Cat and Rose - Cat & Rose - Chapter 60 - When Dawn Breaks (4)

Chapter 60 – When Dawn Breaks (4)

“Why mention Ling Jing?” asked Lin Si.

Ling Yi pondered his response. He knew Lin Si was investigating the events of that year, so it would be better if he did not tell Lin Si about these messy things—lest he worry over it.

The lady from the Wilkins Laboratory said that they could no longer return to the past—so for Lin Si, it was better to forget about the things that happened back then.

Seeing he did not respond for a long time, Lin Si continued to ask, “Are you missing home?”

In this context, “home” referred to Earth.

During his coma, Ling Yi remembered fragments of his previous life on Earth—Lin Si knew it too. When Ling Yi mutated, the neurons in his brain also changed, so he forgot about the past, which was the same principle as how most people could not remember what happened when they were young. But it was not completely impossible to remember

“A little.” Ling Yi played along, concealing his true thoughts, then said, “but I don’t miss it that much…in fact, the Voyager is more like home to me. As long as Lin Si is here.”

—This was not false at all. For Ling Yi, Earth was just a distant, indistinct homeland, while his home was the place where Lin Si was.

Lin Si made a noise of acknowledgement. The little thing’s mental age did not grow much, but his words had certainly become a lot sweeter.

He returned to the main subject, “Does it still hurt?”

“Only a bit,” said Ling Yi.

Lin Si scribbled on the data, then examined him up and down a few times again.

Ling Yi had been scrutinised to the point where his hairs stood upright on his back. That was definitely not a normal look—it was a look of wanting to dissect him.

“Truthfully, we’ve stopped your pain medication for a whole day,” said Lin Si.

Ling Yi tilted his head.

“We did a summary analysis of your various test results…you are now recovering.”

Recovering? Ling Yi was surprised.

“So fast?”

“In common terms, once the doctors shared the responsibility of maintaining the stability of your various vital signs, your body demonstrated a very strong combat ability.”

Originally, on the Expeditioner, the virus was too ferocious, and maintaining survival alone almost overdrew all the potential of this body, but once this pressure disappeared—then something astounding happened.

Lin Si sat beside him. “Do you want to see how your DNA fought with the virus?”

Ling Yi nodded.

Lin Si pulled up an extremely long report that summarised the analysis of all the samples left by Ling Yi in the past three years.

“We unanimously agreed that this was a war.”

Ling Yi had a limited understanding of those professional terms, so it was entirely up to LIn Si to explain.

“Your DNA is autonomous and has been dynamically adjusting your various physical parameters. The work it did at the beginning was to strengthen various functions of your body and slow down the invasion of the virus, but unfortunately, the lethality of the purple virus had an overwhelming advantage, so your body had just been on the verge of breaking down for the past three years.”

Ling Yi nodded; he knew his own physical condition.

“But it didn’t only take that approach.” Lin Si flipped the page of the report. “First of all…you have to understand the concept of a virus. It’s considered between life and non-life; it destroys your cells, and then uses the nucleic acid and amino acid in your cells to assemble the next generation. Gene viruses are even more terrifying, it destroys your DNA chain and replaces its segments, which will always affect the synthesis of key enzymes and directly lead to the collapse of the host’s bodily functions.”

Ling Yi unconsciously leaned towards Lin Si, and even squinted his eyes, pleased. He was very familiar with this feeling—since he was a child, whenever Lin Si explained something, his tone would be flat and serious, unlike Su Ting’s pleasant attentiveness whenever she spoke continuously. Yet, it possessed a unique attraction that was different from the others—lofty, strict, yet made it seem effortless, as if no matter how difficult it was to understand the topic, you could easily grasp it.

“The purple virus possesses some qualities of a gene virus, and your DNA happens to have some autonomy. They fought a long, long battle, and now this battle is over.”

“It’s over?” Ling Yi widened his eyes slightly.

Lin Si looked closely at Ling Yi’s pupils.

Those pupils had been an ominous grey-purple in the past several days—at the same time, there was a pale complexion to his skin, as well as darkened colour to his blood, but now, his eyes turned completely back to its beautiful black colour.

“In the long-lasting battle, your cells slowly modified the purple virus from an unknown form into double-stranded polynucleotide chains.”

“What is that?” Ling Yi was a little lost.

In an instant, the gaze Lin Si used to look at him turned unkind.

It was the same kind of gaze—the gaze of looking at a student who answered a maths problem incorrectly.

“I’m very curious about the level of your knowledge, Classmate Ling Yi. You should probably go back to middle school,” Lin Si looked away, switched the floating screen to a note-taking mode, drew two intertwining lines on it, and said, “double-stranded polynucleotide chains are…DNA. Double spiral.”

Ling Yi understood this time.

“Then your DNA swallowed it, placing it in a grey region that won’t be transcribed.”

