Global Evolution

Chapter 84: The Most Desired Genes

Translator: Letty Editor: DarkGem

Zhuo fired the rifle as he spoke, the sound of the gunfire filling the void of the experimental field. Bullets were ejected from the gun barrel like cheetahs, they all bolted toward the same target -- that hairless bizarre man.

Ratatatat -- --!

These metal cheetahs crashed into the man’s pale skin, making a series of deep sounds. Zhuo threw aside the rifle, watching Qing Shui go closer to the strange man. He almost couldn’t disguise his exhaltation.

“Ah,” the strange man moaned as he saw Qing Shui come closer to him. He raised his right arm, slowly gouging out the bullets from the indentations on its surface. Some bullets had been lucky enough to penetrate his skin but none of them went far enough to injure his organs.

“What do you think of it?” Zhuo laughed out loud with pleasure. “I made him bullet proof! Qing Shui, did you see that? The bonus of this perfect layer of keratin scales is that despite its resistance to impact, it won’t slow down his movement at all!”

“Catch it!” Zhuo bent down to pick up the rifle again and threw it to the strange man. “Rip it.”

“Ah.” The strange man caught the rifle in the air precisely with two hands as if it was a programmed sequence of actions. He broke the rifle in half by smashing it to his raised knee. He even went further. The broken rifle returned to his knee, the two pieces crushed in half once more. It became four pieces of wasted metal laid on the ground.

“This is how powerful it is.” Zhuo turned to the pale man and shouted, “Come on! Show Mr. Li how fast you are and how you can react.”

The pale man immediately ran around the experimental field as Zhuo commanded. His heavy steps left indentations on the floor. Meanwhile, Zhuo approached Qing Shui to pick up the rifle pieces, flinging each of them to a different corner.

And because he hurled those gun pieces from different angles, the flight paths were quite different from each other. However, the pale man accelerated accordingly and caught the gun pieces one by one as if he was programmed to run this way.

The strange man demonstrated his flexibility and balance as he grabbed all of the pieces before they touched the ground. He didn’t even make loud noises during his actions. It was purely an elegant sequence of movements.

“Now, come back!” Zhuo shouted again and the pale man returned to him with the gun pieces in hand. He opened his palm to submit his mission.

“What do you think?” Zhuo flaunted arrogantly as the pale man had performed as well as he planned him to do.

“Not too bad, I don’t think a troop would be able to subdue him.”

Qing Shui stepped closer to carefully observe the man-made creature again. It was as if he wanted to engrave every detail in his mind.

When looking into the pale man’s pupils, he said, “However, his intelligence seems lacking. It deviates far from average.”

“You are not wrong, and that is because I inserted gene segments from other species.” Zhuo didn’t avoid talking about the disadvantages. “Those gene segments messed up with its development. But I don’t care whether it is intelligent or not. I think intelligence would be even troublesome for me. As long as it listens to my commands... Don’t you think?” Zhuo said, fondling the fine scales on the pale man.

His eyes were filled with joy.

“Ah.” The pale man dully nodded.

“On top of that, he can’t evolve further, can he?” Qing Shui continued. “His genes are broken in some way so mutation will be hard.”

“True, it can’t reproduce either, besides having low intelligence and being unable to evolve,” Zhuo said. “Those are the defects but they mean nothing to me. I would say those are even good news - because all I want is a force that is obedient. I can manage to improve their genes and soon we will have the second generation.

“As to natural evolution, although it is faster than before, it is still much slower than my technique.” Zhuo reveled in his madness. “I can always extract the best DNA sequences out of the most aggressive species in the nature and insert them into my super soldier prototypes. The natural evolution is way too slow. Humans are atop the other species and this fact will not change. How dare they to challenge the thousands of years of human history and technology?

“I am glad that the red fog, this gift from the god, awarded such a brilliant era for scientists like myself. An era of global evolution, an era of chaos. I’ve even executed experiments that I never thought I could conduct in my life! Are there times that are better than we have right now? Join me...” Zhuo reached out his hand to Qing Shui. “Join my research group. I need you, and you are the only person who would be truly helpful to me. Neither of us is superior to the other, and so we will only conduct the research we love with the time on our side.”

“Humankind will prosper with elites like you and me. Those other stupid pigs don’t deserve to pass on their genes.” Zhuo kept on proposing his great plan, his eyes revealing his bloodthirstiness. “What do you think, Mr. Li? If you’ve made up your mind already, just tell me your decision right now!”

