Chapter 81
In desperation, Cameron finally found out his brother’s only advantage: he was beautiful.
Shen Zhuo’s language skills didn’t decline gradually; instead, they plummeted sharply in a short period of time.
Shen Ruzhen carefully questioned the researchers and found that the symptoms might have started when Shen Zhuo had just turned three. However, because little Shen Zhuo was naturally timid and shy, he was already not very talkative with strangers, making it difficult to notice anything unusual. At that time, he could still speak sentences relatively fluently, though he had to pause once or twice in between. The abrupt decline from complete sentences to single words probably lasted less than twenty days. The reason for this certainty is that during this period, a researcher had suspected something was wrong, but after tests, they found Shen Zhuo’s cognitive development was completely normal, and brain scans were also normal. The jumbled sentence structures seemed more like the common stuttering seen in toddlers learning to speak.
However, Shen Ruzhen was very clear that this couldn’t be simple stuttering, so she personally conducted another scan.
The results still didn’t show any problems.
The child’s brain development was indeed normal, with no organic lesions or signs of external influence.
The only abnormality was his astonishingly high level of cognitive activity, with scan results showing it to be 26 times that of an average adult.
Such an absurdly high level of cognitive activity indicated an extremely rare degree of brain development, which in turn suggested an extraordinarily rich inner world. It could also be one of the reasons behind his language barriers. But this situation was so rare that Shen Ruzhen couldn’t find any problems from a biomedical perspective and had to turn to child psychology experts. After a series of tests, they eventually discovered that her guess was correct.
The child wasn’t experiencing a decline in language function; he was—stuck.
Since his brain’s initial development maturity at three years old, Shen Zhuo’s cognitive load has increased too rapidly, like an infinitely large water bag suddenly being forcefully filled with a high-pressure water gun from nowhere. The paradox was that his language ability was like a very small opening of the bag, which not only failed to expand but rather shrank due to the sudden increase in pressure. This logically led to one result: a blockage.
The richer his inner world, the harder it became to express it, and the less courage and motivation he had to express himself.
If he were a lively and bold child, it wouldn’t have developed to this extent. But Shen Zhuo’s situation was different. He was naturally weak, timid, and easily frightened. The experts even said that they couldn’t encourage him too aggressively; they could only wait for him to naturally develop the motivation to express himself and then slowly guide him.
—Where did that high-pressure water gun come from? A gift from God?
No one knew.
The researchers were baffled and couldn’t find any reason for Shen Zhuo’s abnormally high cognitive activity. They could only watch that small figure nestle there, reading books or daydreaming, occasionally bursting into laughter as if he had found immense joy in his unknowable inner world, looking up at the sky with eyes sparkling brightly.
At that time, many people who didn’t know the situation thought Shen Zhuo was a mentally challenged child and would regretfully comment that it was a waste of such good genetic inheritance from the family.
But Cameron knew it wasn’t that serious. His younger brother wasn’t that mentally challenged.
Cameron used an objective and neutral perspective to evaluate him, concluding that he was just too stupid academically.
Cameron hadn’t attended school as a child; he was taught one-on-one by Shen Ruzhen’s researchers. Therefore, in terms of early childhood education, he only had himself as the sole sample and naturally used himself as the standard to judge his brother. Of course, his brother couldn’t go to school, and most people at the research institute were too stupid. Helplessly, Cameron had to take on the responsibility, using his rare free time to review his brother’s learning progress.
It would have been better if he hadn’t reviewed it; once he did, he was almost infuriated to death.
Such a big child, repeatedly explaining plane geometry to him, and he still couldn’t understand. He couldn’t even grasp basic physical concepts. When told that the existence and demise of things were just transformations of matter in certain conditions, he would turn around and cry over an ant crushed on the road. Cameron himself had already encountered proofs of the properties of circles at six years old, while Shen Zhuo would stare blankly when asked to find a shadow’s area, looking at his brother as if his mind couldn’t process it, almost swallowing Cameron in his own enormous psychological shadow.
Weak, timid, overly sentimental—it was a complete genetic disaster. If this continued, his brother might grow up to be a useless writer or even an artist, and those jumbled sentence structures would be praised as a form of performance art by outsiders. The thought of having an artist’s name on his family’s genealogy made Cameron’s blood pressure rise.
