6: Chapter 6 Cells

On a frigid winter night, the heavy glass doors of the library seemed to separate two different worlds.

On the campus paths, students wrapped their thick coats tightly around themselves and hurried along, wishing they could crawl back into their warm beds immediately.

The streetlights had come on early as twilight descended, yet they could not dispel the piercing cold.

On the main road, a few couples huddled together, their heads close as they whispered sweet nothings only they could understand, occasionally letting out low giggles that added a touch of sugary warmth to the chilly winter night.

"Hahaha..."

A burst of crisp, bell-like laughter rang out abruptly as several girls walked past together, seemingly chatting about something incredibly joyful.

Against this backdrop of interwoven bustle and silence, Chen Youhua pushed open the heavy glass doors of the library.

"Phew—"

A blast of cold air, carrying what felt like icy shards, instantly enveloped him, making him shiver.

He immediately tightened the collar of his somewhat thin coat and adjusted his heavy backpack, which felt as if it were about to crush his shoulders.

It was stuffed with heavy textbooks, notebooks, and printed manuscripts of literature that he treated like precious treasures.

His life was a track precisely measured with a ruler—straight, monotonous, and allowing for not even a fraction of deviation.

Classroom, library, dormitory.

A three-point routine, day after day.

It was so dull that nothing remained but the rustling of turning pages and the ink marks left by his pen gliding across paper.

However, a small pebble had recently been tossed into this pool of stagnant water, which was so calm it had almost solidified, creating ripples he hadn't anticipated.

It happened a few days after a bar gathering he had been dragged to by his roommates, Wang Pengfei and Li Fan.

In his WeChat contacts, a bright red "1" suddenly appeared.

A friend request.

The profile picture was an image of a legal code, and the note read: "Hello, Student Chen Youhua, I am Xiao Wen (Law Department)."

Chen Youhua stared at the request for a moment.

Xiao Wen? The short-haired girl with glasses from the bar who had kept her head down looking at her phone and barely spoke?

From the Law Department? He had no impression of her, let alone any memory of giving her his contact information.

Maybe Wang Pengfei or Li Fan gave it to her?

He frowned, finding it a bit troublesome.

He didn't want to add strangers, especially irrelevant people.

But considering she was his roommates' friend's roommate, rejecting her outright seemed a bit cold, even though he didn't really care about such things.

What he feared was that refusing would lead to even more trouble.

He clicked accept.

Thinking that since he'd added her, she could just stay inactive in his contact list.

As it turned out, this Xiao Wen did not remain inactive.

She began to harass him.

Not frequently, but consistently.

Sometimes at eight or nine in the morning, sometimes after ten at night.

The content was all over the place.

"Morning. What time does the Z University library open in winter? [Smile emoji]"

"I saw a new stall opened in the cafeteria selling mini wontons; the taste is okay."

"The Law School has a lecture today on Artificial Intelligence ethics. It's packed; even the standing room is gone."

"Is your Biology Department always this busy? I feel like you're always in the library."

"The weather is nice today, though it's a bit cold."

They were all trivial messages, sharing snippets of life or purely asking questions to start a conversation.

There was no clear purpose; it seemed more like... she was just messaging for fun?

Chen Youhua looked at these messages that popped up from time to time and felt they were nothing but a distraction.

He didn't need to know what new stall had opened in the cafeteria, nor did he care if the Law School lecture was packed, and he certainly had no interest in discussing the weather or the workload of the Biology Department with a near-stranger.

Aside from consuming his precious attention and time, these messages had no value.

He thought this Xiao Wen was very strange.

She had clearly acted so distant at the bar, yet now she was sending these pointless messages.

He couldn't be bothered to speculate on her motives; he just found it troublesome.

His strategy was simple.

Selective ignoring and extremely perfunctory replies.

He ignored most of the messages; his phone screen would light up and then go dark, and he wouldn't even click to see the specific content.

Only in rare cases, such as pure information-based questions with clear answers like the library's opening hours, would he reply succinctly after seeing them.

"Seven-thirty."

"Mhm."

"Oh."

Throughout the day, he would reply to at most two or three messages, with the total count of characters likely not exceeding ten.

His tone was as bland as plain water, devoid of any emotional ups and downs, and he never started new topics.

His schedule was packed, with every minute assigned a task.

His energy and focus were like a searchlight, firmly concentrated on the books, literature, and notebooks spread out before him.

The library lights were constant and quiet.

Chen Youhua sat in his usual spot, his pen gliding across the paper with a soft rustling sound as he recorded his thoughts on the synergy between Kinesin and microtubule Plus-end tracking proteins.

Professor Zhang Zhenhua's lecture was tomorrow.

Dynamic Regulation of the cytoskeleton and Cell Fate...

The title sounded grand and complex.

But in Chen Youhua's eyes, the core logic was as clear as an illustration in a middle school biology textbook.

Cells also have a skeleton that supports their shape and drives their movement.

This skeleton is not static but is constantly undergoing precise dynamic assembly and disassembly.

When a cell needs to divide and split into two, the microtubules in the skeleton transform into precise Spindle fibers, acting like invisible ropes that pull the replicated Chromosomes equally toward the two poles.

Microfilaments then contract at the center of the cell like a tightening belt, eventually pinching the mother cell into two new lives.

When a cell needs to migrate to repair a wound or find its place during development, microtubules point the way, while Microfilaments vigorously extend Pseudopodia at the front of the cell, pulling the entire cell forward.

When Stem cells need to decide whether to become skin cells, nerve cells, or blood cells, the dynamic changes in the skeleton also transmit key signals, guiding selective gene expression and ultimately determining the fate of the cell.

One could say it is precisely this silent yet ubiquitous dynamic regulation of the skeleton that supports all life activities of the cell, from birth to death, from division to differentiation, and from migration to communication!

Looking down from a macroscopic view, there is no inherent hierarchy between humans and these tiny cells in the essence of biological evolution.

A tiny single-celled organism can rely on its own precise internal structure to independently complete a full set of life activities, such as obtaining energy, excreting waste, responding to the environment, and reproducing.

Humans, on the other hand—this massive collective composed of 37 trillion cells, each with its own role—have achieved a staggering leap from quantitative change to qualitative change through unparalleled division of labor and cooperation between cells.

It is the precise operation of countless cytoskeletons that supports muscle contraction, the transmission of nerve signals, and the patrolling of immune cells.

Ultimately, it allows this collective known as "humanity" to think, create, and explore the sea of stars, performing a magnificent epic billions of times more complex than that of a single cell.