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“It was just like a blind spot expanded from out of nowhere; I could sense nothing from it,” Jing said. “However, that blind spot only existed for less than a second, so I thought it was just my imagination. If you hadn’t asked me today, I would have forgotten about it altogether.”

“I see.” Qing Shui nodded to himself, as if having found the source of the disturbance. “Can you tell me more about the blind spot? Was it the same feeling as when you met the Willow?”

“No, it’s different. On the day we met the Willow, my perception to danger was intact. It’s just that I simply couldn’t sense the Willow even when we were in front of it. Everything else worked just fine, I could sense all the other organism around us.” Other than fear, the impression that the Willow had left to Jing was more of confusion and puzzlement. “It was a weird feeling of it being there, in front of my eyes, but not giving out any hint of its existence, as if it was lifeless.”

“Perhaps its life has turned into another form that we’re yet to understand.” Qing Shui raised his head upon mulling over the mystery. “I feel much better now, and it’s time for me to leave. You guys need some serious rest, and I’m actually quite busy these days. Take care of yourselves, alright?

“Just feel free to ask me for anything, as long as I’m capable of it.” Qing Shui’s hand gently patted Chang’s back again, reassuring. “And... I’m also searching for your parents and relatives, I’ve even sent troops to contact Kaifeng, so take your time resting here.”

“No worries, thank you.” Chang waved his hand in goodbye, when he recalled something suddenly. “Wait, don’t leave yet, I’ve had something in mind that I needed to ask you about.”

While speaking, Chang’s hand reached into the inner pocket of his shirt, taking out a small syringe. “What is this that you gave me before I went to scrutinize Zhuo’s field?”

“It’s pretty similar to what Zhuo has done, but I’ve taken it to another level.” Qing Shui laughed. “It can activate the gene information that is hidden in our genome. It’s my greatest work so far, make good use of it. I was going to tell you about it later, but since you’ve asked, I’ll explain it now.

“The solution in this syringe promotes generation of mRNA that I designed for you, and eventually, the modification process will change your body pattern.”

“What does that mean?” Chang wanted to contract the muscles of his forehead to frown, but realizing that he had no control over his facial muscles. “Can you tell me what it does in simple words? The easier, the better.”

“Alright, basically what it does is that it will change your morphology, depending on what I wanted to bring about. It will give you a second chance at growing limbs, skins, horns... you name it. Anything that you desire to have on you,” Qing Shui explained in the simplest way he could make it. “From the bottom of the evolution tree, lives started as unicellular organism, then changed to multicellular organisms. Later, we had fish, amphibians... and at last, humans evolved from primates. If we were to go way back in time, we all share the same ancestor - the unicellular organism.”

“I understand this.”

Chang nodded.

“That also means that our gene shares a certain degree of similarity to fishes, amphibians, even animals under Cnidarian phylum,” Qing Shui said.. “You probably didn’t know about this fact, but when you think about it,, the key difference between us and them is that at a certain point in time, our evolution went in different directions.”

“And then?”

Chang was eager to know more.

“Then, even nowadays, we as humans often label ourselves as the most intelligent species on this planet, sometimes even arrogantly calling ourselves the rulers of the evolution tree. Indeed, our hands and brains are far more advanced than of other species, but we also need to admit the fact that on the journey of evolution, we sacrificed some functions in exchange for our flexible hands and brains that generate thoughts and ideas. That is to say, we lost the ability to swim as fast as a fish; we lost the ability to adapt to the nature as skillfully as amphibians; we also lost the ability to repair injuries as well as Cnidarians.”

“Because evolution is simply a choice, perfection is unachievable. A giraffe cannot burrow under a bush because of its height—this is the end result of natural selection and the law of use and disuse. There won’t be lives in nature that are perfect because of evolution.”

As Qing Shui was speaking, he chuckled. “Therefore, during this process, the coding DNA that humans have is less than 10%, and this number varies depending on how scientists measure it. In other words, we have more than 90% of junk DNA that isn’t functioning, and we can make use of it.

“What we have displayed, such as our appearance, our limbs, our language abilities, we call it Original Patterns. What we are going to add on, such as the ability to breathe underwater, heat and cold resistance, even cloning, we call them Modified Patterns.

