Chapter 5: Knowledge Fracture

Zhang Jie slowly woke up, a faint jasmine scent lingered at the tip of his nose, swaying, he only then realized he was actually lying on Lin Ran's back.

He shifted uneasily, but felt his whole body about to fall apart.

Upon realizing the person on her back had awakened, Lin Ran's surprised voice, slightly choked with tears, came through.

"Zhang Jie! You finally woke up!"

"I... I'm not dead?"

Lin Ran hurriedly set you down, helped you lean against a big tree, and only then did you realize you were now in a dense forest, far from Sea Capital, far from the place where you grew up.

Lin Ran tearfully told you that night she had waited for you all night, waiting until the chaotic medicine on her body was completely metabolized, she thought you had died, so she cried while searching for you, and in that place burned to a wasteland, she immediately saw you lying on the ground.

She said she felt her heart stop beating then, only feeling relieved when she sensed your long breathing and strong heartbeat.

You can feel Lin Ran's concern for you, and you likewise care about him, and you two have become each other's only one.

You originally thought you would perish here, but never imagined your body harbored such terrifying power, whether it be a one-in-a-million genetic anomaly or this heaven-destroying, earth-annihilating crimson flame, everywhere revealing your extraordinariness.

How much you wish this were a Dream Realm; in just a few months you lost news of your father, your mother was purged, and the beautiful life forever turned into bubbles.

You comforted Lin Ran, telling her you would never abandon her, while planting a seed of hatred in your heart, firmly imprinting the words 'Caesar Life' in your mind, your revenge will be fiercer than the heavenly calamity!

After resting a while, Lin Ran carried you on her back and continued the journey toward the city your mother spoke of.

Along the way, when hungry you ate some wild fruits that looked non-toxic to stave off hunger, and you continually tried using gene hacking on surrounding plants; you once thought gene-editing technology was simple for you, but only after hands-on did you discover how wildly wrong you were.

As long as you alter even a single character, the test subject's life code collapses instantly; along the way you've lost count of how many plants you've killed.

You walked on foot for four days, finally arriving at the target city, and according to your mother's last words came to a restaurant.

The restaurant owner is a legless gene warrior, a comrade-in-arms of your father; when this uncle heard about your parents' affairs, he fell silent for a long time, all his words reducing to a single sigh.

He took you in, and the uncle told you that years ago Zhang Jie's father saved him more than once on the battlefield, this kindness likely impossible for him to repay in this lifetime; he forged new identities for you and cleared two rooms for you to rest.

You asked the uncle for permission to work at the restaurant; he initially refused, but you are stubborn, and the uncle could do nothing about it, so he reluctantly agreed.

The new life began, there was nothing worth celebrating, and that night you suffered insomnia.

The night had grown deep, yet Zhang Jie felt not a trace of sleepiness.

He felt he should burst into tears, but the immense sense of disparity even prevented him from feeling sorrow; he just stared blankly at the ceiling, not knowing what was on his mind.

Creak~

The door was gently pushed open; it was Lin Ran, who also suffered insomnia.

"Zhang Jie~have you slept?"

She cautiously came to the bedside, asking softly.

"No."

In the darkness, Zhang Jie only felt a figure slip into his quilt and lightly embrace him.

The two remained silent for a long time, until Zhang Jie felt a damp sensation at his chest, followed by a faint sobbing sound reaching his ears.

When everything had settled, the girl finally could not help but cry toward the last person in the world close to her.

"Zhang Jie... my parents... they're all dead..."

"I feel so terrible..."

Zhang Jie said nothing; he didn't know how to comfort the girl, merely gently stroking her head with his hand.

After a while.

The girl's sobs gradually faded, and a muffled sound came from Zhang Jie's embrace.

"Sorry..."

"What's wrong?"

"Obviously... your parents also died..."

"Ah, no!"

"I didn't mean that!"

Lin Ran flusteredly explained, she just misspoke momentarily, she didn't want Zhang Jie to dislike her.

Seeing her flustered appearance, Zhang Jie only felt amused; he of course knew Lin Ran's thoughts.

It's nothing more than that they both went through such things, yet still need Zhang Jie to comfort her, feeling sorry toward Zhang Jie only.

"It's fine, I understand what you mean."

Zhang Jie roughly rubbed her head, comforting Lin Ran.

Life must go on; you turned sorrow into hatred, from the next day you drew part of your wages in advance from the uncle to buy many books on genetics, you know well that now only relying on gene hacking ability gives you a chance to overthrow Caesar Life.

And you finally came to understand the full scope of this disaster; the heavenly calamity front was not as terrible as imagined.

That individual, hailed as humanity's strongest gene warrior, under the cover of countless gene warriors, charged like a sharp sword deep into the heavenly calamity creatures' nest, perishing together with the heavenly calamity mother body, directly wiping out eighty percent of heavenly calamity creatures worldwide.

Rather than saying the heavenly calamity front collapsed, it's more accurate to say Yong Guo, with its nation's strongest elite forces, perished together with the heavenly calamity, making the heavenly calamity front effectively nonexistent.

Many people are unwilling to believe it's true, but the message brought back by survivors of the heavenly calamity front is exactly that: the entire heavenly calamity front fought to the death, with no one retreating, using their lives to forcibly send that ninth-level strongest into the blood disaster nest.

Since then, the heavenly calamity's high-end forces have been completely severed, and Yong Guo, not to be outdone, had a future that was originally bright, but was strangled to death by the ascendant Caesar Life.

Now the threat of heavenly calamity creatures to humanity has greatly diminished; this should have been humanity's prime time to develop, but Caesar Life joined forces with enterprises big and small across the nation, forcibly monopolizing gene potions—formerly a bottle of first-grade gene potion cost less than a thousand, yet under Caesar Life's manipulation the price has multiplied more than tenfold.

Yong Guo still bears the name Yong Guo, but its core is no longer what it once was; Caesar Life has become the de facto government of Yong Guo.

And what puzzles you is why they don't monopolize all genetic knowledge?

Soon you learned that the knowledge of gene potions is stratified; even a person who perfectly masters gene editing cannot produce gene potions, meaning that as long as they monopolize the production method, no one can replicate it on their own.

You don't believe it; you are indeed stubborn, from this day on you have studied gene editing knowledge with relentless diligence, attempting to unravel the mysteries of gene potions.

You and Lin Ran work at the restaurant by day, each striving at night; you study genetic knowledge, while Lin Ran believes she can break the gene lock herself, thus she practices martial arts all the harder.