Life in North America, you call this an autopsy officer?!
Chapter 586 - 308: Autopsy, Meme Pollution!

Chapter 586: Chapter 308: Autopsy, Meme Pollution!

Opening the mechanical door, Brian saw a glass cabinet similar to the one in the previous video.

The only difference was the absence of mechanical arms here.

The glass cabinet resembled a coffin and could be opened directly.

There were no protective suits around, only a surgery kit and a bunch of glass vessels containing formalin.

It seemed the people at the Deep Sea Base believed that First Rank life forms could withstand it without losing control, and that ordinary people were of no use even with protective suits, so they didn’t prepare these, planning to let them take it head-on.

Brian didn’t care about that.

He had already felt that this contagion was likely a form of information contagion.

What is information contagion?

The easiest to understand were some popular memes on the internet: "too rich to care," "chicken you are too beautiful," "practiced for two and a half years," "family members, who understands.."

Things like those mentioned above, cognitively infect people who see them with a similar idea and understanding, a special culture, and they also demonstrate person-to-person transmission, quickly infecting and assimilating those who view them...

That was what Meme Pollution is.

Meme Pollution is a rather niche term.

But as the phenomenon grew more common, a specific word was coined to describe it: Meme.

Meme phenomena, in reality, might be accompanied by harm, but such harm is only due to cultural identification, for instance, the phenomenon of swapping partners caused by cuckolding culture or the depressed mood caused by funeral culture leading to ’Z killing’ phenomena...

There are many similar situations: the gold-digging phenomenon in "Rather cry in a BMW than smile on a bike," the ’slacking off’ culture...

In short, as long as it can impact the viewer’s ideology, foster cultural identification, and is capable of person-to-person transmission, it can simply be termed as a Meme.

There are too many examples of meme information in the real world, but most of them do not cause direct harm; after infecting you, they just bend your cognition or guidelines for action, thereby indirectly affecting you.

Such impact is not necessarily bad.

But situations like in the previous video, where simply watching it caused rapid suicides, were quite outrageous.

It was as if a curse had descended into reality.

Without a Death Warning, Brian had also watched the previous high-definition autopsy video.

That was his confidence.

He might not necessarily run into trouble.

After a brief survey of the surroundings,

Brian gestured for the guide to wait outside while he approached the surgery kit to extract a scalpel.

High-end autopsies were often simple.

A scalpel was sufficient.

He opened the glass cabinet.

He saw a young Caucasian male corpse.

The grimace from before death still twisted his face; he was dressed in a military uniform, his body strong, muscles tight, his skin tough. Peeling back his eyelids revealed dull gray eyes mostly engulfed by the whites.

Brian tore off the man’s clothes and began the body check.

This guy must have been an Enhanced soldier, with great physical fitness.

But in certain areas...

There were signs of exploitation.

The military and prison cultures here were somewhat similar... Like in mixed training camps, where sexual assault incidents were some of the highest globally, lacking the opposite sex, they turned to their own... so it was comprehensible.

Beyond that, the biggest discovery was the deceased’s eyes.

Not only did the whites occupy most of the eyeball area, with the pupils not just a tiny abnormal dot but also not in the relaxed state typical of dead bodies, they were tightly constricted together, causing some deformation near the part of the eyelids close to the nose.

The former was more like something out of a horror movie.

Because whether it’s a natural or accidental death, it shouldn’t happen this way; after all, the eyeball is an independent body tissue, an alien to the body, even attacked by the body’s immune system. Therefore, each person’s body and eyes were independent, with different immune systems.

Similarly, without external injuries, after death, the crystalline bodies of the eyes would merely lose their luster, turning into an inactive and ashy color, gradually becoming murky, but the proportion of whites to the iris wouldn’t show such an exaggerated difference.

After all, the white part was actually the sclera, also a body tissue, and it wouldn’t invade the iris’s region after losing vitality.

The iris might shrink, however.

The iris was actually behind the corneal surface of the eyeball, and its color is defined by the pigments in the iris.

When exposed to certain special environmental factors, these pigments might change or disappear but would not be overrun by the sclera.

In layman’s terms,

The deceased’s eyeball region in front of Brian was very unscientific, quite supernatural.

With Brian’s knowledge, he couldn’t understand why this situation would occur.

He didn’t bother to check the torso of the corpse and went straight to dissecting the head.

Soon, a pair of eyeballs connected to nerves was carefully removed from the corpse’s eye sockets and then thrown into one of the glass vessels with formalin.

On closer inspection, there indeed was a discovery.

Adhesion appeared in the tissue area of the deceased’s optic nerve.

This area was close to the brain.

Why do some people feel everything looks blurry when they have a headache? It’s actually some areas of the brain (tumors) pressing on the optic nerve, causing issues for vision reception and sensing, even leading to neuropathic blindness.

