novelsite Chapter 61 Disguise
Chapter 61 Disguise
Chapter 61 Disguise
"Because it only sees the edges. God doesn't see the world with his eyes; he sees it through differences. The boundary between black and red is where it takes root. When we paint the boundary gray, all it sees is gray spreading. It will think that fusion has begun and that no more pressure needs to be applied. It will relax, wait, and move on to the next boundary."
"and then?"
Upright Ape Carving: "Then we bought ourselves time. Last time, it took us three thousand years to perish together, but this time it's only been seventy days. The pressure from the gods is too great, and our evolutionary speed has been forced too fast. We need it to slow down. The gray disguise isn't to deceive it, but to slow it down."
Kerry was silent for a moment: "How do you know that applying gray lines will work?"
The upright ape paused for a moment, then carved: "The previous civilization tried it. They carved a message on the last stone wall. We tried applying ash, it worked, but we discovered it too late. The war had reached a point where it couldn't be stopped. Hopefully, you in the future will still have time."
When Kerry came out of the yard, Massa was standing outside the bamboo fence with a telegram in his hand.
"In the Ivan Bear Kingdom mining area, the coordinated behavior of the upright apes and the Glossopteryx has been upgraded again. It's not riding, it's marching in formation. Twelve upright apes are riding twelve Glossopteryxes, patrolling the mining area in two columns. This photo was taken by the head of Fura's intelligence bureau himself."
Kerry took the photo.
The twelve Gyrodonts were arranged in two neat rows, with an upright ape perched on each of their backs.
The upright ape gripped the mane of the Glyptodon with its forepaws, and the Glyptodon moved in perfect unison, like a cavalry formation that had been trained for ten years.
"They went from riding to forming ranks in less than ten days. How long does it take humans to train cavalry formations?"
"At least one year."
That night, dawn broke.
[Day 71 of the Alien Creatures' Arrival - Phase 3 Disguise Progress Update]
[Average progress of camouflage for the Ten Kingdoms' Homo erectus: 89%. Individual from Taro Tanuki Kingdom (Kyoto): 99%.]
[System Notification: The taming of the Homo erectus into the formation coordination phase has begun. Leader taming confirmed; group taming in progress. Estimated completion of group taming within fifteen days.]
[System Update: The third ecological niche of Lesotho has spread to cover three towns on the Namibi border. The total population converted is approximately 120,000. The overall conversion rate of the Namibi border guards exceeds 80%.]
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[System Notification: The following exotic creatures' cooperative relationships with Homo erectus have been updated: Gyrodon (under taming), Tyrannosaurus Rex (trading level, exhibiting directional guidance behavior), Giant Millipede (collecting level, venom collection increased threefold), Tyrannosaurus Rex (guiding level, able to change migration routes through food delivery), Anomalocaris (guiding level, able to change spawning sites through metal scrap delivery). The relationships with Lyssamer, Giant Nautilus, Giant Dragonfly, and Antiomon remain at the contact level.]
[System final notification: The domestication speed of Homo erectus to exotic creatures is accelerating; the domestication time for the second species is expected to be about 60% shorter than that for the first.]
The light curtain went out.
Lu Cheng stood on the balcony of the Executive Government building, with Carrie standing beside him holding a cup of tea. She said, "The system says the Water Dragon Beast is still at the contact level. The upright ape is piling up food at the entrance of its cave, and it's digging in the direction the upright ape wants. It thinks it's doing it willingly."
"Because it has the lowest intelligence. It took the upright ape seventy days to tame the Gyrodon and get it into the ranks; the Waterdramon will probably take even longer. The lower the intelligence, the slower the taming—it doesn't even know it's been tamed."
The water dragon crawled over from the square and gently poked Lu Cheng's boot with half of its fang.
It's not digging a hole today; it's taking a day off.
My tooth still hurts.
Carrie crouched down to examine its fangs. The broken edges had been rounded and were no longer sharp, but they no longer hurt.
It's just that it's used to using toothache as a sick leave note.
Taro Tanuki Country, Kyoto, late at night.
Unable to sleep, Massa took his kerosene lamp and went outside to the courtyard alone.
In the courtyard, the upright ape was still squatting in front of the mirror.
The moonlight shone on the mirror, and the gray lines on the frame gleamed faintly in the moonlight.
The upright ape was neither carving words nor arranging stones.
It simply squatted there, looking at itself in the mirror with its clear black and white eyes.
In the mirror, its face was framed by gray glasses.
A black and white face with gray edges.
It watched for a long time, and then it did something that Massa had never seen before.
It stretched out its front paws and flipped the mirror over, so that the mirror was facing down and placed on the stone slab.
It was exactly the same as what the previous civilization did 130 meters underground.
Then it lay down next to the mirror, rested its head on its front paws, and closed its eyes.
Masa stood outside the bamboo fence, the light of the kerosene lamp illuminating the upright ape lying next to the mirror.
Its eyes were closed, and its breathing was steady, as if it were asleep.
It's like pressing down on a door with your body.
September of the year 5914 in the Blue Star calendar, seventy-four days after the arrival of alien creatures.
Lu Cheng has noticed a pattern these past few days:
Every Wednesday for breakfast, Carrie's fried eggs are always runny.
Monday's food was fully cooked because there was a meeting on Monday, and she was afraid he would run away halfway through his meal.
Tuesday's meal was scrambled eggs because the steam pressure on the kitchen stove wasn't high enough.
Wednesday is the day for soft-boiled fried eggs, served with crispy toasted bread slices, where you break the yolk and dip it in the bread.
Before he traveled through time, when he worked at the library, his breakfast was always two steamed buns and a cup of soy milk from a convenience store.
After transmigrating and becoming a governor, he ended up eating soft-boiled omelets.
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This made him feel that the time travel was ultimately worthwhile.
"Namibi has fallen completely." Carrie placed today's soft-boiled egg in front of him.
Lu Cheng's fork stopped in mid-air: "When?"
"Last night, it wasn't the collaborators who captured it; it surrendered on its own. The border guard captain led over three hundred men in formation into Angula, giving each a shard of glass before they left. Governor Namibi sent a final telegram, containing only one line—"
We all saw it.
"What do you see?"
"Seven fingers in the mirror."
Lu Cheng inserted a fork into the fried egg, and the yolk flowed out, spreading into a golden lake on the plate.
He dipped a piece of bread in the sauce, put it in his mouth, and chewed it three times.
"From Lesotho to Namibi, from Namibi to Angura—hiss, the dominoes are starting to fall."
"The first batch of military and police personnel looking in the mirror have appeared on the Angula border. The governors of Zamba, Zebawe, and Botswana have jointly sent a telegram requesting the Winners Kingdom to provide blueprints for an instinct testing laboratory."
"Here you go! But tell them the testing lab can't screen people who've looked in the mirror, it can only screen people who haven't. Protect those who haven't looked yet, and those who have—" Lu Cheng dipped another piece of bread in his sauce, "There's no way to reverse what's been done."
Carrie sat down opposite him, picked up her coffee cup and took a sip: "President Kerry sent the transcript of the seventh conversation with the Kyoto upright ape. The upright ape said that the specific method of gray disguise is to apply plaster to the frame. The plaster is composed of fine soil and water from dry landscape garden gravel."
"Will it work?"
"It says that previous civilizations tried it, and it worked, but they discovered it too late."
Lu Cheng stuffed the last piece of bread into his mouth: "When it was discovered isn't important; what's important is whether there are any side effects. All the methods used by the previous civilization ultimately failed—coexistence failed, peace failed, fighting side by side failed, and applying plaster will probably fail too. The only difference is—who's in charge of the failure."