Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 554 Watching the gorillas rebel against humans gave Old Zhu a strange sense of satisfaction. [Please subscribe]

Because Liu Kuan did not provide a brief introduction to the plot before the movie started, the storyline of the film playing in front of Zhu Yuanzhang and others was still full of novelty and unknowns.

The first shot appeared to be of a primeval forest in the southwest.

A group of people who looked like Native Americans from the previous video (but also had some European features) were hunting a group of chimpanzees, and eventually captured one chimpanzee using guns and traps.

However, for ordinary people in the Ming Dynasty at that time, there was no such thing as "gorilla" - although the term exists in ancient books such as the Classic of Mountains and Seas, it has been regarded by many people as a legend.

In the Ming Dynasty, there were only the terms "monkey" and "apes," and generally speaking, all kinds of orangutans were referred to as "apes."

Even so, at present, monkeys only exist in some forests in the south, primeval forests in the southwest, Sichuan, and the Qinling Mountains in the northwest of the Ming Dynasty, and ordinary people rarely see them anymore.

That's why monkey performers are the kind of street performers who attract so many people to watch them.

The scene then shifts to a laboratory, where a chimpanzee is playing a disc game called Nocta, reminiscing as it plays, seemingly indicating that it has clear memories of the past, and even more complex emotions.

Through the interaction between the staff and the chimpanzee, Zhu Yuanzhang and others quickly understood.

If the chimpanzee can arrange the discs on the three different pillars in order of different sizes from top to bottom, it will complete a game and receive a fruit reward from the experimenters.

This chimpanzee is very skilled at it.

Since none of the people present had ever owned a monkey, or even had any contact with one, and there were no zoologists among them, no one realized what the chimpanzee's behavior meant.

For example, Tang He muttered to himself, "Monkeys are naturally intelligent, so it's not surprising that they can play these kinds of games after being trained for a long time. Why are the foreigners inside making such a fuss?"

No one answered him, but the following events revealed the answer to him.

It turns out that this laboratory was developing a drug to treat nerve atrophy, and this chimpanzee was used for drug testing. After taking the drug, its performance far exceeded that of other chimpanzees.

Next, Will Rodman applied to the company for permission to conduct human clinical trials. After receiving permission, he held a meeting to explain to investors the effects of the gene therapy drug he was developing: it could treat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Upon seeing this, Zhu Yuanzhang couldn't help but ask out of curiosity, "What is Alzheimer's disease?"

Liu Kuan said, "It's Alzheimer's disease."

Alzheimer's disease?

Zhu Yuanzhang, Xu Da, Tang He, and others' eyes lit up when they heard this.

Because the incidence of Alzheimer's disease increases with age after the age of fifty, Tang He clearly knows that his memory and mind are not as good as before. Some of his younger relatives even whisper that he has Alzheimer's disease. Although he pretends not to know, he is very sad and helpless.

Then Tang He asked, "Lord Jiangning, did later generations really develop a miraculous cure for Alzheimer's disease?"

"This..." Liu Kuan also noticed that Tang He was showing signs of dementia and couldn't bear to tell him the truth now, so he said, "Duke Xin, this question is rather long to answer. Let's talk about it after we finish watching the movie?"

"Ok."

At this point, a portion of the movie's plot has already passed.

In other words, the chimpanzee Bright Eyes attacked the lab staff in order to protect her unborn child, and caused a scene at Will's meeting with investors, ruining the company's plan to attract investment. As a result, the company's leaders disposed of the chimpanzees involved in the experiment and started the research and development process from scratch.

As for Mingmou, he was shot dead by security personnel after breaking into the venue.

At his colleague's request, Will adopts the baby gorilla born via cesarean section, a bright-eyed creature...

Next, Will adopted a baby gorilla named Caesar and discovered that Caesar had inherited Bright Eyes' intelligence, and even showed signs of being more intelligent.

So he stole the company's medication and secretly treated his father's Alzheimer's disease.

Seeing that Will's father's Alzheimer's disease had shown obvious signs of improvement, Zhu Yuanzhang, Tang He, Xu Da and other people of a certain age showed complex expressions of envy and emotion, thinking to themselves: If only the Ming Dynasty could also develop such a miraculous medicine.

However, as Caesar grew up, its high intelligence also made it like a human, showing curiosity about the outside world, sneaking out to play, and getting injured.

Will takes Caesar to the animal clinic and meets his new girlfriend, Caroline. With Caesar's help, their relationship progresses rapidly. At Caroline's suggestion, Will often takes Caesar to the forest park to let him unleash his nature (or wildness).

In the blink of an eye, several years have passed. The little gorilla has grown into a gorilla almost as tall as a human, with a higher IQ and even more complex emotions.

During one of his trips, he felt sad because he was being led around on a leash with a collar, just like a dog, and began to ponder what kind of being he was and where he came from.

After Will learned about it, he took Caesar to his workplace and told Caesar about its origins.

Upon reading this, relatively astute individuals, such as Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao, already had a vague premonition—that Will's actions might foreshadow some major event to come.

Zhu Biao couldn't help but say, "This gorilla is so smart, and Will has told it the whole story. Aren't you afraid of causing some trouble?" Zhu Yuanzhang frowned and said, "We have a saying here, 'Those who are not of our kind will surely have different hearts.' This gorilla isn't even human, yet it possesses intelligence as high as a human, and its body is so much stronger than a human's. I'm afraid it won't be content to be the protagonist's family's 'pet.'"

