Chapter 94 - The Jurassic Period
Chapter 94 - The Jurassic Period
translator: xiin
editors: apricot & juurensha
The man’s arm was strong and powerful as he helped Wu Jin jump up, followed by the black shadow rising up into the sky.
The huge wing membranes were like sails attached to the bones of its wings as it cut through the dark night.
Wu Jin’s heart beat very quickly.
The big boss’s fiery hot chest was behind him. His heartbeat and breathing seemed to be completely intertwined with the dinosaur’s back.
Wei Shi focused his gaze on the youth until Wu Jin turned red from the roots of his ears to his cheek. He turned and seemed as if he was about to ask something––
The man placed a hand on the Pterosaur’s neck, and clasped the youth’s five fingers with the other. He pulled him close and very naturally exchanged a shallow kiss with him.
Then, he propped him back upright in satisfaction and stuffed him into his arms.
Wu Jin’s head felt like a hot, roasted marshmallow, bursting with sweet softness.
Wu Jin sneakily licked his lips, silently delighted and silly.
Looking down from above, the dense basins were like grids.
The mountains were snowy, and the rivers sparkled. Sporadic fires could be seen, from ordinary night watch contestants, Contestant Wei Yan who was carrying a torch while climbing, and Contestant Caesar who was forever roasting meat.
The Pterosaur was light and thin-boned, and gliding support could occasionally be seen beside the flight membranes. The big boss hadn’t removed his glider either––
Wu Jin suddenly realized that he’d been secretly holding the big boss’s hand!
He immediately let go and reached to hold the Pterosaur as he admonished himself. He couldn’t just shamelessly take advantage of the big boss on the first day of their relationship! He had to be a gentleman, had to respect his partner’s feelings...
Wei Shi bowed his head and looked at the small soft paw that had suddenly pulled back.
“Pterosaurs have hollow skeletons, a structural change that evolved to accommodate flight.” The man suddenly opened his mouth.
Wu Jin looked back in confusion.
Wei Shi: “A wingspan of five meters. The bearing capacity of its bones is no more than 60kg. As a mount, it must rely on auxiliary gliding devices.” He gestured for Wu Jin to look at the installed gliders, “The device that operates them is in my hands.”
He continued indifferently, “It’s better to hold me than to hold it.”
Wu Jin: “!!!”
Taking advantage of the youth’s stupefied state, Wei Shi pressed him further into his arms and ordered, “Hand.”
The ten fingers were interlaced again.
Flight was god’s blessing to Pterosaurs.
There was a sharp wind in the mountains, whistling beside his eardrums. The double crescent moons hung above his head, and beneath them was the territory that had been carved out by the Triassic period.
The wings of the dinosaur lifted them up, and the people beneath his feet shrank in Wu Jin’s eyes until only vague outlines were left. The breathing device adjusted to balance out the thinning oxygen, and Wei Shi guarded Wu Jin’s back like a stove, quietly dispelling the cold from behind the youth.
The cold wind continued to sweep by.
Wu Jin’s eyes narrowed subconsciously.
“Close your eyes.” Wei Shi stuffed him inside his cloak, “We’re at an altitude of 1000 meters now.”
Wu Jin abruptly lifted up his head, “The Quetzalcoatlus hunted through the night skies at an altitude of 3000 meters––”
Wei Shi made a sound of acknowledgement, “Quetzalcoatlus can see using a spectrum that you can’t see. Human beings have tricolor vision. Reptiles have four types of cone cells; they have tetrachromatic precision vision.”
Wu Jin closed his eyes, his eyeballs shifting as he imagined it, “Tetrachromatic vision&#k2026;”
Wei Shi: “Relying on only moonlight, you can see the most subtle color differences in the jungle up to a distance of 3000 meters and can clearly distinguish prey from the shadows.”
Wu Jin asked, “Then what about during the day?”
Wei Shi thought back and described it, “The vegetation is layered with green, and the yellow buds are actually nearly transparent. Ultraviolet light provides a fourth dimension for vision, making even gray and white stones look colorful. Each pebble reflects a different kind of light, and when they’re put together––”
He continued, “It’s like colors converging together into a river.”
Wu Jin paused and turned around to look up.
The big boss’s words were too firm and didn’t seem like a guess. It was more like he was drawing from his memories. There were clues from the countless details in his mind––R-Code base, genetic modification, human-shaped weapons, Wei Yan’s extraordinary vision.
Tetrachromatic vision.
His amber eyes quietly opened up and looked into the man’s pure black eyes.
