Chapter 55 Butterfly: [2W Nutrient Solution Bonus Chapter]

Chapter 55 Butterfly: "2W Nutrient Solution Extra Chapter"

This was the fourth day after the press conference, and several unexpected guests arrived at Everly's home.

"Hello, Mr. John Breton. We are investigators from the Federal Special Affairs Investigation Bureau (UII). My name is Gregory, and this is my colleague Remia." A low-key black car stopped at the gas station, and from it stepped a tall, impeccably dressed handsome man in a suit, along with a young woman wearing a women's suit with her jacket hem flipped out, looking a bit disheveled and careless.

These two were clearly not here to refuel. After getting out of the car, they ignored the fierce dog Buddy eyeing them menacingly from behind the fence, made a beeline for Old John, pulled out their credentials, and struck up a conversation with the wary old man.

It happened to be Sunday, and Everly had the day off at home.

Hearing the commotion downstairs, she walked to the balcony, carefully stepping around the animal traps on the ground, gripped the railing and peered down below. The dark-haired young woman happened to look up at that moment. The two exchanged a brief glance, and the woman flashed Everly a naive, slightly goofy smile.

Who were they, and what did they want...

Everly's confusion was soon resolved.

Old John cautiously checked their credentials and invited them inside. After a brief conversation, a call came from downstairs: "Everly, come down for a moment."

It turned out they were there to see her.

After a brief self-introduction, the suit-clad man named Gregory cut straight to the chase: "Hello, Miss Everly. We're here to reopen the investigation into the 'Megan Clinic' case in Mikano City three years ago. According to the case files, you were a witness to the events and the first to notice something was wrong, so we've come to you first."

At the mention of "Megan Clinic," Everly's heart stirred.

Mikano was a completely unremarkable small city, and a case from three years ago shouldn't have drawn the attention of so-called UII investigators unless there was something unusual about the case—like a connection to the nationwide wave of suicides currently sweeping the country.

"Go ahead and ask. My grandfather and I were really done wrong by that clinic, and we hope the mastermind behind it is caught as soon as possible." Everly was unusually cooperative.

"Alright, first, could you describe your experience?" The female investigator Remia opened her notebook and asked first.

"Of course. At the time, because a canine tooth on my upper left side had been slow to come in, I went to the dental clinic..."

What happened at Megan Clinic was like a thorn stuck in Everly's heart. Even after three years, everything was still vivid in her mind. Everly recounted the entire incident in exhaustive detail, even mentioning where the dried toad came from, but she held back one thing—her ability to sense danger. Since the lie was well told, the investigators didn't catch on.

Their main focus was on the "promotional video" shown at the clinic and the tooth Everly had pulled from her gum.

Gregory asked Everly to recount the content of the video again, down to every single frame, the more detailed the better, while Remia then asked Everly for the tooth and held it in her hand, closing her eyes.

Seeing Remia take that familiar pose, Everly immediately concluded that she was a Medium.

Sure enough, roughly ten minutes later, Remia opened her eyes, drenched in sweat and panting heavily, and gave Gregory a discreet nod.

"Miss Everly, and Mr. John, we'd like to take this tooth as evidence. Is that alright?"

Everly nodded: "Of course. We don't have any use for it anyway."

Old John didn't object either.

The two investigators then asked a few additional questions, mainly about Megan Clinic, but since Old John and Everly had only been there once, there wasn't much they could answer.

"Thank you both for your cooperation. If we need anything else, we'll be in touch."

With the conversation over, Gregory was the first to stand up and shake hands with Old John and Everly.

The female investigator was a beat slower, then stood up as well. When it came time for her to shake Everly's hand, as their hands—one large, one small—touched, Everly was still wondering why Remia's hand was so cold, but the woman in front of her suddenly went rigid as if she'd been electrocuted. Her gaze at Everly lost focus, staring blankly into space, as if something invisible had seized her mind.

"Thump." Due to the sudden lapse, the notebook in Remia's hand slipped and hit the coffee table. Several sheets tucked inside slipped out and fanned out across the table.

Everly instinctively looked down and saw several photos and a report.

The photos, though shot at different times and from different angles, all had the same subject. The person in the photos had sunny golden hair and melancholy, translucent green eyes. She lay still on an autopsy table, even though her entire body had the bluish-white pallor of a corpse, her body below the neck cut open and held apart with instruments, a jumble of red and white. Yet even so, the corpse was still hauntingly beautiful, making it impossible to look away from her—Wasn't this the singer Seradia who'd been plastered all over the news lately?!

Those were actually Seradia's autopsy photos!

Everly forced herself to tear her gaze away and turned to the report. Matching the photos, it was an autopsy report.

[...]

