19: The role of fireflies and Shen Fei's actions

"Firefly Bug?"

"Not 'Yin Chong' (lust worm), it's 'Ying Chong' (Firefly Bug)," Professor Shen Fei emphasized. "'Ying' as in fluorescent."

As he spoke, he led Yang Dian and Lin Mo to a sealed petri dish that appeared empty from the outside.

"Jingwei, turn off the lights."

"Understood, Professor Shen."

The next moment, the laboratory plunged into complete darkness, where one couldn't see their own hand in front of their face.

Before Yang Dian could adjust to the dark environment, a blood-red line suddenly lit up inside the previously empty petri dish.

This blood-red line was the Firefly Bug.

Perhaps because it was in darkness, the faint light became extremely conspicuous.

When his attention focused on the Firefly Bug, Yang Dian noticed that this mutated parasite, which was invisible in light and glowed in dim environments, seemed to be breathing.

Its body contracted and expanded rhythmically and regularly, gradually expanding horizontally outwards.

During its expansion, countless tiny, hemispherical mushroom caps gradually appeared on its epidermis, forming dense, layered wrinkles.

When the Firefly Bug expanded to its maximum, touching the edge of the petri dish, it suddenly contracted inwards, coiling into an abalone-like shape.

At the same time, this sudden contraction seemed to hit a G-spot.

In the radial grooves at the center of the Firefly Bug, six crystalline valve membranes suddenly split open, revealing densely packed, spiraling translucent tentacles within, with exceptionally bright tips.

These translucent tentacles appeared a brilliant silvery-white, as if injected with liquid starlight.

In another blink, an opening appeared at the tip of the tentacles.

Countless bright silver spores, smaller than dust and absolutely invisible in normal light, gushed out from within the tentacles, densely filling the entire petri dish space.

These spores also flashed like fireflies in the pitch-black environment.

After a while, perhaps because they hadn't found a host.

The ejected spores gathered into fluorescent ribbons, drilling back into the colorless tentacles like swallows returning to their nest.

Once all the spores had returned to the tentacles and the six crystalline valve membranes closed again, Professor Shen Fei spoke, instructing the AI, Jingwei, to turn on the lights.

As the bright incandescent lights in the laboratory came on, the Firefly Bug, which had just begun to expand horizontally again, stiffened, then slowly became transparent and vanished from Yang Dian's sight.

It had re-entered its invisible state.

Just then, Professor Shen Fei's voice reached Yang Dian's ears:

"The Firefly Bug possesses photophobia."

"Once it comes into contact with a light source, it enters an invisible, dormant state, undetectable by ordinary people with the naked eye."

"Only when the surrounding environment becomes dark will it become active again."

"Those spores ejected from its tentacles are its eggs."

"Once the eggs come into contact with a living organism, they will penetrate the flesh through pores, eventually being transported by blood vessels to the area with the most neurons within the organism."

"That is, they travel to the brain, where they take root and hatch."

"Of course, this is in the absence of a mother body."

"In the presence of a mother body, the eggs are sent to the reproductive organs and spread through sexual activity."

"Its expansion of its body just now was actually to search for neurons."

"It wants to control the organism's neurons, causing the organism's body to secrete massive amounts of hormones, leading to the most primitive desire for reproduction."

"In addition, it can also absorb a special factor produced during an organism's reproduction to accelerate its own growth."

"The more it grows, the more neurons it can control, which in turn can further stimulate the body to produce more hormones."

"A large amount of hormones in the organism's body, reflected in its physical state, means tighter skin, thicker hair, and improved physical condition."

"Just like He Qing before, she looked many years younger."

"But all of this is achieved by overdrawing life through hormone production."

"Once the hormones disappear, the body will fall into a state of lingering agony, worse than death, due to extensive overdrawing."

As he spoke, he pointed to He Qing on the operating table:

"Just like her current appearance."

Yang Dian turned to look at He Qing, then shivered involuntarily.

If he wasn't mistaken, the boundless lust that had suddenly surged within him after He Qing had lashed his earlobe with her tongue earlier was due to the Firefly Bug 'activating' the hormones in his body.

"Damn, that's terrifying."

Hearing Yang Dian's soft mumble, Professor Shen Fei nodded, then shook his head:

"It is terrifying, but once its weakness is found, it's also very easy to deal with."

"We have already developed a specific antidote; as long as it's taken promptly after infection, the Firefly Bug and its parasitic eggs can be quickly killed."

"After the Firefly Bug dies, its body decomposes into a special nutrient that can repair nerves and accelerate nerve conduction speed."

"In layman's terms, it improves reaction speed."

Yang Dian scratched the back of his head.

That's what he said, but Yang Dian still wouldn't dare let a Firefly Bug be put into his own brain.

The thought of this creature, which resembled an abalone when curled up and was covered in hemispherical mushroom caps, controlling his brain neurons, made his skin crawl.

How strong of a will would one need to keep it in their own brain?

Just as Yang Dian was feeling a chill about Professor Shen's research, he heard Professor Shen Fei continue:

"In addition, we have discovered another ability of the Firefly Bug."

As he spoke, he led Yang Dian and Lin Mo to another cultivation room.

Looking through the one-way glass of the cultivation room into its interior, Yang Dian noticed that the small room was divided into six sections.

In each section, there was a small white rabbit with red eyes.

"After being parasitized by the Firefly Bug, not only are an organism's hormones controlled by the Firefly Bug, but their genetic factors also become more active."

"These six experimental rabbits are all females, and their mate is a mutated rabbit that has awakened Mutant abilities."

"Previously, we conducted many genetic breeding experiments with that Mutant rabbit."

"But no matter how hard we tried, the talent factor simply couldn't be inherited."

"However, with the Firefly Bug, things became different."

Turning to look at the petri dish containing the Firefly Bug, Professor Shen Fei's voice even carried a hint of... tenderness?

"We extracted a Firefly Bug egg and implanted it into the brain of the mutated rabbit."

"The Firefly Bug egg hatched three hours after implantation into the brain, and then the mutated rabbit entered a prolonged estrus period."

"Over these two days, it mated a total of 183 times with 136 other female rabbits. In six of them, specifically these six rabbits in front of us, we detected the mutated genetic factor of the mutated rabbit."

"This means that their offspring have a very high probability of inheriting the Mutant abilities of the mutated male rabbit."

As he spoke, Professor Shen Fei's voice was already filled with a hint of fanaticism:

"Do you know what this means?"

Before Lin Mo and Yang Dian could answer, Professor Shen Fei answered his own question:

"It means that our Fuzhou will lead the world, being the first to overcome the problem of Mutant biological abilities being uninheritable and incapable of large-scale, batch breeding."

Looking at the extremely excited Professor Shen Fei, Yang Dian added a sentence in his own mind:

'It also means I can gain a lot of merit.'