However, even before Wu Jin could look for the difference between the big boss’s pupils and ordinary people, Wei Shi raised his brows and denied, “Not me.”
Wu Jin’s eyes opened wide.
“Tetrachromatic vision is an artificial genetic modification that is unstable in existing human chromosomes.” He paused, “In other words, I had it.”
Wu Jin: “Later on––”
Wei Shi: “Later on, the fourth cone cell stopped differentiating colors, and the tetrachromatic vision disappeared”
Wu Jin listened quietly.
The reduction in visual dimensions would be like having the original color vision in memory suddenly turn black and white. Most of one’s conditioned reflexes based on intuitive color understanding would be broken down and have to be cleared away. He suddenly sucked in a hard breath. It was almost as though he could see the young big boss having to re-understand his vision due to the collapse of the modified gene, groping through the darkness that he’d originally moved through unimpeded.
It was like blindfolding a Pterosaur.
Wu Jin whispered, “After the tetrachromatic vision disappears, would it be difficult to adapt––”
Wei Shi urged the Pterosaur to fly higher, “No.”
He pulled Wu Jin into his arms, his gaze shifting slightly. The youth was frowning a little. His facial features were covered with a sheen of light from the crescent moons, and he was like a flame that pulled people out of the darkness, a deity that brought warmth.
His visual dimension seemed to expand for the first time.
“No.” Wei Shi repeated slowly, “When looking at you, they––those colors return.”
Wu Jin stared at him in a daze for two seconds before suddenly turning his head back.
The Pterosaur continued to soar through the sky, skipping over the numerous basins and endless mountain ridges.
Wu Jin had to close his eyes again until the cold wind stopped all of a sudden. The Pterosaur spiraled down, and a steady stream of hot air came floating up from the ground.
Wei Shi switched his oxygen supply equipment to the last setting––completely isolating him from the external air supply.
“Open your eyes.”
Wu Jin opened his eyes. His pupils grew bright the moment he looked down.
This was a volcano that was situated at the end of the map. White smoke billowed beneath the moons, and the crater itself emitted light––
Surrounded by white smoke, the light appeared blue and demonic. It was enchanting, and electric streaks of light pierced through the magma.
Magma was supposed to be red. The blue was like a human’s misperception of the veins below their skin. Sulphur spewed out of the volcano and burned rapidly, emitting blue flame as it encountered high levels of oxygen. Some of it condensed into liquid, and flowed down the cracks of the crater.
It was a dark night, and the pure, heated blue on the ground extended out like the devil’s grand sacrifice, noble blood flowing freely.
Seen from an altitude of 1000 meters, it was full of treacherous color, a series of beautiful interlaced veins.
Wei Shi leaned in against Wu Jin’s ear and asked in a low voice, “Like it?”
Wu Jin nodded repeatedly, his actions so fast they almost left a double image, his small curls sweeping across the man’s cheek.
Wei Shi chuckled.
Wu Jin, who’d originally had his eyes glued to the volcano, suddenly looked back at the man.
Wei Shi held his palm, lifted it, and dropped a kiss onto the back of his hand.
The most ancient gesture of loyalty.
Wu Jin exploded into virtual pieces again.
The Pterosaur had an instinctive fear of volcanoes and sulphur. After circling around a few times, it started to carry them back.
It was unknown if it was because Wu Jin had been toasted by the volcano, or he had been flirted with too much, but his entire body was like a soft rabbit pancake. His serious analysis of the competition schedule carried no momentum or power at all, “... Big, big brother, when the volcano erupts, it’ll be the end of the Triassic period and the start of the Jurassic period...”
“There are now 134 contestants left. At the start of the new era, the terrain will be reshaped, and the entire continent should open up. The rules might continue to change...”
Wei Shi listened as he chattered on, occasionally opening his mouth to participate in the discussion, pressing him into his embrace whenever weightlessness came––to prevent the rabbit pancake from becoming a tossed rabbit cake.
Wu Jin was on duty in the team for the second half of the night. There was still an hour left before the start of the shift after they landed.
The youth clearly didn’t want to sleep, bouncing around and wanting nothing but to continue sticking together. Wei Shi looked at the time, then commanded Wu Jin to sleep.
The man’s means were tricky, and Wu Jin was unconscious two minutes later.
Before falling asleep, the last thing he saw was the night breeze raising up the flap of the tent and allowing moonlight to stream in. The little Pterosaur outside the tent was perched on the big Pterosaur’s wing, and the handsome big boss was inside the tent––
Like a dream.
