Chapter 949: Assembling a Deformed Demon Body

Lifting the white cloth covering the corpse, one could see it was the body of an adult male, his skin pale as if soaked too long, slightly swollen.

His body was covered in water stains, drenched all over, even his hair still dripping water—he looked exactly like a corpse just pulled from the river.

This drew strong disapproval from the Three Emperors Society.

“Is this the corpse you brought?”

An elderly physician from Zhigucheng stood up, leaned forward to take a look, and frowned while clutching two iron balls in his hand: “Was this tied with rope and dragged beneath a boat?”

“This doesn’t look like someone who drowned days ago… it’s too fresh.”

Another physician frowned: “Too many drown in Zhigucheng—every year the Haihe drifts in a hundred or so corpses, drowned or murdered and dumped. I can tell at a glance. But this dead foreign devil—I’ve never seen one like him!”

“What do you make of him?”

Everyone in the Three Emperors Society knew this man was an expert at rescuing drowning victims; his shop sat right by the Haihe, and he was known as “Second Dragon King”—he could bring back those the Dragon King had claimed.

“If those foreigners didn’t lie to us, I think he might be a Dragon Palace guest.”

Those who made their living on water called those who drowned but didn’t die “Dragon Palace guests.”

Legend says such people, when drowning, are not meant to die—they are invited by the Dragon King to a feast. They drown for as little as an hour, or as long as two or three days, yet still return to life—as if they had merely attended a banquet in the Dragon Palace.

Those who stayed an hour merely spoke with the Dragon King underwater.

Those who stayed a day attended a small banquet; upon returning, they gained mastery over water, becoming as agile as living fish, fearless and supremely skilled in swimming.

Those who stayed three days attended the grand banquet.

Such people, it is said, drank Dragon’s Spittle Wine and ate the Water-Repelling Pearl.

Their bodies, soaked for three days, never rotted; upon returning, they grew dragon scales, or sprouted fleshy whiskers in their mouths, and some even developed horned brows, their very bones transformed.

Once they began martial cultivation, they possessed the finest innate constitution; if they studied literature, they were destined to become Top Graduate.

Even if they did neither, they would still grow immensely wealthy and noble…

But having died once, their lifespan was yin lifespan, their fortune yin fortune—harmful to those in the yang world. Though they themselves could become rich and noble, those around them suffered misfortune: miscarriages were common, so others avoided them out of fear.

They themselves often lived in seclusion, growing increasingly strange in old age, and rarely died peacefully.

Legend says those who attended the grand Dragon Palace banquet, in their later years, would be summoned by the Dragon King; upon death, their corpses would be bizarre and peculiar, coveted by demonic cultivators.

Physician Hua reached out and pressed his finger against the corpse’s surface; the swollen skin still had elasticity, sinking slightly before springing back quickly.

“Truly, this doesn’t look like a corpse!”

Physician Hua’s expression turned grave: “Neither alive nor dead—it’s either a jiangshi or a yin person. Upper yin persons are feasted by gods and immortals; middle yin persons are rejected by the King of Hell; lower yin persons are hard to classify as dead or alive. Such beings have their own fate—they’re not under the care of our Three Emperors’ medical lineage… let the foreigners take him back.”

Hilin quickly stopped him: “This is a corpse with acquired deformities due to illness—extremely valuable in anatomy. We brought it here with the utmost goodwill.”

“His body may exhibit rare mutations, similar to the partial bodily transformation that occurs when Eastern martial arts reach an extremely advanced level…”

Physician Hua’s eyes widened: “So you foreigners really have no good intentions! Martial masters only achieve bodily transformation through cultivation! You foreigners come to the East to kill, then dare to dissect corpses, seeking to steal the essence of martial arts! No wonder back then, every martial arts guild in the north wanted you dead!”

“That was all a misunderstanding.”

Hilin replied calmly: “The Medical Society showed no respect for your customs and traditions, underestimated your strength, and treated you like the indigenous peoples of the New World. Worse still, many non-Medical Society physicians—especially those from the Deformed Research Society and the Racial Classification Society! They are semi-mystical sects gathering black witches, obsessed with studying other races’ bodies and deformities, and have committed many vile acts.”

