Chapter Ch86.1 - Permian Period
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
The Crosson Show’s live stream room.
The camera hovered low above the mountains and rivers, showing dense forests and giant ferns in the low altitude before moving slowly along the river that symbolized the vein of life, like an eagle overlooking a stretch of life.
Deep in the valley, clouds of accumulated water vapor suddenly hit the tipping point for rain, and the rain pressed down on the giant fern layers created by branches and leaves, exposing the fierce beasts that hid in the shadows––
The scrolling comments exploded in a flash.
“What is that? It scared this darling to death! Geez, do you not have the PG13 green filter for children in this episode?”
“What a big production... wait, what did Instructor Blood Pigeon say just now?! The contestants themselves don’t know what they’ll encounter?! I’m suddenly rubbing my hands in excitement!”
“So happy hehehe! Waiting for my little guy to encounter a small monster. Speaking of which, the Crosson Show is really too rich (showing a poor, pitiful look...)”
The live stream studio was wrapped in huge, clear glass and appeared to be built on a mountain quite a distance from the main competition area. The glass cover was like the walls of a greenhouse with several air filters that strictly controlled oxygen, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen levels before delivering them inside so as to ensure that the program crew could have a comfortable vacation.
A few hundred kilometers away, in the camera screens, the trainee contestants had to fight for the limited breathing equipment in order to avoid being eliminated.
In one corner of the studio, two stage crew members checked the data and clicked on a blue central control button.
Dark clouds rolled out from the depths of the valley. In the center of the main arena, there was a faint flash of lightning and thunder above the clouds that had been stained by the sunset before they disappeared again.
The aerial camera eventually came to a stop at the source point of the river.
There was a huge, silvery pipe at the source of the river. The pipe was hidden behind layers of ferns, and the sponsor’s logo flashed on the metallic surface. If they were to dissect the landscape of the entire planet––
They would find almost no signs of weathering and erosion on the sedimentary rock. The surface had been artificially reconstructed over the course of the past ten years.
The rivers and sea water were controlled by numerous pipelines, and the proportion of gasses in the atmosphere as well as the wind direction and even the magma buried deep underground were all closely managed via data. Species on this planet would undergo automatic genetic verification before being bred, and only those marked as ‘qualified’ had the right to be incubated.
The genetic industry, biomaterial industry, tourism, and amateur entertainment industries all ran in parallel on this planet.
As long as one stood in front of the central control console, they could become the God of the entire planet.
Inside the studio, Blood Pigeon was explaining the map via virtual screen. The barrage of scrolling comments swept past, sighing emotionally about the huge profits and capital accumulation of this colonial planet. The price of an eight day, seven night tour package to the planet was displayed beneath the live broadcast.
On the other side, Ying Xiangxiang was answering questions from the audience.
“Who will win if a Mosasaurus and a Megalodon fight? ––They existed in different eras, and the conditions can’t be compared.”
“Asking Instructor Ying to decide, which one is more powerful? The Tibetan Mastiff or the Tyrannosaurus Rex? ––If you like Tibetan Mastiffs, then it’s the Tibetan Mastiff. One mastiff can kill three tigers, and three mastiffs can take down an aircraft carrier!”
“If Little Witch falls into the river and cries yingyingying, and six violent Velociraptors suddenly appear, would Wei Yan and Wei Shi first go to save Little Witch, or first fight the Velociraptors, or first propose to Little Witch––director, can we discuss screening the questions first before putting them up on the big screen? Also, Velociraptors are probably only about the size of a chicken...”
The camera cut over to the contestants.
At the start of the match, most of the players were still groping around in the jungle, unless they were very unlucky––
The camera peeked out of the damp soil, and a large close-up of an insect head filled the frame. This was obviously an arthropod. Its compound eyes were composed of over 20,000 smaller eyes, and its eye sacs were huge and bulging. Additionally, there were the photosensitive monocular and oral organs, and the size of this insect was far bigger than normal cognition would suggest.
The scrolling comments were instantly filled with shrill screams, “Holy sh*t what the hell is that ahhhhhh––”
The other side of the camera was suddenly covered up by a hand.
A few seconds later, the hand moved away. The camera was now facing the ground, and only the shadow of the insect in the air could be seen.
Thin wings, slender body.
The trainee who was shivering off in the distance finally recovered his wits and stared at it for a long time, “Isn’t that a dragonfly––”
Wu Jin drove away the nearest insect and put the camera back in place, “Dragonfly.”
