The body in front of them looked intact, but in reality, it had already been cut into pieces—especially the right half, from the neck, chest, abdomen to the arm and thigh, all sliced open layer by layer and then repositioned. The left side belonged to Fiona Bennett; today, she was supposed to dissect the chest.

The skin, soaked in formalin, was brown and tough to the touch, like the surface of a leather bag. Of course, Fiona Bennett was wearing gloves. The anatomy class was taught by an old professor, who suggested that if you didn’t mind, you could consider dissecting without gloves to better feel the blood vessels and nerves. No one in the class accepted this suggestion except for Susan Wright.

The sharp scalpel cut down.

Very steady, Susan Wright praised. Fiona Bennett used her left hand to pinch a corner of the skin, while her right hand slid the scalpel under to cut through the subcutaneous tissue, slowly peeling back the whole piece of skin to reveal golden-yellow fat—some stuck to the skin, some still covering the gray-black pectoralis major. Under the effect of formalin, all the muscles were this color, and the internal organs were even darker.

“Next, separate the fat,” Susan Wright said. Each body was assigned to two students who worked together like this: one did the hands-on work, the other guided by comparing with the textbook. Susan Wright wasn’t looking at the textbook; she had already finished this part of the dissection before and was very familiar with it.

“Then it’s the pectoralis major. Do you see the attachment points? Yes, cut them.”

After cutting, the pectoralis minor was exposed. Cut that, and the ribs came into view. Fiona Bennett picked up the forceps, clamped near the base, and exerted force.

This was a task requiring strength; it took Fiona Bennett a long time to get through the first rib. She found it odd—why wasn’t Susan Wright helping? She should have already peeled back the skin on the right side, removed the chest muscles, and started cutting the ribs on the right. Once all ten pairs of ribs connected to the sternum on both sides were cut, the chest cavity could be opened as a whole, exposing the internal organs. The other groups had already finished this part, but Susan Wright kept waiting for her own progress. Thinking back, when she was cutting the pectoralis minor, Susan Wright hadn’t been guiding her as before; she had been silent for too long.

Fiona Bennett looked up. Across from her, Susan Wright had, at some point, set the textbook down on the dissection table, her head hanging, expressionless. Her mouth seemed to be moving, but no sound came out. Her right hand was clenched in a fist, pressed against the white coat on her chest, while her left hand rested on top, fingers tapping. The tapping felt out of place to Fiona Bennett, even strange.

It was a bit like counting the months on your knuckles. Frederick Bennett had taught his daughter this way: the knuckle of the index finger was January, a bump, so it was a big month; the dip between the index and middle fingers represented a small month, and so on until the pinky knuckle for July, then start over—August was again the index finger knuckle, a big month. It was clear and easy; Fiona Bennett remembered it instantly.

Susan Wright’s left fingers kept jumping between the knuckles of her right hand: knuckle, gap, knuckle, gap, knuckle, gap, knuckle, and again, knuckle, gap...

Fiona Bennett didn’t know whether she should call out to her. She felt that, from last night to today, she had suddenly discovered too many secrets about Susan Wright. So many that it seemed to be forming another Susan Wright altogether.

Knuckle, gap, knuckle. The tapping stopped at the pinky knuckle. Susan Wright looked up, meeting Fiona Bennett’s gaze before she could look away. Her eyes were still clear, but bottomless.

Fiona Bennett was startled and looked away as if she’d done something wrong.

“I’m going to start cutting the ribs,” Fiona Bennett said.

“Last night. You saw it.”

Fiona Bennett stammered an apology.

But Susan Wright smiled. “Why are you apologizing? Did I scare you? Sorry about that.”

Fiona Bennett immediately felt relieved. “I thought you were sleepwalking.”

Susan Wright lowered her voice, and Fiona Bennett spoke softly as always. Their conversation wasn’t overheard by anyone else.

Susan Wright shook her head slightly, so Fiona Bennett asked what had happened last night. She thought, since Susan Wright had brought it up, she would probably explain.

But Susan Wright didn’t answer. Her eyes drifted from Fiona Bennett’s face, circled the classroom, and then she lowered her head.

Did I say something wrong again? Was I not supposed to ask? Fiona Bennett grew uneasy.

Then she heard a mutter.

“What?” Fiona Bennett didn’t catch it. Or rather, she heard a few syllables, but the content made her certain she must have misheard.

Susan Wright suddenly looked up, her black pupils fixed on Fiona Bennett. A sentence burst from her lips, landing with a clang. In an instant, the whole classroom fell silent, and every face turned toward them.

Someone wants to kill me!

