America: The Cremator

An hour later, Stella, Hannah, and Suron sat at a table in the restaurant on the first floor of the detached building.

Each of the three had a steak on a plate in front of them.

Suron sat in a high-backed chair, holding a knife in his right hand and a fork in his left, laboriously cutting the food on his plate.

The metal blade rubbed against the bottom of the plate, producing a sharp, teeth-grinding noise.

He forked a piece of the cut-off dark brown chunk, put it in his mouth, and began to chew it laboriously.

Professor Stella appears to be making something that resembles a steak, but it's definitely not a steak; it's more like a shoe sole smeared with pepper sauce.

Hannah, sitting opposite her, behaved quite differently.

She gulped down the food on her plate, her cheeks bulging, her eating manner somewhat exaggerated. It seemed that this wasn't for Stella's noodles, but rather a craving for meat that she hadn't eaten in years.

Su Long finally swallowed the food in his mouth, put down his knife and fork, picked up the water glass next to him, and took a sip.

Stella sat in the head seat, gracefully cutting her plate of the same black object, and expressionlessly putting it into her mouth.

Surong looked at Stella: "Professor Stella, isn't this the M5 Wagyu beef I saw in the freezer?"

Stella didn't look up, continuing her cutting: "Yes, the pharmaceutical representatives gave me a lot, they're all piled up in the refrigerator."

"I sometimes use these to make do with a meal when I'm busy with experimental research."

Su Long frowned as he looked at the desecrated material on the plate: "My God, this cow died for nothing."

He put down his knife and fork and turned his gaze to Hannah across from him, who was wiping the gravy from the bottom of her plate with bread.

Hannah noticed the gaze and, somewhat embarrassed, slowed down her movements, wiping her mouth with a napkin.

Stella looked at Hannah, seemingly considering something, and slowly said, "Hannah, when I performed the neuro-MRI on you, I noticed something unusual about your palm. But I didn't examine it in detail. Could you show it to me now?"

Hannah paused for a moment, then nodded: "No problem."

She put down the bread in her hand, stretched her hands out to the center of the table, palms facing up.

It was a pair of long, slender hands with neatly trimmed nails, rounded fingertips, and every fingerprint clearly visible. The palms were slightly fleshy, and the fair skin had a faint pink hue.

In the center of these two perfect palms, there is a cross-shaped scar on each hand.

The wound edges were neat and smooth, without any signs of redness or inflammation, while the inside was a deep dark red, like some kind of red gemstone embedded in the flesh.

Even the wounds look beautiful.

Stella put down her wine glass, leaned forward, and examined the two wounds more closely.

"As expected, this is a Stigmata, isn't it?"

Su Long frowned as he looked at the wound. "Sacred Mark, is that a medical term?"

Stella stretched out her fingers and hovered them above Hannah's palm, feeling the faint warmth emanating from it.

"This is not a medical term; it's a theological concept."

"In Christian tradition, some extremely devout believers or those chosen by God will have wounds on their bodies that are the same as those Jesus suffered during his crucifixion. Hannah's wound is located where Jesus was nailed to the cross."

"Those who possess holy marks are considered, in a theological sense, to have inherited the suffering of the divine child, as well as divine power—the blood flowing from these wounds is called holy blood, which is extremely lethal to all strange creatures."

"Even just a single drop of holy blood, diluted with a large amount of ordinary water, can produce high-quality holy water."

Surong looked at Hannah, then remembered the holy water that Stella had carried in a mineral water bottle in the car earlier, which seemed to have come from St. James's Cathedral.

"Hannah, the holy water from St. James's Cathedral, it couldn't be you..."

Hannah withdrew her hand, awkwardly clenching it into a fist, and placed it on her knee: "Yes, the priests and the church collect my blood, make it into holy water, and distribute it to exorcists in the parish or sell it to other organizations."

"This is my primary duty as a nun, and it's also the reason why the cathedral was willing to take in my brother and me."

Now everything makes sense, Su Long nodded.

Everything is geared towards profit and value; this is the church style he's familiar with.

Stella looked at Hannah, her fingers tapping lightly on the table. "Hannah. I need an assistant now."

"This position requires a certain level of biological expertise, the ability to operate basic dissection equipment proficiently, and the courage to deal with the corpses of various non-natural creatures."