Liu Kuan smiled but didn't say anything, because the following plot would answer for him.

In the movie, Will's father's Alzheimer's disease relapses and becomes more severe. He goes out and drives his neighbor's car, gets into a conflict with his neighbor, and they end up in a physical altercation.

When Caesar saw the protagonist's father being bullied, he went out and attacked the neighbor, biting one of the neighbor's fingers.

Then the protagonist took it to a primate shelter, where it was tricked into a cage by the zookeeper.

At this point, the film uses a long shot to show many iron cages around the area, each containing various kinds of gorillas...

Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao, and others shook their heads when they saw this, thinking: This is great. Sending this clever gorilla to the gorilla group is just sending him a helper.

The film's plot then splits into two storylines: one is about Caesar being abused by zookeepers in the sanctuary (zoo), his conflicts with other gorillas, his understanding of the world, and his eventual rise to become the king of the gorillas.

To portray Caesar's intelligence, he didn't take the leadership position through traditional gorilla fighting. Instead, he first released a silverback gorilla to gain its approval; then, he used a sneak attack to knock out the original gorilla leader, and together with the silverback gorilla, he forced it to accept Caesar as the new leader, thus becoming the gorilla king of the sanctuary.

Another clue is that Will proposed a more radical idea for the 113 gene drug experiment to the company in order to treat his father's more severe Alzheimer's disease. This also explains that the so-called gene drug is actually a virus.

To gain the company's approval, he first told the manager about Caesar and his father, explaining that the drug had even greater value, namely, the potential to improve intelligence and memory.

Compared to treating Alzheimer's disease, improving the intelligence and memory of ordinary people obviously has a broader market and better financial prospects. Therefore, the person in charge not only agreed, but also became more radical than Will in this kind of experiment.

During the experiment, one of Will's assistants, Franklin, accidentally inhaled the gaseous gene drug No. 113.

Then, within two days, he developed symptoms such as blurred vision and a cold, and eventually died at home bleeding from all seven orifices!
Meanwhile, Caesar obtained the "key" to open the door—a small knife—through the negligence of the zookeeper.

So it started doing more things.

He first consolidated his position as leader, making the other gorillas more obedient to him. Then he ran away from the shelter, went home and stole the gene therapy that Will had kept at home. He took it back to the shelter and helped improve the intelligence of the other gorillas.

At this point, the movie's plot finally reaches its climax.

When the two keepers came in the morning to prepare to feed and release the gorillas from their cages, they found that the gorillas were no longer noisy as usual, but were completely silent, which was quite frightening.

But the zookeepers didn't take it to heart and continued to mock and abuse the orangutans as always.

In the afternoon, when the zookeeper was about to send the gorillas back to their cages, he noticed that Caesar wouldn't go in. So he took a stun gun to shock him, but Caesar beat him up instead, and in the process, he imitated a human and uttered his first word—"No!"

The two zookeepers were stunned when they saw Caesar speak.

Zhu Yuanzhang and others watching on the screen were also shocked, feeling their hair stand on end!
The gorilla actually spoke!
This gives the impression that a dog, cow, or horse that has been raised for many years has suddenly started talking.

Tan Wang Zhu Zi, who loved novels, couldn't help but mutter, "Could it be that Caesar, like the monsters in novels, refined the transverse bone in his throat, which is why he can speak?"

Tang Heyi murmured, "I think this Caesar is almost like a monster, except he doesn't have the magic powers from the plays—he's even smarter than some people."

In the movie, after Caesar and his gorillas wreaked havoc at the shelter, they first stopped the gorillas from killing each other and then tried to put the two zookeepers in cages. However, an accident occurred, resulting in one of the zookeepers being electrocuted.

Caesar then led the gorillas away from the shelter to Will's company, intending to rescue the gorillas there and obtain more gene therapy drugs.

For some reason, Zhu Yuanzhang and others felt a strange sense of satisfaction when they saw Caesar leading his gorillas to wreak havoc at Will's company, beating up the company's head, and then causing chaos in San Francisco and confronting the bald eagle police. It was just like the exhilarating feeling they had when they led their rebel army to kill the Mongol Tartars and conquer those fortified cities and towns in the early days of their anti-Yuan uprising.

At the same time, everyone is even more eager for what happens next.

Zhu Yuanzhang even secretly wondered: "Will Caesar lead the apes to conquer this city later in the movie?"

However, there are too few apes in the movie. Even if they all became intelligent, they would probably still be no match for humans.

However, the gene drug number 113 not only causes serious illness and death in humans, but it is also a gas that seems to be easily spread.

If humanity were to truly perish in this movie, it would likely be due to this gene-editing drug, or rather, this virus.

When Zhu Yuanzhang saw this part, the movie was coming to an end.

Caesar did not intend to conquer the city as he had planned—Caesar seemed to be quite wise, knowing that his small group of apes could not possibly take over the city and fight against humans, or perhaps influenced by Will's teachings, he simply wanted to lead the apes away from the city to live a free and unrestrained life in the forest.

However, the Bald Eagle police, because the apes killed people at the shelter and caused chaos at the gene drug research company and the city, wanted to arrest or shoot them all.

The two sides eventually met on the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco...
(End of this chapter)