“But I must say, they treated civilized people in the Western Continent no better than they treated you. They bought abandoned deformed children from parents and orphanages, secretly dug up corpses, dissected patients, and conducted cruel research on other races and unusual individuals.”

“Even in the Western Continent, their actions are despicable!”

Hilin skillfully pinned the blame squarely on the Deformed Research Society and the Racial Classification Society, and her tone clearly revealed deep disdain and hostility toward them.

Physician Hua snorted: “We can’t tell which sect you foreigners belong to, but back then, your so-called churches were found to contain countless infant bones, preserved in glass jars!”

“Under the guise of adopting orphans, you commit such atrocities against heaven and conscience—you deserve to die…”

Someone asked: “Bodily transformation varies by person, arising from within. Why are you foreigners so obsessed with studying deformed people? What do you intend to do?”

Hilin smiled bitterly: “They blaspheme the Holy Trinity, believing human mutations conceal the blueprint and secret of the Holy Grail’s creation of humanity.”

“They blaspheme the sacred perfection of the human form, reject the idea that the human body is the most perfect and flawless state, and seek to desecrate the Medical Society’s sacred original manuscript, ‘Vitruvian Man.’”

“They believe true perfection lies in bodily deformity, distortion, defect, and mutation.”

“They believe the ‘Perfect Human’ in mysticism exists in another state—they try to assemble the most perfect deformities into the true Perfect Human!”

“Thus becoming superhuman, non-human, perfect beings—the ultimate life form, the most perfect shape of all dark creatures: Black Adam.”

“They seek to forever transcend all disease and injury—they seek immortality!”

Hilin’s expression turned solemn, her eyes gleaming with clarity as she spoke sincerely to all.

“Oh!”

The physicians of the Three Emperors Society had been half-confused, exchanging glances.

Upon hearing this final line, they instantly understood, uttering a unified exclamation.

“So they want immortality!” Physician Hua’s hostility melted by seven-tenths; he smiled easily to those around him: “I never thought foreigners also pursued immortality—I thought they were all mad followers of foreign religions!”

A nearby physician stroked his long beard, chuckling: “Assembling an immortal body through bodily transformation?”

“There’s some logic to that!”

“When martial arts reach their peak, ‘bodily transformation’ occurs. Whether it’s the Dragon Bones cultivated by the Five Emperors’ Dragon Fist of the former dynasty, or the Emei Peerless Sword Bones, Wudang Turtle-Snake Coiled Intestines, Shaolin Indestructible Golden Body, Imperial Heavenly Human Form, or the Ten Thousand Longevity True Form cultivated in the martial circles—all emphasize merging multiple martial arts’ transformed appearances into one, refining the resulting martial arts abilities into a single whole, as if achieving the essence of unified bodily transformation.”

“If foreigners seek to assemble the most mysterious primordial bodily transformations into a perfect body, isn’t that precisely the True Martial Body long rumored in the martial world?”

“Huo Doctor!” Physician Hua raised his thumb and smiled: “You have insight!”

“Ah!” The physician called Huo sighed, speaking in his native dialect: “The Peerless Sword Bones focus on the limbs, especially the hands—from fingertips to wrists, wrists to forearms, forearms to upper arms—all perfectly proportioned and precise. The four limbs are called the Four Extremes.”

“The Four Extremes hold up heaven; under their control, all things in the world become as if wielded like swords. Once perfected, they can fly swords to kill.”

“The Turtle-Snake Coiled Intestines most closely resemble the True Martial Body, transforming all five viscera and six bowels into transformed forms. Legend says that when the True Martial Emperor Liu Changsheng ascended, he opened his abdomen, removed his five viscera and six bowels, and allowed strange turtles and snakes to crawl into his belly and become his internal organs—only then did his True Body become complete, and he ascended from Wudang Mountain.”

“Wudang created the Turtle-Snake Coiled Intestines after witnessing this very scene.”

