Chapter 1555: Still Burning?

When Zhang San came out of the lab and handed the sealed combustion chamber and fuel to Xia Qing, he noticed this newcomer looked like she had something to say but didn't dare say it, so he said coldly, "If it's business, say it. If it's nonsense, shut your mouth."

After a moment's judgment, Xia Qing confirmed she was thinking about business, and carefully asked, "Third Brother, can you develop a kind of wound antibacterial patch with fur that has a warming function?"

Then, Xia Qing was thrown out of the lab by her idol, rolled out of Territory Seven, and met the Little Wolf Girl, who had brought two giant wolves and was waiting in Zone Three of Mountain Forty-Nine to pick up the mission.

Xia Qing asked seriously, "Little Wolf Girl, did your dad send you?"

The Little Wolf Girl nodded solemnly.

Xia Qing...

She had to make a phone call — she had to call her idol right now: his beloved disciple Little Break was fobbing off the client, and instead of coming in person to pick up the goods as the client requested, he'd sent an underage wolf to collect them!

Calling her idol was impossible, so Xia Qing immediately called Broken-Waist Wolf. After confirming it would rendezvous with the Little Wolf Girl, Big Guy, and Black Two in the western wolf pack's territory, she tied the supplies onto the two wolves, then exhorted at length the one with the highest brain-domain evolution among the three wolves, "Little Wolf Girl, these are important supplies. On the way, don't run around, don't go fight halfway, and rejoin your dad as fast as you can..."

Before she could finish, the Little Wolf Girl had already run off with the two delivery giant wolves. Xia Qing chased after her uneasily, calling out reminders, "Little Wolf Girl, the supplies can't be knocked around, or I'll make your dad pay ten times the compensation..."

"Fourth Brother, is it okay to burn here?"

Inside the natural karst cave on the cliff of Hui-3 Mountain Twenty-Two, Yang Jin, following the instructions for the combustion chamber delivered by Broken-Waist Wolf, had chosen the cremation site and spoke to ask.

Although Yang Jin's voice wasn't loud, the cave was too vast and too quiet — his words not only produced echoes, but also transmitted with abnormal clarity into the ears of Zhang Shi, who was hiding on the stone wall.

The strictly treatment-compliant patient Old Four, upon returning to the cliff of Hui-3 Mountain Twenty-Two in the morning, had gone first to find Zhang Shi for her nutritional meal and medication.

Zhang Shi took the opportunity to ask about the execution of the Mountain Thirty-Three mission. Upon learning that her Patient 001 had brought back Deng Yufeng's corpse and chosen to cremate it completely in the cave, Zhang Shi requested to enter the cave early and hide in a safe area to watch. Old Four agreed.

At this moment, Zhang Shi was quietly hiding in a small cavity high up in the largest karst cave inside Cliff Twenty-Two. Beside her was another old wolf from the southern wolf pack. Zhang Song had filed this wolf under the designation South Wolf-19. It suffered from a skin disease and was the third patient taken on by Zhang Shi, the cross-species general practitioner.

Zhang Shi currently had three patients in total: Patient 001, the former Wolf King and current Number Two Leader Old Four, designated South Wolf-2; Patient 002, the former Wolf King Old Four's daughter Honeysuckle Missing-Ear Wolf, designated South Wolf-21; Patient 003, which only had a designation and no name, because Zhang Shi's boss hadn't named this wolf yet.

Today, South Wolf-19 was not Zhang Shi's patient — it was a bodyguard the Number Two Leader of the southern wolf pack had assigned to her. This wolf's magnetic field was very stable, and Zhang Shi's magnetic field was also very stable.

The masked Old Four nodded solemnly, and Broken-Waist Wolf standing beside it also nodded along.

"Alright, burning here." Yang Jin began following the instructions to unfold the collapsible combustion chamber.

When Zhang Shi saw Yang Jin in the center of the cave finish assembling the equipment, place the first body bag into the unfolded collapsible combustion chamber, cut open the bag and the inner clothing, and reveal the corpse, her breathing and heartbeat simultaneously lost control, and her magnetic field fluctuated violently.

