Chapter 32: Hypotheses on the Pathological Mutation

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“Here.” Wang Long took a deep breath and pointed through the air at the location of the liver.

Xia Shou nodded. “First, find three nurses to stand nearby and watch. I need their sight in order to use my ability.”

Then Xia Shou turned to Su Weiyu. “Weiyu, go behind me. They’ll probably have to operate from the back to remove the kidneys later, so keep a close eye on things. Alice can let me share your vision.”

And so, three nurses who had no idea what was happening were pressed into service. They stood timidly to one side, staring in terror at the surgical knives floating in midair.

They still seemed unable to see Alice’s true form, but their spiritual vision had clearly improved. Otherwise, they would have ignored both the abnormal patient and the scalpels suspended in the air. It seemed that entering the sealed domain had heightened their perception of the supernatural.

“Don’t be afraid. We specialize in handling supernatural incidents. We’re official ability users,” Wang Long explained proactively. In any case, once the incident was over, everyone involved would undergo cognitive harmlessness treatment, so it did not matter what he told them now.

As long as he could calm them down, Wang Long could claim to be Iron Man and describe Xia Shou as Spider-Man, and it would make no difference.

Sure enough, once the nurses heard that they were official ability users, their fear eased considerably.

They had no idea what sort of organization official ability users actually belonged to, but surely they had seen pigs run even if they had never eaten pork. The novels they read were full of organizations like this.

“So we just have to watch?”

“Exactly. Just watch. Doctor Wang, please point out where to cut,” Xia Shou said.

Wang Long pointed through the air at the lower edge of Xia Shou’s ribs. “Cut from here toward this side.”

Xia Shou clenched his teeth and had Alice guide the blade along the direction Wang Long indicated.

A violent pain swept over him, and his body trembled uncontrollably. Alice’s other arms, however, clamped firmly around him to keep him still, while the hand wielding the knife moved both swiftly and steadily.

“Should we—should we use anesthesia?” a nurse asked in a trembling voice.

“Shut up! Just keep watching!” Wang Long barked.

His eyes never left the incision in Xia Shou’s body. Almost no blood flowed from it. Only a few tiny beads of blood welled up along the cut.

Was this also the power of his ability?

It seemed that this crazy decision really had been the result of careful consideration.

“Be bolder. Cut wherever you need to! The wound will heal on its own in a moment,” Xia Shou said through clenched teeth, thinking only of getting it over with as quickly as possible.

This was insane. Would it really work?

Wang Long clenched his teeth, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, and pointed at the opened abdomen as he gave instructions.

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“Here. Cut like this… Yes. Since it isn’t bleeding, just remove the whole section. It’ll be easier to see. Good. Now sever this one, and this one too. Just take it out.”

If an ordinary person had been undergoing the operation, it would certainly have taken a long time. They would have had to consider the size of the incision, the amount of blood loss, and countless other uncertain factors.

But none of that needed to be considered with Xia Shou. He did not need the wound sutured, nor did he care how large it was. All that mattered was removing the diseased liver intact.

It made Wang Long feel less like a doctor and more like a butcher slaughtering a pig and cutting out its heart and liver.

At first, Xia Shou’s features had been twisted in agony, but his expression soon settled into calm. His mind felt as clear as glass, his thoughts casting themselves across it like patches of light. His control over his skill had reached an unprecedented level of precision.

Using Blood Riot, he manipulated the flow of blood within his vessels, guiding it around the severed arteries and veins and along other undamaged routes to maintain complete circulation.

Apart from the tiny capillaries, which were too numerous and delicate to attend to, all his blood obeyed his commands and flowed along the paths he had set. As a result, almost no blood escaped from the wound.

It was Xia Shou’s first time using Blood Riot for such precise manipulation, and even he was astonished by the delicacy of his control.

At that moment, he had four separate fields of vision. Through the eyes of the nurses and Su Weiyu, he could see his own diseased liver—an entirely new and bizarre experience.

When the diseased organ was exposed to everyone’s view, one of the nurses could not help wrinkling her nose.

“Ew! That’s disgusting!”

This liver was utterly unlike anything that could belong to a living human being. Bulging growths covered every inch of it, some arranged in a honeycomb pattern. The lower half had already liquefied halfway, soft as jelly, while the rear was hard as aged plastic. There were even areas of putrefaction.

“Even deliberate human interference couldn’t rot something to this extent. It’s practically a piece of grotesque art,” Wang Long said. Even with his extensive clinical experience, he felt a wave of nausea.

Alice then used her translucent ghostly hands to lift the liver from the abdominal cavity and drop it into a plastic bag that had been prepared in advance.

The operation was over. Xia Shou activated Blood to Stop Injury. The blood in his body began to diminish at an incredible rate, while the liver missing from his abdominal cavity rapidly regenerated before their eyes.

Within seconds, Xia Shou’s face had turned deathly pale.

Wang Long, however, was delighted to discover that the yellow tinge in Xia Shou’s skin was gradually returning to normal.

“It worked! It really worked!” Wang Long said excitedly.

“Good… Alice, give me a transfusion, then remove the next one,” Xia Shou said.

The pain had vanished from his face, leaving his expression almost numb.

Inside his left eye, the Deep-Sea Ruler had changed slightly.

His deep-dive value had been consumed.

That was the price required by Blood to Stop Injury.

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Having gained experience from removing the first organ, the subsequent operations proceeded smoothly.

Once the diseased sections of the lungs, liver, and kidneys had all been removed, Xia Shou immediately felt much better.

He could now confirm that the abnormal entity’s ability worked by infecting those who came into contact with it with “imagined symptoms of disease,” then transforming the corresponding organs within their bodies into derivatives of the abnormal entity.

As long as those abnormal derivatives were removed, the effects on the host would gradually fade.

“It actually worked… Unbelievable. How did you ever think of that?” Wang Long braced himself against his knees and shakily stood up. His legs had gone completely numb from crouching for so long.

The prolonged concentration had left him utterly exhausted. His hands and feet felt weak and powerless, and his clothes were soaked through with cold sweat.

He was intensely curious about how Xia Shou had conceived such a method of breaking the curse. How could an ordinary person possibly think that removing an internal organ would neutralize the abnormal influence?

Xia Shou quietly put his clothes back on and explained his reasoning.

“It’s simple. You said that when the patient with mania coughed himself to death, he coughed his lungs completely out through his mouth.

“That clearly violated human physiology and common sense. There was an implicit emphasis on the diseased organ.

“Rather than killing people with disease, this abnormal entity is killing them with their fear of disease. The final deaths, which so strongly emphasize the diseased organs, seem intended to reinforce the anchor of that fear.

“So I began to wonder… Could this entity infect people through contact, transform the corresponding organs inside their bodies, and then use those altered organs to unleash supernatural power and kill the host?

“If that guess was correct, removing the transformed organs might eliminate the symptoms. As it turned out, I was right.”

“I see!”

Wang Long suddenly understood. No wonder he was from the Investigation Department. His way of thinking was completely different from that of administrative personnel like themselves, and his mental fortitude was astonishingly strong as well.

In truth, Xia Shou had only revealed part of his reasoning. He deliberately concealed the connection between the Blood God and this incident.

“Director Wang, did you do this?”

A stranger’s voice suddenly came from behind them.

Xia Shou’s nerves, which had only just relaxed, tensed again. Alice thoughtfully picked up a mirror and held it in front of him, allowing him to see what was behind him without turning his head.

Standing behind them was a doctor…

A doctor carrying a chainsaw.

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