The Return of Cambrian Period Volume 1 Chapter 2 14 Dec 26, 2019

Cong Xia published his analysis results on a hacker forum that he often visited. He didn't expect to get responses so quickly even it was 4 or 5 in the morning at the moment. Some experts in the forum continuously joined the analyzing group. They posted posts in major forums to attract people who discovered the phenomenon to leave replies. In just one hour, the range of food's accelerating spoiling speed phenomenon spread from Guizhou to Hubei, and in the northern region, it had expanded to Beijing and Tianjin. They analyzed and compared the data collected during the last four hours and found that in just three or four hours, the East and Southeast Coast which were the furthest from Qinghai would also be affected. The food's accelerating spoiling speed phenomenon was like a plague, with the epicenter of earthquake in Golmud of Qinghai as the center, it spread across the country at a terrifying speed. No one actually knew what happened.

Then, on the Internet, there were waves of news about the rapid growth of plants. A netizen posted two photos of the exterior wall of his house. The first one was taken three days ago. The bougainvillea only occupied a very small part of the wall, but in the second photo, the bougainvillea had covered the entire wall of his three-storey villa. The netizen claimed that the bougainvillea grew up overnight. He woke up and found that he could not see the sunlight, when he went outside to take a look, he discovered that the bougainvillea completely covered the window, and the exterior wall looked like those of haunted houses that had been abandoned for many years!

[Note: Bougainvillea is a very common type of ornamental plant, which is normally grown outside of the house for decorative purpose. It comes in a variety of colors - pink, purple, orange, yellow and white, with magenta being the most common color.]

Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.

It was past 6 am, more and more people woke up from their sleep, there were all kinds of strange phenomena in those areas which were closer to Qinghai such as the food's accelerating spoiling speed, the plants that grew wildly and the stray animals that showed great aggressiveness. Only thirteen hours had passed since the earthquake occurred yesterday afternoon and the whole country had gotten into a strange situation, and this situation continued to get worse over time.

More and more people were aware of the impact of the earthquake. Although there was no one saying anything on the TV, they probably had been forbidden by the relevant departments, but the ban did not stop the mouths of hundreds of millions of netizens. There were rumors everywhere on the internet and terrifying speculations were endless. An originally ordinary Monday morning became a national panic day.

The more closely Cong Xia followed the situation, the more he was shocked. When he was hysterically searching for relevant information in an attempt to analyze the situation, his cell phone rang.

When he saw that it was the call from his boss, he suddenly realized that he was late for work. He quickly took the call.

"Hello, Chief Jiang, I am going to the company right now..."

Chief Jiang's voice was very flustered.

"Xiao Cong, you don't need to come, there was an incident at the company."

Cong Xia actually was not too surprised. He was in Kunming, not too far from Qinghai, so his area was one of those areas that the food's accelerating spoiling speed phenomenon occurred quite early. According to their prediction about the geographical relationship, Yunnan was destined to be affected.

Even if he was not surprised, he was still very scared. After all, there was an imbalance in ecology happened overnight, which could be a major event affecting all mankind.

He took a deep breath.

"Chief Jiang, what happened at the company?"

"Do you still remember the bonsai pine at the company's entrance?"

"A? Did it grow up?"

"How did you know?"

"It was last night. I worked overtime and tripped on its branch, how much did it grow?"

Chief Jiang breathed out, her voice was trembling and her tone was obviously filled with fear.

"It occupies almost the whole outside area of the office."

Cong Xia only felt that his whole body was cold.

Despite how much he was hoping it was just a coincidence, he understood that there were really some dreadful changes in the world in which he was living in. Just merely looking at the current situation, the main problem was the rapid development and the mutation of species. For example, the mad growth and enlargement of the bougainvillea and the bonsai pine, the food spoilage caused by accelerating bacterial growth and weak creatures such as stray cats and dogs suddenly became aggressive. All those species, that were presenting in the human society, had changed.

Chief Jiang said with a trembling voice.

"Xiao Cong, do you know what is going on? Don't you really love reading?"

Cong Xiao wryly smiled.

