CHAPTER 4 #2
Hedy had gradually gotten used to helping Da Vinci with the paints, and now she instinctively lent a hand.
Even though Botticelli didn’t speak, she knew exactly when to add whole egg or egg whites, and whether to mix in something else.
There was even a bottle of ox bile on the low table—likely a gift from some stubborn person.
Though Da Vinci was cautious about politics and disputes, he was always open and tolerant in the face of art, and this was no different when it came to Botticelli.
"By the way," Hedy thought for a moment before tentatively asking, "Why... are you called Botticelli?"
"Did he tell you my name?" Botticelli glanced at her with a smile, continuing to apply color. "My brother was round and a bit short, so the neighbors used to call him Botticello (which means 'big barrel' in Italian)."
"Later, my parents thought the nickname was so cute that they started calling me Botticelli (which means 'small barrel' in Italian)."
"And then, somehow, it just caught on."
Hedy looked at the edges of the painting, which were gradually gaining layers and detail, and subconsciously remarked, "With so many lines, it must take months to finish."
"Probably a year, maybe more."
As they were talking, she suddenly heard a light cough.
Who was it?
"It's Leonardo," Botticelli replied without turning his head. "He's by the side door. You can go ahead."
"Huh??"
Are you two really that close now?
Someone had been watching them from behind for a while but hadn’t approached.
Before Hedy could ask Da Vinci his intentions, he directly patted the nearby cart, signaling for her to follow him.
Once they were in the carriage, Da Vinci finally spoke. “I’m taking you somewhere.”
“…Is it really that urgent?”
Hedy suddenly realized something was off. What were all these large bundles of cloth beneath their feet?
She hadn’t seen him in a while and had only intended to chat and maybe even experiment with some copper sulfate together. She certainly hadn’t expected to be suddenly whisked away in a carriage.
And from the looks of it, they were heading out of the city.
The carriage twisted and turned through winding roads before finally stopping not far from the outskirts.
Hedy lifted the curtain and froze for a few seconds.
“This is a cemetery.”
“Right.” Da Vinci nimbly jumped down from the carriage and extended a hand to her. “Come down.”
She took his hand and stepped down, noticing that there wasn’t even a grave keeper around.
“This is… an unmarked graveyard?”
“I found a few unclaimed bodies, and the burial time isn’t too long ago.”
Da Vinci turned his head to look at her, a hint of amusement in his eyes.
“You’re an alchemist. You should know how to dissect, right?”
“Wait—are you planning to... dissect the bodies?” Hedy suddenly felt a chill run down her back.
“We’ll quietly drag one back for dissection—come, give me a hand.”
“Mr. Da Vinci! We can’t do this!”
Hedy realized he’d even brought out a shovel and tried to stop him. “Don’t you think this is a bit extreme?!”
“I’ve already asked the lord, and he even set aside a special place for me to conduct dissections,” Da Vinci said, casually eyeing one grave after another, ready to dig up a body at any moment.
“By the way,” he turned to her with a slightly curious expression, “Since we’ve known each other for so long, why don’t you call me Leonardo?”
“Mr. Leonardo,” Hedy took a deep breath and said, “Can we go back now?”
“No,” Da Vinci replied politely. “I need to confirm how to draw the human body through dissection.”
He had wanted to do this for a long time.
What are ligaments? How does the body bend or stretch? How are human muscles structured?
There weren’t many people who could accompany him in doing such strange things.
It required mutual trust, but also the avoidance of stubborn religious dogma, and it helped if they could offer some practical advice.
Hedy Kiesler was the perfect answer to that.
He clearly understood her character, and now, he directly picked a relatively fresh grave and began digging with a shovel.
In recent days, Da Vinci had come here several times to scout the site.
A formal cemetery required a management fee, which some poor families couldn’t afford. As a result, they would bury their loved ones in these remote and desolate places, where even the crosses were made of rough branches tied together.
Hedy nervously glanced around, then emphasized her words. “What are you going to do after you’ve dissected the body? Throw it into the Arno River?”
Da Vinci paused for a moment, surprised by her question. “Of course, we’ll bury it again?”
What a strange thought she had.
Before long, a simple coffin emerged, nearly damaged by the shovel.
