Chapter 68 Old Campus "You want me to piece you back together?"...
Xue Chao turned around, and Minmin stood before him, covered in blood, headless, her blue and white school uniform splattered with a few drops of dried blood, a faded reddish-brown. She slowly reached out and pointed to the lips inside one of the mucous membrane sacs.
Before he could even look, Minmin's hand snapped off, slamming onto the soft human skin carpet. Xue Chao expertly covered his ears, and sure enough, the lips she had been pointing to screamed out loud, the water bag deformed by the ripples.
He used the blade in his sleeve to slid open the bag. The water bag deflated, and the mucous membranes, like shrink wrap, finally solidified into a clump of viscous filaments. Formalin fell down, turning into a pool of blood. The corrosive ground revealed a hole, beneath which lay a vast world of intertwined blood vessels. Before this, Xue Chao had quickly picked up his lips, taking a few more glances at the "outside world."
"Stop howling, what instructions?" Xue Chao picked up her severed hand again, the hand that had guided him in the mortuary. He looked at the shelf that Minmin was pointing to with her other hand, with the rounded skull as the corner of the shelf. "You want me to put you back together?"
Those who speak of vengeful ghosts all say that they are "unable to be freed from their obsessions," and thus remain in the mortal realm, trapped in this cage once again.
The girl's neck moved, which should be a "nodding" motion, and Xue Chao's task was to piece together her "head".
With the original body present, finding the organs was easy; the difficulty lay in assembling them. Xue Chao was troubled by the lifelike organs scattered on the ground. Holding the viscous threads that resembled a neural network, he tried to thread them with a bone tip, but he didn't know where to start: "...Is it enough if we can assemble them?"
Minmin's beautiful eyes were fixed on him, and her lips were about to open again. Xue Chao interrupted her with a sigh: "I'm not a pervert. Don't blame me if you're not good-looking... These days, being mentally sound is a sin."
Despite his reluctance, he acted decisively, his sharp features focused intently on one point, his brown pupils watching the man's every move, as if he were simply finding a place to focus his gaze, or as if he were quietly observing him, lost in thought.
Then his lips parted again: "...Is it because you're mentally unstable?"
Xue Chao paused slightly, knowing she was asking about the pervert's motives. He had actually played quite a few such roles, all of which had been embellished and crowned. Embellishment meant that they were usually presentable in appearance, either having a face like Leonardo DiCaprio in his youth, or at least being dignified and respectable, and most of them were elites in the social evaluation system. Crowning meant that they were given some kind of outstanding talent, becoming Moriarty in crime and bloody Van Gogh and Monet in art, thus qualifying for "charm".
But setting aside these appearances and delving into these arrogant and malicious souls, he found that such people are all outward-looking, always trying to dismantle others, and rarely engaging in dialogue with themselves or examining their own souls.
They see themselves as the center of the world, but to some extent, they do not allow themselves to exist. When they begin to look inward, they are about to collapse.
Xue Chao had no interest in these kinds of people; he only studied them for work purposes. When he read such characters, it was sometimes like looking at an empty shell of a demon, and he couldn't help but wonder—what was there to peer into? They themselves wouldn't even look.
The person who has been hurt keeps asking questions, not to get a reason, but because they are unwilling to accept it. How could there be no reason?
For art... such a bullshit motive, how could that be possible?
How could you do that?
Xue Chao's mouth moved as if he wanted to say something, but when he saw the scattered "parts" all over the ground, each holding its own and facing him, he felt that his self-righteous interpretation was superfluous and there was nothing to say.
People often seek solace in tales of gods and ghosts, hoping to glimpse into the "before death" and "after death." However, in this world where gods and ghosts truly exist, he also saw many who were unable to find peace, clinging to their obsessions with nowhere to go.
Although he was afraid of death and unwilling to die easily, he also felt that ending was a complete end, and dying was a clean death, which was probably the most carefree thing in the world.
