Before I switched careers to become a pharmaceutical sales manager, I was an anatomy instructor in medical school. It's not that I'm not bad at it, it's actually that I'm doing a pretty good job in my class, and if I hadn't given up, I think I could have been promoted to associate professor now.

What forced me to leave the university podium was psychological, because I hated the dead and feared the dead. It's an unfathomable fear, like a cold needle that flows, drills into the soles of your feet, travels through your body through blood circulation, and you don't know when it will reach your heart, it could be half a year, it could be a month, it could be a minute. Again, I don't know when it will come back, but I feel that it's not far away, and it's still watching me somewhere, ready to kill me.

It all started with an anatomy class three years ago, which was perhaps the most memorable lesson of the student's life, because the first on-site autopsy always had an extremely strong impression, and I had stressed the need to be mentally prepared, but some people still vomited, and in the next three days, few people went to the cafeteria to buy meat, especially fried pork liver and other meat dishes.

This time the corpse was a young woman, which is an outlier in medical school, because the shortage of corpses has become a common problem in major medical schools, and most of the corpses obtained are old and sick and have failed their organs. Even so, whole autopsy classes are often pushed over and over again. Because, according to local customs, even if the patient volunteered to dedicate himself to the cause of medicine during his lifetime, the children of the deceased often did not allow it, believing that they were blaspheming the deceased. Therefore, every corpse is a rare internship opportunity, and the young and fresh ones are extremely precious.

The female corpse lay quietly on the dissecting table, covered with a white cloth until the class began, and I explained to the students the precautions and the importance of autopsy in medicine, as is customary, and finally asked them to look at the corpse with great respect. The students' eyes were both curious and a little frightened, but no one said a word, as if waiting for an extremely serious moment.

The white cloth was lifted, and there were a few slight sighs among the students. This is a very young female corpse, about twenty-five or sixteen years old, I heard that she was a secretary before her death, and she committed suicide by cutting her wrists because of emotional problems, and her friend dug out a voluntary form of donation from her belongings, which was filled out when she was a student. Young people rarely think about this kind of thing, why would she have such a wish? Maybe forever a mystery.

She wasn't a very beautiful woman, her eye sockets were a little sunken, and she probably had been under a lot of stress for some time before her death. Her eyes were closed, and her expression was very peaceful, as if she was asleep, completely devoid of the stiff death of a normal corpse, perhaps death was really a relief for her.

Thinking like this, I covered her face with a square scarf as usual, and when I couldn't see her face, her pale body was very abruptly revealed.

"Now, let's get started!" I said, motioning for the students to focus on the anatomy demonstration table.

There was silence all around, and I took out the scalpel from the plate and pressed it against her throat, the white plastic gloves matching the skin color of the female corpse, suffocating white.

Her corpse was still a little soft, her skin remained elastic, which felt very different from the corpses I had touched before, and somehow, my scalpel didn't cut it down, and even a terrible thought came to my mind, maybe she wasn't dead yet. But soon, I felt ridiculous for my thoughts, maybe this girl died too sadly, so I had this delusion.

The students stared at the scalpel with wide eyes, I condensed, and finally slashed the blade downward, the sharp scalpel barely encountered any resistance, it reached her lower abdomen, like pulling a chain, we can clearly hear the slight squeezing sound when the scalpel cuts through the flesh, due to the pressure in the body cavity, the cut skin and purple muscles immediately automatically turn over to both sides, her original sturdy * room hangs on both sides of the body, together with the skin becomes very loose, after using the fixator to pull the skin and muscles, The internal organs are completely displayed in front of us, and at this point, I have forgotten what kind of person the corpse in front of me is, in fact, it doesn't matter anymore, what matters is how to make the students remember the structure of the human body, which will have a profound impact on their future medical career.

The internal organs were taken out one by one, explained in detail to the students, and after being dissected, the structure was explained. After the internal organs were completely removed, the female corpse was left with a red body cavity.

The class went well, and although a few students were blue from discomfort and almost all of them were a little sick to their stomachs, they still withstood the test and made the trip worthwhile.

After the students left, I was the only one left in the dissection demonstration room, and the white light shone strongly on the dissecting table, reflecting a harsh light, and I began to place the internal organs back in their original positions one by one, and then sew the skin back to its original shape with threads layer by layer.

