Chapter Fifty-One: Anatomy

But here lies another question: why use bullets made of gold? Just a few of those bullets would be worth tens of thousands of yuan—more than what many people at the bottom could earn in a whole year. Even if the authorities were footing the bill, they wouldn’t let you waste resources like that, especially now that gold is in such short supply.

Furthermore, if it were merely a matter of using firearms, there would be no need for the city to send so-called experts; a few ordinary police officers could handle it, perhaps even better.

“So... if I want all of this to make sense, then either that unknown creature or those experts must be something special—or perhaps both are extraordinary in their own ways.”

Fang Zhuowei raised his brows slightly, feeling as though he had grasped a thread of secret knowledge, hidden deep within thick, swirling darkness—something ordinary people might never encounter in their lives.

But the information he possessed was all too limited, and most of it was based on his own conjecture. To uncover some earth-shattering secret with such meager clues... that was something only the likes of Conan or Sherlock Holmes could achieve.

“Is this monster special?” With an arched brow, Fang Zhuowei glanced at the massive corpse at his feet.

In terms of appearance, with its terrifying bear-like form, it was certainly unusual—unlike any large carnivore he had ever heard of.

But as for anything else... so far, Fang Zhuowei didn’t sense anything extraordinary.

Is it frightening? It would be a lie to say it wasn’t, but that’s about it. Compared to the ancient demons slumbering at the bottom of the aquarium’s miniature world, the difference was as vast as earth and sky.

Those ancient monsters were truly terrifying; this one, at most, was a deformed aberration.

“A corpse is the most honest witness; every muscle and bone records the story of life. If you want answers, you must dissect every inch of its flesh.”

Fang Zhuowei recalled a television drama he’d watched before.

Judging by the exterior alone, he could hardly hope to learn more from this enormous creature’s remains. Yet his intense curiosity pushed him to dig deeper.

After much deliberation, Fang Zhuowei resolved to dissect the corpse.

Strictly speaking, dissection is a skilled craft. Its history is long, and modern anatomy stems from ancient coroners, gradually becoming a discipline in its own right.

Through a series of rigorous trainings, an anatomist can infer a corpse’s gender, age, and occupation from its bones and hair, even if the body is badly decayed. They can determine whether the deceased died of poisoning, or even if death was real or feigned, all based on the body’s condition.

Fang Zhuowei lacked such expertise, nor did he need details that precise. He only wanted to see if this monster’s body contained any strange or unusual structures.

Typically, a formal autopsy begins with a Y-shaped incision across the chest and abdomen—the arms of the Y running from the shoulders to the middle of the chest, then straight down—so that the corpse can be sewn up more neatly afterward.

But the monster’s hide was simply too tough; the fruit knife Fang Zhuowei had managed to find snapped after just a few tries.

Helpless, he had to resort to the most brutal, yet also most direct method.

He used an axe.

The process was rough, but it had its own violent beauty.

Most importantly, it worked!

“Done.”

Some time later.

Looking at the monster’s dismembered corpse, Fang Zhuowei nodded in satisfaction.

It was a grisly sight: organs and blood vessels heaped together, flesh torn open, the pelt stripped away to reveal raw, red membranes exposed to the air.

The body lay on the autopsy table—sunken skull silently lamenting, shattered ribs crying out for justice, ruptured chest cavity wailing in grievance, all testifying to the cruelty of the axe-wielding man.

Anyone who saw this would surely think the creature had suffered horrific abuse in life.

Though his dissection skills lacked finesse, Fang Zhuowei still discovered some peculiarities.

First of all, this unknown creature had two hearts—not the same size, but one large and one small.

The larger was about half the size of a basketball; the smaller, about that of a human fist. One sat above the other, reminiscent of the relationship between a primary and a secondary brain.

Beyond that, the monster’s stomach was especially large—like a small sack, incredibly tough, even the axe had trouble cutting through it.

Inside, about a third of the stomach was still filled with gastric fluid, and when he squeezed it, he could faintly hear a metallic clinking, as if some metal bracelets or the like were inside.

It took him considerable effort to finally split the stomach.

A gush of dark brown stomach fluid flowed out, sizzling on the floor like aqua regia.

“What’s this...?”

Following the liquid, Fang Zhuowei suddenly spotted several smooth, black orbs—about the size of a baby’s fist, resembling ball bearings.

Quickly, he fetched a stick to poke them out.

After washing them clean and inspecting them for a long while, he still couldn’t make anything of them and simply tossed them into a nearby bucket.

Aside from these discoveries, there was nothing else of note.

Yet even these few findings were enough to astonish Fang Zhuowei.

It was the first time he’d seen a creature in the real world with two hearts.

Except for the octopus, of course.

Even this point alone was enough to mark the creature as highly unusual.

“Two hearts, one large and one small. Other organs are normal in number, but most are exceptionally large—the liver is twice that of a normal animal of similar size, and the stomach is especially remarkable...”

“In addition, this unknown creature has 589 teeth, nearly half of which are canines—a number far exceeding the maximum found in any carnivore.”

Fang Zhuowei took out a newly opened notebook and spent nearly half an hour recording every anomaly he found during the autopsy, one by one.

These were solid facts; he double-checked them, ready to connect any clues that might emerge later.

By the time everything was finished, it was already past midnight.

After gathering the monster’s remains, Fang Zhuowei gently closed his notebook.

Based on the current data, he could be almost certain this unknown animal was anything but ordinary.

“If I used this creature’s cells to cultivate spore-life, would a host of special beings emerge?”

Staring at the pile of flesh before him, Fang Zhuowei’s thoughts ran wild.