MoboNovel Lite
Chapter 1
She had a dream.
Long and complex, dark and noisy.
A group of panicked people, a bridge on the verge of collapse, a cracked and damaged ground, a series of cars falling into the sea…
Screams echoed in her ears, the smell of blood brushed past her nose. Death, holding a scythe high, was closing in step by step, and she heard her own heavy breathing from fear.
Run!
She climbed onto the roof of a car, running and leaping along the car’s spine without stopping.
Who would have thought that in the face of life and death, one could truly unleash infinite potential. She, who was usually bad at sports, had a day when she was so agile.
Faster, even faster! It’s going to be too late!
The reinforced concrete collapsed behind her, the iron chains and silver hooks broke in front of her. This was her race against death, she dared not look back, dared not hesitate, fearing to be buried in hell, becoming one of the flesh and blood flying everywhere.
Just then, the bridge collapsed with a loud bang.
The feeling of weightlessness came, she was startled, and then sank into the sea with everyone else.
Water rushed in from all directions, cold sealing her mouth and tongue, she reached out towards the blurred light source above, but it was futile, only getting further and further away from the sea surface.
Gradually, she couldn’t move. Her limbs gradually numbed, her consciousness blurred…
A few bubbles came out of her mouth, the last air in her lungs was completely squeezed out. As death approached, her thoughts were simple, she thought her life was indeed short, since she couldn’t die well, at least she could hope for a decent burial. She had no big wishes, only hoping that the rescue team could send her body back to her homeland after salvaging it, rather than burying her in a foreign land, otherwise, when Qingming Festival came, no one would burn paper for her, that would be too tragic.
Her eyelids slowly closed, in a daze, she bumped into a pair of golden vertical pupils, her fingertips touched a bit of warmth.
In an instant, light and shadow were colorful. She felt like she was back in her mother’s embrace, her brows relaxed, her lips curled up.
Perhaps it was an illusion, she heard a sentence in the pitch-black underwater.
[Forget your true name, abandon your human form, seal your memories, live like a beast until you…]
Until I what?
Can’t you finish the sentence, are you short of time?
She woke up.
Her mind was chaotic, her eyelids heavy as if weighed down by a thousand pounds, unable to open.
Fortunately, her consciousness gradually cleared, she felt her limbs, mobilized her reviving senses, groped for a while, only to realize that she was trapped in a narrow space, surrounded by sticky liquid.
Where is this?
Unable to turn over, unable to stretch, she could only struggle and twist with difficulty. She instinctively used her body to measure the size of the environment she was in, then used her bones to push and hit the ‘frame’ that trapped her.
In a daze, she thought she was locked in a ‘cage’, and this cage didn’t seem to be very sturdy.
Who likes the feeling of being trapped? She followed her nature, vigorously stretched her body, further expanded her size, scratched incessantly, trying to break the cage.
Probably because the commotion was not small, there was a noise outside the cage. Out of vigilance, she stopped moving.
Something is coming…
She quietly lurked, as if she had never moved. But after waiting for a while, the visitors outside the cage took no action, they did not touch, did not interfere, there was only silence.
A long ‘standoff’, she inexplicably felt a sense of security, convinced that the outsiders were harmless.
Thus, she tentatively tried to break the cage again, moving more vigorously. The cage began to shake wildly, and at the same time, there were bursts of surprised whispers from outside.
Close at hand, they spoke a language that felt familiar yet strange to her.
So strange, she always felt she should understand, but for some reason, she just couldn’t. They raised their voices, somewhat carried away, chattering and babbling, making her head hurt, and also stirring up her rare ferocity.
She suddenly raised her ‘hand’ and slapped forward, fiercely grabbing at the cage——
‘Congratulations, Henry, our second ‘asset’ is about to hatch.’
‘To be precise, it’s the second of the second generation of assets.’ The Chinese middle-aged man smiled gently, speaking in a humble tone but with no room for compromise, ‘It’s not time to celebrate yet, I must confirm it
is as perfect as its ‘sister’.’
He leaned close to the incubator, watching the shaking egg: ‘I think you can understand, Simon. They are not pure creations of nature, but miracles created by our human hands. Humans have won against nature once with their minds, and nature will win against humans countless times with accidents.’
