Rebirth

"Founder of induced pluripotent stem cells, honorary president of the World Medical Organization."

"The founding father of all New Calendar medicine."

"Known as the most brilliant doctor in the four thousand years from the Old Calendar to the New Calendar, our deeply beloved Mr. Zhou Zhi."

"Passed away at the age of thirty-three."

"The passing of Zhou Zhi is a monumental loss to all of humanity, to the entire era..."

Such voices in his mind grew increasingly blurred.

The female voice echoing from the video wall drifted further and further away.

Zhou Zhi let out a faint breath; before he could even take in the world, a heavy scent of disinfectant flooded his nostrils.

"How foul."

The man reached out to pull back the white sheet covering him and sat up, feeling an inexplicable, sharp pain deep within his body.

It felt as if some kind of insect was crawling back and forth inside him.

"I... did not die?"

Zhou Zhi extended his left hand, his pale cuff revealing his wrist, and pressed it against his brow. Beneath him, the metal gurney let out a creak that echoed throughout the dim space.

Zhou Zhi remembered clearly that he had already died.

Infected by that mysterious [disease], his life force had been extinguished in less than half a month.

In his memory, the final image was lying on a hospital bed, dying in solitude.

"Resurrection?"

Zhou Zhi leaped lightly off the iron gurney.

At the edge of the room, there was a dim, yellowish light.

By this light, Zhou Zhi saw the scene before him clearly.

In the dim, cramped room, corpses covered in white sheets were arranged in a chaotic mess.

They were vast in number, piled up as haphazardly as mere objects.

It was silent; there was not a single sound.

The outlines of human forms showed through the white sheets, as if they might sit up at any moment to whisper in one's ear.

A morgue.

Zhou Zhi judged the situation immediately.

Perhaps because he had been declared dead, the hospital staff had pushed him into the morgue?

"Still, this is far too informal."

Zhou Zhi's expression darkened, though he felt no great emotional fluctuation as he observed his surroundings.

In this small room, there were actually over a hundred corpses.

The pale brick walls reflected the bodies.

In the corner of the room, a metal door was embedded in the wall.

It featured a strangely shaped lock.

Zhou Zhi touched the lock, which radiated a cold texture, and frowned.

Who installs a lock on the inside of a morgue?

Was it meant for the corpses to unlock?

As Zhou Zhi pondered this, the sharp pain in his chest suddenly intensified.

It felt as if countless tiny insects had burrowed into his flesh and were gnawing away.

[Five minutes and sixteen seconds until vital signs cease.]

What was going on?

Zhou Zhi was stunned.

Where did this voice come from? It didn't seem like a sound, but rather knowledge that had inexplicably appeared in his mind.

But Zhou Zhi's first reaction was not to this mysterious voice; he abruptly unbuttoned his pale shirt.

He looked down.

What he saw was...

A body ravaged by ruin.

And... the hollow cavities of his left and right chest, with a single heart hanging in the void.

Zhou Zhi's pupils dilated.

"Eh?"

"Where... are my lungs?"

He finally made a sound, voicing this very question.

Then, the second question arrived right on cue.

Without lungs, the organs used for respiratory exchange, how was he still alive?

As a doctor, this defied everything Zhou Zhi had stored in his knowledge base.

"I am still breathing normally..."

"However, from what I can perceive, I only have at most four minutes left to live."

Zhou Zhi calmed down.

The room was locked from the inside, so there must be a key.

Therefore, where was the key?

The entire sealed room, aside from the corpses, was basically laid bare.

Then, the answer was quite obvious.

Zhou Zhi lifted one of the white cloths.

A corpse with a rigid expression lay in a strange posture on a small iron cart.

The air was deathly cold.

In his mind, knowledge appeared inexplicably.

"[A useless corpse]."

"[Died of Influenza, their lungs completely diseased; excised to prevent the formation of an epidemic]."

Zhou Zhi saw it at first glance.

Just like himself.

The chest cavity of this corpse was empty.

The lungs had been excised.

Turning the corpse over, Zhou Zhi found no key, so he moved directly to lift the white curtain of the next corpse.

Likewise, it was a thin woman, her pupils completely dilated, with no lungs.

