As the Union Institute of Biological Research originally guessed, the forests in the Baiyue Province are the children of "Gaia" and the earth.

  The forest here does not just refer to the trees in the forest.

   Also includes flowers and plants, insects and birds, birds and beasts, and even humans who once lived here.

  The brood that landed on this land opened up its own gene pool, and at the same time endowed all creatures on this land with the ability to exchange genetic material with each other.

   Of course, this kind of communication is not random migration without rules.

   Instead, under the framework of natural selection unique to the earth, the best gene fragments and the arrangement and combination of fragments stand out from the evolution, and flourish in the extreme natural selection and continuous trial and error.

  It only took them two centuries to complete the path that the earth's ecosystem would have taken 2 million or 20 million years to go—or even impossible to walk at all.

  The rustling of leaves and the chirping of insects rang in my ears.

  Hearing this shocking conclusion, Fang Chang was stunned for a long time, his Adam's apple moved slightly, and he swallowed a mouthful of saliva.

   “…this is fusion?”

  Chen Yutong nodded.

  Standing aside, Lao Bai couldn't help asking.

   "What about the people here? They also had that fusion... fusion of DNA of a different species?"

  Chen Yutong nodded again.

   "It should be no accident. There are not as many survivors in this area as in Qingquan City, but there must be some people who stayed."

  Old Bai stared at her blankly.

   "But... aren't the survivors in the southern sea still doing well? We don't feel any difference between them and us."

  As if guessing that he would ask such a question, Chen Yutong patiently explained.

"Individual evolution and population evolution are two different things in different dimensions. Faced with the extremely deteriorating natural environment, some people chose to leave, while others chose to stay. The survivors in the southern seas are just those who left. Just some people, and they no longer participated in the evolution that happened in this rainforest."

  Old Bai frowned slightly and asked.

   "What about those left behind?"

   "'disappeared' during evolution, or was fused, and became another form of existence..."

   While speaking, Chen Yutong squatted on the ground, gently picked a leaf of yellow bamboo grass from the side of the road, got up and handed it to him.

   Taking the blade of grass, Lao Bai looked at her puzzled.

"This is?"

   "A piece of imperial bamboo grass," Chen Yutong looked at the blade of grass in his hand, and continued, "We found DNA fragments of human mitochondria in the mitochondria of sliced ​​cells of a sample of imperial bamboo grass."

  Human mitochondria? !

  Both Lao Bai and Fang Chang had surprised expressions on their faces.

  How the **** is this done? !

"...We are still unable to trace how this originally human DNA fragment migrated to the emperor bamboo grass, perhaps through the food chain migration, perhaps through some kind of intermediate microbial bridging, or both. And subsequent investigations We soon found something similar in mutated spiders, lizards, and even snails...they have human elements as well as elements of other species."

  Looking at the stunned two people, Chen Yutong said softly.

   "This is Gaia."

   "He handed the earth a key that unlocked the locks in our evolution."

   "The lock for the evolution of all things."

  Fang Chang looked at her dumbfounded, feeling completely ignorant, but seemed to understand a little bit.

   This reminded him of a game called Stars that he once played.

  In it, there is an ascension talent that he rarely clicks called "cross-species compatibility", which is the last paragraph of "genetic ascension".

   It’s not that this route is not strong, in fact, this is the most buggy ascension route in the entire game.

Because once the cross-species compatibility is unlocked, it means that the player can operate through a series of war criminals, such as continuously placing two creatures with different characteristics on the same planet, forcing them to hybridize, and the newly born hybrids will come from Pick a positive trait from the parents to inherit, and it is not limited by the upper limit of genetic improvement, and can be stacked infinitely.

   Players only need to take the trouble to repeat the operation several times, and finally they can create a super species that is compatible with all the positive characteristics in the game!

   Equivalent to buffs all over the body!

   But at the same time, the side effect is that the player's racial interface becomes a messy palette.

   Any hybrids that are produced between different species are bred with other hybrids, and the images and names end up being weird.

  I don’t know if the CPU of the computer will dry out in the end, but the CPU of the human brain will definitely dry out.

Why bother?

  Even if you don’t stack BUFF to the sky, those AIs with underdeveloped cerebellums in the game are no match for the player.

   Therefore, most players will click until the end, stuck on the last paragraph of "Kifei" and not clicking, in order to maintain the purity of the species and their own sense of substitution.

There are also a small number of players who will get the intermediate products of other hybrids to a planet after the ultimate goal is achieved—that is, after obtaining the super creature with thousands of buffs. .

