Love in Cthulhu

Chapter 34 Schrödinger's Jian Xi (Please continue reading)
Today is the 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month, the eve of the Lunar New Year.

I've heard that the eve of the Lunar New Year is different in the North and South. Northerners celebrate it on the 23rd, while Southerners celebrate it on the 24th. Geographically, Yunxiang is a county in the South, but people here celebrate the eve of the Lunar New Year on the 23rd.

When Zhou Nan arrived at the cultural square, he saw that the square was full of temporary red folding tents. People from various towns and villages nearby brought their local specialties and created a lively market in this place where cultural activities are usually held.

These are probably the busiest days of the year in this small county town. Standing on high ground, you can see crowds everywhere, and there are many young people, holding hands in pairs.

The old man carrying two cages of black-boned chickens on a shoulder pole walked with an air of superiority, not needing to call out to sell at all. Before he even reached the stall, people would ask the price and buy them all, then squat down by the stone village and happily start counting his money.

If Jian Xi were here, she would definitely have grabbed my hand and rushed in, right? But she can't come, and the other Jian Xi has been taken away by Teacher Tang, so she probably won't have any free time these next few days.

During this bustling season, Kyushu Tea House is packed with guests. Pedestrians rest in front of the door, while inside, middle-aged women huddle around mahjong machines with disdainful expressions.

Only the upstairs private rooms with screens offer a bit of peace and quiet. Because they are expensive and the tea served is also special, there is a starting price, so the older women definitely won't be ripped off.

There was only one customer on the second floor. Dong Junwei took a sip of tea, crossed his legs, and was reading a magazine with an all-English cover. He was wearing a very flashy white suit, his hair was neatly combed, and he wore thin-rimmed metal glasses. His face was long and handsome, but he was a bit thin, looking like a bamboo pole, but not sickly.

My first impression of this person was that he didn't look like a doctor at all, but rather like a male lead who had stepped out of a Korean drama. He looked like a middle-aged man, but he had the energy of a young man. He didn't seem to fit the description of a department head at all. In my memory, people with this level of expertise are all like eagle-eyed headmasters.

Was there a mistake? Or was the doctor late?

Zhou Nan was a little confused. Even after he sat down opposite Dong Junwei, Dong Junwei didn't look up. He could only try calling out, "Dr. Dong?"

Dong Junwei then came to his senses and was taken aback when he saw that the person who had just arrived was a boy who still looked very young: "Zhou Nan?"

“Yes.” Zhou Nan nodded. “I’m considered Jian Xi’s family member.”

"Are your parents out working and haven't come back? Why are you handling this kind of thing?"

“I have no household registration relationship with Jian Xi. She has no relatives in the local area. Her parents have gone overseas to do business and will not be back for a while. Only I can handle her affairs, so the funeral home has my phone number.”

He lied, but in a situation like this, lying was the only option.

He had considered investigating how Jian Xi died, but his main focus these past few days had been on Jian Xi, who was by his side, and the funeral home also refused to allow anyone other than relatives to touch the body.

If Dr. Dong insists that Jian Xi's parents must return, then the fact that there are two Jian Xis, one dead and one alive, can no longer be kept secret.

There's no need to worry about Uncle Wang. The only people who have actually seen the body at the funeral home are Uncle Wang, the few villagers he brought, and the funeral home security guard.

The villagers all live on the other side of the mountain, which is quite far from the town. They don't usually come here, and with school starting after the New Year, there's even less chance of them having any contact.

The only thing to worry about is what to do with Jian Xi's body. She has been in the funeral home for several days. Generally speaking, a body can only stay for 10 days for a fee. If it exceeds 10 days, an extension must be applied for. Afterwards, it will inevitably be cremated and its household registration will be cancelled. Then Miss Monster will not be able to live a normal life. She will become a person who should not exist in a social sense.

His original idea was that they had reconciled and he could see if he could do something with Miss Monster, but today he received a notice from Dr. Dong and could only bite the bullet and see how things went. Anyway, as long as there was no death certificate or cremation certificate, the funeral home wouldn't dare to do anything reckless.

“I see…” Dong Junwei hesitated for a moment, “Then what is your relationship with Jian Xi? Are you classmates?”

