Thirteenth Minute Report

In 2029, China will launch a nationwide early screening program for major diseases. Geneticist Gu Xinghe received an abnormal newborn genetic report thirteen minutes after his daughter was born. The report did not suggest illness. Instead, he gave a cold prediction: On October 17, 2035, Gu Nian'an will terminate Gu Xinghe's life. In human genes, exons are like "text", responsible for coding proteins and determining how the body grows and how organs function; while introns are like "silent paragraphs" sandwiched between the text. They usually do not directly code for proteins and are cut out during gene expression. For a long time, humans thought that introns were just redundant fragments left over from evolution. Until Gu Xinghe discovered: These silent passages are not useless. They are like punctuation, annotations, and typography rules hidden deep in life. They do not directly write a person's body, but they may affect when genes are expressed, how they are spliced, and a person's long-term tendencies in disease, emotions, choices, and relationships. Exons write the body. Introns write tendencies. And when genomes, electronic medical records, behavioral data, and artificial intelligence are connected, these tendencies begin to converge into something terrifying: Destiny. Some people try to escape the prophecy, but instead push it to come true; Some people sell fate and turn the future into the most expensive commodity; Some people manage destiny and try to build a human society without crime, accidents, or loss of control. In order to protect his daughter and the world, Gu Xinghe finally built the "Destiny" with his own hands.