Chapter 46: So That’s How It Was

At the memorial service for Academician Shen Yaoguo,

Qin Yu also saw that familiar Senior Leader again.

At this time, the Senior Leader had already retired,

after the memorial service ended, he also chatted with Qin Yu for a couple of sentences,

“Professor Qin, I feel like I won’t last many more years, ah.”

“Back then, after using the 2611 Longevity Injection, I felt a bit young again, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.”

“Then slowly, over these years, the feeling of growing old crept back up.”

“But I still want to thank you, Professor Qin.”

“Because of you, we got to see the human world for many more decades.”

…

In the year 78,

the Senior Leader also passed away due to old age, at 124 years old.

In the year 79, a total of 12 researchers who had joined Research Institute 011 from the start passed away there.

After attending the memorial service of one researcher from Research Institute 011 and going back to the institute,

Qin Yu faced a mirror,

and saw the few white hairs scattered in his black hair on his head,

and the faint traces of wrinkles that were just visible on his face.

That year, Qin Yu was already 77 years old.

Even in this era, when people could live past 180 years, 77 wasn’t officially old age yet,

but Qin Yu still found it hard to show his original young face to others.

The things around him, like the few white hairs, were obviously Qin Yu’s “Disguise” ability working.

But looking at this disguised face, Qin Yu couldn’t help feeling some complex emotions.

Because this meant one thing,

once he started to look old on the outside,

in the long time ahead, he wouldn’t be able to appear with his true face again.

That night,

Qin Yu used Intangibility and Disguise, and went to that BBQ restaurant outside Lingchuan University he had once eaten at.

Over these past years,

the BBQ restaurant was still there, surprisingly.

In fact, Qin Yu saw a photo on the restaurant’s wall from his first visit, which he had seen before on an earlier trip, hanging there.

But besides that, the restaurant’s decorations and layout were all brand new, with nothing left from before.

The original restaurant owner and his wife had already retired to enjoy their old age,

the person who took over the restaurant was their son.

This son, in his eighties, was considered middle-aged.

During a chat, he said he was a supporter of Collective Social Rearing,

so he didn’t have his own children, and when he got to retirement age, he would likely sell the place.

Or give it to the right apprentice or worker.

After the BBQ was cooked and served,

Qin Yu tasted a bite,

he couldn’t say it wasn’t tasty, but the flavor was totally different from when he last visited.

But it was still good, right?

Though old things always disappear bit by bit, new things keep showing up.

…

And besides these things,

those years were really quiet ones for the whole world.

From what the Information Denoising Research Institute of the Negentropy Research Institute saw in some danger reports,

small fights and even wars in little areas never fully stopped,

but bigger ones that could cause an end-of-world war hadn’t happened for a long time.

Yu-type Bacteria had been used widely all over the world in those years,

just in Huaxia Nation, from fixing up deserts, they got over 1 billion acres of new farm land.

Outside Huaxia Nation, the same thing happened everywhere.

So for North Bear Nation, Moon Nation, and the small countries they controlled,

the troubles of rigid social classes and money piling up for the rich eased a lot.

With inside tensions calmed,

outside squabbles lost much of their push.

At the same time, Huaxia Nation had full power in the Field of Life Sciences,

this lead over the other two sides grew to cover more and more areas.

In the HCC, North Bear Nation and Moon Nation felt huge pressure.

Huaxia Nation’s influence spread further out from around the Nine Provinces to wider places.

For sure, the North Bear Nation and Moon Nation sides weren’t happy about it,

but for their leaders,

having a longer life than before made them more afraid to act.

Even knowing that they’d get weaker slow and slow, letting Huaxia Nation gain more upper hand.

But with options, they picked the lazy way out, like being boiled slowly like a frog.

They didn’t know how things would go on like this,

or if one day Qin Yu would need to fake being an alien to finally create the real HCC.

And outside this kind of danger among humans,

the other two dangers Qin Yu grouped long ago,

like natural disasters,

over those decades, more than one asteroid passed close to Earth and the Solar System.

But luckily, they either didn’t enter the Solar System or got caught by the big planets on the edge of the Inner Solar System.

As for natural disasters on Earth, the strongest earthquake in recent years was an 8.1,

but it was deep underground, so by the time it hit the surface, it wasn’t too strong, and it was out in the deep ocean.

It just caused a medium-sized tsunami on the east coast of the Pacific Ocean by North American State.

It was far from putting the whole Human Civilization at risk.

About the climate,

El Niño and La Niña were happening more and more often.

Due to the sun’s regular cycles, the Little Ice Age ended.

The weather was really becoming more unusual.

Over those years, serious floods, droughts, and huge storms like never before hit Nine Provinces, the Afrika Continent, and Amerika.

These caused a lot of money loss and made less food grow.

Still, it didn’t threaten all people everywhere greatly.

The smaller food supply in some places didn’t hurt much, either, especially with “Yu-type Bacteria” helping the soil.

Then there were the giant volcanoes that could threaten the whole Earth.

They stayed quiet, maybe erupting in a year, maybe ten.

Nobody could tell until the time came near.

The Earth’s rock movements were messy and complicated.

Even the Geological Research Institute at the Negentropy Research Institute didn’t find big answers.

Like the smart computer models from the Information Denoising Research Institute—they were stuck in a frustrating spot.

There was some progress, but no one knew when true Strong Artificial Intelligence would come.

But people had better luck at the Negentropy Research Institute’s Materials Research Institute.

By working with Research Institute 011, they’d found many good things in the world of living materials.

New stuff much better than old kinds was used in medicine, spaceships, and more.

