Chapter 210: Is This Also a Trinity?

Chapter 210 – Is this also a Trinity?

Gene original?

What on earth is a gene original??

Where the hell have you brought me?

Is this Earth or Terra?

Chen Jian’s barrel was already pressed against the monitor’s forehead, yet the other seemed utterly devoid of fear.

He simply stared unflinchingly into Chen Jian’s eyes, his voice tinged with a hint of madness, and said:

"Ah, ah, you have no idea what a gene original is."

"You merely slew the saint of the Mechanical Cult; did you also slay the Holy Father of the Sanctified Blood Hall?"

"Speaking of the Holy Father, have you ever seen the Holy Father? No, you could never have."

"The old man never steps out of his chambers, as if something there were tethering him."

"He probably spends each day breeding his offspring; perhaps he should cooperate with the queen of Flower City."

"Oh right, the title 'queen' is downright absurd—does she truly think she’s a queen?"

"Have you ever seen the queen? She’s rather striking!"

"By the way, we could cooperate! Cooperate! What do you think?"

"You’re heading to the Imperial Capital, aren’t you? Take me along!"

"I can do anything, truly—whatever you ask me to do, I’ll do!"

"I’ll tell you everything I know; it’s more valuable than any relic from before the great cataclysm!"

".First tell me, what is a gene original?"

Chen Jian lowered his barrel slightly, while the monitor shook his head repeatedly and said:

"This isn’t important, this isn’t important!"

"I must introduce myself first!"

"My name is Xu He—do you know which two characters? The ‘Xu’ that means permission, and the ‘He’ of river water!"

"Damn, I should change my name; this one is too ordinary!"

"Yet your name is ordinary too, Chen Jian, you ought to change yours to—"

"Stop the nonsense!"

Chen Jian’s deep voice cut off Xu He’s endless babbling, but the other merely paused a moment before, as if in a fit, continuing on.

Chen Jian could already see that the other’s mental state was indeed disturbed.

It wasn’t the manic frenzy of schizophrenia; it resembled more a case of

"ADHD—Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder."

Fuxi’s voice crackled through the earpiece.

"This is a classic side‑effect of invasive brain‑machine interfaces; research records show that among test subjects, at least 60% develop ADHD symptoms, with over half reaching severe levels."

"Even 40% of normal people?"

Chen Jian stared blankly and replied:

"Then he’s certainly unlucky."

"No, he’s actually lucky; the remaining 40% mostly suffer from schizophrenia, hallucinations, cognitive dissonance, and other graver ailments."

"Those who never experience any adverse reaction after using an invasive brain‑machine are fewer than five percent."

".Understood."

Chen Jian turned back to Xu He, who was still rambling about some powerful secondary monster he claimed to have encountered, a creature Chen had no clue where Xu He had even turned.

"Listen to me carefully!"

Chen Jian gave Ji Xing a signal; the latter stepped forward and pressed hard on Xu He’s shoulder.

Xu He finally quieted a little, and Chen Jian asked:

"I’ll ask you once more."

"What is a gene original??"

"A gene original is a mimetic heresy; a mimetic heresy is a gene original."

"They are things thought to be fabricated, so they’re called gene originals."

"Only now no one knows their origin; only the fools of the Mechanical Cult still label them mimetic heresies."

"They deem everything a heresy, and the joke is that their saint was slain by a heresy."

"By the way, the new saint has a good relationship with you, right?"

"Be careful; he’s still a saint, and a saint is a saint."

"Who said that? Why does it feel so familiar?"

Conversing with Xu He was an exhausting ordeal; every sentence he uttered was trailed by a torrent of tangled, meaningless noise.

After a full hour, Chen Jian finally extracted a fragment of the clue he sought from his mouth.

At that moment, Chen Jian felt his own mind already tainted by him.

"So, his device was obtained in Flower City, and the information he knows also comes from Flower City."

"Yes, it’s Flower City, I."

"Silence."

Chen Jian gave Ji Xing a glance; the latter stepped forward instantly, shielding Xu He.

