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Chapter 135: Sit Tight, Let Me Peel You an Orange

With Hai Sanchuan acting as a guide, Chen Chen took a tour around the underground base.

To his disappointment, the underground base construction was only approaching thirty percent completion after four months. At this rate, it was going to take half a year until its completion.

After giving it some thought, Chen Chen came to realize that this progress was considered rather fast. The underground pyramid laboratory was constructed in a modular manner, meaning that it was with a large number of one-time stamped steel plates through a spliced steel structure.

The stamped steel was made of tungsten steel alloy which ranked among one of the most resilient materials. It possessed extreme hardness and toughness, supreme oxidation resistance, corrosion resistance, and temperature resistance.

Like building a Lego structure, the entire laboratory was built in separate modules.

Matter of fact, this variation of construction technique had begun making its debut around the world some time ago. The earliest application was in 2011 in Mainland China where a skyscraper was built in merely twelve days using this form of modular construction methodology.

As the building process was just like stacking blocks of Lego, it was hence hailed as the building that “rewrote the history of building-construction”.

The primary motivation for implementing this sort of design was to serve as a fallback plan in case some catastrophic event occurred in the laboratory. For example, if some creature of extreme destructive capabilities such as the ones from Alien were to escape the laboratory and caused a sort of “Containment Breach” irreversible scenario.

The strength of the laboratory structure laid in its toughness and resilience. Its earthquake resistance was dozens of times stronger than that of traditional reinforced concrete buildings. Even if the surface was obliterated by a nuclear bomb, the research facility seven hundred meters underground would be completely unscathed.

Of course, this meant that the cost of construction of the laboratory was monumental.

The bottom area of the pyramid laboratory was about 10,000 square meters, it was a square surface measuring 100 meters on each side. The structure spanned up to 60 meters in height and was separated into nine floors. With each subsequent floor, the total surface area was reduced by one-third until it brushed against the roof of the cavern. It was like a huge pillar supporting the entire cavern.

Chen Chen was considering filling the entire underground cavern with concrete after the completion of the underground facilities to render it completely foolproof.

The problem was that it would be a great waste of all that wide-open space.

After touring for several hours, Chen Chen finally returned to the surface to head back to the research center.

The first thing he did upon his arrival at the research center was to visit Professor Wang Xi.

At the present moment, Professor Wang Xi had just completed the neural stem cell transplantation for the day and was agonizing from the pain. Still, he smiled proudly upon seeing Chen Chen returning. “You’re back?”

“I’m back.” Chen Chen nodded in response when he saw the old professor who was distinctly more energetic than previously. “I heard they performed the neural stem cell transplantation on you?”

“Yeah, otherwise, how am I supposed to further honing my craft if I don’t make up for all the brain cells I lost?” Professor Wang Xi lifted off the blanket and tried to sit up.

“Sit tight, let me peel an orange for you.”

Chen Chen stepped forward to help Professor Wang Xi sit up while enquiring, “Right, how did they perform the neural stem cell transplantation on you?”

“Lumbar puncture and subarachnoid injection transplantation, with another round of intravenous injection transplantation...”

Professor Wang Xi made a weak gesture signaling for Chen Chen to take a seat. “I heard that the plan was to puncture through my ventricle, but they ultimately decided to approach from the spine due to my age.”

Chen Chen sat on a chair beside the bed and began peeling an orange for Professor Wang Xi. “True, lumbar puncture transplantation still allows stem cells to circulate into the brain along with the cerebrospinal fluid. The decreased traumatic effect makes it the most ideal transplantation method in your case. The only problem is that there’s a greater loss of stem cells since it has to circulate through the blood-brain barrier...”

Professor Wang Xi appeared as if he suddenly recalled something. He took out a stack of papers by the bedside and turned to Chen Chen with a strange look in his eyes. “Lil Chen, I’m going to ask you something and I want you to answer me honestly.”

“You have questions regarding the effects of inducing neural stem cells?” Chen Chen already knew what Professor Wang Xi was going to ask before he had time to say it.

“I’m sure you can tell as well.”

Professor Wang Xi continued in a serious tone. “I’m very familiar with Shinya Yamanaka, the founder of induced pluripotent stem cells. Sure, his patented iPS technology managed to score him the Nobel Prize ten years ago, but can you name anyone in our ranks who aren’t aware of the flaws of iPS technology? The induced neural stem cells shouldn’t be able to produce the sort of effect I’m currently experiencing.”

Professor Wang Xi flipped open the documents as he went on. “Also, I could already tell something was off the very first time I looked at these documents. Sure, I could understand most of the sections, but the Induced Neural Stem Cell Technology section has me stumped. Don’t make a senile old fool out of me now.”

Chen Chen nodded as a response. This was not all too surprising to him. After all, this man would not be Professor Wang Xi if he still could not tell something was off after all this time expended.

“I never expected to be able to fool you. In truth, the practice applied wasn’t neural stem cells induced by iPS technology, but neural stem cells extracted from your cloned embryos instead.”

“I knew it.” Professor Wang Xi sighed, displaying a look of relief.

After a short while had passed and Chen Chen did not receive the reprimanding as he thought he would, he asked, “You’re not upset with me?”

“Why would I be upset with you?”

Professor Wang Xi turned to him wide-eyed with anger at the notion. “Do you see me as such a close-minded person? You’re the one painstakingly attempting to treat me and I’m supposed to be upset with you because of a cloned embryo? Am I such a scoundrel to you now? I’m only asking you this because of concerns that you’re using some sort of unreliable method to treat me which is going to get me killed!”

“You’re absolutely correct!” Chen Chen chuckled as he nodded. “That’s right, everyone knows that you of all people aren’t that kind of person!”

Chen Chen only took his leave after jesting with Professor Wang Xi for a little while longer.

Somewhere along the lines, a bottle of medicine emitting a faint blue glow appeared in his hands.

AD-001.

This was the drug Chen Chen extracted from the movie he had invested in.

Chen Chen only needed to hand this drug over to Hannibal and the crew to quickly verify the effects of this drug. After ensuring that it posed no harmful effect to the human body and could effectively cure Alzheimer’s, he could begin to have them analyze it and figure out a way to reverse-engineer it.

It should not be an issue even if it could not be reverse-engineered. Since the USB drive was able to generate energy at a remarkable pace currently, as long as the AD-001 was not leaked to the outside world, it should be very manageable to only provide it for a few selected individuals.

After two or three years, a means of producing it should surface at one point or another.

In all honesty, reverse-engineering the NZT-48 would be a far wiser move. That way, Chen Chen could have a top-tier research team composed of members rivaling the likes of Einstein and Niels Bohr.

The only reason Chen Chen still had not assembled a team dedicated to researching NZT-48 was that he was well aware of the dangers of the drug.

A stranger acquiring an NZT-48 pill may not pose as much trouble as someone close to Chen Chen acquiring one since that might lead to all his secrets being exposed.

The power of NZT-48 was nothing short of groundbreaking. Someone who managed to acquire an NZT-48 pill from Chen Chen might be able to instantly piece together the clues in the movie and quickly figure out what the drug was. Perhaps even piecing together the puzzle pieces and figuring out how an ordinary university student like Chen Chen was able to undergo such a drastic transformation in a short period. Eventually figuring out why Chen Chen needed so much energy, discovering the existence of the USB drive...

This was the reason Chen Chen could never allow a completed version of NZT-48 to fall into anyone’s hands.