Chapter 79 - Red Queen
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
The Crosson Show base changed drastically overnight on the night of the team activity.
The tarot card building had been burned down by the fire at the end of the third elimination match. After that, teams of engineering robots had demolished the remains of the entire stadium before laying down soil and fertilizer and plowing the land that had originally been there.
In the twin towers, the players that had been promoted or demoted had just changed dormitories. Only 250 trainees of the 300 were left.
On the Star Net, the a.s.sorted Scarf CP made a small appearance on the survival show page’s hot search, along with a long series of end of summer professional player transfer reports.
Caesar’s expression packs appeared frequently in the Crosson Show fan forum discussions, and the popularity of the related tags soared. It was hidden amongst the ‘Scarf pregnancy’, “Jingyi life and death love’, ‘Double Scarf/AAO/Sentinel’ and advanced shoulder to shoulder with the rest in popularity.
Crosson canteen.
Caesar gnawed on a meat bun and used a vaguely indecipherable voice to leave a comment on his terminal.
Chapter 12: Thin Fire shamefully pushed open the window, and his lover Caesar came in with the night wind, flipping over the sill. Dry firewood suddenly kindled, burning chaotically, but the door to the room suddenly opened!! Thin Water was furious, breaking three of Caesar’s ribs with one hit! Thin Fire cried out and tried to protect his lover…
Caesar’s alt account: “Three ribs?? What a joke! These two coquettish men can’t touch a single one of our brother Caesar’s fingers!”
The original poster replied swiftly, “No way. Big Thin is a professional player, so it’s possible! Dear, how should I write it then?”
Caesar’s alt account: “Thin Water shook violently and kicked Thin Fire away with a foot, hugging Caesar’s big thigh––Big brother, take me instead!”
Original poster: “… This Caesar hater came to destroy the thread, right? Haters are haters, and you even use an ID like ‘Caesar’s alt account’, who are you kidding? Get the h.e.l.l out and don’t post in my thread!”
At the breakfast table, Zoe looked at Caesar who was about to extend his claws into another thread, “Can you eat your f*cking meal properly? And you’re even using voice input. Don’t you feel ashamed with your own replies?”
Caesar retorted righteously, “I’m an idol who came personally in order to provide writing guidance!”
“……” Zoe replied, “You even call yourself an idol? Foolish Caesar, other people are just saying that to coax you. Enough, enough, just tone it down. Save some time for training and don’t interfere with your fans’ spiritual world. Look at Little Witch, he’s already been pregnant with who knows how many of Contestant Wei’s babies, but he’s still seriously reviewing the training handouts this morning.”
Zoe gave Wu Jin a pleased look.
The hand that Wu Jin was stretching out to get an egg roll paused. He seemed to have heard something, his eyes turning frightened as he hiccuped without any warning.
The three other people from White Moonlight quickly poured water for Wu Jin, “What’s the matter, what’s the matter? From last night till today, weren’t you fine this morning?”
Wu Jin had already lost his soul, “I––”
He gurgle-gurgled down a gla.s.s of water, then hiccuped twice. The youth hung his head, and it was clear that he was in poor spirits.
Wen Lin comforted, “It’s alright, Little Witch don’t think about it! You’ll be fine after a moment of fright!”
The gla.s.s that separated the outside from the canteen was coated with mist. The base had cooled after autumn came. Through the huge floor to ceiling windows, the engineering machines could be seen working outdoors.
“They’re not building a new stadium.” Zoe pondered, “The fourth elimination match––the venue should be outside the base.”
Wen Lin pointed out the window towards the hardworking robots, “What is that?”
Zoe: “It looks like they’re setting up a training ground, then fertilizing and plowing the soil. What kind of plants are they transplanting––”
A rumbling transport glided over and dropped several giant sacks. The robots unloaded them skillfully, unpacking, scanning the code, and accepting the delivery before cooperating with each other to move the huge objects to the soil and fixing them in place.
