Chapter 27: The Electronic Worm

Chapter 27: The Electronic Worm

When Du Changfeng saw me wearing a kasaya, he moved to greet me with Buddhist rites. I stopped him—our statuses were different. Buddhist rites would place us on equal footing, and since Xuanhong had become a monk, he was now honored as a Dharma master and abbot.

So I greeted him first as a junior and asked after his health. Du Changfeng appreciated the gesture.

Du Xinlang nestled beside her father like a dutiful little darling, calling for bird’s nest soup while massaging his back.

After the usual courtesies, I gestured for Du Changfeng to extend his arm. I wanted to take his pulse.

Du Changfeng had heard that Xuanhong knew something of medicine, but Xuanhong had never trained as a physician. To Chairman Du, pulse-taking was a minor art at best. He had his own private doctor and trusted Western medicine. Still, out of politeness, he extended his arm.

I rested my fingers lightly on his wrist. The pulse was disordered, weak. After a moment I asked, “Chairman, do you often experience dizziness, numbness in the limbs, and forgetfulness?”

Du Changfeng said at once, “Yes. You can tell? Last month I had a full workup at Pingdu Hospital. The doctor said I had a mild cerebral infarction and prescribed medication to dissolve it.”

I shook my head gently. “Chairman, your symptoms do resemble cerebral infarction. But medication won’t help.”

Du Xinlang broke in. “Why not? There are thrombolytic drugs for this now, aren’t there?”

“Thrombolytic drugs treat ordinary clots,” I said. “But the embolus in the Chairman’s case looks man-made.”

Du Changfeng’s expression turned serious. He stared at me, astonished. I could see he didn’t quite believe me.

I had to explain. “Chairman, I can sense an extremely regular pulse in the blood vessel of your left prefrontal lobe. It’s not coming from an artery—it’s coming from a foreign object inside the vessel. A micro-electrical signal. Please trust me, I have strong perceptual ability. It’s not only pulsing, it’s moving slowly. Once it reaches deeper tissue, it will affect language and consciousness, then hearing, movement, memory.”

Du Changfeng still looked doubtful, but the matter was serious. He called his private doctor and told him to come immediately.

I said quietly to Du Xinlang, “Is this doctor reliable? He hasn’t been bought off?”

Du Changfeng overheard. “Old Qi’s been with me twenty years. He shouldn’t be.”

Half an hour later, a spry old man walked in carrying a medical bag.

Once we were all seated, I told him what I’d found. He examined Du Changfeng carefully, frowning, then said softly, “There is something off. But the embolus is tiny, and it’s inside the skull. We’d need an MRI and angiography to see it clearly.”

I nodded and said nothing more.

In truth, I thought I might be able to move the embolus out with mental will alone. I could sense its intelligent structure. I didn’t know what to call this tiny entity, but if I had to name it, I’d call it an “electronic worm.” It seemed designed to block blood vessels, and its micro-electrical waves resembled those of the human brain—which is why I judged it intelligent.

Any intelligent entity is, at its core, electronic bionics. A living structure. And if it got in, there should be a way to make it come back out.

But Du Changfeng held high status and believed in modern medicine. This wasn’t the moment for me to act.

Dr. Qi and the butler left to arrange Du Changfeng’s care. Du Xinlang and I walked in the garden.

I calmed her fear first, then asked quietly, “Has the Du Group made any major business moves recently?”

She said, “You mean you want to ask who would be directly affected if something happened to my father? That’s hard to say. Competitors, partners, trade secrets—there are hidden conflicts everywhere. I honestly can’t think of anyone who’d be his enemy. He’s always kept a low profile, never made enemies.”

“You’re right,” I said. “No need to analyze it now. Underhanded schemes are petty tricks. Once your father’s results come back, I’ll go to the hospital with you.”

Du Xinlang leaned against me, her face full of happiness.

The next day, Du Changfeng was admitted to Pingdu Hospital for follow-up tests.

