It was afternoon. The Skinners hid in the shadows of the buildings, letting out frenzied howls at the Brain Apes.
A group of Brain Apes, armed with various firearms, fired continuously at the Skinners hiding in the buildings.
They didn't enter the gloomy buildings, only shooting at whatever came into their line of sight.
In the blink of an eye, dozens of Skinners had fallen into pools of their own blood, finding release in death. But even more, driven by instinct, retreated into the deeper shadows.
"Kuafu, Skinners, disgusting! Kill them all!" a Brain Ape on horseback shouted. Beside him was none other than the leader of the Ape Race, the bespectacled Kuafu.
"Wuzhiqi," Kuafu said to his deputy, "our ammunition is limited, and there are too many Skinners. Besides, they kill humans, not us. We're leaving."
He had seen Skinners before, after the great human catastrophe of the Petrification Disease. He knew how disgusting they were and even understood that these monsters were former Incinerator Technicians who had been transformed.
When the Petrification Disease broke out, the Disease Control Center's Incineration Bureau became the most vital agency, recruiting tens of millions of Incinerator Technicians.
After all of humanity turned to stone, large numbers of Skinners were left behind in every city—thousands in some, tens of thousands in others.
These Skinners became the nocturnal masters of the city ruins and were once the greatest threat the Brain Apes had ever faced.
After years of fighting, they had only managed to clear the Skinners out of a few cities and were still far from eradicating them completely.
Wuzhiqi nodded in firm agreement and said approvingly:
"Kuafu, smart! Let's go! HUAH!"
At his roar, the Brain Apes, who had already killed over a hundred Skinners, put away their guns and moved on to search the next city block.
Kuafu's brow furrowed. He had a strange, nagging feeling. He suddenly looked up toward the top floor of the Disease Control Center, then shook his head with a self-deprecating chuckle.
'The Skinners' hatred for humans far surpasses their hatred for any other creature. If that human had really gotten inside the Disease Control Center, the whole place would be in an uproar. There would at least be a few Skinner corpses lying around. There's no way he could have gotten in unscathed.'
'I'm just being paranoid...'
'It's just... I haven't seen a living human in so long. For this one to appear, there's only one explanation: a statue has turned back into a person!'
He looked away, his gaze shifting forward. As the human statues along the road passed in his peripheral vision, he felt a sudden, inexplicable irritation. He shouted an order:
"Relay the order! Tonight, we perform... the Ceremony of Passing the Flame! Continue... the search for humans! Try... to take them alive!"
Hearing this, the apes present erupted in joyous howls, clearly excited for the Ceremony of Passing the Flame.
The Brain Apes then leaned down from their saddles, grabbing human statues from the ground and loading them onto their horses. Soon, the troop of Ape Cavalry galloped away, leaving behind an empty street and the howling of the Skinners in the surrounding buildings.
In the top-floor research lab of the Disease Control Center, Shen Feng watched from behind the venetian blinds as the Brain Apes departed. The heart that had been lodged in his throat finally dropped.
The moment the bespectacled Brain Ape had looked up, their eyes met. Shen Feng's heart had hammered in his chest, and for a second, he was sure he'd been discovered.
Thankfully, they had finally left.
He had also overheard their conversation through the lab's surveillance system and finally learned the leader's name.
Kuafu!
'This Brain Ape actually named himself Kuafu... the giant from ancient Chinese mythology who drank the Yellow River dry chasing the sun!'
'Heh. What ambition!'
Shen Feng sneered.
'So now I can be sure. That Kuafu is the leader of these Brain Apes.'
'As for this "Ceremony of Passing the Flame"... that's a bit harder to figure out.'
'But now's not the time to dwell on that. Since I've managed to fool them for now, I need to move fast.'
He immediately returned to the computer and started searching through its stored files.
The Disease Control Center had its own independent archival system. An ocean of data was stored within it. Although some files were corrupted, the remaining data was still immense.
