Extreme germ phobia

Chapter 301 Gene Embedding
The mayor's face was ashen: "On whose orders?"

Smith smiled and shrugged: "Sorry, no comment."

The mayor shrugged in unison, his tone identical: "Sorry, I can't let you take over Dina Street."

Smith's smile remained unchanged: "Mayor, please understand one thing: I am not asking for your or anyone else's permission, but merely informing you out of basic courtesy!"

His voice was not loud, and his expression was very easygoing, but the toughness hidden beneath his appearance was palpable.

The mayor wasn't easily intimidated, and said coldly, "No matter where you're from, I won't allow you to run rampant in Xiushidun!"

“That’s not up to you.” Smith’s smile widened. Despite being only a major, his eyes held a condescending air. “I’m only in charge of Dina Street for now, but whenever needed, the entire city’s armed forces must cooperate with our operations unconditionally!”

"What?" The mayor laughed angrily. "You mean, ignore the chaotic situation and leave the Apostles alone?"

“That’s right!” Smith nodded.

The mayor burst into laughter, but there wasn't a trace of a smile on his face. After laughing a few more times, he abruptly stopped: "I refuse. You can't change my mind no matter what you say!"

"Is that so?" Smith smiled knowingly, adding a high-pitched trailing tone at the end.

The mayor's face darkened, and he pointed to the door: "Guards, please ask this gentleman to leave!"

Several guards rushed in immediately.

Smith sighed. "Mr. Mayor, as I've already said, I'm only here to inform you, not to request your cooperation."

The guards stood behind him, frozen in place as if petrified by Medusa's gaze.

The mayor's pupils contracted, and he was about to urge the mayor to act when a councilor stepped forward to smooth things over: "Your Excellency, although we have different positions, this Mr. Smith is also fighting for the interests of the United States. In my opinion, we should give him some leeway."

The mayor turned around abruptly, his eyes wide with surprise, as if asking: What benefits did he give you?
Then another member of parliament stood up and said, "That's right, we are all comrades in the same trench, there is no need to act impulsively."

More and more councilors stood up to speak, and the mayor's surprise turned into shock.

Among the speaking members were not only representatives of opposing forces, but also his own allies. Those who did not speak remained silent, and no one stood up to speak for him.

How could it happen so suddenly, without any warning, that everyone turned against us?
The mayor was furious, but with great willpower he suppressed his emotions that were about to spiral out of control: "Fine, you win, Mr. Smith."

Even at this point, the mayor still didn't know what had happened, only that the councilors who had stood up for him had betrayed him.

The mayor knew that insults and physical fights would not solve anything. As a public figure, even when cornered by his opponents, he had to maintain basic decorum.

However, avoiding direct conflict does not mean swallowing one's anger.

The mayor, his face grim, walked to the side, called his secretary over, and lowered his voice, saying, "Billy, you know you're the person I trust most. Can you do me a favor?"

Billy didn't speak, but just looked at the mayor with a determined gaze.

The mayor lowered his voice and whispered in her ear, "Find a way to notify the Easterners, understand?"

You were unkind first, so don't blame me for being ruthless afterwards and turning on you and flipping the table!

Fall out on the spot?

Nonsense! Only a lowlife would do something so irrational.

As mayor, he is a public figure, and no matter how angry he is, he cannot show it openly, much less confront someone with powerful connections who can speak directly with the Mi family at any time!

Billy nodded, quietly stepped back a few paces, but made no further move.

He was very cautious and didn't want to be accused of secretly colluding with the East, but how could he fulfill the mayor's request?

Billy quickly made up his mind to casually post a short video on a public platform.

He already held a public relations position, responsible for recording the city hall's crisis response process, editing it appropriately, and publishing it on the platform to promote himself and win over voters.

Because the chaos in the city had not yet subsided, a considerable number of local residents were paying attention to the platform. In no time, the video spread, and public opinion was in an uproar.

Due to the state of emergency, angry citizens were unable to leave their homes and could only vent their dissatisfaction online, which quickly sparked a wave of boycotts.

At this point, Smith, oblivious to what was happening, was completely absorbed in Dina Street until he received a phone call and was severely reprimanded by his boss, only then did he realize what had happened.

After hanging up the phone, Smith stormed up to the mayor, suppressing his rage, and demanded, "What exactly do you want?"