“The syringe I gave you could modify your non-coding genes, especially by adding Hox genes, which could change the morphology of a species. With this, we can attain more features and abilities that we dream to have.” Qing Shui laughed again. “Therefore, I called it Modifier, it does what it sounds like.”

“Marvelous!” Chang exclaimed. Qing Shui’s introduction changed the whole basis of what a human should be. “So with the Modifier, we may be able to fly, stride under the water, gain strength effortlessly, and even... and even become bulletproof?”

Animals other than human had countless features, and yet humans ruled the world with only one type of gene sequencing. Chang couldn’t imagine what humanity would look like in the future when genes were modified to gain certain morphologies.

The most important thing was that, it wasn’t a crude alternation as how Zhuo had done it. Qing Shui’s method was to rearrange the existing genes and make use of that. Rather than alternation, such method was more efficient.

“Any side effects of the Modifier?”

Chang shook the syringe.

“There shouldn’t be any in theory, but I haven’t tried it yet.” Qing Shui took the syringe back. “The formula is extremely delicate to proportions, it took me over a month to make this. Especially with Zhuo monitoring me. It drained my sleeping time since then the surveillance was the weakest.

“Keep it, this syringe contains my best efforts. I’m still making improvements on the formula and testing it out. Until I confirm its safety, don’t use it yet as Zhuo is no longer a threat.”

Chang took the syringe back, placing it back in his pocket, and pressed on the cloth to assure himself of its presence.

“I have other meetings scheduled for now. I’ll send someone to inform you when the Modifier is ready.”

“You should go now, don’t worry about me.”

Chang nodded to Qing Shui’s back. He wouldn’t waste any second of this man.

Qing Shui turned his head, blinking and said goodbye to Chang and Jing.

This time, he once again left for a long time.

During this period, Chang and Jing weren’t assigned to any specific mission and were allowed to own their free time. Most of the time Chang spent his day in the gym while Jing was always beside him.

They were treated as special guests in the institute, nearly all the officers regardless of their ranking approving all their requests in a snap. They were also allowed accessing to almost anywhere they wanted to, and of course, they enjoyed the best meals and residence.

There was only one place they were forbidden to approach.

It was Qing Shui’s lab, whose previous owner was Group Alpha.

Qing Shui didn’t give a particular reason why they were forbidden to enter his lab, but Chang learned of the arrangement once when looking for his friend.

Nobody in the institute dared to displease Chang, but the attitude of the entrance guards implied Qing Shui’s command. Although Chang was perplexed, he freed his mind from suspecting his friend’s motivation.

After all, Qing Shui was at a different place and position now, not to mention the lab was a place only for researchers. Chang was merely a civilian, so the need to access the lab seemed unreasonable as he didn’t have a purpose of conducting any sort of research. Thus, after he was refused the second time, he tactfully avoided the lab.

The whole institute was somewhat separated from the chaos, and Chang had a peaceful time under Qing Shui’s wings.

The peaceful days ended with a visit from a soldier.

“Mr. Chang Liu?”

The soldier who approached him was a low ranked officer that seemed to be in his twenties. When he decided to ask Chang, the latter was training in the gym. The soldier also bowed with respect.

“Who are you?”

Placing down the dumbbells, Chang turned his head to the voice; the soldier’s face reminded him of no one.

“I am a platoon leader in the military, I belong to the department that is in charge of chief’s meal.”

The young soldier smiled.

“I see, what brings you here?” Chang noticed his hesitation in speech and carefully looked at the soldier’s face, then asked, “Have we met before?”

“We did, we passed each other in the hallway a few days ago.”

The young soldier nodded to Chang.

“Alright. So, what brings you here today?” Chang sat down on the bench, patting on the padding. “Have a seat, tell me what happened.”

“Ah... I don’t think...” The young soldier looked around. “I don’t think this is a good place to talk.”

“What is it?” Chang gradually became impatient to the soldier’s furtive attitude. He didn’t want to leave the gym because of this, either.

Even though the institute was comparably less chaotic, there still were power struggles within it. Chang didn’t loosen his guard even if he was living in peace, since he knew that Qing Shui was both his wings and his encumbrance. He was free from trouble thanks to Qing Shui, but at the same time, once the trouble came up to him, it wouldn’t be something that easy to deal with.