Several people all had their mouths wide open.
Bundles of dark green vines with cl.u.s.ters of branches, white flowers, and large, thick leaves poured out of the sacks.
The giant vines that had been withered due to dehydration took root as soon as they touched the soil. The soft, red soil was broken apart by the vines, and after absorbing some water, the vines stretched out strangely, straightening up almost ten meters into the air before spreading out into a tangle that shifted with the wind––
Wu Jin suddenly remembered that the smoke from Crosson’s canteen had gone straight up today. The wind level was basically 0.
“……” Zoe: “What is this? Is it moving on its own?”
Caesar: “Holy s.h.i.t! It’s prehistoric giant vines!”
Zoe was shocked, “The Paleozoic period? The Jura.s.sic period?”
Wu Jin looked over again and shook his head, “It’s at least after the Cretaceous period. Flowering plants first appeared during that period, and giant vines were rarely seen in the Jura.s.sic period. Another possibility is modified plantsk2013;k2013;”
Three pairs of eyes turned to look at Wu Jin.
Zoe sighed emotionally, “What a good brain. The Little Witch encyclopedia can come up with results right away. Unfortunately, they’re breaking up the teams for the next round!”
Wu Jin’s head immediately shook so much he turned into a rattle drum.
Unlike the prevalence of mecha and the development of science and technology that had taken place 1000 years later, Wu Jin had grown up in a time of limited information intake. Various disciplines, including paleontology, had only just started developing.
Being fascinated with the prehistoric and the study of little dinosaurs was the way every straight man had grown up––
Wu Jin froze.
He didn’t quite seem to be… a straight man anymore.
Aaahhhhhhhh––
At the dining table, Wen Lin hurriedly handed over more water and wondered, “Why did you start hiccuping again?”
After the third elimination match, the Crosson Show unexpectedly adjusted their schedules, moving their week of holiday to after their two weeks of training, due to ‘requirements of the compet.i.tion’.
After finishing breakfast, the group of trainees were ordered by the program producer to visit the clinic.
For vaccinations.
The three quick-acting vaccine courses would be completed over the next two weeks, and their physical signs would be monitored over the last week. The players who were lined up at the entrance were instantly stirred up.
“… Are we going up against some sort of extreme bacteria?”
“Biochemical crisis? Zombie tides? Blood sucking worms?”
Zoe thought about it, “If the next elimination match is really in prehistoric settings, then the program team should be giving the contestants immunity to parasites and viruses in advance––”
He pushed Caesar, who was watching at the door, inside with one hand, “Go and ask around, see what kind of vaccine it is.”
Two minutes later, Caesar came back out with his arms covered and teeth bared.
“Were you able to ask?”
Caesar spread out his hands, “Nope!”
Zoe’s expression was cold, “Then what use are you?”
Caesar: “Ah no, no! I saw that there was something on the side of the container to the vaccine. It looked a bit like those little dinosaurs––”
The team paused.
A long time later, Zoe finally spoke, “This scale… seems a little extreme?”
None of the trainees were absent for the first day of training.
Outside the tiered cla.s.sroom, Blood Pigeon was holding a stack of handouts as he spoke with a stage manager.
The stage manager: “248 people received their injections. No allergies, no rejection. Another two trainees had registered injection histories, and it was confirmed that the antibodies were present in their bodies…”
Blood Pigeon found it strange, “Wei Yan and who?”
The R-Code Entertainment’s custom-made human-shaped weapons naturally wouldn’t be short on immunizations. What Blood Pigeon wanted to know was what other company had bothered to smash their contestant with this non-mainstream spectrum of vaccines.
“Contestant Wei Shi.” The stage manager flipped through the information, “His reason for injections was because he’d travelled to XX planet a few years ago to see the great dinosaur migration…”
Blood Pigeon paused and lamented, “What a colorful life.”
