Global Evolution

by Steffen Schmidt

  “I’ll take your kind invitation into careful consideration,” Qing Shui said, interrupting Zhuo, and making the promise without a second thought.

  It was a clear denial from Qing Shui.

  His attitude stiffened Zhuo’s smile. “I see you do need some time to think about my proposal, since this should be a careful decision as you said. I might as well just come by three days from now.” Zhuo looked away as if he was disappointed. “I think I forgot to mention this, we will be harvesting the Crystal Pea in three days. As far as I know, everyone will be switching to the Crystal Pea since our food reserves are lacking. But Group Alpha is an exception from this arrangement. I am pretty sure you understand what I mean better than anyone else.”

  “You are threatening me,” Qing Shui said, not allowing any emotion to show on his face.

  “I’m just hoping that you will take my invitation seriously,” Zhuo said, slamming the door when he exited the office. “I’ll see you in three days. I am truly looking forward to hearing your final decision.”

  “How arrogant…” Chang vented his disappointment once Zhuo eft.

  “This is how the left-wing does things, no different from my expectations,” Qing Shui murmured. “We need to accelerate the execution of our plan under their threat.”

  “No problem, I was about to say that too. My plan today is to go out and find something edible. I am positive that even though the wild may be dangerous, my ability has improved enough by now. Hunting should actually be easier now that I have experience and my strength has increased,” Chang stated with confidence. “Zhengzhou is less dangerous compared to Kaifeng, I should be fine as long as I don’t go into the jungle.”

  “I like your enthusiasm, but you also need to keep in mind that Zhengzhou is more civilized and many people reside in here. It means that there is less plants around here, and of fewer variety. My goal for you is to find something reproducible. Otherwise hunting will occupy most of your time every day. I need you more often than you think, so we shouldn’t waste time getting food daily.”

  Chapter 81: Wisdom of ordinary people

  “I see,” Chang replied, showing his understanding. “I’ll be heading out then. It’s better to do it sooner rather than later.”

  “I agree.”

  Qing Shui sent them away with a wave of his hand, and Chang left his office with Jing.

  In the suite, Chang rinsed his crossbow with water to ensure the trigger mechanism could eject the bolts smoothly without having dry blood hindering it. Once cleaned, he checked the crossbow again and unfolded a piece of cloth. Two daggers were wrapped within it. He’d asked asked them from the military.

  Before leaving, Chang tenderly explained the situation to Jing, “So… Jing, you don’t need to go out with me this time. I’ll just wander around the city and get back before sunset. No… it is not because I don’t want to take you with me. Instead, taking you with me could raise eyebrows as you always stay with me. People like Zhuo are extremely sensitive and suspicious about anything unusual, and I don’t want them to know about your ability.”

  “But it is still quite dangerous even if we are in the city now. Your safety is not guaranteed,” Jing said, deeply concerned.

  “Don’t be worried, I promise that I will be back before sunset, allright?” Chang’s palm gently stroked her soft hair. “If they ever find out that you are an EM, it’ll become dangerous to continue staying in the institute. That’s why I said you should remain here while I am out. Hopefully this way they won’t suspect you.”

  Jing spoke nothing, although her mouth opened. In the end, she only nodded with lingering unwillingness; her eyes clearly betrayed her inward unease. “You promise to come back before sunset, right?”

  “Pinky promise?” Chang put out his little finger.

  “It’s a promise!” she declared. Her slim pinky finger tightly knotted with Chang’s and relief lightened her features.

  Chang patted her back before parting. He stood up with the crossbow strapped to his back, and both daggers secured in sheaths on his waist. He left the institute quietly, without catching too much attention.

  The outside was still bathed in the red fog. It was the first time in a while for Chang to leave the institute where the red fog was extracted through the ventilation system.

  The guards at the gate didn’t block him from going out as they were familiar with his face.

  He returned to the world where ordinary people lived.

  Everything he had used in the recent days belonged to the new upper class of the society, the researchers and ranked military officers. But in the city, there was nothing; this was a normal place where ordinary people struggled to survive.

  The taste of the air was also familiar to Chang.

  To be honest, although he was fortunate enough to live in the institute where safety and food were guaranteed, he didn’t feel like he fit in that well. He neither understood politics nor was he knowledgeable enough to be a researcher. And without those two skills, he was no different from an ordinary person. So even though the world out here was more intimidating and threatening, he felt more comfortable walking on the broken pathway than through the institute’s corridors.

  Humans were born as social animals, and this instinct was never dropped regardless of the circumstances. Although the red fog made conflicts more frequent, the majority of ordinary humans chose to band into small groups to elevate their chances of survival.

  These small groups aimlessly wandered through the streets, searching for something edible. Just as Chang was doing.

  He had made a solemn vow to Qing Shui that he would return with a reproducible plant, but in fact, he had no idea where to find it. Chang was merely a high school student. Even if he were to utilize everything he knew about plants, he doubted if he could ever tell if a plant was edible or not.

  Therefore, he did nothing in the morning but ambled around. He witnessed the chaos among the vulnerable crowds, and this was the only thing he learned about the outside world.

