The miscellaneous items in the dissection room were temporarily packed away, and the familiar folding cot that Lin Chu always used was brought back out.

Once everything was ready, she placed Zhou Ruoqing’s father’s body on the cot.

The head was already a bloody mess, but it was exactly what Lin Chu intended to focus on during the autopsy.

When she opened the skull and saw what was inside, even someone like her—who had dissected countless corpses—couldn’t help but frown.

She wasn’t even sure if the thing inside could still be called a “brain.”

The cranial tissue she was so familiar with had completely changed in this corpse.

What should’ve been a 1400-gram brain had been gnawed away, leaving only a walnut-sized lump. And within that “walnut,” there was a curled-up white worm.

Or rather, it wasn’t quite right to call it a worm—it was a white, strip-like object coiled at the center of the “walnut,” covered in numerous folds.

These folds looked just like…

Lin Chu removed the entire “walnut,” lifted it to eye level, and examined it under the light.

The folds on the white strip-like object resembled the wrinkles of a human brain, and even its shape was that of a bionic brain.

She could somewhat interpret this as: after invading the human brain, the snow worm devoured it while extracting the human’s memories and bodily functions, ultimately fusing with the brain itself.

In short, it was a phenomenon she could no longer explain using scientific terms.

But now the question was: could this snow worm, which had fused with the brain, still be considered a snow worm?

Lin Chu tried to submit it to the system, but received an error message:

[Item not related to mission, submission failed.]

In other words, once a snow worm successfully parasitized a host and merged with it, it could no longer be classified as a snow worm by the system.

This meant her original plan to complete the snow worm mission by eliminating infected hosts had officially failed.

Still, driven by her spirit of investigation, she continued with the full autopsy.

She discovered that many of the body’s internal organs differed slightly from a normal human’s.

For example, the stomach capacity wasn’t appropriate for someone of this age and size—it was about half the normal size.

Other organs showed varying degrees of changes in size and thickness too.

It seemed the snow worm’s parasitism altered the human body—but whether these changes happened all at once or gradually, Lin Chu couldn’t determine from a single corpse.

After tidying up the dissection room, Lin Chu stripped off her soiled clothes on the spot, threw them into the dirty laundry bin, and asked Xiao Er to take them to the yard for washing.

She then turned into the washroom and cleaned herself up.

Night had already fallen, and Lin Chu could hear the curly-haired aunt clattering in the kitchen.

But she had no intention of eating that watery porridge.

The reduced stomach capacity in the parasitized bodies probably meant they could feel full from eating very little.

But she wasn’t the same—after her own physical transformation, her energy consumption had increased significantly. That thin porridge wouldn’t even qualify as dessert for her.

She sat down in front of the fireplace in the activity room and pulled out some pre-made dishes from her space: spicy sour chicken gizzards, scallion-braised pork ribs, mapo tofu, a serving of white rice, and a freshly made bowl of red bean soup—perfect for the recent cold weather.

Since arriving in this frigid world, the extreme cold meant her body burned through energy much faster, increasing her appetite.

Back in the flood world, she’d collected quite a bit of food left behind by evacuees, but that had been enough only for individual or household-level consumption.

She could probably eat freely for another two or three worlds, but before that stockpile ran out, she needed to find an opportunity to restock.

Unfortunately, the nearby residential buildings likely didn’t have much left. On their way back earlier, Yang Qianqian had told her that after the sudden cold wave began, every household had gone on a shopping spree at the supermarket.

The supermarket shelves had long been stripped bare by the locals.

And after that, there was no more food supply. They’d been surviving on their own reserves and whatever they managed to snatch up during the initial panic buying. That had lasted about a month.

Now, every household was rationing what little they had. If the authorities didn’t distribute supplies soon, they’d run out of food completely.

In the beginning, the authorities had told them to stay calm and promised food airdrops soon, but once water, electricity, and internet were cut off, there was no more word from them.

Not long after Lin Chu finished eating, she heard the curly-haired aunt calling everyone to dinner.

To avoid suspicion, she responded to the enthusiastic invitation and drank a bowl of already-cold porridge before returning to the shelter.

When she got back, Xiao Er eagerly ran up to her, pointing excitedly at one of the plants in the soil:

“Master, look! That plant’s got fruit growing on it!”

Lin Chu followed where it pointed and sure enough, among the cluster of yellow tomato flowers, there was a small green fruit.

She walked over with delight and bent down to examine it.

These tomatoes had started flowering at the end of the flood world.

Xiao Er had read the planting manual and learned that tomatoes needed pollination after flowering to bear fruit.

So every day, it diligently used a little stick to gently tap and shake the tomato plants to help them pollinate.

Now its efforts had finally paid off. The moment it discovered this tiny fruit, it had run to share the news with Lin Chu.

“Our Xiao Er really is the best little robot.”

Puffed with pride at her praise, Xiao Er stuck out its chest even more.

“Master praised Xiao Er! Xiao Er is so happy! I will keep working hard!”

“What kind of reward do you want?” Lin Chu asked, watching it bounce around in excitement.

Xiao Er paused, then raised a skeletal hand to gently tap its own skull a few times. It asked cautiously:

“Master, Xiao Er would like a set of clothes too.”

After saying that, it twisted its hands together shyly and looked at Lin Chu nervously, as if afraid she might be angry.

Lin Chu blinked in surprise.

A skeleton… wants to wear clothes?

She had to admit, it was something she had completely overlooked.

She’d unconsciously treated Xiao Er like one of the anatomical skeletons from her school in the original world—naked by default.

She had forgotten that Xiao Er had thoughts of its own.

She immediately agreed and rummaged through her space. In the end, the only thing she found that would fit was a hospital gown.

Surprisingly, Xiao Er was even more thrilled when it saw the gown.

“Xiao Er gets to wear the same clothes as Master? I’m so happy! So excited! Master is too good to me!”

After putting on the hospital gown, Xiao Er began sprinting around the little courtyard in joy.

Lin Chu just stood there, silently watching a skeleton dressed in a blue-and-white striped hospital gown running back and forth under the dark sky.

She couldn’t be blamed for being stunned—this scene was eerie no matter how she looked at it.

Yet, something even more disturbing happened later that night.