“Sure.” Qing Shui nodded, he grinned as he spoke. “My answer is positive, even if I wanted to turn down your offer, I simply cannot turn my back to the temptation of science.”

“I need your answer to be more clear.”

“I am joining.” Qing Shui glanced at Zhuo and the pale man beside him, laughed. “And I just don’t think I have a chance to say no in here.”

“Hahaha, well, I never meant to threaten you! My invitation is sincere.” Zhuo waved his left hand in the air for the pale man to go away and he reached out his right arm to Qing Shui. “Welcome to Alpha, the team of elites.”

“My pleasure.”

The hands of two young men were held tightly together.

....

16 days later

At the training field of special forces.

“Mr. Li left us two weeks ago with only a memo stick on the table saying, ‘I am off to research’. I haven’t seen him since then,” Chang complained to Ming Yi while exercising in the temporary training field beside the institute building.“I am worried about him, what if he is in trouble?”

“Mr. Li is much smarter than any of us, what trouble could he run into?” Ming Yi was dressed in a uniform and kept his hands busy by cleaning his pistol. “Now that we have sufficient food, and it is peaceful living in here, everybody is preparing to reconstruct the city! What could possibly happen? What’s more, he even used his new connections to get you access to this place.”

“Indeed, but I just feel perturbed since I don’t see his face.” Chang got familiar with his pistol fairly quickly. “Although he is kind enough to arrange this, he never showed up to say something but only had someone tell me to learn to use weapons. There are so many! How can I master all of them in such a short period of time?”

“He didn’t ask you to master them all but to know how to use them. Isn’t that simple?” Ming Yi laughed. “I know it’s hard to aim accurately, but it is easy to pull a trigger.”

“I can’t disagree.” Chang lowered his head.

He stopped talking and put all his strength in training. He didn’t leave the field until sunset. The sun slowly lost its brightness and it was time for Chang to drag his body back to the suite. Jing, as always, was there, waiting for him as he opened the door.

“I am back,” Chang said, leaning heavily against the door and seamlessly shutting out the light from the hallway.

“You are back,” Jing replied in delight but she seemed to have something on her mind.

“Mr. Li just came,” she whispered to Chang. “He seemed flustered as if he was hiding from something. He was here only for less than a minute before leaving a message and disappearing again.”

“What did he say?” Chang felt the tension in the air.

“He asked you to go to his lab, the one you’ve been to, tonight at midnight.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No but he asked you to hide all traces of yourself so no one would be able to find you,” Jing said. “But you have me with you, I won’t let anyone get close to you.”

“Great.” Chang patted Jing’s soft hair, and they sat together in silence, waiting for the midnight to come.

Their concern made them unsettled. They constantly checked the watch for time -- it was 11:50 PM the last time they looked at the watch.

“Let’s go,” Chang said, opening the door with Jing on his back.

Aided by her, he bypassed groups of patrolling soldiers and arrived in front of the lab at 12:00 AM. Qing Shui was sitting behind the table, apparently, having been waiting for long.

Chang entered the room with uneasiness, it was his first time seeing Qing Shui in person in the last 16 days.

“You look like you haven’t slept in at least three or four days,” Chang stated, staring at Qing Shui’s tired face. He was still the same person but drained, his eyeballs bloodshot.

“Maybe it is for that long, but that is not important... I just want to ask you one thing today.” Qing Shui gazed at him with his red eyes. “Are you willing to become me? Wait, allow me to put it into different words, do you want to own my best part?”

“Becoming you? What do you mean by owning your best part?” Chang was confused.

“To own my DNA segments.” Qing Shui took out two tiny bottles from his lab coat: one was red and the other green. He raised the red one in front of Chang’s eyes. “Here, it contains my DNA segment, and of course, it is the best of me.”

“And this, you might be wondering.” Qing Shui pointed to the green bottle, “This is what I separated from the red fog, a composition that makes a strong promoter. Even Zhuo hasn’t find it. It significantly improves the success rate of transgene construction. But with all these good things I have talked about, there come risks. The promoter created by this composition can only be used once. That means everyone only has one chance. And the chance of failure... it exists.”

“What if it fails?” Chang asked.

“Death,” Qing Shui answered quietly. “That’s why I thought to ask you if you wanted to own the best part of me.”

“How positive are you of this construction?”

“70% - 90%, I can’t give you the exact percentage,” Qing Shui’s said in a soft voice.

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