Translator: CinderTL
The dissected corpse was Shi Xiaoya!
After the initial shock, Jiang Cheng gradually calmed down. He wasn't surprised by her death, considering she had unknowingly signed a body donation consent form.
What they hadn't anticipated was how quickly and brutally she had died.
As if a disguise had been unmasked, Shi Xiaoya's corpse began to undergo further transformations. Large, raw abrasions slowly surfaced on her once-fair skin.
Her elbows and fingertips were particularly gruesome, ground down to bloody pulp. Her fingernails were shattered, some even peeled back to reveal the dark red flesh beneath, sending a chill down one's spine.
Their initial suspicions were confirmed: these abrasions proved she had been trapped in a cramped space, and her broken fingernails testified to her desperate clawing.
Even just looking at the corpse, one could feel the sheer desperation Shi Xiaoya must have experienced.
It seemed the person trapped inside Mortuary Cabinet No. 9 had indeed been her all along.
Following this line of reasoning, Jiang Cheng pieced together the likely sequence of events. Given the cramped interior of the mortuary cabinet, the petite Shi Xiaoya was the ideal candidate to retrieve the registry book.
But as she crawled inside and found the book, her nervousness prevented her from carefully inspecting the pages. In her haste, she mistakenly signed the organ donation consent form sandwiched between the pages.
Then, something went terribly wrong.
The cabinet door slammed shut, trapping her inside.
No matter how desperately she struggled, the door remained sealed.
Finally, like livestock being led to slaughter, she was dragged to the dissection hall on the fifth floor. There, treated as a lifeless teaching specimen, she was dissected alive.
Jiang Cheng was certain Shi Xiaoya had still been alive during the dissection because her limbs were bound with nearly invisible, translucent yellow cords. These cords, so fine they were easily overlooked without close inspection, resembled silk secreted by some unknown creature.
Her arms and legs were stretched taut and secured to the four corners of the dissection table, her body spread out in a grotesque X-shape.
The wrists and ankles bore the marks of desperate struggles, with several raw, bloodied patches where the thin cords had worn through her skin.
Staring at the headless corpse with its chest cavity gaping open and empty, Liang Shan's lips twitched. An inappropriate thought suddenly popped into his head: "I feel like my body's been completely drained."
Jiang Cheng lifted his head and began scanning the surrounding students.
They were all clad in identical white lab coats and face masks, leaving only their eyes visible, making it impossible to discern their identities.
Yet Jiang Cheng was certain that Gao Yan, Shen Mengyun, and Wang Qi were not among them.
A problem had emerged.
If Shi Xiaoya had been murdered here, what about the others?
Jiang Cheng refused to believe they were all dead.
Suddenly, Professor Wang Wenli, who had been lecturing, slowly straightened up. He reached into his pocket with a gloved hand, pulled out an old-fashioned button phone, and stared at the screen. Jiang Cheng noticed the device was soaking wet, water dripping from it.
After a moment, seemingly having found what he was looking for, Professor Wang narrowed his eyes slightly, turned his head, and announced in a deliberately enigmatic tone, "Attention, everyone. We have three minutes left in this class."
"To help those who struggled with today's material, I'll be asking a few students with weaker foundations to stay behind for a review session," Professor Wang Wenli announced.
Almost simultaneously, all the students nodded and replied in perfect unison, "Okay."
Yet that simple "okay" sent a chill down Fatty and his group's spines.
The dozen or so students spoke with identical tone, gestures, voices, and intonation, as if they were a single person.
Clearly, the problem wasn't limited to the two professors. These students... they might be involved too.
Moreover, when Wang Wenli mentioned "struggling students," he was undoubtedly referring to Fatty and his group. Compared to these medical students, their foundational knowledge was woefully inadequate.
Jiang Cheng seized a moment to glance at his phone. Sure enough, they had less than three minutes remaining.
It seemed that once time was up, the professors would make their move.
The atmosphere in the dissection hall grew oppressively tense. Everyone was waiting.
Jiang Cheng and his group were waiting for an opportunity to sign the attendance sheet. The two professors were waiting for the clock to strike before "helping" Fatty and his group catch up on their anatomy studies. As for the other students...
Fatty swallowed hard, his face a mask of panic.
He had a feeling the other students weren't in any hurry to leave; they were waiting for the spectacle to begin.
Maybe there'll be another anatomy lesson later, he thought grimly. And we'll be the subjects.
At that thought, Fatty's sausage-like legs began to tremble uncontrollably again. He instinctively glanced at the Doctor, a man known for conjuring miracles.
Or maybe he is the miracle itself.
Jiang Cheng slowly turned and took a small step toward the table with the register. The movement was minimal, but even that didn't escape notice.
"Where do you think you're going?" Wang Wenli, his hands still stained from the autopsy, tugged at his mask. A chilling glint flashed in his eyes as he said coldly, "Since you're already late, you haven't been paying attention. After class, those of you who were tardy will stay behind. Professor Qiu and I will help you catch up on what you missed."
Professor Qiu.
His name matched the other one Jiang Cheng had seen in the Exhibition Hall. If he remembered correctly, it was Qiu Xicheng.
"Then I'll leave it to you, Professor," Jiang Cheng said with a nod, but he didn't stop moving. He took another deliberate step toward the registry.
The other Professor Qiu, who had remained largely silent until now, suddenly turned his head, adjusted his glasses with a rubber-gloved hand, and demanded loudly, "Didn't you hear what Professor Wang said?"
The sudden outburst startled everyone.
Fatty Huai Yi wanted to help Jiang Cheng but didn't know how. He feared that rash intervention would only complicate matters further.
Less than two minutes remained.
Huai Yi gripped his phone tightly, cold sweat dripping down his forehead.
Emboldened by Professor Qiu's support, Professor Wang Wenli continued his tirade: "This is our classroom, a place for learning. If you're here, you should study diligently and at least respect the rules."
"Professor!" Jiang Cheng interrupted sharply, his voice soft yet forceful. "I acknowledge your exceptional medical skills, but when it comes to respecting the rules, I don't think you're in any position to lecture me. You yourself have failed to uphold them."
Jiang Cheng didn't give them a chance to react. "You just pulled down your mask with hands that had been dissecting a corpse, violating the operating procedures of the dissection room. Of course, that's your personal misconduct."
"But what I find most unacceptable is that when you took out your phone, the screen was still on a game interface!"
"In this sacred, solemn, and reverent place, you were actually playing a game? Do you have any respect for the original owner of this body, who voluntarily donated it to advance medical science?"
Jiang Cheng gestured toward a plaque on the wall.
The plaque displayed several lines of black text, each stroke conveying profound solemnity: Every body donor deserves our utmost respect. At all times, please remember to treat them with dignity and reverence.
Wang Wenli was momentarily speechless.
Seeing his colleague cornered, Professor Qiu instinctively stepped forward to reprimand Jiang Cheng. "You—"
But Jiang Cheng turned to face him, his eyes sharp as daggers, and pointed directly at Professor Qiu's nose. "Shut your mouth! Now let's talk about you!"
(End of the Chapter)
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