Chapter 5
Saving the Bugape Tribe
Xu Zhi crawled out of bed early the next morning and looked out at the courtyard. There were miniature mountains and rivers in the sandbox, and the earth was covered in lush greenery.
If other people came to the yard, they would not be able to see this magical miniature earth in the orchard at the rear of the house. The Insecta Nest’s psychic force allowed it to manipulate things, so it could also interfere with the human mind. It could form a psychic energy shield, interfere with other organisms, plants, and bacteria, and forbid them from entering the sandbox. This would result in absolute isolation of the plots on land on both sides.
A few days passed. Xu Zhi seemed to become less dispirited.
The hair that had fallen out due to the chemotherapy was actually growing back, albeit gradually. His ashen skin was also regaining a healthy color.
When he looked in the mirror, a handsome and upstanding youth looked back at him. He had finely chiseled facial features, and his muscles had also become well-defined.
“After more than two weeks without chemotherapy, I’m finally beginning to recover from the side effects. My body has also returned to its original shape, and my physique and face look even better than before… This must be the energy feedback that my body is gradually receiving from the large number of deaths of the Insecta race.”
In front of the mirror, he sensed everything silently.
He herded insects in the sandbox and after death, their life energy and soul force would be given to Xu Zhi. It was like regurgitation. The more superior the life form, the stronger the soul, and hence the more powerful the effect would be.
His current state was due to the first mass extinction during the “Dark Cambrian Period” and the second extinction during the “Light Cambrian Period” a few days ago.
Although the two mass extinctions involved only the lowliest primitive creatures, the number of deaths was so overwhelming that it could have a considerable effect. Xu Zhi had only finished absorbing all their energy last night.
“The most important thing is that my hair is growing back!”
“Now, the problem with the chemotherapy side-effects is resolved, and my health is no longer in such a terrible condition. But no matter how healthy my body is, there’s still no way it can kill the cancer cells. It may even be that the healthier my body gets, the stronger the cancer cells become…”
Despite this, he was in a very good mood.
He left the sandbox and rode his bicycle to the far side of town for another breakfast.
He took a rare stroll around the village to show off his new head of thick, black hair. He was also interested to see who would still dare to look at him with such sad expressions.
Paddy fields lined on both sides of the dirt road, and on the road there were occasional piles of cow dung. The countryside atmosphere was full of nostalgia.
Xu Zhi was suddenly stopped by a short and chubby middle-aged lady with tanned skin. She was standing next to him with a basket of vegetables as she said, “Yo, aren’t you Xiao Zhi? That lass, Chen Xi, said you were back, and I didn’t believe her… That is, I heard you are sick. Is it cancer?”
“Yes.” Xu Zhi nodded.
“Aye, that won’t do.” The woman was quite worked up as she hurriedly said, “If you’ve contracted a terminal illness, and the Xu family has no other offspring, then what are we going to do? Actually, my daughter is quite a nice lady, look at this…”
????
After learning that I am terminally ill, you introduced your daughter to me as a suitable match straightaway.!
Haha!
You must have known that I’ve earned quite a sum of money in the city and also know that my late parents have left me a large orchard. You are thinking of inheriting my assets after I die, right?
Just because my hair is growing back doesn’t mean that I’ve gotten weak.
Xu Zhi was just about to refuse.
“Hey, just ignore her!”
Next to him, the little round-faced girl, Chen Xi, had hastily and recklessly rushed out with several other middle-aged women.
“I heard from my mother that you, Madame Piggy, are pestering Xu Zhi, so I knew that you must be trying to marry off your daughter! Your daughter is ugly as hell, has such a bad temper, and even beat up her husband. Her husband had run away from her because of that, yet you want Brother Xu Zhi to take over?”
“It’s you again, you hateful girl. See if I don’t teach you a lesson…” The short and chubby woman, called Madame Piggy, was very angry. But the few other middle-aged women around her were even more menacing. She was shocked and lost her nerve. Then she turned her head and left.
Xu Zhi was momentarily dumbfounded.
“Xu Zhi, I’m telling you, this Madame Piggy of our village is not a good person. Well, every village is bound to have a handful of unruly, shrewish harridans and villains… Wow!”
Chen Xi cast a casual glance at Xu Zhi and instantly froze in a moment of shock. “How did you become like this!? You weren’t like this two days ago. You were balding…”
The lady next to her was Chen Xi’s mother. She glared at Chen Xi, then putting on a smile said, “Girl! Xiao Zhi has always looked like this, hasn’t he? Now that you’re back after all these years, you’ve changed a little, and you look a lot more handsome! Come! Let’s go to your Aunt Li’s house for a while.”
“Yes, let’s go to your Aunt Li’s house!”
The few basket-carrying women who were standing beside them also chimed in cheerfully.
“It’s not that, Mother! He wasn’t like this the other day. He was bald, losing hair from the top of his head, and with a hunched back!” Chen Xi was left behind by the crowd, her mouth agape.
