Li Fan's eyes widened as he stared at everything around him. The gloomy, dilapidated scene looked almost as bad as the Prison of Suppression.
Far away, beyond the lighter's glow, everything looked normal.
Only within a radius of a few dozen meters around him, where the flames illuminated the area, had things taken on a mold-covered, dust-choked, underworld-like appearance. The effect was especially pronounced in the lounge.
"Li Fan, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Ke Ke noticed something was off and hurriedly asked.
Though Li Fan's offer to help her earlier had been unrealistic and clearly offhand, Ke Ke was still a little moved.
"You..." Li Fan looked at Ke Ke, only to find that she seemed perfectly normal, as if nothing had happened.
She couldn't see it!
He immediately shook his head and smiled. "It's nothing. The smoke went down the wrong way."
Then he shut the lighter.
The bizarre scene around him vanished at once, and everything returned to normal, as if nothing had happened.
What was that mold?
Residual contamination from an anomaly?
Residual mental radiation?
Li Fan was thrilled. He hadn't expected the lighter he'd casually swiped from the Prison of Suppression to have a special ability!
He thought he'd also taken a pair of handcuffs back then. He wondered if they had some special use too.
He'd have to search the Prison of Suppression carefully later. Who knew what other interesting things he might find...
By now, Zhang Hongbing and the other three had also come out of the Sterilization Room, all looking displeased. Clearly, the autopsy hadn't turned up anything useful.
When they came over, Li Fan immediately offered them cigarettes and lit them with his lighter, watching their reactions.
He wanted to see whether they could spot the strange things.
As expected, they didn't react at all. They were too busy smoking and complaining that this anomalous infected had been exceptionally bizarre.
Zhang Hongbing, in particular, grumbled nonstop. He'd dissected two bizarre Amalgams in a row, and now he didn't feel like eating pork-skin aspic for the next few days.
After seeing that nobody else reacted to the lighter's eerie red glow, Li Fan was completely certain: only he could see the bizarre scene illuminated by its light.
Perhaps it was because he was now the master of the Prison of Suppression.
"Ke Ke, had enough rest? Let's get back to it," Li Fan said.
"Ah... sure." Ke Ke got up and followed him into the Equipment Room.
After changing into protective suits, Li Fan took the windproof lighter with him this time.
Once they entered the Dissection Room, he walked up to the infected body with its chest opened and gently lit the lighter.
The scene, which had been gruesome but still bearable, instantly became several times more sinister.
Black, threadlike mold covered the entire Dissection Room. It grew in huge clumps, twisting and spreading everywhere.
The infected body on the dissection table had the most mold of all.
The place where the infected body had fused with the tree was completely covered in thick black mold. It was almost impossible to see what lay underneath.
Clearly, the black mold was the manifestation of anomalous mental radiation!
Li Fan stepped forward and gently prodded it with his hand. To his surprise, he really did manage to push aside a clump of black mold and expose the flesh fused with the tree.
Only now did he see that in places invisible under normal circumstances, countless fine black hyphae had burrowed out of the tree and into the corpse's flesh.
That so-called perfect fusion was actually the result of these black hyphae forcibly binding the two together!
The black hyphae emerged not only from the tree, but from the corpse as well.
They intertwined, forming a bizarre sight.
Ke Ke looked confused. All she saw was Li Fan suddenly lighting the lighter, then walking over and prodding the corpse from a few centimeters away, his expression strange.
Could Li Fan have been infected by the anomalous mental radiation?
Without a word, Ke Ke immediately picked up a large pair of bolt cutters, ready to knock Li Fan unconscious if things took a turn for the worse.
Li Fan had found the source of the anomalous infection and was delighted. Turning around, he saw the bolt cutters in Ke Ke's hands and immediately took them from her.
"Thanks."
Then he set the burning lighter aside and used its red glow to search for the black hyphae in the corpse.
"Hand saw."
Ke Ke froze for a moment, then quickly handed Li Fan the hand saw.
Good. He hadn't been infected...
Following the path of the black hyphae, Li Fan quickly made a small incision in the corpse's right ribs. An even denser mass of black hyphae lay inside.
The hyphae had already merged with the flesh and couldn't be separated.
"Forceps."
Li Fan took the forceps and inserted them into the wound. He probed deeper and soon felt them touch something hard.
He clamped down on the hard object and pulled it out through the flesh.
"Clink!" The object landed in a tray. The Mental Radiation Detector immediately began to beep. Its needle shot past one hundred, then dropped back down and hovered around eighty.
"What is that?"
Seeing that Li Fan had actually pulled something out—and that it was clearly an anomalous object—Ke Ke hurriedly picked it up with the forceps and rinsed the blood off it.
Once the blood was washed away, a small, lustrous stone appeared.
It was a piece of jade.
Li Fan held the jade in his palm and could just make out its delicate cloud-and-dragon pattern.
Although part of it was coated with cinnabar, traces of the fine abrasive marks from thread-carving were still visible.
Li Fan frowned.
It was a fragment of a Han-dynasty jade carving.
There was no time to think it over. He and Ke Ke exchanged a glance, then immediately reported the discovery to Wu Qian.
"Chief, we found a damaged piece of jade inside the corpse. Its mental radiation is very high. It should be the source of the anomalous infection."
Wu Qian looked at the jade fragment, beaming.
"Good, good, good! Fan, well done! Looks like making you section chief wasn't a mistake!"
He immediately informed the others about the discovery and directed everyone to search for more in the same way.
Now that they had a specific lead, things were much easier.
The autopsy doctors in the other Dissection Rooms immediately got to work. They first scanned the corpses with X-ray machines, then searched the abnormal shadows with a clear target in mind.
After a busy morning, they had found more than a dozen jade fragments. They placed them all on a tray and brought it to Wu Qian.
The group stared at the pieces, exchanging baffled looks.
"All right, put them in the Containment Room for now. Send the data straight to the Research Department and let them deal with the headache." Wu Qian waved his hand.
Finishing the job this quickly already counted as exceeding their target.
The autopsy doctors immediately scattered to disinfect and change, getting ready to eat.
They'd worked overtime all morning, and it had been exhausting. They definitely deserved some barbecue or something for lunch.
After everyone had left, Li Fan turned to Wu Qian.
"Chief Wu, I think these pieces can be put back together."
As he spoke, he stepped forward and picked up several fragments. Using blood plasma as glue, he soon assembled them into a jade carving about the size of a finger.
It was a little figure with leaves growing from its head and roots from its feet.
Li Fan frowned.
It was in the style of the Gutuo Kingdom.
It probably came from the same source as the Shell Currency they'd encountered earlier...
Seeing Li Fan put the anomalous object back together on the spot, Wu Qian was once again filled with pride.
This kid was so sharp. He had to be given special attention.
Now the Dissection Department could really show off in front of the Research Department.
You Research Department think you're so impressive?
Our Dissection Department figured out the anomalous object all by ourselves. We've solved everything. At this rate, the Research Department might as well disband!
While Wu Qian was basking in his triumph, Li Fan suddenly asked, "Chief Wu, these corpses... they're all members of the archaeological team, right?"
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