Section Eighty-Nine: What Is Going On?

A vivid crimson plant stood quietly inside a transparent culture vessel. Its thick vermilion leaves were laced with dense veins, and its succulent central stem glowed a brilliant purplish red. At the very top hung five or six lantern-shaped fruits striped in red and yellow, plump and weighty-looking, their full, fleshy bodies rather delightful to behold.

"This is a fairly common spice plant, the Scarlet-Leaf Banana. See? What we need from those little lanterns is the Scarlet Fire Fluid!" Carefully, Xu drew one of the lanterns from the plant with a tool that looked like a pair of tweezers. She placed it gently on a clean tray, then pierced a tiny hole. Fiery red liquid trickled from the opening and pooled in the dish, instantly filling the room with a rich, fragrant aroma.

"The Scarlet Fire Fluid is mainly used to make certain high-end aromatic products. Since it can't be cultivated on a large scale, it's rather expensive on the market. Hehe, many girls in our department sometimes use it, though I prefer Light Blue Smoke. Xue Lin doesn't like these things much!" Xu said with a smile. It was clear she was very confident in this area. Whenever the subject touched on her specialty, she became exceedingly serious, without the slightest trace of timidity.

Apart from Xu, none of the girls nearby had completed the task.

Ye Chong stared without blinking at the plant in the vessel, this fiery red thing whose entire growth he had witnessed with his own eyes. In just a few hours, a single seed had been cultivated into maturity. Yet under normal circumstances, this plant required fifteen years to complete its life cycle. The shock he felt was beyond measure. For the first time, the profession of cultivation expert appeared to him as something profound and mysterious.

This was genuine life.

"Ye Zi, why are you so interested in cultivation experts? There are very few male cultivation experts, you know!" Xu asked, wide-eyed and innocent as she looked at Ye Chong.

Ye Chong said flatly, "I'm just interested."

Xu blinked in confusion. "Aren't you a modifier? Cultivation experts don't seem to be of any use to you! The two most mainstream fields for cultivation experts right now are the plant branch and the microorganism branch. They don't seem useful to you at all."

"The plant branch and the microorganism branch?" Ye Chong asked.

"Yes. The plant branch mainly deals with spices, ingredients, medicines, and so on, all plant-related things. Its purpose is to catalyze plant growth, shorten growth cycles, strengthen specific properties, and the like. These plants are usually either very rare, have extremely long growth cycles, or are in huge demand. So the market is very large, and this is the branch with the most cultivation experts! I'm from the plant branch!" Xu pointed to her own petite nose with adorable pride.

"The microorganism branch is also widely applied. They mainly cultivate bacteria to produce things like enzymes and polypeptides. They're impressive too!" Her face was full of admiration.

Ye Chong's heart stirred. "Then is there a branch that cultivates minerals?"

Xu shook her head firmly. "Of course not! Minerals don't have life characteristics, so how could they be cultivated? There is animal cultivation, though, but it has already been explicitly banned across the five star sectors. It seems some people are still doing it in secret! Those people are truly evil!" Xu puffed up her cheeks in righteous indignation.

As expected, the things in Mu's information database were not ordinary. Ye Chong had always trusted the information in Mu's database, and had almost never doubted its authenticity.

But when Xu mentioned animals, Ye Chong couldn't help asking, "Animal cultivation? Why is it prohibited?"

Xu said with visible disgust, "Animal cultivation can produce all kinds of bizarre things. These animals are far more dangerous than plant-based ones. Many of the cultivated animals are cruel by nature. It also involves a lot of ethical and moral issues, and it's simply too inhumane! So the united governments of every star sector have issued an explicit ban!"

Ye Chong understood some of it, though not fully. Still, what did that have to do with him? He didn't take it to heart.

He studied the Scarlet-Leaf Banana in the vessel carefully, marveling at the wonder of cultivation experts. He also found himself becoming deeply interested in the profession. At the same time, he was reflecting on the reagents Xu had just used and her technique, comparing them continuously with what he had memorized before.

Perhaps cultivation experts weren't so dull after all, Ye Chong thought.

Suddenly, a searing pain without any warning stabbed fiercely into his heart like a needle. Ye Chong gave a muffled groan, clutched the left side of his chest with his right hand, and his back arched involuntarily.

Pain! Ye Chong felt as though his heart had been pierced by this sudden needlelike agony. His face turned ghastly pale in an instant, and sweat broke out all over his forehead.

Before Ye Chong could even react, the stabbing pain began to dart through his body. Wherever it passed, he had the illusion that the flesh inside him was being torn apart. Stars burst before his eyes, and with a buzzing in his head, as if his muscles were being ripped open, he could no longer bear it and let out a faint groan.