  Until he noticed a man – a man who carried a wired cage with him.

  This man looked like to be in his mid 50s, and was closely followed by his wife and two kids. The family roamed around the streets with iron bars and kitchen knives in hands. They were no different from the others who spent day and night to searching for food.

  Chang had noticed them from far away quite a while ago, but he didn’t pay attention to them as they were just as ordinary as the other small groups in Zhengzhou. However, the man’s actions intrigued Chang. He was feeding the bug in the cage intermittently. The cage was held in his right hand, while he used the left to collect small pieces of plants that he saw and give them to the little bug inside the cage. The man seemed in rapt attention, none of his family members saying anything against it.

  Chang tailed them for almost a kilometer as he dwelled on how he should approach them. He eliminated a few possibilities and then threw all his considerations away. Giving up on it, he simply went up to them instead.

  Slowly he made himself appear in their vision. The family became extremely alarmed as they saw him.

  “Who are you?” the man asked, raising his weapon at the same time as his children. It frightened them even more that his face was an unfamiliar one. The man shouted out loud, “I don’t care who you are but I would not recommend you to come forward. You know the rules, no one should enter another’s three meter zone. And if you’re thinking of robbing us for food, just forget it. We don’t have any, either.”

  “Don’t be nervous, I am not coming to do harm,” Chang said, raising his bare hands to prove his words. He completely understood their tension. It was obvious the tragic fights among groups would never stop as long as the world remained as undisciplined as it was now. Law reinforcement had lost its power since they were not privileged in having better vision than others. The best that the military could do was to prevent a serious riot, but they were poweless to refrain the public from scuffling here and ther
e. But at least the society was still functioning, even if with an agitated undercurrent.

  Chang straightened his arms and raised them up high to show the family that he had no intentions to do harm.

  “I don’t want to fight you all. I just came to ask a few questions.”

  “Alright, alright. Then stay where you are, don’t come any closer.” The family loosened their guard but still wished to keep distance.

  “Thanks, I was just curious about the bug that you hold in the cage. What is it?”

  “I am afraid you will be disappointed… I don’t know it either, man. It is just a ordinary evolved bug I guess.”

  “Then why do you keep feeding it?” Chang asked his second question from the family.

  “You have been following us?” They became fretful again.

  “No… I did not, I just happened to see it. How about this…” As Chang spoke, he removed one of the sheaths that were tied to his belt and pulled out a dagger. “I know your weapons are mostly homemade. They were kitchenware originally. So they are not very handy for defending, are they? My dagger was made from steel in the armory, and is as sharp as you can imagine. I believe it is more useful than those knives in your hands.” Chang waved the dagger to show its fineness. He then pointed at the man’s cage, “If you can tell me what it can do for you, I’ll return the favor by giving you this dagger. What do you think?”

  “Deal!” the man agreed to the exchange without a second thought. “I can even give you the cage with the bug, but you have to slide your dagger to me first.”

  Neither of them spent anymore time on bargaining.

  Chang could have just stolen the cage shamelessly but that would have crossed his bottom line. Plus, he was much more powerful than the whole family. There was no need for him to worry that they would take the dagger and run away.

  “Neat!” The dagger stopped beside the man’s right foot, and he became assured of its quality after grabbing it in hand. “We found the bugs by accident. They are omnivorous with preference to plants, and seem to have a keen sense of smell. Maybe because of it they can distinguish between edible plants and not. Thus, we caged one and used it to look for edible plants. Surprisingly, it is quite picky about food. If something smells bad or toxic, it won’t eat it; but whatever is edible to it, humans are safe to consume it too.

  “When I found out this unique characteristic of the bug, I thought it’d be helpful to us in this world. After all, the plants are all evolved and mutated, the edible ones might have become inedible, while the inedible might have turned edible. I think there is generally a sufficient amount of food in this world, it’s just that most of the humans don’t have the guts to test them out.”

  As the man explained, the small cage was rolled to Chang. It sent up small cloud of dust as it came toward him.

  “There you go. We have a lot of these bugs living in the water pipe, so we’ll just catch another one.”

  “Thank you!” Chang expressed his gratitude, and picked up the cage, scanning the bug.

  It was an ordinary looking bug as the man had said, its appearance similar to a longhorn beetle. Everything seemed normal except for those extra-long antennae which implied its extraordinary sense of smell.

  Both parties in this trade were happy about what they got, but they never put full trust in the other at the same time.

  A troop of soldiers patrolled past them. They were all well-armed, and the soldier at the very front made repeated announcement through a megaphone, “Attention, attention please! We are here to inform you that a new crop has been developed in the institute. We will start distributing its seeds to the general public in three days! This crop can solve the food crisis completely and we are kindly asking you to endure the remaining three days patiently.”

  Sheets of flyers were handed out by the leading soldier. He made sure that he didn’t miss out anyone he saw.

  The family and Chang received two pieces of coarse paper.

  Chang quickly glanced through the flyer and learned its content - it was promoting the Crystal Pea and praising its creator. The flyers obviously exaggerated the benefits of the Crystal Pea. It was even amplifying its effects, making the information seem more convincing and tempting to the hungry.

