Morris made full use of his rhetoric skills and indirectly confirmed many issues with Galoni in a calm conversation.

During the conversation, he and Duncan gradually confirmed the status of the female apprentice.

All memories of the shipwreck that Brown Scott encountered six years ago and the death of his mentor thereafter had completely disappeared from Galoni's mind.

No, what disappeared was not only the memory, but also the entire cognitive system that went with it.

The death of a person triggers a series of chain reactions, including ripples within the social circle, the handling of the death, recollections and emotional ups and downs over a long period of time, and the various changes in details left in this house over the past six years. This cannot be solved by simply deleting and replacing a memory.

However, in Galoni's cognition, the event "Brown Scott died in a shipwreck six years ago" had never happened, and the series of subsequent reactions caused by this incident did not leave any trace. She just felt that she had lived in this house for six years as a matter of course, and had been waiting calmly for her teacher to come back during this time - and now, her teacher had returned and was resting in the room upstairs.

The sharp whistle of the kettle suddenly sounded, interrupting the conversation in the living room. Galoni immediately stood up and walked to the kitchen: "Sorry, I'll go turn off the fire."

Taking advantage of the moment when the Senjin lady left, Duncan looked up at Morris on the sofa opposite: "Her cognition has been interfered with."

"We should check the whole building," Morris whispered. "If Brown is really here, he must have left something behind while he was still conscious - he wrote me a second letter not long ago, and he obviously realized something of the truth by then."

"...Let Galoni rest for a while." Duncan said softly.

Morris nodded, and during this conversation, Galoni returned from the kitchen. She was carrying a large tray with warming ginger tea and some biscuits. The lady with stone-gray skin placed the food on the coffee table and looked up at the two guests: "Sorry for the long wait. Have some ginger tea to warm yourself up."

"Thank you," Morris said, pointing to the sofa next to him, "Galoni, please sit down here first. I want to tell you something."

"Ah...Okay, Mr. Morris." Although Galoni felt a little strange, she immediately sat down obediently in front of her mentor's best friend. "What do you want to say?"

Morris looked into Galoni's eyes: "Lomonsov's inequality system."

Galoni suddenly opened her eyes, and a huge amount of knowledge, memory and logical problems instantly covered all her thoughts. Before she could figure out the general outline of these "information storms", a strong, self-protective fatigue had already risen in her heart.

She passed out silently, snoring quietly and sleeping peacefully.

Duncan watched this scene expressionlessly, and was silent for two seconds before asking, "How long will she sleep?"

"It depends on IQ. Heidi slept for twelve hours, and Galoni should have slept for even longer," Morris shrugged. "Folklorists are usually not very good at mathematics."

Duncan didn't know what to say for a moment. After a long while, he blurted out, "Why would you use this trick on your own daughter?"

Morris's expression was a little subtle: "Heidi insists that her hypnotic skills have surpassed mine - and being a father sometimes has some strange desire to win."

Duncan thought about it and felt that there was no need to continue this topic, so he stood up and looked at the stairs leading to the second floor.

"Now we can check carefully - if Galoni is not lying, her teacher should be in the bedroom on the second floor now."

The old stairs creaked, and bright electric lights illuminated the corridor on the second floor. Morris and Duncan went up the stairs and began to look for the folklorist who had "returned to the world."

The structure of the second floor of the house was not complicated. A straight corridor connected each room, and the doors of most of the rooms were not locked. Duncan and Morris quickly confirmed the conditions of most of the houses and stopped in front of the door of the last room on the left side of the corridor.

This is the only locked place on the entire second floor.

Morris stepped forward and pulled the door handle, frowning slightly: "It's locked-locked."

"Locked from the inside?" Duncan felt a sense of disobedience, and then he recalled something, "Just now Galoni said that she would deliver meals to the teacher's room every day..."

"Impossible. This door hasn't been opened for many days—a week or more," Morris said immediately. His eyes were slowly scanning the door in front of him, and there seemed to be a slight light in his eyes. "There is no sign that the door lock has been damaged."

