Chapter 63: Mystery of the Catastrophe

Zhou Jian hasn’t heard of any anaconda’s variant. He went to the net to search for it and was startled at the introduction. This thing emerged in the middle of last century catastrophe in the Amazon jungle. a mutation of the Amazon anaconda. If the common anaconda would grow up to 10 meters long in adulthood, then this mutated anaconda would be twice as large. The common anaconda’s body was the thickest at the abdomen and was already equaled to an adult man’s waist. The anaconda variant may amount to 1.5 meters wide, and its length about 20 meters long. Its body strength could strangle a hippopotamus. Living in the jungles of Brazil, it’s an extremely dangerous snake. Speaking of the mid-21st-century catastrophe, Zhou Jian didn’t understand much of it since it’s pa.s.sed for more than 100 years from the end of the catastrophe. The historical record was also somewhat obscure. Zhou Jian knew that at that time, the world erupted into a large scale war. But it’s different from the first and second world war. The opponents were the mutated animals and disease-causing germs. Until today, Zhou Jian didn’t understand exactly about the reason it happened. Suddenly, any one animal or plant on Earth suddenly mutated and became dangerous. The viral infectious germs also evolved at the same time. The people had infectious diseases of all kinds. In a short ten years, Earth’s population sharply declined. Actually, during the era of thermal weapon, the fierce beasts who’re running amuck weren’t considered as a disaster tot he humans. Although the large size variant beasts were ferocious, but they weren’t a match for the armies’ high tech weapons. But those small biological variants made humanity almost at the end of its wits. For example, the mosquitoes variant, the fruit flies variant, the mouse variant….. Their quant.i.ties were extremely numerous, and the targets were small. The fruit flies and the mice were still alright, at most only spreading infections. But the mosquitoes were especially appalling. Usually, if one was bitten by the mosquito, one would just itch for a few days. But if one was bitten by a mosquito variant, then it’s possible to not being able to get out of bed for a month. If one was simultaneously bitten by several mosquitoes, then that person could possibly die in the dream from the poison. This mosquito variant looked exactly the same like an ordinary mosquito, and couldn’t be distinguished with the naked eye. The military was completely dumbfounded to cope against this mosquito. The high-tech weaponry was useless against it. The army might as well use a flyswatter as it’s more effective. If they used chemical weapon, then humanity might perished first before those mosquitoes died off. At that time during the catastrophe, pesticide and mosquito net was an essential of each household. Yet, each year, there would be a large amount of people dying due to the mosquito bites. What’s scarier than this mosquito was the plague. There’s no viable treatment once one was infected and could only be isolated. Who would be willing to be waiting behind close door for death, and then later into the incinerator? Those plague patients retaliated and had many frenzied riots against the society. Eventually, the army opened fire directly to kill. One tragedy piled up after another. The human nature was completely exposed. Each country formed an alliance to resist against the catastrophic disaster. At this time, there’s also a crowd that stood out among the humanity, the heroes that had special talents and evolved forms. Their strengths were astonishing and were simply like Superman. These heroes played a crucial role during the doomsday, but exactly what role was it, Zhou Jian didn’t know. Afterwards, the people discovered that these infectious diseases could be treated with drugs made from raw material procured from these variant beasts. For example, the toxin of the monitor lizard variant found in the Amazon could be used to treat star spot disease. The bones of the Bengal tiger variant could be used to treat for the new type of polio, and the gallbladder of the Anaconda variant could be used to treat another type. But because there’s a limited number of these type of beasts’ corpses, there’s still a large amount of people that died from the various infectious diseases. Humanity and the biological variants and the plagues refused to compromise among each other for another 20 years. Later, the animal variants gradually become less and less. The infections also stopped as well. And humanity gradually had the upper hand again, and those animal variants retreated back to the African jungles, the Brazilian jungles, as well as the vast oceans. This catastrophe caused the human civilization to take a large giant step backward. It’s only until now, the 22nd century that the mankind civilization level was just slightly better than it was in the early 21st century. Since the end of the catastrophe, those humanity variants and evolved forms also went into hiding. Although the ancient Wu remained popular, but the warriors couldn’t reach the height of those heroes during the doomsday. Zhou Jian guessed that those so-called doomsday heroes were actually the human variants. Since the animals and plants could have variants to become monsters, why can’t humans? But these variants were still a mystery and could be possibly intentionally covered up. The official explanation given was that because of the serious pollution and the leakage of nuclear residual radiation into the environment, the life on Earth experienced ma.s.sive variations. But the people who understood about biology knew that this explanation was purely bulls.h.i.t, and could only be used to bluff in a novel. It’s not false that excessive radiation could cause biological genetic mutation. Those s.p.a.ce No.1 and No.2 tomato and green pepper came out from that. But with over 99 genetic mutations, that would only cause the organism death. Even if the chances of less than 1 percent of successful mutation, it’s impossible to occur in the adult animals and plant, but rather during the fertilized egg. Only then would the gene of the fertilized egg recombinant be interrupted and the mutation was transmitted through mitosis throughout the body. In the adult biological organism, the body cells were already highly differentiated. There’s a ghost chance (tl: impossible chance) of becoming a variant. Having cancer was more likely. That’s why if it’s like the officials said and that the environmental pollution and nuclear radiation exceeded the limit that Earth organisms could withstand and a large number of animal and human cells received radiation damage to the DNA. Then, the oncogene would be activated and finally died because of cancer, and there wouldn’t be any chance of becoming a variant. This was why the places who suffered nuclear bomb attacks, like Hiroshima and Nagasaki of j.a.pan after WW2 had a high level of cancer and leukemia rate compared to other places. But, there wasn’t any news that Hiroshima and Nagasaki had come out with any biological variation. Someone speculated that the catastrophe was related to alien invasion. But this explanation couldn’t convince because, during the catastrophe, n.o.body observed any UFO. And n.o.body saw any large eyes and sharp chins aliens. And some people also said that the catastrophe was the failing result of some great nation biochemistry experiment. A large scale biochemistry experiment to contribute to the collective evolution of Earth’s species. Certainly, in Zhou Jian’s view, those who had this view were actually YY crazy. Not to mention, in the 21st century, which country had such scientific and technological standards and financial resources to do a biochemistry experiment that could affect all the species around the world. Even if there was, what’s the reason for the country to do so? The government machinery must be realistic. Would it invest so much money into a species genetic project? Could it bring up the GDP or give financial revenue to the country?