Besides that, two big projects of the Negentropy Research Institute and Research Institute 011—

with Professor Qin Yu himself helping along the way—

had actually achieved solid results over the years.

…

One project focused on crops and plants.

With crops, Research Institute 011 made many kinds that could survive dry weather.

These were planted everywhere—even deserts made green again by Yu-type Bacteria.

They also made other crops that grow well in tough spots.

Today, at Huaxia Nation’s space base and Lunar Base, low-gravity plants changed by Research Institute 011 grow well.

For plants to remake places—

the big dream like a planet-changing plant—didn’t happen yet.

But after Yu-type Bacteria, teams led by Qin Yu made new plants.

These help different places—soil, deserts—get healthier.

Just like Yu-type Bacteria, these plants are helping all over Earth.

The other project was the Human Enhancement Research Project.

Studying how people heal had been going on.

The hope of lost limbs growing back—wasn’t here.

But Research Institute 011 did have some middle successes.

A few years back, they showed “Self-healing Factor”—a shot improving body healing.

If a person hit a main blood pipe—they’d still bleed too much.

But for a wound needing ten days normally?

With Self-healing Factor, five days might be enough.

Seemed small—but using it helped many.

Healing records showed badly hurt people lived more than before.

After surgeries, folks healed faster—meaning more pulled through.

Besides all this, there was one more big win at Research Institute 011:

After careful thought, they made the Human Reproduction Device able to grow single organs.

People needing new insides—because of illness or hurts—didn’t have to wait.

Doctors could use the sick person’s own genes to grow the needed body part quickly and simply.

When this came out—adding it to Self-healing Factor—

fewer injured folks died than ever.

These steps made Qin Yu and his group’s fame grow huge.

For those whose lives he saved?

Finding words good enough for Professor Qin Yu… felt impossible.

…

“…Professor Qin, you’re ninety this year, right?”

“Yes.”

“Seventy years passed since I came to Research Institute 011. Professor Qin Yu, the disaster you feared—it never came.”

Ninety-two years old now,

but an old researcher from Research Institute 011 just died.

Long ago, when his Apocalypse Anxiety started, Huaxia Nation sent a mind expert to keep up with their super-genius’s fears.

She was one hundred thirty this year.

An old friend Qin Yu sometimes exchanged words with.

He visited before she passed.

But even then—she worried about his Apocalypse Anxiety.

After seventy years near him, she knew this strange fear didn’t really hurt him daily.

He wasn’t anxious. He slept well.

She wanted to soothe his fear before she left.

“You speak rightly,” Qin Yu said with a soft smile, letting her words stay.

She watched him long and silent. Then:

“Professor Qin, folks call me the head expert on minds.

I’ve known you many years. We only traded simple words—

Yet truly, in seventy years, I never understood what lay inside you.”

“You think too well for mind tricks—you see them plain as day.

But this fear of Human Civilization’s end? That’s real. Why?”

“Did you predict what would cause Human Civilization to end one day?”

The old woman looked at Qin Yu, waiting for his answer.

In the hospital room, there were only two people at that moment.

Qin Yu looked at this old woman nearing her death, and after thinking for a while,

he stood up again from the stool by the bed, just facing her without many movements.

But this old woman’s pupils shrank slightly at that moment.

Because she clearly saw the change in Qin Yu’s face and body shape.

Almost instantly, Qin Yu went from looking like a middle-aged person about to enter old age back to his young appearance when she first met him.

The old woman froze for a moment.

Her lips moved twice, but no sound came out.

Then, after a while, she seemed to come back to herself.

She looked at the young Qin Yu and didn’t say much.

She only smiled helplessly and shook her head.

“The answer was right on the surface; I understand now, Professor Qin.”

“Professor Qin, I sincerely wish for Human Civilization to accompany you on a longer journey.”

After saying this, the old woman seemed to shed all her doubts and let go of all her worries.

With a smile on her face, she slowly closed her eyes.

On the life monitor screen beside her, the line became straight.

This old woman, who was also an old acquaintance of Qin Yu’s over the years, had passed away just like that.

When others outside the room came back in,

they saw the middle-aged Professor Qin standing by the bed, looking at the deceased old woman, somewhat silent.

…

Time continued to pass.

In the year 102 of the Common Era.

Qin Yu was one hundred years old.

Although that year, he hadn’t appeared much online either.

But as a biologist and Life Science scholar, his influence on the whole world over those years had become too big.

Around the time of his hundredth birthday,

on the internet, from major media to some individuals, from within Huaxia Nation to the whole world,

many people spontaneously celebrated Qin Yu’s birthday.

Across the world wide web, wishes for Qin Yu could be seen everywhere.

The most common one was,

“We hope Professor Qin can live for a thousand years, ten thousand years, the longer the better.”

This way, the whole world could become better under Professor Qin’s influence.

In the same year,

under Qin Yu’s influence, although the Negentropy Research Institute still only had a few parts: the Doomsday Gene Bank, Research Institute 011, the Information Denoising Research Institute, the Materials Research Institute, and the Geological Research Institute.

In terms of the number of Researchers and the yearly investment of resources, it had already become a huge entity.

Just the Researchers from these institutes added up to over ten thousand people.

This was even with Research Institute 011 being highly secretive and the Negentropy Research Institute setting high barriers for recruiting Researchers,

otherwise the institute’s size might have been much larger.

In these conditions, even if Qin Yu stepped down from the Negentropy Research Institute,

just by its own momentum, the Negentropy Research Institute would keep going for a long time.

At this point,

although Qin Yu still had some time left in this life, most preparations for his exit had already been made.