Behind the enormous protective barrier stood the trees.
They had been transported here with their roots intact.
It was clear that great efforts had been made to protect the roots when the trees were pulled from the ground.
Even so, some of the finer roots had still snapped.
Pale red blood seeped intermittently from the broken roots and flowed onto the ground.
Most of the branches above the trees had been preserved fairly well. They were now curled up and crammed into the Dissection Room.
Every tree was at least as thick as a bowl, and they looked like ordinary trees.
That is, if you ignored the people fused with them.
Every tree was fused with a person whose eyes were tightly shut.
This fusion wasn't as simple as stuffing a tree into a human body or putting a person inside a tree.
Instead, their bodily tissues and the trees' tissues had fused together, as if they had grown into one another.
Before Li Fan stood a middle-aged man fused with a tree.
From the neck up, he was an ordinary man. But starting at his neck, a tree trunk jutted out at an odd angle. The bark and his skin had fused together, with no visible boundary between them, as if they had grown together naturally.
The tree passed through his body and emerged from his lower back.
His calves and feet had fused back into the lower part of the trunk.
At first glance, it looked as though the man had been impaled on the tree.
Only when you came closer and looked carefully could you see that his body and the tree had fused perfectly, their flesh and blood completely joined. His skin, flesh, and even bones had mixed with the tree's cork and outer bark.
It was like a whole new species.
"Chief, what's going on today? It's not even nine, and you already called us in. When have we ever had to suffer like this... Oh my god, what the hell is this now?"
Zhang Hongbing grumbled as he walked in. When he saw the "tree people" before him, he was stunned too.
The other investigators from the department arrived one after another and saw the tree people as well.
Even the guys from the Dissection Department, who had dissected plenty of anomalies over the years and seen their fair share of strange things, were deeply shaken.
Each of the dozen or so tree people before them had fused with their trees in a different way.
Some had their limbs fused into the trees, some had most of their bodies inside, and some had only their heads and shoulders merged with them. There were all sorts.
At a glance, it looked like a silent collection of postmodern sculptures.
"At least they're all dead..." Ke Ke murmured.
Li Fan nodded.
The pain of this kind of fusion was beyond imagination. It was enough to drive anyone mad. If these people were still alive, no one knew what kind of horrific agony they would be suffering.
It was almost impossible to imagine.
Just then, the curled branches and leaves of one tree suddenly shuddered, as if a living creature were convulsing. Everyone there jumped in fright.
"Come on, stop admiring them. Get into your protective suits and split into teams to dissect them. Two people per tree. Get started, and try to keep the torsos intact as much as possible. It's the least we can do out of respect for the dead. Minister Sun from the Research Department called personally to hurry us for the data, and he's in a rush. Let's give it our all!"
Wu Qian clapped his hands to hurry them along.
Everyone immediately stepped forward and began moving the tree people.
Wu Qian glanced at Li Fan and continued:
"Section Chief Li, you and Ke Ke work together. Get it done as quickly as possible."
Li Fan had been about to get started with Zhang Hongbing. He froze when he heard that.
"Chief Wu, isn't that a bit much? I've only been working for a day. I don't know anything..."
Wu Qian waved a hand.
"Young people need to get more practice and learn the ropes quickly. Didn't you all learn this during your initial training? You just cut open the bodies and record the data. What's so hard about that? Get to it. If you don't know something, ask Ke Ke to teach you."
He thought, It's rare to find such a responsible and dedicated young man who isn't afraid to take charge. I have to make sure he's properly trained.
I should get him ready to handle things on his own as soon as possible.
Those few cases of liquor he gave me yesterday were great. All top-shelf stuff...
Everyone from the Dissection Department went to the Equipment Room to change into their protective suits. A few colleagues who hadn't had a chance to congratulate Li Fan earlier also took the opportunity to offer their congratulations.
He was so young, and after only a few days on the job, he'd already been made a section chief. His future was bright.
Li Fan thanked them, then drove a small forklift over with Ke Ke. They picked a "tree" and moved it onto a dissection table.
The man and tree together weighed several hundred pounds. An ordinary person couldn't have lifted them.
After checking their vital signs, they confirmed that the tree people were completely dead, with no cellular activity.
The Psychic Radiation Detector's readings fluctuated around 50.
A typical case of anomalous infection.
"Section Chief Li, you take the lead. I'll assist you," Ke Ke said gently.
The young woman showed no sign of dissatisfaction.
Li Fan didn't refuse. "All right. Ke Ke, just call me Li Fan. The title's no big deal. Could you pass me the chainsaw?"
Li Fan had chosen a corpse fused with a tree starting at the shoulder. Most of its left side had gone into the tree, and long sections of trunk extended above and below it.
They had to saw off the trunk at both ends before they could dissect it.
The Dissection Room had tools of every size. They'd dealt with plenty of strange anomalous infections over the years, so there was no need to go looking for anything special.
"Hold down the trunk above his head for me."
Ke Ke immediately followed his instruction, pressing both hands—covered in thick protective gloves—against the trunk.
Li Fan started the chainsaw. Over the roar of its motor, he quickly began cutting through the trunk.
"Zzz—"
As the chainsaw blade touched the trunk, the entire crown shuddered violently, and its branches and leaves seemed to curl up slightly.