The door to the tiered cla.s.sroom opened, and the originally noisy and bustling interior grew quiet. Almost everyone stared fixedly at the handouts in Blood Pigeon’s hands.
Except for Wu Jin, who still hadn’t regained his wits.
Soft, warm sunlight streamed in from one side of the cla.s.sroom. It was early autumn outside the cla.s.sroom, and purple jasmine and hibiscus became the foil, highlighting Wei Shi’s figure as he sat in the second last row by the window, coating him in a haze of dreaminess and reality.
It seemed that even the air was nice and warm.
Wu Jin secretly snuck glances over, pretending that he didn’t want to sweep his gaze over from top to bottom. His gaze paused on the side of Wei Shi’s gaze for half a second before looking carefully from left to right, right to left––
His heart rate went from fast to calm, calm to fast.
His brain was already broken and was unwilling to move most of the time, but at this time, it was still arguing noisily with the Little Wu Jin inside his consciousness.
Just another glance!
No way! We agreed that you can only look over 10 times per cla.s.s! It’s already been three times! There are two hours left until the next cla.s.s, so save it for later!
I told you to go sit behind big brother! Why did you run off to hide in the corner!
Little Wu Jin blushed: That would be too obvious! And Wei Yan already went over to sit there. There wasn’t enough room for all four people from White Moonlight––
Wei Yan suddenly turned and looked solemnly at Wu Jin.
Wu Jin: “……”
Wei Yan: “……”
Wu Jin nodded mechanically.
Wei Yan’s expression suddenly became respectful, and he nodded back very seriously.
Wu Jin’s gaze unconsciously drifted back to the big boss. The big boss was wearing a standard training suit, and his profile was breathtakingly attractive. He seemed to be loaded with an automatic beam transmitter as he sat there by the window. There was the bang of a long-ranged sniper shot, and the Little Wu Jin in his mind exploded into a series of fireworks…
Wei Shi set down his terminal and looked over towards the little rabbit spirit who seemed to be acting a little abnormal.
“!!!” Wu Jin turned his head back with a swoosh and hurriedly stared at an empty wall––leaving Wei Shi staring at the back of his head, and even Wu Jin’s small curls seemed to be tensed up nervously.
Wei Shi’s right hand made a slight rubbing motion.
Twice. Wu Jin had avoided meeting his gaze. He’d go and catch the rabbit later and see what the problem was, then repair whatever was wrong while taking the opportunity to stroke the small curls.
On the podium, Blood Pigeon finally projected the cover to the handout up on the screen.
Their speculation had turned out to be correct. There was an uproar among the students!
Blood Pigeon coughed lightly, “Due to the change in scheduling, your theoretical instructor is still on the star ship from Perseus. He’s expected to arrive in a week, so I will take his place for the cla.s.s this week.”
“The first clue for the elimination match is on the first sheet of the handouts. Now, we’ll pa.s.s out the handouts from the first row.”
“The venue for the fourth elimination match is 600 cosmic units away. Please make sure you are at the Crosson base before the game starts. The program team will arrange for everyone to travel together. Also, over the course of the next two weeks, your training will focus on close combat and adapting to high oxygen, high carbon dioxide environments. You must pa.s.s the a.s.sessment before going on leave, and the pa.s.s criteria is to make it through the vine obstacle course in 6 minutes––did you all get that?”
The crowd all answered affirmatively, and quite a few people even started to look excited.
High oxygen environment, Mesozoic era, vaccines, prehistoric creatures––the content for the upcoming compet.i.tion was starting to come together.
Blood Pigeon nodded in satisfaction, “In the next round, teams will be formed randomly. The voting channel for contestants will be opened up this evening, and the rankings will determine your options for supplies and materials. Now, if you have no further questions, turn to the first page of the handout––”
In a corner of the cla.s.sroom, among the White Moonlight team.
Wu Jin had his head down. Zoe reached out to touch his elbow.
“Little Witch––what is this?” Zoe asked.
