(1)
Fukushima Offshore.
There is a Weather Research Institute here.
But this is just its surface disguise.
Actually, hidden in the basement of the research institute is a special biological research institute.
It doesn’t belong to the government, but to a private entity.
And it’s affiliated with an American company.
Sichuan Minfu is the person in charge of one of the important projects.
The project’s code name is rarely named using Chinese characters, and it’s very concise, only two characters—
“Meteorite.”
“Beep.”
“Identity verification passed.”
Sichuan Minfu walked into the elevator that goes underground. Every time he stood here waiting for it to open again, he had the illusion that he was about to reach the core of the earth.
“Ding-dong.”
The elevator door chime brought him back to reality. He squinted slightly to adjust to the brightness before him.
The research institute was brightly lit, pure white everywhere. Apart from his own area, he rarely went elsewhere—the entire underground space was as vast as a maze, not just limited to this floor.
As the project manager, wherever he went in this area, if he encountered people, they would bow and greet him, except for the few American employees directly dispatched by headquarters.
He didn’t go to the office; instead, he passed through several identity verification doors and arrived at the research center on this floor.
“Mr. Minfu, the project has made progress.”
“Solved that problem?”
“Yes, that problem has been solved. Our research can go deeper now. Although it’s still immature, we can currently attempt human surgery.”
“Did the DNA irradiation modification test pass?”
“No… we directly used a substance extracted from experimental samples to create an imitation, then transplant it as a new organ into the human body. Experiments on monkeys have been successful so far.”
“What were the results?”
“Very astonishing.” The deputy team leader lowered his voice. “The test subject was controlled during eye contact with it. Not only did they try to unlock the safety locks, they even attacked other team members.”
“How is he now?”
“He has recovered. His mind wasn’t affected; he just couldn’t control his body at the time.”
“An astonishing superpower…”
“We suspect that each meteorite brings a different superpower, but currently we cannot determine whether they all cannot interfere with physical matter, or whether they can only affect other organisms through brainwaves.”
“Since the meteorite fell in ’99, our research has never stopped. If only we could obtain a living sample directly affected by the meteorite…”
Sichuan Minfu clasped his hands behind his back, looking at the biological embryos soaking in nutrient fluid, and frowned.
“What about the agents dispatched by the company? Haven’t they completed their mission yet?”
“There is a detailed report here. We contacted some assassins through an intermediary from the International Assassin Organization. All of them either went missing halfway or disappeared after arriving on that land. The longest sustained contact was with an assassin named Jingye Luqiao, but he has also lost contact recently. Based on available intelligence, he was likely shot dead on the spot by Qing Guo Special Police.”
“Jingye Luqiao? That person… is he still an assassin?”
“Mr. Minfu, do you know him?”
“He was my high school classmate. That guy… his grades were good. He once joked with me about assassinating the Prime Minister in the future. Later, he really became an assassin. He helped me with some things.”
Just then, the alarm suddenly sounded inside the research center. Red warning lights reflected a dangerous atmosphere. A team member wearing a white lab coat came scrambling over:
“Team leader! Team leader! The experimental subject is dead!”
“And then?” Obviously, if it were only that, the alarm wouldn’t have been pulled.
“The person who was controlled earlier, Erqiao, suddenly went berserk! He threw concentrated sulfuric acid on someone!”
“What?!”
Researchers fled outward in the chaos, while armed personnel quickly crossed the corridor and rushed into the research center.
A young man in a white lab coat tightly gripped a bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid for experiments, wildly splashing it around, shouting in a deranged tone:
“Ah—come with me, come with me—I’ll take you to a beautiful world… Come with me——! I’ll send you to a beautiful world——!!”
(2)
Xiao Cheng offshore Island Research Institute.
In the spacious and bright director’s office, two bald old men who looked exactly alike sat.
The two stared at each other in silence, until the one sitting in the main seat suddenly let out a laugh:
“Long time no see.”
“I shouldn’t have come to see you.”
“But you still came, Doctor Ye.”
“Yes, I came. Director Ye—it’s strange to address myself that way.”
“We’ve experienced different lives. In a sense, we are already two independent individuals.”
“Any progress in the research?”
“We still don’t understand why the radiation of that meteorite replicated another me exactly alike. However, we can now confirm that this meteorite was indeed made by a civilized being—it is not a cosmic coincidence or joke.”
“…”
Another long silence.
Doctor Ye, sitting opposite, looked at the sea outside the window:
“I plan to go to Lop Nur.”