At that instant, Xu He had completely lost the aura of a formidable “Source‑blooded” being; for a heartbeat, Chen Jian even thought he had utterly lost his self‑awareness, reduced to a stray dog bruised by severe mental torment, as if anyone could step on him.

——

But that was clearly only the surface.

When he rose and tried to push Ji Xing’s hand aside, giving the latter a stumbling shove, Chen Jian instantly realized he remained a dangerous individual.

Regardless of his motives, if one wishes to cooperate with him, constant vigilance is required.

The barrel rose once more, and Xu He stepped back innocently, saying:

"Believe me, I have no desire to resort to violence."

"I only seek cooperation; cooperation benefits us both."

"You want to know what a mimetic heresy is; I want to know too—it's one of the greatest secrets of this world."

"If we get it wrong, that’s humanity’s true future."

"Alright, alright, if I’ve made you uncomfortable, I can shut up right now."

"However, return my relic to me."

Now the moment has come for me to use it; you have interrupted me, which is downright impolite.

Chen Jian hesitated a heartbeat, gesturing to Ji Xing to return the crate at his feet, and after receiving the crate, Xu He, without a hint of shame, stripped off his upper garments and, once more, with a “brutal” method, grafted the invasive neural interface into his own flesh.

Blood surged forth in an instant.

It was evident that, were it not for his Saint‑blooded physique of formidable vigor, merely the act of “using the neural device” would have been enough to claim his life.

Watching his counterpart plunge completely into the abyss within a breath, Chen Jian lingered a moment longer, then spoke:

“Withdraw.”

“Looks like he truly has no intention of fleeing.”

“We should return first and sort the intelligence we have gathered.”

“This thing bears great weight on our subsequent plans—Beijing, 001, Huadu, the Terror‑demons, the Mimetic Heresy—all of them now interlinked.”

“If the information proves true, then our primary target will no longer be Beijing.”

“We must head to Huadu first, and seize every scrap of the so‑called ‘Chancellor’ information that was mentioned!”

Half an hour later, the group arrived back at the sanctuary arranged by the bishop.

Chen Jian unfolded his PDA, and on its screen, Fuxi had already compiled every fragment of intelligence Xu He had supplied.

Those shattered utterances were finally arranged in an orderly fashion, and at that moment Chen Jian realized that many details he had overlooked were in fact hidden within the other party’s chaotic, inverted speech. “So it can be affirmed that Xu He only underwent a drastic change of temperament after acquiring the neural device and suffering its side‑effects.”

“According to his account, that neural device contains another world, but clearly it must be an incomplete virtual reality constructed of electrical signals.”

“It is possible that his ADHD symptoms stem not solely from the device itself, but also from the cognitive shock of the content it feeds him.”

“After all, judging from the storage contents Fuxi just extracted from the neural device, its functions are exceedingly complex; it is a prototype that houses a plethora of virtual scenarios tied to pre‑cataclysmic data.”

“Saint‑blooded individuals of this era are unlikely to withstand such informational onslaught; a malfunction would be unsurprising.”

“Yet I am curious—if he managed to locate the device, how did he learn how to operate it?”

“Did he truly, as he claims, figure it out on his own?”

“On that point, he must be lying.”

“This matter’s priority isn’t that high, is it?”

Chen Jian finished speaking, and Lei Jie frowned, interjecting:

“The greatest problem now is that what he calls the ‘Mimetic Heresy’ is actually a ‘Genetic Primordium.’”

“If that intelligence can ultimately be verified, the dilemma we face will be far from simple.”

“So the so‑called Mimetic Heresy is the genetic primordium of the Terror‑demons?”

“Then who forged the Terror‑demons, and who forged the genetic primordium?”

“Huadu clearly lacks that capability. Tracing further upward…”

“The Hall of Saint Blood.”

Ji Xing suddenly spoke.

“If the Hall of Saint Blood once stood as the so‑called ‘Institute of Genetics and Biology,’ could it be that the Saint‑blooded, the Mimetic Heresy, and the Terror‑demons…”

“…were all products of its design?”

