Lu Chen lifted his head, his gaze settling once more on the enormous carcass of the Wind Cutter Falcon.
Though the Demon Bird was dead, the fierce wind-aspected Baleful Intent it had built up inside its body had not completely dissipated.
Like ownerless ferocious beasts, it coursed wildly through the carcass's meridians and flesh, occasionally gathering at a wound and taking shape, then bursting forth as lethal Wind Blades.
For other corpse handlers, this was a death warrant.
But to Lu Chen right now, it was a perfect whetstone!
He suppressed every stray thought, focusing more intently than ever before.
The dissecting knife in his hand felt like an extension of his arm. His newly learned Shadow Step had brought him more than improved evasion; it had given him exquisite control over his muscles and breath.
Lu Chen's figure flickered beside the Wind Cutter Falcon's massive carcass. Every step landed without a sound, every sidestep was timed to perfection.
"Whoosh!"
Another pale-cyan Wind Blade burst from the Demon Bird's wing root with a shrill whistle, skimming past his ear and carving a deep gash into the distant wall.
Lu Chen didn't even blink. Taking advantage of the brief interval between bursts of Baleful Intent, he slipped his dissecting knife into the joint between wing and torso like a nimble fish, then made a smooth cut along the grain of bone and sinew.
The whole process looked like dancing on the blade's edge, perilous in the extreme. In truth, everything was under his control.
Feathers, talons, beak bones...
These materials usually took corpse handlers hours to process, and even then they had to risk their lives just to manage it.
In Lu Chen's hands, they were perfectly separated in less than the time it took an incense stick to burn, then sorted and laid aside.
When Lu Chen finally reached into the Wind Cutter Falcon's warm abdomen to retrieve its core Demon Core, a thought stirred in his mind, and he made an even bolder decision.
Instead of immediately avoiding the most concentrated, purest Wind Blade Baleful Intent coiled around the Demon Core, he deliberately focused a sliver of his attention and cautiously guided a wisp of Baleful Intent, thinner than a strand of hair, from his fingertip into his meridians!
"Hiss—"
An indescribable agony, as if countless tiny blades were slicing through him, shot up his arm!
Lu Chen grunted, his face turning deathly pale as beads of sweat the size of beans broke out on his forehead.
He didn't dare delay. He immediately began circulating the Turtle Breath Absorption Technique, directing the faint warm current in his dantian to painstakingly envelop and refine the domineering wisp of Baleful Intent, as if teasing silk from a cocoon.
The process was excruciating. Each refinement felt like his meridians were being ground over and over against a millstone.
But once Lu Chen had finally neutralized the wisp of Baleful Intent, an indescribable sense of relief flowed through that meridian.
He could clearly feel that the battered meridian, tempered through this process of destruction and rebirth, had become a little tougher and wider than before!
"It really works!"
Lu Chen's eyes blazed. The door to an entirely new world had swung open in his heart.
Suppressing his physical exhaustion and pain, he removed the flawless Demon Core, about the size of a pigeon's egg and shimmering with flowing cyan light, from the carcass.
At that very moment, the system's delightful notification rang in his mind.
[Processed Wind Cutter Falcon, obtained 2 years of Demon Devil Lifespan.] [Due to the flawless processing, the lifespan reward has increased slightly.]
Only after completing everything did Lu Chen let out a long breath of stale air. He was drenched in sweat, as if he'd just been fished out of the water.
"Clang!"
The heavy stone door of the Corpse Handling Room was shoved open. Foreman Wang arrived right on time, hands clasped behind his back, walking with a swagger.
At a glance, he spotted the materials perfectly separated on the floor and the cyan-glowing Demon Core in Lu Chen's hand. Greed practically overflowed from his narrow, triangular eyes.
"Good! Good! Good!"
Foreman Wang rushed forward and snatched the Demon Core from Lu Chen's hand, holding it up to examine it from every angle. His smile bloomed like a chrysanthemum.
"Well done, kid! I knew I'd picked right. You've got some luck on your side!"
He excitedly stretched out his fan-sized hand and slapped Lu Chen hard on the shoulder. The blow carried a probing force that could have shattered an ordinary person's bones.
Yet the instant his palm landed, Lu Chen's shoulder muscles gave an almost imperceptible twitch, dipped, and yielded in a strange rhythm that no ordinary person could have noticed.
Foreman Wang felt as if he had slapped a slippery, unyielding fish. Most of his force sank into nothing, leaving behind only an inexplicable awkwardness.
A strange sensation flashed through his heart like a bolt of lightning.
But when he looked down and saw Lu Chen stumbling backward as if struck by overwhelming force, his face pale and his blood churning, he pushed that sliver of doubt aside.
Perhaps the kid was simply so frail that it had felt strange.
Foreman Wang withdrew his hand, satisfied, tucked the Demon Core into his robes, and turned to leave.
But the instant he turned around, the smile vanished from his face, replaced by a deep scowl. His eyes held a coldness that refused to thaw.
"Lucky every time? Once is luck, but every single time?"
It seemed Wang Mazi had seen through Foreman Wang's thoughts.
As he followed Foreman Wang out, Wang Mazi glanced around. Seeing no one nearby, he embellished his suspicions as he spoke.
"Foreman Wang, there's something uncanny about that Lu Chen! I watched him handle the Wind Cutter Falcon. At first, he was putting on an act, clutching his head and crying out like he was about to die. But then? His hands were steady as a rock—more nimble than the veteran masters in the bureau who've been at it for decades!"
"That Baleful Intent was so violent, yet it barely scratched his skin. Do you believe that, Foreman Wang? I don't think he's just lucky. He's probably hiding some ability we don't know about! That kid's deep and calculating. Don't let him grow into a tiger you can't control, Foreman!"
Wang Mazi's words were like poisoned needles, striking the most sensitive nerve in Foreman Wang's heart.
He recalled Lu Chen's repeated, lucky successes, the detailed autopsy report that was far too thorough for a newcomer, and the strange sensation of slapping something as slippery as a fish when he struck Lu Chen's shoulder...
All the suspicious details connected, and Foreman Wang's gaze turned completely cold.
"Hiding his true abilities? Hmph..."
Foreman Wang let out a chilling sneer, his knuckles cracking as he clenched them.
"I don't care if you're truly useless or just putting on some ghost act... Whether you're a mule or a horse, take you out for a run and we'll find out."
"If you really have some ability, then go risk your life for me. If you don't, then if you die... you die."