397: Chapter 397 His Heartbeat, I'll Take Control

Inside that cavity, Xiao Li's living heart was beating at a slow frequency.

"Thump... thump..."

This was the eerie heartbeat Chen Mo had just heard!

And on that beating heart, a black metal device was actually sewn tightly with extremely fine surgical sutures!

On the metal device, red LED digits were jumping ruthlessly.

[03:59]

[03:58]

Next to it was a complex row of detonating wires, directly connected to miniature pacing electrodes inserted into the heart muscle!

"Heart rate-linked detonator..."

Chen Mo looked at the device, the chill in his eyes seemingly capable of freezing the air.

"The bomb is linked to his ECG signal. As long as his heart stops beating, or the frequency exceeds sixty beats per minute, the bomb will detonate instantly."

Chen Mo turned his head and looked at the horrified Su Qingxue.

"That lunatic isn't just provoking me; he's testing us."

"This is loaded with high explosives. Once detonated, the entire underground load-bearing structure of the Municipal Bureau building will be destroyed."

Chen Mo reached out and picked up a blood-stained sticky note from the edge of the freezer.

On it, a line of words was still written in crimson marker:

[The White Dove has been sacrificed; the game has only just begun. Consultant Chen, do you hear the footsteps of the Grim Reaper?]

"Chen Mo..."

In the earpiece, Li Ke's voice came through again, carrying a sob.

"I just checked the Forensic Science Department's inventory... the efficacy of this sedative is extremely unstable. After encountering cold air, it can only maintain a low heart rate for ten minutes at most!"

"Now... six minutes have already passed!"

Inside the freezer, Xiao Li's tightly closed eyes suddenly twitched slightly.

The heart exposed to the air suddenly spiked from thirty beats per minute to forty-five!

"Beep—beep—beep!"

The detonator tied to the heart emitted a piercing red alarm sound!

The piercing red alarm sound echoed frantically in the dark, cold Morgue.

It was Li Ke a rusty saw, hacking ruthlessly at everyone's nerves!

Fifty beats!

Fifty-two beats!

Chen Mo didn't even need to look at the blood-stained digital display.

His ears, Li Ke the most precise medical instrument, locked onto every tiny frequency of Xiao Li's heartbeat.

With the rapid decline of the sedative's effectiveness, the young forensic intern's heart, exposed to the air,

was violently contracting and expanding at a speed visible to the naked eye!

"He's about to wake up!"

Su Qingxue's hand holding the gun shook violently, her voice almost breaking into a sob.

"Chen Mo, his eyelids are moving! Once he opens his eyes and sees his chest cavity cut open, he'll be scared into cardiac arrest instantly, or his heart rate will spike straight to one hundred and eighty!"

Regardless of which one it was, the end result would be being blown to pieces!

"Shut up! Don't infect him with your panic!"

Chen Mo barked, a flash of bone-chilling determination passing through his black eyes.

He took a sudden step forward, his hands Li Ke iron pincers, firmly pressing down on Xiao Li's shoulders which were about to start twitching!

"Su Qingxue, cover his eyes! Use your palms to press down hard! You absolutely cannot let him see a single glint of light!"

"Okay... okay!"

Su Qingxue immediately holstered her gun and scrambled to the freezer.

With trembling hands, she tightly covered Xiao Li's eyes.

What her palms felt were Xiao Li's ice-cold eyelashes, which were vibrating violently due to fear.

He was trying to break free!

He felt the intense pain and cold in his subconscious!

"Nightingale!"

Chen Mo didn't look back, his voice as cold as a death sentence being handed down.

"Cabinet number one in the Forensic Science Department next door, there's Adenosine and Lidocaine for emergency use inside! In ten seconds, I want to see a syringe in my hand!"

Swoosh—

Only a faint sound of breaking air was left in the atmosphere as the black-clad girl's figure completely vanished at the end of the corridor.

"Ugh... ah..."

Xiao Li, pinned down in the freezer, let out a painful and muffled groan from deep in his throat.

His fingers began to spasm, trying to reach for his own empty chest!

"Fifty-five beats..."

Chen Mo's auditory threshold had been pushed to the limit, and fine beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

"Ventricular premature beats have started. The detonator's threshold is sixty; that damn lunatic calculated every step of the physiological response!"

"Chen Mo, his strength is too much! I can't hold him down!"

Su Qingxue was so anxious that tears burst from her eyes, and she pressed her entire body weight onto Xiao Li's head.

Yet she still felt the body beneath her Li Ke a dying fish, performing a final desperate thrash.

"Look at me, Su Qingxue, look at my hand."

Chen Mo's voice suddenly lowered, carrying a strange, almost hypnotic power of calm.

He freed one hand, pressing his right index and middle fingers together, precisely finding the carotid sinus on the right side of Xiao Li's neck.

"In vagus nerve reflexology, the carotid sinus is the body's baroreceptor."

Chen Mo's gaze was as cold as ten-thousand-year-old black ice. His fingers suddenly exerted force, pressing down heavily while starting a regular circular massage!

"Deceive his brain, tell his nerve center that blood pressure is soaring and he must forcibly lower the heart rate!"

"Thump... thump..."

Miraculously, under Chen Mo's continuous physical pressure,

Xiao Li's heart, which was about to go completely out of control, actually slowed down by a beat!

Fifty-eight beats!

Fifty-seven beats!

The heart rate was temporarily suppressed at the edge of the detonation threshold!

"It's suppressed... you suppressed it!" Su Qingxue wept with joy, letting out a long sigh of relief.

"Don't celebrate too early."

Chen Mo's expression did not soften in the slightest, his deep gaze fixed on the surface of that beating heart.

"Physical pressure can only last for dozens of seconds. Once his sympathetic nervous system regains control, the rebounding heart rate will instantly break eighty!"

Just then, a slight cold breeze brushed past the back of Chen Mo's neck.

Nightingale was back.

Between the girl's pale fingers were two medical syringes already filled with transparent liquid.

"Left, Adenosine; right, Propofol."

Nightingale's voice still had no fluctuation, Li Ke a machine without emotion.

"Propofol, intravenous injection."

Chen Mo grabbed the syringe on the right, "What he needs is deep anesthesia; he cannot be allowed to feel the intense pain in his chest."

The sharp needle accurately pierced into the bulging vein on Xiao Li's arm.

As the white medicinal liquid was slowly pushed in,

Xiao Li's violently struggling body finally, Li Ke a toy with its power cord pulled, went limp bit by bit.

Inside the chest cavity, the frequency of that bright red heart's beating also dropped bit by bit.

Fifty beats.

Forty-five beats.

Forty beats.

"Beep... beep... beep..."

The red alarm sound on the detonator finally recovered from its piercing urgency to a steady, low hum.

In the entire Morgue, only the heavy breathing of the three people remained, along with the irritating hum of the freezer's compressor.

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