Chapter 19

The Leisurely Everyday Life in the Yard

“I finally have some modern appliances!”

Xu Zhi sat in the courtyard of his orchard; the washing machine next to him noisily came to a halt. He took the clothes out without a word and hung them on the clothesline to dry. Then he went back to his chair by the door, took an apple, and started peeling the skin with a knife.

“Nest mind, you were saying that a player has already started to enter the sandbox?” Xu Zhi looked at the small pond in front of him. The water was clear.

Well, it was not as if Xu Zhi could see the player who had entered anyway. After all, at this point, the player would still be in the form of a spore, that was, a single-celled organism.

In this sandbox, countless spores would begin evolving at the same time. And the players who had entered would each become one of these spores, competing with other naturally evolving species of spores. It was survival of the fittest.

“Then what if a player quits in the middle of the game?” Xu Zhi asked.

The Insecta Nest mind explained, “The spore will go on evolving on its own, just without the influence of the player’s conscious mind. By the time the player returns to the game, it is possible that he may not even recognize himself anymore because the spores are evolving every second.”

Xu Zhi did not find this a problem at all.

This was supposed to be a casual sandbox game.

It was not surprising if a sudden situation cropped up in real life meaning that the player would have to log out and quit in the middle of the game.

After all, upon losing one round, the player could always start a new one. Being able to control the kind of species one could evolve into would make the game fun, would it not?

In truth, one round would last two or three days, and this was for the highly skilled players.

The average player would probably face extinction a few hours into the game. After all, without a relatively hardcore theory of biological evolutionary knowledge, it was unlikely that the players would be able to evolve into any normal species at all. They would most probably be eliminated by the other nature’s evolved species.

“When they reproduce and evolve into species with unique potential, I will steal the fruits of their labor.”

Xu Zhi smiled smugly, like a boastful, unscrupulous merchant behind the scenes and then added, “I think the bugapes that I’ve created will be more powerful than most of the other species. The species the players evolve probably won’t be any stronger than mine.”

The Insecta Nest mind said, “Organisms created with man-made genetic materials do not have as high a potential as species that evolved naturally.”

Meaning to say, the species they evolve might be more powerful than mine?

Xu Zhi was befuddled, then he sighed and said, “Let’s just wait and see. Hopefully, these players will be able to create some new species that can complete with the bugape race that I have created when their new species are thrown into the large sandbox.”

Come on, new species!

Xu Zhi was filled with anticipation.

After studying the player for a while, he found that the player had not made any ambitious moves and was still fumbling around exploring the place. Xu Zhi felt somewhat disappointed and could only divert his attention to watch the developments in the large sandbox.

In fact, after the third mass extinction that resulted from the Great Flood, the world was still in a state of ruin. It would likely take another two or three hundred years for everything to settle down. Nothing much had changed.

After the fall of the Sumerian civilization, Utnapishtim became a benevolent leader who took the fate of his fallen nation upon himself and led the people to repopulate the lands destroyed by the Great Flood.

He rebuilt the tribe on the former site of Mesopotamia.

A day passed; it was more than a hundred years later in the main sandbox. Utnapishtim was succeeded by his grandson, Ishbi-Erra. The new leader began to assume the kind of ambition and talent that a leader should have and named his tribe the tribe of Babylon.

Babylon.

The name of this tribe came to hold an extremely profound significance for later generations.

The era of the Sumerians was a thing of the past. That was an ancient civilization led by the epic hero, Gilgamesh, and it had been brilliant yet short-lived. And the future would belong to the eternal glory of the sorcerer kingdom of ancient Babylon.

…

In his room, Chen Wenshan had come to discover how terrifyingly difficult this game was.

He had died countless times, reproduced from generation to generation, and finally evolved eyes. Then he evolved a mouth and began feeding on plankton. But soon after, he was extinct again.

The eyes he had evolved were too weak and small, so he often could not see his enemies. As a result, he would be killed by surprise attacks when he was hunting for food.