For about two years, Cameron oscillated between fits of rage and attempts at self-healing. He was so desperate at one point that he even went back to review his brother’s genetic editing records, trying to find out if something had gone wrong during the process that had turned his brother from a normal person into a goldfish.
Until one day, he saw little Shen Zhuo squatting in the garden, counting ants, his translucent face in the sunlight looking like that of a carefree little angel. From a distance, Cameron looked at him and suddenly reached a state of despairing tranquility.
He tried to view his brother with the most tolerant, loving, and desireless gaze he could muster and finally found an undeniable merit—his brother was beautiful.
Though he might be a little fool, at least he was a beautiful little fool, not one of the millions of truly foolish eyesores in the world.
Cameron found his only solace and finally reconciled with himself.
***
Time passed like the pages of a book flipping swiftly. The sun rose and set, and time flew by.
Shen Zhuo’s language skills seemed to show slight signs of improvement; occasionally, he could manage a few more words and short sentences, but he still didn’t like to talk.
Most of the time, he played by himself, read by himself, and squatted under the garden swing silently, observing ants. Every ten days or so, Cameron would drag him to the office to check on his progress, mocking him sarcastically, but it didn’t matter because Shen Zhuo didn’t understand; then his brother would give some advice with a suppressed heart attack, and Shen Zhuo would bewilderedly return to the safe zone.
Memories were flipped back, page by page.
Meanwhile, the “vessel” in the HRG laboratory matured day by day.
The artificial body was immersed in Incubator No. 001, and perhaps due to a natural curiosity children have towards their peers, every time Shen Zhuo was taken to the HRG laboratory, he would press his face against the transparent glass wall, curiously observing the “child” inside, who lay still with closed eyes.
“Do you want to play with this little brother?” The director of the vessel cultivation project, a middle-aged man, squatted beside the incubator, patting Shen Zhuo’s head with a smile. “No, this little brother hasn’t slept enough yet.”
“……”
In Shen Zhuo’s clear eyes, reflecting the lifeless face of the artificial vessel, he tilted his head and asked, “Can’t… can’t sleep?”
With his then utterly chaotic word order, what Shen Zhuo actually meant to ask was: “Why is he asleep and not waking up?”
“He has to develop fully to the age of three before he might wake up. We still have to wait a bit longer,” the project director patiently replied.
Shen Zhuo nodded to show he understood, then after a while pointed at the vessel and then at the project director: “Child… your, your… child…”
It’s your child.
The project director was stunned for a moment, then burst into laughter.
“……Yes, he is my child.”
With a complex mix of emotion and pride in his eyes, he gazed at the artificial child in the transparent incubator and said softly, “I watched the synthesis myself, cultivated him personally… Of course, he is my most perfect child.”
“—Director Qiao.” Cameron stood at the end of the corridor. “Help the research team check the data.”
“Coming!” The project director snapped out of his reverie, stood up, and walked quickly over.
At the other end of the corridor, Shen Zhuo remained pressed against the glass wall, his small white hands tightly clinging to it.
Cameron, who was about to turn back to the lab, paused, thoughtfully watching his brother.
Shen Zhuo was often a child immersed in his own world, but when he stared at the artificial vessel, his pupils reflected the ghastly pale face inside the solution, unblinking as if he had forgotten the entire real world behind him, his concentration almost eerie.
Cameron suddenly had an inexplicable feeling.
It was as if his brother wasn’t just staring at the incubator but was attentively listening to something, engaging in some abstract, secret, and bizarre communication with the soulless vessel that adults could not perceive.
……Impossible.
A trace of absurd chill ran up Cameron’s spine to his brain.
It must be an illusion.
“Shen Zhuo!”
Little Shen Zhuo reluctantly turned to look at his brother.
Cameron sternly extended his hand. “Come here, don’t bother others, go back to the safe zone!”
“……” Shen Zhuo lowered his head and obediently walked over, stumbling a bit as Cameron grabbed his arm and pulled him away.
The brothers’ figures receded into the distance, while behind them, on the glass wall of the incubator, a twisted shadow hung silently, watching the young Shen Zhuo’s back disappear. Brainwave radiation spreaded through the air in ripples, like countless bewitching whispers.
However, in this vast laboratory, bustling with people, no one could hear the demon’s murmurs.
***
The artificial vessel’s brain development progressed even more smoothly than expected. By the time it developed to the equivalent of a three-year-old, its brain synapses exceeded 2000 trillion.
