Chapter 73

In the future world, the status of energy potions is equivalent to important resources like silver bones and rotting fungus hormones. They can even serve as currency.

This bio-chemical potion can replenish physical energy in a short time, quickly repair damaged nerves and muscles, form a protective layer on damaged parts of the body, accelerate cell division, and promote the secretion of various hormones within the body.

In terms of stimulating the nervous system, its effects are similar to those of stimulants. However, the most important function of energy potions is not just that. Their cell repair effects on damaged areas are quite significant, and they have no side effects on the brain and central nervous system.

"A bottle of energy potion can save your life in the most dangerous moments."

This is a well-known proverb in the future world.

Its application is very broad. Even the least effective "D" grade potion can still repair damaged internal organs and pull a dying person back from the brink of death. In short, the difference between low-grade and high-grade potions is merely the recovery effect at different time stages.

High-grade potions have a fast recovery speed and require less time.

Low-grade potions take longer, possibly an hour or even a few days.

The laboratory has good lighting, with test tubes and glassware of various sizes placed on the workbench. Along with the instruments arranged in order along the walls, they create a dense and complex yet orderly and serious atmosphere.

When Su Hao entered the room, Zhou Chen was sitting quietly in a swivel chair, staring blankly at an open measuring cup in front of him.

"I made this according to the formula on the USB drive."

Zhou Chen stared intently at the measuring cup, casting a glance at Su Hao's reflection on the glass surface, and said indifferently, "I don't know what this is. I... I'm not sure."

This strange incoherence made Su Hao feel puzzled.

He walked to the opposite side of the workbench, frowned, and looked at Zhou Chen's face—the young man in the white coat was pale, his expression stiff, and his eyes slightly unfocused.

Su Hao stared at him sharply. "What's wrong with you?"

Zhou Chen's face was somewhat gloomy, his pupils emitting a strange light. He leaned forward, almost lying on the table. His hands clasped the measuring cup, his head close to it. Through thick glasses, he looked at the object in his hands with a greedy gaze, like a miser staring at a diamond.

The measuring cup contained a deep black liquid, very turbid, looking like ink.

"This is the result of nearly three months of research. To be precise, I spent three months on basic research, failing many times. It wasn't until this morning that I made a breakthrough, by chance, unexpectedly... no, it was sheer luck."

Su Hao watched Zhou Chen carefully.

There was a mysterious connection between the black particles entering other injectees' bodies and the mother body.

This could be a biological entity hidden within the human body, or it could be that the prototype potion had created a sensory awareness between cells. With this perception more precise than fingerprints and genes, Su Hao knew for sure that the man in front of him was indeed Zhou Chen, not an imposter with a similar appearance.

With this confirmation, most of Su Hao's vigilance and caution dissipated. He pulled a chair from the side and sat down, asking curiously, "What do you want to tell me?"

Zhou Chen slowly raised his head, his strange gaze fading, making him look slightly more normal, but his voice was still hoarse: "I made the energy potion."

Su Hao's face stiffened, and he subconsciously focused his gaze on the glass measuring cup containing the black liquid.

As someone who had traveled from the future world, Su Hao certainly couldn't forget the words "energy potion."

However, the liquid in front of him had nothing to do with the energy potions in his memory. They were mostly blue and purple, not this black, which easily evoked associations with "dirty" words.

"You said that energy potions are divided into four grades—A, B, C, and D—based on the recovery time and different effects on damaged areas."

Zhou Chen's voice sounded like a woman who had been violently raped, moaning.

"I configured it according to the data on the USB drive. Last week, I extracted six batches of culture solution with a 95% similarity rate and injected them into several rats whose livers had been removed. These poor little creatures took four days to recover. From the effects and time, this extract should be a 'D' grade energy potion. I don't have a high-pressure sterilization device, nor can I set up a production line. Obtaining the potion through bacterial culture is difficult, and the quantity is limited. Under normal circumstances, I can produce about 50 milliliters per week. You know, the concentration of the potion is related to factors like human height and weight. To achieve the best recovery effect, the amount of potion taken at one time should not be less than 20 milliliters. This is also the minimum capacity of a single bottle..."

Su Hao coughed, interrupting Zhou Chen's rambling: "Get to the point."

"The point?"

His voice instantly changed, becoming excited, like a man who had just seen a big-breasted beauty after being injected with a large amount of male hormones: "I thought carefully—since I can't increase the quantity, I can only try to improve the quality."

Su Hao's gaze flickered.

