Corpse raising

Chapter 6

"Hmm...it should be...done..."

What do you mean by "should be... better"? Looking at his younger brother, whose condition was clearly not right, Duan Lin frowned with worry.

"My senior is dead," the younger brother suddenly said with a sigh, as if it were a question, or perhaps just a statement.

Duan Lin nodded slightly. "By the way, your supervisor asked me to tell you that he's giving you a few days off, but it can't exceed a week."

Hearing this, Xin Nuo gave a bleak smile. Actually, getting this internship at this hospital, and having the head doctor give her such a big favor, wasn't it all thanks to Xu Yao's influence? The deceased… Xu Yao…

Chapter Four Umbilical Cord

He was stunned when he saw the object wrapped around Xu Yao's neck.

That shape, that appearance... "Intestines?"

At Xu Yao's funeral held three days later, Duan Lin met Cheng Rui, whom he had only heard of but never seen.

After the accident, Cheng Rui lost a lot of weight, and his tall figure, dressed in a black suit, made him look even more haggard.

Almost everyone from the hospital came. The hospital director stood in the family area, his usually stern face now showing signs of having cried. Xu Yao was the only son in his family, and the pain of a parent outliving their child is a great tragedy.

Whether from the heart or just out of politeness, everyone standing here wore a sorrowful expression. Duan Lin had offered incense and was about to turn around when he suddenly saw Bo Xiaoxue.

The woman was looking at the coffin in front of her—Xu Yao's coffin.

According to custom, Xu Yao's coffin was made with a small door at the front, so that people who wanted to pay their last respects to the deceased could easily see his face. However, the door on Xu Yao's face was never opened today. Everyone knows how Xu Yao died—jumping off a building, headfirst. Even if the best mortician were hired to make his face look human, it would probably still be quite gruesome.

Bo Xiaoxue watched until everyone finished offering incense and began to leave, leaving only Bo Xiaoxue in a black dress in front of the mourning hall.

Duan Lin watched as Bo Xiaoxue hesitantly reached for the small door on the coffin and pulled it open...

"Ugh!" The next second, Bo Xiaoxue immediately knelt on the ground and began to dry heave. Duan Lin hurriedly stepped forward and, seeing the door on the coffin still open, decided to close it first. In the process of closing it, Duan Lin inevitably saw the scene inside the narrow door.

The head was barely tidied up. To cover up the wounds left by the deceased, the makeup artist used a lot of white powder, but... sigh, he was a perfectly healthy young man just today.

Suppressing his own discomfort, Duan Lin led Bo Xiaoxue to the bathroom. "Go throw up."

Since it was a women's restroom, Duan Lin naturally couldn't go in, so after leading Bo Xiaoxue in, Duan Lin quickly came out.

On the way out, they inevitably passed by the mourning hall again. Originally, they planned to go straight out and catch up with their younger brother who was helping the dean with the funeral arrangements, but... a child? Seeing the child jumping around in front of the mourning hall, Duan Lin immediately spoke up, "Little friend, you can't do that here. Don't jump around here."

The child was dressed in black, but had red shoes on his feet.

Suppressing the strange feeling that kept welling up in his heart, Duan Lin wanted to go over and stop the child, but the child was surprisingly agile. The little body twisted and darted past his shoulder and elbow, and then ran away in a flash. Hearing the "patter" of the running, Duan Lin had no choice but to chase after him.

"Hey! Don't run away, keep your voice down..."

Duan Lin had only run a few steps when he bumped into his younger brother and Cheng Rui, who were walking towards him.

"Brother, why are you running? Are you looking for me?"

"Huh? No... I was chasing a kid. He was playing over here just now. I told him to be quiet, and I was about to catch him when he ran away..." With a sigh, looking at the dense crowd waiting in the front hall, Duan Lin decided to give up on the idea of finding a tiny kid who was less than half a person's height among so many people.

"Hmm, quite a small child, a boy, right? Wearing black clothes and red shoes..."

At this point, Duan Lin's heart skipped a beat when he saw Cheng Rui's ashen face. Realizing what he had said, Duan Lin swallowed the rest of his words. Not good with words, he decided to tidy up the mourning hall that the little boy had messed up earlier, and also to divert attention from the impact of his words on Cheng Rui.

This is a basic respect for the deceased.

