Countless memories flooded into the old man's mind, splitting his head with agony, yet his eyes remained utterly calm.
Blood vessels surged from the floor and walls, coiling around his body. The old man didn't so much as flinch, still standing before that glass container.
The vessels burrowed into his flesh, writhing beneath his skin like pale blue serpents crawling toward his brain.
Dense and writhing — just looking at them made one's scalp tingle with phantom pain — but the old man didn't so much as furrow a brow.
"Hold on, old sir! You have to hold on!"
The blood vessels finally breached the old man's brain, but unlike the previous times, his eyes weren't immediately overtaken by crimson threads. He remained conscious.
His face was a web of bulging blue veins — a level of pain that no ordinary person could imagine — yet the old man endured it all, standing upright beside the glass container that held the Great Teacher.
His body was not tall, but he stood ramrod straight, as though nothing in this world could bring him down.
The organs embedded in the walls thrashed wildly. The crisscrossing vessels on the ceiling swelled another size larger, blood roaring through them as countless crimson threads surged in from outside.
The blood-colored world hadn't anticipated this kind of complication. It was scrambling to contain the damage.
More and more blood vessels sprouted from every corner of the room. The scene before them looked like something out of hell itself.
Compared to those seemingly endless, thick blood vessels, the old man looked terribly frail — a insignificant reef battered by a storm.
Even more vessels bored into his body, but the old man acted as though he couldn't see them. No one knew what he was thinking at that moment.
From his vantage point further back, Chen Ge could only see the old man's eyes, fixed unwaveringly on the glass container.
His body was on the verge of being torn apart by the blood vessels, yet the old man paid them no mind at all. His palm pressed flat against the cold glass, his expression complex beyond measure.
He craved life, yet he did not fear death.
"So this is where I belong."
Life is but morning dew, death a falling star. The old man finally recalled everything. His fists clenched tight, and a low, guttural roar escaped his throat.
Pain and torment were cast aside. His eyes blazed with a brightness they had never held before.
Every vein on his body bulged grotesquely, his emaciated frame taking on an almost terrifying appearance — and yet his expression was one of such gentleness that no outsider would ever have guessed this stern, stubborn old man could wear such a look.
He shifted his gaze away from the glass container and gave a slight shake of his head. "What on earth were those brats thinking? I donated my body so it could be used for study, not so it could be shoved into a display case like some museum piece! The sheer pretension of it all! When I get out of here, I'm going to give them an earful they won't forget!"
His voice carried a thread of indignation. Through unbearable agony, the old man had reclaimed every last memory.
The blood vessels inside him, sensing they could not break his will, worked even more violently. The entire room shook. The organs in the walls and the vessels overhead began to rupture, blood dripping and splattering everywhere.
Standing in that downpour of blood, the old man maintained the same posture the entire time. It was clear he was enduring excruciating pain, yet he refused to yield. There was even a hint of contempt in his eyes.
The blood-colored world and the old man's will were locked in a savage battle fought upon the battlefield of his body — one that no bystander could possibly join.
Chen Ge couldn't help. All he could do was press his back against the door from the inside, preventing those "security guards" from interfering with the old man.
Gritting his teeth, Chen Ge poured every ounce of strength he had into holding the door. Cracks began to split the wall beside the door panel. Blood seeped from the organs embedded there, their surface skin wrinkling and shriveling before finally sloughing away like autumn leaves.