  “We can cultivate this crop? This is so exciting! We won’t be starving anymore,” the wife exclaimed with her face painted with ecstasy.

  “Oh, come on. Do you really believe that? It’s transgene! I won’t eat it, you won’t eat it, and our kids won’t eat it either. Who knows what this pea can do to us?” The man tore the paper immediately since Zhuo’s smile on the flyer seemed suspicious to him.

  “What are you talking about? It says edible and nutrient-rich!” The wife was clearly upset.

  “I won’t risk our kids’ lives to test out this pea! Perhaps the institute is treating us as lab rats!” the man shouted back.

  Chapter 82: Carefree Days in the Apocalypse

  “Anyways, as long as I am standing, as long as I am still capable of going out to search for food, we will not eat this pea, not even a bite!” the man bellowed. “We will not accept any of this! Not until I die!”

  The man picked up the dagger and its sheath in anger. “See you!” He threw the almost-rude farewell to Chang and left with his wife and kids.

  Chang pondered the man’s statement while staring at the cage.

  The man couldn’t be more ordinary than everyone else; people like him lived everywhere in the city. They were not equipped with sufficient amount of knowledge in science, and neither were they as smart or analytical as Qing Shui and Zhuo. They were frightened and fragile, yet they remained skeptical about this seemingly perfect crop. The Crystal Pea was just too good to be real.

  Human beings weren’t as great as they would imagine themselves to be, yet they were stronger than they knew themselves to be. The commoners who endured the deadly evolution were slowly adapting to this disconcerting world.

  If the Crystal Pea was as menacing a crop as Qing Shui suspected, then whoever consumed this pea would be slowly but surely eliminated from this planet without a trace.

  As a human, Chang knew that the majority of the commoners would consume the Crystal Pea to avoid the painful starvation. In result, the Crystal Pea would become a largely consumed crop, which would force people to rely on the periodic seed distributions. After all, the crop’s reproductive ability was intentionally removed - the testa of the harvested pea was too thick for water to permeate, making the germination simply impossible - to control the food supply. Only then would Zhuo’s ambition be fulfilled - to control the masses and receive the worship that he desired.

  However, Chang couldn’t see the true aim behind this kind of behavior.

  “What is he going to do with that power?” Chang asked himself. He had qualms about Zhuo’s ultimate goal. “Has he ever thought about the consequences?”

  Chang failed to figure out the purpose behind his actions, hence he put aside the issue. After all, even if he was able to see through Zhuo’s intrigues , he would still be too powerless to stop him from executing whatever evil plans he had.

  He was too negligible in the political struggle; he could only watch his own back.

  Therefore, Chang shook his head and smiled wryly. He walked away and started using the same method as the man to search for edible plants.

  The plants had evolved significantly since the first day of the apocalypse; they grew in shapes or forms that Chang had not seen before. The tiny yet tenacious sprouts broke through the concrete road. By eyeballing, it was hard to distinguish whether a plant was edible or not.

  Though his job was easier with the bug’s aid.

  People were arguing here and there, but Chang only focused on utilizing the ability of the bug to look for edible plants. The afternoon was a fruitful one. Each plant that the bug chomped on, Chang collected and wrapped its leaves and a seed in a piece of cloth. It was a rather worthwhile harvest as he gathered about seven or eight different p
lants in the cloth pocket.

  When the sky gradually lost its brightness, he returned to the institute and found Qing Shui.

  “Buddy! I found eight edible plants! Though I don’t know which one can be reproduced in a large scale…” Chang said with excitement, carefully placing the cloth pocket on Qing Shui’s lab table.

  “Eight?” Qing Shui stroked the cloth. “You’re really good at this, aren’t you?”

  “No… This little guy should take all the credit,” Chang said, putting the cage on the table to reveal his helper.

  “Impressive!” Qing Shui exclaimed. “Tomorrow, I’ll have these planted in the experimental field, and hopefully some of them will reproduce. This way, more will be saved…”

  Chang gazed at Qing Shui’s calm face, grinning. “To be honest, you seem cold and unapproachable, but you do have a big heart.”

  Qing Shui’s benevolence reminded Chang about how they had went back to the jungle to find Pangzi. They even made a fist bump at the time. It was something that Chang had least expected Qing Shui to do. Qing Shui had gradually become cold-hearted and less human-like since he attained his ability, but deep down in his heart, he had not lost sympathy. He had just chosen to conceal his emotions and only let them slip out around the people he trusted.

  Chang turned away and left the office. Before the door closed, his last sentence slipped through the closing door. “And I think that’s what makes you different from Zhuo.”

  Chang ran all the way back to their suite so that he could see Jing sooner.

  “I am back!” he shouted out, bursting in. Light streamed into the dark room when the door was opened, and he found Jing sitting on a chair close to the door. She had sensed his return long ago, and thus, she had been waiting patiently. Her presence warmed his heart, and he gently hugged her, then fondled her hair. “You were worried, weren’t you?”