Even in the future world, the formula for high-quality energy potions was a closely guarded secret. It wasn't a simple matter of adding a few more ingredients to the 'D' grade formula to achieve a qualitative change. Su Hao, as a researcher at the Academy of Sciences, had a vague understanding of some of the ingredients needed for 'C' grade potions. They were vastly different from 'D' grade potions, requiring precise ratios of many components and strains, which could not be deduced or explored through 'D' grade cultures.

Sure enough, Zhou Chen's next words confirmed his suspicions.

"I increased the amount of the third mutant strain and quadrupled the muscle growth solution. Ha! You know, we have a lot of rotting fungus hormones, and I increased the injection amount in every 100 milliliters of the culture solution by 40%... Guess what I got?"

Su Hao smiled bitterly and shook his head. "A cup of poison that kills with a single sip?"

"Pretty much, yeah!"

Zhou Chen grinned, his white teeth glaring in the light. "It was a deep purple potion. I picked a particularly fat rat. Unfortunately, it didn't recover as I expected but turned into a puddle of pus. Well... I knew the formula was wrong. But there was no more data on the USB drive, and no samples for reference. The point... okay! I'll get to the point—I added 10 milligrams of your blood to the culture solution to see if there would be any chemical reaction. The deep purple liquid instantly turned black, spreading like a plague across the entire petri dish. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera at the time, or I could have taken a picture of my own terrified expression. Here it is, my accidental creation, or perhaps a manifestation of a miracle."

"A miracle?"

"Absolutely—"

As he spoke, the slightly deranged Zhou Chen picked up the measuring cup and handed it to Su Hao. "The recovery effect of this potion will definitely surprise you. The rat whose internal organs I completely removed regained its ability to move in less than a minute. I even saw its heart and intestines regenerate. Ugh! The process was disgusting but exhilarating!"

Su Hao took the measuring cup, looking puzzled.

He smelled a faint odor, like leftover stir-fried meat left out overnight in hot weather. The smell wasn't overwhelming, but it was there and couldn't be ignored.

The energy potion in Su Hao's memory was definitely not like this.

According to the ranking from D to A, the colors of the potions were light blue, light red, dark blue, and dark purple. They smelled like a certain type of medicinal toothpaste, not unpleasant, let alone as disgusting as the black liquid in the cup in front of him.

"So this is the miracle you're talking about?"

Su Hao's frown deepened. "If you must connect this to a 'miracle,' it's probably the vomit or excrement of a god."

Zhou Chen seemed oblivious to the sarcasm in his words, his eyes shining with excitement. "Try a sip, it tastes good."

Su Hao's eyes widened in disbelief. "You drank it?"

Zhou Chen shook his head, his expression honest. "No... but the rat did."

"Then why are you asking me to drink it?"

"I analyzed the components, and it's not toxic. This potion is rare, and you are the best experimental subject under the premise of ensuring safety. I need to record all your physiological reactions after taking it to use as a reference for improving the formula..."

Zhou Chen's eyes were infinitely pure, exuding a strong "worker bee" vibe.

Su Hao confirmed again—Zhou Chen had no intention of harming him and was not lying.

This black potion might indeed have the miraculous effects Zhou Chen claimed. But Su Hao couldn't bring himself to drink it.

It... was just too disgusting.

Like feces that had been excreted after eating too many peppers, very watery.

The two of them were at an impasse.

One full of expectation.

The other awkward.

"Beep—beep—"

Suddenly, the portable communicator on Su Hao's waist lit up red. He quickly took out the microphone, pressed the communication button, and immediately heard Dong Guoping's anxious voice.

"Boss, I'm at Gas Station No. 1. You should come over, there's something I want you to see."

...

When Su Hao drove into the gate of Gas Station No. 1, Dong Guoping was directing workers to load a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun onto a guard tower with a crane.

They were familiar with each other, so there was no need for formalities. Dong Guoping directly led Su Hao to a small room behind the gas station used for dissecting zombies.

A new exhaust fan had been installed in the room, with triangular blades rotating continuously, but the air still had a faint, lingering bloody smell.

Two zombies hung on the bloodstained walls.

Their heads had been severely damaged and had been dead for a long time. To facilitate dissection, Dong Guoping had fixed the zombies' limbs with nails and their necks with iron rings, spreading their bodies out in a standard "big" shape.

Su Hao walked up to the nearest zombie.

From the tattered clothes, it was clear it had once been a male human. It was very thin but about 20 centimeters taller than other zombies. Its hair was almost gone, and its worn-out long pants were torn to the knees. The upper body was unrecognizable.

These were not the main points.

Su Hao drew a dagger from his waist and cut open the zombie's clothes along the shoulders and waistline, revealing a dark red body.

