Chapter 4

The surrounding researchers ignored its sound and started working while it couldn’t move.

They collected blood scales from its hair and cut off its nails.

“Matthew! I said don’t touch its teeth!” Cyril glared at Matthew who was about to pull his teeth.

Matthew’s face was embarrassed, and he moved his hand from its mouth: “When will this guy die? Can I participate in the autopsy then?”

“Just think about it. It looks very healthy. If you really like dissection, s-19 is dying. I’ll ask them to save a place for you.”

“Isn’t the s-37 good?” Matthew was a little unwilling. The s-19 was too thin and he even stopped eating these days. It is not as good as the s-37 in front of him.

“It’s the pet that the boss asked for.” Cyril explained, “It will have to be sent to them in its entirety-”

“So, you don’t think about picking its eyeballs or pulling its teeth.”

“Pets?” Matthew raised his eyebrows, “These rich people have such strange tastes.”

“That’s the boss who pays you wages.” Cyril added the powder from the cut nails to the reagent. The transparent medicine quickly turned black, making a “squeak” sound, and a few drops of the medicine dripped onto his hand. , etched out a hole in the glove.

Cyril changed a pair of gloves again: “Why do you think we are studying the toxin of No. 37?”

The merman is poisonous, but the research institute already has a method to remove the toxicity of most parts of the merman and use it to make medicine, and the toxins of each merman are different, so researching the antidote is not really meaningful.

The antidote for s-37 was deliberately researched, just to prevent the boss from being bitten one day.

After drawing the last tube of blood on it, Cyril glanced at the data on the instrument: “Its heartbeat starts to speed up, the anesthesia is about to expire, throw it back!”

Several burly researchers quickly stopped what they were doing and carried it back to the fish tank on a stretcher.

“How long is the anesthesia effective this time?”

“Fifteen minutes and fifty-four seconds, thirty seconds shorter than last time.”

“Looks like I have to change the potion next time.” Cyril sighed.

The wound on the mermaid was still bleeding, and the beautiful tail flicked gently, brushing the back of Boyce’s hand, Boyce curled his fingers: “Don’t you need to bandage it? Or give it an antibiotic?”

“Don’t worry, its self-healing ability is very strong, and it can’t die.”

After Cyril explained one sentence, he continued the experiment, reminding Boyce on the side: “Don’t be stunned, continue to experiment.”

Boyce hesitated for a moment and returned to his place.

Tube 1 contains one milliliter of blood, tube 2 is powder for nails, tube 3 is saline and anticoagulant.

Add five milliliters of a43 with a concentration of 71% to the No. 2 test tube, then add c77 powder and blood…

Boyce stared at the changes in the test tube.

After a moment he sighed and failed…

The experiment continued until nine o’clock in the evening.

When it was over, Matthew looked at Boyce: “You look tired.”

“After all, I did an experiment for a day.” Boyce only felt a sense of tiredness coming from the depths of his heart, and his mental fatigue far exceeded his physical body.

“You are too weak,” Matthew recalled his first time participating in the experiment. “When I came out of the lab, I felt that I could work for a few more days and nights.”

“As long as I think that this kind of creature that can fight with whale sharks can only be slaughtered by me on the experimental bench, I have motivation.” Matthew looked very excited, and the whole person was still immersed in the excitement of controlling it.

Boyce understands the idea but doesn’t empathize with it.

“It’s too similar…” Boyce accidentally said what was in his heart.

“What?” Matthew didn’t hear clearly and looked at him suspiciously, “What did you just say.”

Boyce shook his head and put his hand in his pocket: “I should go and feed it.”

He went to the warehouse and asked, and it was true that no one was feeding him today.

Boyce pushed the bucket of fish into the breeding room, and everything seemed to be the same as it was in the morning. But it didn’t appear until Boyce left.

Before going to sleep, Boyce remembered that it was tied to the experimental platform, and it looked like a human being.

—

“Sofia—”

The empty laboratory, the icy instruments, and the mermaid tied in front of him, it kept calling the same name.

Boyce had the illusion that it was calling itself.

“Da da da”

Wearing white rubber gloves and holding a silver knife in his hand, he walked towards it step by step.

The tip of the knife slashed the skin, revealing the scarlet inside, and the blood flowed along the skin, dripping from the test bench to the floor.

“Waste,” Boyce heard himself say.

Then he took out a thick needle and drew blood from its body.

“Hair…bones…teeth…nails…” he muttered to himself, the pliers pulled its nails, bringing out red flesh, the teeth were knocked loose by a small hammer, and fell off with a flick.

Soon, in his muttering, there was only a white mermaid skeleton left on the test bench.