The school bell struck five times, and I took off the square scarf covering the woman's face, and then, something terrible happened! The female corpse suddenly opened her eyes and looked at me viciously, so frightened that I almost fell to the ground.

I stood up tremblingly, and found that it was not a hallucination, her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, and her expression was not as serene as before, but rather angry.

But she did die, and I was emboldened, and went up to examine it carefully, and finally came up with a reasonable explanation, perhaps because of the bioelectricity, because the process of dissection triggered some kind of bioelectric nerve reflex.

I closed her eyes, put the white cloth back on, and walked out of the dissection.

For the next few days, the eyes of the female corpse kept shaking in my head, I was not a supernaturalist, but for some reason, those eyes haunted me like ghosts, and I always wondered why she opened her eyes at this time, and that look, which I later thought back, seemed to convey some kind of message, and was not exactly like the empty eyes of a dead man.

Three days later, I learned that the woman's body had been cremated and that her ashes had been brought back to her distant hometown by her parents.

A year on, I seem to have forgotten about it, and in the meantime, I got a girlfriend.

We met on a rainy night, and when I came home from a school meeting, it was raining so hard that there was no one on the road, and I couldn't call a taxi for a while, so I had to walk alone with an umbrella. As I walked, I suddenly noticed that there was another person behind me, always following me unhurriedly, I was a little nervous, if I met the robber at this time, it would be miserable, so I deliberately quickened my pace, and that person also quickened his pace, still following me four or five meters away. After walking like this for a long time, I finally couldn't bear it anymore and turned around to take a look, but the result was unexpected, it turned out that it was a slender girl in a yellow raincoat who followed me.

We stand face to face.

"Why are you following me?" I asked her.

"I'm sorry, I'm scared when I'm walking alone." She looked at me timidly.

I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled, "Then how do you know I'm not a bad person?" ”

She laughed along and said, "Because you're like a teacher, and teachers are rarely bad people." ”

"Huh! You guessed it, I'm a teacher, don't be afraid, I'll give you a ride! "I walked with her and drove her home.

After that night, we often met on the way home, and we slowly got to know each other.

I never dared to tell her about the courses I taught, so she only knew that I was a medical school teacher and didn't know anything about the nature of my work.

One day, I finally told her that I was a lecturer in human anatomy.

Instead of being surprised and frightened as I imagined, she showed intense curiosity.

"You say, when the scalpel cuts through it, does the corpse feel pain?" She asked, and waited for my answer in all seriousness.

"How so? When a person dies, he doesn't feel it. ”

"How do you know they don't feel?"

"The criterion for determining death in modern medicine is brain death, the cranial nerve is dead, and any stimulation of nerve endings has lost its effect, and of course people have no feeling."

"It's just what we living people think, but maybe it's not." She said stubbornly.

"Don't think about it." I said with a smile.

Later, she asked this question more than once, and each time I answered, my mind felt like something had been hooked up, but it sank again.

But she still asked me the same question often, and I gradually felt an inexplicable sense of fear pressing on me more and more, and I was even a little afraid to see her, but when I think about it, there is nothing particularly strange, and I guess it may be because of the frequent contact with autopsies, and the psychological pressure is too great.

It wasn't until I stumbled upon it that I realized the severity of the problem.

I went to her dorm that night to look for her, and she wasn't there. The door was open, I sat on the sofa and waited for her, I got up and looked through her desk, ready to find a magazine for entertainment, there was nothing to look at, I took an old newspaper in my hand, accidentally, a piece of paper floated out of the stack and fell to the ground, it was an old and yellowed paper, my nerves tensed at once, I seemed to have seen this paper somewhere.

I picked up the piece of paper and flipped it over, my eyes wide in horror, it turned out that this was the volunteer form of the female corpse I had dissected a year earlier, and that I had signed it before the corpse was handed over to the autopsy room.

That's right! My signature is still on it, but how did it end up here???

I was a little panicked, and hurriedly opened the old newspaper to take a look, and in the social vision column, it was the social news of "White-collar Beauty Committed Suicide for Love", and the date of the newspaper was the day I dissected the corpse. I felt like I had fallen into an ice cellar, and I felt chills, and I felt that there was suddenly an indescribable eerie horror in this room.

