Chapter 193: 35 Candles

The lines of life on the EKG monitor began to shift. Liu Xuan manipulated the Thread-Pulling Gu, extracting tiny black spots from her husband's skull before driving all the worms into his body to replace his complex neural pathways.

Cold sweat broke out across my forehead as I watched. Liu Xuan was an absolute madwoman, and only a madwoman could have come up with a method like this.

Combining Gu worms with Western medical techniques would sound like pure fantasy to anyone else, the ravings of a lunatic. Yet in Liu Xuan's hands, it became reality. The two merged flawlessly, creating a truly shocking spectacle.

About twenty minutes later, Bai Wang's facial nerves began to function again. His eyelids fluttered, as if they were about to open.

"Bai Wang, open your eyes. I'm right here."

"Open your eyes and look at me, won't you?"

Liu Xuan called out softly. The corpse on the operating table seemed to genuinely hear her as its eyelids slowly lifted.

As the final Thread-Pulling Gu slithered into Bai Wang's body, the vitals on the monitor spiked once more.

"What is she going to do?" My definition of life and death blurred at the sight. What this woman was attempting was nothing short of a miracle—resurrecting the dead. She was trying to defy the laws of reincarnation with a mortal human body.

Time slipped away by the minute, and the surgery reached its critical juncture. Having expelled all the Thread-Pulling Gu from her own body, Liu Xuan looked like a person made of blood. She was covered in large and small wounds, yet she stubbornly stood by the operating table.

"Only the final step is left." Liu Xuan attached various micro-current electrodes to Bai Wang's exposed brain. The placement of every single electrode was the result of five years of relentless experimentation, mapped out through the sacrifice of innocent lives.

Her movements were incredibly slow, as if she were performing a ritual.

Once all the electrodes were in place, she took a deep breath. Her bloodstained fingers trembled as she pressed the power switch.

"Crack!"

Electricity instantly surged forward, slithering into Bai Wang's body like dark blue dragons.

Both Liu Xuan and I stared at the EKG monitor. The moment the current hit him, Bai Wang's heart visibly jerked. We didn't even need to look at the machine; we could hear the heavy, rhythmic thumping of life with our own ears!

I was shocked beyond words. Every single number on the monitor was climbing. Liu Xuan had actually managed to snatch her husband's soul back from the Grim Reaper.

"Bai Wang, open your eyes. I'm here. Just open your eyes and look at me, even if it's only for a second."

The corpse's fingertips began to twitch, and the rise and fall of its chest was visible to the naked eye. Those eyelids, shut for so long, were slowly beginning to lift!

"Bai Wang!" Liu Xuan stared at her husband's eyes. The icy, eternal frost on her face melted in an instant. She was far too weak, utterly drained of all physical and mental strength. She could only lean against the operating table with both hands to keep herself from collapsing.

"Open your eyes. You haven't seen me in so long." A trace of begging laced Liu Xuan's voice. The past five years had been anything but easy for her.

The effect of the electricity began to fade. Bai Wang's fluttering eyelids looked as though they were weighed down by a thousand jin, but they were slowly and firmly opening.

A miracle was about to unfold before my very eyes. The room was deathly quiet. I covered my mouth, preparing to burn this sight into my memory forever, when things suddenly went wrong.

That single internal organ that didn't belong to Bai Wang triggered a violent rejection response. Soon after, the other organs in his body—harvested from various different men—also began to fail. Bloody fluid leaked out from everywhere. In that instant, he was like a wooden bucket riddled with holes.

"No! Please! I beg you!" Liu Xuan forced herself upright and grabbed a needle, thread, and her Scalpel. She tried to stitch him back together, but it was completely useless.

Blood spilled across the operating table, splattering her face. This elite doctor—a woman who wouldn't flinch even with a blade held to her throat—was now reduced to a helpless child, frantically trying to patch and sew beside her husband's corpse.

The lines on the EKG monitor began to drop. Every number plummeted, resetting to zero as if they had never changed at all.

The long night had finally passed. The sky outside had to be getting bright by now.

I stood by the door, feeling a strange mix of emotions. A bit of pity, a bit of sympathy, a flash of relief, and a lingering sense of fear.

