Matrix Survival: One random treasure chest per day

"Great news!" Li Zheng clapped his hands vigorously and exclaimed.

Lin Fengjiao was once swallowed by a mutant from the Muddy Island of the Nile, who was not living a very good life, and was almost eaten by the other party.

Li Zheng happened to be there and managed to save her, but unfortunately he arrived too late. By then, Lin Fengjiao had already been swallowed alive by the other party. Although she was later rescued, almost all of her skin had been melted by the highly corrosive stomach acid.

Not only the skin, but also a lot of the muscle was melted away at that time.

Xiao Siyuan spent a lot of effort to cure her, and later, through various means, he finally managed to help her regenerate the missing muscles. Unfortunately, her skin was too corroded, making repair even more difficult, so artificial skin had to be used as a temporary substitute.

Now that Xiao Siyuan says he has finally developed something that can make skin regrow, it should no longer be a problem for Lin Fengjiao to restore her original appearance.

"Oh, right!" Li Zheng suddenly remembered something and asked, "I remember her wounds have actually healed, right? The artificial skin is just a layer covering up the ugly scars. If she wants her skin to grow back, wouldn't that mean..."

“That’s right.” Xiao Siyuan nodded: “She has to peel off another layer of flesh from her already healed body, just like a misaligned bone needs to be broken and rejoined. Only in this way can her new skin adhere to the flesh.”

"Hiss!" Li Zheng gasped. "You're letting her do it herself?"

“No, she asked for it herself,” Xiao Siyuan said. “I was worried she wouldn’t be able to do it and wanted to help her, but she insisted on doing it herself, so I let her do it.”

"Holy crap!" Li Zheng exclaimed in surprise, "If she really goes all out, Lin Fengjiao is destined for greatness!"

How much pain and psychological pressure must one endure to peel off a layer of their own flesh and blood?
Most people might not take it seriously, but if you asked them to prick themselves with a needle, they would need a long time to mentally prepare themselves.

Li Zheng had to admit he admired Lin Fengjiao, a petite and frail young woman, for having such courage.

If someone can be so ruthless to herself, what can possibly be difficult for her in the future?

"Whether she becomes a great person is another matter. Her skin and flesh have been repaired, but that doesn't mean she's completely cured." Xiao Siyuan sighed sadly. "Don't forget, her facial features are damaged to varying degrees, especially her nose and half of her ear. Both of these areas have cartilage. I can research things that can promote the growth of skin and flesh, but when it comes to bones... I'm willing but unable to do it."

Unlike flesh and blood, bones cannot regenerate as well. Flesh and blood tissues have a relatively stronger regenerative capacity, while bones, whether hard or soft, cannot regenerate as well as flesh and blood.

For an average person, a cut in the skin will heal in a few days to ten days to half a month.

When a bone is broken and reconnected, not only are tools such as steel nails needed for fixation, but bed rest for up to 100 days is also required.

A comparison of the two reveals a significant difference between them.

Xiao Siyuan was worried about this. He couldn't think of any way to regenerate Lin Fengjiao's missing bones. He could only wait for Lin Fengjiao's skin to grow back and then use a plastic surgeon to fill in the missing bones with implants to help Lin Fengjiao complete her facial features.

The consequence of doing this is that her face will look very fake. After all, no matter how well the manufacturing process of implants is, they can never be as natural and harmonious as the original facial features.

“Let’s take it one step at a time,” Li Zheng said. “You’ve already created several miracles by helping Lin Fengjiao get to this point, and I believe you can create even more.”

“A miracle…” Xiao Siyuan smiled bitterly, “I hope so.”

The skin and flesh regeneration technique is supported by a lot of medical knowledge, and most of the credit does not come from his medical skills, but from the inspiration he got from some of the items he obtained from the Matrix.

For example, "flesh and blood regeneration powder" and the "artificial skin" on Lin Fengjiao's body both provided inspiration for Xiao Siyuan's research.

However, even in places like the Matrix with its peculiar rules, bone regeneration technology is difficult to achieve. Otherwise, Yan Guang wouldn't have had to cut off his upper arm and replace it with a mechanical arm.

"I almost forgot to ask." Xiao Siyuan slapped his forehead and said, "Did your plan to take Yan Guang's body to try to clone her succeed?" Yan Guang was a member of their circle of friends, so Xiao Siyuan was naturally very concerned about her. However, he had been so busy since arriving in the outer city that he had only just remembered her.

"Her," Li Zheng said with a smile, "is lucky. They found some residual active cells in her bone marrow and are already cloning her. However, the cloned Yan Guang will probably lose his previous memories. Whether Feng Shan can get back together with her depends on his own abilities."

Strictly speaking, a clone and the original are actually two completely independent individuals. Apart from sharing genes, they cannot be considered the same person.

Without a memory backup implanted in the clone's brain, the clone will be like an infant, a blank slate.

"Ok?"

Li Zheng's expression suddenly changed, and a flash of inspiration struck him. This time, he successfully grasped the idea: "Old Xiao, I have a medical question for you."

"You ask, but I may not know the answer."

"If we compare the spiritual body to the soul, then the original soul of the clone is either still inside the original body or has died. So where does the soul of the clone come from?" Li Zheng asked carefully. "Also, if a person's soul disappears from the body, is it possible to regenerate a soul with the original memories based on the memory cells stored in the hippocampus?"

"Huh?" Xiao Siyuan was stunned, and after a long while he said, "I'm an orthopedic surgeon, and you're asking me about neurology... no, this is practically metaphysics, isn't it?"
If it were truly possible, wouldn't all the people in a vegetative state in the world have been cured long ago?

“That makes sense…” Li Zheng pondered. He felt that he had grasped something very crucial, but he lacked the theoretical knowledge to connect the dots and organize it in a way that he could understand.

The feeling was very strange, like suddenly realizing something that completely touched on a blind spot in his knowledge, and he was in a superposition of being able to understand it yet not being able to understand it.

Unable to figure it out no matter how much he thought about it, Li Zheng decided to put it aside for the time being and go do some things that he could handle himself.

He bid farewell to Xiao Siyuan and led Miriel and Mudala to Block 3 to purchase more memory release devices and accumulate more memory images of combat skills.

Feng Yue followed him closely, never leaving his side.

Professor Rothcal asked him to record everything that happened to Li Zheng during his time away from the research institute, so that he could analyze any changes in Li Zheng's body after he returned.

This greatly helped Professor Rothcal to continue improving the training program.

Although Li Zheng believes that his physical data will not change much this time.

Compared to other blocks, Block 3 is much busier and more vibrant, with crowds coming and going and jostling at the portal entrances.

After finally squeezing out of the crowd, Li Zheng and the others couldn't help but exclaim, "No wonder it's one of the top three districts; there are significantly more people going to the Wilderness and the Sin Domain than in other places."

After all, if the activity level of residents in a neighborhood is too low, they will be relocated to other places; Block 4 is a case in point.

The two receptionists here were unusually busy, like two traffic police officers directing traffic, arranging for the entry and exit of residents from the outer city.

Under the other party's command, Li Zheng and his group successfully left the vicinity of the teleportation gate and escaped from the congested crowd.

They found a shop selling memory release devices and went inside.

Led by an enthusiastic shop assistant, Li Zheng looked at the dazzling array of memory release devices and suddenly sorted out his confusion from not long ago.