Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Expert in Classical Chinese

Especially so.

Although they were born from water, these creatures did not particularly enjoy living within it. The moment they gained the ability to move, they made a grand exodus toward the edge of the puddle. This migration of the entire species took several months and cost the lives of nearly ten of their kin, but eventually they succeeded in reaching the shore.

These spore organisms, which had fused with spotted mouse cells, were naturally endowed with powerful burrowing abilities. At a spot some distance from the puddle, the whole tribe pooled their strength, working tirelessly day and night, to dig a massive pit—half a meter deep and roughly the size of an ant nest opening.

If one were to scale this depth proportionally to a human, it would be akin to the Kola Superdeep Borehole dug in the Northern Bear Nation decades ago. At the time, the Kola Borehole was rumored to have reached hell itself; even now, that place remains a forbidden zone under military guard, with no unauthorized persons permitted near.

Gossip had it that some sort of monster crawled out from the depths, though this was likely idle hearsay. After all, no major incidents had occurred there in all these years; even reports about it remained limited to brief online mentions.

Of course, Fang Zhuowei had no desire to uncover the truth of the matter. With the power to create worlds at his fingertips, everything else seemed as bland as water.

...

Time flowed on.

As the hands of the clock crept forward, the twenty thousandth year of the Spotted Mouse Civilization dawned, and their forms changed once more. Their forelimbs gradually regressed, while fleshy nodules at the joints developed into slender, hand-like structures somewhat akin to human hands.

Naturally, these were still quite different from true human arms. First, the spore creatures’ fleshy forelimbs formed rings. Second, their thighs grew even more robust, making up a full sixty percent of their body mass—resulting in a strikingly awkward appearance.

With these physical changes, the number of spores surged. These spore beings, having incorporated spotted mouse cells, evolved distinct reproductive organs and structures, enabling sexual reproduction. Their rate of reproduction was astonishing—dozens of times faster than that of the ancient apes. An average spore creature could produce two to three thousand offspring in a lifetime, like a walking child-bearing machine.

In the civilization’s thirty-thousandth year, the population exploded to a staggering twenty million.

By any measure of species development, this was more than sufficient.

But for Fang Zhuowei, it was still far from enough.

From its inception, the Spotted Mouse Civilization was designed to incubate viruses capable of accelerating organic evolution—much like the catastrophes of biothriller tales, except safe and free from harmful side effects.

In those tales, what made the biohazard so catastrophic was not just the host, but the progenitor viruses—the T-Virus and its kin. Of course, such viruses are mere fiction, products of video game imagination, with no existence in reality.

Fang Zhuowei had to turn to other means—starting with the most common viruses.

"Perhaps the influenza virus is the right place to begin?"

Scratching his head, Fang Zhuowei pondered. Compared to other viruses, the flu is by far the most prevalent; a single cough can release millions of viral particles into the air. And conveniently, he was nursing a cold that day, so he had a ready supply.

As for whether the influenza virus could spur biological change... that remained to be seen.

"Let the storm rage ever fiercer," he murmured, pursing his lips. After a moment's preparation, he unleashed a mighty sneeze upon the spore creatures that had fused with spotted mouse cells below...

The Aztec Chronicles of Judgment record: On that day, an entity embodying calamity, death, and extinction descended amidst a tempest, unleashing chaos upon the world. From then on, disorder reigned and decay endured...

Fang Zhuowei did not linger long. After a brief pause, he turned and made his way to the room where the fish tank was kept.

He had even more important matters to attend to.

At that moment,

In a corner of the room by the window stood a stack of brand-new notebooks in various colors.

These were parcels he had just received—all "martial arts manuals" he had recently purchased online: Dragon Subduing Palm, Nine Yin Manual, Nine Yang Divine Skill, and so on. Every technique ever appearing in martial arts novels, Fang Zhuowei had bought them all.

In addition, there were traditional scriptures—such as the Dao De Jing, Tendon-Changing Classic, and the Sutra of Reincarnation—obscure and difficult texts, each running to several hundred pages.

The martial arts manuals were all fanciful inventions, but the scriptures were authentic, passed down through the ages and far more precious. Each had cost him a small fortune.

"Whether the Ancient Ape Civilization can evolve into an extraordinary one depends entirely on you," he declared, patting the stack of books before him.

He deliberately flipped through them. In general, the books fell into two categories—those consisting entirely of illustrations, in black-and-white or occasionally color, and those of pure text, especially the scriptures, filled with dense, minuscule script and not a single picture.

The illustrated volumes he shrank and cast into the black-soil continent above the fish tank, along with three small metal miniatures—a stainless-steel sword, a suit of armor, and a stone mill—he had also purchased.

As for the textual works, Fang Zhuowei was in no hurry. He planned to first copy them into the ancient ape language before uploading them. Otherwise, merely translating the contents would take the ancient apes a very long time.

He needed to accelerate the process.

He could not further hasten the pace of their evolutionary development, so he had to speed up in other ways.

For the entire morning and afternoon, apart from a few meals, Fang Zhuowei was hunched over his desk.

The first scripture he translated was Laozi’s Dao De Jing.

As the most widely circulated, renowned, and enigmatic of the Daoist classics, the Dao De Jing’s status was indisputable. From the moment it appeared, its philosophy was honored by all schools, hailed as the king of all scriptures.

Examining it, Fang Zhuowei found the text exceptionally abstruse. He had to constantly compare the differences and similarities between the Huaxia language and the ancient ape script. Even with all his familiarity with the latter, he had only managed to copy a tenth by the end of the day.

"How did the ancients manage this? To write something so intricate, so endlessly long, without ever repeating themselves?"

Fang Zhuowei rubbed his aching shoulders and wrists, grimacing as he spoke.

With every line, his admiration for Laozi grew. The man had truly elevated the cryptic nature of Chinese characters to the highest level.

Setting aside the content for now, what vexed him most were the numerous rare characters, each more complex than the last, many of which he didn’t even recognize.