Chapter 67 The old campus—these traces are like the bites of pain inflicted on life…
Then, the cup was pressed against the lips and teeth again, and liquid was poured in with a sudden flash of light. This time, the liquid tasted bitter and astringent, with some white sediment. It was obviously spiked—no, the previous drink was spiked, just to mask the taste and sediment of this liquid. This one was actually "pure".
Sure enough, as soon as the fleshy figure near the teeth touched the liquid, its whole body and lips immediately stopped making noise, and it sank to the bottom of the pool as if it had fainted. Xue Chao was quick-witted and nimble. He lifted the sunflower stem and caught the little tongue that was hanging upside down like a light bulb, and slid it into the originally translucent red tube first.
His blood rushed, propelling him forward, but the smell wasn't of blood; instead, it was a cacophony of strange odors. First came the scent of synthetic perfume, not overpowering, like a young girl's light fruity fragrance on her sleeve. Then came the familiar sweetness of a beverage. Suddenly, the scent shifted abruptly, a pungent odor spreading out, reminding him of a dusty, abandoned construction site, or a damp, moldy, and stinking old cement house…
Just as he was about to investigate whether there were any other smells, the stench of blood suddenly hit him again, stronger and more pungent than any of the previous smells, like entering a slaughterhouse, and the stench almost made Xue Chao faint.
Until the bloody smell "abruptly stopped," there was another long, pungent chemical smell, like formaldehyde. This smell lingered the longest, and unlike other smells that had a sense of movement, the smell was still, as if it were completely enveloped.
Finally, the stillness was broken, the chemical smell dispelled, and an elegant and noble fragrance diffused, like a scent specially made for an art exhibition or a high-class banquet.
Thump. He was thrown into another place.
He could stand, but it wasn't as solid as reinforced concrete or wooden planks and iron plates. He could still step out on the slightly soft, undulating terrain. All around him was flesh-colored like human skin, with irregular shapes, like rare mountain landscapes, sometimes with swirling eddies. He felt like he was standing in a maze made of canyons.
The sky was open overhead, without a roof, and all around was pitch black, but unlike the night sky, it was too far away to see what was in the distance.
Xue Chao understood; this meant "ears".
The smells he just caught were from his "nose," which traveled from his lips to his ears.
The structure was like a maze, so Xue Chao was looking for the exit. He had just turned left when—thump! A cleaver with a gleaming edge fell down without hesitation. The sharp sound of it cutting through the air was replaced by a scream. Xue Chao, who had dodged the attack, noticed something. The soprano voice sounded familiar—it was Minmin's voice.
The knife pierced the ground, and blood immediately seeped from the "ground." Beneath the crack, something was wriggling in clumps. Xue Chao peeled back the skin beneath his feet, like lifting a carpet, revealing countless perfectly cut ears huddled together, trembling.
Xue Chao noticed the anomaly with his sharp eyes. He reached into the sticky flesh and grabbed an ear. In the most obvious indentation—the concha—there was a human face.
Its facial features were so horrified that they were distorted, like the famous painting "The Scream," with all the ears having grown a face.
He examined it carefully but couldn't tell who the face resembled, so he had to give up with regret.
But he was certain of one thing: the ear he was standing on belonged to Minmin, and probably the organs from before—her mouth, nose, and ears—revealing a corner of what she had experienced…a corner was terrifying enough.
The structure of the ears is more rugged than that of the lips, but not as complicated. He quickly found his way back. At first, he would occasionally drop the cleaver, but it would make human-like screams. Later, the tools became more and more refined, resembling small electric drills, scalpels, scissors, etc. The screams seemed to echo the tools, from loud, expansive screams to shrill screams, as if there was only a gap of a hair in the throat. The screams were squeezed together, taking several turns before they could be released.
Xue Chao was already a bit numb to the sudden screams and surrounding screams in the dungeon world. At first, he could still study the method of cutting off ears, which was somewhat similar to the butcher Wang Song. But after hearing it too much, it was really annoying to his ears. He quickly returned to the blood vessels where he had been and was sent to a new place by the blood.
Following this order, the next place should be the eyes.
As expected, he was inside a flesh-colored sphere, with thin red and blue threads extending from its walls like forked branches—likely the retinal arteries and veins.
But it wasn't entirely the structure of an eyeball. The lips and ears had also been strangely misaligned before. Blood and flesh were like pools of water, and a knife was like a mountain being cleaved. This time, what he saw before him was a huge circular window, inside which was a small circle, which was the iris and pupil.
The pupils were pitch black, and the iris extended into a ring of dazzling filaments that sometimes merged and then separated, like a wondrous sight that could only be seen through a biological microscope or a kaleidoscope.
While the eye was looking outwards, it also gave Xue Chao the illusion that it was looking inwards at him.
Xue Chaojing and others, the lips are for tasting, the nose is for smelling, the ears are for hearing, and the eyes are naturally for seeing. The hints behind all the sensory experiences may soon be displayed directly before their eyes.
Thanks to the first instance, he was very familiar with butchers and eyeballs, especially eyeballs. He had swallowed them whole, handled them, and put them in his stomach and eye sockets. He had even been inside other people's bodies and stared at eyeballs that grew out of the inside of their faces. Even if he was scared, it was a familiar fear, and he wouldn't lose his composure too much.
But his guard was unnecessary. Minmin's eyes were not going to play the bloody scene he had already guessed. Her irises continued to change, but her pupils showed an image. Although it was a bit dark outside the window, it was a dim light designed to create an artistic atmosphere. She could vaguely see a pinkish wall and a gorgeously carved display case opposite her with curtains and a circle of artistic lights.
