79 Cambrian Consciousness
The young man exclaimed angrily, “What are you talking about? What do you mean?”
Zhuang Yao pointed at himself and said, “I am a mutant with the ability to mimic voices. No matter how you disguise yourself, no matter how far we were from each other yesterday, you have a unique voiceprint that cannot be hidden. I can tell, you are the eagle from yesterday.”
The young man revealed a sinister smile. “That’s right, it’s me. I didn’t expect such a mutation ability. It seems like I underestimated you.”
Zhuang Yao said, “Kill him.”
Cheng Tianbi raised his knife.
“Wait!” The eagle-like mutant shouted, “If you dare to kill me, the Eagle Corps won’t let you off. I am the cousin of the Eagle Corps leader.” Although he was nervous and sweating profusely, he maintained a defiant attitude.
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Hbwydt Zys nszezu pyke, “Rv eslpd’v xyvvla, jkzz bkx.”
“Eykv! Psd’v!” Mbl uswdt xyd ulzzle kd qlya, “Psd’v jkzz xl! R… R nyd vyjl usw swv sq vbl nkvu, alyzzu, R nyd zlye usw swv.”
“Ebs vsze usw ol oydvle vs zlyhl vbl nkvu? El nyxl blal vs alrzldkpb pwrrzklp. Zsw yvvynjle wp yp pssd yp ol ldvlale vbl nkvu, yde dso usw’al yrrasynbkdt wp okvb wzvlaksa xsvkhlp. Ebyv wpl kp vblal kd jllrkdt usw yzkhl?”
“Zsw dlle pwrrzklp, yde vbl Oytzl Usarp nsdvaszp xspv sq Ubldtew’p alpswanlp. R nyd tlv yduvbkdt qsa usw.”
Hbwydt Zys naswnble esod. “Qypszkdl.”
“Qypszkdl? El byhl kv, R nyd tlv kv qsa usw.”
“Qsse, zlv uswa nswpkd lmnbydtl typszkdl qsa usw. El esd’v dlle xwnb, fwpv qkqvu zkvlap.”
Mbl uswdt xyd takvvle bkp vllvb. “Wkdl.”
Cheng Tianbi lifted him up from the ground, and Tang Yanqiu brought a rope to tightly bind him.
Zhuang Yao said, “Tell us, how do we contact the Eagle Corps?”
The young man tilted his head back and made an eagle hooting sound from his mouth. Suddenly, an eagle hidden in a nearby building flew out swiftly into the distance.
Cong Xia couldn’t help but feel envious. “So convenient.” Even after the communication system had failed, they could still use this natural way of information exchange. It seemed that the advantages of animal-like mutants were not limited to physical abilities alone.
Cheng Tianbi took a sniper rifle and two submachine guns from the car, preparing for any emergency situation. The others also entered a state of readiness.
The young man looked at them slyly and said, “Those birds yesterday were just testing you. The Eagle Corps’s strength is far beyond that.”
Cong Xia asked, “We could have guessed that even without you. Are all the birds in the forests around Chengdu under your command?”
The young man remained silent.
Cheng Tianbi tapped the butt of his rifle against the young man’s head. “Speak up.”
The young man gritted his teeth and said, “Mostly.”
Cong Xia pondered for a moment. “It seems like we’ll have to take you further away from here to let you go, otherwise, won’t we be attacked by birds as soon as we leave the city?”
The young man snorted and turned his head away. The group waited in place. After about ten minutes, a chubby figure approached from the nearby street block. Upon closer inspection, they realized it was a panda.
The panda they saw today was much smaller in size than the one they encountered yesterday, but still over two meters tall. It was much cleaner, with distinct black and white fur, and surprisingly, it was wearing a large pair of underpants.
As soon as the young man saw the panda, he disdainfully spat and made a sound of contempt.
The panda strolled over slowly and, upon seeing them, spoke with a human voice, “Oh? Zhang Mao? You’ve been caught by someone.”
