Upon entering Building 4, a guiding beam of light appeared before Wei Yuan, marking out the research station assigned to him. Following the guide, Wei Yuan reached a room and pushed the door open. None of the research cubicles here had ceilings, allowing all activity inside to be seen from above, like cells in a honeycomb. Still, the room was massive—more than ten times the size of his original workstation—and fully equipped with every necessary facility.
Wei Yuan settled before the terminal and booted up the system. Once his authorization cleared, the blank screen instantly filled with a dense array of icons, each one an entry point to a broad category of research data. However, several icons remained dimmed, indicating that additional approval procedures were required before they could be accessed.
Even so, the sheer volume of accessible material far exceeded Wei Yuan's expectations. After skimming the directory related to gene fragments, he selected the subcategory for gene sample origins and began going through them one by one.
The original source of the gene fragment in Wei Yuan's possession had been a tiny speck of flesh, less than a cubic millimeter in size. Yet in the recorded footage, this microscopic bit of flesh exhibited astonishing speed and vitality, autonomously seeking out surrounding food, devouring it, and proliferating at high speed.
The researchers had placed the speck of flesh onto a white lab mouse. The mouse immediately began scurrying around in a frenzy, blood quickly appearing on its fur. It struggled for a dozen minutes as more and more blood seeped out, finally collapsing dead. Forty minutes later, it had dissolved into a writhing mass of flesh.
The researchers cleaned and separated the mass, ultimately obtaining a chunk of flesh equivalent to eighty percent of the mouse's body weight. This demonstrated a terrifyingly high efficiency in nutrient-to-energy conversion, with less than twenty percent of the matter turned into waste and expelled.
Another experiment was even more chilling.
The researchers had designed a series of sub-trials to test the gene's responsiveness and judgment. The aggregated results showed that any chunk of flesh larger than one cubic millimeter already possessed rudimentary intelligence. Once it reached one cubic centimeter, its intellect rivaled that of a two- or three-year-old human child—capable of autonomous learning and endowed with the instincts of a hunter.
Next came the adaptability trials. The flesh was fed to various organisms, and whether it was a leech, a horned frog, or a scavenging vulture or hyena, each ultimately melted into a heap of shifting biomass and became part of the flesh.
Under tests involving various toxins and extreme environments, the flesh proved remarkably difficult to kill, possessing survival capabilities akin to a tardigrade. Only under certain intense magnetic fields did it exhibit noticeable sluggishness and degradation.
As Wei Yuan read through this series of terms, an inexplicable sense of detachment washed over him. He felt as though he had never seen or heard these words before, yet somehow understood their meanings intuitively.
Still, this sense of detachment was easy enough to resolve. Wei Yuan's current clearance was sufficient to search the vast majority of scientific literature known to humanity. Thus, whenever he encountered an unfamiliar term, he pulled up a series of related papers, reading through them in detail and learning them from scratch.
Only then did Wei Yuan realize that reading two, three, or even more papers at the same time felt effortless. His mind still had plenty of spare capacity, enough to let him ponder random, idle thoughts—such as what that woman who had so eagerly helped him was doing after entering the Group President's office.
This was not just Wei Yuan's curiosity, but the shared curiosity of every ordinary male employee.
And so, as he delved deeper into the research reports, Wei Yuan opened more and more papers on foundational theory. Sixteen floating light-screens hovered before him simultaneously, each scrolling through different content.
Wei Yuan felt he could handle even more, but his eyes were beginning to strain. Switching rapidly between screens didn't tax his brain, but it was hard on the eyes.
As Wei Yuan went through report after report, he realized that every speck of flesh tested had originated from the very first superpowered individual discovered. Wei Yuan even managed to locate the footage of the final capture operation. This should have been classified under an extremely high security clearance, but to his surprise, his current access level allowed him to open it.
The scene of hunting down that superpowered being was bloody and explosive beyond belief. The man had fought like a fiend, capable of ripping steel plate apart with his bare hands, leaping dozens of meters into the air to scale eight- or nine-story rooftops with ease, and withstanding direct hits from artillery shells and heavy-caliber rounds. All in all, this was simply not the performance of a carbon-based life-form.
The Umbrella Company had deployed thousands of soldiers to make the arrest, yet suffered catastrophic casualties. Countless soldiers were torn apart alive by the target, their body armor failing to withstand a single claw strike. He had even brought down two low-flying fighter craft with hurled stones.
After losing hundreds of elite special forces operatives, the Security Department deployed man-portable liquid nitrogen missiles specifically designed for anomalous life-forms. Firing over a hundred of them in succession, they froze everything within a square kilometer, finally killing him.
After the superpowered individual died, his corpse exhibited an eerie vitality. The severed limbs and blasted flesh seemed to develop minds of their own, sprouting legs and even wings in an attempt to flee.
The Umbrella Security forces sprayed immense quantities of rapid-freezing agents, encasing all tissues and blood in ice, before excavating the entire top layer of soil and transporting it away. The whole operation had cost tens of billions before they finally secured the corpse.
Having reviewed this data, Wei Yuan realized that the world was far from as peaceful as it seemed on the surface; terrifying, inhuman entities lurked in the shadows. Yet at the same time, Wei Yuan felt strangely calm, as though he had witnessed far more horrifying scenes than this, and that all of this was nothing out of the ordinary.
He then opened another research report, which documented the behavior of the flesh's primordial cells under an electron microscope.
The footage showed that individual cells possessed ferocious aggression, actively engulfing surrounding cells, viruses, and any proteins, resembling an amplified version of human immune cells.