  The situation shown by the Gaia planet is a bit like a "cross-species compatibility" civilization.

  For some reason, they not only achieved cross-species integration, but also integrated the organisms on the entire planet in the unimpeded gene exchange.

  In the eyes of outsiders, they are a unified consciousness.

  However, if you take a closer look, it is not the hive that ordinary people understand, but thousands of hives are one!

  He is all, and all is he.

  The civilization that has been dissolved into the invisible may be higher than human imagination.

  As for why their footprints didn’t cover thousands of stars, or why they lost their original appearance, it’s just that the two sides have different pursuits.

  The stars in the sky do not have only one color, and not all civilizations are keen to expand their territories.

   Maybe some civilizations are born to build a wonder, or write a poem.

   And their poems have been written in ages past - the being that the human colonists called Gaia.

  The colonists sent the brood carrying the poem back to Earth, and the brood scattered in Baiyue Province is an excerpt from this poem.

  Fang Chang vaguely felt that he seemed to be close to the truth of the Three Years War——the main thread of "Wasteland OL" since the service was launched.

  Looking at Chen Yutong, Lao Bai still had an incomprehensible expression.

   "But...how did this happen?"

  The general view in the biological community is that the horizontal transfer of genes is unique to microorganisms and rarely occurs between eukaryotes.

   And this is also the reason why the evolution of life on the earth, after passing through the early microbial stage, basically showed a "tree-like" extension.

  A river separates the rats, with mountains on one side and forests on the other. After a million years, the river dries up, and the two waves of rats meet again, and reproductive isolation occurs between them, which can be regarded as evolving into different species. It can even be said that "isolation" is a necessary condition for the generation of new species.

  Most biology textbooks and popular science books will mention such a simple model when explaining the concepts related to geographical isolation and reproductive isolation.

   Yet she told him that the isolation between species was broken? !

  Although he doesn't understand biology, he has received nine years of compulsory education.

   What's more, there is no need for nine-year compulsory education.

   He believes that horses and donkeys can mate, but ants and trees, spiders and cockroaches... How can these strange combinations get together? !

  Looking at the bewildered expression on his face, Chen Yutong raised his index finger and pressed the center of his eyebrows, and said helplessly.

   "...I can probably guess what you're thinking, species-to-species reproductive isolation right?"

  Old Bai nodded.

"Yes."

   Chen Yutong continued patiently.

"Generally speaking, this is the case, but the way of gene transmission is not the only way... Just take the example on the earth to illustrate, smelt and herring are two unrelated cold-water fish, but herring's antifreeze However, the protein gene appears in the former gene sequence, and this situation is called horizontal gene transfer."

"According to the relevant literature of the era of prosperity, not only fish, but also reptiles, birds, and mammals have similar situations. Therefore, until before the war, the general opinion in the academic community was that the evolution of life is not the classic tree. shape, and there are always a small amount of fine silk thread adhesion between some branches."

"And what Gaia has done is to turn these silk threads, which originally only played a small role in biological evolution, into bridges connecting species and species, so that the original tree-shaped life evolution pattern on the earth has changed It becomes a 'net' similar to that on Gaia."

  This time, Laobai pressed his eyebrows with a headache.

   "So... we're now joining Glorious Evolution too?"

  Chen Yutong nodded, and looked at the impenetrable rainforest in the distance.

"Yes, the genes we carry will also enter this forest in some form. The ubiquitous microbes will decompose our feces, hair, and even our remains. These are one of the ways to enter. But this is a macro level On the microscopic level, as long as we don’t get eaten by the alien species here and turn into poop, we won’t disappear in this rainforest.”

   Fang Chang, who had pondered for a long time, suddenly asked.

   "What if we leave this forest?"

  Chen Yutong looked at him and said.

   "Nothing will happen, just like the survivors who left this rainforest and fled to the island, the part of the genes they took away will no longer participate in the evolution in the rainforest."

   "In fact, in the past two centuries, there have been alien species leaving this forest, and new alien species have joined in. Some ethnic groups thrived in this rainforest, and some ethnic groups contributed their DNA and disappeared from the rainforest."

"In the abstract, this forest is equivalent to the 'Gaia' that superimposed the natural laws of the earth and developed to the primary stage. All the creatures in the entire rainforest are fruiting bodies, and the sum is an abstract 'mother nest' …As for the most primitive and specific brood, we are still looking for it.”

   "...How on earth can this kind of thing be done." Lao Bai was still scratching his head in confusion, thinking over and over again this question that he couldn't figure out.

