luo jia shan ju
Chapter 3 Strange Corpse
There were two news articles pieced together. The first was a report from the British Post about the disappearance of two explorers who attempted to conquer Mount Everest in 1940. The article stated that the Sena brothers from England went missing during their Everest expedition after encountering extremely harsh weather. Despite sending numerous Sherpa guides to search for them, no trace was found.
The second was a local news report from Bhutan in 1958. It described two foreign travelers with peculiar clothing suddenly descending from the Himalayas one day. They were silent and disoriented. No one knew how they ascended the mountain or where they came from; they were like a riddle. Initially, the local villagers believed these two were mountain deities, so they prostrated themselves along their path. Later, the Bhutanese authorities took the two foreigners to a local hospital. Based on the information from their passports and other documents, their nationalities were identified, and the foreign affairs department was contacted to handle the matter. The final whereabouts of the two men remained unknown.
The two people in the Bhutanese news report were likely the Sena brothers who disappeared during their mountaineering expedition. It was inconceivable and defied logic that they could survive for eighteen years in such treacherous conditions in the Himalayas without supplies.
I continued reading.
The next document was a British report marked "Top Secret": *Autopsy Records Regarding Corpses Numbered 1958011 and 1958012*.
Normally, forensic autopsy reports wouldn't have such a high security classification. However, I understood the reason when I saw the contents.
Because the bodies being autopsied were indeed the remains of the Sena brothers who had disappeared.
The preamble to the autopsy report detailed the entire process from the Sena brothers' disappearance to their discovery, which aligned with the content of the two news reports from Britain in 1940 and Bhutan in 1958.
Apparently, the Sena brothers had indeed been missing on the mountain for eighteen years. No one knew what they had experienced on the mountain. When they descended the mountain eighteen years later, they were still wearing the same clothes they wore during their ascent. Their equipment and documents were intact, all their belongings were still there, and their food supply hadn't diminished. There were also no signs of natural disasters. However, soon after the two survived and descended the mountain, they suddenly died.
It was precisely their deaths that attracted the attention of the Bhutanese authorities, who contacted the British consulate.
In reality, only two corpses were transported to Britain later. A strange incident occurred during the transportation of the bodies. The two corpses generated a strong magnetic field interference, causing all the electronic equipment on the plane to malfunction, preventing it from taking off. Later, they had no choice but to seal the two corpses in lead containers and transport them back to Britain by sea, passing through many places.
By the time they arrived in Britain, two months had passed since their deaths. During this time, the two corpses had been sealed in lead containers without any cooling or freezing.
The British authorities initially only intended to return the remains to the family, so they didn't have high hopes for preserving the bodies. When the lead containers arrived at a crematorium in a certain area of Britain, the local government only planned to cremate them as soon as possible and invited a forensic appraisal institution to conduct an on-site appraisal for record-keeping purposes.
When the sealed lead containers were opened, everyone held their breath, fully prepared, because corpses stored at room temperature for two months, especially in a sealed environment, would inevitably emit a foul, putrid odor.
However, to everyone's surprise, the two corpses in the lead containers not only lacked any putrid odor, but they also showed no signs of decay. The two corpses looked just as they had in life. This aroused the suspicion of Franklin, an official from the forensic appraisal center on site. He immediately reported the matter to the authorities and halted the cremation, requesting further autopsies to determine the cause of death.
This was the first time Franklin had encountered such a bizarre death event. Considering the eighteen years the Sena brothers had been missing in the Himalayas, he believed there was something fishy about their deaths.
Later, as Franklin suspected, there were major discoveries during the autopsy.
There were no external injuries on either of the two corpses, and the physical examination revealed no problems. However, a strange phenomenon occurred. The corpses exhibited electromagnetic interference with electronic equipment, causing certain autopsy instruments to malfunction. The forensic scientists believed there was something wrong with the corpses, so they used an instrument to detect electromagnetic radiation and conducted a detailed examination. The results showed that the electromagnetic radiation on the corpses was severely excessive. The corpses were like large sources of electromagnetic radiation, emitting abnormal amounts of radiation that interfered with normally functioning electronic devices.
The staff at the appraisal center suddenly realized that something was wrong, because magnetic fields don't arise for no reason. Therefore, the corpses were very likely carrying some kind of substance.
Later, a series of tests proved the staff's speculation. Large amounts of radioactive material were present on the two corpses, and these radioactive materials were distributed throughout every part of their bodies. The fact that the corpses hadn't decayed was definitely related to this. The radioactive material was also likely the cause of their deaths. However, the appraisal center had limited resources and couldn't further analyze the characteristics and composition of the radioactive material. Later, the appraisal center sent the radioactive material to a higher-level appraisal institution, but they still couldn't perform an effective analysis. It seemed the radioactive material wasn't a known substance.
The most unexpected aspect of the autopsy actually came later. During the autopsy, the forensic scientists discovered that the two corpses exhibited different changes.
The internal organs of the elder brother's corpse had transformed into a jelly-like substance, but the overall structure and shape remained unchanged. No matter how it was cut or sliced with a knife, it could always restore its shape within three seconds, leaving no marks on the surface and maintaining its jelly-like elasticity. Only fire could denature it, turning it into a charred black substance that emitted a strange, foul odor different from that of burning protein.
The younger brother's corpse also displayed certain characteristics. His corpse emitted a special fluorescence under ultraviolet light. When the ultraviolet light was stopped, the fluorescence would continue for a while before fading away. After the fluorescence disappeared, continuing to irradiate the corpse with ultraviolet light would still cause it to emit fluorescence, just like the first time, without any signs of attenuation.
The fluorescence seemed to explain the illusion that the Sena brothers were deities when they descended the mountain.
Due to the various peculiar phenomena and suspicious points presented by the two corpses, a special British department took over the two bodies and all the related materials and sealed them away.
The following document was a follow-up investigation by a special British department regarding the incident. Within three years of the two corpses being transported back to Britain, those who had been in close contact with the corpses gradually contracted some kind of strange illness. No one at the appraisal center was spared, and they all died mysteriously in the end, including Franklin, who had initially discovered the anomaly. Later, the special department resealed the two corpses in lead containers and encased them in cement, storing them in a highly classified location known only to a few people. The special British department planned to continue studying them when conditions were more favorable.