Chapter 561

Chapter 412 Moth

After last night’s events, Dorothy decided to start investigating the secrets hidden beneath the city. For now, the best entry point would be the psychiatric hospitals on the outskirts of the city. Navaha had so many patients suffering from Hypersomnia; it was obvious that this was due to the secret society hidden underground. Perhaps she could find crucial clues here.

Sitting atop a hill, Dorothy controlled her small zombie puppet and simultaneously infiltrated two psychiatric hospitals, conducting a thorough investigation inside in search of any clues. This new round of investigation had been ongoing for some time now.

Just like her first investigation of the psychiatric hospitals, Dorothy still hadn’t found any substantial leads. Apart from the high consistency in patients’ symptoms, there were no other suspicious elements. The hospital staff appeared normal, with no unusual behavior, and there were no covert activities related to the secret society within the hospital.

Controlling her small zombie puppet, Dorothy monitored the psychiatric hospitals for several hours but found no leads. Seeing this, she slightly altered her strategy and chose another method for her investigation.

Using her small zombie puppet, Dorothy secretly entered the hospital’s archive cabinets and began reviewing various files. Eventually, she obtained useful information.

While checking the patient registry, Dorothy noticed a phenomenon: many of these patients shared the same surname, and a significant portion of them had bl**d relations!

“Enrique Leysias… Diego Leysias… Raul Leysias… Diaz Castihon… Alfonso Castihon… Julio Castihon…

“Hmm… So many people share the same surname… Does this mean many of these patients are related? Are they mostly relatives? Could Hypersomnia be a genetic disease?”

Dorothy muttered seriously, feeling very curious about the familial connections among the patients and first considering the possibility of a genetic disorder.

“If it’s genetic, then there’s a new direction for investigation. Investigating their families might yield new discoveries.”

Dorothy thought to herself, and immediately acted on it. Unable to find more at the psychiatric hospital, she turned her investigation towards the families of these patients.

Dorothy returned from the suburban hill to the city center, found a restaurant near the city hall, and ate some snacks while letting her small zombie puppet infiltrate the city hall.

Soon, Dorothy found Navaha’s population records and began searching through them.

After several hours of searching, with her efficient information processing skills, Dorothy quickly found the family information of the hospitalized patients, learning the specific addresses of all family members in the city, whether they were admitted or not. During this process, she discovered another strange phenomenon.

While checking the family relationships in the population records, Dorothy found that many of the men and women who were previously thought to be relatives were actually married couples. Only after marriage did the wives take their husbands’ surnames, which led Dorothy to initially assume they were bl**d-related, but they were actually spouses.

“Couples… If there are so many couples, then the hypothesis that Hypersomnia is a genetic disease needs reevaluation. Couples typically do not have bl**d relations, and genetic diseases don’t spread between them. Moreover, looking at these records, many affected families seem to have marital ties. One family’s admission to the hospital preceded another’s, suggesting this illness can spread between families without bl**d relations, passing from one household to another. It doesn’t seem like a genetic disease…”

Sitting in the restaurant, Dorothy pondered this internally. After examining all the records, she slowly recalled her small zombie puppet and started wandering around the streets.

During this process, Dorothy’s investigation entered its next phase. Using the address information obtained from the city hall, she scattered her small zombie puppets into the homes of the Hypersomnia patients, attempting to find useful clues.

Soon, Dorothy’s various small zombie puppets silently infiltrated over ten households across the city and conducted searches. During the search, Dorothy found that some of the patient homes were completely empty, with disarray inside, while others had only a few family members living there, looking listless and unwell, as if they were exhibiting early signs of Hypersomnia.

“It turns out… Rather than Hypersomnia being a genetic disease, it seems more like a contagious illness that clusters within families…”

After preliminarily understanding the general situation of these ten or so patient families, Dorothy controlled her small zombie puppet for further investigation. Within half an hour, her investigation yielded results.

It was a messy room with dust everywhere, overturned chairs, and torn bedding. From the setup, it seemed this was once a three-person household, but now everyone in the home was likely infected and taken away.

In this uninhabited house for who knows how long, Dorothy found a large wardrobe tightly locked. She had her small mouse zombie puppet gnaw through the wood and enter the wardrobe. Through the gaps and openings, Dorothy saw this scene.

On the inner wooden board of the sealed wardrobe, there was a peculiar pattern depicted in dark gray paint, clearly an abstract moth with wings spread wide.

Its plump body was segmented with flat symbols, and its damaged wings were adorned with dizzying spirals. Short antennae protruded from its head, curving into crescents.

Below this large moth engraving on the bottom of the wardrobe, there were candles of varying lengths. A small platform was placed among the candles, holding an unknown powder. This arrangement clearly held some mystical significance.

“This arrangement… Is it an altar? Is there a hidden altar in this wardrobe? Were the family members worshiping something before they fell ill and were taken away?”

Looking at the scene before her, Dorothy thought, knowing well that the current arrangement was clearly a makeshift altar, and the presence of an altar indicated some form of worship.

“Since this is an altar, it means the family was worshiping something. Could the cause of Hypersomnia not be due to a contagious disease, but rather this mysterious worship?

“Because this worship is a secret belief, it could be secretly taught among friends and relatives, leading to the family-based spread of Hypersomnia?”