Ling Yi said, “Ah.”

“So very soon I’ll be fully recovered?” he asked.

“In theory, yes,” said Lin Si.

Ling Yi knew Lin Si’s speaking habits well. “In theory, yes” meant “certainly, yes”. If there was even the slightest possibility that it was not true, Lin Si would say “that’s not the case”.

Ling Yi squinted his eyes cheerfully, looked at Lin Si’s expression again, and discovered that he had also relaxed a little.

“What about the others? How can they recover too?”

“We’ll need your help on that.” Lin Si looked at him. “The lab will analyse whether there are antibodies in your blood, while phase three of ‘limitless’ will analyse your DNA and attempt to achieve this mutation in the others too.”

“Limitless” phase three, which had once been resolutely vetoed by the Marshal, was finally brought back to the table. The reason why Madam and Marshal let go was because the current situation has proved that genetically modified human bodies had giant advantages, that even under the invasion of the virus they could last longer than ordinary people—if a vaccine could not be developed in the end, they could only go head-to-head with the virus through the “limitless” project.

Moreover, phase three of “limitless” today was not the phase three many years ago before Ling Yi woke up. The current plan used Ling Yi as its blueprint. If everyone’s DNA could be activated so that it could achieve a certain extent of autonomy, even if its activity was only one percent out of Ling Yi’s a hundred, it was a milestone leap for them—because it meant that evolution no longer needed to rely on natural selection, but rather, the entire process could be artificially accelerated.

“We need your cooperation no matter which area it is. You might have to be stabbed many times with needles every day,” said Lin Si.

“I don’t mind.” Ling Yi’s lips curved up in a smile.

He said that, but in reality he was still a little afraid, tightening his hold on Lin Si’s arm.

Lin Si grabbed those uneasy claws, petting them once to comfort him.

After they finished talking business, it was evidently time for Lin Si to leave, but Ling Yi lowered his eyes sadly because Lin Si was leaving, and so he was able to keep the person with him again.

He opened his bracelet to show Lin Si the photographs he took on various planets.

Ling Yi obviously had an excellent sense of aesthetics. The three stars above the gravel planet simultaneously vanished upon the horizon of the glorious sunset, the translucent snow mountains endlessly rose and fell on the frozen planet, and the pale silver human spaceship contrasted against the pitch black ground. Most of these planets were abnormally barren. They rotated themselves day after day neverendingly, there were no living beings on their surfaces either, and the cosmic environments they were located in were so quiet that it almost seemed dead.

It was lonely. A silent, profound, eternal loneliness, but this vastness was exactly what this universe was like. Perhaps it was only the Earth of the past that was bustling and lively.

In addition to scenic photos, there were also photos of people—the most beautiful one was taken by Svena. At dusk, they were stationed on a desert planet and lit a bonfire in the leeward area. The Colonel was boxing with other team members, while Ling Yi was sitting on the highest boulder, his military uniform outlining his neat and beautiful figure as the wind blew at his hair. His eyebrows were raised and he was smiling at the camera. In front of him was a bright flame, behind him was a brilliant sunset.

Against the barren background, the flourishing vitality and beauty so openly displayed brimmed and almost burst through the screen.

Lin Si turned to look at Ling Yi, who was talking about the interesting things that happened on this planet. When he was quiet, he looked like a character in a fairy tale, but now it was different. There was a special glow to his young and handsome face, like leaping flames.

Ling Yi flipped to the next one.

“This one is my favourite,” he said. “A rose.”

Lin Si turned his gaze back to the photo. It was photographed in space, a Rosette Nebula.

It was composed of a large group of warm stardust; the celestial lights of different wavelengths coated it with a colourful sheen. 22 micrometres were deep red, 12 micrometres were jade green, and just like that, a rose had bloomed in the starry sky .

Ling Yi sent it to Lin Si. “For you.”

In the years since he left, his voice has also undergone changes. Compared to his youthful self, the texture was still clear and ringing, but it is no longer the delicate, immature tone of a child.

It was lower, but still sounded very nice—from juice to a mild wine.

An ambiguous, odd feeling flooded Lin Si’s heart once more. This time, Ling Yi’s hand was linked around his arm, one side of his body leaning on him. His black hair fell on Lin Si’s own shoulders, they were so close that they could even smell each other’s breathing.

When he was young, Ling Yi enjoyed being like this. Now, he is no longer a half-grown teenager, but an adult man, hence if he performed the same gestures, it was truthfully a little too intimate. At least he did not act like this with his other friends, however, between him and Ling Yi was not friendship either.

As for how to get along between family, Lin Si did not know. He had been alone ever since he was a teenager.

But when Ling Yi looked up at him, that strange feeling vanished and dispersed into the air once more. Beautiful creatures always had special privileges, and no one would refuse the approach of a little angel, even if that little angel had turned into a big angel.

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