"Yes, they have been sleeping," the old man thought thoughtfully, he didn't seem to care about Lin Banwei's concern, as if he was stating to himself in the tree hole, and he didn't need to explain the cause and effect, because he knew it, "Sometimes I hope they can wake up and put an end to what is not in the competition, and sometimes I think it is better for them to die forever." ”

"I would venture to ask, do you have any relatives who have become vegetative for some reason?" Listening to the old man's description, Lin Banwei subconsciously thought of a vegetative person. This kind of patient who falls into an irreversible coma is indeed a protracted torture for the family. It's no wonder that the old man is old and wanders around alone, probably because he has lost confidence in waking up his sleeping relatives and has saved enough of disappointment.

The old man glanced up at Lin Banwei, and said with a wry smile: "I don't shy away from telling these things to others, but people don't believe in these stories very much now, too, it's been too long, and future generations should have forgotten those histories." ”

"You can talk to me," Lin Banwei heard a little foggy, but he couldn't see the old man suffer like this, "I have studied medicine, although I am not a neurology major, but I know a lot of doctors, you can tell me about the situation of your relatives, maybe I can recommend a good doctor to you." ”

"I can't tell the difference between relatives and enemies, but they're not vegetatives, they're very old creatures, so old that they don't even qualify as fossils." The old man said.

"The more you talk about me, the more confused I become."

The waiter finally brought the steak up, Lin Banwei's stomach was growling, the old man smiled and motioned to Lin Banwei to solve the problem of food and clothing first, Lin Banwei cut the steak and muttered in his heart what the old man wanted to express.

"Could it be that you're talking about paleontology?" Lin Banwei chewed on the steak, a relatively tough steak with just the right amount of medium-rare. Regarding the way to eat steak, Miao Ruonan taught him before going abroad. For example, the filet mignon is tender, and the myoglobin is retained more when it is medium-rare, and if you want to look a little taller, you have to specially tell you to heat it to 55 degrees. However, when he went out to eat steak by himself, he never paid attention to these things, and the phrase "Medium well" traveled all over the world.

"Yes, creatures from 10,000 years ago belong to the category of paleontology." The old man said.

The old man's words surprised Lin Banwei, he originally just made a joke casually, "You know a lot of things," Lin Banwei forcibly swallowed the steak in his mouth, "Indeed, less than 10,000 years are under the control of archaeologists, and I studied paleontology as a graduate student, but I really don't understand what you mean." ”

"Hehe, it seems that I met someone I can talk to today," the old man smiled, "and the creatures I'm talking about are neither really dead nor awake." ”

"Cryonics?"

"No, some of them are buried deep in the ground, even deep into the mantle, but they will be revived one day."

Lin Banwei was shocked, and hurriedly asked tentatively, but he still couldn't suppress the restlessness in his heart, and the hope of redemption burst out from his eyes: "The 'sleeping state' of those creatures refers to the temporary suspension of metabolism without freezing, but the cells have potential activity and can still be reactivated under certain conditions!" Is that what you mean? ”

This time it was the old man's turn to be surprised, he originally just wanted to talk to someone, and he had been alone for so many years. When you see people on the road, you talk to them, and when you don't have people, you talk to stones and animals. Anyway, no one could understand it, and it didn't make much difference to him whether the other party was a human or a donkey.

What the old man didn't expect was that the young man seemed to know something: "Has the paleontology in the academy been studied to this depth now?" ”

"No, my research direction has not been favored by the mainstream school, they think that the kind of paleontology I study does not exist, to suspend the metabolism of cells for a long time, the current seemingly feasible method is 'cryomy', even so, the operation process of physical cooling is extremely demanding, the medical community has indeed had such cases;

"For example, a few years ago, the first person in China was frozen, her heart just stopped beating, and the doctor kept her body at zero degrees Celsius through physical cooling, and then separated her head from her body, and handed her body over to her family for burial, and her head was stored in a liquid nitrogen container at minus 196 degrees Celsius, and then her head was thawed and transplanted to another body donor to achieve rebirth when technology is developed enough in the future."

The old man patiently listened to what Lin Banwei said, and then said slowly: "Modern medicine has really made a lot of progress, but it has never touched the root of some aspects. ”

Lin Banwei brought his upper body slightly closer to the old man and whispered, "For example, some biological characteristics that have not been discovered. ”

"You ······" The old man hesitated, "What do you know?" ”

"I don't know if I should tell you or not." Lin Banwei was a little embarrassed, although he often consulted his mentor many times about his father's research reports, but he never showed his mentor the kind of biological samples that his father found. Somehow, although Lin Banwei was full of curiosity about his father's research, he always felt that he had an inexplicable fear of that creature.