"[A useless corpse]."

"[Died of Influenza, their lungs completely diseased; excised to prevent the formation of an epidemic]."

As expected.

Zhou Zhi spent a short amount of time lifting the curtains of the dozens of corpses around him.

All of them...

Were the same.

Something was completely wrong.

"Is it some kind of special influenza... With this death toll, according to current medical standards, the number of people affected must be astronomical."

Zhou Zhi thought seriously about the current bizarre situation.

"Could it be that I have been dead for a long time?"

Also, this "diseased," "forming an epidemic"...

Zhou Zhi had never heard these terms before.

But now, there wasn't much time left.

Opportunities to return from the dead were rare, so Zhou Zhi did not stop his pace.

Instead, he examined the many pale corpses one by one.

All had died of [Influenza].

Furthermore, the time of death could not have been very long.

"At most, no more than a day."

Based on the state of the corpses, Zhou Zhi judged.

These corpses had various postures, and their expressions were even more grotesque.

Zhou Zhi's gaze finally landed on the center of the room.

[There seems to be something different].

A flash of inspiration struck, and Zhou Zhi walked silently toward the cart in the center.

He lifted the cloth.

It was the corpse of a thin man.

The thin man's body was naked, his skin fair.

Unlike the other corpses.

This corpse was...

Intact.

"[A somewhat useful corpse.]"

"[Possesses a negligible amount of useless Plague Extermination Art.]"

"[Died of Influenza (Pathogen).]"

Zhou Zhi's fingers traced the smooth skin of the nameless male corpse.

Following the arm down, he found a key clutched in the palm of the right hand.

A key.

Zhou Zhi was in no hurry to take the key.

Instead, he continued to observe the body.

There were traces of an incision on the corpse's chest.

In an instant.

Inside Zhou Zhi's body.

A restlessness stirred.

"[Usable inferior lungs.]"

"[For the current situation, they are the best organs.]"

"[Can be removed using a scalpel.]"

Scalpel, removal.

How could such a surgical organ extraction be described so simply?

Zhou Zhi's expression remained unmoved.

His gaze shifted toward the nameless corpse's left hand.

A blade with a bizarre design.

"[Worn Scalpel.]"

"[Something that could hardly be called a scalpel by normal standards, yet was treated as a treasure by its owner.]"

"[In the final moments of life, its owner performed one—and only one—flawless, yet error-ridden surgery.]"

"[Is the life of a talentless person meaningless?]"

"[The owner of the scalpel asked as much.]"

Zhou Zhi raised his eyes.

A scalpel.

It was completely different from the scalpels in his memory.

The scalpel before him looked much larger.

There were numerous cracks on its surface, and it looked as if it might fall apart at any moment.

[Two minutes and three seconds until vital signs disappear completely.]

Zhou Zhi had always been this calm.

He gripped the scalpel.

Although the design was entirely different.

A strange sense of familiarity welled up in his heart.

It felt as if it were connected to his own body.

[Surgery Start].

Zhou Zhi began the surgery, never having worked in such a crude environment before.

The blade severed the connections.

Meticulous.

Zhou Zhi's hand was terrifyingly steady, like an ancient well that never rippled.

The slightly oversized right lung.

Then, the left lung.

The surgical process was perfect, just as it had been in the past.

The entire procedure took one minute and sixteen seconds.

The moment the final connection was severed.

Zhou Zhi's expression shifted slightly.

A feverish heat began to rise within his body.

The lung placed beside the corpse exerted a tremendous attraction upon him at this moment.

A surge of desire welled up from his chest.

Portions of his flesh began to sprout sarcomas, spreading toward the lung.

Contact.

The instant they touched.

It was as if Zhou Zhi's body had captured the lung, and an inexplicable sense of satisfaction arose.

Then, integration.

Skin grew.

It covered the organs that had been exposed to the outside.

[Seventy-three hours remaining until vital signs vanish completely.]

[Pathogenization Index: 21.7 percent.]

[Pathogenization Source: Influenza.]

Zhou Zhi's pupils flickered.

He lowered his head.

He looked at his own unfamiliar hands.

"A new problem has emerged..."

"Am I still human now?"