‘Forgive me for not understanding, what is an ‘accident’?’
The Chinese man sighed, giving an explanation: ‘For technological creations, hatching is not the beginning of life, but can become the end of life. The first breath of air it takes, the first bacteria it contacts, the first piece of meat it eats, the first drop of water it drinks, all have the potential to be fatal. This is the so-called accident, a means for nature to maintain ecological balance.’
‘In history, they have long been extinct. We have made creatures that should not have appeared appear, do you think nature will let it go?’
As soon as he finished speaking, the eggshell shattered.
A silver-gray claw cut out from the inside, with egg fluid and fragments, digging the hole larger. Shortly after, the creature inside approached the light source, its eyelids trembled a few times, and finally opened its eyes.
Vertical pupils, yellow-brown. They looked like the eyes of a viper, cold and dangerous.
Caught off guard, they met its gaze. The vertical pupils slightly contracted, fixed on their ‘huge’ human figures, after a brief silence, the creature in the egg looked at its ‘hand’…
Hand?
No, this should not be called a hand, but an unconventional, sharp claw, unique to top predators, even though it is still relatively fragile, it can pierce through this seven-millimeter-thick eggshell.
The new life did not pause for too long, continuing to peel the shell. During this time, it did not roar or bare its teeth at people, its temper seemed better than the first one.
And when it crawled out mixed with egg fluid, revealing its full appearance, the onlookers immediately became excited.
This newborn dinosaur is a bit special.
Even though the same set of genes was used, the same method of editing was adopted, and no variables were added during the process, logically it should look extremely similar to the first one, like identical twins. But in reality, apart from their similar appearance, there are slight differences in details.
‘Yellow eyes, I remember the first one had red eyes.’
‘The skin color is also different, the first one was gray-white, this one is silver-gray, where exactly did it go wrong? Gene mutation?’
‘Quiet, it’s starting to breathe.’
Whether the newborn ‘asset’ can survive smoothly depends on whether it can adapt to the current natural environment, this is the first step, if it can’t even breathe, it can only be remade.
Fortunately, the new hatchling has a good constitution, after coughing out the egg fluid from its respiratory tract and lungs, it quickly adapted to breathing, without any rejection reaction.
Then, it tried to use its hind limbs to support its body, trembling to stand up in the slippery egg fluid, and fell down several times. It tried several times, self-taught to use its tail to maintain balance, and finally managed to stand.
But after standing, it didn’t move.
Perhaps afraid of slipping again, perhaps curious about itself, it stared intently at its hind limbs and front claws, trembling slightly all over.
After a long time, it used its front claws to ‘wipe’ the egg fluid off its face, as if tracing the outline of its face. Those yellow-brown vertical pupils lifted from bottom to top, tightly staring at the humans watching it, although it was a looking-up perspective, it gave a feeling of being looked down upon.
‘What is it looking at?’
‘Your carotid artery, buddy, it’s a carnivore.’
And the hatchling, whether stimulated by the sound or feeling some kind of threat, suddenly let out its first sharp roar from its throat. Short and powerful, like a warning bird call from the depths of the rainforest, with a hint of intimidation.
But humans would not understand the symbolism of this sound, what they understood was——‘asset’ has healthy lung function, good constitution, well-developed vocal cords, and a strong sense of aggression. As long as it is well raised, the research funding is not a problem, the gene project is bound to advance, and major awards are already in the bag…
So, they put on protective gear, opened the incubator, sealed the ‘asset’s’ mouth with a strap, then took it out to weigh, measure its length, and check its claws and teeth.
‘Length 11.02 inches, weight 6.17 pounds, with 17 teeth.’
‘No aggressive behavior, emotional state stable. Light perception normal, tracking ability normal.’
Data lines up, reports pages out. The noisy human voices, the ticking of instruments, the complex environment finally provoked the ‘asset’s’ instinctive resistance. But before its claws could break the strap, they quickly put it into the already prepared ecological box, and as the glass cover quickly closed, both humans and beasts seemed to be safe.
‘Give it a pound of meat.’
The feeding program automatically started, and a stone in the ecological box slowly sank, soon reappearing with a piece of fresh raw meat, still emitting a trace of blood smell.