The mayor leisurely took off his glasses, slowly wiped the lenses, and wore an irritating smile: "Getting impatient, aren't you? See how impatient he is?"
He put his glasses back on: "Mr. Smith, I don't understand what you mean. Shouldn't I be the one asking you that?"

Enraged, Smith was on the verge of losing his temper. He raised his arm and pointed in the direction of Diner Street, saying in a voice only he and the mayor could hear, "One of those two is a person with special immunity, who may be the key to ending the pandemic!"

In order to win the mayor's support, he didn't care about keeping it a secret anymore; catching the suspect was his top priority.

"You yourself said it was only a possibility!" The mayor didn't believe that explanation at all. He pointed forcefully to the ground beneath his feet. "Right now, the most important thing is to quell the chaos and restore order. I can't let the people take such a big risk!"

This person is mysterious and does nothing right; he's not trustworthy at all.

Smith laughed angrily: "Very well, you will pay the price!"

He turned and walked away, decisively issuing a new order: End the battle as quickly as possible, at any cost!

The longer we wait, the more things could go wrong. The situation has been out of control from the very beginning, and we can't afford to delay any longer!

At the same time, the Hua Tuo ship.

Our own warships were constantly monitoring the situation in Xiushidun. When the US military appeared near Diner Street, this unusual situation attracted the attention of relevant personnel, and the next step was to invest more resources to strengthen surveillance.

The radio signals emitted by this team were significantly fewer than those emitted by normal US forces, but fewer signals did not mean none. Technicians followed the clues and quickly located the target.

Switching to a certain company's communication signal is a routine operation that poses no challenge to our side.

The signal source was found to be near the city hall, which immediately attracted the attention of Xu Yi and others.

At this point, they were still unclear about what Old Mi was up to, so they did not take any further action for the time being.

However, a moment later, the signal entered the city hall.

The relevant technical personnel immediately went into a state of combat readiness and used various means to establish contact with the communication terminal located in the city hall.

For ordinary people, such operations are simply unbelievable, but for those involved, it's their profession, no more difficult than eating or drinking. And it's not just about targeting communication terminals; they also obtain necessary information indirectly through monitoring various wireless signals.

Cell phones, Wi-Fi, radios, walkie-talkies... all rely on radio waves to work. All you need to do is collect the necessary materials through technical means and then select the information you need from them.

The verbal conflict between the mayor and Smith was reproduced word for word by the technical department.

They even overheard most of the conversation that only the two of them could hear.

Then Billy uploaded the video, but his side had already obtained the information they wanted; the video was just to give them further insight into Smith's personal information.

Having pieced together all the puzzle pieces, Xu Yi was astonished by the truth of the matter. Using an entire company of soldiers just to eliminate two people? And the commander was from a secret department—it all seemed incredibly bizarre.

He immediately summoned Zhou Jimin and explained the situation in detail: "Old Mi said that one of the two people is the key to ending the epidemic, and that person is definitely not Lu Wei. What's your opinion?"

Zhou Jimin rubbed his fingers together, various test data flashing through his mind: "Ouyang's situation is indeed a bit special, but it's not that exaggerated. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a chance for Lao Mi; I would have already pinned him down in the lab!"

"Are you sure?" Xu Yi asked cautiously. "I'm not doubting your professionalism, I just want to ask if there are any oversights in our testing?"

Zhou Jimin recalled carefully and slowly shook his head: "We've checked everything that needed to be checked, even the DNA. Even if the Americans are biologically superior to us, they shouldn't be able to find nothing."

Xu Yi nodded thoughtfully: "That's strange!"

Zhou Jimin touched the top of his head: "I don't understand either."

Xu Yi suddenly asked, "Are there any tests that have been done but the results aren't out yet?"

Zhou Jimin continued to shake his head: "No, they've all been released."

"What makes Ouyang special?"

“This!” Zhou Jimin pondered for a moment, organizing his thoughts in his mind, “To put it simply, the pneumoconiosis bacteria and he have formed a special symbiotic relationship.”

"Symbiosis?" Xu Yi wondered if he had misheard.

Zhou Jimin gritted his teeth: "We found in Ouyang's cell sample that his DNA contained a gene fragment of Pneumococcus, which caused some... well, unusual changes in his body!"

"Huh?" Xu Yi immediately began to question his life.

Zhou Jimin couldn't possibly make up a lie to fool him on such a serious topic, but the fact that the genes of Pneumocystis jirovecii are embedded in human genes... that's just too surreal!