"If you want revenge, then take it." Xue Chao had already pieced together the head and was stitching up the facial features. "You still care what the perverts think? You're really giving them face. What, the other party has a certificate of mental illness? Are you going to perform a ritual to send yourself to the afterlife on the spot?"
"..." Minmin's mouth, which had just returned to its place, moved slightly. It was her body after all, yet she still had to adapt. Resentment welled up in her heart. The sound of blood pulsating in the distance grew louder. She did not answer, but her attitude towards Xue Chao improved a little, barely tolerating his mediocre skills.
But when it came to stitching up the last pair of eyes, she couldn't help but scream, "What are you doing! Those aren't my eyes!!"
"You know these aren't your own eyes, yet you're smuggling in your own." Xue Chao's hand brushed past the brown pupils of her eyes, then removed the other pair of eyes that were constantly shifting slightly and placed them in her eye sockets. "Your obsession is not to be torn to pieces, but to take the opportunity to become more beautiful and get better 'parts.' Do you really consider yourself and others as 'goods'?"
Don't you even want yourself?
Minmin suddenly opened her mouth to bite, but stopped abruptly. Perhaps because of the eyes that had been removed from her, she had been looking at another pair of beautiful eyes across from her for years, and almost thought that those were her own.
Xue Chao, considering the girl's love of beauty, did his best to leave as few centipede-like sutures on her face as possible, but it was just so-so, and he himself was a little silent when he looked at it.
So he looked away somewhat guiltily, picked up the girl's head, and completed the final step of sewing the head back into the body.
Once stitched up, the flesh and blood slowly regenerate together.
"Are you done?"
"alright."
Minmin moved her neck slightly and strained her facial features. It seemed like everything was fine. She jumped up happily and let out a joyful sigh. She wanted to turn around to show Xue Chao, but when she turned her body, her head didn't move at all. It turned 180 degrees and with a "thud," her head fell off.
Something inside her bulged and spewed out a bunch of bright red rose petals. Xue Chao sensed something was wrong the moment she turned around and stepped back in advance. The petals only hit the hem of his clothes with a "sizzle" and then burst into flames.
Xue Chao swiftly cut off the corner of his clothes, and rose petals in the air burst into flames, spreading in all directions and igniting the "organ factory" inside his brain, turning everything into fire.
Those beautiful eyes, which had been quiet all along, suddenly moved. The brown pupils dilated violently, shattering all the feelings they had given Xue Chao before, revealing a triumphant madness. Another pair of lips, soaked in formalin, laughed loudly in the flames. It was probably the same pair of eyes, the voice of the girl with the red rose head... Anyone who didn't know better would think he was her father and mother's killer. Now that she had avenged her father, she was so happy.
He thought Miss Red Rose would take advantage of their separation to attack Pu Fengchun again, but instead she came to kill him first?
Ah... Could Pu Fengchun be dead?
Xue Chao quickly crawled back into the blood vessels. The fire of the rose petals could even ignite the blood. The blood that was originally propelling him forward turned into a sea of fire chasing after him. His internal organs, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and countless other organs churned inside, like fuel that propelled him forward. The blood vessels would melt and break when burned, and the entire "road" would continue to collapse, tilting.
At this speed, it's impossible to run directly back to the mortuary, but hiding in organs like the eyes, ears, and mouth is also not feasible. The entire route is a straight path; if he hides in an organ, even if the fire can't burn in, there's nowhere to go if the path is burned off.
He originally wanted to go back to the morgue and find a way to stop the vibration of the morgue cabinet. Once the "heart" stopped beating, the reanimated corpse could die and return to its original state, and the alternate dimension inside the body could disappear. Then he would go find Deng Dayun.
But that won't work now... so let's solve it once and for all.
Xue Chao observed the distribution of blood vessels outside the body, stopped where two blood vessels intersected, covered his body with his coat as much as possible, and jumped into a melted hole further away the instant the flames reached him.
