"Bacteria? You can eat that?" Even Jing Shu looked disgusted. Bugs were at least full of collagen, but bacteria? What even was that supposed to offer? Did it have any nutrients at all? If she guessed right, everything edible was lumped under carbohydrates. Without that, whether it tasted good or not didn't matter. How was bacteria supposed to digest in the stomach? If it wasn't a carbohydrate, how did it solve hunger?
Which raised the real question: did bacteria technically count as carbohydrates?
Xie Zhuzhu pointed at the next glass enclosure where countless spiraling strands wound together like twisted ribbons. "These are spiral bacteria under true bacteria classification. Don't let their looks fool you. They're extremely useful. They perform nitrogen fixation, which converts nitrogen into a form organisms can use. Normal spiral bacteria are only fifty micrometers long, but take a look at these little cuties. They've been magnified a lot."
Jing Shu stared at him. "So what?"
"Ahem. You probably won't get all the technical stuff, so I'll just say it directly. These bacteria are incredibly useful. For example, we divide this lab's bacteria into two major categories. One is for human consumption. Believe it or not, humans only need to eat something the size of a fingernail to feel full. Look, like this."
As he spoke, Xie Zhuzhu casually picked up a knife and sliced off a wriggling bit, like he was cutting off an octopus tentacle. The "tentacle" immediately thrashed and squirmed, but Xie Zhuzhu stuffed it straight into his mouth. He didn't chew. He swallowed it whole.
"Oh, right, I forgot to mention. It's best not to chew this kind of bacteria. The more you chew it, the more it divides. That ruins the effect."
He patted her stomach and continued, "These bacteria complete the carbon cycle. Once they're swallowed, the bacteria in your body will attack them. That reaction synthesizes other organic compounds. After passing through the food chain, they become part of humans and bacteria. The carbohydrates in your body get oxidized into carbon dioxide and water during respiration, releasing the stored energy to meet your body's needs."
Jing Shu and Song Bin nodded even though they barely understood any of it. Whatever. As long as the bacteria turned into energy in the end, humans wouldn't starve. That was enough.
"Look at the bit that was cut off. It'll regenerate and refill the cluster on its own. Basically, however much you use, it replenishes that amount. Sometimes it even produces more when stimulated. If we can make it endless, humanity's hunger problem is solved." Xie Zhuzhu looked incredibly proud. Their team had spent four years building this lab. He made it sound easy, but who knew how many trials and calculations went into it.
"Oh right, you guys wanna try some? The taste is a little strong. The texture isn't great either. Once it hits your stomach it'll keep rolling around. It feels like pop rocks, super strange and kind of exciting."
"No way in hell." Song Bin's face went pale and he shook his head hard.
Jing Shu hesitated. She'd lived through ten years of the apocalypse. She'd even eaten carrion scavengers to survive. What hadn't she endured?
But when she saw the filthy black secretions oozing out and smelled the sharp fishy stink, she lost all interest. "Maybe it'll taste better as sashimi someday. By the way, what do these spiral bacteria eat?"
Raising chickens or ducks meant feeding them, even if you fed them bugs. Energy didn't come from nowhere.
Xie Zhuzhu pointed at another glass enclosure. "This is the second type I mentioned. It'll become the food source for future giant animals and bacteria. It's also one of the agents that causes gigantification. We've been trying to figure out how to make food grow larger without consuming extra energy, and this bacteria is one of the triggers. Add certain special reagents, and they'll replicate like crazy. Then they'll stimulate animal bodies, aggressively damaging and altering DNA and chromosomes, causing mutations at different levels."
Jing Shu frowned as she tried to follow the explanation.
"In short, we modify genes and make them mutate massively. We can't achieve perfect targeted modification, so we just make the creatures deform directly. Whatever they grow into, they grow into. Like the chickens you saw. Those were just chicks. Later we'll catalyze them and see if we can get them to reach elephant size."
"That's why I said you're all maniacs." Song Bin's lips twitched. He didn't mention that the lab's first project was enlarging maggots. They'd hoped to raise giant maggots as feed and food.
Imagine a maggot the size of a person crawling toward you. Just thinking about it was disgusting. And if you cut it open, it would be full of juice.
Dreams were beautiful. Reality was raw and ruthless. Xie Zhuzhu's experiments constantly ran into issues, but just like life, you were either discovering problems or solving them.
"Why don't you try giantifying fish?" Jing Shu was curious. In her previous life, the first giant food that appeared was fish.
Xie Zhuzhu shook his head. "Aquatic creatures do have simpler DNA and chromosomes, but their conversion rate is too low. Their deformity rate is also low. The simpler something is, the harder it is to break. The cost skyrockets and the results don't match the expectations. Their failure rate is much higher than other types."
"So there's still a hidden trick behind it?" Jing Shu thought for a moment, then decided she should say something since she had a bit of 'prophetic' insight. "I think you should keep studying fish. The difficulty might only be temporary. When you hit a bottleneck, changing your approach could help."
"Alright. After we finish this theory batch, we'll look at fish again."
She had no idea if Xie Zhuzhu was being sincere or just humoring her. Jing Shu didn't mind. She'd just joined this massive project. Other than a few prophetic hints and some knowledge of future events, she didn't understand any detailed research. She'd learn slowly.
The lab had eleven underground levels. When they reached the fifth floor, Jing Shu said she didn't want to go any further.
The deeper they went, the darker everything became. The first two floors still felt bright and hopeful. Below that, everything turned cold and grim.
They studied human bodies, how to extract the maximum use from corpses, even how to use human nutrients to breed new species. Even with signed consent forms, Jing Shu finally saw the side of the apocalypse that no one wanted to see.