Soon after, Su Hao used two more shots to blast An. When the radar sensed that the blood rapidly dissipated, confirming that An was dead, he landed and walked over to An’s skinless body.
To be honest, Su Hao admired An. He couldn’t imagine himself ever doing what An had done – skinning himself. It sent shivers down his spine. If it weren’t for being enemies, they might have been friends. However, there were no “ifs” when you made a mistake from the beginning. It simply wasn’t meant to be.
Su Hao cut off a piece of An’s flesh, buried his body in a pit, and then jumped into the air, using his powers to fly back to Temple Forest City.
He felt like he might have forgotten something but decided to let it go. Now that the situation was resolved, he wanted to return to his research. The rest could be handled by others.
Regarding the precise gene manipulation to generate the desired Cas9, he had some ideas. The next step was to conduct numerous experiments. With the care of Taini, the Round Mouse had reproduced well and would be sufficient for his experiments.
On the other side, Yashan held a captive in a desolate, deserted area.
“Where is this? The Speed Demon? When did they suddenly disappear? What about Boss Wei? Why hasn’t he arrived?”
“Do I need to run again? Boss Wei said the farther, the better.”
“Or maybe run a bit more!”
Several third-level mutants from the Temple Forest Association surrounded Corrosion Beast Alai from a distance, continuously throwing stones at him.
No matter how Alai dodged, she was still hit by quite a few stones. With time passing, her injuries grew worse, and the stones were coming at her with increasing ferocity, as if the people throwing them were enjoying themselves.
Alai felt utterly trapped in this situation and had no way to escape. Her toxicity was unstoppable, but the cunning individuals across from her didn’t give her any chance. They just threw stones from a distance.
She wanted to run, but speed wasn’t her strength, and she couldn’t get away. Trying to rush into the city to take hostages wouldn’t work either. Whenever she tried to run in that direction, more stones rained down upon her, driving her further from the city. This was a dead end!
She had no strength left to struggle and thought, “If An were here, he would know what to do… What a pity.”
She eventually gave up resistance and was overwhelmed by the stones.
One day later, during the night, Charlotte, the Mimic Shifter, transformed into a wolfhound, following her scent and found An’s body.
Upon learning that An had already died, Charlotte couldn’t help but tremble all over. “If even An is dead, what can I do to avenge you? My sister, Charlotte…”
“You’ve always believed I killed our mother, but it wasn’t me; it was An, for some unknown reason, who designed our mother’s death. I just consumed a piece of her flesh and happened to be discovered by you, my foolish sister…”
“We don’t need to seek revenge! Let’s leave this city and start anew in a place where no one knows us. Get married, become an ordinary person; that would be great!”
After burying An’s body, Charlotte vanished into the darkness. This was Charlotte’s last struggle to stay alive. For An, there were no “ifs.” He had done all he could, and now he awaited the judgment of fate. He understood that, in the end, saving Fred and Eve or not wouldn’t change the outcome. When he and his three subordinates entered this city, their fate was already sealed.
As for Su Hao, he was back in his laboratory, conducting his experiments. He occasionally thought of Yashan but dismissed the idea of letting Yashan know he could stop running. Surely, someone of Yashan’s stature wouldn’t lose himself.
However, three days later, Yashan returned to Temple Forest City, looking puzzled. He held two nearly lifeless individuals.
That day, when Su Hao left his laboratory, he spotted Yashan and greeted him, “Yashan, it seems like you’ve been gone for quite a few days. Where have you been?”
Yashan was momentarily at a loss for words but managed a forced smile, “Let’s not talk about it! Boss Wei, I’ve personally prepared a table of good food for you. Come and taste it.”
Su Hao took a seat, pointed at Taini, who was already prepared, and said, “How’s the teacher you were looking for to teach her to read and write?”
Yashan replied, “Don’t worry, Boss Wei. I’ll have her here tomorrow.”
Taini asked, puzzled, “What teacher?”
Su Hao smiled and said, “A teacher who will teach you knowledge and make you smarter. Taini, you have to study hard, and I believe you’ll come to enjoy learning.”
Taini’s eyes lit up, and she happily exclaimed, “Really?”
Soon, Su Hao returned to his laboratory and focused on decoding the method of manipulating blood qi. He considered using his own consciousness to control it but gave up after an attempt because he lacked the kind of divine consciousness found in the cultivation world. It allowed individuals to observe their body’s microscopic state using inner vision.
Perhaps, in the future, if he were reborn into the cultivation world, he could learn these mysterious abilities. But as a current ordinary human, he didn’t have the power to change the microscopic aspects of his body with his consciousness.
So, what should he do?
He still needed Little Light’s help to transfer control over blood qi to Little Light, allowing Little Light to complete the synthesis of Cas9.
Su Hao had a well-defined method in mind. He needed to match the brainwave patterns for controlling blood qi with those generated during activities like listening, speaking, reading, writing, and imagining. Then, he could instruct Little Light to generate and map the desired effects. Su Hao would follow these instructions to achieve them.
To accomplish this, Su Hao had to do two things.
First, he needed to fine-tune the control of blood qi movement and gather the brainwave patterns produced during blood qi movement. This movement followed specific patterns, and he needed to account for as many directions and lengths as possible. To do this, Su Hao established a spatial coordinate system, defining a nanometer or micrometer as a unit length. This way, he could record various directions and sizes of blood qi movements.
However, this process would be quite time-consuming.
The second task was to engage in various activities to generate brainwave patterns and then match them to the brainwave patterns for controlling blood qi. The best choice for this behavior was imagination, followed by symbolic patterns, then manual writing, and lastly speaking and physical actions.
Su Hao wasn’t comfortable with using speech, as it felt like casting spells. He didn’t like performing physical actions either, as it resembled performing rituals. Therefore, his primary focus was on trying various imaginative scenarios, followed by symbolic patterns and so on.
All of this required a significant amount of time, which Su Hao had in abundance at the moment.
Time flew by, and two years passed in the blink of an eye. Su Hao turned thirteen years old, and he finally completed the encoding and pairing of the brainwave patterns for blood qi control. The method he used was a combination of imagination and symbolic representation.
For instance, if Su Hao wanted to execute a blood qi vector movement of (5, -3, 2), he only needed Little Light to provide a series of imaginative concepts and symbols, such as “#%…&@~?!#$…”
Su Hao was filled with confidence and said, “Next, let’s start the genetic experiments with Little Round Mouse!”
(End of this chapter)
