Starting with dissecting ghost stories

May 2004, a small town in southern China.

The rainy season has lasted for two weeks, and the whole city seems to be covered by clouds, with signs of rain even indoors.

At six o'clock in the morning, Shen Xing opened his eyes on time.

A piece of plaster in the corner of the ceiling had curled up due to dampness, revealing the gray-black cement underneath, resembling a cracked piece of skin.

He stared at the patch of plaster on the wall for three seconds, and as his thinking ability gradually returned, he threw off the covers and got out of bed.

Washing up, shaving, boiling water—soon, the crackling sound of the gas stove igniting echoed through the kitchen.

Shen Xing cracked two eggs into a frying pan. The egg whites quickly solidified and bubbled, with the edges caramelizing.

He skillfully sprinkled on the black pepper, turned off the heat, and took it out of the pan, his movements as precise as if he were performing surgery.

He took two simple sandwiches out of the kitchen and placed them on the dining table. After placing a five-yuan bill next to the sandwich opposite him, he began to eat his own.

About ten minutes later, the door to the second bedroom opened, and the younger sister, Shen Yuan, came out.

Shen Xing looked in the direction of his younger sister.

She was wearing a blue and white school uniform a size too big, her hair was a little messy, she was holding a cheap MP3 player in her hand, the headphone cord was haphazardly tangled on her wrist, and she exuded an indifference that did not belong to the second year of junior high school. She glanced at Shen Xing indifferently and looked away before making eye contact.

There were slight dark circles under her eyes, hangnails on her nails, she was sleep-deprived, and in a state of chronic anxiety and stress. She needed to supplement with B vitamins, but he knew that if he suggested it now, Shen Yuan would only throw the bowl into the sink.

"Breakfast." Shen Xing pushed the sandwich on his plate towards him.

Shen Yuan didn't look at him or the sandwich on her plate. She went straight to the dining table, grabbed the five yuan, and headed towards the door. After changing her shoes and putting on her backpack, she slammed the door shut and left.

Sandwiches won't work either.

After casually noting this down, Shen Xing put the sandwich on the opposite plate into a lunchbox, intending it to be his lunch.

Shen Xing didn't care about this somewhat hostile, deliberate distancing and indifference.

Since the parents' funeral altar was removed, this family has lost its ability to communicate.

In Shen Yuan's eyes, the person sitting opposite her was not her brother, but a stranger with no blood relation who had taken away all the care from their parents when they were alive and then took away all the inheritance after their parents died.

She didn't argue with him fiercely, she just ignored him.

Shen Xing got up and slowly cleared away the dishes, the dish soap foam swirling and disappearing in the water.

He dried his hands, straightened his collar, pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, and looked at the reflection of a person in the silver stainless steel steamer.

The person reflected in the mirror is pale, refined, and harmless, just like most office workers in this world who earn a fixed salary.

……

Yu Cai Middle School is located on the edge of the old town, about a 20-minute walk from the school.

Shen Xing rode a second-hand, no-name brand bicycle, weaving through the morning rush hour traffic.

In 2004, the city was under construction everywhere, with rusty steel bars and red bricks piled up on the roadside, and the air was filled with dust, car exhaust and the fishy smell of sewage.

He locked his bike in the shed, picked up his lunchbox, and headed towards the infirmary in the corner of the teaching building.

It was school time, and students in school uniforms were crowding into the school gate like sardines. No one noticed the young man who wasn't wearing a white coat yet. It was estimated that more than 95% of the students in the school would never see him, the school doctor, until graduation.

"Good morning, Dr. Shen." Old Wang, the dean of students, stood at the entrance of the administration building, still holding that thermos cup with its peeling paint.

"Good morning, Teacher Wang." Shen Xing stopped, a standard smile appearing on his lips. "Is your rheumatism any better?"

"Same as always, this awful weather is driving me crazy." Old Wang waved his hand, not intending to talk any further.

Shen Xing nodded in acknowledgment and walked past him.

That smile was a social mask he had practiced, and it worked very well most of the time.

Pushing open the wooden door to the infirmary, a strong smell of bleach hit him. Shen Xing took a deep breath.

This was his favorite smell; only this highly corrosive odor could mask the unpleasant "living smell" of the world.

