The Jade Carving Within

Li Fan's eyes widened as he surveyed his surroundings, a faint sense that this gloomy, dilapidated aesthetic was on par with the Prison of Suppression.

Looking into the distance, beyond the reach of the lighter's flame, everything appeared normal.

Only within the few dozen meters illuminated by the flame—especially inside the breakroom—did the environment transform into a hellish landscape covered in mold and grime.

"Li Fan, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Ke Ke noticed his abnormality and asked with concern.

Although Li Fan's earlier offer to help her hadn't been realistic—clearly just a casual remark—Ke Ke still felt a touch of warmth.

"You..." Li Fan looked at Ke Ke, only to find her expression unchanged, as if nothing had happened.

She couldn't see it!

He immediately shook his head and smiled. "It's nothing, I just choked on the smoke."

He then clicked the lighter shut.

The eerie scene vanished instantly, returning to normal as if nothing had ever occurred.

What were those mold spores?

Residual anomalous infection?

Residual psychic radiation?

Li Fan's heart raced; he hadn't expected that the lighter he'd casually swiped from the Prison of Suppression would possess such a special ability!

He remembered grabbing a pair of handcuffs at the time as well; he wondered if they had any special functions too.

He would have to go back to the Prison of Suppression and search thoroughly; who knew what other good items he might find...

At this moment, Zhang Hongbing and the other three emerged from the Sterilization Room, all looking disgruntled, clearly having found nothing of note after the dissection.

Seeing them approach, Li Fan immediately offered them cigarettes and flicked his lighter, observing their reactions.

He wanted to see if they could perceive those eerie manifestations.

As expected, the others showed no reaction, focused only on smoking while complaining about how bizarre this particular anomalous infection was.

Zhang Hongbing complained the most, grumbling that having dissected two strange Amalgams in a row had ruined his appetite for pork skin jelly for the next few days.

Seeing that the others remained indifferent to the lighter's eerie red glow, Li Fan became certain that the strange scenes revealed by the flame were visible only to him.

Perhaps it was because he was now the master of the Prison of Suppression.

"Sister Ke Ke, are you rested? Let's continue," Li Fan said.

"Ah... alright." Ke Ke stood up, followed Li Fan, and entered the Equipment Room.

After changing into protective gear, Li Fan kept the windproof lighter in his hand.

Once inside the Dissection Room, he walked up to the chest-opened infected body and gently flicked the lighter on.

The scene, which had been bloody but tolerable, instantly became several times more sinister.

The entire Dissection Room was filled with those filamentous black molds, growing in large, winding clusters everywhere.

The area with the highest concentration of mold was the infected body on the dissection table.

In particular, the point where the body had fused with the wood was now completely enveloped in thick, black mold, to the point where the original form was barely visible.

Clearly, these black molds were the physical manifestation of the anomalous psychic radiation!

Li Fan reached out and gently brushed them aside, finding that he could indeed push the black mold away to reveal the flesh fused with the wood underneath.

Only then did he realize that in areas invisible under normal circumstances, a vast number of fine black fungal threads were drilling out from the wood and into the flesh of the corpse.

The so-called perfect fusion was actually being forcibly held together by these black fungal threads!

These threads were emerging not only from the wood but also from the human corpse.

They were intertwined in an extremely bizarre fashion.

Ke Ke, standing to the side, looked puzzled. She only saw Li Fan suddenly light his lighter, walk over, and poke at the corpse from a few centimeters away, his expression looking very strange.

Could Li Fan have been infected by the anomalous psychic radiation?

Ke Ke silently picked up a large pair of pliers, ready to knock Li Fan unconscious if the situation took a turn for the worse.

Li Fan, having discovered the root of the anomalous infection, felt a surge of joy. Turning his head, he saw the pliers in Ke Ke's hand and immediately took them, saying:

"Thanks."

He then set the burning lighter aside, using the red glow to track the path of the black fungal threads within the corpse.

"Bone saw."

Ke Ke was startled for a moment but quickly handed the saw to Li Fan.

At least he's not infected...

Following the direction of the black threads, Li Fan quickly cut a small opening in the right side of the corpse's ribcage, where the black threads were even denser.

These threads had integrated with the flesh and could not be separated.

"Tweezers."

He inserted the tweezers into the incision, and after probing deeper, he quickly felt them strike something hard.

Li Fan clamped down hard on the hard object and yanked it out from amidst the flesh.

"Clang!" The object was tossed onto a tray, and the Mental Radiation Detector immediately let out a buzz; the needle instantly surged past one hundred before falling back, hovering around eighty.

"What is this thing?"

Seeing that Li Fan had actually managed to extract something—and clearly an anomalous object at that—Ke Ke hurriedly picked up the soybean-sized item with tweezers and rinsed the blood off it.

As the blood washed away, a small, crystalline stone was revealed.

It was a piece of jade.

Li Fan held the jade in his palm, where faint, intricate cloud-and-dragon patterns could be seen.

Although partially encased in cinnabar staining, the fine, hair-thin traces of jade-carving abrasives were still visible.

Li Fan frowned.

This was a fragment of a Han Dynasty jade carving.

With no time to overthink, he exchanged a glance with Ke Ke and immediately reported the discovery to Wu Qian.

"Director, we found a damaged jade fragment inside the corpse. The mental radiation is very high; it should be the source of the anomalous infection."

Wu Qian looked at the jade fragment, beaming with joy:

"Good, good, good! Fan, well done! This section chief position was well-earned!"

He then hurriedly informed the others of the discovery, instructing everyone to search in this direction.

Things were much easier once they had a specific target.

The various dissectors in the other Dissection Rooms immediately took action, running the corpses through X-ray machines first and then targeting the anomalous shadows with precision.

After a busy morning, over a dozen jade fragments had been recovered, placed together on a tray, and brought before Wu Qian.

The group stared at the jade fragments, looking at each other in dismay.

"Alright, put them in the Containment Room first and transfer the data directly to the Research Department. Let them deal with the headache," Wu Qian said with a wave of his hand.

Finishing the work this quickly was already an over-fulfillment of the task.

The dissectors immediately dispersed to undergo decontamination and change their clothes, ready to head off for lunch.

Having worked overtime all morning, it had been truly exhausting; they had to get some barbecue or something similar to make up for it at noon.

Once everyone else had left, Li Fan spoke to Wu Qian:

"Director Wu, I think these things can be pieced together."

As he spoke, he stepped forward to pick up a few jade fragments, using blood plasma as glue, and before long, he had assembled a jade carving the size of a finger.

It was a small figure with leaves growing from its head and roots growing from its feet.

Li Fan's brow furrowed.

It was in the style of the Gutuo Kingdom.

It should be from the same source as the Shell Currency encountered previously...

Seeing Li Fan assemble the anomalous object on the spot, Wu Qian felt a surge of gratification.

This kid was too sharp; he had to be groomed as a priority.

This would allow the Dissection Department to save significant face in front of the Research Department.

You think you're so great, Research Department?

We in the Dissection Department figured out the anomalous objects ourselves and solved the problem; you guys can just disband!

Just as Wu Qian was reveling in the thought, Li Fan suddenly asked:

"Director Wu, these corpses... they all belong to the archaeological team, right?"