Suddenly, the curtain was drawn back, revealing an extremely beautiful girl standing in the center. In reality, she was encased in a pile of white skeletons. Her limbs were covered with a layer of gorgeous white feathers, and she wore a flowing platinum haute couture gown. Behind her were a pair of enormous angel wings. Her makeup was exquisite, her eyes were lowered and closed, and her expression was serene and peaceful. She wore an olive branch crown on her head. Not in the backlight, she appeared somewhat blurry and unreal, like an elf who had strayed into the mortal world.
The reappearance of the human head made Xue Chao go numb for a moment, but upon closer inspection, he noticed something. Her head... every organ on her body had very faint suture marks. Just this perfect head alone, the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, scalp, and even the skull may have come from different people. The hair also had variations in shade, and the color was slightly different from the eyebrows... even the hair was not transplanted from one person, and each hair was meticulously crafted. These marks were like bite marks that pain had given to life.
It is pieced together from different fragments and is not a complete, real head, so it only looks like a human head.
After Xue Chao finished analyzing the cruel artwork in front of him, the image displayed in his pupils remained unchanged, motionless from beginning to end, as if it were just a photograph. Xue Chao realized something.
The folding function of the metal plate in the mortuary cabinet is of little use to normal corpses; it can only be used to hide something, whether it is a living person or a dead person. In any case, the residents of those empty cabinets are victims who were tricked or captured.
Not only the movable iron plate, but also the pipes behind the iron cabinet... There might really be pipes, not the mutated blood vessels of today, but for transporting these goods to another place.
Minmin was one of the victims. The morgue where he finally lay was also where Minmin lay. Minmin's severed hand guided him, so the mutated space he crawled into should contain all of Minmin's severed organs, reflecting her experiences.
In other words, this perspective, this view, is what she sees.
...And what about herself?
The girl opposite was also looking at a beautiful work named "Minmin".
Suddenly, the "angel" opposite him opened her eyes. Her pupils were brownish-red, lighter than normal pupils. Through the window of her eyes, she looked at Xue Chao from afar. Xue Chao actually saw a bit of emotion in her eyes, not only belonging to the living, but also a kind of emotion more complicated than a chance encounter.
She recognized him. The thought quickly took root in Xue Chao's mind, and before he could make any further move, his blood rushed to him, pushing him to the next place.
But Xue Chao's attention was still on that girl. She knew him, but who was she?
It's hard to say whether Xue Chao's memory is good or bad. He remembers every detail perfectly, even the smallest one. For example, his sister. He doesn't often think of her, but when he does, she is vivid in his mind, her every smile and frown right before his eyes.
But most things didn't matter to him, and he forgot them in the blink of an eye. Only in the infinite world were things of life and death. He remembered more things in one instance than he did in the real world after months of doing nothing.
So the girl wasn't someone I'd seen in the game... but she's even more untraceable in the real world.
He decided to stop thinking about it altogether. Since the other person hadn't come after him, if there was any connection, she would come looking for him anyway. Xue Chao skillfully got up. This time, he was in a square, enclosed room. The ceiling, floor, and walls were a familiar flesh-pink color. He had just seen it through his sensitive eyes—it was sewn from human skin.
The carpet made of human skin was covered with shelves made of human bones. The shelves were not straight, but irregular and rugged, crisscrossing and turning in all directions, like the grooves of a brain.
He was still wondering where he could go after ascending to his eyes, when he realized it was to his brain, the place where memories are stored.
The containers hanging on the shelf are mucous membranes stretched into water bags, filled with formalin, suspending individual organs, from the five senses and internal organs to the limbs, and even individual human skin and hair, sliding down along the grooves like an assembly line.
Based on what Minmin had seen and heard, he thought it was a deranged killer who thought he was a reincarnation of Van Gogh and that this was the work of an idiot who targeted innocent girls. But now, the organs are both male and female. In addition to those displayed in the showcase, there are also those transported along the assembly line to who knows where... These "artworks" of dog shit are just one use of the organ industry chain.
Moreover, he realized he had fallen into a misconception: the masks and heads of the students from No. 9 Middle School would grow separate organs, which was not necessarily the same thing as the current organ harvesting.
This episode already features a "ghost" from a future timeline, and with the hospital as the trigger point, it's very likely that it will lead to storylines from other timelines.
The eyes, nose, mouth, and tongue of the students at No. 9 Middle School belong to the "ghosts" in Deng Dayun's storyline. When Deng Dayun was rushing to be reincarnated in his blood vessels, the campus may have already become alienated. Therefore, the two events with similar elements are merged together.
The cameraman in the shot is on a different path from him. He is walking in Minmin's world, while Deng Dayun is climbing into his own corpse freezer, entering the world of the character "Deng Dayun", which is the Ninth Middle School campus. At this moment, he is sitting alone at his desk and chair, head down and withdrawn.
Xue Chao, on the other hand, was outside the campus. He needed to leave Minmin's organs and return to his previous world, where the broadcasting station was located on campus.
He returned all the way, but there was no way out of any of the organs. He stood in front of the window of his eye, listening to the thumping rhythm of the blood flowing, and suddenly an idea came to him.
It is said that the eyes are the windows to the soul.
But Minmin is already dead. Dead people don't have a heartbeat, but the tremors that have been going on all the way haven't stopped. If this isn't just a memory, the most likely explanation is that she has come back to life.
Thumping vibrations...heartbeat...
The morgue was her "heart".
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