Chapter 134

Chapter 134

After the storm, November greeted a sudden and sharp drop in temperature.

Just yesterday, the people in the RV were dressed in sweaters and shirts; today, Wu Yin led by example, burrowing into his down jacket. With the weather turning worse over the past few days and the RV's battery reserves running low, they had to forgo the air conditioning to save power. Waking up to find the interior temperature nearly identical to the outside, Wu Yin reluctantly climbed out of bed, tightened his coat, wrapped his legs with a blanket, and rubbed his hands while watching the cold wind howl outside the window.

Wu Zhe also dressed in a thick cotton jacket, wrapped his face with a fleece scarf, and cuddled into His Highness's embrace.

The mutated green radish, having lost several leaves to the sudden drop in temperature, was heartbreakingly nestled into His Highness's dense and thick fur, pot and all.

His Highness radiated warmth, comforting both human and plant alike, even managing to drape his tail over Professor Xie, who was idly holding a cup of hot water in his seat.

Only Xie Linyuan remained in light attire, even fashionably rolling up his trouser leg to reveal a sliver of ankle. He appeared behind Wu Yin in a light fleece coat, pressed his chest to Wu Yin's back, and stood in silence for a moment before slightly tilting his face and resting his chin on Wu Yin's shoulder.

Then, the dry heat of his palm covered the other's cool fingers, gradually transferring warmth.

Wu Yin felt warmth enveloping the back of his right hand, while his left felt as though it was pressed against a scorching, boiling furnace.

"Hot," he chided, tapping Xie Linyuan's hand, "Lower the setting."

Obediently, Xie Linyuan dialed down the heat setting until it reached a warmth that Wu Yin found comfortable, finally allowing the content parasite to comfortably grasp Xie Linyuan's hand, using those bloodstained, calloused hands of the mechanical warrior as a constant-temperature hand warmer.

In an unnoticed corner, Wu Yin tilted his head and left a quiet kiss on Xie Linyuan's lips.

"Is this how a kiss is supposed to be?" he asked softly, chuckling, "Professor Xie, you said you'd teach me to kiss. Have I learned well? Am I ready to graduate?"

Xie Linyuan, flirted with by Wu Yin in such a manner for the first time, was secretly thrilled, yet had to maintain a serious facade: "Barely passable."

“……”

……

The neglected driveway was covered in fallen leaves and dust, with the tires bumping over them, leaving behind twin serpentine tracks.

Professor Xie's laboratory was nestled inside an abandoned large factory, entering through a rust-streaked iron gate, the ground littered with trash, waste paper, broken wood, and rusted steel plates, with dim, cold concrete walls mixed with the smell of blood and decay, as if the cramped corner shadows hid the corpses of over a dozen rats.

Reaching a narrow alley inaccessible to the RV, Professor Xie wrapped himself tighter in his jacket, stepping deliberately on the brick path inward. Wu Yin and Xie Linyuan followed closely behind, a mechanical dragonfly emerging from the tip of Xie Linyuan's tail finger, flitting high into the sky, giving Xie Linyuan a bird's eye view of the entire factory in his left eye.

Wu Zhe's new shoes were a bit too big; with thick socks and insoles, he hopped and skipped over the bricks like playing hopscotch, nearly falling due to his playfulness before being abruptly pulled back by the green radish entwining around his neck.

In the concrete jungle, only the intertwining steps remained.

His Highness trailed at the back, the border collie walking normally, while the golden retriever twisted its head to watch its back vigilantly. With the weather turning colder, a dense layer of warm underfur sprouted beneath its thick, glossy black coat, making its figure even more imposing, and its broad, sharp paws stepped on the ground like a knight in armor.

Professor Xie squatted down, slowly unlocking the chain tied to the doorknob with the key hanging around his neck, and as the metal clinked and the door hinges screeched, a crude and dilapidated laboratory appeared before everyone.

……

Just two days ago, after Xue Hongyi hastily departed atop his mutated golden-winged sparrow, Wu Yin subtly shifted the focus onto Professor Jie, pointing out the abnormalities of the baby.

In fact, Jie Linyuan had also noticed this early on. After all, a normal baby could not possibly be this quiet. What's more, it was eerily unusual that he hardly needed to eat. Despite Professor Jie's apparent care for the baby, he seemed neglectful when it came to feeding, making the act of preparing rice paste seem more like a performance to hide the baby's differences.

After a lengthy silence, Professor Jie sighed deeply, "He indeed is not a naturally bred human, nor is he one I found. He is one of the first... artificially created immune beings our team has researched and developed."

As he spoke earnestly, Wu Yin, puzzled, retorted, "Has the northern camp lost its senses? Why must you research everything? What's the purpose of specifically creating a batch of immune beings? To serve as human shields?"

Professor Jie: "……"

Professor Jie explained with difficulty, "Although many immunes have been incited by extremist rhetoric to take wrongful actions, it's undeniable that their resistance to contamination makes them better suited for living in cataclysmic environments. Naturally occurring immunes are at a rate of one percent, which is far too few. We need more immunes for tasks like clearing and expanding the habitable zones for humans."