Duan Lin grew up with his maternal grandfather, who was a gravedigger in the countryside. He believed every word his grandfather told him. To be honest, he had seen more dead people than living people when he was a child, so he was not afraid of the dead.

They are quiet, and time seems to stand still when you're with them. In some ways, people with Duan Lin's personality are easier to get along with than living people.

The incense on the altar had gone out sometime ago. Duan Lin took three more sticks of incense and placed them properly in front of the deceased's portrait. Then... following his brother's gaze, Duan Lin noticed that the small door on the deceased's coffin had reopened sometime ago.

Strange, didn't I close it after Bo Xiaoxue opened it?

Thinking of the child from earlier, Duan Lin suddenly understood something. Stepping forward, Duan Lin said to his pale-faced younger brother and Cheng Rui, "You don't need to worry about him, I'll lock him up."

Seeing the relieved expressions on their faces, Duan Lin knew that the two of them were still afraid, even if they were his good friends.

Duan Lin walked to the coffin, and when his hand touched the small wooden door, his eyelids suddenly twitched. Something was wrong... there was something extra.

The hand that was about to close the door stopped abruptly. Duan Lin stared blankly at the person inside the coffin, or rather, at the person's neck.

There was something wrapped around Xu Yao's neck.

It was just wrapped around her; Xu Yao didn't have that thing on her before.

"Brother, what are you doing? Hurry up and help Senior Xu close... close the door!" Xin Nuo, who had already turned around, couldn't help but turn back when she saw Duan Lin's delayed action. She saw her brother lying on the coffin of the deceased senior, staring intently at it.

Seeing my senior's mangled body like that... won't my brother feel...?

"There's something..." Duan Lin said blankly, unaware that he had unconsciously spoken out what he had seen.

Suddenly, Cheng Rui walked up to Duan Lin.

Xin Nuo hadn't originally planned to go. Although he was certain to become a doctor in the future and the deceased was his senior, he still didn't want to see it. It would be very strange to see someone he was once close to become like this overnight.

But why? Both his older brother and Cheng Rui were watching. Unable to contain his curiosity, he slowly moved closer to his brother.

"Huh? What's this...?" He froze, staring at the object encircling Xu Yao's neck. That shape, that appearance... "Intestines... intestines?" Jumping off a building... would his intestines spill out? And...

"It's the umbilical cord."

Cheng Rui's cold voice suddenly came through. Although he said it himself, Xin Nuo felt that he was the one who was most frightened by those words.

"No...no...no!" Cheng Rui murmured, unconsciously backing away. He tripped on the carpet and ran away quickly.

"It really is the umbilical cord."

Jin Zi frowned as he opened the report. Although he was only the police officer in charge of handling the case, he had made contact with the deceased. When he learned that Xu Yao's funeral would be held today, the police officers who had been in charge of Xu Yao's case that day came over to offer incense.

The case was ruled a suicide, but the umbilical cord that Duan Lin found in the deceased's coffin, which belonged to an infant, has added a layer of mystery to the matter.

"Thank you for your cooperation. We'll have experts analyze it to see if we can find the source of this thing. We're about to leave work. How about I take you home?" Mr. Jin Zi smiled, looking at Xin Nuo, who seemed increasingly tired from today's events. "Let you experience what it's like to ride in a police car without handcuffs."

Mr. Jin Zi, who seemed so serious, actually had such an interesting side. Xin Nuo's tense face finally relaxed, and he smiled too.

After dropping the two brothers off at the apartment building, Mr. Jin Zi suddenly frowned. "This place seems to be..."

Understanding Jin Zi's question, Han Xin Nuo immediately replied, "This is... where Senior Xu lives. The dean wants me to stay here for a few more days to help tidy up my things."

"Oh, I see. Well, that's fine. The old lady is getting on in years, and seeing her son's things will surely bring back memories. That's all for today, I'm going to kindergarten now."

"Kindergarten?"

"Hmm, my son, haha, he's at that mischievous age right now..."

When his son was mentioned, Mr. Jin Zi's stiff features softened, and he looked much gentler.

Watching the exhaust fumes from the police car with the word "police" written on it driven away by Mr. Jin Zi, Xin Nuo sighed softly, "So busy..."

Duan Lin didn't speak, he was just thinking about what happened that afternoon.

Back then... how did the umbilical cord come out? And what about that little child...?

Speaking of children, it does connect to the reason why my younger brother initially asked me to come.

