Chapter 89: What Happened
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A sprout of crimson plant stood still in a transparent culturing tube. Its leaves were ovate and in dark red, veins densely crept over its thick leaves. The stem was supple as it twirled over the tube with its sharp lilac red body. At the top there laid a few berries with the shape like lanterns in red-yellow stripes. The fruits were seemingly well-grown as it looked succulent and fleshy, rather mouth-watering if one may ask Xiu.
"Okay, this is one of the common spices one would see - the Maroon Bay." Xiu became relatively calmer than before after getting used to interacting with Ye Chong slowly, "If you would take a look at this, these lanterns have one particular thing we need inside them." Xiu carefully plucked one of the so-called "lanterns" from the Maroon Bay using something like a pair of forceps but they looked more refined. "We are going to extract it." She laid it on a clean petri dish and poked a hole on it. Bright reddish liquid oozed out of the pore and filled the petri dish. Out of a sudden, a fairly dense scent wafted throughout the classroom. "Since it is extracted from the Maroon Bay, we call it the ‘Maroon Extract’." She put the tool down and carried on elaborating.
"Such extract is mainly used in production of premium aromatic flavoring. Mhm, like a perfume for example. Since one could not culture it in mass productions, its price is naturally much higher. Haha, a lot of girls in our faculty would use it sometimes, though I prefer the scent of Fading Azure. Too bad Xuelin never appreciated these lovely smells!" Xiu giggled as she spoke, one could tell that she was somewhat confident in this. The usual shrinking violet would bloom anytime when any question was asked regarding her profession. She would become serious and her timid nature would disappear.
And more surprisingly, throughout the class, only Xiu was able to complete the extraction. Yes, none of the other gossiping girls around her completed the task of the day.
Ye Chong had his eyes fixed on this very sprout in the tube throughout the rapid growth process. Within the past few hours, the seed was directly raised to its mature state while the former growth duration of this sprout would have taken 15 years in its habitat. The ground-shattering fact shocked Ye Chong! The first time it was he felt the depth, the amazing perks of being a chemist.
And this was an utterly living organism!
"So Ye, why were you interested in the alchemy in the first place? We don’t usually see boys here you know…" Xiu looked at Ye Chong with her eyes opened wide in innocent curiosity.
"Just interested," he reasoned it as he just so happened to be very interested.
"But aren’t you a technician? The expertise in the alchemy does not seem to be helpful to you anyhow? The main fields involved in this are botany and microbiology, which I think they aren’t useful for your work… somehow…"
"Botany and microbiology?" asked Ye Chong.
"Yes, our botany primarily consists of studies on spices, ingredients, herbs… and a little bit of others on botanical aspect. Mostly the studies focus on how to encourage the growth of the plants to reduce the time taken of the growing process and also on how to enhance certain effects of the plant’s extract. We often carry out researches with such aim on plants that are either scarce by nature or take too long to grow while having high demands in a larger market. So yeah, botanical chemists are very common nowadays. I’m one of them too!" Xiu pointed at her tiny nose as she spoke in a swing.
"But microbiological applications are also frequently used in the faculty too. Many of them use microorganism to produce a particular kind of enzyme or polypeptides. That sounds cool too!" Xiu expressed admiration on her face.
"So!" Ye Chong was intrigued, "Is there any kind that does ores?"
"Ores?" Xiu shook her head and she affirmed, "Duh, of course not! Ores do not show any attribute of a living thing. How do we even culture it when it does not even reproduce by itself. Well, some do animals. But it has been strictly forbidden by the 5 major galaxies in black and white, though there are still some people who do it in the dark. How could the people be so evil and heartless!" Xiu’s face inflated in agitation.
As expected, what was kept in Mu’s databank was not anything ordinary. Nevertheless, Ye Chong had always trusted the statements inside the record. He never doubted its validity!
Xiu mentioned about culturing animals, which piqued his interest, "Animals? Why do they ban chemists from doing animals?"
Xiu's face looked extremely disgusted, "Well, if you do it on animals, a lot of weird stuffs would come out! These are no longer animals, they are monsters! And these monsters are much more dangerous than whole lab of mutated plants. They are brutal by nature. It was not only that but also such act questions the ethnicity of our profession. It is cruel! Too cruel! So any government on any galaxy bans this inhumane act!"
Ye Chong seemed to get it at first… but somehow he lost it later.
But then, what has that to do with me? Ye Chong discarded the complicating thoughts.
He looked upon the bay inside the rube as he complimented the amazing capability of this expertise in mind. Gradually he grew fond of the alchemy. He reflected on what Xiu had demonstrated, the reagent she had used and the way she executed the tasks, comparing them to what he had drilled into his head back then as he learned about the mechs.
The alchemy wasn’t that bad!
Thought Ye Chong.
…
!
Uggghghhhhhh!!
Out of the blue, a piercing pain struck on his heart. Whimpered, he covered his left chest with his right hand as he curved his back subconsciously.
Ahhh! It hurts!
Ye Chong could feel his heart bursting like a balloon on this needle-piercing pain. His face turned dead pale immediately as sweats streamed over his shivering forehead.
The stabbing pain surged through his body before he could do anything. It felt like every bit of his inner flesh was shredded and ground. A distorting ache bounced inside his organs one after another. His eyes went dazed as dizzy he had became. ZZzzt! His muscles felt like they were being torn apart into a million pieces. Ye Chong tried to hold the incoming aches but he failed miserably. He moaned slightly as he lost control.
