Nurturing Humanity

When he walked out of his door, he saw that Chen Xi had already parked her electric car at the gate and was waiting for him by the entrance. Upon seeing him, she said, “Where’s the fun in farming all day long? Going on dates with pretty girls is much more fun.”

“Farming soothes my mood and helps in treating my cancer,” Xu Zhi replied half-heartedly, his mind preoccupied with other things. “Girls aren’t as interesting as farming.”

“Let’s go. You’re coming with me to have fun in style, at my high school reunion,” she said.

The two of them drove out of the county and arrived at a street in Tongcheng that was relatively empty. There was a mid-range restaurant around the corner, and the location they were at was not considered a prosperous district. After all, Chen Xi and her friends were only college students and did not have much money to spend.

The two of them walked up to a big party room on the second floor and pushed open the door. A group of young men and women were gathered around three or four dining tables, chatting while enjoying their meal. The moment Xu Zhi entered, his appearance led to an outburst of screams and offset a great commotion in the entire room.

“Who’s this! Have you entered the wrong room?”

“Dashing.”

Xu Zhi awkwardly rubbed his nose.

At this time, Chen Xi walked out from behind Xu Zhi. The explosive effect of the uproar made her feel very satisfied and she said, “This is my boyfriend, Xu Zhi. I have already told everyone in our group chat, haven’t I? Super handsome, right!”

I shall just let you show off this time.

Xu Zhi looked at the smug Chen Xi and felt somewhat helpless.

He and Chen Xi sat down together. Some girls who were Chen Xi’s high school classmates, with some being her close friends, started to gather around them. They were scrutinizing Xu Zhi and asking him all kinds of questions by shooting their mouths off. They simply did not bother being polite enough to show some manners.

“He’s really so handsome! Xiao Xi, where did you find someone like this? He’s not working as a model, is he? Or is he an actor?”

“With such handsome and well-defined features, he looks like is of mixed blood. However, he’s still not completely and perfectly flawless, and that makes him humanely good-looking. But he does have a good style, and the more you look at him, the more handsome he looks and the more charming he gets.”

Cough-cough.

Xu Zhi quickly let out a dry cough. Are girls so bold nowadays? He could really feel the generation gap.

He was surrounded by girls going crazy over him, but he was rather Zen and unflustered. He simply remained quietly seated in the same spot. He already knew that Chen Xi’s main purpose in asking him to accompany her to her class reunion was for her to show off.

He had adjusted his appearance back to the previous physique and face, which was quite a shocking sight to behold. He had not purposefully tried to look as handsome as he appeared to be now. But essentially, all living creatures had to go through evolution. After three rounds of mass extinctions, where a great number of miscellaneous and useless genes that were made obsolete during evolution were abandoned by him, he had gotten closer to attaining a perfect life-form.

“That’s.., that’s… He’s my boyfriend.” Seeing all the envious gazes of her bunch of close girlfriends, Chen Xi gloated with a sense of triumph. She enjoyed the food with her friends while bragging about how good Xu Zhi was to her and telling the girls how their love story had begun in childhood. She was going over the top while talking her head off.

“He’s also from our high school, a few years our senior, and was a high-achiever in an elite university. Until just recently, he has been working in a foreign company.”

“The two of you are childhood sweethearts, and he is five years older than you. No wonder you, Miss Chen, the belle of our class, had so many boys chasing after you, but you were always turning a blind eye to them.”

It seemed like this girl had quite a handful of admirers. A few guys who looked pretty unfriendly came over to make a toast. Xu Zhi, on the other hand, refused nobody. He simply laughed and drank with them.

Surprisingly, he remained unruffled.

Having worked in the outside world for several years, he had his fair share of encounters of evil people with malicious intentions. He knew that these few young men before him did not have any ill intentions. They had just entered college and were still very na?ve and simple. They simply wanted to get him drunk and see him make a fool of himself.

But given the current state of Xu Zhi’s body, naturally, it would be very difficult to get him drunk.

After dinner, they went to sing.

In the karaoke box, the interest and enthusiasm that the group had for Xu Zhi gradually faded. Three or four boys were lying by the side of the karaoke box. They had gotten drunk in their attempt to get Xu Zhi drunk. Their faces were flushed red, and they were just uttering nonsense. No one dared to approach Xu Zhi with wine anymore.

The girls sang, and among the group of boys, some were playing with their mobile phones, some were chatting, and some had even begun to watch a live broadcast.

At first, Xu Zhi was also playing with his phone as he sat on the couch in silence. He was waiting to drive Chen Xi back home after she got tired of singing. But then, after a casual glance at the few boys next to him, he began to feel somewhat unsettled.

The live broadcast they were watching was of the game “Spore Evolution”.

“Wow! So incredible! There really are infinite possibilities. I always see this anchor play the game the same way, but he always ends up with a different species after every evolution,” a boy who was sitting on the couch in the Karaoke box exclaimed. With his phone in hand, he began to feel envious and said, “They’re probably using a kind of supercomputer that’s similar to AlphaGo, one that evolves in real time.”

“This player is so stupid! Even I will be way better than him in the game. I really hope for an Open Beta Test.” Another boy also joined in the discussion of the game. They discussed while watching the video onscreen, spittle flying all over. “I should also have a go at being a single cell, then evolve into some creature. Being able to fully immerse myself in the ultra-realistic senses of the species I have evolved, like the pain it feels, the things it sees, what it feels when it touches things and such, that’s just like living a second life.”

“No way! According to the analysis of an experienced player, the probability of this game to have an Open Beta Test for the public is negligible. There can’t be too many people online at the same time.” Someone sighed helplessly and said, “After all, when it came to virtual reality, it would require far too much processing power to create such a realistic world. And besides, each and every species is so random, and there’s going to be such a huge number of evolutions required, I’m guessing there must be several supercomputers required to maintain such a sandbox game. This is why it can only be a niche game that cannot accommodate too many people, as the large number of evolutions will simply cause the sandbox to collapse.”

Apparently, this mysterious hardcore sandbox game had recently become extremely popular on the Internet. The techniques that were incorporated into the game were simply amazing, like virtual reality, evolution in real-time, and the ability to cover tracks in the game that were untraceable by anyone else.

In fact, the problem that they talked about concerning the number of players that the game could accommodate was non-existent!

This was not a virtual world, but the real world. There was no need for the server to evolve. They were really in Xu Zhi’s yard and had become single-celled spores that would evolve into another new species.

The number of people playing the game was simply Xu Zhi’s decision.

He just did not want too many people playing the game, for he had nothing to gain from that.

“This game, it’s just too hardcore. If you ask me, the current batch of hundred players are just a bunch of noobs! Evolving nothing more than a bunch of deformed species, it’s simply a waste of this game. It’s better to let the pros have a go.” A student by the side was telling the crowd that he was a major in the studies of Natural Evolution, and his face was filled with envy and jealousy as he spoke. “If I have the chance to play the game, I will definitely be able to evolve some professional species.”

Let the pros have a go?

Xu Zhi was slightly shocked, as though he was slapped awake from sleep.

He now knew what he should do. Accompanying Chen Xi out to take a breather had truly been a most worthwhile trip.