Chapter 449   - Identity Confirmation

The security firewall of the imperial gene bank had extremely complex passwords. It took a lot of time for Tang Ci to invade the gene bank and there was a risk of being discovered and tracked at any time. After obtaining the genetic information copied by Xiao Lou, Tang Ci quickly searched and compared them to the gene bank.

The first ones to have their identities confirmed were Major General Lin Zecheng and his biological daughter Lin Yan.

Xiao Lou looked at the results of the comparison. “The genetic sequences of Lin Zecheng and Lin Yan are 100% similar to the data in the imperial gene bank. There is no difference. These two must be the real ones.”

Tang Ci added, “Ye Wenbo’s genes aren’t abnormal.”

Xiao Lou told him, “Find Ye Qi’s information from the gene bank and see if Ye Wenbo is his biological father.”

Tang Ci nodded. He quickly tapped on the keys to find the information on Ye Qi. “Here.”

Xiao Lou sat next to him and compared it carefully before confirming it. “They are biological father and son. Ye Qi grew up in an orphanage. Did his mother send him to the orphanage?”

Yu Hanjiang crossed his arms and analyzed it. “Ye Wenbo died 20 years ago but Ye Qi is only 19 years old. This indicates that Ye Qi wasn’t born yet when Ye Wenbo died. At that time, Mrs Ye was pregnant. After she gave birth, she secretly gave him to the orphanage for his safety. Then what about the whereabouts of Mrs Ye?”

Xiao Lou thought about it. “Perhaps she was killed or secretly ran away?”

Yu Hanjiang nodded. “Yes, we will check later. If she is still alive then she is an important witness.”

Tang Ci continued to search for the information of the remaining seven people. His slender fingers tapped the keys quickly and a string of genetic data comparison results were shown on the screen in front of everyone.

Yu Hanjiang glanced at the listed names. “Qin Rong, Zhu Xingchen and Palmer. They all died at the age of 40 years old. The three of them are genetic experts who signed onto the Noah’s Ark project. The data that we found before stated that they died from all types of accidents, including a car accident, laboratory experiment and falling from a building.”

Tang Ci said, “The so-called accidents are just an excuse to cover it up?”

Yu Hanjiang agreed, “In the past 20 years, they haven’t been able to find the bodies of the people who died from ‘accidents’. It is said that Ye Qi’s parents died on the front lines. In fact, his father died at the bottom of the sea and his mother’s whereabouts are unknown. This shows that the reported causes of death for all the people involved in the plan are false.”

Xiao Lou continued, “The oldest one out of the 10 deceased is the 56 year old Zhou Yusheng. He once served as a starship pilot of the imperial military headquarters. He disappeared after retirement. This should be an old comrade-in-arms invited by Major General Lin to restart the Egret starship.”

Tang Ci said, “The remaining two soldiers are Kennedy and Kenneth,twin brothers who once served on the Egret. They were soldiers of the legion led by Major general Lin and have the best skills in operating mecha. The teacher often mentioned these twin brothers when I was at the 9th Military Academy. They have made great contributions to the military.”

Nine people had been identified and there was still the last remaining female.

Tang Ci tapped on the keyboard. “The last one is...”

The group looked at the comparison results on the screen and their eyes widened with surprise.

Xiao Lou exclaimed, “Zhang Shaohua?”

Tang Ci explained, “The DNA of the 30 year old woman is 99.5% similar to Zhang Shaohua in the gene pool.”

Yu Hanjiang frowned. “The similarity is 99.5%, meaning there is still 0.5% that isn’t the same?”

Tang Ci marked the different genes in red. “I might not be a genetic expert but the sequence difference in this nucleotide is very obvious. Professor Xiao, what do you think?”

Xiao Lou said, “This is a gene fragment that has been artificially modified.”

Yu Hanjiang was thoughtful. “It seems that the Zhang Shaohua who escaped with Li Zecheng and Lin Yan was actually a clone. The one who stayed on Capital Star is the real one. She has been pretending to be crazy all this time?”

Tang Ci wondered, “Her husband and daughter chose to run away. Why did she stay on her own?”

Xiao Lou thought about it and speculated, “I’m afraid she took the initiative to do this. She quickly made a clone of her own age in the laboratory. Then she asked her husband to take the clone and their daughter while she pretended to be the clone and lay in the laboratory. She chose to stay on Capital Star to pretend to be a clone. Perhaps it was to observe the emperor’s decisions regarding this matter?”

Yu Hanjiang nodded. “It is possible that she knows too many secrets so it is safest to use the identity of a clone. After all, the emperor won’t be on guard against a clone with the IQ of a baby.”

This woman, Zhang Shaohua, was very courageous. If her husband and daughter escaped successfully, she would stay behind with the emperor and find out the conspiracy between the Noah’s Ark plan. This was a win-win situation.