Zhou Jimin understood what Xu Yi was thinking and explained, "Although this kind of gene embedding is rare, it has happened many times in history. About eight percent of human genes come from viruses!"

Xu Yi's eyes widened immediately: "So many?"

“More than you can imagine!” Zhou Jimin smiled wryly. “Let me put it this way: human genes are not 100% useful. Functional genes only account for 25% of the total, and foreign genes make up 8%, which is quite a lot.”

Many researchers have a bit of an occupational hazard: when they encounter something that others don't understand, they always want to say a few more words.

Xu Yi thought for a moment and said, "Is this kind of embedding good or bad?"

"Research in this area hasn't started yet, so I can't say for sure, and there's no precedent for this kind of gene embedding..."

Xu Yi was a little confused: "Wait, you just said that humans have 8% foreign genes, so how come there's no precedent?"

Zhou Jimin had a headache: "This kind of gene embedding did not happen recently. For example, the endogenous retrovirus HERV-L was integrated into the genes of mammals about 1 to 1.5 million years ago, and then passed down from generation to generation, appearing in humans."

Xu Yi was stunned: "1 million years ago? I thought it was at most a few million years ago."

In his mind, primitive humans had only appeared on Earth for a few million years, but when it came to genes, he pushed it back to 1 million years ago.

Such a large time span was beyond imagination, causing him to constantly imagine a scene in his mind where a group of dinosaurs ran around and several mouse-like prehistoric mammals hid here and there.

Xu Yi suddenly began to question his existence: This thing is actually my... no, the ancestor of mankind?
He suddenly felt an urge to sever ties with his ancestors.

Zhou Jimin continued: "In recent years, research on genes has made great strides, and there have been many experiments that have artificially inserted gene fragments into human DNA, but this is the first time that natural insertion has occurred."

Xu Yi immediately seized on the key question: "If we can figure out why the embedding occurred, could we solve the pandemic?"

Zhou Jimin immediately shook his head: "That's not how it is. Genetic changes are no joke. Mutated genes can cause diseases such as immune system deficiencies, infertility, cancer, and neurodegenerative diseases, etc."

“Ouyang’s body has already shown some changes. It’s still unclear whether these changes are good or bad. We can only say that no negative effects have been found yet, but this is not absolute because there is only one sample, Ouyang, and the embedding time is too short. There is a great deal of uncertainty. We need enough samples and a lot of research to confirm that the embedded gene is in a quiescent state and will not cause harm to the human body before we can say that this method can end the epidemic.”

Xu Yi slammed his fist into his palm: "Isn't this the key to ending the pandemic?"

Zhou Jimin felt a sense of helplessness, like talking to a brick wall: "No, a single sample is useless. You need a sufficient sample and a lot of accumulation. It could take ten or eight years, or even thirty or fifty years. Do you understand what I mean?"

Xu Yi nodded: "Understood!"

When it comes to research, three or five years is nothing, ten or eight years is not long, and decades of consistent effort are not uncommon.

From the initial emergence of the pandemic to now, less than a year has passed, yet the entire Americas are already deeply mired in the pandemic. If a means to suppress Pneumocystis pneumonia cannot be found within 30 to 50 years, the pandemic will likely have already spread globally in another 3 to 5 years.

Even if a solution is found by then, it may not be able to save humanity.

Even if he's ignorant, he knows what reverse transcription genes are. Is this kind of technology something that just any lab can produce?

If the entire human world were to collapse, it's hard to say whether research findings could be translated into medical treatments.

Zhou Jimin finally breathed a sigh of relief: "That's basically the situation."

Xu Yi said seriously, "So, theoretically, this is indeed possible, right?"

Zhou Jimin was speechless, and emphasized again: "The odds are too small. It's like finding a specific drop of water in the ocean, and then finding a specific water molecule in that drop of water."

Xu Yi shook his head: "I only ask if it exists, not the probability."

Zhou Jimin nodded reluctantly: "Yes!"

Xu Yi sighed with regret: "Hey, Lao Zhou, why didn't you say so sooner? If I had known earlier, I would have kept that kid Ou Yang on the ship no matter what!"

Zhou Jimin also felt innocent: "We've already obtained his cell samples; it doesn't matter whether he's on the ship or not."

Xu Yi thought to himself, "No difference? The difference is huge!"
"Since there's a first case, there's bound to be a second and a third. Let's focus on securing the first case first!"

(End of this chapter)