American comic: From Beijing with Love, starting with a mutant.

"Liu, where exactly is this place? My phone's map doesn't even show it."

After getting into the car, Stephen Chow carefully placed the quirky gun.

"Didn't Wenxi and Professor Jiang Si both work at the bureau? How come they suddenly separated and ended up here?"

Xiao Liu swiped his card to pass through the checkpoint, and only after the barrier rose did he answer: "This is the National Joint Center for Special Biosafety Technology. Bureau 749 is in charge of the project, with the entry-exit administration and transportation departments participating, and the General Hospital of Military Families providing medical support."

"With such a long name, will it even fit on the doorplate?"

"You can call it the Joint Center."

Xiao Liu glanced at the rearview mirror: "The joint center project is related to the mayfly's injury."

Why?

"Living spark, well, that means SBT09 didn't have entry documents when it infiltrated China. It also didn't leave any normal traffic records. We were only able to confirm that mutant activity had occurred within our borders when the windbreak forest caught fire."

In the rearview mirror, Stephen Chow's face was swept across by the sentry light.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and left a faint mark on the filter with his teeth: "Go on."

"After this incident, Leonardo da Vinci created an X-gene detection device, officially called the X-gene Abnormal Expression Screening Gate."

"To date, installation has been completed at airports and ports, and fixed sampling terminals have also been installed at key land border crossings."

Stephen Chow saw the "No Smoking" sign inside the car and fiddled with it between his fingers: "How do you use it? You just scan it through clothes and you can tell who has the X gene?"

"It's not that simple. We screen and collect exfoliated skin cells and respiratory aerosols, then use weak-field resonance to detect abnormally expressed proteins, and the data is sent back to the joint center for cross-analysis."

"Even after Leonardo da Vinci explained it three times, I still didn't understand the specific principles behind it."

"That sounds pretty civilized. I thought Wenxi would invent an X-gene lie detector stun gun. He'd stick it into someone, and the person smoking would be arrested on the spot."

"The prototype was indeed a stick."

Stephen Chow chuckled and asked in great surprise, "Who did he stab?"

"Director Wang, then Director Wang chased him up four floors and used a deadly scissor kick to throw him so hard that his neck was in a cast for a week, and the prototype was canceled that day."

Stephen Chow rubbed the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand: "Scientific development always comes at a price. The price Wenxi pays is usually something others have to take first."

"The current equipment does not come into contact with the human body, and those who test positive in the initial screening will not be detained directly. They need to be manually retested to verify their identity and purpose of entry, and to rule out contamination of medical samples."

Stephen Chow leaned back in his seat: "Then why did we have to move here? Isn't the basement of the bureau quite spacious? Anton is taking up half a floor of archives by himself, let him move around a bit."

"The computing power is insufficient. The screening data generated by an international airport every day requires at least six sets of biometric computing arrays to process continuously. After several major ports are connected, the bureau's power system cannot handle it."

Xiao Liu turned on the turn signal, and the mountains outside the car window receded to the sides, revealing the rooftops of several silver-gray factory buildings.

"This place is close to a pumped storage power station, has an independent underground computing center, and the medical experimental area can be isolated from the equipment research and development area."

"Is Professor Jiang willing to move?"

"He was initially reluctant, but when he saw that the tissue culture area had independent power supply and three-level air purification, he put Xiaoyou into the incubator overnight and arrived at six o'clock in the morning."

"Where's Vincent?"

He said the feng shui of the bureau's research lab was bad, and that inventions were likely to be kicked away by Director Wang.

Zhou Xingxing sneered, "Is that a matter of feng shui? Last time he installed a catapult on the director's chair, Director Wang was already showing respect to intellectuals by not ejecting him from the country!"

"How's the research material I brought back from before? Don't tell me that number one's arm and those three bone spurs are still soaking in formaldehyde."

"All projects are now complete."

"So fast?"

"Three usable technologies were extracted from the first limb: a non-magnetic polymer formula, a composite muscle bundle weaving method, and a bidirectional nerve conduction interface."

Xiao Liu tapped the central control screen, and a gray-black bionic forearm rotated on the screen: "A part of the bionic forearm currently used in Luke comes from this project."

Zhou Xingxing stared at the forearm interface for two seconds: "So, that means the ghost arm I removed can now allow Luke to raise his hand again?"

"If the nerve connection goes smoothly, it's possible."

"So, does that mean I'm still the ultimate savior?" Stephen Chow thought to himself with a smug smile.

I don't know if the bureau will give me a bonus for saving the mayfly.

Speaking of all the work I've done this year, how much will I get paid at the end of the year?

"The anti-magnetic material of No. 1 is now in use. It is used as the outer shell of the core sampling chamber of the X-gene screening gate to avoid interference from magnetic field-related devices."

"You mean even if Polaris is standing at the door, he can't twist the machine into a pretzel?"

Xiao Liu nodded: "It can't be done within the rated strength, but it's uncertain once it exceeds the strength."

Stephen Chow grinned: "Then how about we put a sign on the door that says, 'Comrade Polaris, please do not enter with any emotions.' Heh..."

Xiao Liu didn't respond, and continued to solemnly recount Number One's contributions:

"He also created a remote control arm by combining muscle bundles, which can shut off valves and cut pipes, and can also move obstacles weighing 200 kilograms."

"What about bone spurs?"

Screen switch.

Three white bone spikes lay inside the box, next to a silver-gray drill bit with a spiral blade.

"The sample structure of the bone casting is unique. The outer layer is hard, the inner layer is tough, and there are multiple layers of interwoven fibers in the middle. Leonardo da Vinci made a gradient composite drill bit based on it."

"Have you tried using a tunnel boring machine?"

"We tried it; the first version of the drill bit cracked after drilling eleven meters into the granite."

"Tch, I knew that fat guy was all bark and no bite. He looks fierce, but he can't even last half a day at work."

"After examining the fracture surface, the Moon Boy proposed modifications, changing the internal fibers to be obliquely overlapping. The second version could work continuously for 116 hours, with a wear rate 30% lower than imported drill bits."

"After mass production, the cost is expected to decrease by 18%. The Guizhou sinkhole project is preparing to apply for the first batch of approvals."

"Great! That's what you call labor reform! Bone Casting himself refuses to work, so Bone Spikes will take over the work on old pipelines and tunnel projects."

"Da Vinci gave the project a name."

"Tell me about it?" Stephen Chow asked curiously.

"Death Variant Biological Organization Re-employment Program".

"Sounds like the King of Hell opening a job fair? Wouldn't it be better to change it to a project on the recycling of special biological materials and apply for a science and technology progress award?"

Xiao Liu smiled and said, "Professor Jiang Si argued with Leonardo da Vinci for more than an hour over this name, and his proposed changes are basically the same as yours."

"Great minds think alike; the only difference between a scientist and a butcher is a white lab coat."