Chapter 1964: The Base Commander's Visit

"Xia Qing, what are you busy with right now?"

Receiving the call from her idol, Xia Qing glanced at the two melons and one wolf beside her and answered honestly, "Third Brother, I'm in the lab using a microscope to magnify saliva, looking for genes."

Gene editing was extremely esoteric knowledge. Ergua, who had just started learning to write 123, couldn't understand, so it retreated to its nest and slept. Earless Wolf wasn't interested and lay down on the floor to sleep. Does Daigua listened in a fog, its face blank. Old Wolf didn't understand either, but it knew this was a very important matter, so after watching twice it told Xia Qing that it wanted to see genes with its own eyes.

Hearing that Old Wolf wanted to see, the two melons also mustered their courage and followed along.

Earless Wolf? It wasn't interested and stood guard outside.

Hearing the New Human say something so maddening for a researcher, Zhang San in the office habitually raised a hand to press his forehead and asked coolly, "Find it for whom to look at?"

Xia Qing answered honestly, "Fourth Brother, Dagua and Ergua."

Hearing that Old Wolf was also there, Zhang San understood why Xia Qing would do something so foolish. Suppressing his temper, he replied, "The one in your lab is an optical microscope for observing microorganisms, with a resolution limit of 200 nanometers. The diameter of a DNA double helix is only 2 nanometers. Also, to observe DNA, the saliva needs to undergo at least 10 steps of pretreatment including cell lysis, DNA extraction, purification, heavy-metal staining, fixation, and dehydration. The whole process takes at least 3 to 5 hours before observation can begin. If Little Four wants to see, bring it to my place and use the transmission electron microscope in my lab. Don't mess around pointlessly in your own lab doing useless work."

Mm…

Xia Qing turned and asked Old Wolf with her eyes whether it wanted to go to Territory Seven to see genes. After getting an answer, Xia Qing replied, "Third Brother, this takes too long, and it's already too late today, so we won't go over and disturb your rest."

Rest?

Zhang San pressed his forehead. "10:25, the Base Commander arrives at my territory. You come over at 10:15, we need to discuss how to handle this crisis."

The gene-edited dog incident had too great an impact. Xia Qing had expected the Base Commander would come talk to her, but she hadn't expected him to come so quickly. No wonder the man could become Base Commander, and stay one for twelve years straight — that kind of executive ability is something not just anyone possesses.

"Got it, Third Brother, I'll tidy up and head over."

Xia Qing hung up the phone, looked at the one wolf and two melons beside her, and said, "Our Hui Three human leader, Base Commander Qi Zhongye, is coming over later to discuss with me and Third Brother how to handle the gene-edited dog situation. I need to go. Does Daigua, you take Ergua and clean up the lab, then go home and sleep. Fourth Brother, you and Earless help me guard the territory? I'll come back after the meeting and tell you the humans' response plan."

Old Wolf nodded calmly.

Xia Qing instructed, "Blue Face and Melon Skin are in the shed where you live. If you want to stay in the shed, I'll have the two of them come inside the house."

Fourth Brother didn't nod, indicating that wasn't necessary. It took out its phone, opened the discussion section of the government affairs platform, tapped on a post, then tapped on a person's photo inside to show Xia Qing.

Xia Qing nodded. "Right, this is our Base's human leader, Qi Zhongye. Like us, he firmly opposes the Blue Blood Alliance. Among Hui City's ten bases, our Hui Three Base has the most resolute attitude toward the Blue Bloods, so our base is the least affected by the Blue Blood Alliance."

After explaining the Blue Blood Alliance situation to Old Wolf, Xia Qing greeted Hu Zi Feng's squad, and only after Hu Zi Feng sent people over did she drive away from her own territory, heading for Territory Seven.

When she got out of the car, she was surprised to see Ji Li, wearing a Level-3 field protective suit, walking out from inside Territory Seven.

Ji Li of course recognized Xia Qing's car, but he didn't come over to talk to her — he just nodded at her, then turned and walked toward the inspection team's dormitory.

After jumping out of the car, Xia Qing headed straight for the south gate of Territory Seven, not giving Ji Li a second look. She and Ji Li belonged to different camps; keeping distance was good for both sides.

After entering Territory Seven, Xia Qing went to the cafeteria first, packed a dinner for her idol, carried it into the lab building, and set it on his desk.

Zhang San stared silently at the lunchbox for a few seconds before getting up to carefully wash his hands. He took a dragon fruit out of the fridge and set it in front of Xia Qing, then opened the lunchbox and began eating dinner. "You called Little Four over?"

Xia Qing responded, "Yes. I was worried it would be exposed, so I called it back, washed the dye off its fur, and then showed it videos about gene editing."

Zhang San, picking up a slice of lettuce, snorted coldly. "Where did your video come from?"

Xia Qing answered honestly, "A popular-science video Yang Jin gave me earlier."

Zhang San pressed, "Made before the Catastrophe, or in recent years?"

"Before the Catastrophe." To help her idol eat in peace, Xia Qing humbly and studiously asked, "Third Brother, is there a difference between pre-Catastrophe gene editing and post-Catastrophe gene editing?"

"Of course there is." Zhang San gestured with his eyes for Xia Qing to open the genetics book on the desk. "Page 94."

"Okay." Xia Qing first pulled out a disinfecting wipe and cleaned her hands, then opened the book, which was a full two centimeters thick, turned to page 94, and saw a diagram of a double-helix structure, with dense annotations written all around it.

Seeing this, Xia Qing — a Level 9.5 visual Evolver — felt her eyes blur and her scalp go numb.

Zhang San took a bite of rice, then patiently explained, "Pre-Catastrophe gene editing was patching up this diagram: knocking out a disease-causing gene, inserting a functional sequence, modifying a base pair, and so on. Like changing a few typos or copying a few new sentences into a book that's already been written. The editing target is the DNA sequence itself; the tools are nucleases like CRISPR."

Xia Qing's eyes lit up. Her idol was really amazing — if the person who made the popular-science video had explained it this way, she would have understood long ago!

Zhang San shot a look at the New Human, whose head was full of nonsense, and continued explaining, "The appearance of the Qiang element and the Yi element is like adding two invisible annotations next to every single character in the original book — these two annotations don't change the DNA sequence itself, but they can change the way the book is read."

Xia Qing nodded with great seriousness, …didn't quite understand…

Zhang San took a bite of carrot scrambled eggs and switched to a way Xia Qing could understand. "You're a visual Evolver. Your gene sequence is still no different from an ordinary person's — but the Yi element inside you has activated gene expression in your body, making the activity of your visual cells far exceed that of ordinary people."

Xia Qing immediately nodded vigorously. "I know this one. It's because the Yi element is like a mirror that magnifies the sleeping potential in each person's genes. I was able to become a Strength Evolver because the Yi element intervened in my cells and molecular structure, so my muscles and bones look the same as an ordinary person's, but every cell of mine, under the action of the Yi element, has optimized the force-transmission network. If an ordinary person's body has a civil-engineering-structure force-transmission network, mine is an all-fiber-composite aerospace-vehicle structure."