Mermaids who can conduct experiments
Li Liguo sat in front of the cage for a full half hour, rambling on and on. Leaving aside his bland and pointless ramblings, the main point was actually very simple, just one sentence:
We need your assistance in this experiment to prove that your theoretical findings are effective enough.
"Director Li, this is...this is..."
After Li Liguo finally left, Yunhe gritted his teeth and forced out a few words through gritted teeth: "He sold people out and then forced them to count the money for him—what a shrewd schemer! So calculating. Isn't that a bit...!"
"Cloud Researcher".
Shen Huai'an, who was drinking the last bit of nutrient solution, suddenly spoke up: "Bring me some wine."
?
Yunhe was a little bewildered by his abrupt change of topic. But she couldn't say anything, so she could only shut her mouth, obediently taking the "bet" bottle from the refrigerator, her voice muffled:
"It's a promise, no drinking too much." The injury hasn't healed yet, and besides, drinking too much will cause trouble...
After Shen Huai'an began to sip his wine, she cautiously asked him, "Is it a transformation?"
"Yes." Surprisingly, Shen Huai'an didn't mince words this time and answered her question directly. Yun He paused, then asked, "This thing...you really figured it out? Is it effective?"
Her attention was immediately diverted, and she said thoughtfully, "Wait a minute? We shouldn't have chosen you for the experiment. We should have chosen humans..."
There are two paths.
Shen Huai'an put down his empty cup, his expression unusually serious: "One is positive transformation, which is what you think—turning humans into mermaids. And another..."
His gaze fell on Er Gou, who was splashing around happily in the other pool: "It's about turning mermaids into humans, a reversal."
"Yay!" Er Gou perked up again when he saw him looking in his direction. Yun He's heart skipped a beat, and he became more hesitant, saying, "So, Director Li..."
She carefully chose her words: "First, we'll figure out the reversal process. Then we'll take you—"
Shen Huai'an slowly shook his head.
“It’s Er Gou,” he said softly.
Yunhe's pupils suddenly dilated, and the recorder in her hand fell to the ground with a "clatter," narrowly avoiding hitting her own foot!
"……no."
After an unbearable silence, she stared blankly at the mermaid in the cage and mechanically repeated, "You can't do this...you can't do this..."
"Yunhe," Shen Huai'an said with a hint of helplessness, "Don't rush."
"Shen Huai'an!" Yun He's voice turned cold. She seemed to have suddenly forgotten that not long ago she had just "sincerely confessed" her feelings to him, her face turning deathly pale: "It's a life too!"
This was irrational. She knew it was too irrational, too "unprofessional," too un-"researcher-like." She also knew that Li Liguo and his team's choice of Er Gou as their experimental subject was almost inevitable:
So far, besides Er Gou, the only "defective product" in the GI Research Institute, there are no other mermaids. And someone of Shen Huai'an's "noble" pure bloodline would absolutely not be the first choice for experiments with unknown risks!
But to her, Er Gou was different from the other test subjects—
She had been in charge of it ever since she arrived at GI. In her mind, it was no longer just an artificial mermaid numbered X79, but more than that…
Her "partner".
Even if its intelligence is indeed not very high.
Yunhe knew that to Er Gou, she was its whole world. And to her, even raising a cat or dog for three years would have created a bond, let alone a humanoid creature with the intelligence of a child!
“I know,” Shen Huai’an said, his voice softening as he saw her eyes were red-rimmed—whether from anger or fear, he couldn’t tell. “But I assure you, it won’t be dangerous.”
What guarantee do you have?
Yunhe was furious and blurted out in a harsh voice, "You can't even protect yourself! Besides, you made this yourself, why don't you take responsibility and make someone else take the blame!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, she immediately regretted them.
After a long, unbearable silence.
"Don't worry." Shen Huai'an maintained his good manners and calm voice, seemingly unaffected by Yun He's intense emotions: "If I can't do it, I'll be next."
——————————
On the day Er Gou was sent to the top-level laboratory, Yun He was like a wilted eggplant all day long, listless to an appalling degree.
She desperately wanted to see Er Gou in person, but she didn't have the authority. After waiting all day, finally the day for the experimental results arrived. Just as she was about to go out to check on things, a young researcher pushed open the door, his cold voice distorted through his protective suit:
"S1. Director Li asked me to ask you: all the parameters are correct, but X79 has not converted as expected. What's going on?"
Yun's head buzzed, and she nearly fell over. Shen Huai'an's expression hardened: "Is the experimental subject still alive?"
"Still alive," the researcher said coldly. "However, the experiment failed. According to the plan, it will be disposed of in a harmless manner after the experiment."
"!" Yunhe's eyes widened suddenly. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end, nothing came out.
"take me."
But then Shen Huai'an spoke calmly, his tone completely unquestionable and unprecedentedly firm. The researcher was slightly taken aback, then stared at him incredulously for a few moments:
Like most researchers in the institute, he knew very little about the talking alien creature before him and hadn't been particularly interested in it before. But upon closer inspection, he discovered that this creature was not only strangely beautiful and exceptionally intelligent, but its emotions were also remarkably stable... so stable that it didn't seem like an alien species at all.
"Take me there." Seeing the researcher staring blankly at him without saying a word, Shen Huai'an patiently added, "I have a way."
——————————
Li Liguo was about to end the experiment when, unexpectedly, someone who should never have been here appeared right in front of him.
It is S1.