“My daughter, how could you curse your Brother Xu Zhi like that! And you’re even calling him a baldy!” Aunt Li was very angry.
Xu Zhi raised his eyebrows and immediately felt more lighthearted.
He felt like he had found his place back in the game. After all, a man’s hair symbolized his male dignity, did it not?
He could not refuse the warm invitation of his enthusiastic neighbors, so he went with them to the siheyuan nearby and sat with them for a while. The topics these warmhearted middle-aged women talked about revolved around minor family affairs. They were heartbroken to learn that Xu Zhi had cancer, but that did not stop them from nagging him garrulously.
Most of the countryside folks were simple and down-to-earth.
After he started working, he had rarely come back to the village. But now, he was remembering a lot of childhood memories all at once. And he found this feeling somewhat warm and cozy. Sitting down with these aunts, who had watched him grow up, and listening to them nag at him because they were worried about him, he felt relaxed and at ease.
Before he left, the aunts brought out their homegrown vegetables and some foodstuff from home and shoved everything into his hands. They even said, “You should stay here and recuperate. Don’t overwork yourself. Who knows, you may even recover from what ails you!”
“Yeah.” Xu Zhi responded with a warm smile.
“Definitely a body double! Secretly did some touching up. If it’s just his hair growing back, then I’ll just let it be. But now, even his face and temperament have changed quite a bit… Something is definitely wrong!” Chen Xi threw herself onto the wooden chair while mumbling to herself.
Xu Zhi pretended he could not hear her and put on a calm and steady front.
His neighbors’ enthusiasm affected him considerably, and it was surprisingly pleasant to feel warmth in his heart.
After chatting with the neighbors for a while and getting reacquainted with them, he told them that he was going to stay in his old countryside home to recuperate and would meet them more often in the future. Then he rode his bicycle back home.
…
The moment he entered the house, he rushed straight to the sandbox to observe how well the civilization had evolved with the batch of apes.
Now, the speed of evolution was much slower. Doubling up was the equivalent of a year, and he had adjusted the rate to a hundred times; one day was still equivalent to a hundred years.
“Most of the day has passed. The time that has elapsed should be the equivalent of eighty-odd years or so in the sandbox world.”
Xu Zhi thought about it. Then he picked up his binoculars and stood on the chair by the doorway to observe the bugapes in the sandbox from a distance.
He did not want to enter the sandbox unnecessarily because every time he did, it was a great disruption to the ecosystem.
After all, for animals that were generally the size of ants, that 100-Mu sandbox was already the size of a small province on Earth.
“This is…” Xu Zhi unexpectedly discovered that in just one night, the bugapes had already developed a rudimentary tribal structure and had started living in groups. They had even created a primitive language and culture and were wearing animal skins.
According to the evolutionary theory, a species that showed resistance towards reproduction of its kind would be eliminated by natural selection…
But intelligence was unpredictable. Intelligence would give rise to many gray areas that did not conform to the evolutionary theory. Just like humans.
“Having a sense of shame would mean that they have intelligence. I’ve succeeded.”
His relief doubled as he smiled. “Before, the bugapes could only scream ‘balding, balding’. But now, they have finally developed a rudimentary civilization of their own and are no longer so annoying. That’s not bad at all.”
But they were on the verge of extinction.
They were just too weak.
Even though Xu Zhi had already chosen the best primordial template for them, it took two days of experimentation for him to cultivate and evolve them into bugapes. During those two days, life in the sandbox world was still evolving at a speed of a hundred times acceleration. The passing of two days meant that twenty thousand years had passed in the sandbox. By the time they returned… they were already out of touch with the great era.
Their ancient genes from twenty thousand years ago were simply not enough to fight off attacks from giant beasts such as the Tyrannosaurus Rex and the likes of them. All of these were lifeforms from the era of twenty thousand years later.
“If this goes on, extinction is definitely not an option.”
Xu Zhi thought of this and with a slight change in expression, he returned to the house. Logging into his laptop, he turned on the wireless network and went on Taobao to purchase some things that he needed. “Looks like I have to find a way to create some sparks of civilization for them!”
After placing his order, he shut down his laptop.
The next morning, Xu Zhi returned from his morning run. He was slightly sweaty.
He looked at the table. The two parcels containing his online purchases had arrived this morning. After all, delivery via expedited air freight should take just over a day to arrive.
In one of the parcels was a miniature potted plant: Welcoming-Guests Pine.
The other parcel was a custom-made item he had ordered from a Taobao shop. It was a sword made from metal alloy and decorated with fine patterns. Just a little thicker than the tip of a needle, it looked exquisite and luxurious.
At this moment, the bugapes had survived for a day and a half, which for them, was a hundred and fifty years. Now they were becoming increasingly few in number and were on their last legs. They were almost on the verge of extinction.
“Surviving a hundred and fifty years without extinction, they do show some potential. It’s time to take a look.”
