Faced with Samantha's complaints, Charlie kept smiling apologetically, promising he'd keep trying to achieve results soon. Bella and Natasha wore numb expressions, trailing ten paces behind, staring straight ahead, doing their best impression of brain-dead zombies.
Mr. Sperm produced over 500 children from 693 donations! Charlie worked at it every day, yet still no results. Was it fair? Unfair? Some people just had high vitality, others had low vitality. This really couldn't be compared...
"Do you think they should try IVF?" Natasha asked quietly.
Not necessary, right? Bella really couldn't see any physical problems with either of them. She felt they were just too anxious. Charlie was more worried about whether having a child at Samantha's age would harm her body—it was a psychological issue.
Rejecting her cheap sister's unreliable suggestion, the two shuffled along behind with small steps, just not wanting to hear the embarrassing conversation. At this moment, she brought up another topic.
"Are you still going to college?"
Natasha was over a year younger than Bella. She should be going to college now, but her agent status might have an impact.
Jerking her chin toward her mother, the beautiful girl said helplessly: "If I don't go to college, Comrade Samantha will kill me..."
Natasha planned to attend UC Berkeley to study sociology.
Whether she used S.H.I.E.L.D. connections was unknown, but she planned to just coast through to graduation.
"You work hard! You have to get a doctorate! Bring glory to the family. I'll pass—I'll support you in spirit!" She looked earnest, causing Bella to roll her eyes.
With their parents strolling ahead, the distance between them growing, the two started play-fighting in the back.
Natasha pinched Bella's face, drawing a glare.
"What?"
Natasha's eyes were sharp: "Your skin is so elastic? Why do you still look the same as you did a year ago?"
"I'm just naturally blessed with good skin!"
"Lies! You've eaten so much junk food on the sly—there's no way you could still have such good skin!... This is too much! When we first met, you were clearly a year older than me, and it was obvious. But now it seems like we're about the same age..." Her voice was full of doubt.
Bella wanted to say it was because she'd aged, but seeing the beautiful girl's menacing eyes, she forcibly swallowed the words.
"We're still young, and we see each other often, so you feel like I haven't changed much." She forcibly found an excuse.
"Absolutely not!"
"It is!"
"Absolutely, absolutely not!"
"I swear, you must be seeing things."
"Do you think I'm a child?"
"...Fine, whatever you say is right..."
Bella raised the white flag, refusing to argue about this kind of issue.
With her keen eyesight and memory, Natasha discovered Bella's secret—this person showed no signs of aging at all. She was the same when they first met as she was now! What did this mean? It was possible that when she herself turned thirty, this person would still look the same as today...
How enviable! Annoying! Natasha planned to find an opportunity to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network to see if there were any anti-aging drugs in the world.
She'd barely managed to fool her cheap sister, but Bella also became aware of this problem. It should be the Isu genes that greatly slowed her aging rate.
This was definitely a good thing. In the short term, aside from observant people close to her like Natasha, outsiders couldn't detect it at all.
Even if discovered, she could explain it away with makeup. Over time, she'd definitely be exposed.
But that was a problem for the future. She'd worry about it then.
After Christmas, she hurried to Texas.
The farm in Newt, now a secret base, had already begun construction. They needed to dig at least seven levels underground to effectively prevent viral leakage.
006's body was still somewhat weak, but to make money, he was currently contacting construction companies to carry out work at the farm.
"It's best to drive all those townspeople away." 006 brought up a very urgent issue.
Texas being overlooked was good, but Texans being too tough was equally a drawback.
"Can't money work?" Bella asked. She didn't want the relocation work to get too ugly.
This town was already in the border area between the US and Mexico, with a small population. Twenty years ago, the Sawyer family massacre happened, and when combined with the recent Sawyer family revenge case, many families had moved away. Now there were very few people left in the town.
006 pulled out his pistol with a slight smile: "You don't understand some Texans. They only recognize this. Should I have people drive out the remaining few households?"
Several townspeople watching cautiously from a distance immediately retreated. Among them, two looked fully alert, apparently preparing to go back and get guns.
Bella sighed. Relocation work was hard to do.
She said definitively: "Don't worry about it. I'll find 'people' to drive them away."
That evening, Jason arrived in Newt!
After seeing Pyramid Head's imposing figure, Jason adhered to the principle of lifelong learning, actively studying new techniques and processes, constantly innovating. Under Big Sister Bella's key directives, Jason achieved the concentration of resources, time, energy, and materials, carrying forward the fearless spirit of not fearing hardship, exhaustion, or death. He ultimately smelted the Bound Spirit Corpse's decapitation axe into a five-foot-long machete!
When townspeople finished showering and were blow-drying their hair, they'd suddenly notice a terrifying figure holding a machete standing behind them.
At three in the morning, harsh mechanical cutting sounds would suddenly echo from the basement, along with heavy footsteps on the wooden floor.
Waking up to find yourself hugging a skeleton in a graveyard.
And so on and so forth. The town's remaining residents persisted for three days before finally discovering they couldn't take it anymore!
Their firearms didn't provide courage. Two, five, ten—households kept moving away. Fewer and fewer people remained in town until they all disappeared.
"Done. All resolved."
To demonstrate her value and boost confidence, Bella didn't hide the process of summoning Jason from 006.
006 was used to it by now. He showed no amazement, shock, or prostration—just treated it as ordinary, as if he hadn't seen anything.
"Is there any progress on the research team? I only know some minor players who probably can't handle such a major project."
To this day, 006 still couldn't figure out why Bella suddenly wanted to launch such a huge project as bioweapons. Aside from a few multinational corporations and countries, who had the funding and technology to research this stuff as an individual!