Chapter 5: Rescuing the Insect Ape Tribe

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Update Time: 2019052616:24:30

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Early morning the next day, Xu Zhi got up and looked out at the lush green courtyard.

He rather liked this pastoral life, farming and herding, relaxed and comfortable. Raising some plants and cute small animals in the yard was cozy and pleasant. However, what he herded in his yard was a bit unusual. Even if others came into the courtyard, as long as Xu Zhi didn't want them to see it, they wouldn't see this magical miniature land. The Insectoid Hive was skilled in mental manipulation, naturally capable of interfering with human minds.

A few days passed, and he seemed less listless. The hair that had fallen out due to chemotherapy actually started growing back, and his deathly pale skin became healthy. In the mirror, the young man was handsome and tall, with sharp facial features and well-defined muscles. Although still pale, with no color in his face, he looked more like a vampire.

"Chemotherapy stopped for over half a month, and the side effects have finally recovered. My body has returned to its original state; my physique and face are even more perfect... This is the feedback my body is receiving from the mass deaths of insectoids." In front of the mirror, he silently sensed everything. Herding insectoids in the sandbox meant that upon their death, their life and soul energy could feed back to Xu Zhi. The higher the life form, the stronger the soul, and the more powerful the effect.

His current state was due to the first mass extinction of species in the "Dark Martial Era" and the second mass extinction in the "Light Martial Era" a few days ago. Although these two mass extinctions involved the lowest-level primitive organisms, the sheer number of deaths had a significant effect, which he fully absorbed only last night.

"Most importantly, my hair grew back!"

"Now the chemotherapy side effects are resolved, and my terrible body has improved. But no matter how healthy my body becomes, it can't kill the cancer cells. The stronger your body, the stronger the cancer cells become..." His mood, however, improved greatly.

Leaving the sandbox in the courtyard, he rode his bicycle to the distant town for breakfast. He rarely spent time in the village but decided to take a stroll, intending to show off his newly grown thick, dark hair and see if anyone would still look at his head with a sad expression.

Dirt roads flanked by fields, with occasional cow dung on the path, evoking a nostalgic rural scent. Xu Zhi was suddenly stopped by a dark, plump auntie with a vegetable basket: "Oh, isn't this Little Zhi? Chen Xi said you were back, I didn't believe it at first... So, I heard you're sick, cancer?"

"Yes," Xu Zhi nodded.

"Oh, that won't do," the auntie quickly said excitedly. "You have a terminal illness, and our Old Xu family won't have any descendants. What should we do? My daughter is actually quite good, look at this..."

*Knowing I have a terminal illness, she immediately introduces her daughter as a potential partner, just so my family doesn't die out? So kind?*

*Heh heh.*

*More likely she knows I made money in the city and wants to inherit my estate after I die?*

*My hair grew back, but that doesn't mean I'm weaker.*

Xu Zhi was just about to refuse.

"Hey, ignore her!"

A round-faced girl named Chen Xi, along with several other aunties, rushed out spiritedly. "I heard my mom say that 'Piggy Auntie' was clinging to Xu Zhi, and I knew 'Piggy Auntie' wanted to marry off her daughter! Your daughter is terribly ugly, has a bad temper, beats her husband, and her husband ran away! And you still want Brother Xu Zhi to take her on?"

"You rotten girl again! See if I don't teach you a lesson..." The plump auntie, called 'Piggy Auntie', was furious, but seeing the more aggressive aunties around her, she was startled and turned to leave.

Xu Zhi was stunned for a moment, saying nothing.

"Xu Zhi, let me tell you, in our village, 'Piggy Auntie' is the only bad person... Wow!"

Chen Xi casually glanced at Xu Zhi and then screamed, "How did you become like this!? You Photoshopped yourself! You weren't like this two days ago, bald, especially bald... This sudden burst of attractiveness is too shocking!"

Auntie Li, Chen Xi's mother, whom Xu Zhi remembered, glared at Chen Xi. She then warmly pulled the tall, handsome Xu Zhi and said with a smile, "Girl! Hasn't Little Zhi always looked like this? He's changed a bit after returning these years, much more handsome! Come on! Let's go to your Auntie Li's house and sit."

"Yes, come to your Auntie Li's house!"

Beside them, several enthusiastic aunties with baskets called out cheerfully, "We'll go too and sit."

"No, Mom! He wasn't like this two days ago, he was bald, had a receding hairline, and a bent back!" Chen Xi was left behind by the crowd, mouth agape, stamping her feet in anger.

"Daughter, how can you curse your Brother Xu Zhi like that! And call him bald!" Auntie Li was very angry.

