Lu said, a dead man misses me.

The first rays of morning light peeked in.

Lu Yuan felt a refreshing clarity at the moment.

He had never slept so comfortably before.

After all, it had been a long enough rest.

Though it seemed someone's phone call had woken him up in the middle, it didn't really matter.

Thinking of this, Lu Yuan picked up his phone.

There were two unread messages on it.

One from Sun Ying and the other from Wu Xiong.

Sun Ying: Dr. Lu, I sincerely apologize for a small hiccup in our collaboration. Could you please give me a month's time? I will definitely get it sorted out for you.

Wu Xiong: Dr. Lu, I'm really sorry. There was some internal disagreement at the headquarters. I'll have it resolved within a week. Please rest assured.

Lu Yuan frowned slightly.

The messages from these two essentially conveyed the same meaning, but the language they used was "I," instead of "we."

Lu Yuan smiled and closed the phone, not paying it any more attention.

As long as he could obtain what he wanted, it was fine.

As for the Clown and Huang Ming, let them play outside for a while longer.

At this moment, a faint voice sounded near Lu Yuan's ear: "Big brother Lu..."

"When will the Clown be back?"

"My little buns are almost gone."

Turning his head, Lu Yuan saw what looked like a porcelain doll's rosy little face, pressed against his ear and blowing cold air.

That tiny face also wore a mischievous childlike grin.

"No spanking for three days leads to mischief."

Lu Yuan grabbed the pillow under his head and flung it, stuffing Zhang Baobao into his arms instead.

Resting his head on Zhang Baobao's soft little belly felt much more comfortable than a pillow.

The mischievous child blinked in confusion, seeming a little aggrieved.

Her tiny body was bearing a weight it shouldn't have to at her age.

She wanted to cry, but didn't dare.

Finally—

"Big brother Lu, I need to pee."

Lu Yuan: "..."

"Give it a try then?"

Ten minutes later.

Lu Yuan was almost falling asleep again, with Zhang Baobao dejectedly serving as a pillow, not daring to move.

Until Lu Yuan got up, she rubbed her poor little belly.

However, when Liu Yuan came to call Lu Yuan for breakfast and picked up Zhang Baobao from the bed, suddenly—

A warm liquid rapidly spread over Liu Yuan's hands.

Meeting the innocent gaze of the mischievous child, Liu Yuan looked at Lu Yuan, "Boss, shouldn't we start cultivating the quality of bullying the weak and fearing the strong from a young age?"

So after breakfast, Zhang Baobao became a small plush toy on Lu Yuan's office desk.

Lu Yuan looked at her and said, "Nod if you know you did wrong."

The little plush nodded.

"Good girl, you can help me keep an eye on the office today."

As Lu Yuan was about to leave, pat—

The little plush on the desk lay down, hugging one of Lu Yuan's fingers and looking at him with pleading eyes.

Lu Yuan understood, "Alright, I'll ask about when the Clown will be back to play with you..."

He took out his phone and dialed a number.

"Good morning, my dearest Dr. Lu! I'm your most loyal employee—"

"There's a dead mischievous child who misses you and wants to know when you'll be back to play with her."

Silence on the other end of the line.

"Boss, I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Okay."

Lu Yuan hung up without saying more, propped up the little plush, and left.

He had to go test out a new toy today.

In the distant X-Region, the Clown who had just ended the call with Lu Yuan was trembling all over.

Huang Ming gave him a puzzled look, "What's wrong?"

The Clown turned to him, his lips quivering, "Demon Hunter, I think we need to speed things up."

"Why?"

"Just now, the guy with the surname Lu told me that a dead person misses me..."

"And asked when I'd go back to accompany it..."

"It seems Lu is dissatisfied with our current pace."

Huang Ming took a sip of water and said, "Be grateful that at least Dr. Lu has given us a choice."

"Yes, thank our kind and merciful boss..."

...

In Operating Room Two, Lu Yuan was fiddling with an extremely thin thread.

It looked like a thread, but was actually a blood vessel from an insect-like creature about the size of a soccer ball.

Lu Yuan had learned about a type of mosquito-like creature from the newly acquired encyclopedia "Observations on the Anatomy of Fantastic Creature Limbs." This creature only needed a simple neural node and blood vessels to survive.

Lu Yuan had long mastered the "repair and replication of insect neural nodes."

The neural node of these insect creatures was essentially their brain.

Now Lu Yuan could create these, and he had blood vessels taken from the corpses of some previously stored mutant insects.

With the neural tissue, blood vessels, and having transplanted a set of visual sensory organs, a set of wings, and Lu Yuan's injection organ set that had been miniaturized to only five millimeters in diameter...

By tonight, a new lifeform emerged that combined the revolting features of flies and mosquitoes, despite having died and lost all bodily functions.

The reason it was a lifeless form was that although this creature had an artificially created mechanical neural tissue created by Lu Yuan, granting it consciousness, it lacked bodily functions.

To be precise, this creature was merely a corpse for now.

So how could it be given bodily functions?

Previously, Lu Yuan had installed a mechanical heart for the Lab-Croc, but that wouldn't work for this being.

Because its body was too small, and Lu Yuan's technology for creating mechanical hearts had not yet reached such a microscopic scale.

At this point, Lu Yuan shamelessly went to Room 92.

Under Ling Long's disdainful gaze, he calmly cleared his throat.

"Ahem, blood test..."

...

Ling Long did not originally have a name - it was Lu Yuan who gave her this name that was a homophone for the term used to refer to her species.

Ling Long's blood had an extremely strange effect - it could imbue lifeless objects with rudimentary bodily functions.

This was a characteristic of the Spirit Dragon species' blood, not an ability, so Lu Yuan could not replicate it.

As for whether it could revive the dead, Lu Yuan had tried a few times without success.

This characteristic of the Spirit Dragon blood also brought catastrophic disaster to their species, as 500 milliliters of Spirit Dragon blood could fetch prices in the millions on the black market.

And there was always more demand than supply.

From this, it was evident that Lu Yuan was truly a man of conscience when he only charged 700,000 for a Spirit Dragon heart.

Of course, not just anyone could spend 700,000 to purchase a Spirit Dragon heart from Lu Yuan.

To date, only the nurses Liu Yuan and Lin Youyou had done so.

This afternoon at dinnertime, around 7 PM, after everyone else had finished eating and left, Ling Long finally came to the dining hall at a leisurely pace, wearing a face mask.

She had been like this for the past two days, seemingly disliking others seeing her.

In one hand, she pinched a small paper crane, and in the other, she carried a plate as Zhang Fenglan, despite being a robot, diligently served her each dish, and Ling Long would say, "Thank you," each time.

After getting her food, Ling Long also took a bowl of vegetable soup for the small paper crane in her hand.

Seeing that there was no one left in the dining hall, Ling Long finally removed her face mask.

A two-dimensional, anime-style cherry blossom girl seemed to have stepped right out of a manga.

Just as Ling Long was about to start eating—

"You're eating too little."

Liu Yuan placed a portion of sliced beef and a bowl of red date and longan porridge in front of Ling Long, adding more food to her plate.

"Eat more. There's no need to save on food expenses for Dr. Lu - he can afford it."

Ling Long gave Liu Yuan a grateful look, "Thank you, sister."

Liu Yuan waved it off, "No need to thank me. It's only right for me to take care of you, sister."

"Eat as much as you like, there's still more. If it's not enough, I'll make some more for you."

"Doctor Lu said that you'll need to get regular blood tests from now on, so he specifically instructed me to add more blood-replenishing foods for you."

Ling Long: "......"

In the blink of an eye, the grateful expression in Ling Long's eyes vanished completely.