Obviously, the smell of blood attracted the ‘asset’. The nature of a predator made it suddenly turn its head to lock onto the direction of the food, its vertical pupils excitedly narrowing into needles, but it still stayed in place, its hind limbs trembling slightly, as if in a fierce mental struggle between ‘want’ and ‘don’t want’.
‘Interesting.’ The Chinese man named Henry muttered to himself, ‘Is it strong vigilance? Compared to its ‘sister’, it seems more cautious.’
But how can caution resist instinct, it faithfully ran towards the food, devouring it.
‘Swallowing normal, stomach function normal…’
It seems that like its ‘sister’, it is a masterpiece of humans, a perfect gene creation, a proof of human victory over nature.
That night, humans began to celebrate, to revel.
She curled up in the dense vegetation of the ecological box, listening to the white noise of the water cycle, but had no sleepiness at all.
She didn’t remember who she was, where she came from or where she was going, nor did she remember what the occasional square characters in her mind meant. But she vaguely remembered that she was not like this now, with silver-gray skin, claws, and a tail, like a demon.
But, what is a ‘demon’?
She couldn’t understand their words, but she always felt familiar; she didn’t know who they were at all, but she inexplicably believed that she was one of them.
Yes, she should look like them, with soft skin, flat nails, no tail. Like them, lifting her neck, exposing the slightly pulsating blood vessels, completely defenseless. She could almost imagine the pleasure of biting through their throats, and the satisfaction of warm blood filling her empty stomach…
No!
She shivered, feeling horrified.
Why did she want to eat them? Why just thinking about it, this body would get excited? What exactly was wrong with her?
Chapter 2
The ecosystem box simulates the climate of a rainforest, humid and sultry.
Under the artificial sun’s scorching heat, she hides in the shade of broad-leaved plants for a nap, only appearing during feeding times, otherwise staying hidden.
It’s not that she dislikes activity, but she prefers to hide both physically and mentally.
Or rather, because her body is too weak, even after becoming familiar with the living environment, she still feels an unwarranted fear.
This fear is indescribable, like an ‘inherent fragment’ rooted deep in her flesh and blood, an instinct she was born with, constantly reminding her to avoid danger.
If she doesn’t learn to hide, she will be dug out and eaten; if she doesn’t learn to run, her spine will be bitten off and she will be dragged away; if she doesn’t learn to fight, she will die at the hands of others… It seems that only by quietly lurking and waiting for the right moment to act is the key to survival in her weak infancy.
But, why are these her instincts?
There’s a feeling of ‘it shouldn’t be like this’.
She doesn’t know the source of the ‘fragment’, nor does she understand the underlying logic of ‘fear’, just like she doesn’t understand why, after sleeping twice, a somewhat incomplete language system of square characters automatically pops up in her mind?
First vocabulary, then short and long sentences, the more she thinks about it, the more familiar it becomes.
She uses them to describe her current situation, very skillfully.
Thus, she concludes that her soul has been influenced by square characters—even though she hasn’t yet figured out the meanings of ‘soul’ and ‘influence’.
As time passes, the humidity and heat inside the ecosystem box reach a threshold, the simulator flashes red, and the environment begins to rain.
She watches the rain curtain, and suddenly a scene flashes in her mind.
A room filled with white mist, a round metal handle, ‘rainwater’ spraying from inside, showering a raised hand.
Hand?
Looking down, she sees a pair of metallic gray claws, sharp and terrifying.
She feels irritated, instinctively clenching her fist, only to find the claws immediately hooking, easily leaving scratch marks on the hard soil.
A bit deep…
She dares not move again.
At this moment, a scream suddenly comes from outside, so piercing it turns into a wail.
Hearing the sound, her vertical pupils rapidly rotate, her gaze penetrating the gaps in the leaves, accurately locking onto the direction of the sound. Then, she lightens her breath, tenses her muscles, shrinks into the shadows, slightly lifts her hind legs, entering a state ready to sprint at any moment.
Meanwhile, the white coats who were originally lying in front of a pile of square boxes, took ’the time to eat two pieces of meat’ longer than her to react. They almost ‘slowly’ got up, ‘slowly’ ran, some approaching her, some rushing outside.
‘What happened?’
‘The second generation’s asset number one bit the caretaker.’
‘It tasted human blood? This is a dinosaur… my God!’