Xu Zhi raised his eyebrows, feeling immensely pleased. He felt like he had regained his dignity; wasn't hair a man's dignity?

He couldn't refuse the warmth of his neighbors and sat down in a nearby courtyard house. The enthusiastic aunties gossiped, expressing deep sorrow and motherly concern upon learning of Xu Zhi's terminal illness. Most rural neighbors were simple and honest. He had rarely returned since he started working, and now he suddenly remembered many childhood memories from here, feeling a sense of warmth. Chatting with these aunties who had watched him grow up felt peaceful and comfortable.

Before he left, the aunties stuffed home-grown vegetables and other food into his hands, saying, "You just stay here and rest assured, take care of your illness. Don't worry too much, and maybe you'll get better!"

"Yes," Xu Zhi responded with a gentle smile.

"It's definitely a body double! He secretly edited his photos. Even if his hair grew back, it's exaggerated. He used to be somewhat handsome, but now, after just a few days, he looks like someone out of a comic book. His looks and aura are just too over the top! There's definitely something wrong!" Chen Xi was lying on a wooden chair, still muttering nonsense.

Xu Zhi pretended not to hear, maintaining a calm and composed demeanor. He was genuinely touched by the warmth of his neighbors, feeling a pleasant warmth in his heart. After chatting with the neighbors for a while and reacquainting himself, he stated that he would be recuperating at his old rural home and would see them often in the future. Then he rode his bicycle back to his courtyard.

As soon as he entered the house, he rushed straight to the sandbox to observe how the ape-insects' civilization was evolving. The evolution speed was now much slower, adjusted to a hundred times, but still, one day was equivalent to a hundred years.

"More than half a day has passed, which means about eighty years have passed in their sandbox world," Xu Zhi thought. He picked up his binoculars, stood on a chair by the door, and observed the ape-insects in the distant sandbox. He didn't want to enter casually because each entry caused immense destruction to the ecosystem. After all, for creatures generally the size of ants, that hundred-square-meter sandbox was already as large as a province on Earth.

"This is..." Xu Zhi was surprised to find that in just one night, these ape-insects had already developed rudimentary tribal structures, lived in groups, and even created a simple language and culture, wearing animal skins.

A renowned foreign evolutionary expert once said:

Animals in nature boldly expose their reproductive organs to attract mates. However, when a species develops intelligence, the opposite occurs. Because the first psychological trait of intelligent life is shame, and shame makes them shyly cover their private parts in front of the opposite sex. It sounds comical. The first thing a species does upon gaining intelligence is to wear underwear out of shame? Concealing reproductive organs offers no survival advantage for the species. Instead, it inhibits the reproductive impulse between sexes, which is detrimental to the species' ability to procreate. According to evolutionary theory, such a species, by resisting group reproduction, should be naturally selected against... But intelligence is unpredictable. With intelligence, many concepts that contradict evolutionary theory arise, just like in humans.

"Having shame means they have intelligence. I succeeded."

He felt deeply gratified and smiled, "Back then, those ape-insects who only knew how to shout 'baldy,' 'baldy' have finally developed their own language and civilization. It's not as annoying anymore; quite good, in fact."

But they were on the verge of extinction. They were too weak. Even though Xu Zhi had selected the best primitive template for them, as experimental subjects, during the two days they were nurtured as ape-insects, the sandbox continent still evolved at ten thousand times the speed. Two days had already become twenty thousand years. By the time they returned... they would be completely out of touch with the new era. Their ancient genes from twenty thousand years ago were simply insufficient to withstand the attacks of giant beasts and tyrannosaurs from twenty thousand years later. If Xu Zhi hadn't found them the great canyon, with its abundant resources, they would have long been extinct. After all, wisdom requires time to accumulate. Wisdom is the manifestation of knowledge, and knowledge requires generations of accumulation. They simply had no time to develop.

"This won't do; extinction is definitely not an option."

Thinking this, Xu Zhi's expression shifted slightly. He returned to the house, opened his laptop, connected to Wi-Fi, and custom-ordered some items on Taobao. "It seems I need to find a way to create some sparks of civilization for them!"

After placing the order, he closed the computer.

"Express air freight, but in the countryside, it should take about a day and a half to arrive. If you can't survive for a day and a half, then it truly is survival of the fittest—a species I artificially created, not conforming to nature."

The next morning, Xu Zhi returned from his jog, slightly sweating. He looked at the two online shopping packages on the table; they had arrived that morning, just as quickly as expected. One package contained a miniature potted plant: a Guest-Greeting Pine. The other package contained a custom-made alloy sword from a Taobao seller, only slightly larger than a toothpick, crafted with intricate patterns, exquisite and luxurious.