A spark of flame flowed across the surface of the coat, then into another blood vessel that was caught in the root "rope" he had raised, burning a large hole. Xue Chao then slipped into the other blood vessel, into the body world of another victim.
Each of those intricate blood vessels bears witness to the most terrifying period of a life.
However, there was one unusual detail: he had just seen a long, dark brown line under the corroded human skin floor, which, when held up to the light, appeared as a thin, dark red line with what seemed to be undulating patterns.
He was too far away to see clearly at the time, but he had a guess. Now, he had experienced another thrilling "Tarzan" ride in the sea of fire, where he was on the verge of death. When he got closer, he was right – it was a "pipe" made of rolled-up film.
In the film, he saw Deng Dayun huddled in a corner, being punched and kicked by four students.
The world belonging to the protagonist of this unit is no wonder it's special.
The flames ignite quickly, and the explosion after engulfing all organs is fierce, but this momentary momentum weakens rapidly, as if the actual fuel is very little, and such a powerful use will soon be exhausted.
By the time Xue Chao used the last bit of fire from his coat to burn the film and crawled into the film tube, the raging fire outside had already begun to wane, turning the film red.
But before he could take a closer look, he threw off his jacket, which was now only a corner intact, and pushed himself up. The film around him began to flicker like an old videotape. When the strange phenomenon subsided, he was standing in the corridor of the Ninth Middle School.
It was still night, quiet and deserted, with only the trees in the playground rustling in the wind, as if people were whispering secrets. The wind blew gently, caressing his back with a large burn hole, and chilling his body with its hideous burn marks.
The night was pitch black; even the moon had hidden on the other side of the sky, not allowing the campus to borrow any light. But the vending machine at the far end was lit up, its brightly colored packaging of drinks bathed in a pure white light.
Xue Chao, across half the corridor, heard the clanging sound of coins being inserted and rolling over the iron pipe. The cartoon lights around the vending machine flashed rapidly from left to right, accompanied by a childish "ding-ding-ding" notification sound.
He approached step by step, the cartoon light kept spinning, but nothing came out. Only when he got close did he see the prompt on the screen: a red triangle with an exclamation mark, reminding him to "Please continue inserting coins [1/3]".
He did see three drinks that were similar in color to the "sweetened water"... Could this be one of them?
There was a koala wallet on the ground, dusty and trampled a few times. Inside was a student card with "Deng Dayun" written on it, and two coins.
The wallet wasn't placed there by Deng Dayun. Deng Dayun, who was sitting in his seat, was engrossed in doodling on his notebook with his head down, which caused his popularity to drop by almost 10 points.
Xue Chao was afraid that a ghost might suddenly appear from anywhere and strangle him on the spot.
How thoughtful of him, he was especially worried that he wouldn't have enough money.
He accepted it with a smile. Xue Chao put the wallet in his pocket, turned around, and left.
He pretended to walk a few steps away, and a bottle of beverage suddenly fell from the vending machine behind him with a "clatter".
These demons and monsters are nothing but scoundrels. Xue Chao sneered, then returned to find that what had fallen was the canned iced cola from the top.
"I don't want this." He even picked out a bit of oolong green tea, "This one."
He slipped a coin into his hand.
One coin wasn't enough, but after a brief pause, the vending machine started moving again, slowly moving towards the oolong tea. The spring behind the drink also slowly pushed forward, and the drink fell smoothly into the vending machine.
The vending machine was moved back to its original position, but it suddenly got stuck. Xue Chao knew something was wrong. He patted the vending machine, but there was no response. Suddenly, a can of cola fell from the top and hit the vending machine.
Then three rows of cans of Coca-Cola fell down at the same time, like a waterfall, piling up on the shelf. After all the Coca-Cola had fallen, a pale human head fell down and hit the shelf right on top of the cargo box.
Blood that never dries on her cheeks splatters on the glass, and her rolled-up whites stare at Xue Chao.
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