Chapter 32

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After the green-headed fly mutated, its body was as big as an unshelled peanut. Aside from its size, the greatest mutation was its proboscis, which was attached to its mouth. It had now turned as sharp and thick as a needle.

Shen Cong threw some Activity-filled meat inside, and the green-headed fly pounced on it. Its proboscis moved back and forth on the Activity-filled meat like a piledriver. At the same time, the green-headed fly’s stomach started swelling up before a black pile of fly poop was excreted in the bottle.

In just three minutes, the green-headed fly managed to finish eating the small piece of Activity-laced meat and pooped more than ten times.

The fly did not become larger, but it became even more gungho about getting out and crashed against the bottle’s glass walls.

It was a huge regret for Shen Cong that he missed the process of the green-headed fly reviving and mutating, but at the same time, he was filled with puzzlement. It was clear that the green-headed fly was poisoned to death by the peach, so why did it resurrect from the dead?

Could it be that the poisonous peach was actually not poisonous, or did the fly manage to live through the poison because its digestive system was too good? Or did Activity stimulate its mutation and saved it during a critical moment?

Shen Cong had a question that needed answers, and the way to get them was very easy—he just had to repeat the experiment.

Soon, another green-headed fly was stuffed into a new glass bottle. At the same time, a small piece of Activity-fused poisoned peach was placed inside. More than twenty seconds later, the green-headed fly fell dead with a plop. Its legs twitched a few times before it stopped moving completely.

This time, Shen Cong did not place the glass bottle to the side and completely forgot about it. Instead, he put it where he could see it at all times.

In the meantime, he continued observing the mutated green-headed fly.

It was an artificially mutated fly, and he named it Mutated Green-headed Fly 1. He temporarily left it in the glass bottle and continuously fed it Activity-fueled pork. The earth-digging insect was a creature he assumed to be the mutated form of a cockroach, and it had managed to grow to a monster that was more than 1 m long. Shen Cong wanted to know just what sort of potential Mutated Green-headed Fly 1 had.

*****

To be able to observe whether the green-headed fly could resurrect from the dead and mutate, Shen Cong did not do anything else that night but just focused on repair work.

Many of the electrical appliances that were submerged in water needed some of their components replaced, but Shen Cong did not have a lot of those.

So he chose to guide Titan into giving them Activity in order to repair them.

A lot of knowledge relevant to this field of work was involved. Hence, while he repaired the electrical appliances, he searched through and read the information in his USB drive. The workload was so huge that Shen Cong was forced to repeatedly push the date for Titan’s complete recovery back.

While repairing the electrical appliances, Shen Cong was able to witness the entire process of the green-headed fly’s mutation.

It had looked dead, but its body slowly grew bigger, and Shen Cong could sense Activity radiation stimulating its tissues and organs. Some of the radiation was incredibly active. It produced a magnetic field, and the frequency continuously fluctuated. As time passed, the speed at which the green-headed fly’s body grew slowed down, and the Activity radiation slowly and clearly fixed on one single frequency.

The fly’s proboscis gradually became prominent, even though it was initially so small that Shen Cong could not see it. Now, it grew into an Activity core that was the size of a large needle.

All of the fluctuating Activity from before came from this Activity core, and the frequency of the fluctuations had been especially affected by it. After the Activity core was formed, the fluctuations were fixed.

The proboscis—the Activity core—became the source of all the Activity radiation released by the green-headed fly.

The entire process of the green-headed fly’s mutation lasted from evening until 10:30 P.M., which was three hours and thirty minutes. At this moment, the green-headed fly’s legs twitched a little before the fly woke up. It flapped its wings and stood up on shaky legs. When it saw the poisoned peach, it immediately began eating with gusto.

In just a short minute, the small piece of fruit was devoured, and the fly started flying around energetically. It rammed its body against the glass bottle, just like Mutated Green-headed Fly 1.

‘Mutated Green-headed Fly 2 has successfully completed its mutation, and the process has been recorded in video form. Mutation can be brought about in living creatures continuously. Aside from the mutations brought by that strange meteor shower, more animals and plants who have not mutated will gradually complete their mutation process.’ Shen Cong saved the video and named it Process of Induced Mutation in Mutated Green-headed Fly 2.

He added the hyperlink of the video to the word document containing his report and saved it.

Then, Shen Cong suddenly had a spark of inspiration. He placed Mutated Green-headed Fly 1 and Mutated Green-headed 2 into one glass bottle and added a small piece of Activity-laced pork inside.

He wanted to test whether the two flies would start fighting because of food.

He directed the laptop’s camera on the glass bottle before he began another experiment—the second test of the properties of the poisonous peach.

This time, he cut the poisoned peach into two halves, and he tossed the smaller half to the fugly cat bound by metal chains.

Chomp, chomp.

The fugly cat gobbled down the poisoned peach in just three bites. Then, right before Shen Cong’s eyes, it fell on its face in twenty-five seconds.

Shen Cong checked the fugly cat’s breathing. It was still breathing, but slowly, which made it appear to be unconscious or asleep.

It did not not show signs of death, and its temperature did not drop.

When Shen Cong thought about how the green-headed fly had “resurrected from the dead”, he knew that the conclusion he came up with from the experiment earlier was clearly wrong.

‘Could it be that the peach is actually not poisonous?’ Shen Cong thought without making a sound. ‘If it’s not poisonous, where did those carcasses come from? If it’s not poisonous, the mutated animals could just sleep for a while after eating one and then wake up to finish all the fruits on the tree…

1‘Could it be that the mutated creatures started killing each other for them? But then why didn’t the victor eat all the peaches?’

Perhaps he could come up with a conclusion that was closer to the truth when the results of the second experiment appeared.

1*****

While Shen Cong guided Titan to absorb Activity, he kept an eye on the fugly cat until it was 1:30 A.M.. The fugly cat then woke up slowly. The wounds from when it fell down previously and the wounds inflicted by Shen Cong when he got rid of the bone spikes had scabbed over while it was unconscious. Now, its fur shone brighter than before.

1The roots of the bone spikes started growing at a slow but steady pace right before Shen Cong’s eyes. Soon, the bones were about 15 cm long.

When the fugly cat woke up, it immediately started struggling, and the chains made clanging sounds as the fugly cat flung itself all over the place.

‘The poisonous peach isn’t poisonous…’ Shen Cong was filled with joy. Since the peach wasn’t poisonous, it meant that he could also eat the Activity-fueled peach.

4But he needed to conduct more experiments to prevent any accidents from happening.

It was already late at night.

Shen Cong did not dare keep the fugly cat in the compartment, so he brought it out and tied it outside.

It was only then that his heart felt at ease and he could sleep peacefully.

But perhaps it was because there were too many mysteries surrounding the events that happened during the day that Shen Cong did not manage to sleep deeply that night. Many scenes flashed in his head as his mind remained in a state where he was awake but asleep at the same time.

He thought of his life before the apocalypse and after the apocalypse.

But most of all, he thought of the mysteries he encountered during the day. The appearance of the carcasses under the peach tree occupied most of his thoughts.

“Ah…”

When he woke up in the morning, his head throbbed slightly. He had been thinking of too many things during the night, and he did not manage to sleep well.

Shen Cong rubbed his head. He tried to recall just what he had been dreaming of, but he found his mind coming up with a blank image. A pity for him, because he had a feeling that he had been thinking a lot.

After pondering over it for a long time, he finally remembered something.

This “something” made Shen Cong realize that he needed to verify it! If he managed to prove it true, the reason why the carcasses under the peach tree appeared would be laid out before his eyes.