DipNovel Chapter 49 The Price of Coexistence
Chapter 49 The Price of Coexistence
The next chapter is even more exciting: Chapter 49 The Price of Coexistence. We look forward to your visit.
The light curtain went out.
Lu Cheng stood on the balcony of the Executive Government building, looking in the direction where the light screen disappeared.
The pre-civilization was not replaced by upright apes; rather, humans and upright apes coexisted for three thousand years before simultaneously discovering that they could not coexist.
It wasn't a matter of one replacing the other; it was a matter of both sides coming to an end together.
The reason for that end lies 53 meters directly below what the Water Dragon Beast is digging.
Carrie walked up behind him: "Humans and upright apes coexisted for three thousand years. So why couldn't they coexist in the end?"
"The system says the reason is engraved on the last stone wall, which is 120 meters deep. The water dragon beast has now dug to 67 meters."
He squatted down and looked at the water dragon beast that was changing shifts in the square.
It changed direction again today—bypassing the area flooded by the underground river the day before yesterday, and chose a dry soil layer.
The excavator claws dug into the soil one after another, moving at a steady pace, like a perpetual motion machine that doesn't need fuel.
"Fifty-three meters left, at its current digging speed—"
"How long will it take?"
"If it doesn't encounter a granite layer, it will take about ten days. If it does, it might take a detour or pry it open with its large fangs. Just wait, it shouldn't be too long."
The water dragon emerged from the cave, covered in dirt, with a piece of pebbles hanging from its large fangs.
It tilted its head and looked at Lu Cheng, then spat the pebbles at his feet.
There is a shallow scratch on the gravel, not a natural texture.
Lu Cheng picked up the pebbles and, by the light of the kerosene lamp, saw the engraving clearly.
It is a single word – “共” (gòng).
The "coexistence" in "coexistence".
……
August, 5914 of the Blue Star Calendar, the forty-seventh day since the arrival of alien creatures.
The Water Dragon Beast has gone mad.
He wasn't really crazy, he was just digging holes like a madman.
From the forty-third day to the forty-seventh day, in just four days, the water dragon beast in the government square was dug from sixty-seven meters to ninety-four meters.
When it encounters two layers of granite, it will even use its large fangs to pry open one layer and bypass the other.
The excavated rubble piled up into a small mountain in the square. Geologists from the Winner Monkey Kingdom squatted in the rubble for four days, turning it over and finding more than a dozen stone flakes with engravings.
Each piece has a character on it: "共" (together), "存" (to exist), "战" (to fight), "争" (to contend), "结" (to conclude), "束" (to end), "选" (to choose), "择" (to select).
It's as if a previous civilization broke down a sentence and buried it in every meter of the earth, making later generations dig it out meter by meter and piece it back together word by word.
Lu Cheng squatted down next to the pile of rubble and arranged the newly dug-out stone slabs in a row according to their depth.
Sixty-seven meters represents "shared", seventy-one meters represents "existence", seventy-four meters represents "harmony", seventy-eight meters represents "peace", eighty-two meters represents "destruction", eighty-five meters represents "rift", eighty-nine meters represents "war", and ninety-three meters represents "contending".
"Coexistence, peace, breakdown, war," Lu Cheng read aloud.
"Pre-civilization and Homo erectus began with coexistence, progressed to peace, then peace broke down, and finally war ensued... And what happened after the war?"
The water dragon emerged from the cave, covered in mud, with a palm-sized stone shard hanging from its large fangs.
It spat the stone shards at Lu Cheng's feet, then collapsed on the ground, belly up, its four paws kicking a few times in the air before becoming still.
I'm completely exhausted.
Lu Cheng picked up the stone shard.
Two characters are engraved on it: "代" (dai) and "价" (jia).
……
Meanwhile, in the Lesotho mountain region.
Li Wei squatted outside a tent in a disaster relief camp, holding a bowl of corn porridge in his hand, pretending to drink it.
A bipedal ape was sitting inside the tent.
It's not squatting, it's sitting.