"……" Wu Yin made no further comment, but Jie Linyuan couldn't help asking, "What's the difference between these artificially bred immunes and natural human immunes? This one hasn't eaten anything these days and has a very low body temperature."

Professor Jie, still physically robust, took a seat on a folding camp chair and began to explain, "It doesn't need to eat like humans. Normally, from an artificial embryo to growing into an adult form, it needs to be immersed in a special nutrient solution, in a breathless, sleeping state throughout this period.

"But due to the rebellion of the immunes, our research progress was hindered. Mutants even tracked down the lab, killed all the experimenters except for me, and destroyed the lab. I had no choice but to remove the artificially created immune, who had only grown to the state of a baby, from the nutrient solution.

"I thought leaving the nutrient solution meant certain death for this test subject, and only wanted to preserve some genetic data. But fortunately, five days into his sleep, on the eve of our planned return to the northern camp from the zoo, he woke up."

At this point, Professor Jie's tone was complex, filled with joy but also some worries and confusion, "It's truly an inexplicable miracle, because, based on my observations these past days, he still does not breathe or have a heartbeat, rejects feeding, and also lacks normal consciousness, with some movements and behaviors more like neural reactions to stimuli.

"So I think, he can't grow in the normal human way and needs to re-enter the nutrient solution. That's also why I insisted on bringing him and you back to the northern camp. Saying I'm bringing him to find his mother isn't wrong; the nutrient solution and the culture tank are his mother."

Wu Yin, not particularly interested in humanity's bizarre experimental researches, especially as he himself was a product of experimentation, felt an instinctual repulsion and wished to quickly change the subject after roughly understanding the situation.

Yet, it was at this moment that Jie Linyuan noticed some contradictions and asked with a frown, "Professor Jie, do you already know the principle behind the immunes' resistance to the catastrophe? Or to put it another way, have you understood the origin of the cataclysmic contamination?"

Professor Jie shook his head with embarrassment: "The global speculation about the cause of the catastrophe is varied, but they are all just guesses. Our team's creation of immunes is less about replicating humans and more about utilizing the uncontaminated nature of non-human animals to create a special human-shaped organism. The inspiration came from a rapid human body development project I worked on decades ago. Whether it can truly be immune to contamination is still conjecture, awaiting further research once the subject matures..."

"What a hassle," Wu Yin commented. "Your experiment's efficiency is too low, waiting for the subject to grow from an embryo to an adult..."

At this point, he suddenly paused, as several keywords flooded his mind: rapid human development, nutrient solution, culture tank, from embryo to adult, a project from years ago...

The moment Wu Yin stopped speaking, Jie Linyuan also realized the problem at the same time. He quickly pressed Wu Yin's hand, signaling him to stay calm.

Wu Yin and Jie Linyuan exchanged a glance, and after a moment of chaos and impulsiveness, his thoughts became clear and stable. Thoughtfully holding Jie Linyuan's hand, his thumb gently caressed the back of his hand, asking, "Professor, how long does it take for this rapid human development to mature? It can't possibly take eighteen years, can it?"

"Of course not," Professor Jie confidently replied. "We've intervened in the genetics of the rapid development test subjects. Their development speed is very fast, from embryo to adult, it only takes—"

Wu Yin ventured, "Three months?"

"That's too short; we don't have that capability," Professor Jie raised his hand, showing two digits, "It takes at least fifteen months. Any attempt to reduce the development time with current technology could easily result in uncontrollable deformities in the rapid development bodies."

……

Time returns to the present, after Professor Jie opened the door, Wu Yin saw a very complex laboratory.

Its complexity lay in its crude framework, with plastered brick walls everywhere, not even a complete ceiling, but instead black pipes running across the dark grey cement walls. Yet in this rough environment sat numerous advanced and precise instruments, and at the innermost part, there was a sterile room of a completely different style, clean, tidy, dust-free, complete with exhaust and constant temperature systems—

Though these items were now wrecked beyond recognition, not a single instrument remained intact, the glass around the sterile room was shattered completely, not even a test tube or beaker was left whole.

Not to mention the three culture tanks protected inside the sterile room, which enthusiastic mutants had destroyed, leaving only their deep blue bases.

Seeing this, Professor Jie ran inside, heartbroken, trying to salvage any pitiful remnants that might exist.

"......" Wu Yin looked around emotionlessly, scanning the surroundings, slightly furrowing his brows, pondering something.

Jie Linyuan raised his left hand, the mechanical dragonfly completing its scanning of the factory's aerial view, fluttering its wings to transform into a silver streak, becoming his little finger. Confirming the information was stored in the database, Jie Linyuan turned back, meeting Wu Yin's gaze.

It was a gaze filled with confusion and a touch of vulnerability.

He was moved by the scene before him, reminiscing about something.

If Wu Yin had a single weakness, it would definitely be the piece of memory he lacks.