Around the fourth day, the hospital called Du Xinlang in for consultation. They wanted to do a craniotomy. After expert review, the embolus had moved to a dangerous position, with no sign of dissolving.

Craniotomy was major surgery, high-risk. Pingdu Hospital put the success rate at forty percent.

Forty percent. Less than half. Du Xinlang was terrified, and the executives and shareholders who’d come to visit were equally shaken. No one knew what to do.

Business partners kept arriving as well. Du Changfeng’s fate clearly affected more than just him—it affected the entire group.

At that point I went alone to the attending physician’s office, asked for the MRI films and angiography data, and compared them to my hypothesis. Then I proposed that she let me try using mental will.

The attending physician, Dr. Yan, stared at me as if I were a con artist. If Du Xinlang hadn’t brought me personally, she’d have thrown me out.

I didn’t explain much. I only said my method wouldn’t touch the patient or worsen his condition, and if I failed, it wouldn’t interfere with her surgery.

Dr. Yan replied that Pingdu Hospital was one of the city’s top facilities. Outside doctors couldn’t perform treatment. It was a liability issue.

I understood.

“Then let me visit as a friend of the patient,” I said. “Surely you can provide some assistance in that capacity?”

Seeing her reluctance, some shareholders who had connections with hospital leadership stepped in. They knew Xuanhong had prior success in medical assistance, and they contacted the administration.

After a day, the hospital agreed, stipulating that the attending physician had to be present and could stop me at any time.

In a doctor’s eyes, as long as you didn’t touch the patient or the lesion, mental will or sensing—whatever you called it—couldn’t affect treatment.

Finally, after obtaining Du Xinlang’s consent, they agreed to let me try.

That day I had Du Changfeng lie on the operating table. Apart from Dr. Yan, I asked the other staff to wait in the outer room and watch the angiographic imaging on screen.

I sat beside the table, placed my hand gently over Du Changfeng’s prefrontal lobe, tuned my mental will to the same frequency, and seeped gradually into that tiny “electronic worm.”

Within my mental will, it was as if I had become the body of that electronic worm itself. Then, bit by bit, I began to crawl outward.

“It’s really moving.”

Someone spoke. I had no attention to spare.

“It really works. It has retreated quite a bit.”

Murmurs continued.

I stayed completely focused. Nearly an hour passed before, drenched in sweat, I moved the “electronic worm” to the back of the neck. That position was outside the skull. A minimally invasive procedure at the back of the neck could remove it.

Throughout, Dr. Yan watched me intently, glancing now and then at the imaging monitors.

She didn’t understand how I’d done it, but the medical imaging did not lie.

When I walked out of the operating room wiping sweat, the corridor was packed with doctors and company people. They’d rushed over and now stared at me with strange, worshipful eyes.

Dr. Yan and I went to the observation room, a crowd of onlookers following. I pointed at the angiogram on the monitor. “Look, the electronic worm has moved here. Any farther and it enters the spinal canal, so I stopped where surgery would be easiest. A small incision should do it, right?”

Dr. Yan sighed in amazement. “That position is perfect. No difficulty at all. I can schedule the procedure shortly. But you called it an electronic worm?”

“A name I made up,” I said. “I don’t know its real designation. I think electronic worm is easier to understand. This thing is man-made. Dr. Yan, during surgery, please let me arrange for someone to record video evidence.”

I called the butler over and had him coordinate with Dr. Yan. Whatever they removed had to be brought back to me.

Du Xinlang hugged my waist from behind in excitement and actually began crying in public. The shareholders and executives spread word everywhere.

After these people spread the story, my reputation expanded rapidly. For a time, I was spoken of as a divine figure.

After that I left the hospital matters to the butler and returned directly to Tansong Temple. I trusted the Du family could handle things.

What I never expected was that three days later, the Du family didn’t send the “electronic worm.” Instead, a group of police officers came to arrest me and take me away.