Starting with dissecting ghost stories

Chapter 176 A Man Named Cheng Ren Decides to Destroy (4K)

In the operating room, Shen Xing lay on his side on the operating table, bent over, hugging his knees with both hands, curled up like a shrimp.

The doctor, controlled by Wang Xinran, used lidocaine for local anesthesia and then inserted a lumbar anesthetic needle directly into the puncture point between L3 and L4 of Shen Xing's lumbar spine. After feeling a clear breakthrough sensation, he stopped the needle's movement.

Wang Xinran pulled out the needle, and clear, transparent cerebrospinal fluid dripped from the end of the needle. After confirming that the cerebrospinal fluid was flowing smoothly, she connected the bupivacaine syringe and slowly injected the drug.

It took a full twenty minutes for Shen Xing to completely lose consciousness before Wang Xinran finally turned him over.

"It took twenty minutes for the numbness to subside, that's a bit long." Wang Xinran, wearing a mask, sounded slightly muffled. "By the way, I brought something interesting with me, you should be interested."

"What is that?" Shen Xing had basically lost all feeling from chest 6 down, and only regained some muscle strength up to chest 4.

However, these anesthesias do not affect the movement of abnormal flesh.

After Wang Xinran cut open Shen Xing's abdomen, several clumps of scarlet blood gushed out, curled up like hooks, and hooked themselves onto the opening.

Anesthesia is still effective. If Shen Xing were to perform this procedure himself, he might make a mistake, or he might even faint from the pain.

Shen Xing isn't a masochist; if anesthesia is available, he'll still use it.

"That online friend, Cheng Ren, is someone who has been corrupted by an anomaly," Wang Xinran said calmly. "It seems that Wu Xiaoting accidentally activated his anomaly."

"Why are you only telling me now?" Shen Xing was taken aback for a moment, then pressed for an answer. "Is something wrong? Over there?"

"Xiao Yuan is alright." As if knowing what Shen Xing wanted to know, Wang Xinran immediately reported that he was safe and sound, and then said, "I only found out when the anesthesia started. He has been taken to the hospital now... It seems that they came along too."

"What are they doing here?"

"It seems they checked to make sure the other person was alright, and then left after taking them to the hospital."

"oh...

""

The surgery proceeded smoothly, and the process did not seem to interrupt their casual conversation.

Wang Xinran's plan was simple: after removing the spleen, the remaining abnormal flesh and blood would be used for separate enhanced culture. Finally, the size of the spleen would be assessed, blood would be injected, and enough space would be removed from Shen Xing's body to accommodate the new spleen before it would be reimplanted.

In addition, some parts of Shen Xing's body that are no longer needed will also need to be removed, such as more than half of his stomach and most of his intestines.

Now that he has the [02-Puppet] split body, Shen Xing's food absorption efficiency far exceeds that of ordinary organisms. The intestines of ordinary humans are somewhat superfluous and take up space for him.

If his bones were more flexible, he would have liked to remove a few ribs, grow his lungs a bit, and then put them back in.

"What kind of abnormality is he exhibiting? Can you tell anything about it?" Shen Xing asked.

He was very interested in the new anomaly, but he also hoped that the other party was not like [04—Meng Zhong], who was like a hedgehog, impossible to touch or get close to.

"He kept spitting out some kind of ore, which I don't know what it is, but it looks quite nice," Wang Xinran said after thinking for a moment.

"Don't touch the vomit for now... Have you taken pictures of it?"

"I've seen it, it has noise."

"Have any ordinary people in the hospital seen or come into contact with the ore, and have any problems arisen?"

"No, let's go check on him after the anesthesia wears off. He's still unconscious."

"Can."

Meanwhile, in the emergency room on the other side.

Cheng Ren lay on the hospital bed with his eyes closed. Sweat poured down his forehead, burning his skin and leaving deep marks. The sweat then dripped onto the light blue sheets, burning through them.

And the burn wounds on his face were healing rapidly.

He seemed to have entered a dream.

No, to be precise, it's a memory.

1999 years.

"Ah Ren, is that Millennium Bug thing real? Will all computer programs become obsolete by 2000?"

A woman with long, slender legs lay on the sofa, her gaze shifting from the newspaper beneath her to the man sitting in front of the computer.

Cheng Ren swiveled his chair, looked at the woman lying on the sofa, and said with a smile, "It's alright, my code is flawless."

"What if the partner's system bug isn't fixed? What, the server? Will it crash?" the woman asked Cheng Ren with concern.