“D*mn it. This is too hardcore!”

He opened his mouth wide and silently put down his VR headset. He could not resist the urge and had tried countless times but always ended up dying halfway through evolution.

But the realistic human-like sensations, the fully virtual graphics of black technology, as well as the infinite possibilities of biological evolution, compelled him to keep playing. It was interesting, just too interesting.

“Extinct again! Eyes, it must be that my eyes are too small! I am not going to believe that I cannot evolve a pair of big, beautiful eyes!”

He was furious, and in his heart he was seething with rage.

For this reason, he even went as far as going to the school library to look up information on biology. Fortunately, he was quite proficient in English. He flipped open an extremely complex foreign book on evolutionary theory and started reading.

The people in his dormitory all found it strange.

Chen Wenshan was a gaming geek who had installed a seventeen-thousand-yuan high-end computer in his dormitory which he used to play games constantly. Why was he suddenly so keen on studying, and such a high-level subject of biogenetics at that?

Half a day later, after studying basic evolutionary theory, and after another few rounds of failed attempts, Chen Wenshan finally managed to evolve a species that was barely surviving.

He grew countless disgusting, slimy tentacles in order to better grab his food. And he evolved an extremely big eye just to satisfy his own desires.

His appearance was that of a single, gigantic eye surrounded by countless slimy tentacles, with a small mouth full of sharp fangs underneath.

“Hahaha, I finally made it. Such a big eye, hahaha!”

Chen Wenshan was filled with a sense of accomplishment as he manipulated his strange tentacled creature and directed it to climb ashore. He was instantly filled with shock. “This is… What beautiful mountains and rivers. What a vast, realistic earth. I’ve finally become an amphibian… D*mn it, over 70 GB, this image really makes everything worthwhile. I am going to control and guide my race to explore and conquer the world! This world, it belongs to me!!”

On the other side of the yard.

Seated in a rocking chair at the entrance of his yard, Xu Zhi was munching on an apple while enjoying the warmth of the sun. He was instantly bewildered when he saw an odd creature climbing ashore in the distance.

“What kind of weird species is this? Are you kidding me? A naturally evolved species would take such a strange form. The eye is horribly big and takes up two-third of the body. Just how obsessed and resentful you are towards evolving eyes! Are you that eager to see the world?”

According to evolutionary theory, if a species chose to use up a large number of nutrients all over its body to evolve a useless eyeball that made up two-thirds of its entire body, it would definitely be eliminated by nature…

This species doesn’t fit evolutionary theory! It must be made obsolete!

“I thought just as much; this wouldn’t be reliable.”

Xu Zhi could not help but laugh aloud. He took another bite of the apple and said, “A big eyeball with slimy tentacles all around it, that’s truly a bizarre species. It is ugly as hell! It’s just a defective product that resulted from casual fun… Wait a minute, this appearance, doesn’t it look like the evil eye of a mythical monster?”

He was having fun for a moment.

“Hey!”

At that moment, there was a thumping sound from the door. It was that girl, Chen Xi. “Open the door. I’m here to bring you food.”

“Open the door right now.”

He was so happily engrossed in watching others evolve species that it took a while for him to return to reality. Standing up, he quickly headed to the gate and was just in time to step on the evil-eyed monster and kill it on his way out.

Piak!

Reduced to a pile of pulp.

“Hesitation will lead to defeat.”

Right before Chen Wenshan’s eyes, the Game Over screen appeared once again, “You have been removed from the game. Please start again.”

???

He was instantly confused!

I was evolving well, finally becoming a decent species, breaking away from the kind of species that originated from the ocean. I had just climbed ashore and was about to begin my conquest of the world. And now, all of a sudden, it’s over?

I was actually stomped to death by a foot?

Hey!! D*mned game developer. Get the hell out of here!

“Yo, you’re here again.” At this moment, Xu Zhi opened the door and found that Chen Xi had brought him some delicious food once again.