You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

Chapter 218 The Information Cocoon of the East (4k)

Immediately afterwards, a discordant "gurgling" sound rang out in the baptismal chamber.

Christopher's old face, which had been maintaining an elite demeanor, visibly stiffened for a moment. Not long after waking up, the feeling of hunger belatedly returned.

His eyes moved uncontrollably, his gaze fixed on the fast food mashed potatoes that Leon had just placed on the edge of the marble counter, as if drawn by a magnet.

His physical functions were nearing their limit.

He hadn't eaten any solid food for three whole days in the polluted birch forest near the chemical plant.

He had just had his blood vessels severed by a coyote, and the blood loss combined with the low temperature made every cell in his body desperately crave carbohydrates and calories.

Christopher suddenly stretched out his withered, bony hand and grabbed the plastic bowl.

He didn't even have the patience to tear off the plastic spoon's wrapper properly; he just scooped up a big spoonful of mashed potatoes and stuffed it into his mouth.

"Cough cough—cough!"

Because he swallowed too quickly, a lump of mashed potatoes got stuck in his throat, causing him to cough violently and tears to stream down his face.

But he just couldn't stop, coughing as he continued to frantically scrape the edge of the paper cup with his spoon.

Alex, huddled in the corner, watched the old man who had just been intellectually disparaging him, now burying his face in mashed potatoes like a starving ghost, and couldn't help but mutter in a low voice, "This is too pathetic—"

Lyon didn't speak, he just stood quietly to the side.

It wasn't until Christopher scraped the inside of the paper bowl clean, leaving not a single drop of gravy, threw down the spoon, and leaned against the marble countertop, panting heavily, that Leon turned around, pulled a wooden chair from beside the baptismal tub, and sat down in front of the counter.

He crossed his hands on his knees, relaxed, and looked at the other person through the low brim of his hat with his steel-gray eyes, speaking as if he were an HR person.

"Alright, now that we have something in our stomachs, let's talk about something practical."

Lyon's voice echoed in the empty baptismal chamber.

"How could a researcher at Pfizer's advanced drug development center be reduced to fighting with three coyotes for a tattered tent in the ruins of a chemical plant?"

He looked at Christopher's face, which was gradually regaining some color, and continued to ask, "Were you being hunted down by Pfizer's security department?"

"Or did you suddenly have a change of heart and steal some top-secret data from the lab, planning to break a big story to some media outlet and become a whistleblower exposing the inside story?"

Upon hearing the phrase "a change of heart," Christopher leaned against the table and let out a low, hoarse laugh.

"A change of heart? Don't try to disgust me with those cheap Hollywood movie tropes. In a place like Pfizer, a conscience isn't even worth a penny."

Christopher stared at the mold on the ceiling, his voice laced with self-mockery.

"I'm not some moral exemplar trying to expose the dark side; I just lost miserably in the power struggles of the office."

He took a deep breath, seemingly trying to calm the nauseating feeling of betrayal.

"I led a key breakthrough in targeted drug delivery systems."

"Once that technology is officially patented, it could bring Pfizer at least tens of billions of dollars in profit every year."

"But at the very last moment before the project was about to enter the clinical stage, my boss, together with that bitch in the legal department, simply removed my name from the personnel list."

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He turned his head and looked at Lyon.

"They not only kicked me out of my own project team, but also turned around and forged my email correspondence, accusing me of violating a confidentiality agreement and attempting to sell trade secrets to competitors."

Christopher chuckled dryly, his withered fingers gripping the dust cover beneath him.

"Do you know how terrifying Pfizer's team of lawyers, who earn tens of millions a year, are?"

"They obtained an injunction from the court within three days, freezing all my bank accounts, stocks, and properties."

"They revoked my industry license and invoked the highest level of non-compete clause."

He pointed to his tattered suit pants, which had been cut open and were stained with blood and mud.

"If you are burdened with exorbitant cascading default penalties and your credit record is completely shattered into negative territory, you won't even qualify to rent a basement apartment in the slums; no one will be willing to rent to you."

"It took me less than a month to go from earning a million dollars a year to sleeping on the street and rummaging through trash cans."

After listening to this little story about the characteristics of American capitalism, Lyon nodded expressionlessly.

In America, it's too easy to kill someone. Just saddle them with an enormous debt and wait for the social mechanisms to erase them. In contrast, it would be better if the East were tougher on deadbeats.