Da Vinci’s eyes lit up as he cleared the surrounding dirt and then found a way to pry open the coffin.
The coachman had already received his payment and came over with a body bag to assist.
Hedy wondered how the lord had agreed to such a request. For a moment, she even felt the urge to vomit.
But at the same time, she felt like a witness to history.
In the harsh religious environment of the time, dissections were never something that could be done openly, much less be approved by the public authorities.
Yet, the birth of modern science itself stemmed from the explorations of artists and sculptors into dissection.
Without them, the functions of the internal organs and brain would not have been identified, let alone the development of medications and treatments.
Well, she decided to accept it as a sacrifice for the advancement of medicine.
The carriage jolted its way back, both Da Vinci and Hedy lost in their own thoughts.
Da Vinci was contemplating where to make the incision, while Hedy was wondering if she might be sentenced to hanging by the Church.
"So, Leonardo," Hedy asked, "how did you convince the lord?"
"I told him..." Da Vinci looked at her, a sly smile on his face, "that it would be highly useful for alchemy."
Alchemist—
The Medici actually agreed to this!?
Hedy sucked in a breath, instinctively wanting to argue with him, but she found herself unable to speak.
Alchemy was, after all, the precursor to modern chemistry and medicine. With a bit of a stretch, it was easy enough to link the two.
The side door was already open, and servants came to help move the body bag inside.
Hedy instinctively followed them to the basement, her mind now racing with even more absurd thoughts.
In a hundred years, a scientist would link dissection with theatrical performances, even charging admission.
It was said that every time dissections were publicly performed, four or five hundred people would crowd around to watch, and the theater tickets would sell out.
Why were these people from centuries ago so strange?
The underground space was very cold and spacious, with good ventilation.
They had set up a small, enclosed room for the experiment, equipped with clean water and a raised platform.
The servants placed the body bag on the platform, then left as if nothing unusual had happened.
Now it was just the two of them, and the atmosphere felt oddly tense.
Da Vinci knew Hedy had her reservations, and he wasn’t sure if she fully understood what they were about to do.
But this was the same person who could create blue from scratch—surely she understood this, too?
He carefully unwrapped the body bag, gave a small bow, and then began examining the structure of the wrist and elbow.
But then he froze.
He had thought he understood everything before, but now that he was actually about to begin, his mind went completely blank.
After cutting through the skin, Da Vinci was confronted with a mass of yellow substance and couldn’t immediately identify any tendons or bones.
Hedy waited for a long time before finally speaking, "This is fat."
Da Vinci immediately looked up at her, his eyes practically saying, You really do understand this!
She sighed and pulled out a pair of freshly made gloves from her pocket, then took a small knife and began explaining the structure to him.
“This is called a tendon.”
“See this? This is muscle.”
Da Vinci took out his notebook and began sketching the internal structure.
At this point, he was sketching with precision and speed, without any hesitation.
Hedy wasn't very familiar with this, but she was no stranger to it either.
She had been involved in many things.
The funding for national bonds, the design of airplanes, frequency hopping innovation in wireless communication— and even her own plastic surgery.
At the time, she wasn’t young anymore and had been ridiculed by the media.
When the doctors were too afraid to operate, she did all the research and went to see them. She pointed to her elbow and behind her ear, saying, “Start here, and help me lift my skin. I’ll teach you how to do it.”
And what happened after?
Soon, many movie stars rushed to the hospital, pointing at the pictures on the wall, saying, “I want to look just like her! Just like Hedy!”
“Look at this,” she said, picking up a small white part and explaining, “This is a nerve.”
"I have a question," Da Vinci said, studying the cross-sections, his brow furrowing. "I feel like this blood vessel is different. One is light in color, and the other is dark. Do you understand this?"
Hedy was slightly surprised. "You don’t know the difference between veins and arteries?"
He was also somewhat surprised. "What’s that?"
"What about the structure of the heart?"
"Have you ever seen a human heart?"
Okay, got it.
This was the ignorant and uncivilized Middle Ages.
"The anatomy book I read says the blood vessels are all the same, with no distinction," Da Vinci leaned in, carefully examining the different colors. "But I feel like that book has a lot of issues."
"Isn’t dissection forbidden by the Church now?" Hedy suddenly felt she had grasped something important. "So, where did the dissection books come from?"