Chapter 34 Failed Experiment

Chapter 34: Failed Experiment

Gu Ze quickly put more distance between himself and Chen Yi...

Oliver collapsed weakly onto the ground, gasping almost inaudibly, "Bro Bai, if you don't speak up soon, my HP bar is going to be completely drained."

Beside him, Kahn looked utterly bewildered. He couldn't grasp Earth men's obsession with height and asked bluntly, "Oliver, do you care a lot about height?"

Oliver grimaced, "It's hard not to."

Seeing Kahn still confused, Chen Yi offered a simple explanation: "Height is a very important factor in choosing a partner." He had assumed this standard was universal and was surprised Kahn didn't know.

After Chen Yi's comment, Oliver and Gu Ze's earlier exchange suddenly seemed childish.

Oliver exclaimed, "Can't you think about anything besides love and relationships?"

Gu Ze, for once, sided with him: "Superficial."

Chen Yi retorted, "What's there to be embarrassed about? Taller people are just more popular. Otherwise, why would everyone strive to be so tall? Is the air up there fresher, or do you get half-price tickets at tourist spots if you're 190 cm?"

Oliver and Gu Ze: "..." The statement felt off somehow, yet they couldn't quite refute it.

Kahn nodded thoughtfully. So, on this planet, height was used to attract the opposite sex. He couldn't help but glance at Bai Suizhi nearby.

Catching Kahn's gaze, Bai Suizhi inexplicably blurted out, "I'm 187 cm."

Kahn awkwardly averted his eyes and softly responded, "Oh." He silently wondered if he still had a chance to grow that tall.

Everyone present heard Bai Suizhi's remark, and their eyes shifted between the two of them. The atmosphere suddenly felt strangely charged.

Oliver, who had suffered from this before, inwardly cheered. Finally, someone else noticed the subtle magnetic field between those two! No more being the lone third wheel!

Bai Suizhi's comment was so sudden that Chen Yi took a moment to process it. Finally, he exclaimed, "Bro Bai, even though you're taller than Kahn, you don't need to show off like that. With faces like yours, even if you chopped your legs in half, people would still flock to you. No need for such intense competition."

Bai Suizhi: "..." Was that what I meant?

Kahn was already zoning out, completely missing Chen Yi's words.

The little celebratory dance in Oliver's heart came to an abrupt halt. What do you do when your teammate is an idiot?

Gu Ze quickly moved even farther away from Chen Yi, afraid that low IQ might be contagious.

The romantic atmosphere was ruthlessly shattered by Chen Yi, the "Detective Conan" of their group.

Bai Suizhi said wearily, "Let's just talk about the virus."

Oliver raised both hands and feet in agreement. Chen Yi said regretfully, "Aren't we going to discuss which is more important: height or face?"

Oliver: "When did we ever have that topic?"

Chen Yi: "I got the idea from our earlier conversation. Isn't it interesting?"

Oliver: "...I'm more interested in which is stronger: zombies or mutated animals."

Chen Yi knew when to prioritize and reluctantly abandoned his enticing topic. He and Oliver both looked eagerly at Bai Suizhi, waiting for their golden teacher to impart his knowledge.

Bai Suizhi said, "Alright, let's continue... Where were we?" He had underestimated his teammates’ ability to derail conversations.

Neither Oliver nor Chen Yi remembered. Finally, Kahn stepped in to save the day: "We were talking about how the virus spread."

Bai Suizhi finally regained his momentum: "Right, how the virus initially spread. Earlier, the most widespread theory online was that a failed experiment by researchers led to the leakage of the infection source, gradually causing the country to fall bit by bit."

Chen Yi questioned, "But there's too much information online. How do we know what's true and what's false?"

Bai Suizhi explained, "A friend of mine sensed something was off when this first started. He contacted me and told me to be careful, so I was among the first to pay attention. The earliest cases in the country happened near his home, so thanks to his constant reminders, I'm quite familiar with this information."

The friend he mentioned was Shi Mingshan. They hadn't been in contact since the heavy rainstorm. It wasn't that he wasn't worried, but worrying now was useless. So, he prayed daily that this reckless guy had been safely evacuated to a survivor base.

Bai Suizhi added, "...Yes, he has a strong sense of crisis." How could he explain that Shi Mingshan always believed such rumors without question, was the target audience for online health product scams, and this time it was just a lucky coincidence?

Chen Yi deeply regretted it: "I didn't believe it back then, so I signed up for a summer camp. If I had known, I would've just stayed home. My home's security system is top-notch..."