“She was a classmate, and also a childhood sweetheart, inseparable,” Zhou Nan said. “Don’t I have the right to know the cause of her death?”

"Not at all. It doesn't matter who comes to this matter. You can listen first and then inform her when her parents return."

"Then can you tell me?"

"Of course, but before that, I need to ask you a few other things."

Dong Junwei picked up the small teapot on the table, poured a cup of tea, and pushed it in front of Zhou Nan.

Do you think the foundation of human existence is idealistic, focusing on spirit and soul, or materialistic, focusing on matter and body?

Zhou Nan was completely stunned.

What kind of question is this? Shouldn't we be discussing Jian Xi's specific cause of death? Just tell me the result and I'll know the answer. Why is this a political question coming up? It even has a strong sense of déjà vu, like something I saw on a final exam!

He quickly calmed down, because he understood that Dr. Dong was not trying to make fun of him; there must be some deeper meaning behind her question.

So he thought about it seriously. As a top student, facing such a familiar exam question was like sitting in the exam room and holding his pen again.

"Materialistic," Zhou Nan replied.

"why?"

"Because the world itself is materialistic, matter determines consciousness, not the other way around. Just like primitive humans initially only intended to solve their basic needs for food, drink, shelter, and clothing. Only after these were taken care of did they need to pursue more convenient ways of communication, which gradually led to the birth of language, stone paintings, and numbers used to remember prey—these are the superstructures."

“A staunch materialist.” Dong Junwei nodded. “So, in your view, a person’s death should mean the cessation of bodily functions, cell death, the disappearance of nerve currents, and the cessation of all organ function, right?”

"As it should be."

"Then I must say, if this understanding is true, then your girl named Jian Xi is not dead."

"not dead?"

Zhou Nan felt like his head had been blown up by a nuclear bomb, with mushroom clouds filling the sky. How could this be? He wasn't blind. He'd seen the bodies in the funeral home, Uncle Wang had seen them, and the security guard had seen them too. When all three were present, they'd even discussed the possible causes of death. Even if one person had been negligent, did everyone else really?

"Is...is she in a state of suspended animation?" He broke out in a cold sweat. The more books you read, the more knowledge you naturally acquire beyond the textbooks.

In a state of apparent death, vital signs are extremely weak, and no vital signs can be detected by general clinical examinations. From the outside, it looks as if the person is already dead.

If that's the case, and they put Jian Xi in the freezer, wouldn't that freeze her to death?

"You know quite a lot." Dong Junwei showed an appreciative look. "However, it's not a state of suspended animation. Things are still quite complicated. In the general public's understanding, if there is no breathing and no movement, then Jian Xi is dead. But from a rigorous biomedical perspective, she really is not dead."

He took an ID card out of his pocket, opened it, and placed it on the table.

“This is my forensic expert’s license. Although I am the director of the pathology department at the county hospital, I also assist the local judicial system in conducting some death identifications. I have been busy these past few days and only had time to go to the funeral home yesterday. This means that Jian Xi stayed at the funeral home for at least five days before I arrived, and her time of death must have been longer than that.”

"But since I couldn't determine the exact cause of death, I conducted an examination, which revealed that her cells were abnormally active, showed no signs of putrefaction, and had a fairly intact cell structure, yet they were no longer consuming oxygen or producing energy. Most remarkably, if I tried to destroy a cell, it would die, but once the disturbance stopped, it would immediately return to a state of absolute stillness."

"What...does this mean?" Zhou Nan was a little confused.

"Simply put, Jianxi's life seems to have been frozen. From a medical perspective, she is constantly in the process of the human body going from being alive to dying."

Dong Junwei picked up a teaspoon and handed it forward: "Imagine this is a knife. Now this knife has accurately pierced and penetrated your ventricle. Without any rescue measures, your cerebral cortex cells will begin to die within 4-6 minutes, and the metabolism of cells throughout your body will slowly stop."

He said, "Jian Xi was right on the eve of this point in time. Her cells would not divide, but they would not die immediately either. It was as if she was forcibly anchored to a state of life at a moment by some unseen force."

"Can she wake up?" Zhou Nan asked anxiously. He didn't care about Dong Junwei's medical theories; he only cared about whether she could be resurrected.

