Then, Associate Professor Carter walked into the main entrance of the Life Sciences Building, carrying the bag with the cat inside, and calmly greeted the people coming and going around him. When he reached the stairwell, there were hardly any people left; most people were used to taking the elevator.

Logan Bennett poked his head out of the bag to look outside. At 7 p.m., there were still many people staying in the Life Sciences Institute, with lights on in all the laboratories. Through the stairwell window, Logan Bennett could see the ultraviolet sterilization lamp lit up in the sterile room across the way.

Back when Ryan Carter and the others first brought him in, Logan Bennett had been very nervous, but after a few times, he became calm. Logan Bennett was endlessly grateful that the family who adopted him weren’t some kind of mad scientists.

Mr. Carter’s office was on the second floor, a private office. Mr. Carter was one of the few associate professors at Chuhua University’s Life Sciences Institute who had a private office. When Mrs. Carter was too busy, Ryan Carter and the others would come here to do homework or take a nap. Sometimes Logan Bennett would come along, but every time it was sneaky—either hiding in a backpack or wrapped up in clothes to be brought in.

Mr. Carter went into the office to get a bunch of keys, then carried Logan Bennett up the stairs to the fourth floor. There weren’t many people in this corner of the fourth floor; Logan Bennett had never been here before.

In the quiet hallway, Mr. Carter’s footsteps sounded especially clear. The motion-sensor lights in the corridor turned on, and Logan Bennett saw the nameplates on the doors of the surrounding rooms.

No wonder there weren’t many people—this area was basically used for storing goods, equipment, reagents, and so on. However...

Logan Bennett twitched his nose; he smelled the scent of some kind of animal.

Mr. Carter stopped at the room furthest to the side and unlocked the door with a key.

As soon as the door opened, there was a squeaking sound.

Even though the lighting was dim, Logan Bennett could clearly see the layout inside.

There were a few empty cages nearby, while the cages for the lab mice were all placed in the inner room. Near the door, there was a small lab bench and some shelves.

Mr. Carter turned on the light, set the bag on the lab bench, and said to Logan Bennett, “Wait here for a bit, don’t run around. Don’t touch anything in the lab—there are a lot of chemicals.”

After saying this, Mr. Carter took a lab coat from the rack and put it on, then took gloves from a drawer and put them on, and walked into the inner room. Soon, he came out carrying a cage with five white mice inside.

Chapter 3: Teaching a Cat Like This

The lab mice, to put it nicely, are generally mild-tempered; to put it bluntly, they’re collectively dumb—maybe due to inbreeding.

Recently, Logan Bennett often heard Mr. Carter mention these in his genetics course PPTs, so when he saw that cage of white mice, Logan Bennett couldn’t help but think it was just as Mr. Carter had described. He really didn’t see any fear in the eyes of those mice; they might even have thought the caretaker had come and were busy begging for food.

Mr. Carter took one mouse out of the cage and placed it on the table, saying to Logan Bennett, “Watch it, don’t let it run off.”

Logan Bennett looked at the mouse, which had no idea it was about to meet its doom, and lifted a paw to pin down its tail. The mouse, with its tail held down, didn’t struggle much—just tried to crawl forward.

See, this is the difference between wild and domesticated animals. If you pin down the tail of a wild mouse, it’ll either struggle desperately or turn around and bite you.

Mr. Carter put the cage with the remaining four mice into an empty cardboard box so they couldn’t see what was happening outside.

“I don’t know how you cats catch mice, or how you kill them, but I’ll tell you the method we usually use.”

As he spoke, Mr. Carter took the mouse from under Logan Bennett’s paw.

“Let me tell you, in domestic labs, we basically use the cervical dislocation method. This is the method that causes the least pain for the mice. If you do it quickly, they don’t feel any pain at all. It also fits with what foreigners call animal welfare…”

Logan Bennett squatted nearby, watching quietly. He knew Mr. Carter had entered teaching mode again. Sometimes at home, after preparing his teaching PPT, Mr. Carter would rehearse it once, and the audience was always Logan Bennett. So, whenever Logan Bennett heard Mr. Carter say “let me tell you,” he knew teaching mode was on.

“Cervical dislocation, simply put, is dislocating the cervical vertebrae, severing the spinal cord from the brainstem. One hand uses a tool or directly pinches the mouse’s neck, the other grabs its tail, and then you pull hard in opposite directions. That’s it. This is one method. There’s another method we often use too. You can try it—watch…”

As Mr. Carter spoke, he grabbed the mouse’s tail with his left hand, and with the thumb and index finger of his right hand, pressed down on the mouse’s neck.

And that was that.

Logan Bennett looked at the motionless mouse on the table, then at Mr. Carter, who had a “I believe in you!” expression, and twitched his ears.

“See? The operation is actually very simple. Even if you’ve never caught a mouse before, it’s fine. Just practice a bit and you’ll get it. I’ve seen how fast you are when you beat up Buddy—catching a mouse will be no problem for you.”