Shen Feng searched for the term "Ape" and got over ten thousand results.
After the Petrification Disease outbreak, countless vaccine and virus trials had been conducted on primates. Being so similar to humans, their reactions were expected to be close.
Shen Feng searched for a long time to no avail. Then, he remembered the full name of the Brain Apes: "Silicon-Based Half-Brain Ape." He immediately added "silicon" to his search query.
The results narrowed to just over three hundred files, most of which were experiment logs.
Shockingly, the timestamps on these logs were all from before the Petrification Disease ever appeared!
*Copied from the Capital Science Academy Virus Center: "Experimental Log on the Effects of a Novel Silicon-Based Virus on Primate Test Subjects"*
"Log Entry 0001: The Xianglong Arctic Expedition Team has recovered a completely new silicon-based virus sample from beneath the Arctic ice sheet. Under the microscope, they look just like tiny statues, so we've named it the Stone Statue Virus.
This is a completely new discovery, one that upends the theoretical foundations of the field and heralds a new dawn for human evolution! If I'm not mistaken, it's a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in a few years.
We are now commencing animal trials using a mutated variant of the virus.
Test Subject designation: 'Kuafu.' In the spirit of the sun-chaser, we shall open a new chapter for the world! Haha, pardon my excitement.
Now injecting Mutant Variant #2 of the Stone Statue Virus, which I've dubbed the 'Pangu Virus.' Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it..."
...
"Log Entry 0078: Test Subject #1, 'Kuafu,' and the fifty subsequent subjects have all exhibited changes to varying degrees. They are becoming more intelligent.
Based on IQ tests, their scores are now around 80—a massive leap from their baseline. They can even do some simple reading!
And it's only been six months! This is unbelievable!
Brain scans have revealed a major breakthrough: their brains are showing signs of spongiform changes, somewhat similar to the morphological effects of the Prion Virus that causes mad cow disease.
Logically, brain atrophy and damage should cause a decline in intelligence. So why has the intelligence of these apes increased instead? It's utterly baffling..."
...
"Log Entry 0167: I have gathered every primate test subject the Capital Science Academy could provide. After injection with the Pangu Virus, only the orangutans show significant mutation and intelligence enhancement.
This mutation might be related to baseline brain capacity and intelligence. The higher the baseline, the greater the enhancement.
If used on a human, could it create a superhuman intelligence? Haha, I can hardly wait to give myself a dose. But that will have to wait until the animal trials are fully complete.
Dissection of two orangutans confirms their brains are developing spongiform patterns. At the same time, a portion of their brain cells have become silicon-based. This might be the cause of their increased intelligence.
In a sense, they've become hybrid silicon-carbon lifeforms."
...
"Log Entry 0293: There's a major problem with the experiment. All strains of the Stone Statue Virus are undergoing constant, iterative mutation!
Stone Statue Virus #2, the Pangu Virus, was just a snapshot of one form at a specific point in time during its mutation process!
The vast majority of the Pangu Virus samples I have in storage can no longer maintain their original properties. They've all turned into something new!
The other research teams are reporting similar findings. It's as if all Stone Statue Viruses are mutating toward a single, common objective!
It's like they're a single organism with a shared purpose!"
...
"Log Entry 0364: The experiment is a complete failure.
No matter what I do, I can't stop the Pangu Virus from mutating continuously. I can't preserve it, unless it's bonded directly with a living organism.
I've given myself a dose. The very last one is preserved in liquid nitrogen. Only at that temperature can its properties be stabilized.
What a shame...
The two thousand apes in the experiment have completed their transformation. They now possess intelligence on par with humans, but that's as far as it goes. The trait isn't hereditary. They will likely be the loneliest apes in history—wretches awakened from ignorance millions of years too soon.
My skin... it feels a little itchy..."
Reading that last sentence, Shen Feng instinctively scratched his arm. His own skin felt a bit itchy... and a little stiff...