Chen Hao squatted in front of the breeding rack, his eyes fixed on the three dark golden silkworms. They were still moving, their heads swinging back and forth like pendulums, the rhythm so steady it seemed they were controlled by some program rather than living creatures. A very thin thread was slowly pulled out from the mouth of one of them, so transparent it was almost invisible, only revealing a faint pulsating luster when the light shone at an angle.
"Don't touch it." He raised his hand to stop Nana's outstretched mechanical arm. "This thing broke as soon as I touched it. Are we examining an artifact or testing materials?"
Nana withdrew her arm, and the optical lens slightly adjusted its focus. "Switched to non-contact monitoring mode, initiating high frame rate capture."
The projection on the wall instantly unfolded, magnifying the image dozens of times. The thread appeared eerie yet orderly in slow motion, each micrometer of extension accompanied by a slight resonance at the molecular level, as if some kind of signal was being encoded into it.
“It’s not spinning silk,” Chen Hao murmured. “It’s… transmitting a message?”
“We cannot rule out the possibility of bioelectric signal transmission.” Nana’s voice was calm. “Infrared imaging shows regular discharges in its brain ganglia, with a frequency consistent with the vibration of the filaments, which may be an information carrier.”
"Information?" He scratched his head. "Could it be that this bug has developed intelligence from eating wheat flour? Are we not busy enough? Now even bugs are doing scientific research?"
Despite saying that, his eyes lit up. He reached out and touched the newly made composite cable beside him; its surface was smooth and thick with golden silk, like armor covering the metal core. Looking at the three strange-looking silkworms in front of him, a thought suddenly popped into his head.
"Wait a minute... If ordinary silkworms can spit out golden silk after eating wheat flour containing meteorite components, then do these guys... eat even more? Or absorb it even better?"
“The speculation is reasonable.” Nana pulled up the data stream. “The density of mineral deposits in its body was detected to be 3.2 times that of similar individuals, and it was concentrated in the salivary gland area. Preliminary judgment is that this silk has a higher level of biomineralization characteristics.”
"So that means—" Chen Hao grinned, "we've raised three 'elite class' students? While they're busy with silkworm weaving, they're doing cutting-edge materials research?"
“The purpose of its actions cannot be confirmed at present.” She paused, “but the collected silk samples, after quantum tunneling simulation analysis, showed that the dielectric strength exceeded 30 kilovolts per millimeter, the tensile strength was more than five times that of ordinary industrial standards, and it had a self-healing tendency.”
"Self-healing?" He jumped up, nearly bumping his head on the ventilation duct above him. "You mean, this thing can heal itself if it breaks?"
"Under suitable temperature and humidity conditions, molecular chains can rearrange and rejoin, with an efficiency of about 67 percent."
Chen Hao paused for a few seconds, then suddenly burst out laughing: "Great! This isn't just an electrical wire, it's an ancestral treasure! From now on, if anyone's electrical wire breaks, they won't need to replace it; they can just worship it for a couple of days."
He turned and walked towards the control panel, his steps as light as a child who had just discovered a hidden pocket of money. "Quickly measure the limit parameters; I need to know exactly how much voltage it can withstand."
“The existing equipment can withstand a maximum pressure of 50,000 volts,” Nana warned. “The estimated value is far beyond this range, and direct testing could damage the equipment.”
“Then let’s take a roundabout approach.” He picked up a marker and drew a simple diagram on the screen. “Wrap this wire around the high-voltage interface, connect it to the power grid for three days, and see if it breaks down. Anyway, we have more electricity than we can use.”
"The risk lies in the scarcity of samples; currently, only 9.8 centimeters of usable silk thread have been collected."
"Then use it sparingly." He carefully cut off a two-centimeter-long piece of silk, held it in both hands, and handed it to Nana. "Handle it gently; this is my future retirement fund."
Nana took the sample and precisely embedded it into the test fixture. A few minutes later, the wire was fixed to the main electrode of the power grid branch in area C, and as the system restarted, current was slowly injected.
“Running has begun,” she said. “Stability is expected to be assessed in 72 hours.”
"Okay, I'm going to take a nap." He yawned, then turned back and instructed, "Call me immediately if there's any movement, even if it's just a flash of light, it's a big deal."