Was that what she said? Someone wants to kill me—no, that can’t be right! Fiona Bennett was stunned, feeling completely at a loss.

She didn’t know how to react.

This was a hundred times stranger than Susan Wright admitting she had a sleepwalking disorder.

Thinking back to Susan Wright’s actions last night, was she suspecting someone in their dorm wanted to kill her? Among the suspects, she herself was included. Judging by the time spent, her own suspicion was the smallest. Of course—how could she possibly want to kill Susan Wright? She was her best friend in med school. But could someone else want to kill her? Selena Adams, could Selena Adams want to kill her?

Susan Wright wasn’t looking at Fiona Bennett. After saying that sentence, her gaze swept the classroom, meeting every pair of eyes that turned her way: Selena Adams, Queenie Adams, Winnie Hayes, Lily Carter, Crystal Nelson, Marcus Hamilton, Matthew Mitchell, Frank Bishop, Quincy Hayes, Christopher Brooks. She calmly let her gaze pass over each face, not lingering on anyone. In fact, she swept past everyone without stopping, finally landing on Fiona Bennett’s face.

Fiona Bennett was shocked to see the corners of her mouth curve up slightly, almost like a smile.

Then, she peeled back the skin on the right side of the chest, removed the pectoralis major and minor, picked up the forceps, and began cutting the ribs on the right.

As if she had never said that sentence.

The surprised stares gradually withdrew. To the other students, such an abrupt sentence was like something bursting out of a stone, and the speaker’s actions and expression didn’t match the words at all, so they must have misheard. What Susan Wright had just said surely wasn’t “someone wants to kill me.” Even the professor thought so and didn’t pay it any mind.

Only Fiona Bennett, who had come back to her senses, knew that Susan Wright had indeed said those five words. She saw a glint of sweat on Susan Wright’s neck.

Susan Wright quickly cut through two ribs, then glanced at the still-stunned Fiona Bennett.

“You…” Fiona Bennett’s throat felt dry and tight.

“Just kidding. Put some muscle into it,” Susan Wright urged.

The rest of the dissection proceeded in unusual silence, broken only by the crunch of ribs being cut. Fiona Bennett was distracted; for the first time, the cold corpse and exposed face in front of her didn’t bother her at all—they were just material, nothing more.

She had so many questions, but this wasn’t the right time.

The harsh tearing sound snapped Fiona Bennett back to reality—Susan Wright was ripping open the pleura. She was a bit fuzzy on what she’d just done; she could barely remember how she’d managed to cut all the ribs.

The heart and lungs of the body were now exposed. Fiona Bennett steadied herself—she should focus on the dissection for now.

She put down the forceps and picked up the textbook, only to hear Susan Wright say thank you.

“For what?” Fiona Bennett asked.

“You’re the only one who truly cares about me.”

It was the first time Fiona Bennett had heard Susan Wright say something so tender. But then she heard a second thunderclap.

“If I told you someone in this classroom wanted to poison me, would you believe it?”

Susan Wright’s voice was very soft, drifting into Fiona Bennett’s ear.

“Poison… you?”

Susan Wright didn’t answer, just put a finger to her lips. Then she picked up the scalpel, signaling for Fiona Bennett to start reading the textbook’s section on the thoracic cavity. For the rest of the anatomy class, Susan Wright didn’t say another word about poisoning or murder, no matter how Fiona Bennett asked—she only smiled meaningfully.

Fiona Bennett was plunged into deep anxiety.

“Someone wants to kill me.”

“Someone in this classroom wants to poison me.”

As a medical student, Fiona Bennett naturally knew that a significant proportion of people suffered from persecutory delusions. Could Susan Wright be one of them?

The contradiction was, she didn’t want it to be true, but she didn’t want it not to be true either. If it was, and things didn’t improve, Susan Wright would eventually be hospitalized and automatically identified; if not… she shuddered.

She couldn’t help but keep glancing at the other people in the classroom. Those faces, just starting to become familiar, now seemed inscrutable. Especially the five girls in her own dorm—she could now understand how Susan Wright must have felt last night, bending over and peering out from behind her bed curtain.

Thinking back on Susan Wright’s health, it seemed that not long after she herself joined the sponsored class, Susan Wright began to weaken.

The sponsored class’s summer break was only a month, with school starting in August. By late September at the latest, Susan Wright’s health had started to decline. First, she couldn’t play badminton for long before needing a rest, then she stopped playing altogether. Then her hair started falling out, and her face began to change slowly.

These changes surfaced bit by bit in Fiona Bennett’s memory, sending chills down her spine.

Was someone really poisoning her? Chronic poisoning?