"W4-b, is that his name?" Brandon Bartholomew sighed.

"Even though it was just a gene set, my father and I began to treat him as if he were a living child, W4-b was just a cold code name, and I gave the child a name, an oriental name: Gu Tie. My mother's surname is Gu, and I hope that such a strong name will bring her good luck, but it is just a little selfishness. Father agreed with the name without hesitation, 'Gu Tie, that's it. He said to the boy on the screen, 'This is your name, you are Chinese, not created by Nuwa, but you still have Yan Huang on your body to stop the bleeding.' Gu Tie...... Although you may never have the opportunity to be called that in the future. Wu Tianlan said.

The old man whispered, "Until he was nine years old, his name was Edward Rinslow Bartholomew. Since arriving in China, he has changed his name to 'Gu Tie', but he didn't expect it to be something that he had decided before he was born...... Is it also in your calculations that I sent him to the Far East for refuge?"

Wu Tianlan shook his head: "It's very complicated, please listen patiently, Brandon, I think we still have a little time." She took half a glass of Pinot Grigio, exhaled, and pressed her fingers to her temples. She sits in the top office of an office building in Royal Albert Dock in London, England, and it is raining outside the window, although there are no snowflakes here, but the light rain in England makes people feel cold from the bone marrow, and even the hot air blowing from the air conditioning outlet has a damp and cold smell. The six-story building is the property of Tae-Hoo, a mysterious mega-investment firm in a nondescript corner of the trillion-dollar fixed assets spread around the world. The entire building is largely deserted, with peeling exterior walls and shattered glass, and the office on the top floor is the only room with water and electricity. With the rapid decline of the British real economy, the Royal Albert Dock business district in east London is the most typical commercial relic of the old empire, and the Asian business port supported by the Third World countries of the Far East has experienced a short decade of glory, and then was abandoned by capital, and now looks out of the glass window at the Thames River, and countless empty high-rise buildings on the banks of the meandering river stand in the hazy drizzle, silently telling the rise and fall of the century on which the sun never sets.

There were only three people in the building, a security guard was guarding downstairs, a female secretary was waiting in the outhouse, Wu Tianlan sat at the desk and held the telephone receiver and talked to Dr. Bartholomew, her eyes fell on the photo frame next to the terminal screen, in the photo frame a little boy in a red T-shirt grinning, it was a photo of Gu Tie when he was seven years old when he won the mathematics competition at the Salzburg City No. 2 High School in Austria. Even if he was entangled by fate and had to use a metal mask to disguise his man, there was a time when he smiled so innocently, the jade bracelet on Wu Tianlan's fair-skinned wrist trembled slightly, and his fingertips slid over the boy's bright smile.

A soft knock on the door sounded, "Miss Wu, the company's global president meeting is about to start, and the car is waiting downstairs, ready to leave at any time." The secretary reminded decently outside the door.

"I see, little ding. Wu Tianlan pressed the phone receiver and answered, "I'll go out soon, just pack up my things a little, and I have time." Tell Bob to turn on the heaters and seat heaters in the car and warm it up. ”

The secretary smiled: "Damn the British weather, isn't it Miss Wu?" The high heels knocked on the ground and gradually moved away, Wu Tianlan stabilized his mind, picked up the phone and continued: "You must be very curious about Gu Tie's experience before he was adopted by you, right? Thirty years ago, the Isitab Project advanced to the embryonic development stage, and at this time, a hundred gene sets were divided into two groups, a benchmark group and a comparison group. The use of artificial wombs to grow embryos is a common method, but there is a theory in the academic community that machines cannot provide complete developmental hormones, which has a detrimental effect on fetal growth. Seventy embryos from the baseline group were implanted into an artificial uterus, while thirty embryos from the comparison group were surgically implanted into the uterus of the surrogate mother. The convener of the project prepared 30 surrogate mothers, randomly selected from candidates of different races, ages, educational levels and cultural backgrounds, and these women signed contracts and settled at the Chapala Lake base, where they were paid $400,000 for artificial insemination, pregnancy for ten months until the birth of a child. ”

"Sounds pretty good. Bartholomew said.

"Aside from the results, everything else is pretty good. You know what happens to these mothers, Brandon. Speaking of this, Wu Tianlan's breathing became a little short, "Four hundred thousand dollars, what a temptation this is, even a teenager can't refuse." ”

The old man was silent for a while, "You have been implanted with an embryo and become the mother of a child. You were only fifteen years old at the time, Tianlan. ...... Are you crazy, or is your father crazy?"

