CH 2

Chapter 2: The World Seemed to Have Begun Only at This Moment, Only Then Uncovering its Deep and Fascinating Veil.

“Because I want to know… what death is.”

Shen Lu tried analysing himself, but he also wasn’t entirely sure if he would be able to express himself properly, so he stumbled as he spoke, “Why do they die, what happens after death? I want to know what happened to them……”

Yan Chenli looked at him, and only looked away after he finished listening, the smile on his face fading and turning into a serious expression.

Shen Lu immediately regretted it and tried to take it back, “Sorry, I’m talking nonsense. Please forget it.”

“No.” Yan Chenli rested his chin on his hand and seriously pondered, “Because I also think about this matter constantly, so now I’m thinking about how I should answer you.”

“……” Shen Lu asked hesitatingly, “You don’t think that, me asking this kind of question… is really weird?”

Across from the park, there was a neat row of streetlamps casting a long strip of light over the roadside benches, making them look like small boats drifting on the black sea. Yan Chenli’s gaze fell on those shining boats and, with a steadiness entirely inconsistent with his age, he said, “My teacher always says that death is one of life’s most important topics, and it should be properly thought about and regarded at each stage.”

Shen Lu lifted his eyes slightly.

After thinking for a little while, Yan Chenli continued asking, “Since you often observe dead bodies, then what you want to know is about the field of biology, right?”

Would there be many aspects to that? Shen Lu was a little puzzled, but he still replied with what he knew so far, “When the heartbeat stops, a person dies. Everyone says so.”

“The heartbeat is a part of blood circulation, the heart pumps like an engine to extract and transport the blood, and delivers it to the other organs… then it decays.” Having reached this point, Yan Chenli rubbed his cheeks with his hands, “But why does it decay? …I don’t know, sigh. I haven’t thought about it.”

“…Isn’t it just like when food goes bad from being left out for a long time?” Shen Lu tried very hard to reflect.

“Let’s go!” Yan Chenli suddenly slapped his hands down and jumped up, dragging Shen Lu by the arm, “Come, we’ll go find out why!”

□■□■□

1 Original text is censored at ‘slightly acidic □□’. I’m assuming it’s enzymes because everything I found on autolysis talked about enzymes breaking down the cells, but I have no idea why that word would be censored in the first place. Top.

2 The word for insect in trad chinese is ‘昆蟲’ with that last character indeed being the same character stacked on top of itself. Shen Lu is reading “A fly for the Prosecution” by M. Lee Goff (Chinese title “法醫昆蟲學” ‘Forensic Entomology’) and you can see that the font is ridiculously spaced for that particular character on the CN cover. 

The book cover.

Top.

3 Imma be honest there’s supposed to be a joke here but I don’t really get it? My best guess is that it’s supposed to read “昆蟲學”, entomology, but the weirdly-spaced font makes it look like “虫虫學” which I guess reads a bit more like bugology or wormology. Top.