Shen Xing sat down at his desk and looked at the painting hanging on the opposite wall. It was Rembrandt's "The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp," which depicted a group of gentlemen in black suits surrounding an operating table, watching the doctor use hemostats to lift the muscles of a corpse's left arm.

This is a painting that Shen Xing hung up because he liked it. Of course, it is definitely not an authentic work from 1632; it is just a cheap print in a dark brown wooden frame.

This is already the most "reasonable" gory picture that can be posted within the school's permitted scope.

For Shen Xing, this painting is more like a dinner party scene than anything rigorous or exploratory. He likes to look at the texture of the muscles and tendons that have been peeled away, just like how a Christian would look at "The Last Supper".

Being a school doctor is as boring as ever.

A few people who wanted to go home because they hadn't done their homework, pretending to have a stomachache; a few who hurt their fingers or legs playing basketball; a few who came to get hot water because of menstrual cramps—these are probably the kinds of people and things you might encounter in a day.

After his parents passed away, he resigned from his job as a forensic doctor in a first-tier city and returned to this small town. After taking care of his parents' funeral, he found a job as a school doctor at his sister's school to take care of her and pass the time.

Shen Xing was adopted, and he has no memory of how he was abandoned. To him, his adoptive parents and biological parents are no different.

The veteran detective father noticed something unusual about Shen Xing's emotions when Shen Xing was five years old.

Shen Xing has never had much empathy since he was a child—he doesn't understand why tearing open a cat's belly to see what's inside would make his aunt break down and cry, nor does he understand why crushing a sparrow would make his mother show that kind of terrified expression. For him, he just likes the feeling of seeing blood flow.

Fortunately, his father did not give up on him. Instead, he devoted himself to educating Shen Xing, giving him other ways to vent his emotions and helping him become an excellent forensic doctor, so that he would not go astray.

Therefore, Shen Xing will follow his father's last wish—"take good care of your younger sister"—as a creed, and the future is meaningless to him.

However, the absence of the bizarre corpses and blood-splattered scenes typical of big cities did leave Shen Xing feeling somewhat empty and bored.

However... after becoming a forensic doctor, there were indeed some things that Shen Xing concealed from his adoptive father.

He focused his gaze on the back of his left hand, where there was a large, faint, irregular white mark.

This was not a scratch or burn. Although Shen Xing's brain and thinking were somewhat different from ordinary people, he had no interest in modifying his knife. On this wound, a white mouse, a finger, and an eyeball once lived.

Yes, it survived.

Even though their blood types and species were different, they did not cause any rejection reaction in Shen Xing after being "grafted" onto him. They were still able to survive and act according to Shen Xing's will.

But whatever is sewn onto Shen Xing's body will quickly lose its vitality within a few hours, slowly rotting into a lump of rotten flesh from its initial ease of use.

Shen Xing had only transplanted a small piece of skin from a beautiful corpse out of curiosity, and he never expected it to develop like this.

One of Shen Xing's purposes in returning to this small town was to investigate what exactly was wrong with his body in an unregulated place.

He can be a guinea pig himself, but he can't accept being someone else's guinea pig.

Shen Xing slowly shifted his gaze from the back of his hand and continued looking at the book on the table.

The light outside the window changed from pale white to dim yellow, and then gradually turned into a blood-red orange.

After the school bell rang, the campus became noisy as large groups of students with stern faces ran out of the school gate in groups, laughing and chatting.

At 5:45, Shen Xing glanced at the mechanical watch on his left wrist.

He inserted the bookmark, closed the anatomy book in his hand, rubbed his slightly swollen temples, and prepared to leave work.

However, before leaving get off work, he still needs to get tools to mop the floor. He has been putting up with those footprints left by students for a long time.

This job, with a monthly salary of 1200 and no formal employment status, didn't require him to do this; it was just that Shen Xing couldn't stand the polluted office environment.

After Shen Xing mopped the floor clean, he put the mop back into the dirty mop bucket, emptied the water, and then, after returning and picking up the bag containing his lunchbox, he glanced at the painting on the wall.

This has become a little habit, like saying goodbye to a friend, except...

Were the eyes of the corpse in the painting originally open?

In the cheap frame, in the slightly distorted, low-quality print, the gentlemen were still surrounding the corpse, and Dr. Dulp was still doing his usual thing, using hemostats to lift the muscle.

However, the corpse in the painting, which should have had its eyes closed, now had its eyes open, staring at Shen Xing with empty eyes.

Oh?