Mrs. C rushed forward, her black anti-radiation suit crinkling as she blocked his path. "Doctor, this is the result of all your hard nights of research. How can you let these people see it before it hits the market? What if it gets out?"
Dr. B shook his head, a calm smile remaining on his face. "Even if they see it, it's fine. It's a chance for everyone to witness it firsthand. Besides, some of these materials only appeared after the apocalypse, and they don't know the formula."
The farm owners exchanged glances, their eyes glinting in the soft Luminite glow, and they shifted their weight as they nodded in unison. "Dr. B, let's be the witnesses!"
Hooked.
Human greed is like that: just looking, just observing, and before you know it, you have fallen into the pit. In fact, teaching old folks in China with a little trick and small daily gifts for a few weeks does the same thing, even more so.
Jing Shu pretended to hesitate for a moment, her brow furrowing, then said, "Fine, but I will make it clear. The herbs I cultivated, whether good or bad, will all go through evaluation. Anything useless at the end counts as your loss."
Dr. B laughed. "Of course, beautiful lady."
So, under the watchful eyes of everyone present, Jing Shu carried out two pots of green herbs. She laughed. "Doctor, you're going to lose. One pot is halfway dead, the other is normal. Let's see how you increase the yield by fifty percent now."
Post-apocalypse yields were generally low, and the farm owners had felt that recently in their own fields. They were genuinely curious to see how the Water of Life would affect shriveled, dying plants.
Privately, the farm owners whispered among themselves. They debated how to test and observe the results and how to verify the findings. After all, seeing isn't always believing.
Dr. B led everyone, including Eiffel, toward his four-story sealed building. The walk through the sterile corridors was silent. After some guidance at the heavy door, the bandaged and grotesque Tis brought them into the doctor's private lab.
The farm owners couldn't stop marveling at the lab, their gazes darting across the high-tech sensors and gleaming steel. Even Jing Shu had to admit that Dr. B's success had a reason. So few con artists put on a show this convincingly, almost becoming real doctors in the process.
Dr. B guided them toward a set of complex instruments, then placed Jing Shu's two pots of herbs inside the sealed glass chamber of the lab. Through the thick exterior glass, everyone could watch the condition of the herbs.
"This is a great moment, a moment to witness a miracle. I suggest you record it." Dr. B gestured toward their devices as he switched on the projector. "From now on, I will start the experiment."
"This projection helps us observe the cell division in these two pots, so we can understand it more clearly. I will also explain more during the process. Any questions, you're free to ask. In the vast universe, you have the right to know this interesting knowledge."
Everyone sat seriously on the metal benches as Tis, her movements stiff beneath her bandages, added a few more items to the testing tray.
"Today, we're testing ten corn kernels, ten strawberries, these seeds, and some sodium-potassium minerals. The Water of Life can improve the quality and cell count of all these materials."
He placed them under the microscope, projecting the enlarged images onto the wall so everyone could observe the changes in minute detail.
Jing Shu couldn't help but think that Dr. B had gone all out. He had spent all night yesterday recording cell division videos, combined them, fast-forwarded the footage, and made the process look seamless. One slip today, a shaky hand, a pause, or a triangular play icon appearing on the projector, and the trick would be exposed.
But Dr. B was an old hand and had successfully fooled many people before.
No one would guess that the live projection was pre-recorded, perfectly explaining the principle with clever time shifts. Even Austin Castle's scientists couldn't pick it apart. Of course, Jing Shu's two pots had been prepared in advance.
The evaluation began.
Dr. B started explaining in a torrent of complex jargon, his words coming so fast and technical that Zhen Nantan's translator couldn't keep up. He worked frantically in the lab, his white coat fluttering as he moved between stations, giving the impression of a passionate, naturally gifted scientist completely devoted to his work.
Jing Shu began to feel sleepy, her eyelids heavy in the warm room, and the farm owners were dozing off too. But they kept their eyes on the plants, recording everything with their phones, even if they couldn't understand the advanced talk.
From evolution to cosmic molecules and black holes, the lecture sounded tangentially related but out of reach. It was highbrow and impressive. Jing Shu admired only Dr. B's skill.
Just as the farm owners were squirming in their seats, Dr. B suddenly shouted. "Oh my God, look! The cells are dividing! Watch these miraculous cells! In just a few hours, the division is complete. Incredible!"
Everyone perked up, witnessing a scene that stunned and impressed them. Though the process took hours and their necks ached, the video clearly showed the plants growing beyond what the naked eye could detect in real-time.
The healthy pot slowly grew. Its palm-sized leaves doubled in size within hours, the edges of the greenery reaching toward the glass. Under the microscope, the cellular activity seemed to multiply into millions of pulsing units. Leaves and roots visibly expanded in mere hours.
The nearly dead pot also doubled in size after several hours, sprouting more leaves as if the Water of Life had revived it from the roots up.
Tiny corn kernels, strawberries, and even the small seeds doubled. Even the minerals appeared to expand slightly, all on their own.
To make the video match the real samples so precisely, Dr. B had put a lot of effort into this. From the outside, the combination of microscope footage and real plants was visually striking. Jing Shu almost believed the carbohydrates really expanded that much without affecting the original quality.
After all, two years later, Wu City in China would indeed invent gigantic food. But those foods were terribly awful to eat, and outside of carbohydrates, they offered almost no nutrition.