The handout was packaged exquisitely, and the opening was covered with a wax seal that was stamped with what seemed to be the sponsor’s logo. To Wu Jin’s surprise, the design of the seal wasn’t of any prehistoric creature he could recognize, but rather a small humanoid figure.
The wax seal was blood red, and the feminine expression on the stamp was quite exaggerated. She wore a court dress with a red heart pattern.
Wu Jin shook his head blankly.
Unexpectedly, it was Caesar who slapped his thigh, “Ah, I know, I know! I watched cartoons as a child––the Queen of Hearts!”
Zoe: “What?”
Caesar: “The one with the little loli who went into dreams! There was a pretty little girl who fell into a rabbit hole and ran here and there doing who knows what. She was even caught several times and escaped––then, she met the Red Queen!”
Wu Jin: “Alice in Wonderland!”
Caesar: “Ah, yes!”
Zoe was curious, “What does this have to do with the game…”
Wu Jin flipped to the first page, where a line of text was printed on the paper.
“In this country, you must keep running just to remain in the same place. –– 1973, Van Valen, the Red Queen hypothesis.”
Two hours later, the bell rang.
After Blood Pigeon left, the entire cla.s.sroom quickly exploded into activity.
Wu Jin set down his terminal, having finally finished going through all the information. When he looked up, his three teammates’ gazes all swished over.
“The Red Queen hypothesis was proposed by Van Valen in the 20th century. It is one of the most important biological evolution viewpoints after Darwin’s theory on natural selection.” Wu Jin explained.
“The hypothesis quotes a line from the Red Queen in . It takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place, which refers to how in the process of biological co-evolution, the evolution of any species will put pressure on other species.”
“––Species are driven to compete against each other, and the risk of extinction can only be reduced if they evolve faster than their enemies.”
Zoe: “The hint for the fourth elimination match is the Red Queen hypothesis?”
Wu Jin nodded.
Zoe frowned, “What are the rules for the game?”
Wu Jin: “I don’t know yet…”
Caesar rushed in to give his reply, “Doesn’t it just mean what the words say? It’s telling us to run faster than the dinosaurs!”
Wu Jin: “……” That seemed right, wait, no, wasn’t this nonsense?!
While the few of them were talking, Red came over and very naturally wrapped an arm around Caesar’s shoulders.
Wu Jin greeted him, then his entire person suddenly seemed to freeze.
Red’s central control program was very simple. When the big boss was there, he would follow the big boss, and he would only move around at random when the big boss was skipping cla.s.s. The big boss obviously hadn’t left the cla.s.sroom yet––
A shadow was cast over him from behind.
Wei Shi: “Excuse me.”
Zoe was stunned for three seconds before immediately coming back to his senses, “Oh, right. The endors.e.m.e.nt. You guys are going to find Instructor Ying Xiangxiang, right? Little Witch, hey, Little Witch don’t stand there foolishly, your partner’s here––”
Wu Jin was blank.
Wei Shi looked down.
The youth subconsciously raised his neck, his gaze sliding across the man’s tightly pressed lips, the strong bridge of his nose, clinging as it made its way upward.
Wei Shi nodded to Zoe and led the Wu Jin, who looked like his spirit had already wandered away, outside the door to the cla.s.sroom, through the corridor speckled with light and dust, across a large stretch of vibrant lawn, towards the empty, isolated hillside.
The gun-callused palm pressed down on the soft and wilted small curls, “What.”
Wu Jin was so nervous that he was a complete mess. He didn’t even dare to utter even a small punctuation mark, and his gaze was fixed low as he kept his head down.
The man stared at the Wu Jin who seemed shriveled into a ball and slowly opened his mouth, “You don’t dare to look at me?”
Juurensha: Waaaaah so nervous, Little Witch!
xiin: “He’d go and catch the rabbit later and see what the problem was, then repair whatever was wrong while taking the opportunity to stroke the small curls.” AHHHHHHH SO CUTE