“Master?”

Shen Qinghan opened her eyes and saw Yuan Dongzhi standing there blankly, not responding. Uneasy, she called out in confusion.

Lin Zichen frowned and after a beat, stepped forward to ask, “Vice Principal Yuan, did something go wrong with Hanhan’s gene fusion?”

Hearing the two of them, Yuan Dongzhi quickly came back to herself. Steadying her emotions, she said, a bit unsure, “Qinghan’s gene fusion failed. She didn’t manage to fuse the Azure Jellyfish King gene. But… I can’t say it was a total failure, either.”

“What do you mean?”

Lin Zichen’s frown deepened. It’s either success or failure—what does “not completely failed” even mean? Only half-fused?

He was worried this abnormality would hurt Shen Qinghan. Any anomaly makes people uneasy.

Yuan Dongzhi didn’t hide anything from her little disciple’s live-in boyfriend. She spoke frankly, “Under normal circumstances, once the beast gene is injected into the heart and there’s no severe rejection, the fusion is already considered successful. The hardest part of gene fusion is the rejection response.

So long as there’s no rejection, then with the aid of the various pharmaceuticals in the gene reagent, one’s own genes will soon fuse themselves with the beast gene, gain permission to express it and thereby obtain some of the beast’s abilities. But Qinghan’s case is strange. The injected Azure Jellyfish King gene didn’t trigger even the slightest rejection, yet it also didn’t fuse. Instead, it was completely taken under control. All of the Azure Jellyfish King genes were controlled by her own genes.”

As she said this, Yuan Dongzhi looked incredulous, as if it were unreal. She had lived nearly a hundred years, personally witnessing gene fusion technology develop from nothing to what it is now and had participated in over ten thousand fusion procedures—but she had never seen a case like Shen Qinghan’s. Not only had she never seen it; she’d never even heard of it.

Her prior understanding of gene fusion was shattered. It felt utterly inconceivable.

The Azure Jellyfish King gene, controlled by Hanhan’s genes?

Baffled, Lin Zichen looked at Yuan Dongzhi, “Vice Principal Yuan, what exactly is going on?”

“I can’t quite say precisely.”

Patient for once, Yuan Dongzhi said, “The only thing I’m sure of is this: under my psychic perception, I found that Qinghan’s own genes seemed to possess intent. They methodically surrounded the invading Azure Jellyfish King genes, then wound around them, restricting their freedom. During this, some Azure Jellyfish King genes instinctively tried to initiate fusion, but they were immediately strangled by Qinghan’s genes—reduced to fragments and absorbed as nourishment. As of now, the remaining Azure Jellyfish King genes are all restrained, like a burglar caught breaking into a house and imprisoned in the cellar by the owner. I’ve never encountered anything like this.”

‘Surrounded? Wound up? Imprisoned?’

Hearing those loaded words, Lin Zichen found it unbelievable.

‘Genes can do that?’

It was so outlandish that he wondered if Yuan Dongzhi was lying. Unfortunately, his psychic power wasn’t strong enough; otherwise he would have probed Shen Qinghan’s body himself to verify the claim.

While the two spoke, Shen Qinghan lay on the bed, very obedient and quiet, not interrupting, just listening.

As she listened closely to Yuan Dongzhi describe what was happening inside her, she suddenly noticed her hair changing color—visibly turning blue, like the sea. At the same time it became even smoother, shining with a watery luster, crystalline like water.

“Xiao Chen, Master, my hair is changing color!”

Shen Qinghan panicked a little and immediately told them.

She didn’t need to remind them; Lin Zichen and Yuan Dongzhi had already noticed—their eyes had never left her.

“What’s going on?”

Yuan Dongzhi was stunned again, “It clearly failed to fuse. Why can it still express the Azure Jellyfish King gene?”

Blue hair is one of the expression traits of the Azure Jellyfish gene. It shouldn’t have appeared on Shen Qinghan.

Yuan Dongzhi walked to the bedside, sat down and carefully observed Shen Qinghan’s now-cerulean, silky hair, “Qinghan, do you feel anything unusual in your body?” she asked.

Shen Qinghan steadied herself, quietly sensed for a while, then said uncertainly, “It feels like something extra is inside me. I can sense it—seems like… I can also control it.”

‘Something extra inside her? She can sense it? And even control it? Isn’t that exactly what a gene fuser does?’

Yuan Dongzhi was puzzled.

She thought for a moment and figured the problem must be with her own psychic perception. Maybe Shen Qinghan had already succeeded in fusing the Azure Jellyfish King gene and she’d simply failed to detect it properly.

With that in mind, she withdrew her psychic power from Shen Qinghan’s body. After a brief rest to clear her head, she once more projected her psychic power into Shen Qinghan to examine the Azure Jellyfish King gene carefully.

She found that the Azure Jellyfish King gene was still under Shen Qinghan’s gene control, with no mutual fusion at all. The difference from earlier was that, right now, the Azure Jellyfish King gene was doing its utmost to express itself—as if Shen Qinghan’s genes had threatened it with death: refuse to express and be strangled.

‘What is going on?!’

Yuan Dongzhi was shaken to the core, completely baffled. Still, one thing was clear: Shen Qinghan didn’t need to fuse with a beast gene. As long as she controlled it, she could make it express, thereby gaining the beast’s ability.

It was like a scummy couple who only slept together to freeload benefits without marrying—never having to worry about divorce. In gene-fusion terms, she would never have to worry about being counterattacked by the beast gene.

No—putting it that way was still not quite accurate. Scummy couples date as equals, but what was happening inside Shen Qinghan was more like a master-and-slave relationship.

Shen Qinghan’s genes had enslaved the foreign Azure Jellyfish King genes, turning them into slaves to do her bidding. If they obeyed, they were merely bound and imprisoned; if not, they were strangled on the spot.

‘Yes—this was it. A relationship of enslavement. Gene Enslavement.’

Yuan Dongzhi formed a judgment about Shen Qinghan’s condition and named the phenomenon: Gene Enslavement.

She felt her hypothesis was reasoned, logical and scientific. If nothing unexpected turned up, the truth should be just that.

Having roughly worked this out, Yuan Dongzhi looked at Shen Qinghan, “Qinghan, the ‘something extra’ you sense should be the Azure Jellyfish King gene I injected into your heart,” she said, “Right now, that gene is in an activated state. Calm yourself, try using psychic power to control it and put it to sleep.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

In her soft voice, Shen Qinghan answered, then focused, doing exactly as told—attempting to control the Azure Jellyfish King gene with her psychic power.

After only a few moments of feeling her way, she mastered it without a teacher, took control of the Azure Jellyfish King gene and with a thought, set it to sleep.

At the same time, her ocean-blue hair visibly shed its color and returned to its original black.

Seeing this, Yuan Dongzhi was thrilled, Shen Qinghan could control the Azure Jellyfish King gene inside her! Her guess was right.