The sight flickered.

The man who was lying on the experimental bench and was restrained suddenly became himself.

Boyce guessed that he was anesthetized and could not feel his limbs, but he was awake.

The cool white light on the ceiling was a bit dazzling, Boyce rolled his eyes, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a group of merman wearing white researcher coats surrounding him.

They spoke a language Boyce had never heard but unexpectedly understood.

“It doesn’t have a tail?”

“Is the tail forked? Are there no fish scales?”

“How does it eat without canine teeth?”

…

Boyce listened to them pointing around him, and a silver light flashed before his eyes.

It’s a scalpel.

A mermaid gestured at him with a knife, as if thinking about where to make the first knife.

Blood is drawn through a needle, into which a group of mermen add reagents to discuss its response.

Boyce could feel the body temperature drop as the blood lost, and they naturally noticed: “Don’t let it die.”

An injection was pushed into the body, and Boyce’s physical condition began to improve, accompanied by a pain.

“It’s beating faster, is it a side effect of the drug?”

Another voice answered casually: “Don’t worry, it’ll just survive.”

…

“call-”

Boyce woke up suddenly, looked around in shock, making sure he was in the room.

I took my watch and found it was four in the morning.

Boyce got up and took a shower, put on his sweaty pajamas and couldn’t sleep for a while, leaning against the bed.

“Annie—” Boyce took the picture from the bedside table.

It was a white long-haired cat with blue eyes like a clear gem.

Boyce entrusted it to a friend for work.

“I sometimes feel that I am cruel. I can show kindness to cats and dogs on the road, and I can calmly kill another creature whose IQ may be no less than that of humans. The reason is probably behind the mermaid. Huge benefit.”

This is what Boyce saw in another record, and in other records there are also occasional statements like “it occasionally behaves very human-like”.

A researcher wrote in his diary: “It is too human-like. Before the scalpel fell, I saw pleading in its eyes. At that moment, I felt that my knife was facing a similar…”

“Well, just this once…” Boyce muttered to himself.

What the hell, I actually feel a little pity for it.

There were still various medicines in the researcher’s room. Boyce pulled out an antibiotic, put it in his coat, put on the anesthesia needle that Ivey had given him, put on earplugs, opened the door, and walked towards the rearing room.

Oriel wished Boyce would stay in the breeding room 24 hours a day, giving him higher authority. No one paid attention to the monitoring in the breeding room, Boyce just needed to replace this monitoring with normal monitoring in time.

Boyce opened the door and walked in.

The flesh of the fish in the fish tank has not moved, and it is white and swollen when it floats in the water.

Boyce stood on the floor of the breeding room, reached out and knocked on the glass a few times, the sound spread in the water, and the mermaid ears at the bottom of the fish tank moved slightly and floated up from below.

The torn wound on its body has stopped bleeding, the flesh on the wound is slightly white, and a lot of scales have fallen off on the fish tail, revealing the pink-white skin.

Boyce took a deep breath and pressed down on the lift.

The glass above the fish tank opened, and it surfaced, revealing half of its body, standing a few meters away.

Boyce took out the needle and tapped it twice on the glass.

“Listen!” Boyce watched its movements vigilantly, “I have an anesthesia needle and an antibiotic here, and your next behavior will determine which one I use first.”

Boyce held the anesthesia needle in his right hand and waved at it with his left: “Come here.”

It swam forward a little obediently, but didn’t get too close.

Boyce tentatively gave the order: “Now give me your hand…”

It continued to approach the glass, put its hands on the edge, half of its body exposed the lift, and placed its right hand in front of Boyce.

Boyce’s hand holding the anesthesia needle tightened, his throat was a little hard, and he could perceive that it had no intention of attacking at this time.

On the contrary, it can be regarded as tame now, the exposed canine teeth are deliberately retracted, making its face look a bit strange, its fins are lying down, its tail is gently wagging in the water, and its nails will be pulled out. The right hand of flesh and blood was placed in front of Boyce.

“Sofia—”

There was no danger to his life for the time being, but Boyce was even more nervous. He realized that he could understand what he said.

Is there a soul with wisdom and emotion under this shell?

It seems to understand Boyce’s fear of himself, and when Boyce injects it with antibiotics, it does not move, then turns around and jumps out of the fish tank after the injection.

Boyce sat on the platform until the water became calm again.

He tried to convince himself to stop thinking abnormally: “Maybe it’s just a beast—”

“crash”

The surface of the water was broken again, and it suddenly appeared, jumping out of the water gently, Boyce saw a blue light flash in front of him, and it disappeared quickly, leaving a white tooth on the lift.