CH 70

“What do you mean?” He YunTing wrinkled his eyebrows and asked in a deep voice.

Xu Zhiheng felt his own tension and knew there was a clear disorder, and after he organized his expression he continued, “This report, back then, was my student’s idea. He was a little more crazy than me, thinking about the life sciences bordering on paranoia.” He paused, sighed, and seemed to recall something, “but he forgot that in all science-related research and ideas, there’s always the most basic premise, ethics is the bottom line.”

“So what?”

“I can’t predict whether this is a coincidence or whether someone is really already working on it,” Xu Zhiheng analyzed, “but if it’s so, it’s… It’s unethical.”

“Just like when I tried to stop the Burning Blood research, if the research isn’t even ethically convincing, how can we be sure that the final result is really good for humanity?”

Qi Jiamu was silent.

Qi JiaZe had been weak since he was a child, and he was introverted and reticent, so the only person he could trust was himself. The first thing he thought was that it didn’t matter if he spent the rest of his life in a civilian area, he was an Alpha, and he was better than the average person, which allowed Qi JiaZe to spend his childhood in peace.

As long as he could take care of his brother, he didn’t have to fight for his life to be a pillar of the so-called Empire. There were already so many good people, so it wasn’t a big deal if he was willing to be mediocre.

It was a pity that he wasn’t able to get everything he wanted.

The distribution of the Empire was so deformed that it resembled an upside-down triangle. The top tier, which was clearly a minority, enjoyed the most privileged resources, and at all times, they never needed to worry about not having enough at hand; while down the line, the vast majority of resources were distributed to the premium, core race, leaving the commoners with an obvious shortage of things.

Service industry, technology industry, social security, as well as basic medical conditions and educational conditions, the civilian areas could never compete with the core.

To get higher and better, one had to work their way up the ladder.

This was something that Qi Jiamu learned after taking his brother to healthcare services, only to be turned away an unknown number of times.

It was then that he realized that the little wish he had in mind was almost impossible to achieve in the civilian area. Too many people competing for resources and no advantage for himself. His mental strength in the civilian area had been considered the best. Since childhood, there was no one who was his opponent, many people said so, and for such an Alpha not to go to the base to try was a pity.

It was a struggle for him to get into the core area, not to mention others. At least he would no longer have to worry about economic problems.

Qi Jiamu hesitated, but set foot towards the core area. It wasn’t long after he left that Qi JiaZe’s health began to deteriorate. Thinking about it, Qi Jiamu glanced at He YunTing gratefully.

Since Qi JiaZe was secretly transferred to Xu Zhiheng’s lab, his mood seemed to have stabilized quite a bit and his injuries were completely healed, only sometimes he still couldn’t immediately recognize Qi Jiamu. His blood samples and various data were already being analyzed, but since Xu Zhiheng was the only one treating him, progress wasn’t very fast.

But those present were obviously more worried about something else, and He YunTing pondered for a moment, continuing the discussion on the question he had just asked, “What if… if we go by what you said, what is the worst case scenario?”

“Worst case scenario…” Xu Zhiheng’s voice was unprecedentedly serious, “It’s unpredictable. Even if someone has already started practicing, we don’t know what the other party’s experimental body is, and where they got the Zerg gene from, and what changes the combination of the two actually has on humans, and whether it will bring unstoppable consequences…”

These kinds of things, no one knew.

The few people in the room fell back into silence.

A few moments later, He YunTing thought of something and asked again, “Professor Xu. The student who came up with this idea at that time… What is he doing now?”

Xu Zhiheng wasn’t surprised that He YunTing would ask this question and replied truthfully, “He had already left the life science community some years ago, and when he finally left, he destroyed all papers and reports related to me because he still had irreconcilable conflicts with me.”

“What was his name?”

Xu Zhiheng thought of this and there was a pang of loss in his eyes, not knowing if he was lamenting the student who had parted ways with him, “Xi Yuan.”

That night, after He YunTing and Lu AnHe returned to the base, they collected all the news related to Xi Yuan overnight. He seemed to have appeared suddenly beside Wen TianYao, quiet and low-key, but incredibly efficient and cautious, and had never once made a mistake over the years.

His background was also very clean; originally born in the core area, his parents weren’t of low status, and he was smoothly admitted to the Imperial Military University, not surprisingly got full marks, and left with a perfect graduation.

In all the information, there was no mention of this appalling idea in the report.

He YunTing browsed through all the information and pursed his lips.

He had a very subtle feeling.