When several cells of the same kind encountered one another, they aggregated automatically, adopting a basic division of labor: some responsible for movement, some for engulfment, and others for energy storage.
When hundreds gathered, cells dedicated to sensation and thought emerged, displaying primitive intelligence and basic memory capabilities, even passing simple electronic maze tests.
Finally, an inconspicuous paper caught Wei Yuan's eye.
It was an informal essay written by a research director, summarizing the preceding capture operation and a series of trials, while putting forward a personal hypothesis. Because this hypothesis lacked concrete proof, the essay had not been assigned a higher classification, bearing only the same clearance level as the rest of the project.
Wei Yuan opened the essay, skimmed it quickly, and froze. He then returned to the beginning and began reading it word by word.
"—I have a powerful intuition that the devil's body, along with all the flesh and blood that followed, was never an incubator for that genetic sequence, but rather a set of chains binding it. Perhaps not even one percent—no, not even one ten-thousandth—of its true power was ever unleashed.
"Deep within that gene fragment lurks the primordial demon. We originally believed genes to be the carriers of life's information, but now, it may very well be a cage.
"I even suspect that organic matter itself was designed by the universe solely to divide and bind it.
"If it does not require matter, then where does its primordial energy come from?"
Reading these lines sent a chill running down Wei Yuan's spine for reasons he could not explain.
Just then, a soft chime sounded beside him—a reminder timer he had set for himself.
At the chime, Wei Yuan promptly launched the genetic engineering design suite, created a new project, and began drafting the blueprint for the new virus. At the same time, he estimated how long the entire project would likely take and clicked to submit a request for temporary night quarters. He didn't want to waste time commuting and planned to sleep in the lab tonight.
The company maintained similar temporary quarters at every key facility, offering conditions far better than Wei Yuan's current living space, reserved exclusively for personnel working overtime on critical projects.
The moment Wei Yuan clicked confirm, his application was approved, granting him three days in one go.
This was standard corporate procedure: the pressure was murderous, but the pay and benefits were thoroughly provided, offering every necessary convenience around the clock to anyone willing to work themselves to the bone, while anyone unwilling could be cast out at any moment.
The company was filled with countless young people like Wei Yuan, clawing for every scrap of opportunity. Climbing another rung was the sole purpose of life; standing still meant falling into the abyss.
Having initiated the workflow for the new virus design, Wei Yuan set to work. This too stemmed from the survival wisdom he had gathered over years in the workplace: after spending half a day reading reference materials, it was always best to produce something tangible related to your assignment, even if it was just drafting a few pages of empty, perfunctory report. Otherwise, the surveillance system might flag you for slacking off—or worse, your supervisor might silently mark you as a slacker without your knowledge.
Once he began, Wei Yuan immersed himself entirely in his work.
With his current clearance, he could access all established literature on genetic engineering. He studied as he designed, starting from the most fundamental molecular protein concepts and working all the way up to advanced human gene sequencing.
Yet the sixteen screens before him were simply not enough to satisfy his needs. He constantly felt there ought to be a way to absorb all the information on the screens without having to move his eyes. That method seemed to hover just within reach, yet he couldn't quite recall it.
A thought struck Wei Yuan. Remembering the fierce instincts of the gene sample's cells, he stopped overthinking the underlying theory and followed his intuition to open another screen. When the new display appeared, its contents flowed naturally into Wei Yuan's consciousness, as if an invisible pair of eyes were gazing at it.
Still feeling ample reserve capacity, Wei Yuan opened several more screens, grasping all their contents just as easily without needing to look.
Wei Yuan suddenly felt as though an invisible barrier had shattered. His consciousness expanded, sweeping across the entire research hall in the blink of an eye, taking in everything across both floors—more than three hundred research cubicles in total.
Instinctively, however, he sensed that expanding any further might uncover something terrible, so he hurriedly pulled his consciousness back and focused on the task at hand.
Wei Yuan knew that a major research facility like this was surrounded by countless surveillance measures, and any abnormality could trigger an alert. Though thrilled, he dared not act rashly, intending to wait until he returned home before thoroughly testing this newly acquired ability. For now, he could not afford to expose himself; the last person who had exposed an ability was currently residing inside the genetic diagrams of Wei Yuan's reports.
Wei Yuan had initially expanded the screen count to thirty-two, but finding that too conspicuous, he scaled it down step by step to eight. He judged this to be the sweet spot between safety and finishing the viral design. Any fewer, and he wouldn't be able to get the work done.
While Wei Yuan was absorbed in his work, a monitor in an office within the facility suddenly flashed a piercing red light. A buzzcut officer whose face was heavily lined with muscle grunted in surprise and checked the source of the alarm, spotting Wei Yuan operating with eight screens open.
Eight screens was on the high side, but the company possessed countless freaks of intelligence; while running that many wasn't common, it wasn't unprecedented either. Under normal circumstances, having eight processes active at once shouldn't have triggered a system alarm.
The buzzcut officer felt puzzled, unable to make sense of it. But his training told him that whenever something didn't make sense, he only needed to report it upward, and then he wouldn't have to think about it anymore. He immediately chose to submit a report: *Suspected discovery of a genius, or—a monster.*
In less than three minutes, an endorsement from the Security Department President arrived before him: *Genius.*
The buzzcut officer breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to move on to other matters, another message from the President flashed across the screen:
*Where is he?*
*Keep him there. I'm on my way.*
Chapter 782