Chapter 1

"Early-stage stomach cancer indeed has a chance of being cured, but now it has worsened to the middle stage, and the possibility of a cure has decreased. However, if you continue with active treatment, there is still a chance..."

"No, I choose to be discharged."

After spending more than two hours, Xu Zhi stepped out of the hospital entrance. A period of chemotherapy had made his hair thin and fall out, his body pale and hunched, and he was in an extremely sickly condition.

In the early stages of cancer, active treatment can offer a chance of a cure, but once it progresses to the middle stage, the survival rate is very low.

There was no longer any need for treatment.

He muttered to himself.

Xu Zhi was not without ability; he worked for a large foreign company. However, the savings of over 500,000 yuan accumulated over four or five years had been largely depleted. After years of hard work, he was left with nothing.

He bought a high-speed train ticket, dragged his suitcase, and returned to his hometown, Dongcheng, in the countryside.

It had been a year since he last returned to his mountain hometown, where there was an independent orchard courtyard.

His family was once considered wealthy in the village, with over 100 acres of land leased for fruit tree cultivation behind the courtyard.

However, six months ago, the price of lychees was too low, and a large amount of fruit rotted in storage. He was also cheated by someone who claimed to have channels to solve the oversupply issue. After spending money to seek help, he was deceived out of a significant amount, resulting in a loss of nearly one million yuan. His parents, enraged, fell ill and never recovered.

Now, the orchard was left unattended, and the hired workers had all left. The fruit trees had been cut down, and the ground was covered with weeds.

He unlocked the door and pushed it open, greeted by a cloud of dust.

The familiar rural life from his childhood came into view. He put down his luggage in the room, planning to spend his remaining days in his hometown, returning to a rural life.

Rustling...

He suddenly heard a strange sound.

"Who's there? It seems something is moving in the courtyard." He stood up and went to the empty orchard courtyard. Among the weeds, he saw a black beetle about the size of a bowl.

"Really dark, what kind of insect is this?"

Xu Zhi reached out.

Whoosh—

In an instant, his mind was sucked into the black shell of the insect, entering a vast history of a species.

It was a long history of the rise of the insect race, which began with a biological explosion on a green planet, similar to the Cambrian explosion on Earth. These ancient insects developed their own intelligence and technology. Their enormous reproductive capacity and potential led them to the stars. When their technology reached its peak, they realized they lived in a barren, low-level world.

Ultimately, they broke through a certain dimension, entering a higher, fantastical world, the Realm of Immortality, but they were instantly defeated, as if it were inevitable.

In the insect hive, the previous queen left a message full of regret:

"Biological evolution is not about becoming larger and more powerful; true strength lies within oneself."

"We took the wrong path from the beginning. The more we evolved, the larger we became, which was a wrong path. The smaller the body, the more potential for energy transformation... We have failed. Whoever becomes the next queen, take up the challenge and fight for the Realm of Immortality again!"

...

Soon, Xu Zhi discovered that he had taken control of the insect hive. From the insect race's memory, this highly aggressive and great species had only one racial ability.

"Ultra-high-speed cell division?"

The insect race's ability was to shorten their lifespan and accelerate the cell division of their species, causing them to be born, bloom, grow, wither, and die like the petals of a flower in a short period.

In the memory, the insect hive was a war fortress.

As long as the hive produced cells—spores—and released them on a barren planet, activating "ultra-high-speed cell division," within a few years, those cells would rapidly reproduce and evolve into new species, becoming part of the hive's army.

"This species has infinite potential."

Thinking about this, Xu Zhi's mind became restless.

Long-term illness and the torment of chemotherapy had left Xu Zhi feeling physically and mentally exhausted, even questioning the purpose of his boring life. Now, on the brink of death, he suddenly had something to be curious about.

The evolution and progression of life.

"The previous insect queen spread spores on barren planets, evolving countless species and building worlds. I don't have a planet, but can I use this ability to create a small evolutionary sandbox in my family's orchard?"

"Having this insect hive, a war fortress, I can completely create mountains, seas, and rivers in this orchard, a super-miniature sandbox, and let countless insect spores and single-celled organisms evolve into countless species..."

"It feels like a sandbox game—my world. And if I can create a world and evolve a civilization and countless species, perhaps I can find a way to cure my cancer from this world?"

Xu Zhi became excited: Is this a stroke of luck??

Cancer, incurable by modern medicine, might be his last hope for survival.

"I need to quickly build a sandbox and buy farming tools!" Xu Zhi found a dusty tricycle in the corner of his family's farm, panting like a bald old man, his body weakened by chemotherapy, and laboriously pedaled to the nearby town.

He spent several tens of thousands of his savings to buy a set of farm equipment and instruments, returned to the courtyard, and happily began setting up.

He didn't have a planet, only a 100-acre orchard to build his sandbox world.

He hired a group of workers to clear the weeds and trees in the orchard, turning it into a flat piece of land. Then, he took up a hoe and, like a farmer, dug holes, shaping miniature mountains, freshwater rivers, caves, and various barren sandbox terrains.

He also used a high-temperature sprayer to burn the entire sandbox inch by inch, clearing any existing plants and animals to prevent them from interfering with the spores' evolution.

Microorganisms were not a concern and were difficult to control; they would be consumed by the insect genes and evolve into new Earth species.

"The origin of species is the ocean. I need to build a large sea, with seawater."

In the orchard, his parents had already built a small fish pond. He thought for a moment and spent a large sum to hire a few workers to expand the pond, dig soil, and fill it with water, creating an artificial shallow pond. He added salt to the water to create a sea.

However, a tricky problem arose.

This was not a large, spherical planet but a 100-acre square sandbox. The land structure was based on the ancient mythological concept:

Heaven is round, and the earth is square.

"Is this mythological land?"

Xu Zhi's body was much weaker than before. It took him a week of arduous work to prepare the 100-acre sandbox in the orchard.

On the morning of that day, he controlled the hive's secondary brain and began producing the initial single-celled spores of the insect race, injecting them into the central sea of the sandbox he had created.

The evolution began.

He gave the hive the command:

"Accelerate cell division: 10,000 times!"

According to the insect race's time unit, one cycle is one year.

Accelerating 10,000 times, one day of evolution for these single-celled organisms would be equivalent to 10,000 years... but whether new species could be born and whether a miniature version of Earth's Cambrian explosion could occur in this small sandbox was uncertain.

On the first day of spore release, the clear central sea showed no changes.

On the second day, the entire sandbox remained quiet.

On the third day.

On the fourth day.

Finally, on the fifth day, the single-celled organisms in the central sea began to evolve into some plankton, and the water visibly became murky.