“I don’t know either. This might be a medical miracle, a state that has never been discovered before. In fact, I think there is no need to freeze her at all, because the cells and flesh will not change. Even if she is kept in a normal temperature room, she will always maintain a stiff appearance that looks like she has been frozen to death.”

Dong Junwei's eyes practically lit up; for a scholar, nothing could be more exciting than this.

"Due to my rigorous approach, I cannot declare Jian Xi dead, and therefore cannot issue her death certificate. Conversely, I cannot guarantee that she can come back to life; that is beyond my medical knowledge. This may be disrespectful to my profession, but I think it might be called a realm known only to God, enough to overturn existing biomedical practices."

A realm known only to God...?

What a coincidence, there's another god in his house now, though it has to be called an evil god, or something even more terrifying, but luckily she's willing to listen to him.

Since Jian Xi is still alive and the modern hospital can't solve her problem, could we think of a way to let Miss Monster see Jian Xi's body? Judging from Dong Junwei's description, it seems to resemble the person Miss Monster ate.

A person who has lost their soul and only has a physical body left is like a frozen life. A body without spirit and consciousness is nothing more than a breathing lump of flesh.

“Since Jian Xi isn’t dead, can I take her out of the funeral home?” Zhou Nan asked. “We can’t keep her in the freezer forever.”

"That's why I want to communicate with the family members privately."

Dong Junwei suppressed his joy, pushed up his glasses, and became serious.

"I hope you can agree to send Jian Xi to Taihe Hospital in the city. My fellow student and mentor are there. The county hospital was merged into Taihe Hospital last year, so the two are now part of the same system. As a valuable case, we hope to conduct firsthand research and maybe even break through her current condition to publish a paper."

Taihe Hospital is a well-known and prestigious hospital in the eyes of locals. Although it is a municipal hospital, it is a comprehensive tertiary-level Class A hospital. In many specialties, it can even compete with the top provincial hospitals. It ranks among the top in prefecture-level cities across the country and integrates medical treatment, education and research.

Zhou Nan wasn't sure whether Jian Xi's condition was a medical issue or due to supernatural forces, but having some assistance was better than nothing, right? Besides, it would give Jian Xi's body a peaceful place; it couldn't just stay in the funeral home forever.

It's only a little over an hour's drive from the county to Taihe Hospital. If necessary, going there wouldn't be a problem. If we bring Miss Monster along, we can say she's the patient's sister. Anyway, they wouldn't know, and we wouldn't have to worry about running into any acquaintances.

Seeing that Zhou Nan was still hesitating, Dong Junwei decisively continued his attack: "Don't worry, it's completely free! This is not treatment, it's assistance, and we'll even have to pay you extra."

"The research, how exactly? You're not going to cut her up, are you? You said she's still theoretically alive." That was Zhou Nan's concern.

Are you worried we'll use her as a guinea pig?

Dong Junwei roughly guessed what he was thinking and chuckled twice. "What's the difference between that and murder? Live experiments only happen in TV dramas. We are a legitimate team. Jian Xi will have her own ward and dedicated caregivers. If you're worried, you can come and see her anytime. I can guarantee you'll see her at any time."

Zhou Nan was a little embarrassed by his bluntness, so he could only laugh awkwardly, and the pressure in his chest was swept away.

Jian Xi is dead, but Jian Xi is not dead. She turned into Schrödinger's cat out of nowhere, and another one appeared out of nowhere. These past few days have really made him quite depressed.

But with the good news brought by Dong Junwei, the long-dead hope was rekindled, even if it was only a tiny glimmer, and it was uncertain whether she could be saved. It was still better than watching her go into the incinerator and eventually turn into ashes in a jar.

He tried to control his laughter, but it only grew louder and louder. He shook his head as he laughed, feeling a surge of immense joy mixed with the exhaustion that was finally released. He thought it was all too silly, so he lowered his head and stared at the table.

Dong Junwei walked over and patted him on the shoulder.

He could roughly tell how important that girl was to him. A child's heart has so many things that can be filled up with just a little bit. A girl who could still be seen shining brightly even after she died must have had a lot to say to her childhood sweetheart, right?

"If there are no other problems, I'll go and complete the formalities. If everything goes smoothly, I can be transferred to another hospital tomorrow afternoon. You can come with me."

(End of this chapter)