Desperate people, accept the seed of my soul!

When will the third batch of samples arrive?

Zhou De'an asked without looking up.

"The obstetrics department of Shanyang People's Hospital just screened two cases, and they should be transferred here this afternoon."

The assistant opened the folder and reported.

"One premature infant, born at 28 weeks, has the FTD-7 mutation type, which is closer to the core region than the mutation site of Li Su's child in the previous batch. Theoretically, it has a greater activation potential. There is also a full-term infant with the FTD-3 mutation type, which is relatively mild and will be used as a control group."

"Li Su's child."

Zhou De'an's fingers paused for a moment, the pipette hovering above the petri dish.

"What was the test subject's number again?"

"A-09. Editing efficiency of 41%, multiple organ failure occurred on the fourth day, and death occurred on the seventh day. An abnormal peak occurred in the brain waves before death, which was initially judged to be an early sign of supernatural activation. Unfortunately, the rejection reaction was too fast, and he died before complete data could be collected."

After the assistant finished reading the message, he closed the folder.

"How is Li Su doing now? Is there any new report from Qi Jianmin?"

"I sent an email last Friday. It said that she has already received two courses of high-dose chlorpromazine treatment and has been much calmer recently, no longer complaining about being wronged, but she has experienced significant memory decline and disorientation. Director Qi said that after another course of treatment, she should be able to completely stabilize."

Zhou De'an nodded, his expression unchanged.

"That's good. Although her report wasn't submitted, it was still a potential problem. Now that she's quiet, that problem is gone."

He put the pipette back on the shelf, took off his gloves, walked to the computer next to him, and opened the new email from headquarters.

The email was sent from the headquarters of the biotechnology company that funded his research, and the subject was "Latest intelligence analysis on the Song Dynasty case in Jeolla Province".

Zhou De'an opened the attachment and read it line by line.

In the Song Dynasty, a construction worker in Somyeong City, Jeolla Province, was framed and imprisoned by the construction site developer, resulting in the separation of his wife and children. In the interrogation room, he awakened his extraordinary bloodline abilities.

Within three days of awakening, he killed 173 people, including developers, police officials, judges, and 127 relatives of his enemies.

With an army of 30,000 men, the Song army suffered over 2,000 casualties, its commander was killed in action, and the Song general, exhausted and unconscious, was captured.

They were abducted by the Fire Seed organization during transport and their whereabouts are currently unknown.

Type of supernatural ability: Blood manipulation.

Threat level: SSS level.

Note: Following the Song Dynasty case, several similar awakening incidents occurred across the Federation, with awakened individuals suddenly gaining extraordinary abilities after being driven to the brink of despair. The mechanism of awakening is still unclear, but preliminary speculation suggests it is related to extreme psychological stimulation.

After reading the intelligence report, Zhou De'an's lips curled up slightly again.

Extreme psychological stimulation.

These four words were not a warning to him.

It's an experimental direction.

If we could artificially create controllable extreme mental stimulation and then activate extraordinary genes under such conditions, how much higher would the success rate be than it is now?

He was considering the feasibility of the plan when a dull thud suddenly came from above.

The sound was incredibly loud, like something weighing tens of tons crashing down from the sky. All the windows in the building shattered simultaneously, and broken glass splattered all over the floor.

All the fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling shattered, plunging the laboratory into darkness, with only the backup power supply to the computer screens still on.

Immediately afterwards, an even louder thud came from above.

This time the tremor was even stronger than the first. Zhou De'an felt the floor shaking violently beneath his feet, and all the petri dishes and reagent bottles in the laboratory flew up, colliding with each other in the air and exploding into a shower of glass shards.

A researcher was hit on the forehead by a flying reagent bottle, and blood splattered all over the wall.

Another researcher was knocked to the ground, his back hitting the constant temperature incubator, which then fell and crushed his leg, making a cracking sound as if his bones were breaking.

"What's going on!"

Zhou De'an, barely able to stand, leaned on the lab table and shouted into the darkness.

No one answered him.

The muffled thuds overhead continued, one after another, with almost no breaks in between.

Someone turned on their phone's flashlight, the beam flailing wildly in the darkness, illuminating the horrific scene inside the laboratory.

The petri dishes were shattered all over the floor, and the gene-editing reagents were spilled everywhere. Months of experimental results were all turned into glass shards.

A researcher was hunched over a monitoring screen, his face pale and his lips trembling so much he couldn't speak.

"Professor Zhou—please take a look at this—"

Zhou De'an walked over through the broken glass, bent down, and looked at the screen.

The monitor screen shows the view outside the main entrance of the research center.

The image is a bit blurry because the camera was shaken and tilted at an angle, but it's still clear.

Several huge rocks were smashed in the parking lot outside the main gate.

Each stone was larger than a car, and its surface was covered with soil and grass roots from the mountain.

One of the rocks smashed through a parked ambulance, breaking it in two. The roof collapsed, the frame twisted, and all four tires exploded simultaneously, sending rubber fragments flying everywhere.

Another stone smashed the main gate of the research center, shattering the three-meter-high glass curtain wall into countless fragments. The signboard on the gate—"Shannan Province Eugenics and Childbirth Research Center"—was knocked down and fell to the ground, breaking into several pieces.

Several deep craters were smashed into the parking lot, and the asphalt surface was cracked, with cracks extending all the way to the edge of the surveillance camera's view.

"A stone—a stone that fell from the sky—"

The researcher's voice was squeezed out of his throat, sharp and distorted.

"It wasn't an earthquake—someone was throwing stones at us from the sky!"

Before he could finish speaking, a new object appeared on the surveillance screen.

It was a boulder larger than all the stones from before, with a diameter of over three meters, crashing down from directly above the image like a small mountain.

The boulder crashed above the main entrance of the research center, smashing into half of the exterior wall on the third floor.

The brick walls shattered, the floor slabs collapsed, and rubble flew to the edge of the parking lot dozens of meters away.

The surveillance camera feed shook violently for a moment, then turned into a static screen.

Zhou De'an stared at the snowy screen, his expression shifting from shock to fear, and then to a near-mad rage.

He knew who did it.

In the entire city of Shanyang, there is only one person who can drop a rock weighing several tons from the sky.

The woman he thought had been burned into an idiot by chlorpromazine.

Li Su.

She's not crazy.

She fought her way out of the mental hospital.

She's on the rooftop right now, using her superpowers to smash up his research institute.

"Evacuate! Everyone, evacuate the underground laboratory! Head towards the emergency exit at the back!"