As his words fell, a flash of thunder seemed to strike Chen Jian’s mind.

Indeed.

This appears to be the most plausible explanation.

Though the Terror‑demons and the Saint‑blooded share attributes akin to monsters, in many respects they are not monsters in the true sense.

Especially the Terror‑demons.

They are born with an extraordinary genetic stability; though temporarily swayed by unknown factors and exhibiting “monstrous” traits, whatever form they assume, whatever outward guise they wear, the core essence that defines a Terror‑demon remains intact.

That alone endows them with a strikingly “manufactured” characteristic.

Coupled with Huadu’s singular fascination with the Terror‑demons and the research they conduct upon them, can we not infer that Huadu itself was sparked by some revelation?

Or perhaps they had already uncovered some “record” that guided them down this path?

Hold on.

And the Hall of Saint Blood?

How, exactly, did they achieve the propagation of the Saint‑blooded?

It seems that from beginning to end, Chen Jian never truly pondered this question.

The reason he never did traces back to the few words spoken to him by a Saint‑blooded named Xu Lie in Chuan Sha City.

“If you eat a monster’s flesh, its spirit will forever follow you.”

From that moment, he took it for granted that influencing human genes with monster DNA was a trivial matter.

But is that really the case?

Not necessarily.

If it were that simple, how could there be only one Hall of Saint Blood in the world? Even by sacrificing lives, one could devise a workable scheme to spawn more Saint‑blooded.

They must have mastered a singular, unparalleled technology.

“Monsters affecting humans” is merely a necessary condition; to stably harness that influence surely demands a sophisticated technique.

With that thought, Chen Jian exhaled a long breath.

He laid out his conjectures in full, and after he finished, the others’ faces grew heavy.

After a moment of silence, Lei Jie spoke:

“If all of this can indeed be linked together, when its truth surfaces it will likely unleash an even larger enigma.”

“Genetic engineering, thought control, neural‑interface.”

“These three elements, these three technologies, are the only ones humanity could wield after the Great Cataclysm.”

“The three should be a ‘suite,’ or at least interrelated.”

“In a sense, it is a ‘trinity.’”

“If we follow that line of reasoning, are those monsters truly tied to the Cataclysm?”

“Or are they merely by‑products of it?”

“Perhaps even the monsters themselves are a kind of artificial creation?”

“Unlikely.”

Chen Jian frowned, shook his head, and said:

“I have never seen our own people commit such folly; even gene‑editing was, in our era, a highly sensitive technology, strictly bounded by ethics.”

“In twenty years, no one could have abandoned such a fundamental line.”

The most probable answer is that these technologies were also stored within some hidden installation, eventually appropriated by a band of survivors and transmuted into a different form.

In any case, the answer lies within Huadu.

At that point, Chen Jian paused.

After a brief moment of contemplation, he continued:

Although we never intended those men to survive, now we have an additional justification.

Huadu must be taken, and whatever lies within the so‑called palace, we must seize.

But before that, we must conduct a thorough operational reconnaissance of Huadu.

Their “delegation” has already been annihilated; the news will surely reach Huadu, and they will have prepared defenses.

A swift decapitation strike is no easy feat, especially when we must preserve the data as much as possible, making it even more arduous.

My proposal is to mount an infiltration operation.

Without alerting the main defensive forces within Huadu, we would storm directly into the core site, retrieve the data we need, and then consider our next moves.

As for the fate of the city of Huadu and its armed personnel and civilians, that can be postponed for now.

What say you, do you agree?

Agreed!

I concur as well.

When Chen Jian finished speaking, the others raised their hands in affirmation.

Seeing no dissent, Chen Jian gave a slight nod and then declared:

Tomorrow, we will press northward.

After covering fifty kilometers from Huadu, we will set up a concealed camp.

Thereafter, Ji Xing, Xie Liu, I, and Lei Jie will conduct close‑range reconnaissance.

Once the situation is clarified, we will devise an infiltration strategy and draft the operation plan.

By the way,

We must bring that Xu He along as well!

(End of chapter)