Yes, dark red—its entire body was this color, like the soil in high-altitude regions. The face, arms, chest, and thighs... unlike other zombies, which were a deathly gray, the surface of the body had very little pus, but there were obvious signs of tearing on the wrists and feet.

Dong Guoping pointed to a wound on the zombie's left shoulder, cut open with a knife, and said, "It's very strange, its muscles haven't rotted. They are very tight, unlike the soft and mushy muscles of other zombies. During the dissection, there was even a small amount of blood in the body. This has never been seen in other zombies."

Su Hao nodded noncommittally and asked, "Where did you find it?"

"It came along the road outside."

Dong Guoping's voice was steady. "It moved more flexibly and faster than other zombies. At first, the guards thought it wasn't a zombie but a mentally disturbed survivor. When they got closer, they realized they were wrong. The shot was accurate, directly piercing its head."

He raised his hand and pointed to the bullet hole on the zombie's head, now clogged with black blood and flesh.

Su Hao said nothing, shifting his gaze from the dark red zombie to the one hanging next to it.

It also wore tattered clothes, with nothing particularly noteworthy about its limbs and skin. However, its head had been cut off and hung in the air about a meter above the ground, suspended by iron hooks.

"This one was found outside the wall yesterday afternoon."

Dong Guoping stepped forward, using a knife to push aside the grass and hair on the zombie's head, revealing two abnormal protrusions extending upward from the brow ridge.

The two protrusions were about five centimeters long, the thickness of an adult's finger, and had a color similar to the skin, with a high degree of elasticity. Su Hao poked them with the tip of his knife, and the fleshy protrusions immediately swayed like springs.

Su Hao's expression grew even colder.

He took a few steps back, creating some distance, and carefully observed the hanging zombie head.

Its face was covered in mud and pus, the nose rotted away, revealing a hard, blackened bone. The mouth was wide open, the teeth neatly aligned and abnormally hard.

Apart from the two very unusual fleshy protrusions, its facial features were significantly different from other zombies.

The eyes were large, the white eyelids melting away like cream, revealing two dark, crystalline masses. Perhaps due to swelling or some other reason, the eyeballs seemed much larger than before. The hard, bony eye sockets constrained this abnormal change, with the crystalline masses being squeezed outward, desperately seeking more space.

It felt... like a half-cooked egg, gently squeezed, with just enough force to flatten it without breaking its resilience.

Su Hao used the tip of his knife to cut open the zombie's upper lip.

The muscle here was very tight, lacking the softness of a human lip. The knife cut along the slightly indented lip line, and the skin immediately split, revealing two folded organs extending from the gums, just above the teeth. They were very small, perfectly hidden by the upper lip.

Dong Guoping, standing beside him, immediately widened his eyes and leaned forward.

He had dissected both zombies but had not discovered this secret hidden under the lips.

Dong Guoping watched as Su Hao used the tip of his knife to lift one of the soft masses, slowly pulling it open... the mass gradually transformed into a strange, soft, and resilient organ about 20 centimeters long.

It was tender, pink, and translucent. The tip was forked, resembling a miniature crab claw.

"What... what is this?"

Dong Guoping asked, his voice trembling with fear and shock.

Su Hao stared at the clearly non-human organ, his gaze growing colder.

"It's a mouthpart."

"A... mouthpart?"

Dong Guoping repeated the word subconsciously, his eyes blank.

"Look here—"

Su Hao flicked his knife, pointing to one of the fleshy protrusions on the zombie's head. "Including the mouthpart in the mouth, these are not normal human organs. I don't know if you have studied biology in depth, but you should know that when a biological organism undergoes abnormal changes, it means that the cells within it have evolved or undergone a mutation that causes an irreparable defect."

As he spoke, Su Hao cut the fleshy protrusion with his knife. "Look closely here—the bone inside is very soft, indicating a high degree of cell activation. There are not many blood vessels, but the nerve tissue is dense and well-developed. If this zombie were still alive, these two things would continue to grow to an astonishing length."

Though not explicitly stated, Su Hao's hint was clear enough. Dong Guoping had almost guessed the secret but still found it hard to believe.

"These are antennae."

Su Hao's cold voice shattered his last hope. "The eyes have also undergone abnormal changes. They will either burst through the eye sockets or form new compound eyes outside the sockets. With the mouthpart in the lips... it is no longer a zombie but a new, mutated creature."

Dong Guoping's expression became very complex.

"A new creature... not a zombie... not a zombie? Then, then what is it?"

Su Hao's gaze left the lifeless head and turned to the dark red zombie nailed to the wall.

"Zombies, like humans, will continue to evolve, seeking ways to strengthen themselves. Since the outbreak of the virus, they have almost passed through their initial juvenile stage."

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