America: Starting from collecting corpses, leveling up to godhood

Half an hour later, at an abandoned auto repair shop on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

After dropping Chen Ming off, Old Qiao drove off without looking back, muttering the sign of the cross on his chest before leaving...

Chen Ming looked at his "spoils of war" and rubbed his temples in exasperation.

That's a bit too tragic.

The wax figure has five black bullet holes in its chest, a large chunk of its left cheek was sliced ​​off by a bullet, and even its eyeballs are about to fall out...

If this face were sent over untouched, Victor would probably think Chen Ming was sending him a death threat.

"We need to find someone who knows how to fix it."

Chen Ming took out his phone and dialed Sean's number.

The phone rang for a long time before being answered, and a sleepy, complaining voice came from the other end.

"Chen, do you know it's 3:30 in the morning? I finally managed to fall asleep. You'd better have something important to tell me."

"Do you know a reliable mortician? The kind who keeps quiet, preferably someone who can start working right now with their tools."

"Looking for an embalmer in the middle of the night..." Sean's drowsiness vanished instantly.

"You killed someone again?"

"No, the person died a long time ago." Chen Ming glanced at the broken wax figure.

"This 'lifelike wax figure' of Victor just had a little accident; it accidentally took a magazine's worth of 9mm bullets for me... I still have to give it to Victor, but its face is all smashed up now, so it's not in very good condition."

There was a full ten seconds of silence on the other end of the phone.

"You're something else... send me your location." Sean gritted his teeth and hung up the phone.

Forty minutes later, Sean, who had just casually wrapped himself in a trench coat, hurriedly jumped out of the car, carrying a heavy black briefcase.

When he saw the wax figure riddled with bullet holes and bearing a strange smile, he gasped in shock.

"Chen, I've seen a lot of weird things in my life, but..." Sean pointed at the wax figure, his mouth twitching violently.

"You broke into a security company in the middle of the night just to steal a wax figure of a corpse to use as a bulletproof shield?!"

"This was an accident...time is of the essence." Chen Ming patted Sean on the shoulder and looked behind him.

"Where's the mortician you hired?"

"Why would I need a mortician?!"

Sean opened the black box in his hand. Inside were various sizes of scalpels, wax, fillers, and sutures…

"Do you think this is like repairing a plaster statue in a museum? What mortician wouldn't call the police or extort money from us if they saw this?! I would never bring a living person with a brain here."

"This is the complete set of equipment I just got from the clinic. No one can help you with this. If you want to fix this body and give it to Victor, you'll have to do it yourself."

Sean made a "please" gesture.

Chen Ming looked at the box of gleaming equipment, then glanced at the wax figure smiling at him with half its face turned towards him, and silently put on his gloves.

"Alright, in a way, I'm in the same profession as morticians."

He picked up a pair of tweezers and a medical flashlight, and began to examine them closely.

The situation was worse than expected—the cavitation effect of the 9mm bullet caused the skin and flesh on the left cheekbone of the wax figure to roll outwards, and the eyeballs were hanging from the edge of the eye sockets by only a little bit of remaining silicone and dried optic nerve tissue, swaying slightly in the night breeze...

Chen Ming decided to first address the "finishing touch" of this face.

He pinched his eyeball with two fingers and pressed it back in with a "click" like turning off a light bulb.

"It's out of position...it looks like it's cross-eyed now," Sean couldn't help but point out from three meters away.

Chen Ming didn't reply, but continued making adjustments...

Next comes the main event—restoring the clown-like, torn smile.

Chen Ming took a suture needle from the toolbox, threaded it with the finest medical sutures, and began to suture.

Unlike living people, wax figures are soaked in preservatives, and the skin made of resin and wax is as tough as cowhide that has been dried for many years. Even he had to put in a lot of effort to get his foot in.

One stitch, two stitches, three stitches...

Chen Ming worked skillfully, even thoughtfully using a cross-stitching technique to ensure it wouldn't crack again when the wax was applied later...

Watching Chen Ming stitch up the dried corpse like he was mending a tattered sack, Sean silently took out a cigar from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and calmed his nerves.

Once the internals are sorted out, the next step is "surface work".

Chen Ming used a small spray gun to melt the repair wax, which closely matched his original skin tone. The scalding wax dripped onto the newly stitched crack, making a soft "sizzling" sound...

Sean took two more steps back.

Chen Ming remained unfazed, picked up a flat-headed scalpel and, like a construction worker applying putty to a wall, evenly spread and smoothed out the semi-solidified wax, filling in any dents.

Chen Ming dealt with the five horrific black holes in his chest in a very crude manner.

He grabbed the silicone filler and shoved it into the bullet hole like cotton stuffing into a torn coat, then casually smeared wax on the surface paste.

"Aren't you going to take a closer look?" Sean couldn't help but ask.

"This isn't a nude statue. Who would see it if the clothes were fixed?" Chen Ming replied without looking up.

He didn't tell Sean that he was going to stuff more flammable and explosive stuff into the corpse later—the holes actually made it easier for him.

Two hours later, the mission was accomplished.

Chen Ming used a makeup brush to evenly sweep a layer of foundation onto his repaired left cheek, and finally stepped back two steps to examine his masterpiece.

The wax figure's flipped eyes have been returned to their original positions, and its smile has been forcibly stitched into a solemn and dignified appearance.

Although the left cheek looked slightly stiff due to the newly applied wax layer, in the dim light, you couldn't tell that it had just withstood a magazine of 9mm bullets half an hour earlier.

That's even scarier.

"More or less."

Chen Ming took off his gloves and threw them into a gasoline drum some distance away.

"Seriously... what if you get tired of this line of work in the future?" Sean looked at the wax figure that had been given a new lease on life and exhaled a smoke ring.

"Interested in making props for horror movie crews? Those directors would love to have you."

"Forget it, I actually prefer cutting fresh ingredients in the kitchen to fiddling with these hard, fake meats."

Chen Ming casually dismissed Sean's teasing and wrapped the restored wax figure tightly with a waterproof cloth.

"Thanks for tonight, I'll treat you to a big meal another day."

……

Time flies, and two days later...

Everything proceeded as Chen Ming had planned, step by step.

Although Old Joe was cursing and swearing, he still showed a high level of professionalism under the influence of money. That afternoon, a farm pickup truck loaded with pungent fertilizer stopped at the location designated by Chen Ming.

After confirming that Chen Ming had taken away the several heavy black bags hidden in the fertilizer pile, he sped away without even getting out of the car.

Chen Ming opened a black travel bag that Lao Qiao had given him.

Inside were several pieces of industrial-grade high explosives that emitted a faint almond scent... These were used in Nevada quarries to blast granite, and their power was no less than that of regular C4.

Enough to blast a person dozens of meters away.