You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Lyon nodded.

The "pie-in-the-sky" tactic used in American academia is absolutely classic.

In order to obtain recommendation letters and impressive resumes, countless college students are willing to serve their professors like slaves, even doing dirty work that skirts the law.

"It was pretty normal at first."

Irina sighed and shrank her face into her collar.

"It's about processing some special tissue samples, making slides, writing reports, and so on."

"Although the source of the samples is sometimes unclear..."

"But then... things slowly started to get out of control."

"First, they made me sign for some frozen whole organs, then they made me go to some strange places to collect samples. Until tonight..."

"Alex brought me straight here, gave me a body bag, and taught me how to stuff a bunch of... a bunch of chunks of meat into it, and how to sort and label them."

He said this is also part of biological resource recycling.

At this point, Irina looked up at Lyon, her eyes filled with confusion:

"Is this really normal? How far do I have to go for that resume?"

Lyon looked at the girl in front of him, who was soaked to the bone, and sighed deeply.

In this damn country, capital and power are everything, and knowledge is also a form of power.

For a university professor with tenure, access to substantial research funding, and industry connections, manipulating a middle-class student like Irina, burdened with student loans and yearning for upward mobility, is easier than crushing an ant.

This is another form of bullying, more suffocating than guns in the street, because it is legal and tacitly accepted by society.

What's even more outrageous is that the mentor might have really introduced this internship to her with the idea that "this girl is good, I should give her some pointers."

"I can't help you, Irina."

Leon didn't offer her any useless platitudes; instead, he told her the truth.

"Not at least not now. He's your mentor; he holds your future in his hands."

"In this industry, if you quit now and cause him some trouble, he has a million ways to ruin your resume and make all the education you've received in your life go to waste."

So, don't overthink it.

He reached out and grabbed Irina's arm through her raincoat, pulling her slightly toward the terrifying tent.

"Finish the work in front of you first, survive, and get paid. That's the most important thing."

Irina staggered after Leon, her eyes still showing some resistance, but she seemed to have resigned herself to her fate, and her body was no longer so stiff.

As the two approached the tent entrance, the stench of blood intensified.

Lyon suddenly made a seemingly random remark.

"These awful days...that's why I'm desperately trying to save money so I can go to the East."

"East?"

Irina paused for a moment, then turned her head to look at Leon's profile, somewhat puzzled.

"Why? I heard that there... there's surveillance everywhere, people have no freedom, the air is full of coal dust, and I heard they even eat..."

A typical victim of Western media.

In her mind, that distant Eastern power was probably still stuck in the last century, or a gloomy world filtered through the lens of CNN and BBC.

"Don't believe that bullshit on TV, Irina."

Lyon chuckled, breaking her stereotype.

"It's a million times better there than here. At least over there, you don't have to worry about getting shot in the head by some high-spirited lunatic. That's where real order is."

"Really?" Irina asked, her eyes filled with confusion.

"Really. I know more about it than most Americans do," Lyon said with certainty.

Alex, who was in the tent doing the initial packing of the pile of parts, overheard this conversation.

The man who was putting a severed hand into a sealed bag paused for a moment, then straightened up, looked back at Leon, and a look of sudden realization appeared on his face.

"Oh……"

Alex muttered something in Chinese under his breath:

"No wonder your Chinese is so fluent."

"So you had planned to profit from this all along. Good for you, buddy. This place really is unbearable to stay in."

Twenty minutes later, the rain was still falling, but the smell of blood seemed to have been largely dissipated by the cold wind, or perhaps the source had been put into that black refrigerated truck.

The scene has been completely cleaned up.

The tent, which had originally reeked of a slaughterhouse, was dismantled and packed up. The bloodstains on the ground were washed into the sewers by the rainwater, and even the bucket of congealed blood was sealed away by Alex.

"Give."

Alex took off his gloves, wiped them on his raincoat which was soaked with rain, and then pulled out a roll of banknotes tied with a rubber band from a compartment in the toolbox.

Without any attempt at concealment, it was handed directly to Lyon.

"Same as always, information fee."

Leon looked at the rather thick roll of Franklin's hair, raised an eyebrow, and didn't immediately reach out to take it.

"Take it."

Alex looked at Leon's feigned composure, his voice still weak and listless:

"Don't try to save money for those capitalists. These are company accounts; I've already filled out the expense reports."

"If you don't take advantage of the capitalists, you're a fool."

Hearing this, Lyon stopped being coy, reached out and took the banknotes, skillfully stuffing them into his pocket.

"This corpse...is very valuable?"

Lyon casually asked, "You seemed quite careful when you were bagging them just now."

"High? That's extremely high."

"These 'professionally processed' samples are rare."

"Those perverted professors in medical schools love this kind of stuff the most. Whether they use it to publish a piece of rubbish or to do suturing exercises, they fight over it."

At this point, Alex sighed again:

"well……"

"At the very least, this has saved me a lot of trouble."

"Normally, I have to do this kind of work myself."

Do you know how tiring it is to dismember a body?

"You'd have to use a medical chainsaw, or even just an axe, and you'd end up covered in shavings, taking half an hour to shower when you got back."

"My cooking skills aren't as good as his...heh...sigh..."

Alex chuckled twice, but he seemed on the verge of a breakdown.

"Now it's all good. This unnamed master has done the most tiring part of the cutting process for me. The cuts are clean and the categories are clear. All I need to do is bag them."

"This is simply a testament to the industry's integrity. After completing this order, my back pain has completely disappeared."

"..."

"well……"

Standing to the side, Irina was holding onto the door of the refrigerated truck, her face deathly pale.

She let out another uncontrollable dry heave, covered her mouth, and turned her head to the side.

"Okay, stop throwing up."

Alex glanced at her:

"You just happened to be lucky; you ran into something like this on your first day at work."

"Most of the time we deal with drug overdose cases that cause foaming at the mouth, which is much better than this scenario."

"You'll get used to it, you'll get used to it..."