Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 580 - 578: The Boundary

Li Ang’s lips curled into a smile. "Why did I wake up in agony, only to immediately get better after a ’battery’ was installed;" he said, "why, after that rubber-suited figure opened the stone wall, did a sweet-tasting liquid remain in the grooves of the wall; and why, in Room F, was I required to extract ’battery fluid’ from sugarcane?

"The reason is simple: the so-called ’battery’ wasn’t meant to provide Energy for this suit I’m wearing, but for *me*.

"This thing..." He gestured to the glass cylinder on his left arm. "...is just ordinary glucose."

Alice remained silent, tilting her head slightly, ’looking’ at the battery Li Ang indicated.

Li Ang continued, "Glucose has the molecular formula C6H12O6. According to encyclopedia definitions, it’s the most widely distributed and important monosaccharide in nature. It’s a polyhydroxy aldehyde, a source of Energy, and an intermediate in metabolism for living cells—in essence, the primary Energy-supplying substance for organisms. However, the glucose here refers to D-glucose, whereas the tube on my shoulder contains L-glucose."

He rubbed his nose, which had been pressed by the mask, and stated indifferently, "The last hydroxyl group of D-glucose differs from that of L-glucose. They have different chirality, being mirror images of each other—enantiomers.

"’Chirality’ is a fundamental property in nature. A carbon atom has four chemical bonds and can connect to four different functional groups. Due to the variety of these groups, organic substances also exhibit asymmetry, which is chirality. When a certain carbon atom is the chiral center, two different spatial structures can exist. These configurations are atomically identical yet are mirror images, much like human left and right hands, which cannot overlap through rotation. Usually, R-S or D-L notations are used to identify chiral substances.

"Molecules with different configurations may only vary in their spatial structure, but they can be worlds apart in physiological and pharmacological activity. For example, the drug thalidomide. Its R-form has a sedative effect, alleviating nausea in pregnant women, so it’s used to inhibit pregnancy reactions. But the S-form has a strong teratogenic effect. If the R and S forms are not separated, the result is a large number of deformed fetuses.

"This tube of L-glucose is similar. Normal D-glucose successively undergoes anaerobic glycolysis, the aerobic tricarboxylic acid cycle, and biological oxidation to generate carbon dioxide and water. This process releases substantial Energy, stored as ATP. However, L-glucose, the enantiomer of D-glucose, cannot be phosphorylated by hexokinase. This means it can’t be utilized by normal mammals."

Li Ang pointed to his nose. "Which means, I am not a normal mammal."

Alice asked softly, "How did you know it was L-glucose...?"

"The reason is simple," Li Ang shrugged. "In fact, as a puzzle game, it gave me far too many hints. The envelope in Room A had a lemon scent. Room E’s L-menthol had a musty smell. The asparagine I found tasted bitter. And the limonene had the same lemony fragrance as the envelope from Room A."

He picked up several bottles tied to his waist with a cloth strap and introduced them in turn. "Menthol is a type of cyclic monoterpenoid, a highly volatile essential oil produced by plants. Menthol has a cool minty fragrance, but its enantiomer, D-menthol, has a musty odor. Asparagine is sweet, but its enantiomer, R-asparagine, is bitter. Limonene has two chiral forms; one smells like lemon, the other like orange. Before I crossed the stone gate, all I could smell was lemon.

"And now..." He opened the vial containing limonene, took a deep breath, and smiled at Alice. "...it has turned into an orange scent.

"If I’m not mistaken, one of the effects of this passage is to invert the entire body of anyone who enters, making them mirror-symmetrical and causing all proteins and nucleic acid small molecules within their body to undergo chiral inversion. The consequence is that a person entering the passage can no longer utilize normal D-glucose. They can only use artificially synthesized L-glucose as an Energy source—this is why I was restricted to only three hours of activity time. It’s also why the Alchemist said that entering the well would have side effects, necessitating special clothing to isolate the effect."

He raised an arm, pointing with his thumb at the stone wall behind him, and smiled. "Remember the password for the door in Room E? Mobius. M-O-B-I-U-S. Take a long white strip of paper, blacken one side, twist one end, and connect the ends, and you form a Möbius strip. If you walk a full circle along a Möbius strip, left becomes right, and up becomes down—just like chiral inversion.

"The well is the Möbius strip; it is the passageway. The special clothing the Alchemist spoke of is what I’m wearing now—though this suit might be missing some key components, which meant I wasn’t actually shielded from the chiral inversion effect until I walked out of the stone wall and returned to normal."

Li Ang’s tone became solemn. "In Room D, on the Alchemist’s own calendar, it was written that on March 2nd, he was to go to Amestris to accept the Medal of Botanic Alchemist, awarded by the president, on his wife’s behalf. He was also planning to visit his old teacher, who was researching Alkylating Agents.

"Alkylating Agents are a class of highly reactive chemical compounds and are cytotoxic drugs. They can form carbocations or other reactive electrophilic groups in the body. These then covalently bond with electron-rich groups in cellular biopolymers, causing them to lose activity or DNA molecules to break. Alkylating Agents are mainly used for malignant lymphomas and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. This corresponds exactly to what was mentioned about your sister Hilde’s disease.

"Considering the level of medical and chemical development in this world isn’t high, it’s unlikely they had developed the technology for efficient chiral catalysts. Your father probably intended to use the well—or rather, the chiral inversion function of the passageway—to produce chirally specific drugs to treat his younger daughter’s illness.

"Unfortunately, before the final results were obtained, tragedy struck, forcing your father to take the most extreme measures."

Li Ang gently patted the stone wall of the passage. "This passage," he said calmly, "probably possesses more than just the ability to invert chirality. It also has the function to distort time and create loops. It’s like a Möbius strip that never reaches its end, or an Ouroboros, viciously and greedily devouring its own tail.

"In this passage, cause is effect, and effect is cause. Time and space no longer have boundaries; the chasm between past and future is utterly blurred.

"This mansion, this tragedy... there was never any mastermind behind it. Or rather, the only mastermind is the Alchemist himself. It’s me."