‘Dinosaur? Well, I hope it really is a dinosaur.’ A chestnut-haired woman said with a pale face, speaking words with unclear meanings, ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen a dinosaur that can bite through protective gear at three weeks old, even carnivorous dinosaurs at the same stage can’t do that! Damn it, we used fully enclosed protective gear, how could it smell human flesh!’
Chaos ensues.
But the chaos doesn’t last long, and the laboratory quickly returns to calm.
At least on the surface.
She gradually relaxes, slowly stepping into the rain curtain, letting the rain wash over her body. Under the beating of the water droplets, her tense bones and muscles finally relax.
After enjoying the shower, she shakes off the water and disappears back into the broad-leaved bushes. Only she didn’t expect that ‘under a toppled nest, no egg remains intact’, some fires will burn her even if she doesn’t fan them.
Feeding time arrives, but instead of raw meat, a group of white coats appears.
They cluster around a middle-aged man with black hair and black eyes standing outside her ’territory’, chattering away.
She still doesn’t understand, but she tries to comprehend, to grasp, especially wanting to glean some information from their body language and expressions.
Intuition tells her, understanding these things is important. Especially the man with black hair and black eyes… for some reason, this simple color combination attracts her gaze, just looking at him feels familiar.
She remembers him, he doesn’t appear often, but they all listen to him. It seems in this place, he is ’the most powerful’.
And whether it’s her survival instinct or the biological nature to pay attention to the ‘strongest’ opponent near her territory, she always unconsciously assesses his threat level. After staring for a long time, she not only remembers his appearance but also the small badge on his clothes, along with the shape of the words—henrywu.
Through a layer of glass cover, their voices are fast and blurry.
But her hearing is excellent, managing to snatch a few high-frequency words from their conversation, matching them one by one, silently memorizing them.
‘It’s used to staying in one place, unwilling to move?’
‘Yes, Dr. Wu.’ The researcher flips through the data records, ‘Compared to the other one, this asset is more gentle and more alert. It’s not active nor curious, doesn’t hit the glass, doesn’t vocalize threats, its daily state is ‘quiet’.’
‘Quiet?’ Henry is puzzled, ‘Can the difference in the same set of genes be so big?’
The researcher nods: ‘Indeed, Dr. Wu. This asset is more suitable for artificial breeding and interaction with humans than the other one, although it was born as a backup to the first one, I believe its evolution has surpassed the first one.’
After all, the other one injured a person and remembered the taste of human blood. Once the concept that ‘humans are food’ is engraved into its genes, its habit of eating humans will form and can never be changed.
If it continues its offspring, its descendants will also learn this from the genetic fragments—humans are food.
And this is the reason why ‘wild animals that have eaten humans must be killed’. If not killed, humans will always be on their menu.
Unfortunately, the doctor’s views are clearly different from the norm, for a lawless madman and a science geek, the hybrid dinosaurs he created are not wild animals but valuable assets in the field of genetics. He doesn’t care if they eat humans, he only cares about how far they can grow.
Henry: ‘I think your understanding is wrong.’
‘Doctor?’
‘For carnivorous dinosaurs, quiet and gentle are never good words, ferocity and violence are the attitudes they should have.’
Henry speaks flatly: ‘From your description of this asset, it’s almost a defective product, is our laboratory’s project to clone sheep? Don’t forget the company’s requirements for us, they want bigger, more terrifying, cooler new species of dinosaurs.’
The researcher dares not speak, and Henry issues an order, ending the leisurely life of the second asset.
‘Activate its wildness, I want a killer, not a pet.’
Thus, the feeding machine in the ecosystem box no longer moves, instead, a pipe on one side opens, and a live rabbit comes in.
The rabbit isn’t big, but it’s plump, its white fur splattered with blood, the smell of blood stimulating her taste buds. It doesn’t notice her in the shadows, minding its own business eating the vegetation, completely unaware of the approaching danger.
Soon, she finally rises from under the broad leaves, silently.
She feels torn in two, half rejecting the bloody food, half craving the raw meat. Her stomach is on fire, saliva uncontrollably dripping, she’s hungry, her nose filled with the scent of the prey’s meat, her claws trembling with excitement.