Zhang Mao replied coldly, “Fatso, get lost.”
The group became somewhat confused. Why were there so many animal-like mutants in this city?
The panda laughed heartily and said, “You worthless scum, I wish for you to die soon.”
“Fatso, you’ll definitely die before me. When that happens, I’ll let the crows eat you up, completely.”
The panda sneered, “I must say, you guys are outsiders, right?”
Cheng Tianbi weighed the gun in his hand. “Who are you?”
“Definitely not a member of the Eagle Corps. Why did you capture him?”
“We want to trade with the Eagle Corps for gasoline.”
“Oh, you’ve come to the right people. The Eagle Corps controls most of the resources in Chengdu. Let me kindly remind you, anything that flies around here is basically under the control of the Eagle Corps. Once you’re ten kilometers out of the city, you can release him, or better yet, kill him.”
Cong Xia asked, “Since this place belongs to the Eagle Corps, and you’re not one of them, why are you still here?”
The panda mutant didn’t hesitate to reply, “This is my home.” He looked at Zhang Mao coldly. “I’m waiting for the day when the Eagle Corps’s true colors are revealed and they meet their doom.”
Zhang Mao cursed, “Get lost! Don’t think that just because we didn’t kill you, you can act all high and mighty. Sooner or later, we will eliminate all those who refuse to submit here.”
In the distance, a row of black dots appeared in the sky. The panda mutant turned around and said, “They’re coming.” After speaking, he quickly ran ahead. Despite his obese body, his movements were agile and nimble, and he disappeared in no time.
The black dots gradually approached. Six mutants with wings flew over from the horizon. Judging from their wings, the leader among them should be the head of the Eagle Corps, a falcon-like mutant. His wingspan reached three meters, even longer than Tang Yanqiu’s wings. The others behind him included one raven and three mutants with gray-black or colorful wings, making it difficult to determine the animals they originated from.
It was the first time the group had seen so many avian mutants or atavistic individuals, and they were all amazed.
This was truly inconsistent with common sense. They had traveled all the way from Yunnan to this place over the course of half a year, and they had only encountered one avian mutant, the bat-like creature. Moreover, it was unclear whether bats were classified as birds or mammals. The only other winged mutant they had encountered was Tang Yanqiu, the avian atavistic individual. This indicated that avian mutants or atavistic individuals were very rare.
However, in Chengdu, including Zhang Mao, there were seven right in front of them. It was likely that the Eagle Corps had even more avian mutants. From a probabilistic perspective alone, it didn’t make sense. Could it be that Chengdu was particularly conducive to the development of avian mutants?
The falcon-like mutant hovered above them, looking down on them from a superior position.
As they got closer, they could see that the falcon-like mutant was a fierce man with scars on his face. Even in civilized society, he would look like a dangerous criminal. In comparison, Zhang Mao looked like a fresh college graduate.
Zhang Mao called out, “Brother, brother.”
The falcon-like mutant cursed, “You idiot, what have you done?”
“I originally transformed into a human to investigate their backgrounds, but I didn’t expect that they had someone with a mutated ear who could recognize my voice.”
The falcon-like mutant glared at them fiercely. “What do you want?”
Zhuang Yao didn’t mince his words either. “Fifty liters of gasoline in exchange for your cousin.”
“Fifty liters? Are you really daring to ask for that much? Do you know how scarce gasoline is? Where can I get fifty liters of gasoline?”
“The majority of Chengdu’s resources are supposed to be under your control. Fifty liters of gasoline shouldn’t be difficult for you to provide. If you don’t want to give it, that’s fine. Yesterday, your cousin sent over three hundred owls to attack us, causing us injuries. This account can be settled either with gasoline from you or with his life.”
The falcon-like mutant squinted his eyes, carefully scanning each person’s face before saying, “Are you injured?”
The five of them appeared tattered and bloodstained, but they all looked spirited and showed no obvious signs of injury.
Zhang Mao shouted, “Brother, I saw it yesterday. They have someone who can treat injuries!”
