America: Starting from collecting corpses, leveling up to godhood

"I'm glad to see you're alright. I was worried that you might have turned to some shady business because of the pressure of student loans."

"It's not that bad... How could anyone break the law because of student loans?"

Chen Ming straightened his shirt—he was a legitimate "corpse collector," backed by a company.

"It's hard to say... A while ago, Andrea from our college, the top student who always wore a white coat and boasted that he was a future Nobel Prize winner, disappeared without a trace for almost three weeks." Emma lowered her voice.

"And guess what? Someone saw her on a film set in the San Fernando Valley. She's now a contracted actress there, her stage name is 'Laboratory Kitten'..."

"That's a pretty hardcore transition, and it suits her very well." Chen Ming raised an eyebrow.

This girl occupies a significant portion of the memories of the previous incarnation—because her defining characteristic is her size; she once caught a spilled beaker without using her hands during an experiment.

"So, which website is she on... As an old classmate, I feel obligated to contribute some clicks."

Emma rolled her eyes at him without hesitation.

"You really are something... You've been like a ghost, not contacting me at all lately, but now you're all ears when you hear about this?"

Chen Ming just smiled helplessly.

He couldn't tell Emma that just a short while ago he was huddled in his car, contemplating how to avoid being bombarded with debt collection emails from his student loan service provider...

In a time when even buying a discounted hamburger required hesitation, Chen Ming had no time to sort out his predecessor's social network.

"etc……"

Emma stared at Chen Ming's neck, which looked much more muscular than before, and pinched his biceps without warning.

"Have you been living at the gym lately?"

The pressure was very strong, like examining pathological tissue.

"With this level of muscle mass... your body fat percentage is ridiculously low."

"This is very strange. You've only been out of school for less than 12 weeks. Your BMI was around 21 before, which is a typical East Asian male physique—slim and lacking in muscle mass..."

"From a physiological point of view, even with top-notch genes and perfect diet control, the limit for a natural fitness enthusiast to gain lean body mass in a month is only 1 to 2 pounds, while you look like you've gained more than ten pounds of muscle."

Emma withdrew her finger, her expression turning strange.

"So please explain, did you use terembrone? Or a larger dose of testosterone suspension, or some kind of novel anabolic steroid that I can't even imagine?"

"Don't tell me you did it by eating broccoli and chicken breast... That doesn't comply with the law of conservation of energy, and it doesn't fit the workings of the human endocrine system."

"I...I'm purely natural, maybe I just have a natural talent."

Chen Ming felt somewhat awkward under Emma's gaze—from a scientific point of view, her suspicions were indeed quite reasonable.

Unable to find an excuse, he decided to lie.

"I'm a medical student too, and I know very well the consequences of drug abuse... My hairline isn't receding, right? And I don't have any acne breakouts on my face."

"That's exactly what's confusing me."

Emma frowned, and even stood on tiptoe to get a closer look at Chen Ming's jawline and the skin behind his ears.

"No buffalo hump, no breakouts, not even 'steroid rage'... You look so natural, as if you've actually built those muscles over time."

"But this simply doesn't make sense on a timeline!"

"Maybe it's because they're poor?"

Chen Ming shrugged and gave a half-true, half-false answer.

"During my leave of absence, to raise money for tuition, I found a job as a night shift mover at a logistics warehouse in Long Beach. Every night, I had to manually move hundreds of boxes of frozen beef, each weighing over fifty pounds..."

"Perhaps this extreme survival pressure brought out my genetic potential."

"You're a porter...you've gone to do manual labor?" Emma's eyes suddenly showed a hint of heartache.

"As long as I can afford the registration fee for next semester, I don't mind doing anything," Chen Ming said calmly, even with a hint of self-deprecation.

"At least it's more respectable than being a male porn star in the San Fernando Valley, right?"

"If it's compensatory muscle hypertrophy caused by long-term heavy physical labor, although it's a bit of an exaggeration, it's... barely plausible."

Emma cleared her throat somewhat awkwardly.

"I'm relieved you haven't turned yourself into a hormonally disordered monster."

"What are you doing back at school today? Shouldn't you be going to the administration building to complete the resumption of studies procedures?"

"Professor Evans is looking for me." Chen Ming didn't intend to hide it.

He said the lab had some old data that needed organizing and wanted me to help out so he could earn some extra money.

"Evans? You're still in contact with him?"

Emma's brows suddenly furrowed.

"Chen, although students shouldn't talk about their professors behind their backs, I must remind you... this professor is in a lot of trouble lately, you'd better stay away from him."

"Trouble?" Chen Ming's heart skipped a beat, but he remained outwardly calm.

"You mean his son who's in rehab?"

"No, if it's a family matter, I won't waste my breath."

Emma grabbed Chen Ming's arm and pulled him behind the shade of an oak tree, away from the crowds on the main road.

"My dad has some connections at the city police department... Last weekend, during a family dinner, I overheard him casually mention that several recent gang conflicts seem to be implicating a well-known professor at our medical school."

"Although no names were mentioned, given the recent direction of the Los Angeles Times reporter's investigation... it's hard not to think of Evans."

"Reporter?" Chen Ming caught the key word.

He could roughly guess what the gang conflict was about—after all, Evans made a living by selling corpses, which inevitably touched the interests of some local thugs, and his previous kidnapping was also related to this.

But journalists... are a new variable.

"Yes, a female journalist named... Michelle, I heard she's a ruthless character who specializes in digging up dirt."

Emma's voice lowered even further.

"She seems to be investigating the source of the 'samples' in Evans' lab. You know, the cadavers in our anatomy class, while supposedly donated, have always been excessively numerous and fresh."

"Rumors circulate that Evans may be buying bodies directly from gangs or funeral homes, or even from homeless people, through illegal channels..."

A chill ran down Chen Ming's spine.

Isn't this rumor the truth?

And he is now the middleman in charge of the "illegal channels"!

"This...sounds too crazy." Chen Ming shook his head, feigning shock.

"Professor Evans is a titan in academia; he has no reason to take such a risk for a few corpses, does he?"

"Who knows? Maybe he was driven to desperation by his drug-addicted son? What won't a gambler do to win back his losses?"

Emma shrugged, her expression serious.