New Life

A week later, in a transparent culture tank in another laboratory, a blue jelly-like creature floated in a nutrient solution similar in composition to seawater.

It was slightly larger than a human head, about thirty centimeters in diameter. It looked somewhat like the head of a jellyfish, except it lacked the jellyfish's many tentacles. Only six long, soft tentacles swayed gently beneath it.

Ai Liyuan watched the creature and murmured to himself, "I never expected your blood to work so well. A special protein in those red blood cells is more efficient and precise than Cas9 at cutting DNA. Your blood itself can edit the genes of other organisms."

Li Heng's voice came through his mind. He was still in his own room, sharing the body's five senses through the black thread connected to the back of the academician's head:

"I can now control every cell in my body. They no longer affect one another as a single whole like before. I deliberately altered the properties of these blood cells. After losing their ability to divide infinitely, they gained a powerful capacity to genetically invade biological cells. This allows other organisms to easily acquire some of my gene fragments."

Ai Liyuan thought in confusion, "You seem unwilling to let these invasive cells reproduce on a large scale and spread."

If these terrifyingly invasive cells retained their original vitality and ability to divide, they could easily spread across the entire world through marine life. By then, these mutated organisms might be enough to destroy the existing order of human society.

Li Heng's calm voice rang in Ai Liyuan's mind. "Chaotic, frenzied mutations bring disorder, and disorder brings death. I do not need mindless, clumsy monsters, nor do I wish to destroy the existing order and rule this planet."

"As I have always told you, every intelligent life-form is a precious resource. To me, they are as precious as my own cells."

Ai Liyuan pondered Li Heng's words. Intelligent life-forms, not humans.

He stared at the jelly-like creature before him. It seemed to be nothing more than a new type of mutated jellyfish, yet as someone who had participated in the creation of this new organism from beginning to end, he knew that it possessed intelligence no less than that of humans.

Inside its blue head was a brain created based on human genes. Weighing over three kilograms, it might even be smarter than a human brain.

For now, it was still a naive and ignorant infant. But Li Heng would soon alter the cells in its brain's memory regions, allowing it to possess intelligence surpassing that of ordinary people in a very short time.

If these intelligent life-forms multiplied in great numbers in the ocean and formed their own society, where would Earth go with two intelligent species?

Perhaps this was even more terrifying than stupid mutated monsters destroying human order. The intelligence humanity relied upon for survival would no longer be an advantage before these creatures.

Li Heng constantly read the thoughts passing through Ai Liyuan's brain. He said in the other man's mind, "Do not worry. These intelligent life-forms are merely an experiment to me. I do not believe they have any hope of surpassing humanity. The memories of every one of them will originate from the first Jelly, which leaves them with almost no room for growth."

"Besides, although it lacks the ability for cells to divide infinitely, it has the ability to grow at high speed. Its lifespan is only a single short year."

Li Heng did not hide the fact that the more intelligent life-forms there were, the stronger he became. This would instead make the old man lower his guard somewhat.

The same was true of making these new creatures resemble jellyfish.

Creating humanoid intelligent life-forms through replication would trigger humanity's instinctive wariness or sympathy. Jelly creatures that looked cute and harmless, however, could lessen Ai Liyuan's psychological burden and allow him to devote himself to the work more fully.

Another black hair extended from afar. This thin thread connected from above the culture tank to the jelly-like creature's brain. Li Heng began implanting memories into it and shaping its personality.

This method of directly creating memories was efficient and rapid. Combined with cloning and accelerated growth, Li Heng could use it to create large numbers of intelligent life-forms in a short time.

In just a few minutes, this newly born, ignorant creature gained complete knowledge and memories, forming its own personality. Lights of various colors began shining across its round head, eventually forming two round points of light that blinked like eyes.

"It is greeting you. I told it that you are one of its creators. Now, it is asking you to give it a name."

Ai Liyuan looked at the little creature before him. Round, gentle, intelligent—within just a few days, a new intelligent species had been created from nothing. Even if it had been made by blending Li Heng's cells with human genes, it was undoubtedly a miraculous achievement.

Like Li Heng, they possessed vision beyond the limits of the human eye and could directly observe most electromagnetic waves. They could also communicate with one another at high speed, like computers interacting over a network.

The blue jelly creature pressed its tentacles against the glass wall of the culture tank. Ai Liyuan extended his hand as well. The next moment, a young voice appeared in his mind. Li Heng had linked the wills of two different species through himself.

"You have granted me new life. Please give me a name."

Ai Liyuan quietly watched the little creature before him. After a long while, he said, "Your name will be Jelly."

He had created it, so he naturally knew that its life would last only a few hundred days. It would follow Li Heng's will into the depths of the ocean, establish a Jelly Civilization, and pass down its own will.

"Thank you." Jelly's delighted voice rang out. A curved line appeared beneath its two round points of light, forming a smiling face on its head.

Then it leaped from the culture tank. Its round body moved with astonishing speed, its six tentacles crawling in alternation. In the blink of an eye, it had left the laboratory, leaving only a trail of water across the floor.

