Song He's heart tightened. Had Ling Yiyi made progress?
Progress from this girl was nerve-racking. Had she made progress in her normal research, or had the biochemical weapon she had been dreaming about finally taken shape?
Ling Yiyi led her teacher to a corner laboratory bench and pulled out a large stack of experimental data.
Song He took it seriously and flipped through it as he listened to her explanation.
"I originally planned to create a venom-producing bacterium, the kind that secretes venom," Ling Yiyi said.
"But after trying for a while, it didn't produce venom as I'd hoped. Instead, it evolved drought resistance and began secreting a strange, viscous gel. The bacteria also clumped together into a very thin bacterial mat."
"The discovery was entirely accidental. One day last year, I went to sit in on a public lecture by Goss, the Nobel laureate from the School of Chemistry. That old man was like a crosstalk comedian. He wouldn't teach properly and just told jokes to entertain us. After I came back, I forgot that there were bacteria growing in a bottle of solid culture medium. By the time I remembered, the culture medium had already dried and cracked."
"I originally thought the bacteria inside must have all turned into bacterial mummies in such a dry medium, so I planned to throw it away. Pu Songchun happened to pass by and asked why I was in such a hurry to toss it. He said we should check for survivors first. If there were any living bacteria, saving even one would be worthwhile."
"So I tossed the culture bottle to him and told him to go save the bacteria. He didn't get angry. After observing it under a microscope for quite a while, he said there really were living bacteria—and