This meant that soon it would have the capability to host the extraterrestrial spiritual entity, 001.
During this period, Shen Ruzhen’s first-generation HRG laboratory made many breakthroughs, including genetic immunity against hereditary diabetes, various mental illnesses, and cancer. Her research in inhibiting tumor genes was remarkable and later developed into gene therapy for various cancers, which had profound and far-reaching significance.
If Shen Ruzhen’s dream of equal evolution for all humanity could truly be realized, then one day, humans would no longer suffer from many hereditary diseases, and the word “cancer” would become a thing of the past under her efforts.
Everyone eagerly awaited the day when the extraterrestrial spiritual entity, 001, would possess the vessel.
However, Cameron noticed that during this time, Shen Ruzhen, who had always been steadfast, began to delay the project’s progress.
She increasingly stood by the incubator, gazing at the child inside, who had not changed position since birth, staring at the artificial, cold, greyish-blue face.
There was a flicker of secret hesitation and doubt in her eyes.
That morning, when Cameron finished working through the night and was about to leave the laboratory, he saw his mother standing by the incubator. Her eyes seemed to be staring at the vessel, yet it also seemed as if she was looking through the pale artificial body into the void, with the faint morning mist outlining her profile in a cold contour.
“Mother?” Cameron stopped, sensing something amiss. After a moment, he stepped forward. “What’s wrong?”
“…I was thinking about something,” Shen Ruzhen slowly said.
Cameron frowned, hearing her ask, “…Are humans really born equal?”
“Precisely because humans are not innately equal, we need to pursue equal evolution through acquired means. That’s the purpose of HRG,” Cameron was full of doubts. “Have you been too tired lately, Mother?”
Shen Ruzhen shook her head and finally withdrew her gaze from the artificial vessel, turning steadily to her eldest son:
“Can we really trust that extraterrestrial entity?”
Only then did Cameron understand the source of his mother’s doubt.
The question of whether humans could trust the extraterrestrial spiritual entity, 001, had been debated many times within the research institute. The pros and cons had been weighed repeatedly, and a conclusion had long been reached. After achieving so many astonishing results with the HRG project, no one at the top had any objections to this anymore. Cameron hadn’t expected Shen Ruzhen to still be pondering this issue.
“So far, the information brought by the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001 has been very beneficial to humanity, and its enormous practicality has been proven.”
Cameron thought for a moment and cautiously said, “But if necessary in the future, we can push the extraterrestrial radiation device to its limit and burn it to death in a very short time; that’s not an issue. Or we could have Director Qiao activate the self-destruct program, completely dissolving this artificial body into cellular fluid; it’s just a matter of a single action.”
Shen Ruzhen remained silent, as if lost in thought.
“So why are you having these thoughts, Mother?” Cameron couldn’t help but ask.
Shen Ruzhen took a deep breath and didn’t answer, only shaking her head.
“Sometimes I wonder… Is what extraterrestrial civilizations bring to Earth truly a gift? Does a higher-dimensional civilization mean that higher-dimensional beings have achieved the equality humans long for?”
“Why does innate inequality exist in nature?” The female scientist’s voice was like a murmur, almost inaudible: “Could it be that the forced pursuit of acquired equality, from a natural standpoint, turns into another form of chaos and unfairness?”
Shen Ruzhen seemed to be trapped in some bizarre and fantastical thoughts. Cameron, looking at her, had never seen his mother, who was always as rational as steel, become like this. He was momentarily incredulous, opening his mouth but not knowing what to say.
“…If you think it’s not the right time, maybe we could delay the HRG project’s progress and postpone the timing of the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001 attaching to the ‘vessel’…” After several moments of hesitation, Cameron finally found his voice and suggested aimlessly, “Our laboratory is the only one capable of this project. The secret base in Washington has made no progress at all, so even if we delay for another year or two, it’s not a big deal…”
Shen Ruzhen shook her head.
“We can’t do that,” she said in a low voice. “The project is too big. The people above are watching. It’s not something I can decide alone.”
Cameron understood what his mother meant.
HRG was led by Shen Ruzhen, but it wasn’t her personal property. It wasn’t up to her to stop it whenever she wanted—especially not with such an unconventional and unreasoned cessation.
“I’ll try to delay it a bit,” Shen Ruzhen turned her head away, her profile taking on a hard, jade-like quality in the dim light of dawn. “If the extraterrestrial spiritual entity 001 is truly dangerous, I will activate the self-destruct program for this incubator.”