"It's a very unfortunate incident."

Lyon offered no words of sympathy or pity; he simply adjusted his posture, leaned forward slightly, and posed the core question of the conversation.

"Since your lab has been raided, and your core data and findings have been taken and locked in a safe—"

Leon stared into Christopher's eyes. "So what's left in your head that's worth my boss paying a fortune for?"

Upon hearing Lyon's questioning of his own worth, Christopher's previously hunched back straightened up slightly.

Even in the moldy baptismal room, dressed in tattered clothes, the arrogance and conceit inherent in him as a top-notch researcher still awakened like an instinct.

He raised his withered fingers and forcefully tapped his temples.

"Those idiots in Pfizer's legal department, and my boss who only knows how to look at financial statements, think that taking those hard drives and paper files is the same as taking the whole project."

"However, what they took away was nothing more than a pile of half-finished waste paper, failed experimental records, and some garbage data that didn't even have a working underlying logic."

"A semi-finished product is still a semi-finished product. After clinical trials, there is still a lot of follow-up work to be done."

Christopher's speech quickened, and his eyes gleamed with fanaticism.

"They have no idea that the real core ideas for next-generation CRISPR gene editing vectors, the trial-and-error approach to avoid pitfalls, and the most crucial off-target rate control algorithm are all right here!"

He pointed to his head, his tone confident and laced with disdain.

"I am the soul of that project."

"The existing CRISPR technology is indeed a powerful tool for gene editing. It can cut genes, but it is also very easy to cut in the wrong place, leading to gene mutations or even cancer. Off-target effects and delivery efficiency have always been a dead end."

"And the targeted vector I'm researching, once this research can be implemented, will bring true targeted cures to all the currently intractable rare genetic diseases and some malignant tumors."

Christopher rattled off a string of technical jargon, completely ignoring Alex, who was listening with a bewildered expression.

"Currently available lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are easily phagocytosed by the reticuloendothelial system in the bloodstream, causing them to be completely destroyed before reaching the target organ."

"My breakthrough was achieved by specifically modifying the carrier surface with peptide ligands, combining it with a novel biodegradable polymer, to construct a chimera with intelligent target-finding capabilities!"

He became more and more excited as he spoke, gesturing with his hands in the air.

"This chimera not only perfectly encapsulates the Cas9 nuclease and sgRNA, but also, after penetrating the cell membrane, utilizes the slightly acidic environment of the lysosome to achieve a precise proton sponge effect, instantly releasing the editing components!"

"This can reduce the miss rate by three orders of magnitude, while increasing delivery efficiency by 400%!"

Christopher stared intently at Leon, his chest heaving violently.

"Even if those idiots got my experimental records and unfinished products, facing that massive amount of redundant data, it would take them at least five years of groping in the dark to find the correct path for subsequent experiments! Only I can!"

He arrogantly raised his chin, "Just give me a fully equipped P3 lab, plus enough money to burn."

"I could turn the project that Pfizer is currently treasuring into a pile of worthless paper before it even enters Phase II clinical trials."

"I can produce a perfect product before they do, and then firmly pin the patent to the foreheads of those lawyers!"

The baptismal room was silent for a few seconds.

Alex, standing in the corner, listened in a daze. Although he had studied biology, the combination of these cutting-edge professional terms was like listening to some kind of cryptic text. For the first time, he regretted not having studied professional English properly.

"very good."

Lyon was very satisfied with the answer.

He didn't need to understand those complex ligands and enzymes; he only needed to confirm that the old man in front of him truly possessed the core technology capable of disrupting a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Then, all the efforts he had made to save him would not have been in vain.

Lyon crossed his arms on his knees, formally extending an olive branch to recruit him.

"The multinational entity behind me is very powerful and has a wealth of funds that you can't even imagine."

"As long as you nod your head, a top-notch P3 laboratory, state-of-the-art sequencing equipment, and a research and development environment free from any capital interference will be prepared for you."

Lyon paused for a moment, then offered his most tempting bargain: "As for those non-compete agreements and exorbitant penalties from Pfizer's legal department that could drive you to your death, on our turf, they're not even worth as much as toilet paper."

"You can change your identity and start your research again."

Christopher's fervor gradually subsided.

