James heard Catherine''s words, turned back to Mirabe''s bedside, and paused for a moment before gently lifting a corner of the nket. He discovered a delicate ne around her neck. With a gentle flick of his finger, the pendant slipped out from beneath her cor.


    The pendant felt as smooth as cream, and a soft warmth radiated at his touch. James was taken aback; he hadn''t expected such an ordinary-looking pendant to have such an amazing effect. Even the finest pendants didn''t usually do that.


    "So, this pendant is helping her, huh?" James mused, tucking it back under Mirabe''s cor.


    "It should be," Catherine replied, trusting James instinctively. Her words flowed without hesitation. "Last time, just a couple of days after we put the pendant on her, she woke up."


    But once she woke, she had changed. She wasn''t quite the same as before, her reactions slower than other kids her age. Back then, neither Catherine nor her husband noticed anything off, assuming it was just aftereffects of her illness. It wasn''t until two yearster, when she fell into another deep sleep and woke up, that Catherine noticed the difference. It seemed like the person who woke up then was truly herself again.


    Catherine''s thoughts wandered, but she quickly snapped back and added, "Keep the pendant on her, and she should wake up in about five days."


    James nodded, his eyes fixed on Mirabe''s still-closed eyes. Today was the fourth day. He hoped she''d wake up tomorrow.


    Thinking about the changes Mira experienced after her previous deep sleeps, Catherine hesitated. She decided to be honest. "She might be a bit different when she wakes up this time."


    "Different?" James asked, puzzled.


    "Maybe not," Catherine muttered to herself. She didn''t exin further, asking only that James call her once Mirabe woke up. Not long after, Catherine hung up.


    Sitting on the porch steps, she nced back at her cluttered house before slowly getting up and heading inside to start her daily routine, grateful she had given Mira the pendantst year.


    ***


    Meanwhile, in the basement level two of the medical school''s main building, in Laboratory 3, Ben extracted a semi-finished reagent from its container, cing it in a dry ice box. After a few seconds he lifted


    the semi-finished reagent into the air, where its pale blue liquid swirled with active bacterial cultures.  swnovel


    He handed the reagent to Manuel. "Take a look. This is the adjusted ratio based


    on the data from the subject we examined a few days ago."


    Ben''s eyes sparkled with excitement, though his mask hid his face. "Alright,"


    Manuel said with a nod, taking the reagent to another workstation.


    Ben followed, watching as Manuel mixed it with otherponents for a chemical reaction. These


    professors and PhDs would havet


    been stuck without his tweaks and data adjustments. If it weren''t for him, they''d be years away from developing a reagent to alter human cellr molecules.  swnovel


    Disdain


    he cod in Ben''s eyes, but


    he couldn''t help being thankful to


    the man who broke into the research institutest night. If that man hadn''t destroyed the reagents and research notes, Ben might still be stuck looking for another way out.  swnovel


    Goodnight, goodnight-