Of course, it couldn't possibly "walk" over by itself—making a fish walk over is probably the coldest joke he could think of, bar none.
Shen Huai'an was "pushed" in. Yun He, as the person directly responsible, was currently leaning against the back of the cramped, makeshift glass cage used for transport, panting as he and several other researchers pushed him in—the scene was indescribably bizarre and comical. Before Li Liguo could question him, he spoke first:
"Open the cage, I'll take care of it."
"..."
This shocked not only Li Liguo, but also a room full of dumbfounded researchers.
Were they all sleepwalking? Otherwise, how could they possibly see such a bizarre scene?
—A mermaid who can not only talk, but also claims to be able to conduct experiments and perform surgery?!
Is Darwin finally turning in his grave?
"You...you, you..."
Li Liguo uttered the word "you" three times in a row. He genuinely wanted to question Shen Huai'an, reprimand Yun He, and lash out in a fit of rage, but the fear of the experiment's failure ultimately triumphed over reason.
Finally, after struggling for a long time, he could only manage to utter one sentence: "Your hands can still be used for experiments?"
...
It turns out that mermaids can not only conduct experiments, but they do so more skillfully and reliably than humans.
"The sample mRNA stability is abnormal. Rerun the qPCR and add Actb as an internal control gene - the GAPDH you just used has too much bias and the data is not reliable."
"..." The other researchers exchanged glances, none daring to speak or make a move. Finally, Li Liguo sighed in despair and slammed his hands down a few times: "Do it! Do as it says!"
If anything goes wrong, let that little brat surnamed Yun take the blame!
“Furthermore,” the mermaid propped herself up on her tail, her long fingers deftly manipulating the scalpel, the chain on her wrist making a slight rustling sound, “the activation pathway is wrong. You are currently using the human BMP-4 sequence, but the promoter region of this hybrid contains some conserved sequences homologous to whale sharks and will not respond to your inducing factors.”
"What are you all standing there for? Go and fix it right now!" Li Liguo roared fiercely. The young researchers, as if waking from a dream, hurriedly threw themselves back into the experiment.
Shen Huai'an had already detected a segment of neurons. "In addition, the promoter was changed to a combination of PAX6 and SOX2 co-activation, and the expression level of OCT4 was downregulated."
"..." The researcher who was originally in charge of the procedure finally couldn't sit still any longer and couldn't help but interject: "But we followed the standard protocol in the 'Guideline for Xenogeneic Germ Layer Induction Experiments'—"
"That guide was written ten years ago."
Shen Huai'an interrupted him without any politeness: "It is aimed at A-level experimental subjects, while X79 is a Beta-level synthetic species with an artificial pheromone regulation module added. Its central nervous system is not yet fully developed, and misuse of inducing factors will only lead to ectopic activation of the neural crest block."
He raised his eyes, his voice turning colder:
"—Do you want it to grow two heads, or five legs?"
A deathly silence fell. No one dared to speak.
“If we continue to use the misaligned coding system, its telomere activity will be exhausted within 48 hours. At that time, let alone transforming into a human form, it will not even be able to maintain ‘gender differentiation’.”
His gaze shifted to the gene regulation map on the instrument, and he suddenly smiled faintly: "They're still using CRISPR-Cas9. Five-year-old technology. Who uses this kind of off-target device for structural editing these days?"
"It is recommended to switch to Prime Editing, first to accurately replace the PRDM15 sequence on the long arm of chromosome 8, and then to perform EpiTOF-level epigenetic modification analysis to observe the methylation differences before and after human morphology induction."
“Oh, right,” he added, his tone carrying a hint of the arrogance and impatience that was originally his, “Chief Chen,” “Don’t forget to monitor the activity changes of TET2 and DNMT3A simultaneously. You haven’t forgotten that during the mermaid transformation process, the mental energy channel relies on the regulation of non-coding RNA, have you?”
No one answered. No one dared to question it.
...
One hour later.
The X79, which had been completely unresponsive, suddenly started to move its tail.
The fish tail, which was originally covered with dark scales and was thick and powerful, began to twitch and bend unnaturally under the dual attack of drug stimulation and gene activation, as if a force was tearing it apart, dismantling it, and reconstructing it from the inside.
As the water shimmered, the tail fin, which had once been as heavy and powerful as a sea beast, began to slowly split open from the center, peeling away inch by inch along the end of the spine, at the junction of flesh and blood.
Yunhe held her breath. She saw clear tissue fluid mixed with blood gushing from the wound, scales like peeling silver leaves, slowly sinking.
Then, the muscle fibers unfolded like flower petals, the muscle bundles on both sides gradually lengthened symmetrically, and the blood vessels spread downwards like roots, revealing the hidden human skeleton emerging from the cocoon.
That was no longer a tail—
Instead, they were two legs that had not yet taken shape.
“The hip joint has formed…” Shen Huai’an murmured softly, his gaze gentle and calm, as if he were observing a long sacrificial ceremony.
Yunhe opened her eyes wide, watching the nascent legs slowly stretch in the blood—
The tibia and fibula grow in sequence, and the position of the ankle is automatically corrected as if pulled by invisible threads. As for the soles of the feet... those feet are as delicate as a newborn baby's, with slightly curled toes, bare and soft, but no longer bearing any structural features of fish.
"Breathing is stable."
"Neural bundle reconnection complete."
"The coccyx has completely retracted."
The experiment is over.
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