A cool, composed face drew near, yet for the very first time, Julian caught a flicker of intense, burning curiosity deep within Ruan Mei's eyes.
In his memories of her, she had always worn a detached, almost ethereal mask of polite indifference, rarely showing true emotional ripples. Only when debating complex hypotheses alongside her fellow members of the Genius Society did she reveal faint flashes of genuine engagement.
Seeing that rare spark now proved just how deeply she valued what she had glimpsed in the data.
To Julian, that single-minded fascination was the best possible news.
Without wasting words, he focused his thoughts, drawing upon his Path resonance to project Pikachu directly into the physical space between them.
The moment the small yellow mouse materialized, Ruan Mei released Julian's wrist. Kneeling slightly, she scooped the creature into her arms, turning it over with clinical precision, prodding and pinching its ears, tail, and cheeks to test muscle density and skeletal structure.
"Pika, Pikachu..."
At first, Pikachu tolerated the hands-on inspection with mild confusion. But as her fingers pressed firmer to measure joint articulation, the little creature began wriggling in protest. When Ruan Mei showed no intention of loosening her grip, it let out a sharp, indignant squeak, its crimson cheek pouches crackling with golden arcs.
"Pika... CHUUU!"
A point-blank Thunder Shock engulfed Ruan Mei in a blinding web of electricity. Arc after arc snapped across her skin and clothes, yet she stood completely unfazed, not even blinking as the voltage discharged into the air.
Julian blinked in mild surprise, though the reality settled in quickly. A master of life sciences from the Genius Society had long since altered her own biological baseline. To an ordinary Xianzhou native, a casual jolt from a young Pikachu carried little threat unless charged to absolute capacity; against a researcher of Ruan Mei's caliber, it was barely a static tingle.
Before Julian could speak up to ask her to ease her grip, Ruan Mei had already set the creature down, her face blooming with undisguised wonder.
Free from her clutches, Pikachu scrambled up Julian's arm in a frantic blur, diving behind his collar and peeking over his shoulder with wide, traumatized eyes.
"Pikachu..."
"Haha, easy there, little guy," Julian chuckled, gently scratching behind its ears to soothe its racing pulse. "Miss Ruan Mei is just curious. But Miss Ruan Mei, please do handle the little ones with a bit more care."
Pikachu leaned into his fingers, letting out a soft sigh, though its beady eyes remained firmly locked onto the researcher.
"Herta, have your logistics drones transfer my heavy containment pods directly to my reserved laboratory in the Seclusion Zone," Ruan Mei called out without looking back, her voice crisp and urgent.
"You really don't hesitate to order my staff around, do you?" Herta grumbled with a small roll of her puppet's eyes. Even so, Asta was already stepping forward with a polite smile, coordinating the station personnel to carefully transport Ruan Mei's custom instruments.
"Walk with me."
Without waiting for Julian's consent, Ruan Mei took his sleeve, leading him briskly toward the private transit lifts.
Julian couldn't help but smile wryly. Had he not understood her eccentric, laser-focused personality beforehand, navigating her brisk social boundaries would have taken some getting used to.
Taking the restricted lift deep into the bowels of the station, they stepped out into the Seclusion Zone and entered Ruan Mei's private research wing.
The atmosphere here was completely distinct from the mechanical, abstract archives run by Herta or Stephen. The expansive room was lush with cultivated specimens, exotic botanical vines trailing along the walls, and towering glass cylinders filled with glowing preservation fluids and dormant organic matter.
"Bring them forth," Ruan Mei said, her gaze sweeping past Pikachu to fix squarely on Julian.
"Hold on a moment, Miss Ruan Mei," Julian said, raising a hand. "I am more than willing to grant full access for your research, but we must establish a few terms first."
Clear boundaries had to be drawn upfront. If she refused, he would simply take his data to the Xianzhou authorities or work through Stephen to set up independent facilities.
"Very well. State your conditions."
