161 – Zoo

“Why does it look like a  zoo outside?” asked the workers as they sat down to eat their meals. “Are we finally going to have meat in our meals?”

The Shennong factory’s cafeteria was large and spacious and it served many delicious dishes, using a lot of the fresh ingredients directly from the greenhouse. There was only one complaint, the lack of meat.

“Not any time soon,” the other worker replied. “I heard they are moving some animals into the laboratory for testing.”

“Animal testing? Ah man, those rabbits looked tasty though. There are even chickens.”

“Chickens? Oh, is that why they built a coop near the farm? Is the company going to explore more agricultural products?”

“Hopefully some eggs and meat!”

“Eating salads every day isn’t too bad. My wife complimented me on my complexion the other day!”

Inside the laboratory, Li Yun inspected the wall of caged animals staring back at him. Some were clueless, some were scared, and some were minding their own business, not knowing their fates.

“You are all chosen to lead your species into the unknown expanse we call civilization and technology,” Li Yun announced to the animals. Li Yun needed them as a front to explain some of the data he had been extracting from his own body, but they don’t know that.

“You!” Li Yun pointed to a little frightened kitten. Li Yun petted the kitten and almost got scratched by its claws. “I’ll call you Diyu just for trying to attack me.”

Li Yun had ordered the animals online at a very cheap price, so he wasn’t sure what sort of conditions they were in. Diyu was a mixed breed, very likely from a stray’s litter. It was advertised as 5 weeks old and a Scottish Fold, but it was likely a shorthair mixed. Unfortunately, there was something swimming inside its stomach.

"How to get rid of tapeworms," he typed the word quickly onto the search engine. Luckily, out of all the recommendations, he had praziquantel in the lab.

DaYun: How much praziquantel should I use on a 600 gram kitten with tapeworm?

QiSho: You're not planning to steal my job?

DaYun: I have an animal that’s sick, I need to cure it.

QiSho: Why not bring it to the vet?

DaYun: It’s one of my testing animals.

QiSho: F*** you! Don’t test on animals.

DaYun: *post cute kitten picture* It’s in pain, you’re not going to leave it hanging?

QiSho: 20 mg injection daily. Why the f*** are you testing on a cat!?

Li Yun ignored him and muted QiSho’s message. The guy was going to continue ranting after he turned off his Ourchat app. He turned his attention back onto Diyu, injected the medicine, and carefully placed him back into the cage.

After dealing with Diyu, he named all the animals according to their facial characteristics. Finally, he looked at one of his more exotic acquisitions, the draco. It was a little disappointing, the little lizard was only 20 cm long. The one he had seen in the woods was over 200 cm long.

Li Yun petted the tail, and looked into its CV system. Draco, like most reptiles, had a closed circulatory system and three heart chambers consisting of two atria and one ventricle. The ventricle was unique as it contained both oxygenated and deoxygenated blood. 

The human CV system evolved to a more metabolically efficient system of four chambers from the three chambers. The giant flying lizard was definitely a lizard, but a more robust version of the draco and had four chambers like a crocodile. He studied its anatomy and drew the knowledge into a notebook.

With all the information gathered, he focused on understanding his internal systems. After being stuck in the woods, he had a better sense of how his meridians were communicating with his physical body. His meridian channels weren’t physically connected, but they were transmitting signals to his nervous system using qi.

The nervous system was made up of neurons that transferred chemical and electrical signals to other neurons via a structure called synapses. His meridians were able to send qi, through different variations of frequency that triggered concern action potentials in his nervous system, like commanding his body to heal his body quickly.

The more he understood, the more he was able to see the inner workings of his body. However, it didn’t mean he could manipulate it like he had when he was actively trying to remove the poison. When he had attempted to replicate his manipulation of the meridians channels, it wasn’t working as it had before. He lacked the sense of urgency back then, but there was a possibility that he could achieve it with more practice.

After he finished work, Hun Lun drove him home. Hun Lun thought it was unusualthat Li Yun didn’t fall asleep immediately.

“Do you ka now wat ti me it ees?” Li Yun said the word slowly.

“Boss, are you studying German?” asked Hun Lun.

“English.”

“English?” Hun Lun tilted his head; it did not sound like English.

“Oh, you have a British accent,” Li Yun could tell from Hun Lun’s response that his accent came from the Old Bright Country. Despite Li Yun not being able to imitate voices, his hearing was quite sharp. “Were you educated in Old Bright?”

Hun Lun was surprised by the question. It wasn’t in his resume, so he wasn’t sure if he should lie.

“Just briefly,” he replied. “Boss, I don’t think your language skill is a problem.” He had seen some medical reports written by Li Yun in English. “I think you need a voice coach.”

Li Yun closed out his app, and thought for a moment. That wasn’t a bad idea. It wasn’t like Li Yun couldn’t understand the language, it was that he wasn’t used to creating certain sounds. Creating a sound required more complex workings of mouth, tongue, lips, nose, diaphragm and larynx.

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” Li Yun said. “How was your vacation last week? Did you visit your family?”

“Yes,” Hun Lun replied.

He had returned to Magic City to visit his family for a few days, but it was mainly to meet with his real employer. After a month, the researchers were still unable to replicate the growth of the plants in their greenhouse. Some had even accused Hun Lun of bringing them false intel.

Hun Lun had already considered the probability that there were still hidden secrets in Shennong, but after working for the factory, he had lost some motivation to provide his real employer with information.

He made 200k a year from spying, and every piece of intel was an additional 5000 yuan. In addition, he was also getting paid 300k/year for working full time at Shennong. However, the culture at Shennong was much healthier than at Berne. The bosses encouraged continuing education for all staff, from the farmers, cleaning crew, to the upper management position. 

After a 4-months probationary period, Shennong offered to pay for education during employment.  A few of the farmers had taken the offer with hopes of working in the downtown office and getting a promotion.

It wasn’t just about education, character and personal well-being were important. The CEO had demoted a supervisor from the spot for harassing the employees. The only reason the supervisor remained was because had begged the company to punish him with a demotion. A big part was the various benefits like stipends to live close to the workplace.

Hun Lun was surprised that Berne allowed him to continue working even after wasting some of their resources, but he was sure they would fire him during the next evaluation meeting. He wasn’t concerned about being fired; he was more concerned about his identity being revealed to Li Yun. He wasn’t sure how he would be able to face him once the truth was revealed.

When he reunited with his wife at home, he confided in her about his dilemma. No one else in his personal life knew of his situation aside from his wife. She told him to do what he felt was right, and she would support his decision.

Mustering up his courage, Hun Lun spoke up, “Boss… I need to tell you something. I’m actually an employee at Berne…”