The Plan

Zhu Zhengwei had always believed that the greatest necessity in being a person, doing business, and running a company was sincerity and honesty.

Soon, a message was released, without a single lie from beginning to end.

[Internal Test Version 0.3 Update Announcement (Online Update; Player Experience Will Not Be Affected), as Follows]

[Version Expansion: Leek's Descent Chapter Complete. Current Version Expansion: Leek's Growth.]

Major updates:

[1. A cultivation system for development levels has been added. Through cultivation, plants will undergo corresponding morphological changes and trigger special scene interactions. Please explore the details yourselves.]

[2. The Mortal World game servers have been expanded, with an additional 2,000 internal testing slots available.]

[3. A brand-new gameplay mode has been opened. Please explore it yourselves.]

[4. Fixed a small number of possible bugs.]

Hmm.

Zhu Zhengwei carefully calculated everything and found no loopholes.

The announcement was simple enough, too.

"Not bad."

He then began setting aside a piece of land, waiting for a large batch of Immortal Herbs to enter so he could start his experiments.

"Unlike the three-dimensional world where humans live and ordinary creatures exist, this special four-dimensional world must have special four-dimensional beings—or perhaps soul-type creatures!"

"Ghosts? Qi spirits?"

Zhu Zhengwei always felt that he was creating something extraordinary.

If I was creating a group of gods from the four-dimensional world before, am I now creating a group of spirits and monsters from the four-dimensional world?

Zhu Zhengwei's imagination was running wild.

The first step was to decide where to place the forest.

After thinking it over, he finally set his sights on the vast blue sea. "Let it be on the other side of the sea. The ruins of an ancient civilization—a prehistoric civilization—will be revealed there."

"And there, the descendants of the old era remain. After the Great Disaster, they still hide in an ancient refuge from the old days. They conduct research there. They are the only survivors of the Old God mythological era, and they are researching the Immortal Grass Forest."

"After all, I have the 2,000 new experimental Immortal Herbs now. I need to find a few professional modern biologists to move into my Immortal Grass Forest."

When it came to biological research, Zhu Zhengwei was ultimately not a professional. He needed to find an expert to conduct research and modify the new organisms.

Was it really enough for him to research a Giant Octopus himself? Pour, keep pouring recklessly—brute-force biological research based on having plenty of money and being foolish. But what about continuing to research other things?

Heh.

He knew his own limitations.

Especially since he had already experienced the difference between professionals and amateurs.

With the unorthodox methods he had learned, even squeezing toothpaste was difficult.

But what about professionals?

They underwent systematic professional training, built a framework like a steamer, and unleashed hundreds or even thousands of times more power under the same conditions.

"I need to find several high-quality human servers from reality."

"People specializing in biology and genetics."

"And my Hemophilia needs to officially enter the research and treatment stage."

"After all, this illness still affects me to some extent. Although I consume Qi, my strength lies in my brain. My body is still mortal, and this disease is extremely unfavorable to me. It even strikes directly at my weak spot!"

In reality.

Zhu Zhengwei opened his eyes.

He could not be bothered to care how those netizens stirred things up. Once they signed up for the internal test, that would be enough. After all, his main focus was not on them.

He opened Baidu and directly searched for a biological expert in reality:

"Who are the world's leading biologists today?"

A huge number of search results appeared, and Zhu Zhengwei began carefully screening them.

One after another, renowned scholars standing at the peak of Human Technology appeared before him. They had received countless international honors and global awards and had opened up milestone achievements.

They were all giants of the twenty-first century, standing at the summit of civilization and opening new frontiers for humanity.

Zhu Zhengwei had once longed to become one of them. He had once possessed that same fervor in his heart, and he had also read a passage.

A person dies three times in life.

The first is when their heartbeat stops and their breathing ceases—the biological death of the body.

The second is at their funeral, when they quietly depart from the web of social relationships.

The third is when the last person in the world who remembers them forgets them. The entire universe is severed from them. That is true death.

Humanity has only one form of immortality: immortality of the spirit.

To have one's name passed down through the ages, to be remembered by the world as a great figure or renowned scientist. Some fundamental disciplines even bear the names of their pioneers, such as the unit of force, the newton; the unit of electric current, the ampere; the unit of resistance, the ohm; the unit of voltage, the volt; and the unit of frequency, the hertz.