"Uh..." Cheng Ren's smile froze.

Even if he improves his code, if other people's code isn't fixed, the Millennium Bug crisis will likely still be unavoidable.

"It's okay. If the system crashes completely after midnight two months from now, we'll just drive away and live like wild men in the mountains."

""

"What kind of car are you driving? Do you even have one?" Tangka rolled his eyes, patted the creaking old sofa beneath him, and said, "Don't you need your good buddies anymore?"

Cheng Ren didn't reply, but just chuckled twice and turned back to continue typing code on the screen.

That computer was the most expensive thing in their house.

To be precise, the only thing in this 20-square-meter rented room worth more than 500 yuan was a computer.

The Lenovo Tianxi, with a Celeron processor, 32MB of RAM, a 4.3GB hard drive, and a 15-inch flat-screen monitor, had a configuration that Cheng Ren could recite from memory. The whole set cost nearly eight thousand yuan.

This money was not paid by Cheng Ren.

He can't afford it.

When he graduated from university, all his savings totaled less than three hundred yuan. The remaining two hundred yuan was given to him by his advisor before he left, fearing he would starve on the way.

The money for the computer was part of the Thangka's dowry.

Strictly speaking, it's not called a dowry.

Tangka's parents did not approve of the marriage. The idea of ​​a city teacher's college graduate marrying a poor country boy who studied "computer science" was like the sky falling in the eyes of the older generation, and they even threatened to sever ties with him.

Tangka didn't say anything, but simply packed his things, picked up two snakeskin bags, and followed Cheng Ren.

Besides clothes and daily necessities, there was also an iron box inside the snakeskin bag, containing Tangka's New Year's money and scholarships that she had been saving since junior high school. Every penny was rolled into a small roll and tied with a rubber band. This was her savings of six whole years, plus her first year's salary after she started teaching.

Cheng Ren said he wanted to buy a computer.

Without saying a word, Thangka shoved the iron box into his arms and said, "Take it, or I'll throw it in the river."

From that day on, Cheng Ren vowed to give the woman he loved most a beautiful future that everyone would envy.

"Do you want an apple?" Tangka's voice came from behind.

"I'm not eating, I just finished eating." Cheng Ren stared at the code on the screen without turning around.

"You have to eat; you haven't taken your vitamins today."

"Okay, okay..."

""

The rented room was small, a self-built house in an urban village. Going upstairs and opening the door led directly to the living room, which contained a sofa and a 14-inch black and white TV.

At the far end of the living room, separated by a floral curtain, lies the bedroom. A 1.2-meter wooden bed occupies two-thirds of the space, with Cheng Ren's books and Thangka teaching materials crammed underneath.

The kitchen is at the end of the corridor and is shared with two neighboring households. The gas stove was bought by the family, and the dish rack hanging on the wall was bent by Cheng Ren from a wire hanger.

The toilet is downstairs, it's public, and going to the toilet in winter is the most painful thing for Thangka every day.

This is just a small room, only 20 square meters, and the monthly rent is a whopping 200 yuan... It's like robbery! This is the price level in the provincial capital.

"Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary," Tangka said, resting her chin on Cheng Ren's head as she ate an apple.

Cheng Ren could feel apple juice dripping onto his scalp, but he didn't say anything, his mind was completely occupied by other things.

Yes... It's their first wedding anniversary. Although they didn't have a proper wedding, they did get married.

Cheng Ren looked somewhat embarrassed.

Two months ago, he had already started preparing the gift and even took on an extra job, but his wages were delayed for a month, and his boss simply ran away.

He didn't dare tell his wife, Tangka, about this; he doesn't have a single penny to his name now.

These past few days he's been thinking that it's really pathetic for a man to live to this point.

"I have a gift I want." Tangka pulled out an envelope from somewhere and placed it on the keyboard.

Cheng Ren paused for a moment as he looked at the envelope.

"Okay." Cheng Ren said without changing his expression, picking up the envelope without even looking at its contents.

He was determined to buy whatever Tangka wanted, even if it meant borrowing money or selling his blood.

"Hehehe," Tangka said with a strange laugh, his arm around Cheng Ren's neck, "Go out, boy, treasure, One Piece."

"They're all inside. Don't come back until you find them."

"Got it." Cheng Ren smiled, put the envelope in his pocket, saved the file, and turned off the computer.

Before leaving, Cheng Ren lingered with Tang Ka for a while. It wasn't until he stepped out of the rented room and felt the cold wind blowing down his neck that he snapped out of his cozy feeling.