"…So, it's just that Galoni 'thought' that she would deliver food to the teacher's room every day, but her teacher actually hasn't opened this door since many days ago," Duncan said, looking back slightly at the stairs leading to the first floor, "The cognitive interference has been going on."

Morris didn't say anything, but raised his hand and knocked gently on the light yellow door.

There was no response from the room.

"Brown, it's me," Morris said. "If you're in there, open the door. No matter what state you're in, don't worry. We can solve your problem."

There was still no response from the room.

Duncan stared at the door quietly, and felt that the situation was... not surprising.

Finally, he sighed softly: "Let me do it, Morris, we may still be a step too late."

Morris's expression froze for a moment. He seemed to want to say something, but his lips trembled twice and he said nothing. He just stepped aside silently.

Duncan didn't use any fancy tricks, he just walked forward and bumped into the door, and the lock of the ordinary wooden door, which was not very strong to begin with, was broken with a loud bang, and it opened wide.

A room almost completely shrouded in darkness appeared before the two.

There was no light on in the room, and the windows facing the street seemed to be blocked by something, so that the light from the street lamps outside could not shine into the room. Only the light from the corridor illuminated a small area at the door. In places where the light could not reach, one could vaguely see something shadowy covering the roof and floor.

★ Illustration 18 ★

Duncan was the first to walk into the room. He raised his right hand, holding a ball of dark green spiritual flame in his palm, and with his other hand he groped for the light switch next to the door.

After the lights were turned on, everything in the room finally became clear.

"This is..." Morris, who followed him into the room and saw the scene inside, exclaimed in surprise.

A gray-black, mud-like substance was scattered throughout the room, covering the floor, contaminating the walls, and even firmly adhering to the ceiling. There was also "mud" that seemed to be half-melted, hanging from the dirt on the roof, hanging in mid-air, looking like curved and swollen blood vessels, or some strangely shaped stalactites.

In just a moment, Duncan thought of the scene he saw in the bottom of the Obsidian.

This weird and terrifying "mud"... looks exactly like the situation in the bottom of the Obsidian!

The muscles in Morris's face were tense.

Frankly speaking, from the beginning he didn't believe that his "old friend" had really returned to the human world. He knew that there must be some kind of out-of-control supernatural phenomenon behind this incident, and it might even be related to the curse of the deep sea, but... even though he had vaguely anticipated it before opening the door, after seeing this scene, he still felt a huge shock.

"The replicas of the deep sea...it seems that they will all end up like this." At this moment, Duncan's voice interrupted Morris's daze, "We are a step late after all. It's a pity."

Morris blinked, then shook his head vigorously, as if trying to get rid of those chaotic thoughts in his mind. He walked to the back of the room, carefully avoiding the "mud" clumps on the floor, and stopped beside a table after a long time.

The table was also covered with mud, and the largest mass of mud was accumulated between the table and the bed.

"...He wrote two letters. At least at that time, he still had some rationality," Morris said softly, "He must have noticed his abnormality..."

"He was sane until he locked the room. After that, he could no longer control the development of the situation," Duncan also came to the desk and said thoughtfully while observing the solidified mud around him. "These replicas from the deep sea seem... different. Some have no sanity at all. Some even retain their original memories and can survive for a period of time like ordinary people. Some... are like the captain of the Obsidian, completely twisted into an alien shape, but they have a soul from beginning to end."

"Like some unstable experimental product?"

Morris said casually, and at this moment, something suddenly came into his sight.

There was a piece of paper pressed on the edge of a ball of solidified mud that vaguely had the outline of an arm.

"This is..." The old scholar opened his eyes wide, exclaimed in a low voice, and carefully pulled out the paper, "Mr. Duncan, look at this!"

Duncan immediately moved closer, and on the dirty paper, some unclear words came into his sight -

〖To the investigators, the following are the changes that occurred in my body in the final stage:〗