Song He applied to his superiors for human blood for the experiments.
Under normal circumstances, experiments involving human blood required layer upon layer of approval, and even if everything went as quickly as possible, completing the procedures would take at least a month or so.
But perhaps because Song He was famous and had made many contributions, the organization trusted him more than usual. The approval process was completed at lightning speed in just a day and a half.
A nearby hospital soon delivered a batch of blood. The quantity was decent, but once the team members used it, they realized it wouldn't do.
It was nearly expired.
It was all old blood nearing its expiration date. It spoiled soon after being placed in the laboratory, with most of the blood cells dying and the plasma quality changing drastically. It was completely unusable for normal experiments.
Song He had a headache. He asked his superiors about the situation again and learned that experimental blood generally came as expired stock, because fresh blood had to be reserved for patients.
After repeated applications, the hospital finally sent over a small amount of fresh blood. But they were extremely stingy with it, providing only a pitiful few small bags. The laboratory used it all up in one morning. When Song He asked for more, the answer was that the blood bank was genuinely short on supplies and had to guarantee the patients' needs.
Song He offered to donate some cutting-edge medical equipment and hoped the hospital could set aside more fresh blood for his experiments. The hospital responded that donations were welcome, but they could not provide more fresh blood because exchanging donations for blood was expressly forbidden. Blood was not allowed to be bought or sold.
With no other choice, Song He had to think of another way.
Two days later, Chenghuang Company's internal office issued a notice calling on all employees to enthusiastically donate blood for the development of a new product.
Rumor had it that blood donors could receive a bonus of several thousand yuan per donation. Many employees went to donate just to give it a try, and sure enough, they received an internal departmental bonus two days later. Once the news spread, donors signed up enthusiastically, and the scene became a frenzy!
Song He had essentially found a loophole. Under normal circumstances, buying and selling blood was prohibited, but he had not bought or sold anything. He had merely called for donations in the name of a research project. As for the departmental bonuses after the donations, they were purely coincidental. The bonuses were supposedly rewards for diligence at work, not rewards for donating blood.
With sufficient blood supplies, the high-intensity experiments could continue. The mouse experiments and human-blood experiments progressed side by side.
From morning to night, the laboratory was permeated with the smell of blood. Various blood bags and containers were constantly being replaced. Song He discovered that he was showing slight signs of dizziness and fear at the sight of blood. Whenever he faced a large pile of blood bags, his heart raced and his hands went weak.
But courage was built through practice. As he conducted more experiments, his state of mind gradually steadied. When he saw blood, he became as accustomed to it as a veteran on a battlefield, viewing it merely as some kind of red experimental reagent. Even the bloody smell in his nose began to fade.
In mid-August, the mouse experiments were declared an initial success.
After human-made mouse red blood cells were transfused into mice with different blood types, none of them showed any adverse reactions.
What was more, judging from the 15N-glycine labeling, the human-made red blood cells actually had slightly longer lifespans than the mice's own red blood cells!
The normal lifespan of a mouse's red blood cells was between nineteen and twenty-five days, gradually shortening as the mouse aged.
Red blood cells had no nuclei, making them equivalent to soulless tools. Naturally, they were used until they were scrapped. As older mice's blood-making quality declined, the red blood cells they produced became increasingly less durable, so they were scrapped more and more quickly.
The average lifespan of the laboratory mice's red blood cells was twenty-two days. But the transfused human-made red blood cells had an astonishing lifespan of twenty-eight days, already exceeding the upper limit of normal mouse red blood cells!
The artificial product was actually more durable!
The principle behind their greater durability was still unclear, but Song He sensed that there was much more to investigate. He therefore carefully measured the mice's red blood cell turnover rate.
The so-called red blood cell turnover rate was the percentage of red blood cells replaced each day. After all, red blood cells were constantly being scrapped, so entirely new ones had to be produced accordingly to maintain stable blood composition.
The average red blood cell turnover rate in mice was 4.5%. After Song He replaced a large number of their red blood cells with human-made ones, the turnover rate rapidly fell, eventually stabilizing at around 3.9%. The mice's blood-making function eased up and became effortless.
"Interesting." Song He stared at the data and murmured to himself, "Very interesting."
In mid-August, on a weekend evening, Lou Jinghui returned!
Song He booked out the local luxury restaurant, Rao An Chui Yang, to host a welcome-back banquet for Lou Jinghui. He also invited the experimental team and the students to enjoy a big meal.
The banquet had just begun when Lou Jinghui made a fool of himself.
Everyone egged Lou Jinghui on, saying that he had gotten a Moon-passport and had been unbelievably lucky, which made them jealous. He had to offer juice to his colleagues on Earth. Lou Jinghui happily took a glass decanter and went around pouring juice for everyone to drink together. But after finishing, he raised one hand with his glass while the other hand, still holding the decanter, suddenly released it in midair.
With a loud crash, the glass decanter shattered on the floor, and shards of glass and juice splashed all over everyone's pants.
Lou Jinghui froze. Everyone else was stunned. They had all watched him let go. He had not simply lost his grip—he had deliberately released it.
Song He was the first to react. "Old Lou still hasn't adjusted to Earth. Did you think that after you let go, the decanter would keep floating in midair?"
Everyone immediately understood, and a burst of laughter erupted as the waiters rushed over to clean up the glass shards.
Lou Jinghui blushed and said with an embarrassed smile, "On the Space Station, there often isn't anywhere to put things. If you let go while they're still, they'll float in midair. In the Moon Laboratory, you don't need to handle things gently. Once you let go, they'll just fall very slowly."
"I've been back for a month and still haven't adjusted. I often instinctively look for things in the air, stare for a couple of seconds before remembering that I'm back on Earth, and then look down to see that I've thrown the thing onto the floor." Lou Jinghui laughed. "I made a fool of myself!"
Another round of teasing broke out, filled with envy. Everyone wanted to experience these aftereffects of a long stay in space too, but Nai River did not yet have that fortune.
The welcome-back banquet was basically spent listening to Lou Jinghui share his experiences in space. Everyone listened with longing on their faces while Lou Jinghui happily recounted them.
How sleeping in a sleeping bag felt like being a silkworm wrapped in a cocoon; how all the astronauts' colleagues became swollen-eyed; how they used toothbrushes to catch floating water globules; how toothpaste foam had to be swallowed; how they couldn't defecate; how they used spray guns to bathe themselves...
Most of these things were already familiar to everyone, but hearing them described by someone they knew still felt completely different. Whenever Lou Jinghui reached a crucial point, everyone even forgot to eat, staring eagerly as they listened. The room was as quiet as a classroom during a lecture.
The welcome-back banquet did not end until midnight. The older members of the team went back to sleep, while the younger ones continued working in the laboratory.
Song He pulled Lou Jinghui into his office and closed the door to discuss things in detail.
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