398: Chapter 398 A Battle for Life and Death

Su Qingxue felt all her strength drain away, and she slumped to the floor along the cold stainless steel cabinet door.

She breathed in deep gasps of air mixed with the scent of blood.

"We... did we win?" Su Qingxue asked in a murmur.

"Win?"

Chen Mo let out a cold laugh, the mockery at the corner of his mouth growing more intense.

He slowly straightened up, shifting his gaze from the heart that had temporarily quieted down to the LED timer above the bomb that was still ticking away mercilessly.

[02:45]

"That madman is not only a top-tier surgeon but also a cunning master of psychology."

Chen Mo took a pair of spare sterile medical gloves from his pocket and slowly put them on.

"The heart rate linkage is just the first layer of the trap he set, designed to exhaust our time, energy, and emotions."

"This... there's a second layer?" Su Qingxue suddenly looked up, staring at the timer in despair.

"He knew I could hear faint sounds, so he deliberately removed the countdown buzzer, leaving only the flashing numbers."

Chen Mo bent down, his cheek almost pressing against Xiao Li's mangled, bloody chest.

He carefully examined the intricate detonating circuits.

"Red, blue, black, yellow—four main wires that cross through the muscle fibers of the mitral valve and finally converge into this detonator the size of a matchbox."

There was a hint of excitement in Chen Mo's voice that even he himself had not noticed.

It was the madness of a hunting dog catching the scent of its own kind!

"Brother... Brother Mo..."

Li Ke's voice came through the earpiece again, with the background filled with the sound of constant computer error alerts.

"I just pulled up the Provincial Department's explosives database. This wiring technique... this perverted method of using human organs as a circuit board..."

"Speak," Chen Mo spat out a single word.

"This is the 'Death Knot'!"

Li Ke was on the verge of a breakdown. "It appeared once five years ago on the peacekeeping battlefield in the Middle East! It's equipped with an anti-tamper level sensor and a tension sensor! If the tension of any wire changes, or if the detonator is forcibly ripped from the heart, it will detonate immediately!"

Su Qingxue's brain went "buzz," and she went blank.

Anti-tamper?

Tension sensor?

"Then how are we supposed to cut the wires? We don't even have bomb disposal suits!"

Su Qingxue shouted in despair, "Even if we had the bomb disposal experts from the SWAT Officer team rush over now, two minutes would absolutely not be enough!"

"Who said I was waiting for bomb disposal experts?"

Chen Mo stood straight and turned to walk toward the autopsy table in the center of the Morgue.

"Chen Mo, are you crazy? Do you know how to dismantle a bomb?!"

"I don't know how to dismantle a bomb."

Chen Mo picked up a scalpel that was gleaming with a chilling, cold light from the stainless steel tray on the edge of the autopsy table, held it before his eyes, and examined the sharp blade in the dim light.

"But, I know anatomy."

Chen Mo turned around and, holding the scalpel, walked step by step back to the freezer.

His black trench coat billowed in the cold wind, Li Ke the giant unfolded wings of the Grim Reaper.

"Since the tension of the detonator and wires cannot be changed, then don't touch them."

Chen Mo's gaze was locked firmly onto the beating heart, and the corner of his mouth curled into a cruel and crazy arc.

"The bomb is sewn onto the heart."

"As long as I can cut off that part of the heart muscle attached to the bomb, along with the mitral valve, before the countdown ends."

"Wouldn't the bomb be dismantled?"

Once these words were spoken, the air in the entire Morgue seemed to be sucked dry in an instant!

Su Qingxue's eyes widened, and she looked at Chen Mo as if he were a monster.

"Cut off his heart muscle? Without a cardiopulmonary bypass machine, he will die on the spot from massive hemorrhage and heart failure!"

"If I don't cut it, the three of us, plus the dozens of police officers on duty upstairs, along with him, will all be blown to ashes."

Chen Mo glanced at the timer.

[01:59]

"Nightingale, get the hemostatic forceps and the high-frequency electrocautery knife ready."

Chen Mo paid no more attention to Su Qingxue's shock; his hand holding the scalpel was as steady as a rock, slowly hovering over Xiao Li's chest cavity.

"This game in the Morgue..."

The darkness in Chen Mo's eyes surged Li Ke something tangible.

"Is only just now reaching its climax!"

"Crazy... you are absolutely crazy..."

Su Qingxue leaned against the cold metal cabinet door.

Looking at the cicada-wing-thin scalpel in Chen Mo's hand, she felt as if even her breath carried shards of ice.

In a Morgue with no cardiopulmonary bypass machine, no anesthesiologist, and no vital sign monitors.

To, in less than two minutes, from a heart that was still beating...

...cut off a piece of heart muscle attached to a high-explosive bomb?

This wasn't surgery at all!

This was a fucking game of Russian roulette in a slaughterhouse!

"Su Qingxue, pull over the mobile shadowless lamp from the autopsy table, adjust the aperture to the minimum, and focus it on his left ventricle."

Chen Mo's voice had no fluctuations; it was as cold and ruthless as a precision machine executing a program.

"But..."

"There are no buts!"

Chen Mo turned his head sharply, and a terrifying sense of oppression erupted from his deep eyes.

"If your hand shakes now and the beam deviates by even a millimeter, the three of us, plus all our colleagues outside, will all die right here!"

Su Qingxue shuddered, completely jolted awake by that roar.

She bit her lip, forcing herself to swallow her fear.

"Okay!"

She stumbled over to the autopsy table and yanked over the old-fashioned mobile shadowless lamp.

She pushed it in front of freezer number 44 and pressed the switch to maximum brightness with a "click."

The pale, blinding beam of light instantly illuminated Xiao Li's mangled chest cavity in vivid detail.

[01:45]

The red numbers on the detonator were mercilessly devouring the remainder of their lives.

"Brother Mo! The level sensor! Watch the level sensor on the bomb base!"

In the earpiece, Li Ke's voice was already hoarse beyond recognition.

"You must not let the bomb tilt more than fifteen degrees, otherwise, once the mercury contact closes, it will detonate immediately!"

"Nightingale, come here."

Chen Mo ignored Li Ke's screaming, his gaze locked firmly onto that dark red heart.

The girl in black glided to the opposite side of Chen Mo Li Ke a ghost, her hands gloved in sterile medical gloves.

Her palms facing upward, she steadied it on both sides of the bomb, less than a centimeter away.

Her hands were so steady that there wasn't even the slightest, imperceptible tremor.

"No matter what happens, maintain this angle. As soon as I cut the last bit of tissue, you must immediately catch it and put it into the negative eighty-degree liquid nitrogen ultra-low temperature freezer in the deepest part of the Forensic Science Department."

Chen Mo took a deep breath of cold air mixed with the scent of blood and formalin.

"Liquid nitrogen can instantly freeze the chemical fuse and mercury contact inside the detonator; that is our only chance."

Nightingale did not speak, she just nodded silently.

In those calm eyes, there was absolute trust in Chen Mo.