472: 4wo, three go.

Li Mo was just about to dial that number, his finger already pressing on the call button, when the door was pushed open.

"Li Mo, I'm back again."

Ye Ouyang stood at the door, peeking half his head in. Li Mo moved his finger away from the phone screen, flipped the phone over face-down on the desk, and turned around.

"Oh, you're here." He tilted his head toward the cage. "Take a look."

Ye Ouyang walked over, leaned against the side of the cage, and stared at the white mouse. The bottom of the cage was soaked in blood, mixed with minced meat and feed residue, forming a sticky mess.

The mouse crouched in the middle of that pile, its belly bulging like a balloon about to burst. It was still stuffing things into its mouth—feed pellets, blood-stained wood chips, things leaking out of its own belly, anything at all, as long as it could be stuffed in.

"Is this... research on my cells?" Ye Ouyang's voice sounded a bit uncertain.

"Yes." Li Mo stood beside him, also looking at the mouse. "There's always a need for some live experiments. After injecting those cells of yours, it turned into this."

"You see, it never knows fullness. Its belly bursts and then heals, heals and then bursts. Clearly unable to digest, yet it keeps eating. Pain seems to no longer exist for it."

Ye Ouyang stared at the mouse for a while.

"So it's a Super-beast without a sense of pain?"

Li Mo thought for a moment.

"It seems so. But also not quite." He picked up the notebook and added another line. "After injecting these cells, the sense of pain seems to disappear. This point must also be noted down."

He finished writing and looked back at the cage.

"I'm currently watching to see what its final outcome will be. But I have a feeling its final result will be starving to death right here."

"Nutrition can't keep up with consumption; the digestive System can't match the metabolic rate. Your cells repair by absorbing nutrients from within the host; they don't carry much energy themselves. This point must also be noted down."

Ye Ouyang nodded without speaking. The mouse in the cage was still eating, its belly bursting and healing, healing and bursting. Li Mo stared at it for a moment, then suddenly spoke.

"By the way, are these cells of yours edible?"

Ye Ouyang froze for a moment.

"What?"

"Your cells need to be injected, which means there must be a wound to enter the host's body."

Li Mo looked at the mouse, his fingers lightly tapping on the tabletop. "What would happen if they were eaten? I just suddenly thought of this question."

Ye Ouyang thought about it and shook his head.

"I have absolutely no idea."

"If you don't know, then let's try it."

Li Mo did not hesitate. He took a cell sample from the shelf, grabbed a new mouse from the cage, pried its mouth open, and poured the liquid from the test tube directly inside. He ensured there were no wounds, no cuts, nothing used—just poured into the stomach. Then he put down the test tube, leaned against the cage, and watched quietly.

Ye Ouyang also leaned in, watching from the other side.

The mouse didn't react at first. It crouched in place, licked its mouth, and its nose twitched a few times, as if savoring what had just been poured in.

Then it began scratching at its face with its claws. After a few scratches, its body started to tremble, starting from the head and shaking all the way down the spine to the tip of the tail.

It took two steps to the side, its legs went weak, and it fell. It climbed up and fell again.

Then it lay on its side on the ground, its four legs kicking straight out. White foam began to spew from its mouth, more and more, overflowing from the corners of its mouth and flowing down its chin to the bottom of the cage. It stopped moving.

Li Mo took the mouse out of the cage, placed it on a dissection tray, and picked up a scalpel. He cut down the center of the chest cavity, slicing all the way down, peeling back the fur to reveal the internal organs. The stomach was greatly distended, its surface turned white, thin as a layer of paper, and one could see it was filled with liquid.

He used tweezers to pick up the stomach wall; with a light touch, it punctured. Liquid gushed out, dripping onto the dissection tray with a slight sizzling sound. The surface of the tray began to bubble.

Ye Ouyang turned his head away, staring at the clock on the wall, the dust on the windowsill, and the smudge on the tip of his shoe that he hadn't noticed before.

