473: Chapter 469 Arrogance

The Agricultural Experimental Base outside the city was currently in a state of chaos.

The laboratory building was no longer recognizable. Green vines squeezed out from every window, crawling along the exterior walls and wrapping the entire structure into a massive, fuzzy green cube.

Occasionally, a few ears of rice poked their heads out from the gaps between the leaves, hanging heavy and swaying gently in the wind.

The Researchers had long since retreated to a safe distance. The temporary Command Center tent was pitched on an open space two hundred meters away, with several monitors lined up showing surveillance footage from various angles inside the building.

Green—it was all green. Occasionally, the corners of an Experimental Table or broken pipes could be seen peeking out from beneath the leaves.

Su Muchen stood at the very front, staring at the motionless green on the screen.

The people behind him didn't dare get too close, and no one dared to leave. He was the person in charge of this project, and also the youngest.

Everyone knew how smooth his life had been—from his student days, every experiment he conducted and every paper he wrote succeeded when it was supposed to succeed and was published when it was supposed to be published.

His mentor said he was a born scientist; his parents said he was destined to create something that would go down in history. He felt the same way.

"It shouldn't be like this," his voice was very soft, as if talking to himself, or perhaps negotiating with the green mass on the screen. "It can't be like this. How could it turn out like this?"

An older Researcher nearby walked over and patted him on the shoulder.

"Doing experiments always involves failure. Calm down."

Su Muchen's shoulders were tense.

"Calm down?" He turned his head, a somewhat uncomfortable light in his eyes. "We've done countless computer simulations, and the early-stage real-world experiments ran for several rounds. Data, procedures, operations—not a single step was wrong.

It shouldn't look like this. It should have evolved according to our simulations, becoming a perfect mass-produced crop to solve everyone's food problems. But it just had to—"

He stopped, staring at the leaves on the screen that were still slowly growing.

"Is it individual variation?" His speaking speed quickened, as if arguing with himself. "No. We used a massive amount of seeds; even if there were individual differences, there should have been at least a few successes.

But there weren't. All the samples, without exception, went in the same direction. Why did it have to be like this?"

As he spoke, he rummaged through the Experimental Table, pushing reagent bottles aside and taking several vials off the rack. His movements were fast, yet possessed a mechanical, compulsive precision.

The colleague opened his mouth, wanting to say something more.

"No one goes through life without experiencing failure," he tried to make his voice sound gentler. "You have to learn to—"

"I'm different," Su Muchen interrupted him. His voice wasn't loud, but it was hard. "I cannot accept failure."

He didn't speak again. Something was churning in his mind—not things from the present, but from the past. When he was very young, his father had lifted him above his head and said this child would surely be extraordinary.

In school, his teachers said he could skip grades, that his talent shouldn't be wasted waiting for others. In university, his mentor gave him the most difficult projects, saying he could do it, that he would definitely do it.

Every exam, every experiment, every time he stood on a stage, he had achieved it. No mistakes, no deviations, no 'almosts.' He thought he would never fail.

The voices in his head swirled together, faster and louder. You can be even faster. Your talent is high. Just skip grades.

Your learning ability is strong. You will definitely become an outstanding scientist. You will definitely create something that leaves a mark on history. You definitely can. You definitely can.

He no longer listened to what the person beside him was saying. His hand had already taken that vial off the rack; the liquid in the test tube was pale green, glowing slightly under the lights.

"Su Muchen! Where are you going?"

He rushed out.

The building wrapped in green was right ahead—two hundred meters, one hundred meters, fifty meters. Someone was shouting behind him, but the voice was scattered by the wind, indecipherable.

He didn't look back and plunged straight into a gap in the greenery. The vines closed behind him like a door being shut.

"Oh dear, why did he just run in like that?" a young Researcher stood by the tent, hand still pointing toward the building, voice trembling. "We couldn't even stop him."

The mentor stood beside him, the wrinkles on his face deeper than usual. He stared at the building that had already been swallowed by green, remaining silent for a long while.

"This child..." he spoke slowly. "He's proud and arrogant; he can't accept failure. I should have let him understand long ago that with experiments, reality often doesn't go according to plan."

Someone nearby shouted, "Where are they? Haven't they arrived yet? The people who were supposed to come and clear this—"

"They're here, they're here!" another voice squeezed through from behind. "The people have arrived!"

The mentor turned around and walked quickly toward the base entrance. Lu Jianchuan and the other three were standing next to that silver, black, and red motorcycle. Shen Mingyuan was looking around, Wei Ziqing was looking at the building, and Ye Ouyang was looking up, counting how many vines were sticking out of the windows. The mentor trotted over, and before even coming to a full stop, he began to speak.

"I'm counting on you. You need to save someone."

Lu Jianchuan turned his head to look at him.

"Didn't you say no one was trapped?"

The mentor recounted what had just happened. Who Su Muchen was, what the project was, how the plants went out of control, how he had rushed in, and how his colleagues couldn't stop him. He spoke very fast, repeating some sentences twice, his voice never dropping in volume.

After Lu Jianchuan finished listening, he nodded.

"Understood. We will get him out."

He walked toward the building. Vines crawled out from the gaps in the foundation, clinging to the exterior walls as they climbed, wrapping the entire structure into a massive, fuzzy green cube. Ears of wheat poked out from the gaps between the leaves, hanging heavy and swaying gently in the wind.

Before the group could even reach the building, a dull thud suddenly erupted from the entire structure.

It wasn't an ordinary sound; it was the kind that came from deep within the structure—like bones dislocating in a joint, like steel bars being twisted into a braid.

The ground shook once, then again. The vines at the base of the walls, which had previously only been clinging to the foundation, suddenly plunged into the soil like fingers stabbing into sand, digging deeper and deeper, more and more.

More leaves squeezed out from the cracks in the walls, spreading out in layers, covering the bricks and stones that were still exposed one by one.

The ears of wheat were still growing, shooting out from between the leaves in dense clusters, like a golden waterfall pouring down from the roof.

Then, Ye Ouyang saw something else.

He blinked, thinking he had seen wrong. He hadn't.

Peas were starting to grow on the vines. Not the shriveled, malnourished little beans, but plump, bulging pods, one after another, squeezing out from the base of the leaves and swaying slightly in the wind.

Some of the pods had already split open, revealing the round beans inside, emerald green and looking like small pellets.