"Bacteria? You can eat that?" Even Jing Shu looked disgusted. Her nose wrinkled at the thought. Bugs were at least full of collagen, but bacteria? She wondered what that was even supposed to offer. Did it have any nutrients at all?
If she guessed right, everything edible was lumped under carbohydrates. Without that, whether it tasted good or not didn't matter. How was bacteria supposed to digest in the stomach? If it wasn't a carbohydrate, how did it solve hunger? She wondered if bacteria technically counted as carbohydrates.
Xie Zhuzhu pointed at the next glass enclosure where countless spiraling strands wound together like twisted ribbons. "These are spiral bacteria under true bacteria classification. Don't let their looks fool you. They are extremely useful. They perform nitrogen fixation, which converts nitrogen into a form organisms can use. Normal spiral bacteria are only fifty micrometers long, but take a look at these little cuties. They have been magnified a lot."
Jing Shu stared at the writhing ribbons behind the glass. "So what?"
"Ahem. You probably won't get all the technical stuff, so I will just say it directly. These bacteria are incredibly useful. For example, we divide this lab's bacteria into two major categories. One is for human consumption. Believe it or not, humans only need to eat something a fingernail's size to feel full. Look, like this."
As he spoke, Xie Zhuzhu casually picked up a small scalpel and sliced off a wriggling bit of the mass, acting as if he were merely cutting a piece of fruit. The translucent bit immediately thrashed and squirmed against the blade, but Xie Zhuzhu stuffed it straight into his mouth. He didn't chew. He swallowed it whole with a visible gulp.
"Oh, right, I forgot to mention. It's best not to chew this kind of bacteria. The more you chew it, the more it divides. That ruins the effect." He patted his stomach and continued. "These bacteria complete the carbon cycle. Once they are swallowed, your body's bacteria will attack them. That reaction synthesizes other organic compounds. After passing through the food chain, they become part of the human biological structure. The carbohydrates in your body get oxidized into carbon dioxide and water during respiration, releasing the stored energy to meet your body's needs."
Jing Shu and Song Bin nodded, even though they barely understood the science behind it. Whatever. As long as the bacteria turned into energy in the end and humans didn't starve, it was enough.
"Look at the bit that was cut off. It will regenerate and refill the cluster on its own. Basically, however much you use, it replenishes that amount. Sometimes it even produces more when stimulated. If we can make it endless, humanity's hunger problem is solved." Xie Zhuzhu looked incredibly proud, his chest swelling. Their team had spent four years building this lab. He made it sound easy, but she could only imagine how many trials and calculations went into the process.
"Oh right, you guys want to try some? The taste is a little strong. The texture isn't great either. Once it hits your stomach, it will keep rolling around. It felt like pop rocks; it's super strange and kind of exciting."
"No way in hell." Song Bin's face went pale, and he shook his head so hard his hair flapped.
Jing Shu hesitated. She had lived through ten years of the apocalypse. She had even eaten carrion scavengers to survive in her previous life. There was little she hadn't endured. But when she saw the filthy black secretions oozing out from the cluster and smelled the sharp, fishy stink that permeated the air near the glass, she lost all interest.
"Maybe it will taste better as sashimi someday," she said, stepping back from the enclosure. "By the way, what do these spiral bacteria eat?"
Raising chickens or ducks meant feeding them, even if you fed them bugs. Energy didn't come from nowhere.
Xie Zhuzhu pointed at another glass enclosure. "This is the second type I mentioned. It's also one of the agents that causes gigantification. We have been trying to figure out how to make food grow larger without consuming extra energy, and this bacteria is one of the triggers. Add certain special reagents, and they will replicate like crazy. Then they will stimulate animal bodies, aggressively damaging and altering DNA and chromosomes, causing mutations at different levels."
Jing Shu's brow furrowed as she tried to follow the explanation.
"In short, we modify genes and make them mutate massively. We can't achieve perfect targeted modification, so we just make the creatures deform directly. Whatever they grow into, they grow into. Like the chickens you saw. Those were just chicks. Later we will catalyze them and see if we can get them to reach an elephant's size."
"That's why I said you are all maniacs." Song Bin's lips twitched. He didn't mention that the lab's first project was enlarging maggots. They had hoped to raise giant maggots as feed and food. Jing Shu imagined a maggot a person's size crawling toward her, its pale, segmented body undulating with wet squelches. Just thinking about it was disgusting. If someone cut it open, it would likely be full of thick, pale juice.
Dreams were beautiful, but reality was raw and ruthless. Xie Zhuzhu's experiments constantly ran into issues, yet he seemed to relish discovering and solving those problems.
"Why don't you try giantifying fish?" Jing Shu asked. In her previous life, the first giant food that appeared was fish.
Xie Zhuzhu shook his head. "Aquatic creatures do have simpler DNA and chromosomes, but their conversion rate is too low. Their deformity rate is also low. The simpler something is, the harder it is to break. The cost skyrockets, and the results don't match the expectations. Their failure rate is much higher than other types."
"So there's still a hidden trick behind it?" Jing Shu thought for a moment, then decided she should say something since she had a bit of prophetic insight. "I think you should keep studying fish. The difficulty might only be temporary. When you hit a bottleneck, changing your approach could help."
"Alright. After we finish this theory batch, we will look at fish again."
She had no idea if Xie Zhuzhu was being sincere or just humoring her, but she didn't mind. She had just joined this massive project. Other than a few prophetic hints and some knowledge of future events, she didn't understand any detailed research. She would learn slowly.
The lab had eleven underground levels. When they reached the fifth floor, the air grew noticeably colder, and the flickering lights cast long, grim shadows against the stone walls. Jing Shu said she didn't want to go any further.
The deeper they went, the darker everything became. The first two floors still felt bright and hopeful, but below that, the atmosphere turned cold and heavy. They studied human bodies, how to extract the maximum use from corpses, even how to use human nutrients to breed new species. Even with signed consent forms, she finally saw the side of the apocalypse that no one wanted to see.