Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 247 Theseus's Man

At Yang Qi's request, Sun Hang was disinfected three times according to standard procedures and then changed into sterile surgical clothes before being allowed to enter the operating room.

A group of researchers were already ready. Song Yarong, with her silver-gray high ponytail tied into a bun, sat in front of the computer, typing quickly on the keyboard. Her prosthetic eye was embedded in a groove of the shadowless lamp right above the operating table, staring at the "patient" on the table.

On the operating table surrounded by numerous equipments, there lay an emaciated woman. Her face and lips were very pale and bloodless, and a transparent hair cap wrapped around her sparse hair - low-dose maintenance chemotherapy would also cause damage to hair follicle cells, not to mention that she had been in a state of malnutrition for a long time.

"The patient has completed general anesthesia." A white coat man who Sun Hang did not recognize turned around and said to Yang Qi. His eyes stayed on Sun Hang for a moment and continued, "If it was in the hospital where I work, I would never do this kind of anesthesia... The patient's physical condition is too bad. Even if the operation is successful, it will be difficult for the patient to wake up again."

"Don't worry, what we are going to do is not an ordinary surgery." Yang Qi nodded and looked at Sun Hang, "Sun Hang, I will leave it to you from now on."

"Got it." Sun Hang took off his gloves, squeezed some disinfectant gel from the bottle beside him, and started scrubbing quickly.

He couldn't help but complain in his heart that the action of putting on gloves according to the procedure was simply unnecessary.

"Sun Hang." Song Yarong, the only person Sun Hang knew in the operating room, stood up and handed a few films to Sun Hang. "This is Jiang Yu's CT image. In addition to the lungs, there are many suspicious shadows in the liver, kidneys, pancreas, and stomach. In addition, lesions have been detected in the sternum and ribs..."

"I don't understand this stuff." Sun Hang shrugged helplessly, "You know, I'm not a medical student."

"Give me the film." Yang Qi snatched the film, took out a pen, and drew a lot of red circles on it. "These circled areas are the spread of lesions."

"So what I need to do is to replace all these cancerous parts with Tai Sui tissue?"

"In theory, that's right." Song Yarong nodded, "But how to do it specifically depends on you."

"To be honest, I can't tell which are cancer cells and which are normal cells... In my opinion, since there are so many parts to be replaced anyway, I might as well replace all the parts of her body except the brain." Sun Hang said.

"No, we can only replace her body tissues to the minimum extent... If her entire body is replaced, she will definitely not be able to retain her original sanity. By then, the person coming down from the operating table will not be an infected person, but a human-shaped monster." Yang Qi said.

"Then how did you replace my lungs before?" Song Yarong couldn't help but ask.

"Please, there's such a big bullet hole on your lung lobe, and there's blood clots blocking the blood vessels... it's clear at a glance." Sun Hang said helplessly, "But for cancer, I can't guarantee that I can remove it completely. If there are lesions left, it will probably recur again in a short time."

Song Yarong: "..."

"But we can try to see if the Tai Sui tissue has the ability to fight cancer... I think it's okay if we don't cut it cleanly." Sun Hang said again.

"What if the cancer cells are mixed with the Tai Sui tissue?" Yang Qi glanced at him, "Are you sure it won't create a monster?"

"Then there is another way. While you are cutting, I will transplant new organs into her." Sun Hang said, "Supplement what is missing."

Several people who were either doctors or researchers looked at each other, and one of them nodded and said, "I think it's okay."

"Let's do it then. Time is running out. Let's start now."

All preparations had been made long before the operation, including the routine resection surgery.

A surgeon held an incision knife and cut into Jiang Yu's back ribs, while another assisting doctor immediately used a tube to suck out the blood oozing from the incision.

Several hooks pulled the skin, stretching the incision open, and the internal organs were suddenly exposed to everyone.

"Tsk." The surgeon frowned. "The situation is worse than I thought... In addition to the lungs, all the bronchi have to be removed. I'm afraid that less than one-third of the liver can be preserved..."

He quickly raised his head and glanced at Sun Hang, and said, "I'm afraid we'll have to cut most of her organs off. Are you sure you can replace them all?"

“It should be possible.” Several hyphae stretched out from the palm of Sun Hang, and the tips of these hyphae began to divide and proliferate... After a few seconds, a pair of lung lobes hung on the ends of these hyphae like fruits growing from branches.

Although he was mentally prepared, the surgeon's eyes still flashed with surprise after seeing Sun Hang conjure up a pair of lung lobes like a magic trick. He whispered, "The abilities of the infected are really... magical."

"By the way, won't these human organs created using the abilities of the infected people cause rejection reactions?" asked another researcher who was helping out.

"Anyway, I have never had rejection." Song Yarong immediately spoke from her own experience, "I don't know if I am an exception."

"Stop chatting, let's do it first." The surgeon changed the knife and took a deep breath. "Whether there will be rejection or not, that's a matter after the operation. Anyway, you all just need to be prepared to fight against rejection."

With one slash of the knife, the spurting blood immediately splashed onto his goggles.

"Hiss... There's actually a blood vessel hidden in this place... Is it the blood vessel that supplies blood to the tumor... Give me the hemostatic forceps."

"Move the camera two centimeters further in. Don't worry about the growths; they're going to be cut off anyway."

"Watch the patient's heartbeat...two units of epinephrine, IV push."

"Bring the tray over here..." The surgeon took out a bloody mass of tissue from Jiang Yu's chest cavity and said, "The lungs and bronchus have been removed. It's your turn."

"Oh." Sun Hang immediately stuffed the lung lobe that had been prepared long ago into the chest cavity. Then, dozens of hyphae extended out, weaving the trachea, nerves and blood vessels like a net, and connected them to Jiang Yu's original body.