At this moment, the ape-insect tribe had survived for a day and a half, or 150 years, but their numbers were dwindling, clinging to existence, almost on the verge of extinction.

"They survived 150 years without going extinct. They have some potential. It's time to go see them."

Xu Zhi stood up and walked towards the courtyard: "Adjust their cell division rate back to normal, one to one."

The southern part of Mesopotamia was a huge valley where humans lived. The valley contained large forests with fruits and edible plants. Ahead was the Tigris River, teeming with countless plump fish. The abundant resources allowed the ape-insects living there to barely survive, but now it was the final moment. Broken walls and ruins, bodies strewn everywhere. The thatched huts were destroyed, and the ground was covered with ape-insect corpses.

"Run! We can't hide here anymore, 'Ala' is coming!"

Several black-haired, robust ape-insects with armor-like joints, like bipedal, armored chimpanzees, roared in immature, guttural language, telling the women and children behind them to retreat. They themselves wielded giant horn clubs from unknown beasts and charged towards several dark, emaciated, stealthy giant beasts, like *Deinonychus*, at the front.

"We must survive!"

The women and children fled, faces despairing. They seemed accustomed to fleeing. Several male ape-insects charged to resist, and soon large amounts of blood flowed, and they were chewed up and turned into food. Fear spread.

Xu Zhi sighed at this scene, feeling a twinge of compassion.

The Hive Mind said beside him: "Insectoids are a species with extremely strong reproductive capabilities. They are meaningless, mass-produced evolutionary spores, short-lived like plankton, unless they can transcend."

"Transcend? How can they transcend?" Xu Zhi asked.

The Hive Mind explained: "It means breaking free from being cannon fodder and entering the realm of insectoid heroes, awakening, breaking passive evolution, being able to control their own gene locks, and adjusting their self-gene evolution... Among the billions of spores released and species bred on each planet, a few will always be able to transcend and become leaders, unlock their gene locks, become swarm heroes, and enter the higher echelons."

Xu Zhi understood. After all, a vast species couldn't be controlled only by the Broodmother; there were various powerful higher-ups—insectoid heroes. And insectoids evolved passively, through survival of the fittest. For example, during the Dark Martial Era, billions of 'blue moon grass' plants that absorbed moonlight had to die before one could evolve to perform photosynthesis with moonlight. This was passive evolution, involving too great a sacrifice, built upon a massive death toll. In contrast, those insectoid heroes were powerful individual life forms, capable of autonomously controlling their gene chains and achieving active evolution, regulating their own gene sequences. The difference was like heaven and earth.

"You mean, the ape-insects I created might give birth to heroes who break the genetic shackles?" Xu Zhi smiled. "Will there be racial heroes?"

"If the potential is sufficient, then yes," the Hive Mind thought for a moment and added, "The species genes on this land are very unique and distinctive. For instance, these ape-insects, after absorbing gorilla genes, are quite unusual and have great potential. It's not impossible."

"Ape-insects might? That makes me quite happy," Xu Zhi chatted as he strode forward.

Boom, boom, boom!

The ground trembled. In the ancient, wild forest, countless beasts were startled and flew into the air. Large numbers of species fled outwards. Mountains were flattened, rivers stopped. Some powerful species, without even reacting, were crushed by a foot descending from the sky, becoming a puddle of flesh.

"Being accidentally stepped on and killed by me is also bad luck, a matter of survival of the fittest."

One step.

A large section of the forest collapsed.

Hiss, hiss, hiss!! In the forest, those terrifying beasts called 'Ala,' which were feeding on the recently deceased ape-insect corpses, were also crushed to death by a single step, without even a whimper. Xu Zhi strode after the fleeing ape-insect survivors.

"Oh my god!! What is that...?"

"How can there be such a huge creature!!"

"He's ten thousand times larger than the biggest hundred-meter giant beast, Fenba! He crushed the terrifying 'Ala' with one step!"

"You can't even see his top; he's at least a super giant beast over a thousand meters long!"

The ape-insects turned their heads and saw the colossal creature, towering into the clouds, like an ancient giant piercing the sky and white clouds. They screamed and instantly collapsed onto the ground. Xu Zhi understood the meaning of their rudimentary language through the Hive Mind and didn't mind. What does a person look like to an ant? An ant can't even reach one centimeter high on a shoe. Looking up, the sense of shock at seeing such a colossal, sky-high, thousand-meter giant is unimaginable. To them, he was a god.