162: Symbiosis and Catalysis

"An emergency meeting? Eve, do you know what time it is?" Su Li's voice came through the communicator, tinged with a hint of annoyance at being disturbed.

"I know we're on the verge of bankruptcy," Eve's voice was unusually excited, without a trace of apology, "but I also know that I'm about to make back your losses with interest—a hundredfold, a thousandfold!"

The top-floor conference room of the Hanhai Trade Base was brightly lit.

Chen Feng, Su Li, and Lao Mo—all the core members had been summoned here by Eve's abrupt emergency call.

"We've been making mistakes all along!"

Eve didn't waste any words. Standing before a light screen, she waved her hands, and two energy models, dizzyingly complex, appeared side by side.

On the left was a dynamic simulation of the cells in Reno's body collapsing under Law Contamination.

On the right was the decay model that Eve had been unable to solve—the rapid dissipation of high-dimensional energy blocks in a low-dimensional environment.

"See this?" Eve pointed to the identical energy dissipation paths in both models. "The 'root cause' is the same: Law incompatibility causes high-dimensional energy to fail to conduct stably within low-dimensional matter structures!"

"And so?" Su Li frowned; she only cared about the conclusion.

"So we shouldn't be trying to suppress or fight it!" Eve's voice rose sharply, a fanatical light gleaming in her eyes. "We should 'feed' it! Satisfy it!"

"Feed something that's killing Reno?" Lao Mo listened, dumbfounded. "Eve, girl, you haven't gone mad, have you?"

"I'm more lucid than ever!" Eve pulled up her new proposal on the light screen. The title made everyone gasp—[Bio-Energy Catalytic Symbiosis Proposal].

"Higher laws are like a picky architect, and Reno's body is low-quality building material. The architect wants to build a temple, but the bricks crumble at a touch. Our previous approach was to try and kick the architect out, but that only resulted in it tearing things down faster."

"My plan is," Eve's words came out like rapid-fire, "we don't kick out the architect; we provide better 'tools' and 'materials'! We'll synthesize a special biomass gel that acts as both 'scaffolding' to provide temporary support for cellular reorganization and a 'lubricant' to buffer the impact of high-dimensional energy, actively guiding and assisting the Law in completing the transformation of Reno's body!"

"This..." Lao Mo was completely speechless. This theory exceeded his decades of engineering experience.

"Cost." Su Li finally asked her most pressing question. "What is the cost of this fantastical gel? Do our remaining reserves even cover the production of a few milliliters?"

This time, Eve wasn't stumped. Instead of panicking, she showed a sly smile, as if she had been waiting for this question all along.

Before Su Li could lose her temper, she projected another plan onto the light screen. The title was even more shocking: ["Catalytic Symbiosis" technology Industrial Application and Profit Forecast].

"Ms. Su Li, please look here." Eve's tone was full of confidence. "Once the proposal succeeds, we won't just save Reno; he'll even become a brand-new, more powerful 'symbiote.' More importantly, this energy-guiding technology can perfectly solve the mass-production problem for energy blocks!"

She pointed to the nearly vertical profit curve on the forecast chart. "We can use the same technology to catalyze the cheapest organic waste into high-efficiency energy storage lattices! The cost would be less than a tenth of Giant Star Mining's, with three times the performance! Two birds with one stone!"

Su Li stared at the nearly perfect input-output analysis and the terrifying projected profit margins. For the first time, she was speechless.

She saw a commercial nuclear weapon capable of upending the entire industry.

"I need maximum clearance," Eve's gaze finally landed on Chen Feng, "and Lao Mo's help."

"Do it," Chen Feng decided on the spot.

In the bio-lab, Eve's theoretical precision and Lao Mo's practical experience underwent a marvelous chemical reaction.

"No, the concentration of this 'cycloneuropeptide' must be precise to 3.141592 micrograms per liter. Any deviation will cause the catalytic chain to collapse!" Eve said seriously, looking at the complex molecular formula.

"Hey, girl, don't trust those dead numbers," Lao Mo grumbled. He used his pinky nail to dab a tiny bit of the semi-finished product from the petri dish and tasted it.

Eve watched, dumbfounded, and was about to scream to stop this primitive behavior that was practically suicidal.

"Hmm... the saltiness is right, with a bit of a fishy tang. The timing is just right." Lao Mo nodded with satisfaction, picked up a solvent bottle, and poured it in based on intuition.

"You..." Eve's face turned red, and she couldn't say a word.

However, when the final compound underwent spectral analysis, the result displayed on the screen was: perfect compliance.

The first tube of dark green "catalytic gel," shimmering as if alive, was finally synthesized.

Chen Feng, Eve, Su Li, and Lao Mo—everyone gathered around Reno's hospital bed.

This was the final gamble.

"Begin," Chen Feng said in a low voice.

Eve took a deep breath and slowly injected the gel into Reno's vein.

One second, two seconds, three seconds... nothing happened.

Just as everyone thought they had failed, Reno's body jerked violently!

"Warning! Severe rejection reaction detected! Heart rate zero! Brain waves zero!"

The sharp alarm rang through the room again, even more despairing than before! Reno's vital signs, like a kite with a broken string, plummeted straight toward the abyss of death!

"No... it shouldn't be like this..." Eve's face turned deathly pale instantly. She stumbled back a step, muttering to herself, "My calculations... they couldn't be wrong..."

At this critical moment, Chen Feng, who had been standing silently by the side, reached out his hand as if possessed.

He wasn't a doctor, nor did he understand any technology.

He simply followed an intuition from the depths of his soul and gently pressed his hand onto Reno's arm, which had already begun to turn cold and stiff.

Buzz—

On the back of his hand, the mysterious mark from [The Collector] suddenly emitted an imperceptible, dim light.

A miracle occurred.

The medical AI's death-knell-like alarm stopped abruptly.

On the light screen, Reno's vital sign curves, which had hit rock bottom, miraculously stopped falling and began to rise slowly and steadily!

The violent energy conflict within him was smoothed over as if by an invisible hand, quickly calming down. The Law Contamination did not disappear, but the grotesque crystalline structures began to blend harmoniously with his flesh, as if they were always one.

Reno had been saved.

Eve, Su Li, and Lao Mo all watched this scene in shock, unable to comprehend what had happened.

Only Chen Feng himself, the moment his palm touched, clearly felt an indescribable weakness and emptiness from the depths of his soul.

It was as if his own time, his own future, had been forcibly overdrawn by a second.