Mr. Carter’s so-called Buddy is a yellow tabby cat, and is one of the troublemaking friends Logan Bennett met after turning into a cat. Unlike “the Chief,” Buddy is always doing things that are both ridiculous and exasperating. Many times, just watching Buddy makes Logan Bennett want to smack him, but lately Buddy hasn’t shown up much, for reasons unknown.

Mr. Carter caught another little white mouse and let Logan Bennett try it himself.

It took Logan Bennett three tries to kill the first mouse before the poor little thing finally stopped breathing.

When killing the second mouse, Logan Bennett used too much force, but at least this one didn’t feel any pain before it died. Logan Bennett felt increasingly relieved that he had turned into a cat and not a mouse—one step down the food chain is like facing another level of hell.

“Dislocating the cervical vertebra is easy. The neck of a white mouse is very fragile; you’re just not used to the technique,” Mr. Carter instructed from the side. “Don’t hesitate when you do it—succeeding in one go is best, otherwise the mouse will suffer a lot. But remember, you want to sever the spinal cord from the brain stem, not just pull the head off. You need to control your strength: break the neck, but don’t decapitate it. I once had a student who used too much force and caused the mouse’s eyeball pressure to spike so much that the eyeball actually burst.”

Logan Bennett: “……”

Damn, that’s horrifying!

Logan Bennett glanced at Mr. Carter’s still-calm face as he said all this, and suddenly felt as if there was a cold glint in Mr. Carter’s eyes.

Logan Bennett remembered a conversation he’d had with a group of drinking buddies at a nightclub. Someone had said, “Actually, the most dangerous killers aren’t those who look fierce and menacing, not the ones with big knives, tattoos, nose rings, and all that, nor the ones always showing off their knives and guns to look tough. It’s the ones who look completely normal but can take a life in the next instant without even changing their expression.”

So, in a way, some veteran lab technicians have a temperament similar to that of a killer.

A lab tech in experiment mode is seriously terrifying!

Then Logan Bennett thought, maybe Associate Professor Carter is the only person in the world who teaches his own cat how to kill mice with a neck-breaking technique?

By the third and fourth mice, Logan Bennett’s technique had clearly improved, at least giving these two a more dignified death compared to the first two.

Out of five mice, Mr. Carter demonstrated on one, and Logan Bennett killed the other four.

After cleaning up the five dead mice, Mr. Carter turned and went into the inner room, soon coming out with a larger cage. Inside were five more white rats, but these were much bigger.

“These are rats. The lab rats we use are albino variants of the brown rat. Use the same method as before, but with a bit more force. Just a bit—find the right technique, control your strength, and get it done in one go. Do you need me to demonstrate?”

Logan Bennett shook his head.

“Good kid.”

Logan Bennett: “……”

Just as Mr. Carter said, the rats were a bit harder, but after trying it on five, Logan Bennett got the hang of it.

“Want to practice some more?” Mr. Carter asked.

Logan Bennett shook his head.

“Very good. That’s enough mouse-killing practice for now. Let me tell you…”

Logan Bennett tugged at his ear: “……” Here we go again.

Although the mice were all dead, Mr. Carter clearly hadn’t left his teaching mode yet.

“In our lab, besides the commonly used cervical dislocation method for euthanizing mice and rats, there are also decapitation, exsanguination, blunt force, anesthesia, and gas methods. For example, with frogs, we use the pithing method—just a needle will do. Hmm… Next week I’m teaching a zoological dissection class and will be dissecting a bullfrog. I’ll bring one home to demonstrate for you. Oh, and something you need to pay special attention to: for euthanizing cats and dogs in the lab, we mostly use the air embolism method.” After a pause, Mr. Carter looked at Logan Bennett and asked, “Do you know what that is?”

Logan Bennett shook his head, muscles a bit stiff, fur on his back and tail still bristling, feeling as if the temperature around him had dropped.

“Simply put, it means injecting air into a vein.”

Logan Bennett shuddered. He understood that much—even if he wasn’t an expert, he knew what happens when you inject air into a vein.

“When air enters the bloodstream and reaches the lungs, it blocks the pulmonary artery, causing severe shock or death. For example, when you swim from deep water to shallow, the pressure change causes the gas in your lungs to expand, which can make your lungs overinflate. If you don’t expel the excess gas, or can’t do it in time, it’s extremely dangerous. Some of the people who fell into the water in Titanic died this way.”

As Mr. Carter spoke, he suddenly realized that talking about Titanic to a cat probably wasn’t very useful, so he got back to the point and summed up, “So, you must always be careful, stay away from dangerous things, and look out for yourself.”

After practicing mouse-killing techniques, tonight’s goal was achieved, and Logan Bennett felt more confident. Although he was still a bit resigned to the idea of catching mice, since he was now a cat, it seemed that only cats who could catch mice would be accepted. Even that fool Buddy could do it, so Logan Bennett believed he could too.