Chapter 30: Life’s Code
On the day of the freshmen inauguration ceremony, Cillin’s group sat at the last few rows of the auditorium.
Cillin was leaning against his chair and sleeping, Knight was playing with a tank model in his hands, Ci Jincheng was reading and Lung was looking left and right for pretty girls. In summary, no one among the group gave two shits about the freshmen representative or the Seven Lights upper management’s speeches happening at the center stage. In fact, there should be plenty of students who were just like them.
However, Cillin suddenly heard a familiar voice while he was in sleep mode. He awoke and opened his eyes to look at the stage.
It was a familiar face.
The person giving the speech right now was one of Seven Lights vice headmasters; Chief of Science and Research Division Mo Heng. He was also the old man Cillin had met at the train station in the trade zone.
While Cillin was looking over, the speaking Mo Heng suddenly looked at Cillin’s direction as if he had detected his glance. After a momentary daze, a rather meaningful smile then appeared on Mo Heng’s face.
The vice headmaster An Ting sitting beside Mo Heng suddenly gave a violent shiver while he was pondering what to have for lunch later, and the moment he looked up, he immediately saw Mo Heng’s eerie smile. To the innocent and ignorant, his smile would still appear kindly, but anyone who understood Mo Heng would know that the old devil was up to some wicked plot again!
Cillin suddenly felt a chill. What is this vice headmaster planning?
When the inauguration ceremony finally ended, the quartet immediately left like the wind. It was boring as hell to sit through the whole thing.
After the inauguration ceremony, it was time to officially start class.
There were many established curriculum in Seven Lights University. Under academic majors, there were literature, business, theoretical studies, engineering, military and so on. You could pick whatever you want as long as it’s within your grade, but if a student picked a course and failed the final exam, then all the university had to offer was a sorry: instead of gaining credit, their corresponding credits would be deducted instead.
Therefore, a student would generally pick a major that they were familiar with. As long as they accumulated enough credits, they would be able to move on to the next grade. If they failed to meet the minimum requirement, they would have to repeat a year, and if they failed to move up a grade in three years then they would be forced to drop out. On the other hand, if they could accumulate enough credits, then they could apply to move up a grade in advance.
The military major was the most male students most looked forward to, but it was also the hardest to acquire credits. That was why those who wanted to major in military must know their own abilities, or it would be too late when they screw themselves.
But of course, it was impossible that the university would kill a student’s passion. Every major had established their own respective elective courses, so those students who were interested in a particular major but weren’t too sure if they could guarantee those credits could choose to study these elective courses. The credits of these elective courses were only one tenth of the originals, but the good thing was that they were easy to get, and the lecturers were lenient. So the students were rather fond of these elective courses.
Ci Jincheng had chosen some of the courses under the literature major, and since he was a specially recruited student, he was judged by a different standard. Lung’s main choices fell under the business major, but he also picked up an elective under the literature major because there were more pretty girls over there. To quote his own words, ‘I am there to clean my eyes’. Needless to say, Knight had chosen the military major. He was uninterested in anything else.
As for Cillin, he chose a few courses in every major, and they were not elective courses either. Basically, he picked everything he could as long as the times didn’t clash and was within school hours. It could be said that his schedule everyday was relatively full. Of course, weekends didn’t count. The weekend was the time for respite.
Since they had different courses, their chances to meet during the day became a lot less. Cillin had bought yet another hoverboard. He couldn’t always depend on Lung’s flying car after all, and their class times were not exactly the same either. A specially recruited student like Ci Jincheng often stayed overnight at the Science and Research Division, whereas Knight also often stayed overnight at the Training Division. It was convenient after all. Meanwhile, Lung would drive everyday to the trade zone after class and ‘flirt’ with the high grade students, causing everyone at the trade zone be it male, female, old or young to wish for flying legs to escape whenever they saw Lung.
Therefore, as a result, Cillin was the one and only permanent resident of the accommodation. But this wasn’t a bad thing; it would make it more convenient for Cillin to deal with a certain matter.
If he delayed dealing with that BPT wrapped in eco-film any longer, the poor thing’s gonna drop dead.
It was the first weekend after classes had started. Cillin was the only one in the accommodation.
Cillin took out a clean tray from the room, tore open the eco-film and placed the vine on it. The surrounding nutrient solution seemed to be of no help to it whatsoever. The green color of its leaves appeared dim, and incredibly weak.
Cillin placed a finger on the leaf and closed his eyes, sensing the information transmitted from it.
The placement of each cell, the different compositions inside a cell, the decoding of genetic information…
The relevant data and information flashed across his mind. The biochip integrated within Cillin’s chromosomes was like a precise instrument analyzing the object he touched. Cillin had a very peculiar feeling. Unlike the other dead, lifeless objects, this… beating vibrance caused Cillin to feel like engaging in communication.
Cillin seemed to have discover this vine’s life’s code. By unlocking this code, he would be able to understand the survival conditions of this plant. More accurately speaking, it was what this plant needed the most right now.
Cillin could sense clearly what this vine was desiring for. At the same time, he could sense its weakness and insecurity as well.
Thoughts?
That’s right. This is their thoughts.
Cillin remembered Genya’s words clearly. Back in those years, Genya had sat under the Fuji tree and told Cillin, “Very few people would truly care for the life of a plant, but in truth, a plant is more eager to communicate – the resonance of life can win their affection much easier than an inflexible machine.”
Of course, Genya’s words were actually based on the Fuji tree. The Fuji tree could be counted as among the finest within the plant kingdom, or it could not have possibly been crowned as ‘Elder Tree Fuji’. Genya had even said that the finer they were, the clearer their minds were. They were like a specie in between an animal and a plant; the shape of a plant, the mind of an animal.
So it would seem that this mutated BPT was actually an evolved breed. Cillin could accurately make contact with its clear thought.
Cillin expressed his goodwill as he transmitted his thoughts through the transcoding of the chips inside his body to the leaf.
This vine was just like a child who had been separated from its parent. After it came into contact with Cillin’s goodwill, a long lost sense of security returned as it transmitted its own thoughts.
Cillin lifted the tray, looked at the vine inside it, and said quietly in his heart: Don’t worry, I’m here. I’m right beside you.
Before he went out Cillin pressed a button setup by Ci Jincheng. Once activated, the people outside would only see a preset scene and not the changes that were actually happening inside the courtyard.
On the ground right beneath his bedroom window, Cillin dug open the surface to reveal the soil underneath. He put down the vine and sprinkled a common nutrient solution on it. The vine began to change at a visible rate.
The color of the leaves began to turn full of vitality. The vines began to grow, extend, and climbed ‘step’ by ‘step’ upwards (T/N: the plant’s branched tendrils are filled with sticky disks which can be seen as the its feet, hence step by step), and at the same time, its two sides too began to grow offshoots when it had reached a certain level of height. It grew more and more.
Cillin sat on the lawn and watched it grow; spreading its way step by step towards its surroundings.
In reality these vines did not have high environmental needs, and were pretty easy to grow. It wasn’t that the child couldn’t absorb the nutrient solutions earlier, but because its wariness was too strong after being separated from its parent. If their wariness could not be appeased, then they would rather wither and return to dust than accept the relief that had been presented right in front of them.
The Institute of Botany’s instruments at the research zone could analyze in detail the plant’s genetic code and respective traits. However, it could not communicate with it. This was the difference between life and machine.
The miracles of life lay in its inability to be interpreted by words, and yet could be felt clearly as a real, living existence.
It was evening. Cillin watched the plants that had covered more than half of the surface of the accommodation and smiled. When those three come back they would be surprised, wouldn’t they?