"It's okay if you don't want to say," the old man said, "If you do have some information close to those ancient creatures, I think someone will invite you to join them." ”

"What do you mean?"

"For example, the Brain of the World, or the Treehouse Group, if you do receive an invitation from them, I suggest you choose Treehouse."

"I ······" When he heard the old man mention the "Treehouse Group", Lin Banwei suddenly felt that a thought flashed in his mind, but he didn't know what it meant for a while, he only felt that something was wrong, "I received an email from the Treehouse Group, and I went to China for an interview this time." ”

"It's no wonder that Treehouse's usual style is to send out invitations to the people screened by the 'Sky Mirror' first, and they will book the slowest transportation for the candidates, and they will conduct a detailed investigation of you at the same time while you are on the road," the old man smiled and said, "In fact, their investigation was largely completed before you arrived, which means that they may have decided whether to hire you or not now, you used to just go through a process." ”

"Sky Mirror? What is that? Lin Banwei asked.

"The big data system lurking in the Internet, the brain of the world has a similar system, but they don't have much interest in scholars like you."

"You······ Do you know them well? To be honest, I still don't know why I received an invitation to the treehouse for no apparent reason, I had never approached them before. ”

"They are always looking for 'miracles,' like the seed of the sacred tree, like this one on me," said the old man, "but I am used to going alone. ”

"Miracles? Seeds of the Sacred Tree? ”

The old man looked away and sighed, as if he didn't intend to explain: "If you are admitted, please relay a sentence for me." ”

"What?"

The old man turned his head, changed his previous peaceful attitude, and looked solemn like a warrior who had been on the battlefield for a long time, he looked into Lin Banwei's eyes, and said word by word: "The person who holds the game of chess, there is already a person who has fallen first, and some things that should be dead are about to wake up." ”

"I don't understand." Lin Banwei's train of thought, which he had finally sorted out, was disrupted by the old man's words again.

"Someone will understand, you just need to relay my words to them word for word."

The old man exuded an irresistible majesty, Lin Banwei had to lower his head and read it silently, and then he thought of something, so he asked, "May I tell them how to introduce you?" I mean, they don't think I'm talking nonsense. ”

"The surname is Higashino, and the single name is the beginning," said the old man, "a knight who has not had time to die of old age." ”

"Higashino, this surname sounds very much like the Japanese," Lin Banwei really hadn't heard of this ancient Chinese surname, but he knew that there was a famous Japanese mystery novel writer named Keigo Higashino, and his "Anxiety Grocery Store" was remade into a movie in China a few years ago, "Ah, I forgot to report to my family, my name is Lin Banwei." ”

"Hmm," Higashino pushed back his seat as he prepared to leave, "the declining clan, remember what I just said." ”

Seeing that Dongye was about to go away, Lin Banwei was very anxious. My father's research has been difficult for so many years, and today I finally saw some signs from this "uninvited guest", and he was unwilling to cut off the clue like this: "Mr. Higashino! ”

Higashino stopped far away and slowly turned around.

"Are you interested in learning more about my research?"

"The paleontology you've discovered may only be the tip of the iceberg of its lineage, so save it for discussion with the people in the treehouse, they have more material than you can read in your lifetime, sorry, I don't really like to associate with people in there."

"Facts? Yes······ About the creatures we just discussed? ”

"Yes."

Hearing Higashinoqi's words, Lin Banwei became more and more excited, and he suddenly felt an inexplicable sense of gratitude to this old man and the Treehouse Group.

"The scientific discovery that is enough to subvert the public perception is a process in which everyone starts attacking you, until you really come up with powerful experimental data, and those who attack come back and support you." Lin Banwei's father once told him.

Lin Banwei always felt that his father was like Copernicus who proposed the "heliocentrism" during the Renaissance, when the Roman Catholic Church felt that its authority was under fire and rebuked Copernicus's heliocentric theory for violating the Bible; Lin Banwei himself is Bruno, who criticizes the church and resolutely supports the "heliocentric theory", although he was not burned to death by the church like Bruno, he understands that many people spit on their father and son as "crazy" in their hearts.

Now, he, a madman, may have found his own "madhouse".

"All right, young man, good luck."

"Wait!" Lin Banwei hurriedly stood up, and the seat dragged on the floor with a sharp sound, attracting the surrounding passengers to look over, "It's not just a theoretical conjecture, I have a biological sample of it!" ”