Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

He had seen too many people cry and beg for mercy when they were captured, so Lin Shen's deathly calmness made him a little impatient.

When Lin Shen heard his name called, his lips twitched slightly, not in a smile, but in a sense of absurdity.

The name was given by Song Yuanming. Before that, his file only contained four words: identity unknown.

When he was five years old, he was abandoned at the gate of the orphanage one winter, wrapped in a tattered quilt with the cotton filling showing. When the director carried him in, he wrote those four words in the name column of the file, and even the date of birth was filled in randomly.

There were many children in the orphanage, and he was always the quietest one. He never fought or grabbed anything, and he never cried or made a fuss. While the other children were fighting over toys and snacks, he would sit in the corner and flip through books. Those math formulas and physics theorems that would give others a headache were like roads written on paper in his eyes, and he could see the end of them at a glance.

The teachers praised him as a genius, but he just found it noisy.

The knowledge was already there; he just saw it. Why praise it?

He never made friends or participated in group activities. During the graduation photo, he voluntarily stood at the very edge. Standing in the middle meant being too close to many people, which made him uncomfortable.

When he was fifteen, Song Yuanming from the Provincial Institute of Biology came to the welfare home to give a popular science lecture. He sat in the last row and never looked up from beginning to end.

After the lecture, Song Yuanming wrote a mathematical modeling problem about neural synaptic signal transmission on the blackboard. None of the high school students present could solve it. He took three minutes to write the correct answer on a scratch paper.

The algorithm he used was an idea that Song Yuanming had not yet publicly shared.

He found that dusty book, "Principles of Neuroscience," in the welfare home's library. He spent three days reading it, memorizing it, and understanding it before putting it back on the shelf.

Song Yuanming squatted down to look him in the eye and asked him what his name was.

He said calmly, "I have no name."

He noticed a scratch on Song Yuanming's glasses and a faint ring mark on his left ring finger. He never looked at people's expressions when observing them; details don't lie.

Song Yuanming remained silent for a long time before saying, "From today onwards, your name will be Lin Shen. Lin as in forest, Shen as in depth."

Looking at the old man, Lin Shen felt for the first time that someone standing in front of him made him not want to back away.

There was no pity or sympathy in Song Yuanming's eyes, only a solemn respect for seeing one's own kind.

Song Yuanming took him back to the research institute, without going through any procedures or filling out any forms, and directly gave him a workstation and a key.

Lin Shen asked why, and Song Yuanming said, "You don't need those things. What you need is something to do."

Song Yuanming was the first person to discover his unique way of thinking.

Normal people learn things along a line, from A to B to C. Lin Shen sees the whole network directly, with A, D, X, and Z lighting up at the same time. He only needs to find the shortest connection.

Song Yuanming never praised him for being smart, but only pointed out when he went astray: "Lin Shen, you missed B." Then he could fill in the whole logical chain on his own.

The "beacon theory" is a concept that Song Yuanming has been proposing for ten years. It involves implanting a microchip to decode nerve signals, allowing paralyzed patients to regain control of their limbs.

The core bottleneck is that the decoding algorithm for neural signals is too complex, exponentially so, and Song Yuanming spent ten years trying to solve it without success.

In his third month at the research institute, Lin Shenjin reduced the algorithm complexity from O(2^n) to O(n³).

He placed dozens of pages of calculation paper on Song Yuanming's desk and said only two words: "Done."

Song Yuanming studied it for three days and three nights, then said with tears in his eyes, "This is the most beautiful mathematics I've ever seen." Lin Shen hummed in agreement, without saying anything more.

He didn't care how many people this theory could save; he cared that Song Yuanming cared.

Song Yuanming was the only person who made him feel that "life is somewhat meaningful." He never asked him to become a normal person, never forced him to interact with people, and never forced him to laugh. The two of them could spend an entire day in the lab without saying a word, yet they never felt awkward.

A month ago, the Five Mountains Society came to our door for the first time, offering 200 million yuan to acquire all our research data and patents.

Song Yuanming refused on the spot. When the other party left, he left a message: "Professor Song, contact us anytime if you have thought it through." Lin Shen was standing in the corridor at the time, watching the man's back, and remembered his gait with his left foot slightly turned outward.

At 2 a.m. three days ago, a gas leak caused an explosion in the laboratory.

Lin Shen was dragged out of his sleep by Song Yuanming. The corridor was filled with thick smoke and alarms. Song Yuanming pushed him toward the emergency exit. A precast concrete slab fell from the ceiling. Song Yuanming shoved him away violently, not having time to dodge himself.

When Lin Shen turned around, he saw Song Yuanming trapped under a precast concrete slab, blood flowing from the corner of his mouth.

He squatted down to try to move the precast slab, but Song Yuanming grabbed his wrist with a strength that belied that of an old man being pinned down.

"Lin Shen," Song Yuanming's voice was steady, "you can complete the beacon theory by yourself."

Lin Shen looked at him and said, "I can't finish it. That's your theory."

Song Yuanming smiled, the blood flowing from the corner of his mouth flowing even more freely: "I suggested it, and you did it. It was yours to begin with."

"Let's go."

Lin Shen knelt on the ground, looking into Song Yuanming's eyes. There was no fear or reluctance in the old man's eyes, only a calm reassurance.

He knew Lin Shen wouldn't stop.

Lin Shen stood up, turned around and left without looking back.

Song Yuanming had taught him that there was no point in going back.

In the three days following the explosion, the remaining seven team members died one after another in an "accident".

When Lin Shen heard the news, he memorized the faces of those people and continued walking forward.

His way of experiencing pain is different from that of a normal person. A normal person would cry, feel angry, and want justice, but he wouldn't.

He will only remember what needs to be remembered and then do what needs to be done.

For the past three days, he has been hiding in this abandoned laboratory, surviving on moldy bread and tap water.

He dared not contact anyone; those people couldn't help him, they would only die.

He knew Yan Ke would find this place sooner or later, but he didn't expect it to be so soon.

He reached into his pocket for the utility knife; the blade was only three centimeters long.

He mentally calculated the distance and angle. Yan Ke was standing 2.3 meters away. It would take him 0.8 seconds to rush over, but it would only take Yan Ke 0.2 seconds to pull the trigger. In the end, it didn't work.

He put the utility knife back in his pocket, not because he was afraid of dying, but because dying here would be meaningless.

Song Yuanming once said that the beacon theory needs to be completed, but he hasn't finished it yet.