"Chief Jiang, I don't know anything, just like everybody else."

Chief Jiang sighed deeply.

"Today, you haven't got out of the house yet, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"Go outside and have a look. It's really chaotic."

Cong Xia hung up the phone and rushed to the window. Because the air conditioner was on, he still kept the window closed. When he opened the window to have a look of the outside, the neighborhood that he was familiar with had changed greatly after a short night.

First of all, the weeds that emerged from the cracks between the pavement tiles already grew almost as tall as a human calf. However, the pedestrians on the road had no time to pay attention to them. Everyone looked like they were in a hurry and panic. They gathered together into groups to discuss about various types of changes occurred around them.

It should be a gridlock Monday morning, but there were not a lot of cars on the road, and no one seemed to be in a hurry to go to work, take their children to school or buy food. Everyone probably realized that these situations, that could not be explained easily with common sense, were definitely not simple.

The fear was spreading even faster than the spread of viruses. Just three hours ago, only he and the people from the hacker forum were aware of the change of the environment. In the blink of an eye, most people who were in their right minds at this time had already realized the seriousness of the situation.

Cong Xia closed the window and sat down on the bed.

Calm down! You need to calm down!

He had always been a nerd since young age. He had no special skills. He was only a little smarter thanks to his parents' genes. Because of his extensive knowledge and careful thinking, he usually analyzed problems faster than people around him. At this point, he had only two big words in his mind - the apocalypse.

This was not just a wild guess. In just a dozen hours, the mutation of species had already reached this level. If you thought about it, tomorrow those weeds would entirely cover those roads that humans had worked hard to build. Due to the accelerating spoiling speed of the food, humans would soon face food crisis. Not to mention the omnivores that were becoming fiercer and bulkier. They were also following the footsteps of the plants and the microbes.

If the change did not stop, it was safe to say that within three days, the order of the entire human society would collapse, and those areas affected by the earthquake would become an unprecedented hell.

Doomsday... Was the end of the world really coming? Did the prophecy about the end of the world really come true?

The clearer Cong Xia's mind was, the more terrified he became. He was just an ordinary office worker, living a nine-to-five life happily and never thought about any big changes in life, but in just the blink of an eye, he would face the end of the world when all species had changed.

[Note: a nine-to-five job/life means... well... you work from 9 am till 5 pm, pretty much a normal life for any office worker.]

His mind was good, but his physical ability was just so-so. Once the social order collapsed, it was safe to say that he had no advantage to stay alive in the apocalypse. How could he not be afraid?

No, I must make some preparation early!

Cong Xia jumped out of the bed and went back to the computer desk. On QQ, news was hysterically posted, if you casually clicked at one of them, you could see that they were all speculations about the end of the world.

[Note: QQ or Tencent QQ, is an instant messaging software service developed by the Chinese tech giant Tencent. QQ also offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat software. The logo of the software is a winking penguin wearing a red scarf.]

Major forums and private blogs also reported changes in one night. People from all over the world started to stock up their supplies. There was still no activity from the government side. Everyone was not at ease.

Cong Xia knew that it was too late to go to the supermarket to stock up food. First, there would be a lot of people in the supermarket. Second, according to the current speed of food spoilage, even if he could grab a lot of things, as long as he couldn't freeze them, they would go off within a few hours.

The food problem was the most urgent thing at the moment...

Cong Xia took out all the vacuum-packed food that was not spoiled at home. These foods were still not spoiled for the time being. He loved good food, he knew how to cook and liked cooking as well. He had many vacuum-packed pickled food bags, especially meat products. For now, it was safe to placed those vacuumed bags next to one another in the refrigerator. These foods were at least enough for one person to eat for one month, provided that they could stay edible in one month.

After sorting out the food, he called the only relative whom he was still in contact with - his second uncle in Beijing, but his phone was turned off. He also called several friends and told them that they must properly store food. If the situation suddenly became even worse, they would soon face food crisis.

After doing all of this, he was already exhausted and sweat all over.

He thought the fact that he had no parents, no wife or children, being alone at this time was a good thing as he didn't need to worry about them. The only thing he had to do was to find a way to keep himself alive.