The incident began when Xu Yao discovered the body of an infant in her own drainage pipe.

According to his younger brother, Xu Yao had been staying indoors for two weeks before her death, during which she said she kept hearing a baby crying. Duan Lin hadn't thought much of it, but now...

In the afternoon, Cheng Rui's strange expression suddenly appeared in Duan Lin's mind.

If I remember correctly... as the only witness present when Xu Yao committed suicide, he seemed to have said something about seeing a child.

Is it that thing? Duan Lin now had reason to think so. If so… then what did that suddenly appearing umbilical cord mean?

The umbilical cord... is the direct bridge for communication between the baby and the mother while the baby is in the womb. It not only tightly connects the baby and the mother, but more importantly, it is the way the baby obtains various nutrients from the mother.

What does the umbilical cord found on the deceased signify?

"Where is the umbilical cord...?"

The word she was thinking about was suddenly mentioned, and Duan Lin was slightly startled. When she came to her senses and turned around, she realized that the person muttering the word was her younger brother.

The younger brother didn't notice his own expression. In fact, he was lost in his own thoughts. Duan Lin had no idea what he was thinking, but the word "umbilical cord" alone gave Duan Lin a bad feeling.

"You know what? When it comes to this kind of thing, the most dangerous people are often not those who don't believe in it, nor those who completely believe in it, but rather people like your brother..."

Looking at his younger brother who was talking to himself, Mu Zi's words from back then suddenly came to Duan Lin's mind.

What should we do now?

What should we do now?

Sitting in the conference room, Cheng Rui stared at the pen in his hand.

I have no reason to ask for leave, and I cannot refuse to work because of a little weakness. I don't have a powerful father to rely on; I have gotten to where I am today entirely through my own efforts, and I have no reason to give up.

A bead of cold sweat trickled down his forehead, and his face appeared almost ashen against the backdrop of his pristine white doctor's coat.

"Dr. Cheng, is there a problem?" The dean asked from the top of the conference table. Despite the pain of losing his son, this stubborn man still sat here to take charge of the overall situation.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Cheng Rui hurriedly shook his head, "No, there's no problem."

"Okay, then the patient to be discussed in this meeting is yours."

"Huh?" Cheng Rui was taken aback. He flipped through the medical records in his hand, checking the contents several times. "Dean, this is for obstetrics and gynecology, but I... I'm a surgeon?"

"Isn't this what we were just discussing?" The dean raised his eyebrows in displeasure. Cheng Rui didn't dare to say anything more and listened to the dean continue.

"Although it's an obstetrics and gynecology case, this one is quite special. The mother is not in good health, and the twins are in an abnormal position, making a difficult delivery highly likely. We need an experienced surgeon to assist with the delivery so that we can provide timely and effective treatment if the mother experiences a crisis."

"Cheng Rui, although you are young, we all believe you can successfully perform this surgery. What about you? What are your thoughts?"

With a huge accusation pinned on his head, Cheng Rui smiled wryly and nodded.

It doesn't really matter, isn't this exactly what I want? To perform well at work, climb the ranks as soon as possible, marry a wife when I'm thirty-five (not a nurse), have my first child when I'm thirty-eight, and then become the hospital director when I'm forty...

After the meeting ended, everyone packed up their things and left. Cheng Rui was the last one to leave. When he looked up, he found that the dean hadn't left but was waiting at the door. When he saw the dean waving at him, Cheng Rui hurriedly ran over.

"Dean, did you need to see me?"

"Okay, Cheng Rui, come with me." When he walked up to her, the dean led her to the left.

That's the ward area.

"I'll take you to see the patient."

"Oh." It's not unusual to know a patient beforehand, but it usually only happens when the patient is someone of great importance. It seems that... Thinking to himself, Cheng Rui kept up with the hospital director's pace.

"It's actually an acquaintance this time, you'll see when you get there." The dean kept himself in suspense, but the mystery was quickly solved. "It's you guys!" Upon entering the room, Cheng Rui was stunned for a moment, and finally a smile appeared on his face for the first time today.

The woman in the ward was one thing, but the man inside was someone Cheng Rui knew; his name was Lu Xianglai.

Lu Xianglai and Xu Yao were college friends. Lu Xianglai never liked being a doctor. He worked at the medical school for a few years at the behest of his famous doctor father, and then quit.