Pale red liquid immediately seeped from the cut, carrying the mingled scents of plants and the coppery sweetness of blood. It was bizarre.
Li Fan frowned but didn't falter, continuing to cut downward.
His body was in great shape now, and he had more than enough strength. Holding the chainsaw steady, he quickly sawed off the trunk above the man's head.
Next came the roots below.
Before long, he'd cut off the extra trunk at both ends, and pale red liquid had spread across the floor.
Even the cut surface of the trunk was pale red, like a piece of meat left out for days.
Once the smaller branches had been removed, the dissection became much easier.
Li Fan picked up a scalpel and asked Ke Ke to hold the corpse's limbs in place. Then he began cutting along the point where the trunk and limbs had fused.
The blade met a resistance like tough bark as it cut into the corpse's skin, but it went through without trouble.
"Record this," Li Fan said in a low voice as he cut through the flesh.
Ke Ke immediately switched on the recorder and began writing quickly in her notebook.
"Human and arboreal tissues are uniformly fused. Blood vessels and nerves are interwoven with the woody structures. Cellular-level fusion is suspected..."
"Organs have turned black and show signs of necrosis..."
"Presumed cause of death: the body's structural changes triggered an immune rejection response, leading to multiple organ failure..."
As he spoke, Li Fan skillfully cut the corpse open, examining the state of its various bodily systems.
Dissecting and handling anomalous infections wasn't medical research. Everyone in the Dissection Department was a self-taught quack, and their main goal was to find the source of the anomalous infection.
The fine work was left to the Research Department.
Soon, they'd nearly finished dissecting the infected body before them. They had cut open all the areas where the tree and body had fused to examine them.
Nothing abnormal.
Or rather, there was no object that could be identified as the source of the anomalous infection.
The tree person before them was extraordinarily strange—by every measure, it was anything but normal—yet they couldn't detect any source of anomalous infection inside its body.
The Psychic Radiation Detector's reading had even dropped a little.
The parts where the tree person had fused with the tree were astonishingly healthy. It felt as though the tissue was supposed to look exactly like that.
Li Fan was tired after half a day of physical labor. He tossed aside the forceps and said, "Ke Ke, let's take a break in the lounge."
"Oh." Ke Ke nodded quickly and followed Li Fan to the Sterilization Room.
After they finished decontamination in the Sterilization Room, they took off their protective suits, changed into their regular clothes, and went to the lounge.
Li Fan poured himself a cup of coffee and dropped onto the sofa, ready to clear his head.
Ke Ke also slumped down on the sofa. She took off her black-rimmed glasses and gently rubbed her eyes.
Only then did Li Fan realize that Ke Ke looked very gentle and pretty without her glasses. She was definitely beautiful.
She just had some pretty heavy dark circles.
He teased her, "Ke Ke, did you have too much fun last night? How come you have such dark circles?"
Ke Ke hurriedly waved her hands.
"No, no, I... I don't have time to have fun... I was working late last night."
Working?
Li Fan froze.
The Anomaly Bureau paid pretty well. Even the Dissection Department, though it wasn't popular, offered special allowances. In Gu City, the salary was definitely high. Why would she need another job?
Seeing Li Fan's confusion, Ke Ke explained, "I actually have three jobs. One in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one at night. I'm grateful to Chief Wu; otherwise, I wouldn't have had the chance..."
"Ke Ke, are you having some kind of trouble?"
Ke Ke sighed and said, "It's all to pay for my younger sister's treatment... She has Long Sleep Syndrome, also called Sleeping Sickness..."
After listening to Ke Ke's explanation, Li Fan learned that ever since anomalous incidents had appeared, strange illnesses had emerged in this world too.
Long Sleep Syndrome was one of them.
Those afflicted fell into a deep slumber. Their vital signs became extremely faint, yet their brain waves remained unusually active.
By modern medical standards, their vital signs had all but disappeared, and they were considered corpses.
Except for their brains.
And yet, they weren't dead.
It was as if the patients were living in another world.
A world of dreams.
Treating Long Sleep Syndrome and maintaining the patients' vital signs cost a great deal of money. The Anomaly Bureau's salary wasn't low, but it still wasn't enough.
So Ke Ke had taken three other jobs. Together with what she'd saved before, it was just enough to keep things going.
Li Fan sighed and asked, "How much more do you need?"
Ke Ke's expression darkened.
"At least two million a year just to keep her alive. My savings are almost gone, and I'm thinking that if things get any worse, I'll ask the Bureau to advance me ten years of pay... If that still isn't enough, there's always the compensation money..."
"Don't worry. I'll think of something," Li Fan said comfortingly.
The Cleaning Association had plenty of money.
He casually took out a lighter, stuck a cigarette in his mouth, and prepared to ease his nerves.
He flipped open the windproof lighter. A red flame suddenly shot up, and the scene around him instantly changed!
The lounge, which had looked spotless, was now filled with wisps of black vapor. The clean walls had become mottled and filthy, covered in patches of mold.
Every object was rusted and covered in dust.
The entire office building seemed to have turned into the ruins of a place abandoned for countless years.
Li Fan rubbed his eyes, then looked sharply at the windproof lighter in his hand.
It was the lighter he'd brought back from the Prison of Suppression!
Before you continue