Ai Liyuan looked at the empty culture tank and, for some reason, felt a little sad. Li Heng's voice sounded in the old man's mind:

"You see the creature you created as a son? You truly are sentimental. These creatures may threaten humanity's status in the future, yet you are saddened now by its short life."

"The future is the future. The present is the present. I cannot hate it for crimes it has not committed." The old man replied calmly.

He asked, "Does a creature like you possess human emotions?"

Li Heng's voice sounded. "Of course. I was once an ordinary human, and my current memories were formed by absorbing information created by humans. I possess all human emotions, and feel them even more deeply than ordinary people. I told you before—intelligent life-forms are as precious to me as my own cells."

Hearing this, the old man asked in his mind, "Then why create new intelligent life-forms? You have endless life and limitless time to wait. You only need to keep living to grow stronger and stronger. There is no need to take actions that will make humanity hostile toward you."

Li Heng's voice carried a faint smile. "Because I view every person equally. I sincerely hope that every person can achieve immortality."

"In human society, appearance, wealth, education, social status, race, and gender divide humans into different categories."

"But to me, the value of human life is equal. Every person is as important as a nerve cell in the brain. I need humans to reproduce faster and possess longer lives."

After thinking briefly, Ai Liyuan said in his mind, "So that is why you gave your modified invasive blood to the other researchers of the Hong Alliance."

With the more efficient gene-editing protein in Li Heng's red blood cells, the Hong Alliance's scientists could undoubtedly accelerate their research dramatically. Even without Li Heng's ability to manipulate brain cells and implant memories, the resource-rich Hong Alliance could develop many new biotechnologies.

The next moment, many images appeared in Ai Liyuan's mind. They were the latest research results from various laboratories. Li Heng could now go almost anywhere on the network, so this information could not be hidden from him.

In the images, some laboratories had already developed more precise and efficient immune T-cell editing technology targeting cancer cells, successfully killing cancer cells that had spread through the bodies of several terminal cancer patients.

A round, flesh-colored sac sat inside a culture tank. Within it was an artificially gestated infant. There was no longer any need for natural gestation in a mother's body; these Incubation Bags, made to imitate the human womb, could directly allow babies to grow healthily.

Organs such as hearts and kidneys were being cultivated and grown.

Induced stem cell technology could restore the ability of human cells to differentiate. Now, new editing technology had greatly reduced the difficulty and cost, making large-scale replication and growth of human organs and tissues possible.

Dozens of black threads similar to those used by Li Heng were connected to a soldier's head. He was now inside a true virtual world, while researchers nearby analyzed his brain signals.

"The Hong Alliance has developed many new technologies. But just as you previously resisted cloning humans and creating new life-forms because of moral and emotional constraints, these new technologies must cross the ethical and moral barriers of all human society before they can go from creation to use. Vast numbers of ordinary people will resist these advanced technologies even more than researchers do."

"Too slow. Tens of millions of people still die around the world every year. Population growth in the economically developed Hong Alliance and Commercial Alliance has already stagnated, while the global population growth rate is less than one percent."

Li Heng revealed his intentions:

"In grand narratives, countless obscure individuals are consumed. These jelly creatures are the consumables I have prepared. With their ability to grow rapidly, they live less than a year. Because they reproduce entirely by themselves, they lack humanity's variability and creativity."

To an individual human, brain nerve cells and cardiac muscle cells were naturally more important than skin cells.

Over the course of a human life, those short-lived cells would be replaced countless times, becoming the expendable part among the great individual's tens of trillions of cells.

Now, humans were to Li Heng what brain nerve cells were, while jelly creatures were the replaceable parts.

From the beginning, these jelly creatures were constrained by the memories Li Heng implanted in them. They would reproduce asexually through self-division and, with their brains' rapid information transmission, grow and multiply at an exponential rate, forming a vast population in a short time.

Every one of them possessed the memories of the original Jelly. Like replicas, they could have organizational power surpassing human civilization.

But this also deprived them of humanity's chaotic, ever-changing creativity. Asexual reproduction made their genes almost completely identical. From the very beginning, they had limits.

To preserve the possibilities of intelligent life, Li Heng could not restrict humans as he restricted Jelly. That would only lead civilization toward death, producing less and less new information.

Using the Jelly Civilization to place external pressure on humanity and redirect internal conflicts could reduce humanity's many meaningless disputes.

Before a completely new civilization composed of intelligent life entirely different from humanity, all internal disputes could be suppressed.

"Use low-value jelly creatures in exchange for the progress of high-value humans."

That was the meaning of these jelly creatures' existence. They would multiply into a highly ordered social organization, form their own unique civilization, and ultimately die on the battlefield against humanity at Li Heng's command, offering the lives of their entire species for the advancement of human civilization.

"Consumables in a grand narrative."

Ai Liyuan repeated those words. In Li Heng's eyes, what mattered was allowing those tens of millions who died each year to survive. The value of humans far exceeded that of these jelly creatures with no potential.

The old man looked at the trail of water leading out the laboratory door and, for some reason, thought of his son who had died many years ago. There had also been a patch of water before him then.

At that moment, he seemed to overlap with his past self from many years ago—another life he had created with his own hands, and the same unavoidable fate of death.