It's just past dinner time... Is it still possible to borrow money at this hour?

Let's estimate how much we need to borrow first.

He walked out of the alley and opened the envelope in his pocket.

Inside was a simple picture of a heart-shaped necklace, along with two lines of numbers.

7278 8367.

7689.

What does that mean?

Cheng Ren was stunned when he saw these numbers, but he quickly noticed that they were all two-digit numbers between 65 and 90.

ASCII code?

If we convert these numbers into their corresponding letters...

HNSC.

LY.

What does that mean?

Pinyin letters?

The first line... Cheng Ren tentatively took out his pager and typed the first few letters, which turned out to be the words "flower and bird market".

"Cough cough..."

'

Perhaps because he was too focused on "deciphering", Cheng Ren accidentally bumped into a woman in front of him who was coughing. The woman staggered back a few steps after being bumped, but continued to cough. The coughs fell to the ground and made a tinkling sound.

"I'm sorry, I apologize." Cheng Ren apologized quickly, but the woman seemed not to care at all, and simply walked past Cheng Ren and continued walking forward.

Cheng Ren ignored the woman and rode his bicycle toward the flower and bird market.

Cheng Ren never understood what the letters LY meant until he had walked around the flower and bird market for a whole time and noticed a shop called "Liuyun".

YL, Liu Yun?

After glancing around, Cheng Ren hesitated for a moment, but still gritted his teeth and walked into the boutique.

The interior was mostly decorated in pink. Cheng Ren wandered around for a while, which caught the attention of the proprietress.

"Young man, what are you looking for?" the proprietress asked with a smile as she stepped forward.

"Ah... I was just looking," Cheng Ren said, head down. After a long while, he mustered his courage, held up the letter, and asked, "Boss lady, do you have this in your shop?"

Cheng Ren pointed to a simple line drawing of a heart with a chain on it.

"This one? Oh~ it's here." The proprietress walked to a counter, picked out a bracelet that looked like it was inlaid with pink diamonds from the shelf, and handed it to Cheng Ren. "Is this it?"

"Uh...yes." Cheng Ren took the bracelet. For some reason, he really felt like running away right now.

"Two pieces." The shopkeeper held out his hand.

"Uh...ah? How much?" Cheng Ren was taken aback.

"Two yuan." The proprietress looked at Cheng Ren with a puzzled expression. "A two-yuan store, how much would you sell it for if not two yuan?"

"Oh..." Cheng Ren subconsciously took out his money and bought the bracelet directly.

"A few days ago, a pretty cute girl came to me with a similar drawing and asked me about it. What, is this popular among young people now...?"

""

Even as he walked out of Liu Yun's boutique with the bracelet in his hand, Cheng Ren was still somewhat dazed.

Cheng Ren looked at the bracelet in his palm, recalling what the landlady had just said, and the street scene before him gradually blurred.

Tangka probably already knew about what had happened to him these past few days.

She didn't say anything just to protect her pride.

Tangka knew nothing about programming; she probably spent a long time flipping through books before she finally figured out the "decryption."

Bringing up the wedding anniversary and expressing what you want doesn't necessarily mean you want a gift.

Instead, she personally selected a gift that Cheng Ren could afford.

This very second.

This man, who had endured hardship and studied diligently without ever shedding a tear, stood on the street crying like an idiot.

He got on his bicycle and rode home with all his might.

He wanted to see her, and he wanted to hold her right now.

A cool breeze brushed against his face as Cheng Ren rode his bike all the way to the alley. After parking and locking his bike at the entrance, he went upstairs and opened the door.

"Wife! Old..."

19

In the cramped living room, the ceiling fan and light bulbs swayed gently.

The Thangka is facing the window, maintaining its climbing motion toward the window.

Her body was covered as if by dazzling gemstones, crystal clear, and you could even see through the gemstones her heart, which had stopped beating and was slowly crystallizing.

"Click."

A crack appeared in the crystal, just like Cheng Ren's heart at that moment.

It shattered into pieces all over the ground.

He spent a week in a daze, and no one believed what he was saying.

A man found Cheng Ren and reached out his hand to him.

"Your wife was killed by something called an 'anomaly.'"

"My friend, you have the ability to remove all these 'abnormalities'."

"The world is collapsing, but we can fix it together."

"If we succeed, everything can be restored to its original state."

1999, April 10.

A man named Cheng Ren decides to destroy the anomaly and restart the world.

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