Heart, chest, hands, feet—his body seemed increasingly beyond his control. The pain kept spreading, gnawing at his consciousness like insects and ants. Countless tiny sensations of agony converged together, overwhelming him from all sides and nearly swallowing him whole.

Thud! Ye Chong could no longer stand. His body collapsed uncontrollably to the floor, curling up in misery like a shrimp. His face was as white as paper, and the muscles of his face kept twitching. He looked horrifying.

Xu covered her mouth in terror, but the cry that escaped from behind her hands shattered the quiet of the cultivation room.

"Ye Zi, what's wrong? What's wrong? Teacher..."

So severe was the wrenching pain that Ye Chong's mind remained terrifyingly clear. Every bit of suffering was felt with absolute precision, and he had never imagined his senses could become so exquisitely detailed.

But now, that was clearly the most excruciating thing of all.

There was no expression of pain on Ye Chong's face, because the muscles there were entirely beyond his control. In truth, every muscle in his body was beyond his control, yet bizarrely, his consciousness remained crystal clear.

"Ye Zi... Ye Zi... what's wrong?" Mu's usually calm voice had turned tense as well.

And yet, as if blocked by some barrier in his own head, Ye Chong's brainwaves never reached Mu. He could hear Mu's voice, but no matter how many times he called out, Mu never heard him once.

Mu's voice grew more and more anxious, while Ye Chong lay there as if dead, receiving no response from Ye Chong's brainwaves at all.

Three minutes! A full three minutes! Such unprecedented agony made Ye Chong feel as though his own hell were rising and sinking beneath him, relentlessly and inch by inch drawing near. Even someone as resolute as he felt fear. For the first time, he sensed death so close at hand.

Ye Chong endured it desperately. Compared with this, the headache left by his mental overexertion a few days ago was mere child's play. One was spiritual torment, the other a piercing physical agony, and the inexplicable stabbing pain today had come even more violently than the headache did then.

Still, thanks to his previous experience, Ye Chong did not collapse this time. He gathered all his spirit and fixed it on the line of pattern on the floor before him. The violent pain scattered his mind somewhat, but it did not lessen in the slightest.

He forced his awareness together bit by bit, not daring to slacken even slightly. Ye Chong had never imagined that one day he would not even be able to control his own consciousness.

Then, just as he was on the verge of collapse, the pain vanished as suddenly and without warning as it had come.

It vanished all at once.

In an instant, Ye Chong's body was under his control again. It was as if his body were a mech and his consciousness a pilot: in those brief minutes just now, the pilot had inexplicably lost control of the mech, and in that very instant, control had just as inexplicably returned.

Had that just been a dream?

Ye Chong, climbing up from the floor, thought dazedly. His body had returned to normal, but his mind remained in utter confusion.

Sensing that Ye Chong's brainwaves had returned to normal, Mu asked anxiously, "What happened just now, Ye Zi?"

Ye Chong still had not recovered from the turmoil in his thoughts. Looking at the girls crowded around him, he shook his head unconsciously, trying to clear his mind.

It took a full half minute before he finally came back to himself.

Xu and the other girls all looked terrified. Seeing Ye Chong get back up, they could not help taking a step backward.

Ye Chong did not know how frightening he looked at that moment.

His pallid face was like the ghost in a girl's favorite horror film. Beads of sweat the size of beans had nearly gathered into little streams, blurring his features, while parts of his face twitched from time to time. He looked indescribably eerie.

Ye Chong said to Mu, "Mu, let's talk when we get back."

He took several deep breaths, confirming that every part of his body was under his control. What he thought of now was to leave this place as quickly as possible. So many people gave him no sense of safety at all. Fresh back from hell, the only thing he wanted was a quiet, empty place where he could sit down with Mu and find out exactly what had happened.

Just as he was about to leave, two middle-aged men in strange pale green uniforms rushed in through the doorway carrying cases. As soon as they entered, they called out, "Who was it? Who's in trouble?"

At once, everyone parted to make way, and the two men saw Ye Chong standing in the middle.

Ye Chong's pale face and drenched sweat made it obvious that something had just happened. One of them recognized Ye Chong, who had been making a great splash lately.

"Teacher Ye, are you feeling unwell? We just received an alert and thought a student had suddenly suffered some acute illness. We didn't expect it to be a teacher. Come, let us examine you. Hmm, there are too many people here. Let's move to another classroom."

Ye Chong was just about to refuse when Mu said, "Ye Zi, you'd better get checked."

Five minutes later, in another classroom.

The doctor who had examined Ye Chong said gravely, "Teacher Ye, we can't determine your condition. Perhaps the equipment here is too rudimentary. We recommend that you go to the school's advanced medical center for a full examination. All right, there's nothing more for us to do here, so we'll take our leave. Teacher Ye, don't forget to go to the advanced medical center for a checkup. Goodbye."