Oliver: "No bragging."

Chen Yi shrugged: "Then I've got nothing to say."

Bai Suizhi kindly provided a recap: "Just before the zombie outbreak, netizens with IP addresses in Country S posted photos and videos of people acting strangely on the streets. But most people treated it as entertainment and didn't take it seriously, so it didn't spark much discussion."

This aligned with Chen Yi's earlier point. Most people scrolling past such posts saw them as entertainment, stopping to glance and leaving a few jokes before moving on. Who would think to follow up?

Bai Suizhi continued, "But later, another post emerged, providing even more details. It quickly went viral. The poster claimed these strange individuals were failed test subjects who had escaped from a lab, carrying a highly contagious virus. They urged everyone to stock up and stay home."

It had been over two months since the outbreak, but to Bai Suizhi, it felt like yesterday. The cries and screams were still vividly etched in his memory, unforgettable for a lifetime.

Oliver asked, "How was the poster so sure?"

Bai Suizhi shook his head: "Aside from the person involved, we have no way of knowing. Although most people remained skeptical even after the post went viral, judging by subsequent events, we can confirm the poster wasn't spreading baseless rumors."

Chen Yi added, "Even if they weren't directly involved, they must have known something about the situation. Otherwise, they couldn't have warned us before the government did."

Bai Suizhi: "I think so too. So even if we can't identify the poster, we can analyze the other information they revealed."

Chen Yi stroked his chin: "So you suspect the source of the virus is the human experiment mentioned by the poster?"

This was the topic Bai Suizhi had been leading up to. Why didn't he state it outright from the beginning? Because Teacher Bai believed guiding them to reach the conclusion themselves would deepen their understanding. He just severely underestimated these two's ability to digress, causing the lesson to run over time.

Bai Suizhi said, "We can't be certain, but based on the limited information we have, this human experiment could be a breakthrough to help us understand the current situation."

He then posed another question: "What comes to mind when you think of human experiments?" Even with overtime, Teacher Bai couldn't give up his question-based teaching method.

Oliver raised his hand: "Modifying humans to rule the world! That's how it always goes in movies."

Bai Suizhi: "Exactly. If someone invests significant resources into researching something, the investors must have a core need or goal."

Chen Yi: "So what's their goal?"

Bai Suizhi looked at Oliver. Chen Yi exclaimed, "...It can't really be to rule the world, can it? That's so cliché!"

Oliver: "Classics never go out of style."

Bai Suizhi: "...I meant the first part: modifying humans."

Oliver and Chen Yi: "Oh."

Bai Suizhi: "Do you remember our initial question?"

Oliver and Chen Yi shook their heads in unison, their eyes equally blank and clueless.

The walking teleprompter, Kahn, stepped in: "Why do animals evolve new abilities after mutating, but humans don't?"

Oliver and Chen Yi smacked their foreheads as it dawned on them: "Oh, right!" You can't blame them for not remembering right away—too much information at once can overload the brain.

Bai Suizhi: "So, do you have any thoughts now?"

Oliver and Chen Yi shook their heads in unison, like they'd time-traveled back to a minute ago.

The two of them: "Our brains are already sending out alerts, warning us that we've reached our daily limit for deep thinking. If we push it any further, they'll activate protection mode!"

Gu Ze asked curiously, "What protection mechanism?"

The two replied in unison: "Left ear in, right ear out—what people usually call zoning out."

Gu Ze: "...Sometimes I really wonder if your brain capacity is smaller than a White Robin's."

The suddenly referenced White Robin chirped, "Chirp chirp chirp?"

Bai Suizhi didn't push them to answer—partly because he wanted to get this over with—so he spoke faster and said, "First, we can confirm that the changes in animals are definitely caused by the virus, and the virus originated from that lab. So, can we assume that their initial research goal was this kind of 'evolution'?"

Oliver: "Evolution? But why doesn't it work on humans?"

Chen Yi understood: "Guess why the experiment failed?"

Oliver figured it out the moment he asked the question, but: "Why did it work on animals then?"

Chen Yi: "Guess why experiments usually start with lab mice?"

Oliver got furious: "Guess, guess, guess—guess your brains out!"

Chen Yi, the expert troublemaker: "Look at you, getting all worked up again!"

Still, despite Chen Yi's provoking tone, he had a point. Bai Suizhi summarized: "So, they likely experimented on animals first. The experiment may or may not have succeeded, but in the end, when they tried it on humans, it failed—and they failed to control the test subjects."