Surgery complete

Even the staff watching the monitors were badly frightened by the sight.

Extracting bones from a living person-this really was a first for them!

The doctor adjusted his monocle.

His gaze fell on Ivan, who was holding a hammer.

Ivan stood before Lu Xiao's skeleton.

He held a hammer in one hand and a chisel in the other.

Clink, clink!

Clink, clink!

He began carving Lu Xiao's bones.

"Doctor! Do we really not need to stop them?"

The doctor adjusted his monocle.

"Of course! We need to go stop them immediately!"

"So, who's willing to go?"

At the doctor's words, the staff exchanged glances.

Suddenly, the doctor's startled cry snapped everyone out of their thoughts.

"Holy shit! He's actually using relief carving on the bones!"

At that, everyone turned to look.

On the surveillance feed, the skeleton had already been carved with many exquisite, intricate patterns, and they had indeed been carved in relief.

The hammer struck the chisel repeatedly, sending up a shower of sparks.

More and more patterns appeared on the skeleton.

Those patterns linked together, giving off a faint glow like an activated magic circle.

As the carving progressed, the light grew increasingly intense.

After a long while, Ivan put down his tools.

Perhaps out of an instinct left over from when he had been human, he reached up and wiped the nonexistent sweat from his forehead.

Looking at the suspended skeleton again, the carved patterns were now visible.

Those carved patterns were obscure and incomprehensible, yet possessed a strange beauty.

The skeleton, which had once inspired fear at a single glance, now looked like a work of art.

"His curse has taken root too deeply. I can only suppress it with an Alchemy Array. Even I can't eradicate it!"

Ivan's voice came from the Prison Doctor's body.

The Prison Doctor nodded, propping up his chin with three fingers.

"About what I expected!"

"Next, I'll put his bones back in!"

Ivan did not answer. He first returned the tools on the floor to the toolbox, then remained where he stood.

The soul flames flickering in his hollow eye sockets seemed to say:

"Hurry up! I want to watch!"

The Prison Doctor stuffed the skeleton back into Lu Xiao's body.

Then he returned the jumbled internal organs to their proper places.

Next came the nerves, the blood vessels...

Finally, the Prison Doctor carefully stitched Lu Xiao's body closed.

At this point, the surgery was essentially complete.

Before the Prison Doctor could breathe a sigh of relief, Ivan's voice came from inside him again.

"Looks like there's a part left over!"

The Prison Doctor froze at those words.

He looked down at a tray beside the operating table.

A bloody organ still lay inside.

"Shit! I forgot to put his vocal cords back!"

The door to the containment room opened.

A squad of fully armed soldiers filed in.

The doctor's voice came over the radio.

"Bring Sequence 292 back. If 069 and 081 interfere, abandon the operation!"

The lead soldier immediately directed his men to lift Lu Xiao, who lay on the operating table covered in blood, then looked at the Prison Doctor and Ivan.

He made no attempt to communicate. If either Contained Anomaly made any move, they would immediately choose to withdraw.

Fortunately, the Prison Doctor and Ivan did not stop them. They merely watched in silence.

After the Prison Doctor's stitching, Lu Xiao's wounds had long since stopped bleeding, but he remained unconscious.

The two men carrying Lu Xiao were both startled.

Lu Xiao's body was scorching hot. Even through their tactical gloves, they could feel the heat coming off him.

"Captain! The target's body temperature is abnormal!"

Hearing this, the captain hurried over to check. He took off his tactical glove, then reached toward Lu Xiao's forehead.

"Hss!"

As though he had touched a red-hot branding iron, he quickly pulled his hand back, then spoke into the radio.

"Doctor! Target Sequence 292's body temperature is abnormal!"

The person on the other end paused thoughtfully for a moment before replying.

"Ask the Prison Doctor! Beep, beep, beep!"

After the radio connection ended, the special operations squad exchanged glances.

Finally, the captain worked up his courage and addressed the Prison Doctor.

"Mr. Prison Doctor! He..."

Before he could finish, the Prison Doctor's hair-raising voice rang out.

"Oh, it's nothing serious. Just a series of surgical complications. I've already given him a potion I prepared!"

"Once his temperature drops, he should wake up!"

At this, the captain sighed in relief, then directed his squad to carry Lu Xiao away.

Just as they reached the doorway, the Prison Doctor's voice came from behind them again.

"Wait!"

At that voice, none of them dared move a muscle.

Although the Prison Doctor was classified as an S-safe Living Contained Anomaly, that did not mean he truly would not attack people.

Safe-class generally only meant that if you did not provoke him, he would not attack you.

"There's another human here. Take him with you!"

The Prison Doctor's next words let everyone breathe a sigh of relief.

Naturally, they had seen the person who had fainted on the floor.

However, the doctor's orders had not included bringing him out.

The captain turned back.

"Happy to be of service, sir!"

Soon, only the Prison Doctor and Ivan remained in the containment room.

Ivan's voice came from the Prison Doctor's body.

"I'll head back now. This carving session was very satisfying!"

The Prison Doctor nodded without speaking.

Neither of them seemed worried that the surgery might fail.

Elsewhere.

Lu Xiao was submerged in nutrient solution.

His skin was rapidly absorbing the solution.

The doctor adjusted his monocle and said:

"Following the surgery, his cellular activity has decreased somewhat!"

"But the cells at the incisions remain active! The wounds are healing very quickly!"

"It looks like 069 and 081's surgery was a great success!"

He had heard the conversation between the Prison Doctor and Lu Xiao perfectly clearly through the surveillance feed.

There were many things science could not explain.

For instance, the cellular activity in Lu Xiao's body was abnormally high.

The rate of proliferation and division was also something he had never heard of before.

But after hearing the Prison Doctor's words, the doctor had understood.

"If proliferation had continued at its original rate, he really might have ended up as a pile of rotten flesh!"

"But now, his rate of cellular activity is within a normal range!"

"What a miraculous surgery!"

"Oh, Satan! I really want to slice him up!"

The doctor's eyes shone with a strange light as he looked at Lu Xiao.

At that moment, in his eyes, Lu Xiao was like a little girl lying naked on a bed.

Every inch of him was filled with deadly temptation.

The staff beside the doctor all moved away from him.

They were afraid that if the doctor could not slice up Lu Xiao, he would grab them and slice them up instead.

Under the Prison Warden's containment regulations, researchers were not allowed to deliberately harm Contained Anomalies.

But nowhere did it say researchers could not harm other researchers.