Cheng Tianbi’s eyes turned cold, and he pressed the barrel of his gun against Zhang Mao’s temple. “Shut up.”
The falcon-like mutant widened his eyes. “You can treat injuries? Who?”
“It’s none of your business. We don’t want to waste any more words. Fifty liters of gasoline, will you exchange it or not?”
The falcon-like mutant fell silent for a moment and said, “Exchange, but we don’t have that much right now. Meet us tomorrow at the Chengyu Expressway entrance at this time.”
Cheng Tianbi said coldly, “We heard that the birds around here obey your command. We’ll take him out ten kilometers and then release him.”
The falcon-like mutant growled, “Don’t push your luck.”
Zhuang Yao retorted coldly, “He’ll fly back in no time if we release him at ten kilometers. Similarly, it would be effortless for you to catch up to us within ten kilometers. If you were in our shoes, you would make the same demand.”
Zhang Mao looked at the falcon-like mutant, his eyes filled with pleading.
The falcon-like mutant looked at each of them once again before saying, “Fine, it’s settled.”
Zhang Mao felt weak all over and broke out in a cold sweat from the fright. Zhuang Yao saw through his reaction.
After the falcon-like mutant and the others left, Zhuang Yao smirked and glanced at Zhang Mao. “It seems your brotherly bond isn’t that strong. You have no assurance that he would exchange fifty liters of gasoline for you, do you?”
Zhang Mao lowered his head and remained silent.
“No wonder, after all, you’re just cousins. Fifty liters of gasoline is an incredibly valuable commodity in the apocalypse. What value do you have to be worth fifty liters of gasoline?”
Zhang Mao said fiercely, “He won’t abandon me.”
Zhuang Yao asked, “How far is the highway entrance he mentioned?”
“It’s about 26 kilometers from here.”
“Do you know where that panda person is?”
Zhang Mao looked at him warily. “What are you planning to do?” He couldn’t believe it in his heart. Could this child in front of him really be just a child, or had he undergone a physical mutation as well?
“We want to meet him. Take us there.”
Zhang Mao hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know where he is right now. Sometimes he’s outside the city with a group of pandas, and other times he’s at his home in the west of the city with more than ten mutants.”
“Take us to the west of the city first,” Zhuang Yao said. “That panda person should know a lot of things.”
Cheng Tianbi pushed Zhang Mao into the car, and reluctantly, Zhang Mao had no choice but to lead them towards the west of the city.
As they turned into the street where the panda person resided, they all felt energy fluctuations coming from above. They looked up, and on the rooftops lining the narrow street, there were two people standing on each side, both holding guns, shouting at them, “Who are you?”
Zhuang Yao said, “We want to see Luo Xun.”
They obtained the panda person’s name from Zhang Mao.
“Who are you? Why do you want to see Luo Xun?”
“Tell Luo Xun that we are the outsiders he just met. We want to ask him a few questions.”
The two individuals discussed among themselves for a moment, and one of them came down from the rooftop.
After about ten minutes, a person appeared at the entrance of a nearby residential area and waved at them. “Come here.”
The group walked towards the residential area.
The person said, “The car can’t come in, and the cat can’t come in either. Only two people can come up with me.” His gaze swept over them, “This child and this person.” He pointed to Cong Xia.
Zhuang Yao instinctively concealed his energy fluctuations, while Cong Xia’s energy was undetectable by others. The person assumed that both of them were ordinary people—just a child and a skinny guy with a pale face—posing no danger. Therefore, he allowed the two of them to go up.
In fact, they indeed posed no immediate danger, but they were not ordinary people.
Zhuang Yao said, “Then it will be me and Cong Xia going up. The rest of you stay here and watch the car.”
Cheng Tianbi and the other two remained behind to watch Zhang Mao. As Cong Xia walked past him, Cheng Tianbi discreetly grabbed Cong Xia’s arm and slipped a hand grenade into his pocket. He whispered softly in his ear, “If there’s any danger, call us immediately.”