Wu Jin said vaguely, “See you in the Jurassic...” before plopping down and burying himself into the quilt and pillow that had been traded for with one Evolution Point.
Wei Shi looked at him quietly for a long time before going outside.
See you in the Jurassic period.
Early morning.
Ming Yao, who’d taken the early night shift wasn’t fully awake when he got up, yawning, to look for the supply box and ‘collect rent’ in the form of Evolution Points.
After switching shifts with Wu Jin, he’d dreamt about the captain from his youth, the stewed chicken leg rice from Jingyi base, and was finally been woken up by the Pterosaur––
When he’d fallen asleep again, he dreamed that he was the Emperor, but half of his courtiers were clamoring about heirs, and he was then awakened by the Pterosaur once again––
Then, the captain had picked up a leash to walk the dog, and Ming Yao had been very delighted when he asked him when he’d bought the samoyed. The captain then said that this was the samoyed he’d raised up to become the crown prince. The samoyed had started to bark, and he’d once again been woken up by the Pterosaur––
After tallying up the Evolution Points, Ming Yao packed them up in sacks and angrily went to tell Wu Jin, “Hey, I want to say that this Pterosaur is more than just a little silly, not only does it not go to sleep in the middle of the night, it even makes such a ruckus!”
When he looked at it again, the Pterosaur was indeed unwilling to sleep and was currently flying around everywhere.
He looked over again and took in Little Witch’s current state...
The amount of Evolution Points they’d collected was the same as yesterday. How come he was giggling while counting them?!
Wu Jin immediately took back his smile, and his small round face turned serious, “The Evolution Points haven’t changed.”
“We’ve reached the peak of the Triassic era.”
Ming Yao reacted to these words, “Is the era about to come to an end?”
Wu Jin nodded. “During the Triassic period extinction event, 50% of the existing species disappeared, and dinosaurs officially became the dominant species––we need to start preparing for the second extinction.”
Ming Yao snapped his fingers. Compared to the previous Permian period that had been difficult, they had enough Evolution Points to trade for better breathing equipment for this extinction event.
He suddenly wondered out loud, “We can go up to the mountains to hide. These dinosaurs––”
Wu Jin pulled his gaze back from the distance, “There are a total of four versions of the Red Queen game. The Permian period, the Triassic period, the Jurassic period, and the Cretaceous period.”
“In any game, any version updates are accompanied by sanctions against the most powerful, the contestants with the best equipment. Only by narrowing the gap between players will they be able to reshape the ‘playability’ of the next version.”
Ming Yao paused, “You mean to say that we’re the top players of the Triassic period, so the extinction––that is, after the version update, the species advantages in our hands will return to zero?”
Wu Jin: “Yes, but our Evolution Point advantage will still be there.”
Ming Yao was relieved when he heard this, “Alright, Jurassic period. Although our levels go back to zero, we can be rich players who spend money! We now have 360 Evolution Points in hand, and our team is basically fully armed. We can play big! When will the Jurassic period begin. Also, why is your Pterosaur flying around everywhere, can we eat salt and pepper Pterosaur today––”
Ming Yao’s processing suddenly stalled.
The land rumbled and shook, and the Plateosaurus fled in a hurry. There were no predators behind the dinosaurs’ tails––even the Coelophysis were running around everywhere. Not only the Pterosaur, but almost all creatures were in an abnormal state of agitation.
Ming Yao took a look at the combat jacket tied around his waist and murmured, “Cloudy water, abnormal animal behavior, sudden rise in temperature... natural disaster...”
His gaze grew solemn.
Wu Jin whistled, and pulled the little Pterosaur into his arms . Lin Ke and Sora also responded quickly, with Lin Ke picking up two Coelophysis and tying them up with nylon rope like bundling up a pair of lizards. Sora also forced a small Plateosaurus to follow the team.
The air stank of sulphur.
The tectonic plate collapsed, volcanoes erupted, the sea rose up, and landmasses sank down.
Wu Jin and Ming Yao traded glances, “Go.”
The creatures fled in a hurry, and the Triassic period that had lasted for 50 million years was annihilated––
The real era of dinosaur hegemony, the Jurassic period, finally began.
Juurensha: A Ptresaur date, very unique, so cute.
xiin: right??? guys, they had their first date on the back of a flying dinosaur. i think that’s like the most unique and awesome date EVER. and Wei Shi is so damned smooth, that super convoluted explanation just so WJ would hold WS’s hand omg omg omg *squeal*