mission that Hunter received was to come and rescue the Hunters who left this symbol..."

"A rescue mission, I think I remember it," Candle Dragon immediately opened his phone. A few seconds later, he found a Hunter file marked as "MIA" status.

"Qi Delie, infected by a meme from the mysterious creature ’Emerald Eye’, he worked for the Luojing Mysterious Creature Research Institute for six years, then applied to resign after meeting conditions, becoming a Free Hunter, active in the Yumen Dragon City area. He had a gambling habit and accrued a considerable amount of debt. In November 4718, he took on a rescue mission located in Nanhua Town, and ended up missing during the mission... This Qi Delie, is probably the infected individual you just shot in the head, right?"

"Yeah, surnamed Qi, still a debt-ridden gambler, so it should be him." Sun Hang nodded.

"Five people went missing during that operation, besides Qi Delie, there was also a female Free Hunter codenamed ’Blade Whip’, and three mercenaries who had experience serving in the Dragon City Defense Army. Their mission was to search the mine in Nanhua Town for another team that went missing four days earlier. These two groups are the most recent in terms of documented missing persons."

"After Qi Delie and the others disappeared in the sinkhole, didn’t their teammates go down to look for them?" Sun Hang was puzzled, "That rescue team must have been more than just those five people, right?"

"Less than twenty minutes after they entered the mine, a small-scale deadly sandstorm hit Nanhua Town. Only two survivors who stayed above ground made it back to Dragon City alive," Candle Dragon said, "After that, for some unknown reason, the employer suddenly canceled the rescue mission, and no one has been to Nanhua Town since."