Petru put the female corpse down and, as Qingmu had instructed, lay face down on the ground with his back to the ceiling.
Qingmu pinched the woman's cervical spine, making the bulge even more noticeable.
"Give me the knife." He held out a hand, his eyes never leaving the woman's neck.
Su Huilan also saw the bulge. At first glance, it looked a bit like a patient with severe cervical spondylosis, but upon closer inspection, it was different from vertebral misalignment.
Most cases of cervical spondylosis are caused by long-term strain, leading to intervertebral disc herniation or even severe vertebral displacement, which can result in noticeable bone protrusions in the cervical spine. However, the lump on the female corpse did not resemble a bone protrusion; it looked more like a tumor.
Although Su Huilan was curious, she didn't ask any questions. When she saw Qingmu reach for a knife, she knew what he was going to do. Once he finished the dissection, everything would become clear.
Petru drew his military dagger and handed it to Qingmu.
Qingmu gently cut open the skin on the woman's back with his knife. He cut very carefully, starting from the skin tissue around the raised bulge, like a surgeon.
The surrounding skin and flesh were completely removed, and the epidermis on the tumor was peeled off, revealing a small, yellowish-white, square hard piece about the size of a fingernail.
Although the military dagger was sharp, it wasn't a scalpel. Qingmu could only slowly and painstakingly chip away at the fat on the block with the tip of the blade. Even though the person was dead, blood was still seeping out. He tore a piece of cloth from the woman's clothes and sucked the blood away while performing the surgery.
Su Huilan and Petru couldn't resist their curiosity and looked down to take a look.
After the surface fat and muscle tissue were cleaned away, it was discovered that the milky yellow square was actually transparent, and small bumps and crisscrossing lines could be vaguely seen inside.
"Chip?!"
The dots and lines inside the transparent square were clearly a circuit diagram; even Professor Su Huilan, and Petru, could see it.
Qingmu nodded silently and continued to carefully remove the impurities attached to the chip. Once the chip surface was clean and all the surrounding muscle and connective tissue had been removed, he inserted the tip of his knife into the bottom of the chip, made a cut around the edge, and gently pried it up. The chip popped up, revealing several rows of extremely thin membranes connecting the chip to the cervical vertebrae.
Su Huilan exclaimed in amazement, "Leaving aside the chip's functions, this ingenious neurosurgery alone is breathtaking! Pulling all 31 pairs of spinal nerves out of the intervertebral space and connecting them to the chip, while simultaneously creating a protective sheath for the nerves, all while ensuring the surrounding muscles and connective tissue attach naturally to form a protective layer. Afterward, the chip becomes an inseparable part of the body—it's simply a medical miracle!"
She suddenly turned to Qingmu and asked, "How did you know?"
Qingmu said, " Professor Mei has a chip."
"I know it played a crucial role in the development of the Space Box." Su Huilan looked puzzled. "Could it be...?"
Do you know where that chip came from?
"I heard it was obtained from the State Security Bureau in Wuzhong."
" The State Security was taken from my client's neck."
Qingmu wasn't lying; Liu Huaian was indeed his client. Thinking of Madman Liu, Qingmu felt a pang of self-reproach. If he had put in more effort and learned more about Madman Liu's true inner world, the ending might not have been so tragic, although death might have been the best outcome for Madman Liu.
"Have you heard of Laboratory No. 19?" he asked.
Su Huilan paused for a moment, then said, "You mean the secret laboratory number 19 at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory? I've heard of it; it was quite famous a few years ago, but there hasn't been any news about it for a long time."
Qingmu originally thought that Su Huilan and Mei Yiqiu were in cahoots, otherwise why would she appear in Professor Mei's laboratory when the Space Box had just been developed and was still an experimental product? Moreover, the two professors seemed to appreciate each other and cooperate happily.
But he now realizes that this might be a misunderstanding on his part. Su Huilan had just said in the cave that she didn't trust Mei Yiqiu, and Professor Mei indeed hadn't told Su Huilan about Laboratory No. 19 and Xia Xiaoxiao.
What's going on? Qingmu wasn't sure if he should tell Su Huilan some things.
"Do you understand Internet Consciousness?" he asked tentatively.
Su Huilan nodded and said, "It's a guess about artificial intelligence, which is currently difficult to prove."
Qingmu thought about it and realized it made sense. He could talk to the Ghost on the local area network, but it was indeed difficult to find the "big brother" behind the Ghost — the Internet. Theoretically speaking, that huge guy would never sleep or dream. If he was conscious, it would be difficult to find his main body; you could only talk to countless clones of him.
However, Qingmu didn't believe that was a type of artificial intelligence. Bian Ziyuan's invention, " Kronos," was artificial intelligence, while " Ghost " was a life form with self-awareness. In Qingmu's eyes, these two things were completely different. He could face Ghost's consciousness through certain methods, but Kronos could only ever be a program, unless it one day also gained its own consciousness.
Qingmu briefly recounted the events involving Liu Huaian and Laboratory No. 19, but withheld some details about Ghost and Xia Xiaoxiao. This wasn't just a matter of trusting Su Huilan; more importantly, he had promised to keep these matters confidential.
After saying that, he brandished the knife a few times, looking somewhat helpless.
"There are still many tissues involved. Without a scalpel, it can't be completely removed. If we forcibly remove it, the neural connections might be damaged."
"Why keep the neural connections?" Su Huilan asked. "The chip is enough."
Qingmu said, "The last chip was completely cleaned by the State Security. Professor Mei's team studied it for a long time but couldn't restore the connection between the chip and the nervous system."
Su Huilan decisively said, "Then cut it off the whole thing."
"What?" Qingmu was taken aback.
"I'll do it." Seeing his hesitation, Su Huilan snatched the knife from his hand, made a circle the size of the bottom of a bowl on the back of the corpse's neck, cut out the whole piece of flesh, and then she used force to plunge the knife into the cervical vertebrae, gouging out two vertebrae.
Not to mention Qingmu, even Petru, who kills without blinking an eye, felt a little nauseous watching her use the victim's clothes to wash the bloody, whole piece of flesh that she had just dug up. He thought to himself, "This woman is really ruthless!"
He swallowed hard and asked, "Are you making a specimen? I don't have any formalin."
Su Huilan said, "Formaldehyde will corrode the chip; it's best to soak it in alcohol."
Petru said, "There's no alcohol, but there are a few bottles of Polish rectified vodka; I don't know if it's pure enough."
"You're willing to part with such good wine?" Su Huilan teased, examining the chip under the light. "The material of this chip doesn't seem to be silicon; it's probably carbon."
"Carbon?" Qingmu had never heard of carbon being used to make chips before.
"Graphene," Su Huilan said, "However, Andrei isolated graphene in Manchester in 2004, and it's been 10 years since he won the Nobel Prize. This technology is still completely immature. There's still a long way to go before it can be made into a chip that can be used in computers to replace traditional silicon chips, let alone such a sophisticated human biochip. It's only been a few years since graphene technology exploded in popularity. Even if Laboratory No. 19 has advanced technological capabilities, the research and development time can't be short, unless..."
"Unless what?"
"Unless the technology in this lab didn't originate from Earth at all!"