He didn't actually go to sleep; instead, he curled up in a chair in the corner of the control room, scrolling through the database. Page after page of the screen turned, all old files about interstellar civilian supplies transactions. Insulation materials, special fibers, military-grade packaging technology… the records made his eyelids droop, until Nana's voice rang out.
"Match complete".
He sat up abruptly.
"In the interstellar exchange records of the past five years, the three materials with the closest performance are titanium alloy braided layers, carbon nanotube coatings, and military-grade ceramic fibers." She pulled up a comparison table, "Considering pressure resistance, strength, lifespan, and maintenance costs, the equivalent value is calculated—"
"Stop with the nonsense, just get to the money."
"Each gram of golden silk is estimated to be equivalent to one gram of gold."
The air fell silent for a moment.
Then Chen Hao jumped up from the chair, as if someone had stepped on his foot.
"What? More expensive than gold? Are we raising insects or refining elixirs?"
He rushed to the main control screen, staring at the string of numbers repeatedly, his expression slowly shifting from shock to ecstatic joy. "Holy crap... Holy crap! This isn't a silkworm, it's a money printing machine! One silkworm produces ten grams of silk, so eighty thousand silkworms would be eight hundred kilograms of gold?!"
"The prerequisite is to achieve stable mass production," Nana calmly added, "and a quality control system needs to be established to prevent inferior yarn from being mixed in and causing market trust to collapse."
“What are you thinking about!” He grabbed the cable wrapped in gold wire, held it up to the light, and said, “This thing could sell tickets at an exhibition! I’ll make a cloak for it and wear it to the Interstellar Expo. I’ve even thought of a title for it— ‘How to raise a gold mine for the price of a meal.’”
“I suggest prioritizing intellectual property protection.” Nana opened a template document. “The export of technology without registration carries legal risks. Historically, there have been cases where inventors had their achievements forcibly seized by the Chamber of Commerce because they failed to register patents in time.”
"I still have to write documents?" He frowned. "Can't we just sell one to test the waters? Let me taste what it's like to be a tycoon."
“There are too many uncontrollable factors.” Her tone remained unchanged. “Once the samples enter the black market, it will be difficult to curb counterfeiting and reverse engineering.”
Chen Hao frowned and pondered for a while, then suddenly slammed his hand on the table: "Alright, let's do it your way. First, get the patent, then make the display product." His eyes darted around, "But this display product has to be really something, so that people can tell at a glance that it can't be copied."
"Purpose design?"
"Bulletproof," he blurted out. "Take this silk, weave it into armor, and try firing a shot. If it really stops the bullet, who would dare say it's fake?"
"The experiment requires a safe isolation zone and a high-speed ballistic simulation device."
“Yes, we have them all.” He waved his hand. “We can just renovate that abandoned warehouse on the east side of the farm. Anyway, the birds don’t dare to go near the electric fence now, so it’s quiet there.”
He was about to leave when Nana called him back.
"Currently, three abnormal individuals are still continuously spinning silk, and the behavior has not stopped."
He stopped and looked back towards the breeding shed. Through the glass, the three dark golden silkworms remained fixed in place, their heads swaying incessantly, like perpetual motion machines.
“Could they be transmitting something?” he asked in a low voice. “I’m not kidding, look at the frequency, it’s all so neat and orderly, like Morse code.”
"Decoding in progress." Nana's indicator light flashed slightly. "Preliminary analysis shows that the signal period conforms to a certain mathematical sequence, possibly a Fibonacci ratio."
"So they're not spinning silk." Chen Hao's eyes widened slowly. "They're...writing papers?"
He stood still, still clutching the cable in his hand. Under the light, the golden silk gleamed heavily, like the seal of some ancient pact.
A moment later, he suddenly laughed.
"Alright, write whatever you want, but remember to sign it as 'Producer Chen Hao' when you're done."
He turned and walked towards the control panel, his steps becoming much more steady. Nana had already begun retrieving the patent application template and simultaneously initiated long-term stability monitoring of the new type of thread.
At the end of the corridor, the lights in the breeding shed were still on.
The three silkworms were still swaying their heads, and the transparent silk threads gradually lengthened, hanging down to the edge of the support, their ends trembling gently, like an unresolved question mark.
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