“Why?”
“A mysterious voice is calling me. I will go with my student—the two of us, the replicated copy bodies, will go together.”
“You know, inside the institute, many people agree on one possibility—that these meteorites with different functions are a gift from an advanced civilization.”
“Different functions?” Doctor Ye squinted. “I think their functions are all the same.”
“Oh?”
“Since childhood, Father hoped that we would become more famous doctors, inheriting his legacy, right?”
“But I don’t want to just be a doctor.” Director Ye gently shook his head.
“Yes, you don’t.” Doctor Ye’s words were meaningful.
(3)
“Still no progress?”
“Please see the report yourself.”
“I just want to know about nuclear fusion technology…”
“Minister, the meteorite is not an all-powerful wish machine. It’s not like you can just say to it every day that you want complete nuclear fusion technology and it will manifest it for you. In fact, the institute has preliminary overturned previous arguments, believing that the meteorite does not use nuclear fusion technology, but rather likely uses antimatter energy, which is even harder for our current technology to understand…”
“If there is no more valuable progress, or a more certain possibility… the national allocation budget will be reduced next year.”
“The Ye family will invest.”
“That amount of investment… can only keep the institute running.”
“We need patience.”
(4)
“Director Ye, after our repeated research, we found that the results of meteorite irradiation may be interfered with by the observer effect.”
“According to previous controlled experiments, we can already summarize a rule.”
“That’s right. We are almost certain that when the observer wants to see a certain result, it will present that result, but within a fixed range. Results beyond that range cannot be achieved.”
“It could also be that there are too few core fragments.”
“It’s just like a wish machine.”
Director Ye let out a long sigh and slowly closed his eyes:
“The speed at which research in the microscopic field consumes funds is too fast. We can’t continue in this direction anymore.”
“Are we going to give up?”
“I still need to adjust the research direction…”
The researcher looked at Director Ye who turned and left, patted his colleague beside him:
“What direction does the director plan to adjust to?”
“Who knows? Anyway, he’s probably not going to keep beating his head against that damned quantum mechanics.”
(5)
Tokyo Haneda Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world.
A black-haired girl with green eyes casually stuffed her baggage claim tag into her coat pocket, shielded the sun with her hand, and glanced at the huge passenger plane slowly docking in the distance:
“Time to board the jet bridge.”
“Mm.” The girl next to her, with dyed blonde hair, nodded lightly. “How long are you going back to play this time?”
“Maybe a few years?”
“Huh?”
“Anyway, Xiaomeng is in charge over there, so just leave it to her, right.”
“That’s so like you, doing everything on a whim…”
“After all, the Qing Kingdom around 2010 was the most damn interesting time. Everywhere showed vigorous vitality, prosperous and free… all kinds of new things popped up like mushrooms after rain.”
“Before, you said you would absolutely never come back.”
“Before was damn before, now is damn now. People change! Anyway, as long as I come back before 2018, it’s fine.”
“You’re not planning to go back and play for eight years, are you? That’s not really just ‘playing’ anymore, is it?”
“How the hell could I stay that long? I’m just saying, anyway, there’s plenty of time, don’t worry so damn much.”
“If you stay one year, you won’t come back for a year?”
“Not necessarily. I might get bored after a while and come back, then after a while get the damn urge to go again.”
“You really do whatever you want.”
“Let’s go, let’s go. What are you daydreaming about? Time to board the plane.”
“Phew, haven’t been back in a long time… I wonder what H City has become…”
“Surely a lot of things have been torn down and a lot of new things built. Hmm… probably beyond recognition.”
“That exaggerated?”
“It’s been so many years.”
“It hasn’t been that many years, has it?” The blonde girl pouted. “Ah, did you bring your eye mask?”
“Just ask the flight attendant.”
“Will they give them out?”
“Yes.”
“The last time I flew was two years ago, I kind of forgot…” The green-eyed girl looked at her sideways and clicked her tongue. “Hurry up, damn it. Jinyu and Huaniao are waiting for us.”
“I kind of need to use the bathroom…”
“On the plane! Damn it, why didn’t you go just now!”
“Cough, I was a bit distracted just now…”
“You sure took your time spacing out.” The green-eyed girl rolled her eyes dramatically and waved vigorously at the other two girls in the distance. “You two go ahead first—we’re coming—!”
The brilliant sunlight filtered through the blue glass of the jet bridge, casting a soft glow on the two girls’ fair skin, making them look like two glowing fairies.