His heart, his chests, arms and legs; it felt like he was no longer in command of them. The torture seized into his veins as it engulfed Ye Chong’s sanity like an army of ants. The minuscule pricking on every part flooded his body.
Wham! Ye Chong could stand straight no more. He fell onto the ground, bowing like a grilled shrimp. His face was utterly drained by then, the muscles distorted helplessly. What a fearsome sight!
"Ah!" Xiu dropped the flask in her hand. She covered her mouth as shrieks escaped in the sharpest hiss through the gaps of her fingers. The classroom was distressed!
"Ye! Ye! What happened to you? Speak to me! Please… No… Teacher! Teacher!!"
Such a heart-skewing pain. Ironically Ye Chong had to stay awake to experience every bit of it. He was more conscious than ever for some reason. He could clearly feel the thumps falling onto his body. His nerves had never felt so discerning before!
It might be extraordinarily useful anytime but not now. It had become a torment to Ye Chong obviously!
There was no expression on his face anymore. Even the muscles on his face were no longer of his control! Technically, there was not a piece of muscle in his control. It felt like he had fainted but he had not. In fact, his mind was clearer than ever!
"Ye… Ye… What has happened?" Mu’s calm voice sounded a little fret.
He tried to reply yet his brain waves felt blocked out completely. He could hear Mu and he could call out to him, again and again. However, Mu never heard him, not even once.
"Ye. It is not mature for you to do this."
"Ye."
"Ye!"
Mu's voice grew panicked as he did not receive any form of response from Ye Chong. There was no brainwave from him too, as if he was dead.
3 minutes! For three minutes! A never-before-felt pain tossed him into the underworld, sinking him into a barren agony. Boundlessly, endlessly, lawlessly it inched towards Ye Chong. There was fright in him despite being a strong man he always was! The taste of death, it was so close, the very first time to him.
He endured the pain. By then the continuous headaches he suffered days back after overloading his head was nothing compared to this tsunami of torment. The headache was because of mentality while this was a pure body sear. Moreover, this sudden pain was much more absurd compared to the headache he had.
Nevertheless, thanks to the experience before, Ye Chong did not break down that quickly. He tried shifting his focus as he converged his thoughts at the strides on the floor. The tempestuous ache caused his mind to diverge a little, unfortunately that did not help Ye Chong out as the pain continued without weakening.
He mustered the remaining bit of his consciousness, little by little, all concentrated, he could not mess this up! He could not believe the fact that he would lose his mind someday.
Strangely, as how without forewarning the pain came, right when Ye Chong was going mad, it vanished!
Yes, it vanished without forewarning too!
He regained control of his body. It felt like his body was the mech while his mind was the pilot. During that few minutes of chaos, the pilot lost control of his mech, then right before the crash, he retrieved the access to the control panel out of sudden.
So it was a dream?
He climbed up from the ground as his mind twiddled on everything. His body might have recovered yet his head was still messed up!
As Mu sensed reconnection to Ye Chong’s brain, he asked in panic, "What had just happened Ye?!"
His mind had yet settled down. His eyes weaved through the frightened girls around him. He shook his head violently, attempting to snap out of confusion.
It took about half a minute for Ye Chong to recover fully from the havoc just now.
The girls looked exceedingly afraid, including Xiu who backed off with the girls upon seeing Ye Chong waking up.
Ye Chong certainly had no idea how terrifying he appeared at that moment.
His paper-white face was the kind from the classic horror movies, the haunting ghost role of course; while droplets of sweat smudged his features along with some occasional twitches on his face. Creepy… No, disturbing!
"We will talk about this later, Mu." muttered in his thought, Ye Chong responded to Mu.
He inhaled deeply, waved his limbs slightly, only to make sure he had truly restored control over his body. All he thought by then was to leave straightaway. The crowd had worsened his fear, the people would do him no good. The man who crawled out of the hell’s gate would like some moments, alone! He had to conduct a discussion with Mu regarding the hows and whys of this.
He got up and was ready to move, "Who?!" Two oddly-dressed men at their middle-age stormed in with cases in their hands, "Who was unwell?" The pale green suit was absolutely a weird choice of uniform…
And everyone backed out for a way. The two men approached Ye Chong.
"That’s Mr. Ye!" Ye Chong’s face that had gone colorless, that overwhelming amount of sweat over his body, a fool could tell something must had happened to him. One of the men recognized him as he shouted and went upon Ye Chong waddling, "Are you sick? We received an emergency call from here and we thought some students were unwell out of the blue. Never knew it was you the teacher who got sick. Come, we will do a check-up for you. Yeah, it’s a little crowded here, we will get you shifted to the other classroom."
"It’s o-" Right when Ye Chong who strived for a moment of isolation was going to reject the offer, Mu whispered, "It would be recommended to have a check-up, Ye."
5 minutes later… he was at the other classroom.
"Mr. Ye, we are pitifully sorry that we can’t find anything wrong on your body." The doctor who performed the diagnosis was stern as he spoke, "Perhaps our facilities are too limited. We suggest you to transfer to the advanced medical center at the academy instead, just for a safer and detailed check-up. Alright, there’s nothing else we could do here, if you would excuse us." He kept his tools and turned away, "Also, Mr. Ye, please, do, make sure you have your check-up at the advanced medical center. Very well, good bye, have a nice day!"