As a seasoned veteran who had spent most of his life navigating the brutal world of American medicine, his intuition was far sharper than that of the average researcher.

No major American company would risk a bloody battle with a giant like Pfizer, which has a massive political lobbying group, just for him.

He turned to look at the overweight Asian man huddled in the corner, then turned back, squinting as he sized up Lyon. He tentatively asked, "A multinational entity? Able to disregard Pfizer's legal dominance and provide a top-tier P3 lab—your buyers are from the East?"

Leon didn't speak, but simply kept his arms crossed, giving an affirmative answer through silence.

Christopher's brows furrowed instantly.

He lowered his head, looking at his slightly trembling hands, and fell into deep thought.

He had never set foot on that distant Eastern continent in his life, nor had he ever engaged in in-depth technical exchanges with the top academic circles there.

His entire understanding of the East stemmed from long-term indoctrination by mainstream American media and stereotypes circulating within the medical community.

In Christopher's view, the pharmaceutical industry in that area was still in the stage of frantically counterfeiting expired patent antibiotics and mass-producing cheap and crude low-end raw materials.

He admitted that the East is very wealthy, but if they can't even purify the most basic high-purity experimental reagents, how can they possibly have the research environment to support the next generation of cutting-edge CRISPR projects?

Even if the other party is willing to invest money to build a P3 laboratory, without a mature upstream and downstream industrial chain and without top-notch research assistants who can keep up with his thinking, he won't be able to do anything there.

In the end, he will most likely only become a mascot to be worshipped, watching his hard work slowly mold in a backward environment.

Just as the atmosphere inside the room became tense due to Christopher's silence, the old wooden door of the baptismal chamber suddenly creaked open from the outside.

Pastor Thomas trudged in with heavy steps.

His protective suit was completely unrecognizable, covered in dark brown blood plasma, yellow pus, and unidentified human tissue residue.

As he moved, a strong odor, a mixture of rotting flesh, excrement, and the pungent smell of disinfectant, instantly filled the small baptismal room.

Thomas was completely oblivious to the subtle atmosphere between the three people in the room.

His eyes were numb, bloodshot, and he walked straight to the trough next to the baptismal pool like a walking corpse.

He turned on the tap, put his hands, covered in black blood, under the running water, and began to mechanically scrub them.

Christopher felt a chill run down his spine when he saw the stinking, butcher-like old man suddenly approach, and he instinctively shrank back against the marble countertop.

"take it easy."

Leon remained seated, tilting his head slightly as he introduced himself to Christopher.

"This is the surgeon who just stitched up your anterior tibial artery and pulled you back from the brink of hemorrhagic shock."

Christopher was stunned when he heard this.

His memory of being attacked by coyotes was too terrifying, and he was also disturbed by the Asian fat man's nonsense. In addition, he was so busy eating mashed potatoes and demonstrating his technical skills that he didn't have time to carefully check his wounds.

He quickly lowered his head and carefully pulled open the tattered pant leg that had already been cut open.

In the dim light, he saw the gruesome laceration on his calf.

Necrotic tissue at the edge of the wound was precisely removed, and the sutures were fine, even, and perfectly stressed.

Each stitch is so precisely measured that it completely avoids the surrounding delicate nerve plexuses, preserving the activity of the muscle tissue to the maximum extent.

As a seasoned pharmaceutical executive, Christopher, though not a clinician, had seen countless surgical videos of top surgeons.

This textbook-level flap suturing technique could never be performed by just any veterinarian in a shady clinic.

He looked up in shock at Lyon.

"This—was it sewn together with those rudimentary tools in this moldy, dilapidated church?"

Lyon nodded.

Having received an affirmative answer from Lyon, Christopher abruptly turned his head to look at Thomas, who was splashing cold water on his face by the sink.

"Who exactly are you?"

Overwhelmed with shock, Christopher blurted out, "This level of suturing technique—it's definitely not something a priest who collects corpses in a slum church could possess!"

Upon hearing this question, Thomas didn't even pause in his flailing face.

Cold tap water flowed down his wrinkled face into the sink.

He turned off the tap, grabbed a dirty towel from the side, and wiped his face.

"Dual Chief of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and Trauma Surgery at Engelwood Hospital."

Thomas, with his back to Christopher, calmly and in a completely indifferent tone, recited his former titles.

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