Going to Work is Like Going to a Funeral

Anomaly Containment File No. E212937

Codename: Amalgam.

Infection Manifestation: Limb fusion, extreme aggression.

Case Details: Wang Haitao, a cashier in the clothing section on the third floor of Guangming Mall at 42 Guangming Road, was the root infection host. After the anomaly outbreak, he fused with two customers, Wang Cuie and Gao Zixuan, who were checking out at the time. They proceeded to attack everyone indiscriminately within the mall, resulting in 7 fatalities and 32 serious injuries.

Disposition: The Second Group of the Third Brigade of the Southwest Bureau of the Anomaly Administration was deployed. The root host was terminated, the Amalgam was neutralized, and all constituent bodies lost vitality. The corpses exhibited faint psychic radiation, and an anomalous object was suspected to be inside. Following preliminary decontamination, they were transferred to the Support Center's autopsy room.

Psychic Radiation Level: 73-121.

Anomaly Infection Rating: E.

Inside the autopsy room, Li Fan stood by the autopsy table in his hazmat suit. He tossed the containment file aside and handed a tool to Zhang Hongbing.

The main body of the corpse was a chubby man with a round face, but where his arms should have been, they had fused with the legs of two other people.

On the left was a middle-aged woman, and on the right was a young man in his twenties.

Their flesh and blood were fused together as if melted by an electric welder, creating a grotesque sight.

The surface of the round-faced man's body was covered in something resembling a hard carapace, and there were vertical slits in the center of his forehead and his chest, through which one could see straight through.

Clearly, this was the cause of his death.

This infected corpse had only been sent here after undergoing decontamination.

The scruffy-bearded Zhang Hongbing finished inspecting the bizarre corpse and reached out a hand.

"Hand saw and large pliers."

As his assistant, Li Fan immediately picked up the heavy hand saw and pliers to hand them over.

Before joining the Anomaly Administration, Zhang Hongbing had been a mechanic at an auto repair shop. He always insisted on being called "Engineer Zhang" rather than "Doctor Zhang."

What Li Fan admired most about Zhang Hongbing was his unique talent for smoking inside a hazmat suit; as he put it, it was a way to avoid wasting the smoke.

Engineer Zhang first used the pliers to secure the corpse's neck, then propped his foot against the autopsy table and started the hand saw. With a cigarette dangling from his lips, he began the craniotomy, chatting away as he worked:

"Fan, I know you want to join the Investigation Department on the front lines. You feel like being in our Support Center is a waste of your talents, especially being assigned to the autopsy section. But these things are a matter of fate. Most of your classmates from training went to the Investigation Department—they get promoted fast and earn more, but they also die fast... Help me catch this piece of brain."

Thick blood splattered everywhere, turning both their hazmat suits and face shields a deep crimson.

After more than a month of training, Li Fan had long since become immune to such visceral scenes. He held out a tray to catch the falling matter and chuckled.

"Don't worry, Engineer Zhang. I think our section is just fine. It suits me. I'm planning on staying here until I retire."

"If you really think that, then it's good. Our section actually has a lot to learn. Look at Liu Dalong's meat shop—it's doing incredibly well now."

"Splat." The craniotomy was complete.

"Record it." Engineer Zhang tossed the saw onto the table, picked up a screwdriver-like tool, and poked around in the cranial cavity. "Mild cerebral thrombosis, no other abnormalities found. Give me the radiation counter."

Li Fan quickly recorded the data on his tablet, leaving a trail of bloody handprints on the screen, and handed a yellow, cigarette-box-sized instrument to Engineer Zhang.

It looked like a miniature Geiger counter, but it didn't record nuclear radiation; it measured the psychic radiation energy of anomalous objects.

Engineer Zhang muttered while scanning, "That's not right. The value is over 70, at least seven times that of a normal person. It should be right here in the brain, so why isn't it? There's nothing in this guy's head. It's as empty as our Bureau Chief's."

Li Fan retorted:

"Engineer Zhang, could it be that your technique was too crude and you smashed the object? Besides, isn't our Bureau Chief a leading authority on anomaly research? How could there be nothing in his head?"

"Bullshit. When I worked at the auto shop, they called me the 'Attending Physician of Auto Repair' because my work was so precise—fixing cars was like performing surgery!" Zhang Hongbing said, looking annoyed. "Besides, if our Bureau Chief were actually competent, would the workload at the Bureau keep increasing?"

Li Fan clicked his tongue. "This infected guy looks like a glutton. Could it be in his mouth?"

As he spoke, he grabbed a pair of pliers, ready to pry open the corpse's mouth.

Zhang Hongbing waved a hand to tell him not to move, took the pliers, and probed inside the corpse's mouth. He felt around, then frowned. "Got something. Get the protection ready—goggles and a containment box."

Li Fan quickly pulled down his goggles and grabbed a square box made of special materials.

A second later, Engineer Zhang pulled the pliers from the corpse's mouth, revealing a shell stained a reddish-brown!

Rusted and metallic in luster, the shell was engraved with intricate patterns—a beautiful woman being torn apart.