Reason remains, but she doesn’t intend to resist her instincts. She understands, being caged and relying on others for food, she has no choice, she has to eat whatever is given.
She puts down her psychological burden, letting her body follow its instincts.
In an instant, her hind legs push off, she shoots out like an arrow from a bow, fast as the wind.
The rabbit doesn’t react in time, her legs have already stepped on its spine, sharp toenails piercing its back, claws like sickles slicing through its skin and flesh, blood splattering. She shows her ferocity, finding the rabbit’s neck bone, and bites down. The rabbit kicks its legs in extreme fear, soon falling silent.
The whole process is smooth, without any unnecessary movements, her first hunt can be considered perfect.
Looking down, she uses her teeth to tear open the rabbit’s skin, picking the tender parts to eat.
‘Perhaps Dr. Wu is mistaken…’ the person recording whispers, ‘This asset is the more ferocious and terrifying one, its quietness is just because it’s not hungry.’
Hunting becomes her daily routine.
The researchers don’t mistreat her, the food provided is quite rich, from rabbits to guinea pigs, from lambs to pigs, from pigeons to eels, she can’t recognize them all, but once they’re in her mouth, she always somehow remembers. Remembers their smell and shape, remembers their vital points and taste…
Eating well, without worries, she grows a whole size larger, moved to another ecosystem box.
With nothing to do in her daily life, having a lot of time to kill, naturally, she spends her energy on ‘observing humans’, often they study her while she studies them.
The difference is, she knows she’s being observed, while they have no awareness of being observed.
In her assessment of prey, she finds them incredibly weak, yet always carrying an outrageous arrogance. They always walk up to her without any vigilance, even exposing their necks to her, every move so casual, every arrangement for her so taken for granted, as if they will never fall to the status of ‘food’.
Sometimes she really wants to give them a bite, to wake them up, but she’s afraid that tasting such ‘intelligent’ blood might turn her into an idiot like them.
Wait, what is ‘idiot’?
She thinks for a while, until she hears the same word again before snapping back to reality.
The word comes from the humans’ mouths, repeatedly appearing in their conversations, mainly used to refer to her, called ‘assets’.
She doesn’t understand its meaning, but she also understands it should be similar to ‘henrywu’, able to accurately locate a specific person or thing.
Yes, specific, precise, unique, they seem to each have one, so she can’t not have one.
Therefore, she decides from today she is ‘assets’, but through the cover, she’s not sure if its pronunciation is Assas, Assaz, or something else?
Forget it, it’s not important. She compromises and weighs for a long time, thinking calling herself ‘Assas’ is more appropriate.
Decided.
She happily flicks her tail twice, originally intending to try imitating human pronunciation, but didn’t expect their vocal systems to be completely different. When ‘Assas’ comes out of her mouth, it turns into a wolf-like ‘awoo’.
Very abrupt, making the already not very noisy laboratory even quieter.
The researchers curiously gather around, lifting their pen caps, quickly recording: ‘Does it finally have the desire to communicate? Is it time for social groups and companions?’
‘I heard it vocalize for the first time, it sounds like a cat.’
‘Should we apply for the two assets to live together? They both seem very lonely.’
‘No, the other one was born three weeks earlier, they are very different in size, what if the other one eats it? To monopolize resources and eat its own kind, such things are very common in nature.’
They are noisy, seemingly mocking her call. Instantly, she doesn’t want to speak anymore.
Chapter 3
She often feels as if her brain is shrouded in a fog.
A fog that cannot be dispersed, only waiting for it to evaporate on its own.
It obscures her perception, locks her cognition, and blurs her known, giving her a general concept of everything, yet half-covering, not allowing her to explore the specific meanings, nor to peek at the fundamental origins.
Only growth and sleep can make the fog retreat, and with each step back, her understanding of herself and the outside world advances further.
For example, now, she has a concept of time—
The first time she noticed ’time’ was while waiting to be fed.
She clearly remembers that whenever the artificial sun’s light turns from dark to bright, prey would come in through the pipes, usually four-legged. And when the light turns from bright to dark, prey would come in through the water, mostly legless.
After several repetitions, she understood a pattern: four-legged food appears during the day, legless food appears at night, and two-legged food (humans) would always appear.
At this point, she became aware of day and night, but knew nothing about the passage of time.
