Caged Humanity

Chapter 1: The Madman

An eerie atmosphere lingered in the air.

It was a day in November. A sudden wave of cold air had swept through the city, forcing everyone to wrap their coats tighter around themselves. Even the most passionate couples had surrendered to the freezing weather, hiding inside warm rooms and silently thanking the blessings of heaters and air conditioners.

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"

Crows circled overhead. Those black birds, which should have been resting at this hour, were now hovering above the city, letting out miserable cries.

Hengsha Institute of Technology was a university filled with all kinds of rumors and strange stories.

From the outside, it did not seem much different from any ordinary university. There were students skipping class, couples whispering sweet words to each other, and athletic boys showing off their youth and confidence.

But there was one difference.

To the north of the campus stood a place that ordinary students treated as forbidden ground. Above that solid marble building, a cold and gloomy presence seemed to linger all year round. The vines crawling across the walls looked like the claws of demons.

No normal person wanted to go there. The students of this university would even take the initiative to avoid it.

Because inside that building lived someone whom all the students secretly called"the madman."

He was the person who had left everyone else far behind in the schoolwide ranking of"the least wanted boyfriend."

Sometimes, even the president of the university wished he never had to see that monster. In the same way, every teacher hated when students skipped class, yet every teacher also hoped that this madman would never attend their class.

Boom!

Thunder roared above the building. A pale c***k of lightning tore through the sky, as if something was about to happen.

Tap. Tap, tap, tap.

Inside that cold building, in a room filled with test tubes and strange instruments, a young man held a piece of chalk and wrote formulas rapidly across a small blackboard.

His speed was astonishing. Long strings of numbers appeared as if they were jumping across the board. Once he obtained a result, he immediately threw down the chalk, picked up a measuring cup, and poured a carefully calculated amount of liquid into a beaker heating over an alcohol lamp.

After finishing that, he quickly moved to the main operating table nearby. He picked up two thick syringes and inserted them directly into the body of a white mouse.

The mouse was fixed in place. Countless wires were already connected to its body. It lay on its back. Was it dead? Or alive?

Hiss...

The liquid in the beaker began to boil. The young man pushed his glasses up with his middle finger, swiftly removed the liquid from the flame once its color changed, and poured it directly into an IV bottle connected to the syringes.

The next second, he picked up the chalk again and wrote a long series of formulas on the blackboard, then drew a curve. When the answer matched his expectations again, the corner of his mouth curled into a smile.

Then he walked straight to the instruments beside him and began pressing the complicated buttons and pulling the levers.

Crackling sounds filled the room. Electric sparks moved through the air. Deep, unsettling noises echoed around him, like the low growl of a demon.

The liquid began to enter the mouse's body. The instruments connected to it also began drawing data charts that only he could understand.

The young man watched every meter and every display.

As the numbers on the instruments continued to rise, the confident smile on his face grew wider. When one of the readings suddenly exceeded its limit, he left the instrument panel at once and rushed to the side.

He picked up two five-liter bottles filled with a blood-red liquid that had already been prepared, turned them upside down, inserted the tubes, and quickly connected them to the now-empty IV bottles. Then he opened all the valves and immediately turned his head to watch another reading.

It seemed to be a pressure gauge.

The pressure gauge, which had been motionless all this time, finally began to move slightly. As it rose and fell, the red liquid inside the large bottles seemed to be drawn into the little white mouse's body. At the same time, another kind of liquid flowed out from the second tube and dripped into a prepared measuring cup.

Up, then down.

The movement grew larger and larger.

When the reading passed a certain threshold, the young man stopped looking at the data. He rushed straight to the main operating table, his sharp eyes staring through his thin-framed glasses at the little white mouse.

Slowly, the mouse moved.

Its limbs began to twitch. Then its tail trembled. Finally, when the pressure gauge beside it began to rise and fall wildly like a piston—

Squeak!

The little white mouse, which had just opened its eyes, let out a sharp scream. Its twitching limbs became still again. It stopped moving.

All the data meters slowly returned to zero.

The restless red liquid no longer entered the mouse's body in rhythm with the pressure gauge. Instead, it slowly flowed into the mouse and then out through another tube, dripping into the measuring cup with soft tapping sounds.

The university student, who looked to be around twenty years old, showed no disappointment or grief. He merely straightened his body with cold indifference, calmly pushed up his glasses, and shook his head gently with a trace of regret.

After that, he removed the syringes, briefly cleaned up everything, erased the formulas on the blackboard, closed the laboratory door, and walked calmly out of the tall building.

Outside, the winter wind still ruled the campus.

The cold university student walked across the playground with both hands in his pockets. The wind was sharp, yet he was still wearing summer clothes.

A middle-aged cleaner who was sweeping the ground saw him dressed like that and could not help worrying.

"Hey, student over there. It's so cold today. Aren't you going to wear more clothes?"

"No. Humans are creatures with a strong ability to adapt to their environment."