"Most importantly, I need this assistant to have some exorcism skills so that I can be safe when I go out to collect samples."

"You are a graduate student at the University of Seattle Medical School and an exorcist with stigmata, which perfectly meets my requirements."

"Starting today, you'll be my personal lab assistant, how about that?"

Hannah's mouth dropped open, looking somewhat bewildered: "Professor, this... I appreciate your invitation, but... I may not be able to guarantee full-time work."

Stella interrupted her: "Suron mentioned your financial situation to me."

"To pay for your tuition and your brother's medical expenses, you're working five jobs at the same time."

"I can pay you all your part-time earnings in total."

Upon hearing this, a flicker of struggle crossed Hannah's eyes, but it quickly faded away.

"Professor, it's not about the money. Although I'm short of money, those part-time jobs... I didn't do them entirely for the money."

"Apart from the part-time job at the morgue that I just started today, I have a reason for doing every other job... and the bosses won't let me go easily."

Stella paused for a few seconds, seemingly thinking about something: "In that case, let's try a different cooperation model."

"I will contact you in advance when I need to conduct field research or handle special samples."

"You need to prioritize completing my work, even if it means skipping work or taking leave—in return, I will pay you a high fee per instance and provide you with academic guidance."

Hannah nodded immediately, a smile spreading across her face. "No problem, Professor! I'll find a way to get here whenever you need me!"

Stella nodded, shifting her gaze from Hannah to Suron, who had been listening in silence.

"Well then, Mr. Suron, let's talk about your problem."

Su Long was taken aback. Looking into Stella's beautiful eyes, a sense of unease crept into his heart.

"You're an exorcist too, right?"

"To be able to enter Hannah's dream, and remain conscious in that deep nightmare constructed of C-level anomalies, and even assist Hannah in killing that entity. This is definitely not something an ordinary cremator or a patient with uremia could do."

Hannah turned to look at Suron, then at Stella, before cautiously speaking, "Professor, actually... I was the one who helped out."

Hannah recalled the golden flame that had ignited in Sulong's palm in the Dream Church.

The flames felt hotter and more domineering than holy light to her.

Su Long met the gazes of the two women, his expression turning serious and somber.

Sure enough, I had always hoped to keep a low profile and not expose myself, but as my abilities grew and I encountered more difficulties, I eventually slipped up.

In order to avoid being seen by the mysterious support agency, he chose to save the two women in front of him, but in doing so, he also exposed some of his abilities to them.

Su Long paused for a moment, then put on a sorrowful and grief-stricken expression: "My ability... I paid a huge price for it—a price that includes my health, my lifespan, and everything I used to have that was a normal life."

Stella looked into Surong's calm yet unfathomable eyes and read a weariness and indifference that came with the passage of time.

This doesn't seem like an act.

"Mr. Suron, it seems you are carrying some heavy secret... But rest assured, we will not delve into it, nor will we tell anyone else what we saw today."

Hannah nodded vigorously, "Don't worry, Sue! I absolutely won't tell my captain anything!"

Seeing the sincere expressions on their faces, Su Long breathed a sigh of relief.

These two women are much easier to fool than I thought.

Just then, a piercing electronic ringtone sounded.

Hannah pulled the shattered phone out of her pocket, glanced at the caller ID, and her face instantly turned pale.

He is the priest of the cathedral.

She answered the phone, and an anxious voice came through the receiver.

"Hannah, go back to the church immediately, something's happened!"

Just as she hung up the phone, Captain Elena called again: "Hannah, return to the team immediately, there's a major disaster!"

Immediately afterwards, Stella's phone, which was on the table, also vibrated.

She picked up her phone and pressed the answer button.

"Professor Stella, there has been a major incident with casualties at the cathedral!"

"All three medical teams have been dispatched."

"I hope you can come as an expert to guide the medical rescue!"

Almost at the same second, the cell phone in Su Long's pocket also rang.

He took out his phone, and the name of his supervisor, Watkinson, appeared on the screen.

"Leon, wake up, you fucking asleep!"

"Put on your pants right now, grab your gear, and drive to St. James's Cathedral."

"There are so many corpses tonight, they're piled up like mountains! All the crematorium workers in the city need to get moving!"

Su Long hung up the phone and stood up.

Stella and Hannah also stood up from their chairs.

The three of them had the same destination—St. James's Cathedral.