Yang Jin was also stunned for two seconds before reporting, "Corpse Number One, Deng Yufeng, captain of the Blaze Squad. No obvious external injuries on the front. Please confirm."

Zhang San, viewing the corpse through the high-definition camera, had a calm expression. Xia Qing's condition was about the same as Zhang Shi's.

Because this corpse was truly too unusual.

Xia Qing had seen many human corpses frozen to death in extreme cold environments. The skin of such corpses was a grayish-white and waxy yellow. Because of the low temperature, no livor mortis could be seen on the surface, giving the impression of a stone sculpture carved into human shape. But Deng Yufeng's corpse was completely different.

This corpse also had the taut, pallid skin tone caused by freezing, but that pallor was not the corpse's only color — it was the base color.

On that base color was a complete, clear, and abnormally vivid network of blood vessels!

The image captured by the high-definition camera on Yang Jin's protective mask was transmitted, via the signal transmitting and receiving equipment temporarily set up on Mountain Twenty-Two, to Territory Seven, clearly presenting on the laptop screens in front of Zhang San and Xia Qing the countless fine, plant-root-like lines in bright red or fluorescent coral red running from the neck side to the chest and limbs of this corpse.

It was as if... Deng Yufeng's corpse had been covered by a burning net, and the next moment this corpse would ignite with the flame of life once more, and the Fire Phoenix Deng Yufeng would stand up again.

So this was how it looked when the Fire Phoenix injected the toxin into her body — no wonder she dyed her skin fire-red.

Xia Qing asked, "Third Brother, can the recovery factor keep working after the human body dies?"

To let Old Four, who was supervising the cremation from afar, and Broken-Waist Wolf, who had forced its way in, hear Zhang San's voice, Yang Jin turned on the speaker. So Xia Qing's surprised question also echoed clearly through the cave, calling Zhang Shi's reason back.

She struggled to adjust her state, making her magnetic field align with the evolved wolf beside her.

"In standard medical definition, death is not an instantaneous event, but a gradual physiological process. This process follows a predictable sequence: from clinical death, the cessation of breathing and heartbeat, to brain death, the irreversible termination of all brain function, and finally biological death, the comprehensive collapse of somatic cells."

Zhang San's voice was solemn and low. "For the vast majority of individuals, the systemic ischemia and hypoxia triggered by the cessation of breathing and heartbeat rapidly initiates an irreversible cascade reaction, leading to apoptosis and necrosis, ultimately driving the entire organism's systems toward collapse. But for Recovery-Ability Evolvers, this process is much slower."

"The recovery factors in Deng Yufeng's body, after losing the central command — the brain's signal — are still executing 'cleanup operations.' This isn't a simple immune response; it's the manifestation of the ultimate law against 'disorder' and 'decay' branded deep within every recovery factor. In other words, recovery factors don't depend on ATP for energy, and their energy source remains unanalyzable to this day."

Xia Qing wanted to ask what "ATP energy supply" meant, but her idol was clearly in a self-dialogue state at this moment. Xia Qing didn't dare disturb him and could only stare at the screen and listen quietly.

Zhang San continued, "No matter how powerful a law is, it needs a carrier. Recovery factors can clear toxins, can repair tissue damage, and may even maintain the basic structure of cells for a certain period... but they cannot restart a highly complex system that has already stopped operating. They can only preserve the 'integrity' and 'cleanliness' of her body..."

Zhang San was silent for a long time, then sighed. "Recovery-Ability Evolution is humanity's window into peeking at the next epoch form of life..."

Every Recovery-Ability Evolver is a national treasure.

At this moment, Xia Qing suddenly somewhat understood the madness of Guo Hanmo, the leader of the Hui-1 underground experiment, and also heard the regret in her idol's sigh.

After Yang Jin flipped Deng Yufeng's corpse over to let Zhang San clearly see there were no wounds on the back either, he calmly asked, "Third Brother, still burning?"

In the cave, Zhang Shi tightly gripped the cold stone pillar. In the lab, Xia Qing's face was expressionless.

Zhang San was silent for a long time, then said firmly, "Burn."