At this time, I heard clear footsteps in the aisle, the sound of high heels, walking towards this side step by step, I didn't know what to do for a while, so I had to wait for her to appear.

When the footsteps reached the door, they suddenly stopped, and I didn't see anyone, but I seemed to feel her standing at the doorway staring at me, my feet were a little weak, but I didn't dare to move, and after a while, the sound of high heels sounded again, farther and farther away, and finally disappeared.

I ran home like crazy and calmed down for hours, my mind spinning so fast, how could this be? Maybe she's just a classmate or colleague of the girl, or maybe a good friend, so it's not strange to keep these things, and besides, maybe the footsteps are just from downstairs, and I'm too nervous.

I calmed down a little and called her on my phone, hoping to get something out.

No one answered the phone, so I called desperately, but it was all a long tone.

The more she didn't answer, the more terrified I felt.

After a while, there was a sudden sound of footsteps outside the door, exactly the same as the crisp sound of high heels on the concrete floor. My heart was pounding, and I didn't dare to get out.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! "There's a knock on the door.

It's really her, she's coming for me! I hesitated and finally convinced myself to open the door.

"It's you!" I said, my throat was a little astringent.

"It's me." She said.

"I went to look for you at night, but you weren't there." I took a few steps back and said.

"I'm out running errands! When I came back, I found that you had been there. She said.

"Really?"

"Why do you keep calling me on my phone?" She said.

"I ...... I'm afraid something will happen to you. I said.

She smiled and said, "Shall I stay with you tonight?" ”

I wanted her to go, but I couldn't, we've known each other for so long, and she's never let me touch her body. I thought to myself, maybe I was really suspicious, how could it have anything to do with her appearance and the girl?

I'm going to take a shower first! She said and walked towards the bathroom.

"Okay!" I stepped aside.

I sat in the living room, and I was nervous when I heard the sound of water flushing inside, but I always persuaded myself not to think about all those strange things, maybe it was just a coincidence.

She walked out in her pajamas and sat down on the couch across from me.

We are relatively speechless.

"I'll give you a massage." She smiled and walked up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulder.

"You say, when the scalpel cuts through it, does the corpse feel pain?" She asked suddenly.

I jumped up from the couch and shouted, "You, who the hell are you?" ”

But as soon as his neck hurts, like being hit by a heavy object, he is already unconscious.

When I woke up, I had a splitting headache and found my hands and feet tied to the bed.

I saw her standing in front of the bed, looking at me angrily, that look! I remember, that look was exactly the same as that female corpse!

"You...... Are you ......" I grew with irrepressible fear, but it was useless to struggle.

I noticed that her face was changing, slowly changing, her eyes, nose, and mouth were all displaced, and after a while, a terrifying face appeared in front of me, it was her!! The female corpse of that year ago!

"You say, when the scalpel cuts through it, does the corpse feel pain?" She asked me again.

"Also...... Maybe! I said with a shudder.

She slowly unbuttoned her pajamas, I had never felt so disgusted, her body from the neck socket to the bottom, just an empty shell, long since the internal organs were gone, revealing red body cavities.

"You say, do I hurt?" She said indignantly.

"But you volunteered!" I shouted.

"I regretted killing myself for that man, but just as I was about to get away from this filthy world, you woke me up again! I want you to be with me forever! She said.

"You, what do you want to do?" I said horrified.

She laughed stiffly, took a bright scalpel from her pajama pocket, shook it in front of me, and pressed it against my neck.

"I want you to know the pain of being dissected!" She said grimly.

"Don't! No! You are dead, I am alive! I shouted.

There was a tingling in my throat, and I sat up screaming as if I had been skinned alive.

I found that my whole body was sweating as if I had been immersed in water, the moonlight shining on me through the window, she was not in the room, had she been dreaming at night?

I thought it was incredible, but I was happy, and there was a thrill of escaping death.

The next day, when I got up, I found something that would never make me rest, and under the bed, there was a scalpel, a sharp and shining scalpel.

That afternoon, I went to her room again, but the door was closed, and the neighbor's lady told me that no one had rented the room since the woman committed suicide.

From then on, I didn't dare to touch any corpses, or even stay in medical school, so I switched to drug distribution.

But did that night really happen?

To this day, I still haven't found the answer!