Wu Tianlan said: "We are not crazy, but the world is crazy." An email from Parkison Genetic Engineering in the United States sent to my father's mailbox, saying that my mother's disease was going in the worst direction, that it was not a simple type III leukemia, but a rare mutation, and that cancer cells were eating away at her body. The company used two new therapies to try to manage the disease, and within a few months, $800,000 was gone, which was all we could have paid for my father's life savings plus an advance payment for the Isittab plan. We need money, a lot of money. The father begged the project convener to advance the other half of the honorarium, but was coldly refused. A world-renowned genetic engineer was forced to such an extent that he knelt down in the cafeteria and begged each of his colleagues to borrow money, that I did not dare to take a single step into the cafeteria, afraid to see my father's humble back and desperate face. ”

"Is it just money? Bartholomew said in a hoarse voice.

"That's it. "I asked the convener of the project to join the ranks of surrogate mothers behind my father's back, and I took out the physical examination report (which proved that I was already a fully developed mother who was able to conceive a healthy baby), the school's report card and Mensa IQ test results (which proved that my intelligence level would not have an adverse effect on the baby), and even forged a consent form signed by the father, because underage surrogacy is illegal, and I think that consent form can probably provide a little bit of weight." The convener agreed very simply, he didn't think about the law or ethics at all, and on the other end of the phone he said in a male compound voice: 'It's interesting, and it's a good idea to consider as many possibilities as possible.' I can pay half a million dollars, all at once, just because of who you are, the daughter of a researcher. My father was not present on the day of the operation, there were two clinical experts in charge of the artificial implantation, to be honest, the operation was not difficult, the small mechanical probe entered my body, and my lower body did not feel pain, just like a normal injection. But I was holding my lower abdomen, and I felt a kind of heat in my body, which was the awakening of my mother's nature, as if I could see through my belly that the pink, small, fingerless embryo was lying in the artificial amniotic fluid, waiting for my body to moisten it. ”

The old man said, "That's Gu Tie." ”

Wu Tianlan said: "Yes. This may be the convener's arrangement, and it is Gu Tie who is conceived in my body. My father found out about it after the operation, and the shock and sadness on his face was heartbreaking, and he knelt in front of my bed and held my hand, touching my arm with his forehead for a long time without speaking, and I looked at the top of his head, with a lot of gray hair. Half a million dollars soon landed on Parkison's account for Genetic Engineering, new treatment procedures were initiated, and the mother had hope of life. Even though we couldn't hear her voice on the phone, it was still a beautiful feeling, like the $500,000 that helped us regain our faith in life. My father worked harder with guilt for our mother and daughter, and the most critical period was after embryo implantation, and he had to constantly adjust hormone levels to ensure the expression of the gene set, he worked eighteen hours a day, and slept lightly by my bedside at night, and when there was any movement, he sat up and held my hand and asked me if I was okay, I knew that he cared about the unborn child, and he felt sorry for me......"

"I don't want to hear it anymore, Tianlan. Dr. Bartholomew said wearily, "Are you going to make an old man shed tears for you? ”

Wu Tianlan picked up her glass and drank the rest of the red wine, "Yes, Brandon." Gu Tie was born smoothly, weighing eight pounds when he was born, and he was a lively and smiling baby. Sixty-five of the 100 babies were born one after another, and the rest died due to genetic defects, accidents, etc. After the last baby left the artificial womb, the conveners of the project tested the children's genetic sequences, and six more were eliminated at this level because some areas of gene expression were inadequate, causing minor physical or mental defects. Fifty-nine babies were finally tested, and the project convenor announced that Project Isitab had been a success, and that all would be sent out of the Chapala Lake base within a week to return to normal life with the other half of the commission. At that time, the atmosphere at the base was like a holiday, people held parties day and night to celebrate, I was recuperating in the hospital bed because of the wound of the caesarean section, but I kept encouraging my father to have a good time, and I did not receive an email from the genetic engineering company for a long time, which proved that my mother's condition was stable, and the account amount was enough, and we could go to the United States to see her immediately. ”

"This is where the killing and the choice begins. The old man said.

"A few days later, people left one by one, and at that time I thought they had really returned to their home country. Until one day, the voice of the project convener rang in my ears, and he asked me if I had faith. I said that I was an active member of the party when I was at the ** High School Attached to Beijing **. He said, 'No, true faith. For example, Christ Jesus, or Scientology. I said no. He said, 'Very well, so let's talk about suicide.'" ’”

"Suicide?"

"Yes, suicide. ”