He paused. “To be exact, it’s a giant dragonfly.”
After the camera was restored to its position, the dragonflies with wingspans extending up to 70cm buzzed around like helicopters. The plastic-bag like friction noise and the sound of the wings was extremely harsh. A few of the insects stared at Wu Jin for a while before finally flying over to the river to catch the salamanders that came out to the surface.
The youth holding the parachute cloth finally appeared in the camera.
Wu Jin’s eyes were slightly unfocused.
Anyone in the audience who had watched previous episodes of the show would recognize that this was his standard thinking habit, but this time, Wu Jin was different than before.
The raised bangs showed a more mature and handsome look. Without the protection of White Moonlight’s Zoe, he was still two steps ahead of his current teammates as he blocked the giant dragonflies by pulling out his parachute in a flash and protected them from the 70cm propellers.
He’d also used his hand to block the image from the camera, preventing those with insect phobias from collapsing.
His teammate was stunned for another couple of seconds, “These prehistoric dragonflies actually e-e-e-eat meat...”
Wu Jin tried to correct him, “Normal dragonflies all eat meat.”
That big brother finally reacted, “Brother Wu, aren’t y-y-you afraid?”
Wu Jin shook his head and raised up his small round face to comfort him, “I’m not afraid of insects. I’ll protect you.”
In the studio, Ying Xiangxiang’s eyes were curved, and the scrolling comments were full of screams.
“My son is a little gentleman aooooo!”
“Knowing that everyone would be scared, he blocked the camera for mama, he’s too well-behaved ahhhhh! With his kind of personality, what’ll we do in the future when he has a competition with female contestants? Mama is worried for you!”
Blood Pigeon, who had no skills as a boyfriend, only glanced at it and criticized the inefficient maneuver of blocking the camera before moving on to talk about the dragonfly, “The giant dragonfly is the largest insect species from the blue planet. It lived during the Carboniferous period and the Permian period...”
At the river bank.
The dragonflies disappeared from view. This big brother finally introduced himself formally to Wu Jin, “Brother Wu! My name is Lin Ke. In the last competition, you gave me several glasses of water...”
Wu Jin put away the parachute. For every sentence he replied with, Lin Ke could come up with eight or ten sentences of conversation on his own.
Lin Ke: “This insect is thin and big. If a two meter one comes out, should we run or not?”
Wu Jin shook his head, “Don’t run. At most it’ll be 75cm. The giant dragonfly is the largest known insect species. In this competition, the evolutionary balance uses prehistoric creatures, not genetically modified ones.”
Lin Ke nodded quickly, “Then we don’t need to hide from the insects. Does that mean that we’ll be safe as long as we keep our guard up against dinosaurs?”
Wu Jin organized the clues he had and said, “The giant dragonfly appeared in the Carboniferous period and died out during the last period of the Paleozoic era, the Permian period. In addition to ferns, there are also cycads in the forest, which is basically in line with the characteristics of the late Permian period.”
“If this is a simulation of the Permian period––then the dinosaurs haven’t appeared yet.”
Lin Ke was stunned, “But in our handouts and even the vaccines, wasn’t it all about dinosaurs...”
Wu Jin explained, “The core concept of this competition is the evolution of species. If I’m not mistaken, as the game goes on, the geological era will change, and so will the biological species.”
“Also, even if there aren’t dinosaurs, there are still predators who were at the top of the food chain during the Permian period. Let’s go. Right now, the most important thing is to meet up with our other teammates and find breathing equipment, food, and shelter.”
Lin Ke made a sound of exclamation and hastened to keep up, “Permian period, it sounds really familiar! Oh, I remember, there was a Godzilla from an old movie that was also from the Permian period, and then somehow it disappeared later...”
Wu Jin thought for a moment, “Between the Permian period and the Triassic period, over 90% of the species that were alive back then became extinct.”
The two people went down along the river bank and picked up two lightweight supply packages along the way. They contained ropes, leather straps, boomerangs, and so on––
There were no high-level supplies. Wu Jin deeply suspected that the program group was treating them like savages.
xiin: sooo... this arc has lots. and lots. and lots. of prehistoric creatures and... prehistoric... history things. most of the stuff mentioned in this arc won’t have footnotes because xiin is really lazy with footnotes, but dumping the name of the creature into google will probably get you an image or a very detailed wiki science lesson...
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