Countless emperors and famous figures throughout history had yearned to leave their names in history for precisely this reason.

"But when true immortality has appeared before me, why should I continue pursuing that kind of immortality?"

In his university dormitory, gentle golden sunlight spilled across the room. Zhu Zhengwei's expression was calm and mild as he continuously turned the pages, searching for scientists one after another.

He possessed a deep Dream World, and there was so much he could do with it!

He could explore the mysteries of the universe, the ultimate nature of life, the origin of the soul, and the evolution of civilization.

At last, his gaze settled on a report.

[The Pillar of the Nation, the Nation's Treasure, Zeng Civen in Critical Condition.]

"Recently..."

Zhu Zhengwei stared at the report, his brows tightly furrowed.

This was a renowned biologist and botanist from Xia, a professor who had personally driven the development of related biological fields during the previous century and led his team in overcoming numerous difficult problems through his own efforts.

He was a famous pillar of the nation, and his achievements were printed in high school textbooks.

However, fewer and fewer people had learned about this academician in recent years, because the topics of this era were largely dominated by traffic celebrities.

Zhu Zhengwei sighed. "Even a powerful figure of this era cannot escape the fate of birth, aging, illness, and death. All of us are merely insignificant specks of dust in this Mortal World."

Zhu Zhengwei opened his dormitory cabinet, packed several changes of clothes, and prepared to take a long trip.

"I have a candidate. A master of this caliber is more than qualified to study a new ecosystem. I can try visiting him personally and recruiting him. It is somewhat far away, but my coverage is already quite extensive. If I use the Servers to alter the base station and build some server bridges, I should be able to connect to the four-dimensional world on that side."

At a national university-affiliated hospital.

The elderly Zeng Civen was thin and haggard, his skin covered in age spots like withered tree bark. He was clearly nearing the end of his life.

Over the past few months, students, professors, and experts from all over the country had come to visit him every day.

Zheng Linshou arrived that day with his granddaughter, Zheng Weiwei, leaning on his cane. In a hospital room, they visited the elderly man who was nearing the end of his life.

Zheng Weiwei stood obediently by the door, while Zheng Linshou sat beside the bed. Seeing his old friend, once so heroic and spirited, lying on the hospital bed, he was overwhelmed with emotion.

He seemed to feel that he had seen a similar scene somewhere before.

That's right!

He suddenly remembered the days when he had followed his teacher.

Back then, his elderly teacher had gone to visit a deceased old friend, and he had accompanied him.

That had been the first time in his life he had experienced the weight and helplessness of life.

It was also on that day that his teacher had attained enlightenment and truly seen Qi.

"Life's bitter memories only add regrets; I laugh as I watch the mortal world drift away like smoke and clouds."

Zheng Linshou suddenly recited his teacher's lament for his old friend from that time. Then he looked at the elderly man and smiled. "I still remember those difficult years we went through together. Now our motherland has grown strong, and we have grown old."

The old man on the hospital bed, however, was entirely at peace. "It is enough. My life has been complete. My children have made me proud, and my grandchildren have made me proud as well. I have enjoyed happiness and good health in my later years. You could say that our merits are complete."

"Yes." Zheng Linshou nodded. "Our children have all done well. My granddaughter Weiwei is obedient and sensible too. It feels as though she inherited our family's genes—she is very clever."

It was true that he had achieved success and fame in life. He had retired to a mediocre university in his hometown, where he served as a professor, raised flowers and birds, and occasionally helped younger students inspect new technology projects and offer advice.

Yet standing before him, he was no longer as content as this carefree old man.

If he had never seen it, he would never have felt the loss. After inheriting that memory of Zhujing Village from his teacher, he had developed a pure and simple yearning for longevity.

Although he had always told himself that such a thing was beyond reach and not something he could hope for, the departing figures of his teacher and Mister's immortal lives continued to surface involuntarily in his mind.

However, Zheng Linshou kept those thoughts buried in his heart as he chatted with the elderly man.

"Grandpa, the doctor said you should talk less," a young man beside them said hesitantly.

"What is there to be anxious about? We two old men don't care, so why do you?" Zeng Civen waved his hand indifferently. "If I die, then I die. That will save you from worrying here all the time and guarding me every day instead of going to work."

Everyone else was frantic. The two old men present were the calmest of them all.