   Seeing his desperate expression, Chen Yutong was also a little helpless, but he still spoke patiently.

   "This is also the problem we are studying, including why this forest is limited to this province and has not spread to other places... Don't be too impatient."

   After a pause, she looked at the pensive Fang Chang.

   "In addition, the 'self-healing' that you observed before is actually based on the principles I mentioned earlier."

"Genes communicate unimpededly between species, and in natural selection, more powerful species are continuously screened out. The organisms here, whether they are plants or animals, whether they are producers or consumers in the food chain, have extremely vigorous vitality. And the ability to accumulate nutrients ... because otherwise, they would quickly become the cannon fodder that contributes a few sets of code and disappears."

   "In this highly 'involved' environment, once a physical vacuum area appears, it will be quickly occupied by other species."

   Fang Chang asked with a headache.

   "Is there a workaround?"

Chen Yutong: "Actually, it's easy to solve, as long as you maintain the possession of the area, for example, the land under your feet, because people often pass by, so it doesn't grow too lush grass, and it can last for a long time even if it is paved with cement. , but the relative maintenance cost may be higher than other places.”

  Fang Chang asked immediately.

   "What if it is an infrequently active area?"

"Then... there is no other way," Chen Yutong made a helpless expression, "Not to mention your gathering place, even the Shilong City that existed before, can't block this extraordinary force of nature. Erosion, the organisms here cannot tolerate a little bit of waste, you should try your best to use the land that has been reclaimed."

   Fang Chang said with a wry smile.

   "And then bear the high maintenance costs?"

  The infrastructure expenditure of Potato Fries Port is entirely paid by Baiyue Strait Development Co., Ltd. It is impossible for the alliance finance to pay for the road construction expenses of Potato Chips Port. He must carefully consider the issue of balance of payments.

   And it's not just about money.

  From a macro perspective, money is just a tool to balance logistics profit and loss and market supply and demand. The damage caused by a negative asset is not only a shortfall in the financial report, but also causes a lot of manpower and material resources to be wasted on meaningless things.

  Chen Yutong looked at him helplessly and said.

"It may be a good idea to keep the original ecological style as much as possible. In fact, there is no need to make all settlements the same. Why don't you consider exploring a model suitable for the development of Baiyue Province? This is the only suggestion I can give gone."

   When talking about this, she suddenly thought of something.

"Oh, by the way, haven't you been researching how to use slime molds in the construction field recently? You might as well try the biological self-healing material, maybe it's just suitable for the special situation here. As for the land with low utilization rate, it's better to just use it. Keep the forest pristine—”

   At this moment, Lao Bai, who had been digging into a dead end just now, suddenly interjected.

   "It's not impossible."

  Both of them looked at him at the same time, and Fang Chang asked immediately.

   "What can I do?"

   "How about planting some tropical crops to occupy the areas that cannot be developed temporarily? Such as rubber, cotton, etc... I remember that some high-yield cotton seeds were grown in the shelter a long time ago?"

  Old Bai glanced at the Yue Clan people in the eastern camp, and continued.

   "It's the same as when we were in Qingquan City. We reclaimed the land and contracted it to them to plant. As long as there are things growing on the ground, it should be fine, right?"

  The maintenance cost of cotton fields is much lower than that of cement fields, and the cash crops produced can make a fortune.

  In addition, this land has a "growth speed + n%" buff, and the soil fertility seems to be ridiculously high, and it may be possible to harvest three or four seasons a year.

  He has given up on understanding the settings in the game from a scientific point of view, so he might as well use the game settings to understand it, and his thinking will open instead.

  Chen Yutong's eyes lit up, and he said excitedly.

   "That's right... that's a good idea. It's actually similar to what I thought. Just replace those flowers and plants with commercial crops."

   Fang Chang frowned slightly.

   "But will this introduce genes here, making the situation here more complicated—"

   Seeing his worried expression, Lao Bai shrugged helplessly.

   "...we've been here for so long, do you think there's still one or two chromosomes missing?"

   Fang Chang was stunned, and suddenly realized that he asked a very stupid question, ignoring the order of magnitude gap between the variable and the overall.

  Don't talk about metabolites, they just left more than one or two corpses in this forest. What can a few cotton seeds count?

   Besides, this rainforest didn’t become like this today. What new things haven’t you seen?

   Touching his forehead with his right hand, he said dumbfoundedly.

"makes sense…"

  —

   (Thanks to the leader of "Sarayago" for the reward!!)