Homo Sapiens

The automated CPR machine’s preset 30-second cycle finished quickly. The device delivered an electrical shock to his heart, and the oxygen supply from the mask increased by 50%.

BZZT...

ZAP...

Li Qingye, still in shock, felt a jolt as if his heart had been punched. His eyes flew open. His will to live, fueled by a burning hatred, refused to let his story end here.

HUFF... HUFF... Gasping for air, he grabbed the three nearby syringes and injected their contents—adrenaline, antibiotics, and a self-made anesthetic—into his body all at once.

His heart pounded violently.

A cold sweat soaked his clothes and the bedsheets.

He stared dazedly at the light on the ceiling.

More than a dozen hours passed in a stupor. By the evening of the fourth day, Li Qingye finally felt the discomfort in his body begin to ease. His temperature dropped to 37.3 degrees Celsius, and his blood sugar and heart rate returned to normal levels.

However, his blood pressure remained stubbornly high, hovering between 150 and 165.

He knew the first side effect of the genetic modification had manifested. He had observed this same side effect—hypertension—in his earlier experiments on mice and pigs.

The Jianmu Factor’s transformation of his body was still in progress. He estimated it would take another five days or so to reach a preliminary stable state.

But Li Qingye had already endured the most dangerous part.

「On the morning of the sixth day.」

Li Qingye opened his eyes, his mind feeling clearer than ever before. Suddenly, a flood of memory fragments surfaced in his thoughts.

’Huh... What is this?’

He closed his eyes and sifted through the fragments, shocked to discover they were his parents’ memories. They contained images of him as a child, of his older brother, and even bits and pieces concerning his grandparents and other events.

’Another discovery that animal testing could never have revealed.’

These memories came to an abrupt halt at the moment of his birth. This meant the memories originated from his parents’ genes and had been passed down to him.

No, it wasn’t just his parents’ memories. To be precise, they were the memories of his ancestors.

These memories shared a common trait: the older they were, the more fragmented and blurry they became. Even his parents’ memories consisted only of the most profound moments of their lives.

Li Qingye, with his understanding of genetic derivation, knew this was a result of mutations, duplications, deletions, and transpositions that occurred during the replication of the gene sequence.

As these errors accumulated from one generation to the next, the older the genetic memories became, the more fragmented and indistinct they were.

To Li Qingye, it was as if he had gained access to a ”historical record.” The sheer volume of these memories, however fragmented, made his head throb.

Fortunately, at noon on the seventh day, he discovered two more activated genetic abilities: the Memory Palace and eidetic memory.

The Memory Palace was a memory management ability, allowing him to delete, categorize, and tag memories within his brain.

As for eidetic memory, its function was self-explanatory.

Li Qingye had only known from his animal experiments that the Jianmu Factor made animal brains highly active, even enabling pigs to understand written symbols and obey his verbal commands.

This incredible potential for enhancement was what had driven him to take such a desperate risk.

「On the eighth day.」

Another side effect emerged: he had become red-green colorblind.

But in exchange, another latent ability within his genes was awakened. His fourth genetic ability appeared—super senses.

His senses of hearing, taste, and smell were all enhanced to varying degrees, though he had no way to perform detailed tests just yet.

「On the ninth day.」

Li Qingye felt as if his mind had been unlocked. A portion of the memories he had organized with his Memory Palace began to recombine and generate new insights at an unprecedented rate.

He named this ability ”Hyper-Analysis and Hyper-Deduction.”

With the emergence of Hyper-Analysis and Hyper-Deduction, Li Qingye felt his brain had reached its limit. His body could no longer support any further development.

Just as he had suspected, no other abnormal changes occurred on the tenth and eleventh days.

His body gradually returned to a normal state.

He disconnected the IV line and monitoring equipment. After draining the urinary catheter, he grit his teeth against the searing, stinging pain and pulled it out.

”HSSS...” The exquisite agony made Li Qingye suck in a sharp breath.

But this was no time to rest. Enduring the pain, he began to perform a full physical examination on himself, focusing particularly on the genetic level.

「Three days later.」

He set down the test report.

Li Qingye was already mentally prepared for the results. The telomeres on his chromosomes had shortened significantly, and his various organs showed different degrees of aging.

Based on this data, he estimated he only had about twenty years left to live. He was currently just 24.

In other words, if he couldn’t find a way to solve the problem of organ senescence, he might not even live to see fifty.

Compared to that, his other issues—hypertension, red-green color blindness, and sperm deactivation—seemed minor.

He had no regrets. If he hadn’t taken this path, he wouldn’t have had twenty years; he might not have even had two or three.

Trading decades of his life for unprecedented intellect was, in his eyes, a bargain.

If he couldn’t get his revenge, what was the point of living to a hundred?

After washing up, he shaved off his stubble and changed his clothes. Looking at himself in the mirror, it was as if he had matured more than ten years overnight.

He checked the time. He still had about seven days before his scheduled meeting with his advisor.

”Time to clean this place up.”

He wiped all the data related to the Jianmu Factor from the laboratory. The paper files, along with the previous test subjects, were all tossed into the high-temperature incinerator.

He removed all the hard drives and data storage units from the computers, laptops, and lab instruments. He felt no remorse, not even for the equipment worth millions.

The storage devices were dissolved in aqua regia, and the remains were then sent to the incinerator to be burned to absolute ash.

After all, a large portion of the scientific equipment had been imported. Li Qingye wasn’t willing to gamble on whether they had backdoors installed.

If someone were to investigate the lab while he was out of the country, they might be able to recover the experimental data on the Jianmu Factor.

The Jianmu Factor and the Genetically Edited Lighthouse Jellyfish stored in the lab were also sent to the incinerator, completely destroyed.

In any case, he had already recorded all the techniques in his Memory Palace. As long as he could set up a new lab, he could recreate the Genetically Edited Lighthouse Jellyfish and the Jianmu Factor whenever he wanted.

As for the issue of funding, he no longer had to worry.

Through his ancestral memories, Li Qingye discovered that before he was born, his mother had opened an anonymous account with a Swiss Bank, depositing a portion of her income into it every year.

This money was, on one hand, intended as a safety net for the Li Family.

On the other hand, since she had two children, one of them would inevitably be unable to inherit the company, and this money was also for that child.

By Li Qingye’s estimation, it was no small sum. After all, his mother had been the vice president of the group, with an annual salary of around 3 million. On top of that, the yearly dividends from her 1.5% stake in the company would have been substantial.

Xinxin Group was founded in 1991, and Li Qingye was born in 1993.

The funds in that account had been accumulating for a full 26 years. Even if it was only her salary, there would be tens of millions.

If that were all, Li Qingye wouldn’t have been so certain. After all, it was a matter from over two decades ago; his mother could have changed her mind.

But after his mind had been enhanced, he recalled certain things his mother had said back when he gave up his spot at Beiping University, which confirmed for him that the account had not been abandoned.

Of course, Li Qingye wasn’t betting everything on this secret account.

He had other plans if the money wasn’t there, but they would take two or three years to execute—not good news for someone who was already running out of time.