The university student pushed up his glasses and spoke slowly.

"Long-term civilized living has caused many of humanity's natural functions to degenerate. These degenerations come from excessive external protection. In other words, as long as that protection is removed, the human body itself has enough ability to resist cold."

The cleaner looked at him. The corner of her mouth twitched.

"But... your nose is already running."

"A normal person secretes several hundred milliliters of nasal mucus every day. In essence, nasal mucus is a natural defense mechanism produced by the nasal mucosa to trap dust and microorganisms. A runny nose proves that my body's defense system is functioning normally. Yes. Very good."

The cleaner's mouth twitched again.

At that moment, a female student sneaked over and whispered into the cleaner's ear.

"Don't bother with him. He's famous for being a madman."

"A madman?"

"Yes. A third-year student from the Department of Electromechanics. It's better not to get involved with him if you don't have to. He's dangerous."

"Oh."

After hearing that, the cleaner and the female student immediately ran away from the university student in fear.

The young man did not object to their reaction. He simply pushed up his glasses again and continued walking toward the school gate.

The bus moved through the busy streets.

At this time of day, the bus system in Shang Hai City was always filled with an indescribable mixture of chaos and congestion. The vehicle stopped and moved, moved and stopped. It had already become normal to watch pedestrians on the roadside easily overtake one Mercedes or BMW after another.

Was it boring?

Perhaps for most people.

But for certain people, those constantly changing speed lines looked more like an equation filled with too many unknown factors and unsolved traps. It was simply fascinating.

"Songqiao Station. Songqiao Station. Passengers getting off, please prepare."

The university student pushed up his glasses and silently walked to the back door of the bus. Just before the door opened, he took out a piece of paper from his pocket, quickly wrote something on it, and handed it to the ticket seller beside him.

When the door opened, he stepped off the bus without hesitation.

"What did he write?"one passenger asked.

"Uh... it seems to be the total power consumed by this bus from the university to here. He converted it into gasoline usage and told us which road sections would be best for maintaining certain speeds."

The ticket seller looked at the paper and laughed awkwardly.

"What?"

"At first, I didn't really believe it either,"the driver said with a laugh as he honked the horn."But he's been taking my bus for two years, and he writes one of these every time. Sometimes I couldn't help trying his suggestions. In the end, it really did save a little fuel in a day."

"There's really such a thing? Hey, do you know who he is?"

The ticket seller smiled.

"Well... not really. I only know he seems to be a student from Hengsha Institute of Technology."

"Hengsha?"

"Yes, Hengsha. Also, whenever someone asks his name, he always says the same thing."

I am a scientist.

Scientists, perhaps, have never truly been normal people.

From the perspective of human evolution, such abnormal people have always belonged to the group that rebels against convention. Ironically, the more a scientific technology defies convention, the more likely it is to push humanity forward.

Even knowledge that was once regarded as blasphemy centuries ago has now become truth accepted by the world.

Yes. A scientist is like a hero.

In an RPG called Truth, he constantly defeats the enemies standing in his way—enemies called ethics—and then steps over their corpses, moving closer and closer to the realm of God.

After getting off the bus, the university student adjusted his glasses and carried a bag of scrap parts he had bought from a secondhand market. He walked toward a deserted path beside the main road.

After some distance, the path gradually turned into a mountain road. Finally, a small house built against the mountain appeared in front of him.

The university student stood before the door. Behind his thin-framed glasses, his eyes remained as sharp and cold as ever.

After pushing up his glasses, he reached out and pressed the doorbell.

Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong.

After pressing the notes according to a preset rhythm, the university student withdrew his hand.

A moment later, the original doorbell slowly sank into the door, and a palmprint scanner emerged. At the same time, a mechanical voice sounded.

"Visitor identity verification. Please place your palm on the designated area."

The university student placed his palm on the scanner. A beam of light immediately swept across it.

At the same time, the plain and ordinary-looking door began to flip piece by piece, transforming into a smooth digital display panel. A cursor flashed in the upper left corner for two seconds, then pulled out a long stream of text and numbers.

"Please answer the following question. The dissociation constants of glycine are pK1 = 2.34 and pK2 = 9.60. What is its isoelectric point, pI?"

A microphone extended from the lower left corner of the door and moved to the university student's mouth.

After glancing briefly at the question, he only gave a soft snort and sighed.

"It seems the knowledge base should be updated."

"Voiceprint verification correct. Question-answer verification incorrect. You have one more chance. Please answer again."

"5.97."

"Voiceprint verification correct. Question-answer verification correct. Palmprint verification correct. Identity confirmed: Young Master Yuan Ling. Welcome home, Young Master."

As the mechanical voice welcomed him, the door opened.

The university student named Yuan Ling walked in slowly.

At the same moment the door closed behind him, the palmprint scanner, the digital display panel, and the microphone all retracted again. The door returned to being an ordinary mountain house entrance.