Unfortunately, the starship that her husband led the escape on was lured by the merpeople’s song and crashed into the sea.

Xiao Lou wondered, ”Since it was a clone, why did she die on the starship? Aren’t the bugs not afraid of water?”

Yu Hanjiang frowned. “It could be that Zhang Shaohua did something when making the clone so that the clone lost the ability of the bugs?”

This couldn’t be concluded because they didn’t have other clones to compare with human genes.

Yet based on the current clues, Zhang Shaohua’s clone did die in the sea while the Xiao Lou, Shao Qingge and Ye Qi clones weren’t afraid of the deep sea environment and survived. The emergence of these three among the merpeople was the evidence.

The other experts and escorts on the starship died and the information of the Noah’s Ark plan was stolen by the merpeople. Fortunately, the identification of the 10 deceased on the shipwreck connected all these events.

Liu Qiao spoke in a blank manner, “Professor Xiao, I can’t understand many of the things you said. What is going on with this cloning plan?”

Xiao Lou looked gently at her. “The three of you have remained in the deep sea so you might not be clear about the previous situation. Why don’t I tell you about the whole incident?”

Gui Yuanzhang and Old Mo also nodded. “Professor Xiao, please explain.”

Xiao Lou cleared his throat. “I was born in year 2975. The emperor had just lost his son and was worried that he would suffer the pain of losing another son. The queen’s body was too damaged to bear more children so he proposed the Noah’s Ark plan. He wanted to clone me several times as backup. Many experts, professors, generals of the military headquarters and the boss of the Noah Medical Technology, Shao Qingge’s father, participated in the plan.”

“In the middle of the plan, Elder Shao accidentally entered the laboratory and saw hundreds of babies identical to his son. He was frightened and secretly destroyed the specimens of Shao Qingge. Later, the cells were turned into babies but due to a problem with the culture fluid, the babies couldn’t survive for long. The plan was forced to be terminated. Elder Shao left Shao Qingge a password box that told the story in Morse code.

In 2980 when I was 5 years old, the star thieves wandering the universe sold precious minerals they took from the bug planet. They were discovered by the empire’s Ministry of Resources. The emperor sent General Lin Zecheng to lead troops to the bug planet. They wanted to destroy the bugs and occupy the resource star. However, they were almost wiped out due to the bugs’ strong ability to evolve. Several surviving troops captured the leader of the star thieves who had fused with the bugs and discovered the bugs’ fungus blanket that can accelerate growth.

In July of 2980, the Noah’s Ark plan was restarted. Scientists fused the bug genes with human genes and added the bugs’ fungus blanket to the culture medium. They not only successfully turned the copied cells into babies but also mastered the technology of catalyzing cells and allowing them to turn into adults in a short time. They cloned hundreds of Xiao Lous. Then the emperor held a ‘natural selection’ competition and had all the Xiao Lous kill each other to screen out the best heirs. In the end, there were four Xiao Lous, including me.

General Lin Zecheng noticed the emperor’s madness and fled Capital Star with the 4th Xiao Lou. The starship crashed into the sea area of the merpeople. The merpeople obtained the information of the Noah’s Ark plan and transformed the cloned children. They made versions with tails who can come and go freely in the deep sea. The 5th Xiao Lou improved from the 4th Xiao Lou is the merman prince that you know.”

“......” Upon hearing this, Liu Qiao, Gui Yuanzhang and Mo Xuemin all showed frightened expressions. Unexpectedly, the plot on the empire side was so complicated. Xiao Lou even experienced a cruel natural selection game at the age of 5 years old?

“It is crazy for the emperor to have so many children kill each other.” Old Mo couldn’t help complaining.

“Professor Xiao, did you say that there were four Xiao Lous that survived? Besides you and the 4th one, where are the number 2 and 3?”

“They are with the emperor. Among them, number 2 is most likely to be the new crown prince. He has already replaced me after I left Capital Star. In addition, he and the clone Lin Yan have a marriage contract and they are developing a relationship.” Xiao Lou answered quietly.

Liu Qiao asked, “So our task is to get rid of all the clones?”

“At the moment, yes. We will deal with the empire side later. We must first solve the problem of the deep sea merpeople. The plan will remain the same. After midnight tonight, the three of you will dive into the deep sea and determine the location of the clone laboratory as soon as possible. At that time, you will directly pull us with Li Qingzhao’s mark’s teleportation skill.”

“Okay.” Liu Qiao nodded earnestly.

Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang looked at each other, confirming it with their eyes. Then Yu Hanjiang got up and said, “Let’s go and meet Chief Shao. It will be dark soon. We should return to the deserted island as soon as possible.”

th anniversary celebration event

Proofreader: Paranoid Kitten & Fictional Reality