This is not an April fools’ joke, but it is an April fools’ chapter.
Regardless of what species they were, regardless of what world they were in, when a couple started fighting, they would refuse to acknowledge each other. Anyway, regardless of how White finally obtained Black’s forgiveness, when Meng Jiuzhao woke up, he noticed a new egg next to him.
The egg wasn’t big, and Meng Jiuzhao initially thought that this was brought back by the “Angel” for consumption. But then the “angel” hugged him together with the egg, before covering the two of them with a big blanket, causing Meng Jiuzhao to immediately think of the word “cuddling”.
“That can’t be, right?” Meng Jiuzhao’s mouth opened, and drool dripped out.
In the end, his body was still too young, even if there was an issue, there was no way for him to voice it. Meng Jiuzhao was not one to fixate on small problems. It wasn’t easy getting revived, and since he was given a second chance, he might as well lead it seriously. His goal for now was to grow up healthily.
As for the degree of completion of this goal, Meng Jiuzhao stated: He lost to the egg beside him.
From his observation, the rate of growth of this egg definitely surpassed that of his. That tiny egg from before was now half of his size. But thanks to this egg, Meng Jiuzhao was able to observe the world he was reborn to in advance.
That angel whose name seemed to be “Black” could no longer wrap them between his legs to be kept warm. Meng Jiuzhao was hence wrapped up and hugged to his chest, leaving the egg between his legs and covered by the blanket. When the winds decreased, the “Angel” would allow him to take a look at the scenery outside.
So many “Angels”! That was Meng Jiuzhao’s first impression.
So many “Angels” are cuddling! This was Meng Jiuzhao’s second impression.
This was a spectacular scene: With a sweeping glance, all that could be seen were densely packed nests, with each having an owner. Most of the time, the golden-haired “Angels” would only show their heads, upper bodies and wing tips. The rest of their body was deeply hidden in the nest. The nests built from staggered branches and stones were not very spacious, but were definitely deep, warm, and windproof. Meng Jiuzhao had personally experienced that.
They were probably the “Humans” of this world.
They could communicate, and could also use tools– Take for example the stone mortar they used to mince meat, even though it was a very primitive form of a mortar, it was created for a sole purpose. They could not weave, as could be seen from their entire bodies clothed in animal skin, but the animal skins were mostly positioned to only cover the more intimate parts of their bodies, showing that they had a sense of shame, which was a precursor to the sense of morality. From an overall perspective, the world was probably still in the stone age.
He was probably reborn in the primitive times, right?
The concept of time-travel did not exist in Meng Jiuzhao’s head. He grew up in an era where technology was highly advanced, and man had long proven that history was prone to repeating itself. “Time-travel” as the ancients used to say, was nothing more than going to a particular point in time for a particular civilisation. Time only moved forward.
Thanks to the blessings of being born in such a futuristic era, Meng Jiuzhao knew that primates were not the only beings that could evolve to have a human form. Other species of different environments could also evolve to become humans.
On the planet before him, what evolved to become ‘Humans’ were probably these winged creatures. They were still undergoing the process of evolution, hence preserving some inherent characteristics of their race on their bodies — such as those wings.
However, after careful observation, Meng Jiuzhao noticed that the flying ability of this winged race had deteriorated. Their wings were small compared to the size of their bodies and were unable to support long distance flights, only capable of flights of short distances and gliding. Meng Jiuzhao deduced that these winged people would develop to become purely terrestrial, with their wings eventually disappearing and their walking ability improving.
Time passed slowly as Meng Jiuzhao fed on milk and observed his surroundings. As the weather got warmer, Black’s second egg also hatched.
Translator has many things to say:
If you’ve read No Afterlife by the author, you will know of the race Uabis. This race also appears in The Sabbath, also by the author. An identifying feature of this race are their wings similar to the human Kantas. Those guys also cannot fly. But they are from different universes and are different species. Isn’t that interesting? (The translators for those two novels did a really good job, and No Afterlife is already completed. If you like this novel, why don’t you go and check them out? *wink*)
Second thing, I’ve been reading another novel about robots and interstellar, it is really cute and I like the story. I would like to translate it but all the chapters are minimally double the length of POA. Translating the wall of text will definitely make me die. I am sad. 🙁
That’s all I have to say, thanks for reading 😀
I’m learning to translate as I go, my translations vary between loose and close to the original raws, but I’ll try my best to convey the meaning of the story ( ＾ω＾ )
The world building is already quite interesting. I haven’t read No Afterlife yet but I’ll add it to my (admittedly long) list!
Evolution is a fascinating topic. So many weird vestigial traits still in our species alone (like how we have tails as fetuses and lose them before birth). Those wings will end up being ornamentation yet. A display like peacocks perhaps in this species where monogamy isn’t the norm.
Thanks for your hard work translating!
When I learnt about evolution in bio class they talked about the tails when we are embryos too, it makes me wonder how we would look if those tails didn’t disappear as we developed. Maybe there would be cat tails and fluffy tails like in manga and novels that would be so cool.
No Afterlife was one of my favourite novels, there are a lot of fantasy and adventuring elements (plus it’s set in the interstellar setting) and somehow I can always paint a picture of the scenery the author describes which makes it even more immersive!!!
You know, I read that basically whenever you see some random element of an animal that doesn’t really make sense its purely a sexual selection trait. I’ll use peacocks as an example again- that beautiful train of feathers is incredibly impractical. It’s heavy so it makes you slower, it takes a lot of energy to grow when nature is a fight against starvation, and it makes you stick out like a sore thumb ad a great target for any predators. There is no benefit for the animal to have those feathers. Except, of course, that female peacocks see that train and think (from and evolutionary sense) that if that male has good enough genes to survive despite those limitations and is capable enough to thrive he’d be good genetically to have strong children with.
Conversely, the more closely alike male and female animals are, the more identical they are in appearance. Here males aren’t competing with other males to spread their genes, they are putting the hard work into making sure more of their children survive overall. A bit of a quantity versus quality trade off.
If you ever are really curious on a strange example of evolution, look up details on female hyenas. They have a strongly matriarchal society and have some really… interesting… anatomy as a result.
You know, I would really love cat ears and a tail. I think they are cute! With humans are though my guess is there’d be species discrimination. Cat tails versus lizard tails as an example. 🤔
a lizard tail that will detach whenever the owner feels like they are in danger- Σ(;ﾟ∀ﾟ)ﾉ
* the more closely alike in appearance an animal is between males and females, the more likely it is they are monogamous