21st Century Necromancer-Chapter 787 - 783: Confession (Please Subscribe, Seeking Monthly Tickets)

Cancer cells are a type of mutated cell that are the pathogenic cause of cancer. Unlike normal cells, cancer cells have three main characteristics: unlimited proliferation, transformability, and metastasis, allowing them to proliferate indefinitely and destroy normal cell tissues.

Aside from their uncontrolled division (capable of multipolar division), cancer cells can also locally invade surrounding normal tissues and even migrate to other parts of the body through the body’s circulatory or lymphatic systems.

The process by which cancer cells migrate to other parts of the body via the circulatory or lymphatic systems is commonly referred to as cancer cell metastasis or spread.

Cancer cells encounter many difficulties during the metastasis process, having to undergo mutation dozens of times, then overcome the adhesive effects between cells to detach, and alter their shape to pass through dense connective tissues.

After successfully escaping, cancer cells will enter the bloodstream through capillaries, where they may still be attacked by white blood cells.

Having survived the attack of the white blood cells, the cancer cells will next enter a new organ through the capillaries, which is referred to as "micro-metastasis." It is at this point that the cancer cells have successfully migrated from a cancerous tumor to a new organ.

The reason why the spread of cancer cells leads to death is that the migration and spread of cancer cells destroy normal cell tissues.

When they reach a new organ, this destruction damages the function of the originally normal organ, causing it to cease functioning properly and ultimately leading to systemic organ failure and the patient’s death.

Understanding the destruction and consequences of cancer cell spread provides insights into how to treat the pain caused by cancer cell spread.

Firstly, it’s natural to want to inhibit the activity of cancer cells.

The unlimited proliferation and mutation of cancer cells are the most challenging aspects of treating cancer with modern medicine, and it is for this reason that drug therapy often does not produce very good results in conventional cancer treatments.

Although the development of various new drugs and advances in medical technology have led to more and more cancers being treated with targeted drugs, there are still many cancers that must be surgically removed. Only by physically separating the tumors and cancer cells from the body can we ensure the prevention of cancer cell spread.

However, surgery is not a cure-all. If the tumor is discovered early, it can be removed in time. But if it’s found late, as is the case with the patient Chen Yu is now treating, where cancer cells have spread throughout the body and affected most organs, then the use of surgery is truly limited to amputation below the neck.

In fact, if cancer cells spread throughout the body, it is possible for them to metastasize to the brain. At that severity... amputating below the eyebrows is no longer useful.

However, after Chen Yu developed the broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug, inhibiting the activity of cancer cells had become a very easy task, and this was also why his new drug quickly became the most widely used and extensive method for cancer treatment in the medical field upon hitting the market, because it was just so effective.

Chen Yu’s treatment for the patient at hand also began with inhibiting the activity of the cancer cells within his body.

The patient had actually used the broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug developed by Chen Yu before, but at that time the cancer cells in his body had already spread, and even though the activity of the cancer cells was inhibited, his life was not going to be very long.

Moreover, the unfair treatment he encountered at work led him to give up the will to live, preparing to use his own death to allege illegal operations conducted by the real estate company he once served.

"So you’re saying you knew the victims of the previous two cases?" In the hospital room, looking at the patient who had regained a will to live after listening to his treatment plan, Chen Yu became interested in what he had confessed, "Your company’s illegal operations, but as an employee, what does that have to do with your desire to commit suicide? Could it be a troubled conscience?"

"It’s not just the two of them, actually, we are a group of six people in total, everyone met at a suicide prevention treatment center," the patient lying in the hospital bed said, no longer filled with the previous determination to die, as he spilled everything he knew, "The reason I wanted to commit suicide is that after the company found out I had cancer, they wanted to fire me directly and also deducted the performance bonus that should have been mine.

I was the top sales champion for the company year after year, and this bonus was a large sum of money, which I originally planned to leave for my father’s retirement. He has Alzheimer’s disease, and without me, he would have no one to rely on. Having some money with him would at least ensure he wouldn’t be utterly helpless."

"But your company didn’t even want to give you that little bit of money, so in a situation where you had no recourse, you thought of dying to raise public awareness and get people to investigate your company," Chen Yu understood the patient’s idea, but he didn’t quite agree with it, however, for a person with late-stage cancer, this was probably the only way he could think of.

"My original plan was just like that, but later at the suicide prevention center, I met Sister Nan, who told us that life is our own. We can’t choose how to live, but we can choose how to die. One’s death can not only help oneself but also help others," the patient on the bed nodded, now that he had opened up, there was no point in continuing to hide.

For those who were bent on dying but then gave up the idea of suicide, the more resolute they were in their desire to die, the more refreshing it was now to divulge their secrets.

Hearing this, Chen Yu suddenly understood the connection between the previous two murder cases, so he asked the patient, "So in the first dissolving case, the man who pretended to be the washed-up female singer committing suicide was helping that washed-up singer, and the washed-up singer’s self-immolation was helping you, but who was your suicide supposed to help? That warehouse belonged to a woodcarving artist, was it him?"

"The nightclub waiter who wanted to become a woman and committed suicide in the hotel with the piranha solution did it in the same pose as the washed-up female singer’s new album cover; the aim was to draw attention to the out-of-date female singer’s album," Chen Yu’s guess was confirmed by the patient, who continued, "When the washed-up singer set herself on fire, she had a specially made sustained-release capsule in her stomach containing evidence of illegal operations by my company that I had gathered.

My death was supposed to get people to investigate the woodcarving artist because he was a fraud; all his works were made by his twin brother. As long as someone investigated, they would definitely find out about his brother’s existence, and that was how I was helping him."

"Are there others? For whom is the woodcarving artist’s brother supposed to die? Where is Sister Nan now? Tell me everything you know, I can help you deliver the information about your company’s illegal operations to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office," As the series of suicides finally connected, Chen Yu felt a surge of anger. Using others’ suicides to achieve goals, what did the person orchestrating all this consider human life to be?