He walked around the room, wanted to find something as a weapon. Once the animals started to mutate, those weak animals could become his enemies. He now recalled the cat that attacked the human last night, he felt really scared.

He was busy in his room and suddenly someone rang the doorbell of his apartment.

Cong Xia took a look through the peephole, there was a man outside dressing in a camouflage uniform. He was wearing a hat, so he couldn't see his face.

"Who is that?"

"Are you Cong Xia?"

A deep voice coming from the other side of the door.

"You know me?"

Cong Xia opened the inner door and the two were separated by an external security door.

The man slightly lifted his face up, he didn't show too much expression and his eyes were very cold. Cong Xia was stunned, because the man was really good-looking, his facial features were sharp and outstanding and he was very tall. In his life, he had never seen a man that was this handsome, as if he was not a real person.

Cong Xia stuttered.

"May I ask who are you?"

This person should be a soldier, not only because he was wearing a camouflage uniform, but also because of his unwavering determined and straightforward temperament, which was exceptionally in line with the image of a military personnel.

"Cong Xia, open the door."

The man firmly spit out these five words.

Cong Xia frowned. He could sense that this person was not very friendly.

"I was sent by Prof. Cong Zhenzhong to pick you up."

"My uncle? Why?"

His uncle was an expert in paleontology. At the moment, he was working as a researcher in Beijing. After his parents passed away, they had never seen each other again. They also rarely contacted each other. Every year, they only called each other on New Year. Their relationship was not very strong.

"Stop talking nonsense, open the door."

Cong Xia felt kinda scared and anxious. Why did this soldier need to be so fierce? Couldn't he just talk nicely? He was hesitating whether he should open the door or not. Although he did say the name of his uncle, Cong Xia could sense that this person was dangerous.

The soldier was impatient. The next moment, a pitch black barrel of a gun was inserted in between the gaps of the security door. The soldier did not say anything, he just looked at him coldly.

Cong Xia was so scared that his legs trembled. He was shaking while opening the door.

After the man came in, he shut the two doors tightly and then looked around the whole house.

"I am going to take you to Beijing now, bring all the vacuum packed food at home, don't bring anything else."

"Beijing? I don't want to going to Beijing, if everything continues to mutate, the outside will become very dangerous soon."

The man glanced at him.

"Soon enough, even staying indoor won't be safe. You have no choice but to go with me."

"What happened after all? You were sent by my uncle, do you know any information? Why did my uncle want me to go to Beijing? What was wrong with the earthquake? Why does everything change?!!"

"Evolution."

"What?"

"They called it evolution."

"You mean these changes... they are called evolution?"

Cong Xia slowly digested this word, the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. From the perspective of the animals, the plants and the microbes, they were indeed evolving. The growth of body size, the speed of reproduction and the ability to attack were all the benefits of evolution, but if they continued to evolve, it would be the end of mankind. The civilization that mankind had been working so hard to build for thousands of years would be destroyed in the blink of an eye.

"Wait, who are they? My uncle?"

The man ignored him and went into his kitchen to start packing up the food.

After Cong Xia spent half a minute in shock, he rushed into the kitchen and grabbed the sleeve of the man. No one would allow a complete stranger coming into their houses and messed things up. He yelled in a worried tone.

"Mr. Soldier... No matter what you said... Staying inside a well-fortified home is still much safer than being exposed outside. I don't want to... Mmmm..."

[Note: Chinese citizens normally address a military man if they don't know his rank by calling him '兵哥' or Bing Ge, '兵' means BELONGING TO MILITARY or WEAPON, while '哥' means BIG BROTHER, I chose to translate this phrase into 'Mr. Soldier'...]

The man grabbed the neck of Cong Xia and pushed him up against the wall as if he was some kind of a baby chick. His deep eyes were filled with danger.

"From now on, if you say one more nonsensical word that I don't want to hear, I will sew your mouth."

Cong Xia's face was red because of lacking of oxygen. He looked at the man in front of him in horror.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The seme has finally appeared!!! AAAAAAAA!!! I'm excited... o(≧▽≦)o