[...May 30, 09:12:01, sampled cells from the esophageal lining, found that the number of cancerous cells had further decreased, approaching zero...]

[...June 1... all cancerous cells had disappeared... brainstem reflexes appeared, faint brain activity detected...]

[...June 2, brain activity became more frequent, and damage to the hindbrain and organs began self-repairing... incredible, this corpse is reviving...]

Before she could finish reading through the report, a hand suddenly shot in from the side and quickly gathered up the scattered photos and papers. Everly looked up to meet Gregory's stern expression: "Sorry, Remia's new here. She spaced out a bit."

"Ah, no problem." Everly shook her head and pulled her hand back from Remia's palm.

She'd been so busy sneaking a peek at the report that she almost forgot—mediums could see fragments of a person's experiences through physical contact (Everly had tested this; it only worked for this lifetime, not past lives). Although Everly was aboveboard and had nothing to hide, having her privacy seen by someone else wasn't exactly pleasant.

Sure enough, as soon as she withdrew her hand, like a machine suddenly losing power, Remia shuddered and her vacant gaze snapped back to clarity.

"Sorry... sorry, I'm always so clumsy." She apologized hastily, and as she looked up, she cast a subtle glance at Everly.

What had that person seen from her?

Everly didn't know.

But that night, she dreamed of her banshee mother for the first time in a while—dreamed of her growing a fish tail and swimming freely with Lamia in the vast ocean, their laughter echoing everywhere...

When she woke, Everly took out the still-dim eyeball and toyed with it in her fingers for a long time.

...

The investigators left after investigating in Mikano for a while.

The case was highly classified, so Everly couldn't learn what they had found. However, a week after the investigators left, a rumor began circulating online claiming that Seradia wasn't dead at all—she had been imprisoned by the government.

The rumor originated from a private forum called "Butterfly Cemetery," whose members were all die-hard Seradia fans. Most of them had already turned into boxes by now, and the remaining ones loosely rallied around the forum's 2nd administrator (the 1st administrator was also dead).

It was that 2nd administrator who claimed Seradia wasn't dead. He asserted with conviction that Seradia, feeling everyone's love for her, had returned from the underworld and become an immortal newborn deity. But this deity, having just been born, was still very weak and needed more faith and love from her followers. The American government, however, had forcibly severed her connection to her followers—namely, the Twitter video Seradia had posted—imprisoning her and subjecting her to countless cruel experiments.

The 2nd administrator called on all believers to rise up and reclaim the goddess from the American government.

To outsiders unaware of the situation, such words sounded no different from the ravings of a madman in an asylum—the 2nd administrator must have been too lost in fantasy and lost his mind. But Everly had seen the investigators' documents. The autopsy records showed that the cancer cells in Seradia's corpse had decreased, and brainstem reflexes had reappeared in her dead brain—she was clearly in the process of reviving.

Could that 2nd administrator be an insider?

So Seradia's death video was meant to create a deity? Dying of terminal cancer but unwilling to end like that, she had partnered with the Megan Medical Group, using their special technology to make viewers unconsciously worship her as a new god, even sacrificing their lives to her. Thus, with the convergence of countless believers' faith, she had finally shown signs of revival...

Wow, that was truly evil.

Everly was chilled to the bone by the truth she had pieced together, goosebumps rising on her back.

If the Megan Medical Group's technology advanced further, who knew when a random video online might contain content related to religion or evil gods, causing people to fall in without realizing it.

Fortunately, the authorities had already thought of the same concerns. In July, a small notice quietly appeared in newspapers across the country—the Megan Medical Group had been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for alleged medical fraud, and all relevant executives had been detained, with only the founder's descendant, Grant Megan, still at large.

The crimes committed by the Megan Group clearly went beyond medical fraud. The government was likely using this as a pretext to crack down on the group. Although one person had escaped, it seemed that from now on, the company would finally be reined in...

Everly thought to herself, opened Twitter, typed "Cursed Witch" into the search bar, and hit enter.

At the top of the search results, there it was—an account with a child mannequin head as its avatar.

The account's bio read "Get rid of your grudges." It had been registered two months ago and, since its creation, had posted nothing and followed no one, yet it had a huge following. As she scrolled through the related results, she kept seeing posts from victims of school bullying sharing their stories, tagging this account at the end to ask for help or say thanks.

Everly: "..."

No doubt about it—that was the account Natalie the Cursed Witch had made.

The first time she'd heard classmates mention this account, Everly had been drinking soda and nearly spat it out in shock.

She'd figured it was probably just a name coincidence, but seeing that avatar—well, mystery solved.

So it wasn't just cult organizations; even witches were keeping up with the trends... She really should stay off the internet from now on. The internet was way too dangerous 🙂