Alien creatures destroy homes? Start by killing upright apes!

Chapter 70 A Sudden Turn of Events

[System notification: Unreadable fragments exist in the intergenerational memories of Homo erectus. The duration of these fragments is seven to ten days. The timing of this global adjustment in Homo erectus behavior closely coincides with the starting point of these fragments.]

[System update: The unreadable segment was not deleted, but overwritten. The composition of the overwriting layer is unknown.]

The light curtain went out.

Lu Cheng stood on the balcony. Carrie came out carrying a cup of hot coffee, the night breeze blowing her hair.

"The system says the composition of the overlay is unknown. The most crucial seven days in the intergenerational memories of the hominids are covered up by something. They can't read them themselves, and neither can the system. What covered those seven days was the bell that rang at three o'clock yesterday afternoon."

Carrie handed him the coffee: "You covered them up for those seven days because you didn't want them to know why you flipped the switch last time?"

"Or maybe they don't want them to know—it wasn't them who pressed the switch last time."

Carrie's hand, holding the coffee cup, froze in mid-air.

In the square, the Water Dragon Beast placed the bone ball that it had been holding in its mouth all day on the ground and gently touched it with half of its fang.

Then it raised its head in a posture that Lu Cheng had never seen before—not lying down, not squatting, but standing on all four legs with its ears perked up, facing a direction of seventeen degrees east of south.

That direction is exactly the same as the direction the upright apes in the Black Forest of the Hanscat Kingdom face.

In October of the year 5914 in the Blue Star calendar, on the ninety-third day after the arrival of alien creatures.

The situation took a sharp turn for the worse.

October 12th, Fog City, New York.

An upright ape walked into the bakery opposite No. 10 Tangning Street in broad daylight.

It wore a coat stolen from a human's clothesline, a top hat picked up from a garbage dump, and used its five fingers to pull three copper coins from its pocket and place them on the counter.

The bakery owner gave him two copper coins in change. He put the change in his pocket, took the bread, walked out of the shop, sat down on the steps in front of No. 10 Tangning Street, and began to eat the bread.

The entire process was witnessed by the guards at the Prime Minister's residence.

The guards did not react.

Because he didn't realize it was a hominid.

Until the upright ape finished eating the bread, wiped its mouth with the back of its hand, and then squatted on the steps and used pebbles to spell out: Thank you for the meal, the bread tastes better than ours.

The guards then realized that the "short gentleman in the top hat" was not human.

That afternoon, Prime Minister David ordered that all the steps in front of No. 10 Sugar Lane be removed and replaced with a ramp that a person could not squat down.

The Chongqing newspaper dedicated its front page to this upright ape, with the headline: "It bought bread, paid for it, and even gave a tip. How can we tell if it's real?"

October 13th, Licheng, Yakji Kingdom.

A human resources manager at a textile factory discovered an unfamiliar name on the employee roster.

The name is written in French, spelled correctly, grammatically correct, and in neat handwriting.

The HR manager checked the employee's file and found that the employee had already been working for three days.

He was in charge of operating the automatic loom, and his efficiency was three times that of other employees. He never chatted, never rested, and never complained.

The HR manager walked into the workshop, found the employee, and patted him on the shoulder.

The employee turned around, looked at him with clear, bright eyes, and said in perfect French, "Mr. Manager, what can I do for you?"

The HR manager fainted on the spot.

The upright ape squatted beside him and fanned him with its palm until the ambulance arrived.

When the medical staff asked it who it was, it replied, "I'm his employee. Can he continue to be my manager?"

October 14th, Luocheng, Zhu Sailang Kingdom.

An upright ape, dressed in a monk's robe stolen from a monastery, sneaks into a mass ceremony at the Vatican.

It knelt in the crowd, hands clasped together, lips moving in perfect rhythm with the prayer.

After the Mass, it lined up to receive Holy Communion and put the Holy Communion in its mouth.

Then it wrapped the Holy Communion in a cloth, put it in its robe, and quietly left the church.

No one noticed it throughout the entire process.

It wasn't until the monks in the monastery counted the robes and discovered one was missing, and found a line of words carved in stone on the floor: "God created you and He created us. You believe in God, and we believe that you believe in God. What's the difference?"

On October 15th, Taro Tanuki arrived in Kyoto.

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When the maid of Massa’s residence opened the paper door in the morning, she found that the upright ape in the courtyard was gone.

They didn't run away, they moved away.

It left a message on the gravel of the dry landscape garden: I'm going to the city for a walk. Don't look for me, I'll be back.

It has indeed returned.

As evening fell, it walked into the courtyard wearing a kimono bought from a secondhand clothing store, wooden clogs, and carrying a bag of persimmons bought from the market.

Place the persimmon on the stone platform, then squat back in its usual spot and continue carving the list on the back of the mirror.

Masa stood outside the bamboo fence, watching the upright ape in a kimono, when the teacup in her hand fell to the ground and shattered into three pieces.

It looked up at Massa and carved a line on the stone slab: "The persimmons are very sweet. I bought some for you too. You're welcome."

October 16th, Waimeming Plain, Sam Eagle Country.

An upright ape walked into an auditorium where a town assembly was being held.

Wearing work pants he had traded for from the railway workers and canvas gloves, he quietly entered the auditorium through the back door and sat in the last row.

The mayor was on stage talking about the threat of Tyrannosaurus Rex when, halfway through, he noticed a short, hairy figure sitting in the last row.

A figure wearing overalls.

He stopped and asked, "Who are you? I don't think I've ever seen you before?"

The upright ape stood up and replied in a local Waiming accent, "I'm a new resident. I'm here for the town assembly. It's a town rule that new residents must attend, isn't it?"

The town mayor fell off the stage.

The upright ape walked through the crowd to the front of the stage, helped the mayor to his feet, brushed the dirt off him, and then said to the stunned townspeople below, "I'm not here to cause trouble. I just want to ask, does the town's rule that new residents must attend the town assembly apply to all new residents, or only to humans?"

No one can answer its question.

October 17th, Far Eastern Wilderness of the Ivan Bear Kingdom.

At four in the morning, Fraser's intelligence chief knocked on the chairman's office door, holding a copper coin in his hand.

The copper plate is engraved with the symbol of an upright ape, which translates to a letter.

The letter was addressed to: The Supreme Ruler of the Ivan Bear Kingdom.

The letter reads: Our phalanx is not for fighting, but for maintaining order. Something will happen in a few days; we don't know what it will be, but we know that last time it happened, neither side maintained order, and they perished together. This time we have phalanxes, and you have armies. If both sides maintain order, perhaps we won't perish together.

The letter was signed: Chief of the Homo erectus tribe in the Ural mining area.

Next to it, a date—Day 95—was neatly engraved in human numerals.

Fra placed the coin on the table and said to the intelligence chief, "It's making an appointment with us. Not a surrender, not a declaration of war, but an appointment. An appointment for order ten days from now."

On the same day, the government of the Winner Monkey Kingdom.

Lu Cheng stacked the reports from the six countries together and slammed them on the table.

He summoned ambassadors from various countries to a meeting overnight. A dozen people crammed into the meeting room, their faces looking like they were all constipated.

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