With its back straight, legs crossed, front paws resting on its knees, it wore a coarse linen pullover—the same fabric woven by the Golden City Upright Apes of the Bulante Kingdom.
A dozen or so refugees from Rasokot sat around it, listening to it speak.
It's not about arranging words with pebbles, it's about using sound.
Short, rhythmic syllables, like the rudiments of human language.
The disaster victims listened attentively, and some even nodded.
Li Wei placed the cornmeal paste on the ground, took out his notebook from his pocket, and quickly scribbled down notes by the light shining through the gaps in the tent.
"The third disaster camp in the Lesotho Mountains. Number of imposters: three confirmed, seven suspected. Behavior: establishing order. They are not hiding, but operating openly. The disaster victims call one of them the 'Stone Whisperer'—because it uses stones to spell words on stone slabs. Less than 10% of the disaster victims in Lesotho can read, but most cannot read words, they can read pictures. The Stone Whisperer drew a picture on the stone slab: a mountain, a river at the foot of the mountain, fields beside the river, and houses beside the fields. It told the disaster victims that by following it, they could rebuild their homes."
"This is not replacement, it is reception. The false men of Vakanda learned warfare after being slaughtered, and the false men of Rasotho learned governance from the ruins. They did not come to kill, they came to be saviors."
Li Wei closed his notebook and looked up.
The upright ape inside the tent was watching him. Through the gaps in the tent, across a distance of more than ten meters, its clear black and white eyes accurately located Li Wei's hiding place.
It didn't call out, didn't point, and didn't make any movement.
Just watching.
Then it lowered its head and continued speaking to the disaster victims.
Li Wei's back was pressed tightly against the earthen wall behind him.
It's telling him through its silence—I know you're watching, but I'm not afraid of you watching.
The last line of the telegram read:
"Governor, the pseudo-humans of Rasotho are establishing a model of coexistence between humans and hominids. Not enslavement, not slaughter, but coexistence. They help disaster victims repair irrigation canals, build houses, and distribute food; the disaster victims call them 'Black-Blooded Bodhisattvas.' If this model succeeds, Rasotho will become a springboard for the spread of pseudo-humans. And our instinct testing chamber is ineffective on a group of people who regard hominids as bodhisattvas."
……
The Winners' Kingdom, the government.
Lu Cheng put Li Wei's telegram together with the "Price" stone fragment dug out from 94 meters away.
Carrie stood beside him holding a bowl of water dragon bone soup; the soup was no longer steaming.
"The false people of Rasotho are trying to achieve coexistence. The pre-civilization and the hominids coexisted for three thousand years, and finally fought a war that resulted in mutual destruction. After the war, the pre-civilization carved the word 'cost' ninety-four meters underground. Now the false people of Rasotho are trying to achieve coexistence again."
Carrie put down the soup bowl:
"The previous civilization coexisted for three thousand years before collapsing, while the pseudo-civilizations of Lesotho coexisted for less than ten days. What's their rush?"
"Because they didn't have three thousand years. The system says that pre-civilization humans and Homo erectus coexisted for three thousand years, progressing step by step from contact to communication to cooperation to competition to conflict to war. Modern Homo erectus covered the path of pre-civilization three thousand years in forty days—contact, communication, cooperation, skipping all of them and going straight into competition and conflict. Wakanda was about conflict, Rasotho was about competition. The false people of Wakanda used poison, the false people of Rasotho used goodwill. The means were different, but the goal was the same—to replace the ecological niche of humans."
The water dragon rolled over on the ground, probably smelling the soup, and crawled to Carrie's feet on its four short legs, gently poking her calf with its large fangs.
Carrie put the soup bowl on the ground, buried her face in it, and drank it with loud slurping noises.
"And what about it?" Carrie asked, pointing to the Water Dragon. "What's its ecological niche?"
"It digs burrows." Lu Cheng squatted down and watched the water dragon beast drink soup. "It only digs burrows, it doesn't coexist, it doesn't replace humans, and it doesn't wage war. It doesn't have any overlapping ecological niches with humans, so it can survive."