Chapter 3
The dissection continued.
Claire ultimately accepted the diagnosis from Lunavista General Hospital.
"The deceased was indeed a patient with ALS. At her age, if it had been detected and treated in time, she shouldn't have passed away so early. What a pity," she said.
Everyone present began to shake their heads and sigh in agreement.
But Claire had forgotten that my grandmother had informed her when I first fell ill.
Three years ago, when my grandmother was still alive, I suddenly felt weak all over.
At first, we thought it was just a cold, but soon I couldn't even stand.
My grandmother called my mom. "Claire, Sophie has been saying she feels weak lately. You're a doctor. Could you take her in and check her out?" she asked.
What did my mom say in response?
"Feel weak? She seemed pretty capable when she was fighting with a boy. Has she been doing a lot of housework lately? She's probably just pretending to be sick to avoid work," Claire replied coldly.
Ever since she sent me to live with my grandmother, my mom wouldn't allow anyone to call her unless it was something extremely important.
The last time she had received a call about me was from Margaret.
I had gotten into a fight with a male classmate and bit off half his ear.
Margaret called my mom and asked for 3,000 dollars in compensation.
Claire was actually quite generous with money.
As long as I didn't bother her, she didn't mind spending it.
She readily gave Margaret the 3,000 dollars and told her to give me a good beating so I would learn my lesson.
But Claire had no idea that the fight had started because the boy had called my mom a call girl.
I bit his ear in retaliation, and he bit off a part of my left finger.
Later, the two families settled the matter. Since the conflict had been started by the boy and I was more seriously injured, his family paid Margaret 1,000 dollars.
The 3,000 dollars that Margaret had asked Claire for went straight into her pocket.
The camera silently recorded as my dissection was projected onto a screen for everyone to learn from.
Claire took samples from various parts of my body and placed them into specimen boxes. She then directed Mia to turn my body over.
I screamed and lunged forward, "Mom, don't."
A wisp of wind stirred the hair around Claire's ear, but I couldn't touch her, and no one could hear my voice.
My body was still turned over.
At that moment, everyone in the room gasped in shock.
Even Claire, who had seen countless medical cases, widened her eyes in astonishment.
I stood beside her and couldn't bear to look at my mutilated form.
I had known that turning my body over would reveal something terrible.
Now, with my back exposed, Claire pointed to my almost entirely necrotic buttocks, where the flesh had rotted away to the bone, and turned to Cinderella, her voice filled with fury. "What is this? Is this how you take care of your patients?"
Claire was agitated, but I was heartbroken.
I knew her agitation stemmed from concern for a patient, not because she recognized the body as her daughter.
If she knew it was me, would she feel this pain?
Cinderella trembled as Claire's accusations rained down on her.
With a voice choked with sobs, she said, "Dr. Cooper, this is why I paid 6,000 dollars to take Sophie away from her family and bring her to the hospital for treatment."
She bit her lip fiercely. "Sophie was in the refugee zone and must have endured a lot of abuse, but I couldn't get solid evidence. As you all can see, when I first saw this girl, I was also shocked.
"After she became immobile, her family left her on a sofa. Because no one turned her over or took care of her for so long, her flesh began to rot and almost fused with the sofa. Even after I brought her back to the hospital and we did everything we could, these wounds were so deep that they couldn't be healed."
The room was filled with experts dedicated to healing, and their anger reached a boiling point.
"This is a crime. We should call the police."
"What on earth did this girl go through? Multiple fractures, missing fingers, her entire body necrotic and inflamed—"
Many female scholars were already in tears.
Claire's face turned pale as she croaked, "Why would her parents treat her like this?"
Cinderella sneered, "Sophie's parents divorced, and she was left to live with her grandmother in the refugee zone. Three years ago, when she started having muscle weakness, her grandmother called her mother, who is a doctor, but her mom insisted she was faking it. Later, after Sophie's grandmother passed away, her uncle and aunt took care of her, and then she became what you see now."
Perhaps there were too many similarities in Cinderella's words.
Claire shook her head in a daze, muttering, "Sophie? Divorced? A mother who is a doctor?"
Cinderella stared intently at Claire. "Dr. Cooper, what are you so nervous about?"
Mia nudged Claire. "Dr. Cooper, are you okay?"
Claire snapped back to reality and focused her gaze on my face once more.
After a long moment, she exhaled deeply, certain of her conclusion. The body wasn't her daughter's.
Claire looked at Cinderella coldly and said, "Nothing. Let's continue."
Just then, Claire's assistant, Mia, suddenly pointed to a spot on my body. "Dr. Cooper, look at this. Has this girl been raped?"