The pattern was so clear and lifelike that the moment one looked at it, they could hear a shrill, mournful wail!

It was a harrowing beauty, a beauty from hell, like an evil flower that could instantly stir the deepest desires in a person's heart.

Both Li Fan and Zhang Hongbing were deeply drawn to the coin, a desire to possess it rising rapidly. Although not overwhelming, it sent a chill down their spines.

They exchanged a glance. Engineer Zhang had already quickly dropped the shell into the containment box, and Li Fan, quick as a flash, snapped the lid shut.

Then, both men let out a long sigh of relief.

Although their goggles and hazmat suits blocked most of the psychic radiation from the coin, they had still felt a trace of its influence.

Only after it was inside the box could they consider themselves truly safe.

Otherwise, if either of them were infected and triggered an automatic alarm, this autopsy room would be flooded with high-potency anesthetic gas, and an ordinary person wouldn't wake up after breathing it in.

"Engineer Zhang, this shell is no simple thing. I saw the radiation value spike to over 100 just now," Li Fan said, frowning. "Judging by its appearance, it's finely polished—an ancient shell currency. I wonder how it ended up inside this infected person?"

"Those irresponsible people in the Investigation Department didn't clean it properly," Zhang Hongbing grumbled. "Forget it. We'll hand it over to the Research Department tomorrow."

Engineer Zhang helped Li Fan push the bizarre corpse into the basement and shove it into a specialized large morgue locker. He then tossed the pliers aside, waved his hand, and turned to walk out of the autopsy room.

"I'm off, my old back is killing me. Little Li, I'll leave the night shift to you."

Li Fan gave a dry chuckle and said, "Alright, don't worry, Engineer Zhang, leave it to me."

The two of them went to the disinfection room together to clean up, then took off their protective suits and changed into casual clothes.

"I'm heading back to help my daughter with her homework." Zhang Hongbing grimaced, waved his hand, and walked out. His voice drifted back from a distance: "Don't forget to write the test report tomorrow, I'm counting on you."

"You got it!" Li Fan replied, closing the lounge door behind him before heading to the duty room.

It was already past seven in the evening, and the investigators in the testing building had long since clocked out.

He and Engineer Zhang had only taken on this autopsy job to search for anomalous items right before the end of the shift, which was why they were working overtime.

In Zhang Hongbing's words, he hadn't worked overtime in years, and doing it occasionally actually felt quite fulfilling.

The conditions in the duty room were excellent; it was a suite equipped with bulletproof glass and doors, complete with a bed, desk, chairs, computer, and television.

The duty officer's job was to keep an eye on hundreds of monitor screens covering an entire wall, as well as the psychic radiation alarm system.

Of course, these systems were managed by artificial intelligence, and the duty officer served only as a secondary safeguard.

Should any anomaly occur, they were to notify the Investigation Department's Special Operations Team immediately, then decide whether to participate in the containment or hide in the inner room.

There was even a small kitchen and a large refrigerator in the inner room, stocked with various ingredients specifically for the duty officer's midnight snacks.

It was practically the civil servant life of Li Fan's dreams.

He felt perfectly suited to this style of work and just wanted to stay settled like this until retirement.

Thinking that it would take at least another year just to become a permanent employee, and that the Cleaning Association's godforsaken Cuckoo Project was still a long way off, Li Fan couldn't help but smile at the thought of his continued stability.

Having just finished the autopsy of an infected subject, Li Fan had no appetite. He poured a cup of coffee, plopped down in front of the monitor console, and pulled out the bronze key hanging around his neck to fiddle with it.

As a former antique dealer, he could tell the patterns on the key belonged to the Warring States or Han periods, likely no earlier than the pre-Qin era.

It was shaped like a dagger.

He had traced the seal script characters on the key onto a piece of paper and searched for their meaning on his phone, but he remained completely baffled.

The key read: "Abyss has no limit, prison has no master, only the rootless may enter."

What was that supposed to mean?

Was this thing like the Sunflower Manual, where only a castrated eunuch could use it?

Though he didn't understand the situation, the fact that the collector had hidden only this single item in his dormitory made Li Fan feel there was more to it than met the eye.

But even after rubbing the key until it was nearly polished smooth, he still couldn't figure out what was going on.

He tossed it aside, got up to boil a bowl of shredded pork noodles, slurped them down, and then started watching TV while slowly munching on an apple.

After a long day of work, fatigue washed over him. As he watched the TV, his eyelids began to grow heavy.

He didn't know how long he had been asleep when Li Fan was jolted awake by a tapping sound at the window.

The TV had turned into a screen of static, and the clock on the wall showed it was just past two in the morning.

Who was that?

Li Fan turned to look. Outside the duty room window stood a man and a woman—a middle-aged woman and a young man. They were smiling politely, tapping on the glass and gesturing for Li Fan to open the door.

Colleagues coming in for an emergency shift? They looked a bit familiar. How did they even get into the testing building?

Li Fan groggily stood up to open the door, but the next second, he felt as if he'd been electrocuted. Every hair on his body stood on end, and he froze in place.

He whipped his head back to look at the two smiling figures outside.

These were the corpses he had autopsied today!