"Do you control these hyphae?" The surgeon couldn't help but ask as he looked at the almost perfectly connected blood vessels and nerves.

"I guess so..." "How did you manage to connect every nerve and blood vessel correctly?" The surgeon asked in confusion, "You just said...you didn't study medicine, right?"

"Well... although I control it, it's actually semi-automatic." Sun Hang said perfunctorily, "I'm only responsible for making it. It will do the docking work on its own... To be honest, if you ask the people in Tianshu Tower about things like weird things and memes, they may not be able to explain it clearly."

Sun Hang thought, I can’t tell you that I used the ability to make my wishes come true, right?
He had originally planned to use this ability to directly replace all the cancerous tissue in Jiang Yu's body at once, but just after this idea popped up in Sun Hang's mind, a monster that looked neither human nor human appeared in front of his eyes the next second - Yang Qi was right, if the proportion of Tai Sui tissue exceeds a certain level, the person coming down from the operating table will no longer be an infected person, but a strange creature.

"That's right..." The surgeon sighed, "Sometimes, I always feel that in this era, the so-called modern medicine is really pale and powerless..."

"Don't say that." Sun Hang said quickly, "This thing can't cure diseases. If you have a headache or a fever, you still have to go to the doctor... You can't expect the infected person's ability to treat all diseases, right?"

"No, that's not what I meant." The surgeon shook his head. "I always feel that in the face of these bizarre abilities, all kinds of common diseases and medical treatments are more like playing house within a certain framework of rules... and whether it's those weird creatures or you infected people, they are all out of this framework of rules... Sometimes I wonder, infected people like Hunter who can maintain their sanity, will they be the direction of human evolution in the future."

"Well, to be honest, your idea is quite dangerous." Sun Hang said, "I have come into contact with some cult members who worship strange things, and they have similar ideas."

"It's just a concept." The lungs have been successfully "transplanted", and the surgeon picked up the scalpel again, "Let's not talk about it for now. There are still many places that need to be 'replaced'. This operation will probably take at least five or six hours."

……

……

It turned out that this experienced surgeon was quite capable. When the last cancerous tissue in Jiang Yu's body was removed and replaced by the Tai Sui tissue, exactly five hours had passed since the operation started.

"You two, sew up the wound." The surgeon's tone was filled with fatigue. "Always pay attention to the patient's physiological signs... As for the other side, I'll leave it to you guys at the research institute."

The other thing he was referring to was naturally the Tai Sui organs implanted in Jiang Yu's body - in addition to the equipment for detecting human physiological signs, the equipment for monitoring weird memes has also been activated. Song Yarong and others are staring at the various data flashing on the screen with nervous expressions.

"It has been confirmed that Jiang Yu has been infected by the Tai Sui meme, and the infection process is currently stable." Song Yarong said, "There has been a little erosion at the joint with the human body... But this is within the normal range. I have done a physical examination on myself before, and memetic erosion is normal...

"It is expected that within the next 72 hours, the Tai Sui memes will spread throughout her body, but these memes will remain dormant in every corner of her body. Before being awakened, the active memes will only exist in the replaced tissues."

"Don't be blindly optimistic." Yang Qi frowned and said, "Her situation is different from yours. She has replaced too many things."

Hearing this, Sun Hang glanced at the trays filled with indescribable twisted flesh and blood on the table beside him. All of these things were "dug" out from Jiang Yu's thin body... In addition to the internal organs, several bones were sawed off. The electric saw used to saw bones was now hanging on the tool rack next to him.

The weight of this pile of stuff was at least 20 kilograms, and Jiang Yu, who was almost skin and bones due to cancer, only weighed 42 kilograms before the operation.

At least half of her body had been replaced.

Sun Hang couldn't help but think of the story of "Ship of Theseus".

If we replace the ship in this allusion with a person, will there also be a "man of Theseus"?

Suppose that every once in a while, you replace a part of a person's tissue until every part of his/her body becomes Tai Sui tissue... then is he/she still the same person?

Or in other words...can he/she still be considered a human being?
Human tissues will self-metabolize. Every once in a while, except for brain cells, the human body will be renewed inside and out...but Tai Sui tissues will not. Although Tai Sui tissues will simulate the apoptosis and division of human cells, these simulated cells do not store the host's DNA, but memes belonging to Tai Sui itself.

Although DNA, as important information of the host, is also stored inside the meme like "memory", these DNAs only account for a very small part of the overall amount of information carried by the meme.

Sun Hang raised his hand and looked at it carefully... He was a little confused. Was his body made up of cells belonging to the person "Sun Hang" or something that mimicked human cells?

Could it be that my entire body is filled with these mimicking cells...

The person named "Sun Hang" has never existed?

It's just that there is a monster that looks like a human and gave itself this name.

"Fuck... If I'm a spooky creature, then why would I want to get into human society? To work 996 and be a slave? Am I sick?"

While Sun Hang was still daydreaming, the final suturing step on the operating table had been completed. Several doctors and researchers who participated in the operation thanked each other for their hard work. The tall surgeon walked to the rest seat nearby and sat down, taking off his blood-stained rubber gloves.

His hands were swollen from sweat, and there were marks on his wrists from the cuffs of his gloves.

"Thank you for your hard work." Sun Hang handed over a bottle of water. In a trance, he seemed to see something white squatting outside the window of the operating room.

"That thing is back?!"

Sun Hang was startled and turned his head suddenly to look.

Anna was seen sitting on the windowsill, twisting her body and looking at Sun Hang with a half-smile.

In the blink of an eye, she disappeared without a trace.

Just like Ling Xiao’s experience in the ruins last time.

(End of this chapter)