Much like Herta, Ruan Mei possessed limitless patience and accommodation for subjects that genuinely captured her intellect. If a topic held zero research value, she would not spare it a second breath; conversely, for a genuine biological anomaly, she was remarkably cooperative. Such was the unapologetic creed of the Genius Society.
"First, no specimen may suffer physical harm, dissection, or terminal degradation during analysis," Julian stated firmly. "Second, once the genetic mapping is complete, you must assist me in cultivating and stabilizing true, living biological clones of these species."
Is that all?
Ruan Mei tilted her head, a faint trace of surprise crossing her features. She had expected grand political requests, proprietary technology transfers, or commercial concessions. What the minds of the Genius Society possessed was sought after by entire star alliances and corporate titans alike.
"That is the extent of it," Julian affirmed.
Representing the Xianzhou Alliance might have demanded a tangled web of diplomatic covenants, but standing here today, he represented only his own dream. Bringing these companions into living reality was all he cared about.
"I accept your first condition unconditionally," Ruan Mei agreed smoothly. "As for the second, I cannot offer an absolute guarantee until the baseline sequencing is solved. I will gladly assist in full-scale cultivation only if our preliminary genetic stabilization proves viable."
She remained strictly empirical. This was a genetic architecture that had baffled even Herta's sequencing models. While Herta was primarily an astrophysicist and systems theorist, her grasp of organic coding was far from weak; she had devised her own reverse-aging biological protocols, after all.
"That is entirely fair," Julian nodded.
Ruan Mei's professional integrity was well established through decades of high-level collaborations. Furthermore, the members of the Genius Society possessed an immense, unspoken pride. Even eccentric figures like Dr. Primitive operated through absolute ideological conviction rather than petty deceit.
More importantly, Julian held immense faith in her capabilities. Creating an entirely novel species from scratch across an alien cosmos was a monumental task, but with his Path projections acting as a living, physical template, the odds were on their side. The very fact that the cosmos accepted their form via Path resonance meant their cellular structures were compatible with the physical matter of this universe.
With the parameters settled, Ruan Mei moved into action immediately.
Her custom scanning pod hummed to life as technicians rolled it into the center of the cleanroom. She guided Pikachu onto the platform, triggering the diagnostic sweep.
Soft bands of multispectral light washed over the little mouse from head to tail. Pikachu blinked curiously, seemingly feeling nothing beyond a gentle, warm tickle across its fur.
"Fascinating... What an extraordinary cellular sequence."
Ruan Mei leaned over a diagnostic monitor displaying complex genetic matrices that looked entirely indecipherable to Julian. A look of quiet astonishment settled across her face.
Rather than moving on to the next creature, she immediately linked her instruments to Herta's local terminals, modifying the sensor arrays with her own hands. Once the calibration was complete, she turned back to Julian, gesturing for him to project different species through the line.
When a particularly massive specimen appeared, threatening to outgrow the ceiling height of the scanning bay, Ruan Mei calmly produced a compact, handheld emitter. A soft beam of light bathed the creature, causing its physical volume to shrink down to tabletop proportions in an instant.
Julian stared in mild amusement.
Wait... is that literally the Shrink Ray from Doraemon?
Then again, in a galaxy where space manipulation and matter compression were everyday science, a localized mass-displacement beam was hardly a grand miracle.
Beep, beep, beep...
A rhythmic chime signaled the completion of each scan as specimen after specimen passed through the diagnostic zone.
Suddenly, the chimes shifted into a rapid, sharp cadence, the console flashing an alert border.
Ruan Mei stopped dead in her tracks, stepping up to the master display to inspect the readouts.
Standing at the first scanner was Articuno, the very first Legendary Pokémon Julian had called forth in numeric Pokédex order.
Seeing the console react so violently, Julian paused his projections, stepping up beside her. He was equally curious to know whether the legendary beings of his memories carried an entirely different biological truth in this universe.
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