Chapter 2295 - 1482: New Hope or Disaster?

Chapter 2295: Chapter 1482: New Hope or Disaster?

After the comment was published, Yang Ping received an email from the editorial department of Nature.

The editor said the article "has sparked far more attention than expected," and attached a media monitoring report. The report showed that in the past seventy-two hours, more than four hundred media outlets worldwide had reprinted or quoted the arguments of this article, covering almost all channels from academic journals to mass news, from podcasts to short videos. The editor wrote at the end of the email: "Professor Yang, you may need to be mentally prepared, this article has already stepped out of the academic circle."

At ten o’clock in the morning, Tang Shun pushed open the door to Yang Ping’s office, holding a mobile phone in his hand, with a report that had just been refreshed on the screen. "Look at this." Yang Ping took the phone and saw the headline "Did Chinese scientists discover ’Life Seal’? The global debate triggered by the key to longevity." The text directly transformed the metaphor of "seal" into a substantive concept, translated into "biological lock," and used an exaggerated subtitle: "We may only be one key away from immortality."

"I didn’t write that." Yang Ping said, "The comment never mentioned the term ’key.’"

"I know." Tang Shun’s voice was somewhat weary, "But the media doesn’t need you to have mentioned it; they need a catchy headline. ’Seal’ and ’key’ are a natural story structure, oppositional, with strong dramatic tension. We can’t control this."

Yang Ping returned the phone to Tang Shun and sat back in his chair. He opened his computer, searched for the keywords "biological lock" and "Yang Ping," and was taken aback by the number of results, exceeding twenty thousand. He casually clicked a few and found the content varied widely. Some were fairly reasonable, citing the core arguments of the original text; others completely deviated, describing "seal" as a hidden, violently breakable biological mechanism; a few websites directly placed his photo on the homepage, accompanied by titles like "Guardian of Immortality" or "Brake of Human Lifespan."

He closed the browser and took a deep breath. "The three o’clock meeting will proceed as planned; I won’t touch any media reports before then."

At three o’clock in the afternoon, in that small meeting room. Tang Shun opened the experimental plan document on the projection screen, titled "Receptor X Activation Gradient Experiment: Multidimensional Safety Boundary Assessment."

"I’ll review the framework first." Tang Shun pointed at the directory page on the screen with a laser pointer, "The experiment is divided into four stages. The first stage is the baseline establishment, where we select three different types of tissue: epithelial, mesenchymal, and nerve-derived cell lines, cultivated for thirty days under completely non-activated receptor X conditions, recording proliferation rate, apoptosis rate, secretome profile, and genomic stability indicators. This step is to establish a reference for the ’normal fluctuation range.’

Weber nodded but didn’t speak. He was holding a pen, drawing some kind of structural diagram on his notebook.

"The second stage is low-intensity activation," Tang Shun continued, "We set five activation levels, starting from 5% of the receptor X’s maximum activation capacity, incrementally increasing to 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%. Each level lasts for seven days, sampled daily, measuring the same indicators. If any indicator detects a change exceeding three standard deviations from the baseline fluctuation range, we label that level as the ’warning threshold.’

"What if three standard deviations are not triggered?" Yang Ping asked.

"Then we raise the upper limit, continue to probe upwards, until we find the boundary. Actually, we cannot find the boundary so quickly. But I think maybe what’s truly important is not finding the boundary, but understanding how the system self-regulates before reaching the boundary. Weber previously proposed a viewpoint: the seal might be an active regulator, managing repair rather than obstructing repair. If this hypothesis holds, our experimental goal needs to be redefined."

Weber finally spoke: "I’m thinking about another issue. Now the world is discussing ’seal’ and ’key,’ and the media is framing this as a binary opposition story. But we know it’s a spectrum issue. From completely closed to completely open, there are countless intermediate states. The question is, can the public understand this complexity?"

"Yang Ping said, they don’t need to understand the complexity; they need a stance. Then they will organize their actions based on this stance. I just checked the news, and someone has already established ’Unlock the Seal’ topic groups on social media, with member numbers exceeding one hundred thousand."

Tang Shun and Weber exchanged a glance, neither speaking. The meeting room was quiet for a moment, then Tang Shun said: "That makes our experiment even more necessary. Only data can counter emotions. We deliver results, and let the results do the talking."

"But... but sometimes, reason is destroyed, leaving only emotions." Lu Xiaolu spoke up.

Yang Ping nodded: "Continue to advance."

On the fourth day, Tang Shun walked into Yang Ping’s office holding a tablet, looking worse than usual. "Take a look at this."

On the screen was a screenshot from a live video, showing a middle-aged man standing at what appeared to be a podium in a conference center, with a huge banner behind him, written in English: "LIFESPAN FREEDOM MOVEMENT." Hundreds sat below, with some holding signs that read "OPEN THE LOCK" and "MY LIFE, MY CHOICE."

"What is this?"