Inside the blood-soaked operating room, Liu Xuan gently cradled her lover's head and leaned down to whisper into his ear.

I couldn't hear what she was saying. I just watched the tears and blood mixing together on her face.

She had been a fraction of an inch away from a miracle, but a devil was still a devil in the end.

For five years, she had hidden herself away in this formalin-scented basement late into the night, keeping company with corpses. Liu Xuan was a madwoman. She must have broken down the very second she learned her husband had cancer.

Only, this agony had been drawn out over five years. She had survived for five years inside an illusion of her own making.

"Your final surgery is over. After your string of insane murders, there's nothing I can do to help you. Debts have to be paid in the end, just like those organs you stole." I took the Underworld Live Show Phone and my personal phone back from Zhang Jiaqi, called the police, and dialed 120.

"The police and ambulance will be here soon. If you have anything left to say to him, tell him now." I turned on the Underworld Live Show Phone. Because the screen had been black for so long, a lot of the viewers had left.

Hearing my words, Liu Xuan stood up from the pool of blood. She traced a hand over her husband's ruined body as she peeled off her sterile gloves and surgical gown. "Can you wait for me for just a little while?"

At this point, I wasn't afraid she would try anything crazy. A person whose heart was dead posed no threat. "Will ten minutes be enough?"

Liu Xuan turned and walked out of the basement. It didn't take long before she returned, but this time she was holding a paper box.

"What's in the box?" I took a step back and scooped up the Scalpel off the floor.

"It's for my husband." Cupping the box in both hands, Liu Xuan approached the operating table and set it down next to Bai Wang's corpse. "It's a cake I baked myself. Tomorrow is Bai Wang's thirty-fifth birthday. I originally thought we could celebrate together."

Liu Xuan's voice was shaking violently. Although her expression was peaceful, tears dripped steadily onto the floor, wetting the dried scabs of blood.

"Tomorrow... I don't think I'll be around to see tomorrow." She carefully arranged a knife and fork beside the cake, then took out the candles, meticulously planting them in the cake one by one.

After pressing in the thirty-fourth candle, Liu Xuan stood perfectly still for a long time, clutching the final one in her hand. She stared down at her ruined, shriveled husband on the operating table. "You've really lost weight. It's all my fault. I didn't take good care of you."

Leaning down softly, Liu Xuan pressed her lips to Bai Wang's forehead, leaving a feather-light kiss on a face she barely recognized anymore.

"I won't be able to celebrate your birthday with you tomorrow. I was hoping you'd open your eyes on your thirty-fifth, but we missed it by just one day." With that, Liu Xuan snapped the final candle in half and pressed the broken piece into the cake. "Do you have a light?"

I pulled out my lighter and lit the candles. As I watched Liu Xuan stand beside the bloody water and the corpse, singing a birthday song, I suddenly found myself wanting to talk to her a bit longer.

"Actually, the only reason I came down here in the dead of night was because a man hired me. In the final moments of his life, the changes in his wife terrified him. He wanted me to tell his wife that love forced too far can't be called love anymore."

Liu Xuan stared at me blankly. She was just about to say something when the iron door out in the corridor was kicked open. The police had arrived.

She turned to face me, flashing a radiant smile I had never seen before, blooming like a summer flower. Then, dragging her shoes through the bloody water, she raised her hands and walked out the door on her own.

"It's finally over." I collected my thoughts, preparing to deal with the police interrogations and questioning that were sure to follow.

I quickly patted myself down, checking to see if I had left behind anything I couldn't explain.

But when I casually glanced back over my shoulder, I was met with an impossible sight.

The cake resting on the operating table was completely untouched, yet every single one of the thirty-four long candles and the one short candle had been blown out.

"Who did that?"

Neither Liu Xuan nor I had made any sudden movements, so we couldn't have accidentally snuffed out the flames. Furthermore, this was the second level of the basement; there was absolutely no draft down here. How could the candles have blown out for no reason?

Staring down at Bai Wang's corpse sprawled on the operating table, I suddenly remembered Liu Xuan's final smile. She had been facing me, but that smile... it hadn't been meant for me.

"Was it you?" I gave the corpse on the operating table one last look before quietly lighting a cigarette. "Happy birthday. Don't forget to make a good wish."