Cong Xia felt the weight in his pocket and knew what it was. He patted Cheng Tianbi’s arm and said, “Don’t worry, I don’t think there will be.”
They had a sense that the panda person wasn’t an enemy, which was why they felt comfortable letting the two of them go. However, they still couldn’t fully trust him in their hearts.
The two of them walked towards the residential area. On the way, Cong Xia asked, “I haven’t asked you yet, can you really distinguish voiceprints?”
Zhuang Yao rolled his eyes. “No, but that won’t be in the future. I’m evolving too, you know.”
“So, were you just bluffing at Zhang Mao?”
“Of course. When you gave me a signal, I knew he was lying. Someone who approaches us for no reason and lies definitely has ulterior motives. We’ve only been here for a few hours, and besides him, I can’t think of anyone else who would approach us with any kind of purpose. We don’t look like easy targets, and most people wouldn’t dare to get close. Also, his way of speaking does resemble that eagle from yesterday, although I can’t be a hundred percent sure. But I’m about seventy percent confident, which is enough.”
Cong Xia smiled. “He really underestimated us.”
After entering the residential area, they saw several heads popping out of the buildings, curious and watchful, all staring at them.
The person led them to the second floor. It was a relatively new residential area with traces of vegetation encroaching from the outside, but the interior was clean, indicating regular maintenance.
They were taken into a room. As soon as they entered, they caught a whiff of the peculiar odor produced by pets in a home.
Looking inside, they saw a spacious living room of about twenty square meters with seven or eight large wooden makeshift baby cribs. Inside the cribs, rows of panda cubs lay neatly, all about one month old, with their sparse fur and adorable sleeping faces. There were at least forty of them. Along the wall of the living room, there were examination beds and workbenches, resembling a panda breeding base seen on television.
A young person with a fair and chubby baby face, wearing a white coat, walked over. “I knew it was you, guys. I knew you would come to find me.”
Cong Xia exclaimed, “You… Why are there so many pandas here?”
“I used to be a panda caretaker in Daliang Shan. I happened to be on vacation in Chengdu when the earthquake occurred, and I’ve been staying here ever since.”
“And you’ve adopted all these pandas?”
“Yes, among most of the mutated panda parents, their size becomes too large to take care of their cubs, making it easy for the cubs to die. After the earthquake, the animals’ reproductive and survival abilities improved. Previously, we had to be extremely cautious in taking care of them, fearing the extinction of these ancestors. Now they are more likely to give birth, and the chances of mutation are also higher. However, the survival rate of panda cubs is still low. I often go to the wild and bring back the ones that are born haphazardly, raise them a bit, and then release them back.”
Zhuang Yao said, “It’s much more troublesome to raise them compared to raising humans.”
Luo Xun smiled bitterly, “I know, but I can’t help it. It pains me to see them neglected. I have over seventy people here, and about forty to fifty pandas. Although the conditions are not great, they don’t starve.”
This sparked an idea in Cong Xia’s mind. He asked, “Do the people here rely on you for food?”
“Not only that, we have thirteen mutated individuals here who can acquire some food.”
“What if we hire some of your people to do some work, and in return, we hunt some animals as compensation. What do you think?”
“What do you want us to do?”
“We need some bamboo arrows. The bamboo here is good, but time is running out. We have agreed with the Eagle Corps to leave tomorrow at this time with gasoline. We don’t have time to make iron arrowheads, so we just need you to make the arrow shafts. Otherwise, once we leave this place, we won’t have such good bamboo.”
Luo Xun pondered for a moment and said, “That doesn’t sound too difficult, but we don’t have the skills. Do you have someone who can teach them?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Good, I’ll go find them in a moment. So, you have successfully traded with the Eagle Corps?”
“Yes.”