It wasn’t until she noticed that with each cycle of light and dark, a page marked with numbers in the laboratory would be torn off, that she learned what ‘a day’, ‘a week’, and ‘a month’ were.
After that, she woke up from sleep to find herself enlightened.
She suddenly remembered that the torn-off papers were called ‘calendars’, suddenly understood that the round disk with long and short hands was a ‘clock’, and inexplicably learned how to tell time.
She realized that she must have learned these things at some time she couldn’t remember, and must have dealt with them frequently, otherwise how could she use them so skillfully?
They belong to humans, their knowledge and tools. So, could she consider that she was once a ‘human’, which is why she feels familiar with all knowledge related to ‘humans’?
The fog has lifted a bit, but there’s nothing behind the fog, only thicker fog.
Thinking and worrying always consume a lot of energy, and the morning’s food has already been digested. To prevent her stomach from becoming uncomfortably empty, she minimizes activity, mostly lying down.
Often, she uses this leisure time to pay attention to the outside world, consciously listening to human conversations, noting their word usage, and then learning their language.
At first, she didn’t understand at all, but over time, with the dual support of the language environment and ‘baby talk’, she actually entered a state of half-understanding. Except for not understanding professional terms, she has mastered many words used in human interactions.
For example, the coffee they drink every day, the names they must call, and the names of the food they bring her with high repetition.
But more than these, there are a few words that particularly concern her, they are ’the other one’, ’the first one’, ‘gene’, ‘first-generation Tyrannosaurus Rex’.
Before she could understand the meanings of these words, she first sensed fear from the humans.
And the reason she is familiar with the emotion of ‘fear’ is that only at this time do humans put down their arrogance, their eyes matching those of the prey she has killed, finally becoming somewhat ‘cute’.
But, why are they afraid?
With this question in mind, she pays more attention to their conversations and body language.
After about four or five days, she understood the meanings of ’the other one’ and ’the first one’. Whenever they mention these two words, they look towards the next room of the laboratory, where Henry Wu often stays, and from time to time, there are roars of beasts or screams of humans.
Every time Henry Wu leaves the next room and appears in front of her, she knows that the way she is being raised is about to change.
It will become more professional, more targeted, but also more stringent, more wild.
She never understood why he was so ‘professional’, but now she gets it, the next room houses another one like her… a dinosaur?
The question arises, if the other one is the first one, then is she the second one?
The second what? What is a first-generation Tyrannosaurus Rex?
What… is she?
After seven days of two meals a day, the last meal delivered was not live prey, but a plate of processed beef.
It emitted a not-so-pleasant smell, she initially didn’t want to eat it, but not eating would mean going hungry until dawn. For the sake of her poor stomach, she finally lowered her head to solve the immediate problem, but unexpectedly, as the drug in the meat took effect, she fell into a deep sleep.
When she regained consciousness, she found herself moved out of her territory, lying on a snow-white metal table. Her mouth was sealed, her claws tied, her tail fixed, completely immobile.
She symbolically struggled twice, then immediately stopped doing useless work.
‘Born 28 days, 4 weeks old, body length 23.62 inches, weight 39.64 pounds, 21 teeth, well-developed, normal density.’
The researcher attached patches to her, watching the computer data: ‘At the same growth stage, this one has extremely high brain activity, normal heart rate, emotion… very stable? Wait, it’s already awake.’
‘Awake? So soon, did we put in too little dose?’
‘It’s not a matter of dose,’ the researcher said, ‘Its brain is awake, but its body is still asleep. At the same stage, the other one’s body was awake, but its brain was still asleep, so it made a mess of the laboratory at that time.’
With the experience of dealing with the first one, they thought dealing with the second one would be a piece of cake, but unexpectedly, even with an increased dose of anesthesia, it could wake its brain before its body.
Was it an accident, a coincidence, or had its genes undergone unknown mutations?
To find out the reason and to eliminate potential risks, he inquired with Dr. Wu.
However, the honest man asked the wrong person, how could the thinking of a normal person compete with a scientific devil in human skin?
Henry: ‘Is it picky about food?’
‘Yes, Doctor,’ the researcher said, ‘It only eats the meat, brain, heart, and liver of the prey, and doesn’t eat the rest.’