Seeing Lu AnHe still standing by the side, He YunTing slightly raised his eyes, “Go back to rest first.”

This matter was currently something no one else knew, and after He YunTing returned, in order to prevent further accidents, but also in order to quickly improve the new pilots combat literacy, the base increased the training volume to more than double. No one had any complaints and no one wanted to submit their life to death casually, nor did they want their family and friends, who they care about, to be sad and shed tears because of them.

After returning from the border area, the qualified pilots were officially integrated into the base and became part of the Imperial Army.

Lu AnHe left and He YunTing stayed for a long time again before returning to his room at the base. It was only now that he was idle and got a moment of respite. It was after midnight, He YunTing had little sleep, leaning on the edge of the bed and looking down at the communicator.

He remembered what Lin Han said before he left.

‘Because you are Mr. Lin’s lover.’

For a moment, He YunTing didn’t want to think about anything, Lin Han told him to remember to use the communicator to keep in touch. He pressed his finger on the video screen, almost opening it. But it was too late, Lin Han was probably asleep by now.

He YunTing knew that if he called now, Lin Han wouldn’t be angry, but would use a soft, gentle tone, asking him, ‘What’s wrong?’ and saying a word or two of relief, reassuring him and reassuring himself.

Even though he read his own horrible thoughts, he still chose to hug him, even pressed him back into bed, telling him he would help him.

And earlier in time, Lin Han discussed with him about Xi Yuan, beggingly told himself that he would just go and shake hands with the other man to listen to what he was thinking, and that nothing would happen to reassure him.

He also wanted to do something for him.

He YunTing thought to himself that Lin Han had already done enough. His fingers kept fondling the communicator many times, but finally he didn’t want to press it.

Xi Yuan was too dangerous, and many things clearly had nothing to do with him. He should enjoy a good dream, not accompany him in fear.

He YunTing looked out the window at the unchanging cloudy starry sky and whispered a “good night”.

They were prepared for all possible surprises and were on alert.

But no one expected that the change would come sooner than expected.

The next day, He YunTing still didn’t wait for the military horn to sound to finish packing, just dressed ready to go to the training ground, the communicator rang first. The most critical thing was that it was a special line from the Crown Prince.

He thought it would be Wen TianYao looking for some excuse to come to the base again, but didn’t want to just connect, the voice he heard made He YunTing’s face instantly cold.

The Empire didn’t have marshals, and He YunTing, as the General with the highest military power, could skip over the group of pedantic old men who argued all day in the council and only follow the orders from the Crown Prince in this part about resignation.

But this time the person wasn’t Wen TianYao.

It was a direct order from the Emperor’s side — usually what He YunTing was notified of directly was mostly an emergency, and an event that needed to be taken seriously and required mobilization of military power.

“General, you may need to temporarily stop the training at hand.” The person in charge of delivering the message had a standard official accent, while the visual communication’s lit up with the Emperor’s scepter that represented the ability to mobilize military power, “There’s an urgent matter.”

The Empire governed the M star system, of which the core area was spread out centrally, and in the expansion year after year, gradually annexed many small planets with weak military power and small population one by one, and finally annexed them into their own system.

For example, the two proton planets adjacent to the north, the people of those small planets remain unchanged. They were still attached to the management of the Empire, equivalent to self-administration, but ultimately belonged to the Empire’s territory.

And this incident was in the north of a certain v-shaped proton star.

The people on these proton stars were actually similar to the civilian areas, most of the best people were running to the core, the rest were idle, since they were people with low spiritual power, but the self-regulation was relatively loose than the civilian areas, and could barely get by.

And at some point, strange phenomena began to appear above them.

V Proton was a relatively close asteroid to Bugstar, but even if one was to say ‘close,’ it was only a relative distance, in fact, hundreds of thousands of light years apart. But strangely enough, many people had become ill.

At first, only some Betas appeared unconscious and trembling, shaking, speaking words that others didn’t understand, and had the tendency to attack people. There were only one or two cases of this kind of human originally, and it didn’t attract much attention.

But gradually, everything went wrong.

They started to attack each other,and while they still had reason, this reason was like a regrowth of instinct. Their ability to recover also became more amazing than ever, some of them could even recover quickly without relying on normal drugs.

Of course this wasn’t even the most crucial.

The most crucial thing was—

These people began to display strange symptoms, and the most typical one, was the appearance of vertical pupils. 

“So Mr. Admiral — we must trouble you with a trip this time. The local government of the V Proton Star’s order has been governed incompetently, so the sooner the better, please go ahead and settle this matter.”