Luo Xun snorted, “I don’t really believe that Zhang Qian would really give fifty liters of gasoline for Zhang Mao. Zhang Qian is a ruthless person, and if Zhang Mao’s abilities weren’t somewhat useful, he wouldn’t care about family ties.”
Zhuang Yao sensed some information and asked, “How can you be so sure?”
atOptions = { ‘key’ : ‘819083b5141e2ddc81cd1b66b82e3d92’, ‘format’ : ‘iframe’, ‘height’ : 250, ‘width’ : 300, ‘params’ : {} }; document.write(”);Luo Xun picked up a separately isolated baby panda and used a special thermometer to measure its body temperature. He said, “Zhang Qian is a big boss in Chengdu. We weaker groups have to unite to barely ensure our safety.”
“Why does he have such a strong influence? Is it related to his control over birds of prey?”
Luo Xun’s eyes turned cold, “He can only communicate with falcons and eagles, including himself and Zhang Mao. But do you know why he can control so many types of birds? Do you know why he has so many avian mutated individuals under his command?”
“Why?” This was something that puzzled everyone. From a probabilistic standpoint, there shouldn’t be so many avian mutated individuals appearing at the same time.
“Mutated animal-humans are the result of mutual consumption between humans and animals. At that time, I…” Luo Xun sighed softly. “Anyway, it had to be humans consuming animals or animals consuming humans. That bird of prey, Zhang Qian, after transforming into a falcon, considered all land creatures to be lowly. In order to create more of his kind, he captured people to be consumed by the birds. He didn’t even spare his own cousin. Through a large number of sacrifices, he managed to generate a minuscule probability of animal mutated individuals.” Luo Xun clenched his fist. “Many people were killed by him in this way.”
Cong Xia’s expression revealed shock, while Zhuang Yao’s eyes showed disgust.
Even though they had witnessed too much ugliness in the post-apocalyptic world, such behavior that annihilated humanity still shocked them. Cong Xia trembled as he said, “But he didn’t have to do this. He could have just had people consume those birds, right?”
Luo Xun said in a deep voice, “That’s the most bestial aspect of him. He believes that the mutated individuals produced in that way would carry human weakness in their bones. Only those who have experienced being ruthlessly torn apart and consumed by ferocious birds can become fearless warriors after being reborn.”
Cong Xia gritted his teeth. “He’s worse than a beast.”
Luo Xun placed the baby panda back in the crib and gently stroked its sparse fur. “Those so-called ‘reborn’ members of the Eagle Corps have become fierce and ruthless. It has been over half a year, and you are the first group of people daring to challenge them.”
Zhuang Yao asked, “Have you never thought of resisting?”
Luo Xun shook his head. “It’s useless. Their influence is too great. If it were only those avian mutated individuals, we could still put up a fight. But they have groups of birds backing them up. We simply can’t fight against that. We won’t stay here for much longer. We are considering collectively moving to Chongqing. We heard that the environment there is slightly better.”
Cong Xia said, “We just came from Chongqing.”
Luo Xun exclaimed, “Really? How is Chongqing? Is it true what the people who passed by here before said, that everyone can have enough to eat?”
“The situation is generally like that, but there is intense power struggle in Chongqing. It probably isn’t peaceful now either. However, compared to here, it should be better.”
Luo Xun nodded. “Either way, we have to give it a try. Otherwise, Zhang Qian won’t tolerate us for long.”
After Luo Xun finished his work, he went to notify the families of the mutated individuals to help make bamboo arrows. Several mutated individuals went outside the city to cut bamboo, while Zhuang Yao took Abu and Liu Fengyu to go hunting. Tang Yanqiu taught the others how to make arrow shafts. With the shafts, perhaps they could find a place to obtain iron arrowheads in the next city they reached.
Cheng Tianbi and Cong Xia stayed behind to watch over Zhang Mao.
They busied themselves, making the most of their time, striving to acquire enough bamboo arrows before leaving the next day.
Author’s Note: One update~~ It’s so bright outside, it’s already past 6 o’clock. No wonder I’m so hungry →_→
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