Unlike the other one, or rather, unlike any carnivorous dinosaur that would swallow the prey whole without being picky, it’s a freak that plucks feathers before eating a bird, and even uses its claws to scrape scales off fish.
Researcher: ‘We all agree that it possesses a certain level of intelligence, perhaps its ‘awakening’ is related to the primate genes mixed into its genes. But whatever the variable is, it should be stopped.’
‘Doctor, its temper is more stable than the other one, but its intelligence is frightening.’
Henry smiled: ‘Animals that are picky about food are indeed smarter, they can distinguish poisons, avoid risks, and have a high survival rate. However, animals that are not picky have better physiques, they can decompose poisons, produce antibodies, and have an even higher survival rate.’
His tone was still so casual, as if all the unreasonable things were reasonable.
‘The smart ones may not necessarily grow up, but the ones with good physiques will definitely live to the end. Rather than worrying about the intelligence of a juvenile dinosaur, you should worry about the appetite of an adult dinosaur. After all, no matter how smart a juvenile dinosaur is, it can’t count, but no matter how stupid an adult dinosaur is, it will eat people.’
The matter was left unresolved.
After that day, she never saw that researcher again.
The laboratory was depressed for a few days, no one dared to question Dr. Wu’s authority anymore, nor did anyone dare to voice opinions. They even sat together to mock the departed greenhorn, thinking it was absurd for a scientist to be afraid of a dinosaur’s ‘intelligence’.
‘It’s just an animal.’
‘Even with primate genes, it won’t become a primate.’
‘And what are primates, chimpanzees, broad-nosed monkeys? They can never become humans.’
They are convinced that no creature can shake humanity’s position at the top of the food chain.
In the fifth week, Dr. Wu issued a new directive, completely changing the rearing plan for the second juvenile dragon.
When the plan was distributed, the conditions on it, strict to the point of being harsh, left the researchers dumbfounded. They suspected that Dr. Wu wanted to ’legitimately and compliantly’ kill the company’s second asset, otherwise it would be inexplicable why he would devise such a devilish diet and training?
But no one dared to speak up.
Instead, Dr. Wu, seeing their hesitation, explained with a good mood: ‘Hybrid gene dinosaurs are indeed precious, but we know too little about them. With the first one confirmed to survive, it’s time for the second one to play its role.’
They understood.
The birth of the second hybrid was just to provide an insurance for the first one, in case it died prematurely, having a backup could explain to the upper levels.
Now, the first hybrid is already 8 weeks old, having survived the most deadly ‘gene disease outbreak period’ with its excellent physique. Thus, it’s a foregone conclusion that it will grow to adulthood.
With the explanation item secured, the existence of the second one becomes less significant.
The laboratory can use it for various tests to collect data on hybrid dinosaurs, and then use the research results from the second one to correct the rearing methods of the first one.
‘We understand, Doctor.’
Their execution ability is undoubtedly astonishing, taking only three hours to find the first wild animal that meets the new dietary standards, and abandoning the punctual feeding times, switching to irregular and variable feeding methods.
Opening the pipe, they released a wild reticulated python about 35 inches long, starved for nearly a week, into it.
It’s hungry, aggressive, capable of swallowing prey several times its size, and most importantly, its constriction and bite force can increase the difficulty of hunting for the ‘asset’.
Thus, the python, sensing the ‘food’ scent, quickly swam into the ecosystem box.
At that time, she was lying in the shade for a noon nap, her brain not yet reacting, but her body immediately entered a combat state. She was belatedly awakened by instinct, opening her eyes to see a python, which was coldly locking onto her.
Her brain went blank for a moment, she thought she should be afraid of this ’twisted’ prey, otherwise she wouldn’t have uncontrollably erupted with an unprecedented roar the moment their eyes met—
There was anger at the invasion of her territory, panic at the threat to her life, but mostly the thought of ‘must kill what makes me feel fear’.
She thought, she was almost out of her mind at that time.
She forgot how she attacked and fought, only knowing that when she came to her senses, the prey had been dismembered and gutted by her claws.
Its head was crushed, its internal organs trampled, and she was chewing on its spine…
She stopped moving, stiffened.
But soon she returned to normal, lowering her head to eat, discarding human likes and dislikes, leaving only the ways of a beast.