Adhesion commonly occurs in inflammation, tissue damage...

Simply put, it’s tissue adhesion caused by high temperatures and tissue fluid damage and leakage.

This meant that before his death, the deceased’s optic nerves were in an overloaded status.

Further through the complete dissection of the ocular tissues, Brian also found the reason for the abnormal excessive eye-whites: melting...

The pigmentation in the black iris of the other party had undergone a phenomenon akin to dissolving and absorption, illogically permeating into the deeper layer of tissue, resulting in a significant reduction in size. The sclera of the eyeball exhibited unnatural swelling, which caused the exposed area of the deceased’s eyeball to be over ninety-nine percent white with just a tiny spot of black.

Brian’s eyes flashed with contemplation.

Could this indicate that just before death, the victim’s optic nerves were overloaded, leading to an immense surge in emotions?

The most obvious phenomenon of emotions influencing the eyes is actually seen in cats.

Exclude the influence of light sensitivity.

When frightened, a cat’s iris, which represents the pigmented area, dilates significantly, becoming round and occupying most of the visible region of the eye.

Humans can experience something similar, hence the saying, "the eyes are the windows to the soul."

Crude yet not devoid of sense.

There is scientific basis for this.

But due to structural reasons, it’s not as apparent as in felines.

So, why did the victim experience such a massive emotional surge?

What did he see just before his death?

With this question in mind, Brian returned to the glass case to begin working on the inside of the victim’s head.

Yes, literally working.

There was no electric saw here.

Brian simply cracked the victim’s skull with a blow, then, like scooping out a nut, he began to work on the victim’s brain tissue.

...

At this moment, at the Deep Sea Base.

Brian’s actions were covertly monitored, split into over a dozen different screens, viewed by various soldiers in different rooms.

Upon seeing him get to work, one of the soldiers hit a button in front of him as commanded.

Shortly after.

The high-definition image from his room was routed to several people in white lab coats in front of him.

Those in white coats were wearing a type of special glasses, following the segmented high-definition displays without showing any expression fluctuation on their faces, seemingly accustomed to such sights, and not exhibiting any fear toward the mysterious Meme Pollution.

From their practiced maneuvers, it was evident that this was not their first time undertaking such a process.

Perhaps they already knew the outcome.

What they pursued was not the cause of the informational contagion on the body.

The fear of death is etched in the genes, inherited, leading to similar death beliefs and legends across different cultures...

The higher the intelligence of the creature, the greater its fear of death.

The researchers’ intelligence was certainly not low.

Yet their lack of reaction to the dangerous footage indicated something.

If Brian were to see this scene, he would realize that these people had probably figured out how to prevent the mysterious informational contagion, and the reason they were summoned to the warships might have other purposes.

...

At this moment, Brian was closely examining the victim’s brain tissue.

The human brain somewhat resembles a pile of intestines, which is why you could insult someone’s intelligence by asking, "Is your colon lodged in your brain?"

It’s composed of over two hundred billion interconnected cells, of which about a third (neurons) constantly interact through electrical and chemical signals, forming human thought and consciousness, while another part, the neuroglial cells, perform other tasks.

In fact, despite the highly advanced biotechnology of the present, research on the human brain is still one of the most cutting-edge studies in major Biological Research Institutes.

Unfortunately, progress is not promising.

Human understanding of the brain is still quite superficial.

Brian fared somewhat better.

He self-taught a lot of advanced biological knowledge and, coupled with his ability to sense cellular-level changes within his body, could clearly understand the function of each region and even control the interaction between brain neurons, entering a state akin to overload.

This was a tactic he often employed in battles during his weaker, younger years.

A quick scan made Brian realize that the victim’s brain tissue had undergone a massive qualitative change.

Simply put, most of the victim’s brain was ’cooked.’

The brain consumes most of the body’s energy because thinking is tiring and mentally draining.

Excess thinking can even cause fever symptoms.

This is due to brain cells and nerves becoming overactive, akin to overheating from excessive physical activity.

Although it was irrational, based on his observations, Brian concluded that the cause of death was excessive thinking leading to brain damage, ultimately causing death.

Coupled with the victim’s synchronous abnormal movements just before death,

The answer became clear: hallucination.

Before dying, the victim experienced the same hallucination.

Brian immediately thought of the "Afterglow Board."

He breathed a sigh of relief.

No wonder his Death Warning only reacted slightly after he had witnessed the whole process of the naval commander, Ike Hector’s, demise.

So the essence of this Meme Pollution incident was to trigger hallucinations.

With his high Spiritual Strength, he might be directly immune.

...

If this is the truth,

Then there remains one last question: What is the source of the Meme contagion?