Her voice wasn’t loud, but Cameron knew she wasn’t just saying it.
Shen Ruzhen was a woman of absolute will. She was firm, decisive, never hesitant, and indifferent to the evaluations of worldly morality and the gains and losses of fame and fortune.
“You’re going to the Washington base next week…”
Just as Shen Ruzhen was about to give some instructions, she suddenly paused. At the far end of the corridor, by the floor-to-ceiling windows, a small figure stood there, staring blankly at them.
It was Shen Zhuo.
How did this child get into the laboratory alone?
Shen Ruzhen stepped forward and picked up her youngest son, noticing he was only wearing thin white night pajamas. She squeezed his hand, finding it slightly cold. His nose twitched as if he were about to catch a cold.
“You came out on your own again?” Shen Ruzhen pinched his nose and asked.
The HRG laboratory and the safety layer were connected by an underground passage, with a safety gate at the end of the passage that could be opened with a password. Recently, either due to the negligence of staff or Shen Zhuo secretly learning the password, he managed to run out twice in a row. Fortunately, the last time he was caught by Shen Ruzhen was just as he emerged from the passage and was carried back like a kitten.
Shen Ruzhen intended to take her youngest son back to the office to get some clothes, but Cameron had already taken off his coat and wrapped it around his brother, tucking it around his neck.
“He was playing with ants in the garden yesterday and got caught in the rain,” Cameron explained concisely. “He also got bitten by ants.”
Shen Ruzhen opened his small palm and saw several red spots, though they had been treated with some ointment.
“Save… sugar, sugar.” Shen Zhuo gestured in his mother’s arms, then looked at his brother, parrot-like, repeating: “Olfactory receptor… glomerulus… cluster…”
—The olfactory sensory neurons in an ant’s antennae are among the most sensitive in nature, and the nerve endings of these receptors come into contact with the glomeruli clusters.
This was what Cameron had said to him in the garden yesterday while scolding him.
To string together so much information in the correct order was like a hellish difficulty level. When Cameron heard his brother stammer through “olfactory sensory neuron function” for the third time, he finally couldn’t stand it and was about to impatiently repeat it word by word. But Shen Ruzhen shook her head, indicating to her eldest son that it wasn’t necessary.
“Take it slow, there’s no rush.” She patted her youngest son’s back. “People don’t have to use language to communicate; it’s okay if you don’t want to speak.”
Shen Zhuo immediately stopped talking, happily nestled in his mother’s arms, sucking his thumb.
Cameron gestured to his mother to let him carry his brother: “You’ve been in the laboratory for a day and a night. Go rest early; I’ll take him back.”
But Shen Ruzhen hadn’t let go yet. Little Shen Zhuo immediately clung to his mother’s neck, his eyes silently turning red.
“……”
Perhaps it was those tears that seemed about to fall at any moment. Looking at her youngest son, whom she hadn’t seen for days, Shen Ruzhen rarely hesitated for a moment.
“Forget it, I’ll take him back to the safety layer.” She sighed and, speaking to her youngest son, emphasized: “You’re not allowed to run around the laboratory recently, understand?”
Little Shen Zhuo nodded, obediently lying on his mother’s shoulder. Shen Ruzhen carried him, walking down the corridor toward the front hall.
At that time, the sky had just begun to lighten. The greyish-blue light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, elongating their shadows. Shen Zhuo nestled in his mother’s arms, looking back at his brother from over her shoulder. It was only when they exited the front hall door, with a swipe of a card, that he raised his little hand and waved, saying:
“Goodbye, Brother!”
Cameron was stunned.
Those two words were very clear, very fluent, and in the correct order, as if practiced many times.
Shen Zhuo’s clear eyes kept watching him, gradually fading into the ethereal morning mist as they walked away.
This scene later replayed many times in Cameron’s memories, with all the details vividly present, including his mother’s disheveled hair after working all night, the pillow marks on his brother’s cheek, and even the childish tone of the farewell.
Because that was the last time in his life that he heard Shen Zhuo speak.
A few days later, Cameron flew to Washington to collect information and exchange data at the United Nations research base.
He initially planned to stay for eight weeks, but everything went smoothly, so he flew back to the HRG laboratory a few days early.
The tragedy occurred the day he returned to the laboratory.
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