Evolution Failure

"Then when are you free?" Tang Er asked. He didn't know who Yan Yanran was, but if she was a beauty, he absolutely couldn't afford to offend her. She might be the Matriarch's sweetheart, after all.

"How about noon this Friday?" Yan Yanran replied after chewing on her fingernail and thinking for a moment.

"Sounds good. See you Friday!" Tang Er replied, then closed WeChat.

Tang Shizhe was lying in bed, in the middle of evolving, completely unaware that two of his Splitters had arranged for him to go out to dinner with two girls at the same time.

At that moment, Tang Shizhe was immersed in the memories inherited through his genes.

In the memories, after the alien organism had merged with the scholar, it had been too badly injured to activate all its abilities. Even so, it had modified the scholar's body.

The scholar's memory had improved, and his physical fitness had become superior to that of an ordinary person.

But the price was that the more powerful a creature was, the weaker its reproductive capacity.

Although the modified scholar had passed the imperial examinations, risen to high office, and married many wives and concubines, he had only two children in his entire life: a son and a daughter!

He had married at least eighteen women! Two children out of eighteen—that was an appallingly low probability, especially in ancient times, when there were no contraceptives.

For some reason, the alien organism's genes could only be preserved in male chromosomes.

If the child was a girl, she wouldn't inherit the alien genes at all!

That was all the new memory contained. These memories were fragments that had originally been stored in his genetic chain. The alien genes had reorganized and filled in some of them when they modified his body.

Besides the memories of ancient times, Tang Shizhe had also discovered that his brain had automatically reconstructed quite a bit of biological technology.

As long as he had his Splitters fill in some basic knowledge, he would be able to bring that technology into the real world.

The information about these memories consisted of a damaged video and some written records, but Tang Shizhe could still make out roughly what was happening in the footage.

It showed a barren planet covered in lava and gray rock, its atmosphere filled with all sorts of toxic substances.

In some basins, the oceans had begun to take shape. Tens of thousands of lakes lay scattered across the planet, hidden in crater basins.

One by one, spaceships with bone-constructed hulls landed on the planet.

Hideous-looking insects crawled out of the ships and scattered green spheres into the lakes on the planet's surface.

Before long, clusters of green, spherical algae-like plants floated up from the lakes.

Then the planet's air began to grow pure. The spherical algae absorbed the harmful substances in the atmosphere and turned them into hard spheres, storing them in the centers of their bodies.

The Zerg then returned and harvested all the spherical plants, taking the hard spheres from their cores before tossing the algae back onto the planet.

Tang Shizhe figured the green spherical algae might be a type of plant capable of absorbing harmful substances from the air.

It could also purify the pollutants it absorbed and condense them into spheres for people to harvest.

But because he lacked the necessary technology, the algae-like plants he could produce with the biological techniques he'd acquired could only absorb airborne particles and deposit them at their roots.

They couldn't purify the pollutants at all.

But that was already enough! Cities in developed countries, the Ganges Nation, and the Xia Kingdom were all plagued by air pollution.

Existing technology could produce air purifiers, but they were expensive, costly to maintain because of the frequent filter replacements, and consumed a lot of energy. Their purification efficiency was nothing to write home about, and they couldn't be deployed on a large scale or across wide areas.

His spherical algae were different. As long as there was water and light, their ability to purify the air would far surpass anything existing technology could offer.

After all, they had originally been designed to purify the air of an entire planet!

The joy of acquiring new technology soon faded, because Tang Shizhe realized he was trapped in the mental world!

No matter what he did, he couldn't leave. He seemed to have lost control of his body, too!

Worse, he began to feel the energy in his body rapidly draining away. At this rate, he'd soon be sucked dry!

He had already used up all the energy he'd stored during the evolution!

"Help me!" Tang Shizhe sent out distress signals through the Mental Network.

The special signal, originating from a mysterious region in his mind, could even cross the distance between spaces!

But the shell wrapped around him seemed to completely block the signal. No matter how hard he tried, he received no response!

Just then, Tang Er noticed that the cocoon around Tang Shizhe's body had suddenly tightened. The opening for the infusion tube had clamped shut as well.

Though he had no idea what was happening, his body sensed the danger. He hurriedly called Tang Yi and the others over from the workshop.

"Something's wrong! I can feel the energy inside the Matriarch draining away. It's happening far too fast!" Tang Yi's hand jerked back from the black cocoon, and his face darkened.

"We have to cut this shell open! At this rate, the Matriarch could be in danger!" Tang Yi decisively grabbed several large scalpels from a nearby shelf.

Tang Er and the others took the scalpels and carefully inserted them into the cocoon surrounding Tang Shizhe.

As they worked, they cut open the cocoon bit by bit, revealing Tang Shizhe's naked body inside.

Tang Yi reacted swiftly, scooping Tang Shizhe out of the cocoon. The fleshy tendrils connecting his back to it were immediately severed by Tang Er and the others.

"That was close. Looks like the upgrade failed?" Tang Yi laid Tang Shizhe on a sofa someone had brought over and carefully covered him with a light blanket. Then he turned to look at the red cocoon, frowning slightly.

"No, it didn't fail. Don't touch the cocoon!" Tang Shizhe suddenly sat up and shouted at Tang Yi and the others, like a dying man making a final recovery. Then he fainted again.

Hearing him say that, Tang Yi and the others finally breathed a sigh of relief. As long as the upgrade hadn't failed, that was all that mattered.

As for what the cocoon was, Tang Shizhe would tell them once he woke up.

Tang Yi and Tang Er carried Tang Shizhe back to the bed they had already cleaned, then moved the cocoon into a box nearby.

The box had originally been a temperature-controlled incubator for breeding, but Tang Yi and the others had modified it to store items that required special conditions.

After setting the temperature to thirty-seven degrees, Tang Yi left two people to watch over Tang Shizhe while the others returned to the workshop to continue making new viruses.