This afternoon, Dai Lin didn't need to do an internship at the clinic.
The department arranged for him to attend a training lecture for interns, which normally every intern for the season would have to attend, but this season, he was the only one hired, so the lecture was just for him.
It seemed like every floor of the outpatient department had infinite space; every time he reached the end of the hallway, under Gao Heyann's guidance, he could walk through the wall to enter a new area.
"This time, the training lecture for interns will be conducted by my mentor, Dr. Jiang Licheng, who is the deputy chief physician of the Wraith Surgery Department," Gao Heyann cautioned Dai Lin: "The teacher is the backbone of our department, skilled in discerning the avatars and the true forms of resentful spirits, positioning curses, precise excision during surgeries, and how to deal with curse backlash. He is very busy and only because of Vice Dean Yin's face does he agree to give this lecture. You must listen carefully."
"Yes, I understand," Dai Lin nodded emphatically.
He found that when mentioning this mentor, Gao Heyann's usually aloof expression became much more serious.
"There's also, Vice Dean Yin asked me to tell you something," Gao Heyann pointed to Dai Lin's eyes: "If these eyes transmit information to you, you can trust them completely. They won't lie to you."
Dai Lin was stunned, but before he could ask any questions, they had already arrived at the intern training room.
Gao Heyann pushed the door and walked in; it was very dark inside, with just a few candles lit at the front.
Through the light of the candles, Dai Lin was shocked to see that there was a dissection table at the front - and on it was placed a… body!
"This?"
Seeing this scene, Gao Heyann wasn't surprised at all.
"Hmm, it's indeed my teacher's style, very hands-on."
"You're here?"
From the darkness, a figure emerged.
Dai Lin was startled; he hadn't noticed at all that there was someone else in the dark on the other side!
The man was already graying at the temples and appeared to be in his fifties.
Wearing a pair of rubber gloves, he approached the body and looked at Dai Lin.
"Teacher!" Gao Heyann raised his hand and nudged Dai Lin slightly forward, "This is the new intern our hospital has just hired, Dai Lin."
"Hello, Teacher!" Dai Lin bowed respectfully.
Since the other party was going to teach, it was natural for him to call them "Teacher."
"Put on the gloves first," Doctor Jiang didn't even look at Dai Lin, but was holding a magnifying glass, examining the body in front of him: "Also, don't just call me teacher, there is also this 'Teacher of the Body.'
Dai Lin, having attended medical school, certainly understood the protocol and bowed to the body as well, to show respect to the 'Teacher of the Body.'
"This body is a patient who died a week ago after a failed surgery, and the family has agreed to donate the body to our hospital."
Dai Lin didn't smell any formalin, but that was normal; all decay-causing microorganisms couldn't survive in the hospital environment, so the body wouldn't decay no matter how long it had been dead. If there was decay... that would mean it was a curse phenomenon, unrelated to microorganisms!
"Teacher, I'll leave first. Dai Lin, when you're finished, use the walkie-talkie to contact me, and I'll take you out of this area, you can't walk through walls alone," Gao Heyann said.
Suddenly, Doctor Jiang asked, "Heyann, how is your sister doing recently?"
Gao Heyann responded immediately: "Thank you for your concern, Teacher; my sister is fairly stable now. I'm going to visit her in the inpatient department after this."
Doctor Jiang sighed lightly and said, "Ah... your sister was my most favored student. Well, you better hurry on, then."
"Okay, Teacher."
Gao Heyan left and closed the door behind him.
In the room, only Doctor Jiang and Dai Lin remained.
Dai Lin put on his gloves and began to approach Doctor Jiang.
Doctor Jiang, at that moment, was holding a magnifying glass, closely observing the corpse, and beside him, Dai Lin saw some autopsy tools that were very familiar to him. They brought back memories of his youthful days in medical school.
At sixteen, he was exceptionally admitted to W City's Yanqing Medical College, where he studied clinical medicine.
The first time he faced a cadaver in class, he was very nervous, but he quickly calmed down because he knew that as a surgeon, once he stepped onto the operating table, he would certainly have to face even more bloody scenes.
But now, it was a completely different matter. In medical school, everyone was scared of the cadaver teachers, but they all knew that the cadaver teachers could not possibly get up and hurt them. But here… it was entirely different. Patients who died from curses could turn into part of the curse at any moment and become ghosts!
"Very good," Doctor Jiang put down the magnifying glass and said, "You have more guts than the interns who came before, but get a bit closer."
Dai Lin bit his lip and continued to move closer.
As he approached, the pain in his left eye began to emerge faintly!
There was no doubt that this body was cursed!
"Let me test you first," Doctor Jiang said as he pointed at the corpse, "What kind of ghost cursed this body, and what are the abilities of this ghost?"
Dai Lin was taken aback.
"I know what you want to say, you're an intern and you're not yet able to diagnose independently," Doctor Jiang stood with his hands behind his back, looking straight at Dai Lin: "But no doctor is born capable of making diagnoses on their own. It is more memorable for you to attempt an independent assessment and for me to tell you where you went wrong than for me to teach you how to conduct a visual examination. Besides, as far as I know, you have already managed to get a patient cursed by a fierce ghost admitted to the hospital with your independent diagnosis."
Dai Lin greatly admired his teacher's style, which reminded him of the mentor who had guided him in writing his thesis back in the day.
"Alright."
He walked up to the corpse.
By the light of the candles, he could see it clearly.
The corpse was a male in his forties, of medium stature, with unnaturally pale skin, and the lividity was distinctly visible (lividity formation is unrelated to microorganisms).
His body… showed no signs of sutures. Yet, Doctor Jiang had clearly stated that he died due to surgical failure.
Upon closer inspection, the pain in his left eye intensified.
"Now there is a curse… inside his body…"
"So what kind of ghost is it? Don't just assume it's a resentful spirit because I am a surgeon at the Wraith Surgery Department. After the body is donated, it belongs to all departments equally."
Dai Lin really wanted to say outright that he did not know, but he wanted to try again.
When facing that fierce ghost in the inpatient department, the pain in his left eye was far more intense than now, but the ghost was too unique to be used as a reference.
Apparitions could be the first to be ruled out. The Department of Apparitions didn't even have a surgical department, and the patients were just harassed by ghosts, not cursed.
The curse of a resentful spirit could generally be completely removed by an experienced doctor during surgery, but there are no absolutes in life, especially since this was a patient who died after surgical failure.
Suddenly, he noticed that the patient's lower abdomen was starting to bulge out gradually!
The bulging part began to slowly form into something resembling facial features!
It was, incredibly, turning into a human face!