Observation Record

Lu Zhiyu held a bottle and caught ants in the yard. Painting Space had time and gravity, sun and moon, the four seasons, plants, and oxygen, but no animals. Lu Zhiyu decided to do it himself and catch some specimens to place inside Painting Space.

Just then, someone called from beyond the iron gate. "Lu Zhiyu? Why are you back?"

Lu Zhiyu stood up and saw a girl on a motorcycle outside the gate. Wearing a burgundy helmet, she stared at him in surprise. Lu Zhiyu set down his small hoe and bottle, then walked to the gate. "You are?"

The girl immediately removed her helmet. "I'm Xia Fan!"

Lu Zhiyu felt extremely awkward. The girl before him was so pretty, and she apparently knew him, yet he could not remember her at all. How was he supposed to say that? Suddenly, Lu Zhiyu recalled a joke he had seen online. A teacher met a student, and neither could remember the other's name, so all they could do was call out, "I remember you, um... Teacher!"

"You're that, um... student!"

Xia Fan studied Lu Zhiyu for a moment, her face falling as she took off her helmet and tucked it under her arm. "Hey, hey, don't tell me you don't remember me?"

Lu Zhiyu was mortified. "Well, I'm getting old, getting old. My memory's not so good. How about you give me a hint?"

"Xia Yan's little sister!"

Lu Zhiyu looked Xia Fan over. "Xia Yan's little sister?"

Lu Zhiyu gestured with his hand. "You've grown this much already?"

Xia Fan immediately said, "Of course! I'm already in high school!"

Xia Yan had been Lu Zhiyu's first love. At a time like this, old acquaintances and relatives were the last people he wanted to see. He only wanted to spend his days quietly by himself, much less run into someone like this. When Lu Zhiyu and Xia Yan had been together in high school, this girl had still been in elementary school.

Lu Zhiyu and Xia Yan had not been in touch for six or seven years. After graduating high school, they had gone their separate ways. Xia Yan had gotten into Peking University, while Lu Zhiyu had only entered a second-tier university. Xia Yan had been utterly resolute when they broke up, and the younger Lu Zhiyu had struggled to accept it. But over the past two years, he had come to understand. That did not mean he wanted to see her again.

Lu Zhiyu nodded. "Oh, right, I remember now, I remember now. What is it? I still have things to do here!"

Xia Fan knocked on the gate, making its iron bars clang. "If you remember me, then open the gate!"

Lu Zhiyu opened the gate in a daze and watched Xia Fan push her motorcycle inside. "Your yard is so big. When I was little, I thought it was like my ideal Paradise. Every time I passed your house, I'd peek inside. I never expected to see you. What were you doing in the yard just now?"

Lu Zhiyu put away his tools. "Nothing much, just tidying up the yard. Since you're here, come in for some tea!"

Xia Fan wore tight jeans and a loose tank top. He could even see her underwear through the armholes; her outfit was hot and daring. Lu Zhiyu had never expected the little girl who used to trail after Xia Yan to grow up like this. All of a sudden, he felt old.

"My family moved to a neighborhood nearby. If I take the street past your front gate, I can make a detour to the back entrance of our complex. I just went to Carrefour to buy some things, and when I came back, I saw you in the yard!"

As Xia Fan chattered on, Lu Zhiyu set two bottles of drinks, some snacks, nuts, and fruit on the table. "Time really flies. How is Xia Yan doing? Is she married?"

Xia Fan looked at Lu Zhiyu with a teasing expression. "What? Still can't forget your old love? Want to rekindle the old flame?"

Lu Zhiyu shook his head and smiled. "It's been so many years that even my memories from back then have become blurry. But we're still friends, right? Since you came by, I thought I'd ask!"

Xia Fan immediately said, "My sister is studying in the United Kingdom. You won't be seeing her anytime soon. Why did you suddenly come back? Didn't I hear that things were going pretty well for you in Beijing?"

Lu Zhiyu sidestepped the question he did not want to answer. "How did you know that? What success? I'm still just working for someone else!"

Xia Fan rolled her eyes. "Aren't we all working for someone else? You want to be the boss or something?"

Xia Fan made a racket at Lu Zhiyu's house for quite some time. Only after finishing off his entire big bag of walnuts did she leave, fully satisfied. After this young girl's lively intrusion, Lu Zhiyu felt as though even the air had become fresher.

After placing the ants he had caught into Painting Space, Lu Zhiyu saw them all die in the blink of an eye. It was not due to the environment, but natural death. He slapped his forehead, feeling incredibly foolish. These ants had no queen. Although ants could live for a long time, with worker ants even living six or seven years, they would die rapidly after leaving their colony. Under ten-thousandfold time acceleration, these worker ants could not survive more than a few seconds. There was simply no way for a colony to form.

Lu Zhiyu immediately went online to search for relevant sources. There was basically nothing for sale online, so he could only find some people through ant-keeping forums. After discussing it with them, he placed an order.

Two days later, Lu Zhiyu received the delivery. When he opened it, he found a special container filled with densely packed tunnels. Ants crawled endlessly through them, and at the bottom was a huge queen ant. It was a formicarium.

Lu Zhiyu opened the formicarium and placed the queen ant into Painting Space. At this point, flowers and plants flourished throughout Painting Space, with all kinds of grasses, flowers, and trees blanketing the hills and fields in a riot of color. The trees seemed to have become smaller. Perhaps due to the gravity and environment within, they had shrunk several times over.

Unfortunately, there was still no sign of animal life. Given enough time, Lu Zhiyu guessed that his own two-dimensional lifeforms might emerge after tens of millions of years, but he could not wait that long.

Lu Zhiyu placed the formicarium halfway up a small hill on the island, lightly burying it in the soil. He immediately began observing the activity inside. Under accelerated time, the ants swiftly sprang into action. Their colony rapidly expanded, gradually covering the entire hill.

Sunlight and darkness alternated continuously, making it feel as though he were watching a documentary on fast-forward. In less than two hours, two or three years had passed inside, and the ant colony had already gone through a generation. These ants resembled a unique civilization, with precise divisions of labor much like humans. They had different jobs, and every ant was like a screw in a machine. Any ant that left the colony could not live for long.

"Ants really are amazing creatures!"

Spring, summer, autumn, and winter cycled by as the years flew past. A day later, the first-generation queen died and a second-generation queen took over. Yet the colony had split into two groups, each queen leading a different colony to reproduce and thrive. Lu Zhiyu noticed subtle differences between them. One group began growing larger and burrowing deep underground, while the other began building nests atop the mountain. Both groups evolved wings. Lu Zhiyu named them Flying Ants and Ground Ants respectively.

On the fourth day, the two groups underwent even greater changes, and their forms became increasingly different. What had originally been a colony divided into worker ants, soldier ants, male ants, queens, and several other types gradually developed more specialized roles. The Flying Ants slowly took over the sky, and their appearance began changing completely. If Lu Zhiyu had not been observing them the whole time, he would never have recognized them as the same species of ant.

The Flying Ants gradually evolved into something close to bees, while the Ground Ants slowly faded in color and became golden. They burrowed even deeper underground. During this period, both colonies split again, and all kinds of ant groups gradually spread across the entire island.

On the sixth day, some ants began approaching the sea. Their limbs started to degenerate, turning them into creatures capable of living in water. Painting Space instantly seemed to burst with life. A tiny ant colony had actually spawned all sorts of strange lifeforms, leaving Lu Zhiyu utterly astonished.