Xu Zhi stood up and headed to the courtyard. “Adjust the flow rate of their cellular division back to normal, one to one.”
…
The southern part of Mesopotamia was a huge valley where humans lived. In the valley were large forests of fruits and edible plants.
In front of the valley was the Tigris River that was always teeming with countless shoals of plump fishes. The abundance of produce in this place had allowed the bugapes living here to just about survive until now, but they were reaching their final moments.
Collapsed walls and corpses were everywhere.
The huts were destroyed and the corpses of the bugapes were strewn all over the ground.
“Run! This place is no longer safe either. Alla is coming!”
Several black-haired, heavily armored black gorillas with armor covering all their joints, looking like they were walking on their own two legs, were growling in an immature guttural language for the women and children behind them to retreat. They were wielding giant horn clubs of unknown beasts and rushed towards several dark, gaunt, and deplorable beasts that resembled Velociraptors.
“We must survive!”
The fleeing women and children, with desperate expressions on their faces, seemed to have become accustomed to fleeing. A few male bugapes rushed to put up a fight but soon copious amounts of blood were flowing in endlessly while the bugapes were chewed and became food for the enemy.
Fear was spreading.
Xu Zhi saw this scene and sighed. He found the heartache somewhat unbearable. The primitive tribe had suffered too many casualties.
The Insect Nest AI beside him said, “The Insectas make an extremely reproductive species. They are evolutionary spores that are mass-produced without particular significance and will simply lead ephemeral lives as though they are floating unless they can transcend.”
“Transcend? How can one transcend?” Xu Zhi asked.
The Insecta AI explained, “That is, to break away from the role of cannon fodder and enter the realm of Insecta heroes by awakening and breaking with passive evolution. You must be able to control your own genetic locks and adjust your genes so that they can evolve the way you want them to… Among the billions of Insectas that are born on the planets where spores were release, there will always be a few that can transcend to become leaders and open then own genetic locks. They will become Insecta heroes and enter the upper echelons.”
Xu Zhi could understand what was said.
After all, a huge race couldn’t be managed by the hatchery alone. There were all kinds of powerful higher-ups—like the Insecta Heroes.
And the Insecta’s passive evolution meant that they were at the mercy of natural selection; it was survival of the fittest. For example, during the Dark Cambrian Period, there was the Blue Moongrass, a plant that absorbed moonlight. Hundreds of millions of plants died before a plant that could photosynthesize under the moonlight evolved.
This was passive evolution that was built on a huge number of deaths. The sacrifice was simply too great.
The Insecta heroes, on the other hand, were powerful individual lifeforms that could control their genetic strands, achieve active evolution, and regulate their gene sequences. It was a world of difference.
“Do you think I will see a hero capable of breaking its genetic locks emerging from the bugapes I created?” Xu Zhi laughed. “A heroic figure appearing within a race?”
“If they have enough potential, then it’s possible.”
The Insect Nest thought for a moment, then added, “The species of this land have very unique genes with very distinctive characteristics. For example, after absorbing the genes of the gorilla, this bugape right before your eyes is somewhat strange, yet it also carries great potential. So, nothing’s impossible.”
“If it’s the bugape, then it’s possible? That makes me quite happy.” Xu Zhi was taking big strides forward as he chatted.
Boom, boom, boom!
The ground was shaking.
In the ancient woods that emanated an aura of wildness, countless beasts were flying away in fear. Great hordes of various species were fleeing out of the woods.
Mountains were flattened and rivers stopped flowing. Some powerful species did not even have time to react before they were trampled to death by a foot descending from the sky. They became chunks of flesh.
“Being accidentally trampled to death by me simply means you are unlucky. It’s just the survival of the fittest.”
One step.
A large forest collapsed.
Hiss, hiss, hiss!! In the woods, the terrifying beasts known as Alla that were feeding on the corpses of the recently killed bugapes were also trampled to death before they could even make a sound.
Xu Zhi took big strides forward to catch up with the fleeing bugapes ahead of him.
“Oh my god! What was that…”
“How could there be a creature that large!”
“He is ten thousand times larger than the biggest hundred-meter-tall beast, Finba! With just one foot, it crushed the terrifying Alla!”
“There’s simply no way we can see the top. It’s a gigantic beast that is at least over one kilometer tall!”
The bugapes turned their heads to take a look at the massive creature towering over them. Its face was obscured by the clouds, and it was like an unchanging giant that was piercing through the clouds in the sky. They screamed, then instantly fell softly to the ground.
Thanks to the hatchery, Xu Zhi understood the meaning of their crude language. So, he was not the least bothered.
How did they feel when they were looking at him?
The ants were far from being even a single centimeter away from his shoe. The feeling of shock and awe that they felt upon tilting their heads to look up at a colossal 10,000-feet tall giant whose head easily reached the clouds was unimaginable.
To them, he was simply a god.