“Shaolin’s external arts encompass everything; the resulting bodily transformation, Indestructible Golden Body, is unified and flawless—the most perfect bodily transformation universally acknowledged.”

“The Heavenly Human Form is mysterious and elusive, passed down only within the imperial court—it is neither yin nor yang, but a transformed state beyond yin and yang. The Ten Thousand Longevity True Form is also the Ten Thousand Beast True Form, rooted in Xingyi Quan, synthesizing northern and southern beast-style fist arts, merging the principles of countless schools into a legendary realm. Legend says that during the northern fist riots, the martial circles nearly succeeded in creating it!”

“Unfortunately, Grandmaster Luo Neng, who transmitted his fist art to ten thousand schools, perished in the Fist Rebellion over a decade ago.”

“If one combined the Peerless Sword Bones as the Four Extremes, the Turtle-Snake Coiled Intestines as the viscera, the Indestructible Golden Body as the exterior, and the Heavenly Human Form as the interior, while synthesizing the essence of all northern and southern fist arts, perhaps one could truly forge the True Martial Body—the furnace for ascending the True Martial Dao.”

Huo Doctor sighed: “This is a fixation among martial cultivators.”

“But as for foreigners—who use surgical tools, cut open organs, dissect everything to draw diagrams—they dream of sketching the perfect bodily transformation!”

“Obsessed with external forms—who wouldn’t become a demon?” another physician scoffed: “What kind of demon or monster will they end up stitching together?”

“Indeed! Martial bodily transformation at least lets you control yourself, know your own fortune or misfortune. But dissecting others’ transformations—who knows if you’re cutting open immortal bones or demonic flesh? Messily piecing them together—of course a demon will emerge!”

The Crow ignored the commotion from the Three Emperors Society and walked straight to the corpse. She pried open its eyelids; its blue eyes had shrunk to needle-points, like a deep well—utterly eerie.

Somehow, the Crow felt those needle-point eyes had, imperceptibly, shrunk further.

“How did he die? How many days has he been dead?”

Hearing the heated debate from the Three Emperors Society, with its varied northern dialects, Hilin, half-understanding, instinctively looked up: “He was a sailor on the North Star. The North Star departed from the New Continent and docked at Tianjin Port for half a month. Seven days ago, he suddenly fell ill and plunged into the sea; he wasn’t found until the next day!”

“Dead seven days!” The Crow’s pupils contracted slightly, her fingertip hovering above the corpse.

Physician Hua’s expression changed sharply as he leaned forward: “You call this dead seven days?”

The Second Dragon King also stepped closer: “Drowning victims often enter fetal breathing, making life and death hard to distinguish. Among all categories, those killed by external or internal evils are called ‘ill,’ those killed by weapons or metal are called ‘injured,’ but only drowning is directly called ‘death’—because the dead have no breath. Drowning victims usually have no breath, so they’re deemed dead.”

He spoke with deep meaning: “Sometimes, even we don’t know if the person we save is alive or dead!”

Physician Hua murmured: “A seven-day Dragon King banquet is called the ‘Burning Tail Ascension Feast.’ Those who return from such a banquet are either the Dragon King resurrected, or an unburnable Dragon Ghost possessing the body.”

“If we save this thing…” he shook his head slightly: “That would be a serious problem!”

Hilin, her clear eyes scanning left and right, picked up her scalpel and made a long horizontal incision across the corpse’s chest.

“Stop!” Doctor Sai Huatuo cried out.

Physician Hua opened his mouth…

Sai Huatuo watched Hilin pause, then gestured for her to continue, sighing in relief as he said to those around him: “Foreigners really are ruthless—they treat living or dead alike as corpses to dissect. No wonder they suffer no karmic retribution despite harming their yin virtue. Now, whether this Dragon Palace guest attended for one day or seven, he’ll stay in the Dragon Palace forever!”

Hilin adjusted her gloves and shrugged.

“But he’s already dead!”

Hilin made another vertical cut, slicing open a Y-shaped incision; the heart, liver, spleen, and lungs were instantly exposed, blackened blood pooling in the abdominal and thoracic cavities—the uppermost lungs immediately drew everyone’s attention.