His ears were still listening—the sound of the scalpel touching the metal tray, the sound of tweezers picking something up and putting it down, and Li Mo's occasional 'mm,' as if confirming something.

"All right," Li Mo said.

Ye Ouyang turned his head back. The mouse's opened chest cavity had been closed, the internal organs set aside, and the dissection tray was wet. Li Mo took off his gloves and threw them into the trash can.

"How did it die?"

"Gastric acid. Too much gastric juice was secreted, corroding through its own stomach. The acid leaked into the abdominal cavity, burning the surrounding organs as well."

He glanced at the dead mouse, then at the notebook.

"After your cells entered the stomach, they didn't go to repair anything; instead, they directly converted themselves into gastric acid. It seems the regeneration function requires specific triggers—a wound or a defect—for it to repair. If there are none, it doesn't know what it's supposed to do."

Ye Ouyang thought for a bit.

"So this stuff of mine can actually be used as a poison?"

Li Mo was silent for a moment and didn't respond to that. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the mouse in the cage that was still eating incessantly. He watched for a while, then looked at the corpse on the dissection tray burned by gastric acid, before lowering his head to write a few lines in the notebook.

"There is still a long way to go before eternal life." He put down his pen and looked at the two rows of cages, his voice very soft.

"Then again, what if it's made into a low-dose potion? Not too much, just enough to replace those aging cells."

"After the replacement is done, let the medicinal effect disappear on its own. It would be great if there were a Decay Equation."

"A Decay Equation?" Ye Ouyang pulled his gaze back from the cage. "That sounds very sci-fi."

Li Mo leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling.

"We have to start over from the beginning. Take it slow." He paused, his voice so soft it was like he was talking to himself. "For eternal life. It's all for eternal life."

The door was pushed open. Wei Ziqing stood at the doorway, glanced inside, his gaze lingering on the cages for a second before turning to Ye Ouyang.

"Ye Ouyang, you really are here."

Ye Ouyang turned around, a bit surprised.

"What's wrong?"

"There's a mission." Wei Ziqing leaned against the doorframe. "There's an Agricultural Base nearby researching Guided Evolution. They wanted to create a Super Mass-Produced Rice to solve food problems. As it turns out, that thing isn't picky about where it grows—it's filled the entire building. They need someone to clear it out. It's not considered dangerous; just wanted to see if you wanted to come along."

Ye Ouyang looked at Li Mo, then at the mouse in the cage still buried in its food.

"I'll go. Why wouldn't I?" He waved a hand at Li Mo. "I'm off."

Li Mo nodded without looking up.

The two walked out of the lab. The hallway was quiet, with only the sound of distant footsteps and the low hum of the air conditioning. Ye Ouyang walked beside Wei Ziqing, his mind still spinning with the image of that mouse in the cage.

"So plants can evolve too?" he suddenly asked.

Wei Ziqing thought for a moment.

"It seems so. Senior Lu said before that he encountered one with a plant-based evolution path. Supposedly, that memory-erasing potion was made using pollen from an evolved plant."

Ye Ouyang froze for a moment.

"So they originally wanted to solve the food problem, but accidentally ended up creating a food plant with survival capabilities that are too strong?" He paused and laughed first. "This is an agricultural version of Resident Evil."

Wei Ziqing didn't take the bait.

"The goal is to clear it out. The biggest worry is... actually, it's not very likely. How could a plant evolve intelligence?"

Ye Ouyang didn't speak again. He followed behind Wei Ziqing, but his mind began to wander. Intelligence. He thought of the mouse in the cage eating tirelessly, thought of the creatures modified by Gold Weave Cells that were left with only the instinct to feed, and then thought of Wei Ziqing saying 'How could a plant evolve intelligence'—and then his thoughts slid uncontrollably in an even more ridiculous direction.

Intelligent plants.

A row of Sunflowers, a row of Peashooters, and a zombie wearing a football helmet slowly shuffling forward appeared in his mind.

He shook his head, throwing the image out of his mind.

One after the other, the two walked toward the base entrance.