Chen Xi stood in the doorway and peered into the courtyard. "How can you be so cheerful about farming by yourself? Is working the land really that much fun?"
"It's… pleasant," Xu Zhi replied, shrugging. "Farming makes me happy."
Chen Xi shot him a teasing look, then her expression shifted to stunned surprise. She blinked as though seeing him anew. "How… what happened to you?"
Xu Zhi's heart sank. Had she noticed his subtle transformation again? He'd restored his previous appearance, yet something indefinable about his bearing had changed after three mass extinctions. He reached up and gently touched her forehead. "Are you feeling unwell? Having hallucinations?"
Chen Xi shook her head, flustered. "No — it's just that your presence feels different… you seem so… poised, so elegant. It's like you're superhuman. I'm convinced you're cheating at life."
Xu Zhi forced a wry smile. He hadn't intended to appear extraordinary — yet his aura spoke volumes. Chen Xi hurriedly changed the subject. "Are you never bored here? You should come out with me sometimes. We could go shopping… maybe go on a date?"
"A date?" Xu Zhi repeated, startled.
"Of course," Chen Xi said with surprising confidence, lifting her chin. "What happened to your previous girlfriend — the pretty coworker? She left you when you got sick, right?"
Xu Zhi explained briefly: they'd been colleagues, she'd quit her job after his diagnosis, and they'd drifted apart.
Chen Xi's eyes widened in sympathy. "You were at the height of your career when you were diagnosed with a terminal illness. Your job gone, your girlfriend gone… You must have felt so alone. I'd like to be your girlfriend in your final days — keep you company so you're not lonely."
"Feel sorry for me?" Xu Zhi said, incredulous. He'd indeed fallen from greatness into illness — but now, thanks to his sandbox experiments, he felt hope. Though he faced late‑stage cancer, he might live months — equivalent to millennia in the sandbox world — plenty of time to discover a cure through evolution.
Chen Xi hesitated, then confessed, "I thought about it. If I can make you happier in your last days, it fulfills something in me — and maybe brings you some warmth." She counted off on her fingers: "I volunteered in hospitals, so I know how to care for terminal patients. I'll cook for you, take you shopping, talk with you — make your final days as joyful as possible."
Xu Zhi paused, half amused, half bemused. "So you're serious? You want to perform the duties of a girlfriend?"
Chen Xi recoiled as though insulted. "What kind of thought is that? This is a sincere relationship. You're dying — don't insult me by suggesting I'm after your purity."
Xu Zhi blinked. All this time, her deliveries of food and affectionate glances had hidden ulterior motives: she simply wanted a boyfriend to impress others. He sighed inwardly.
Chen Xi pressed on: "Everyone says we should appear as lovers on the surface. Let's have a beautiful romance. If you don't object, I'll take that as consent."
"Fine," Xu Zhi said flatly.
She beamed. "In a few days there's a high‑school reunion. You'll accompany me. You're so handsome now — your presence alone will make me look good. Everyone will envy me."
Xu Zhi raised an eyebrow. She was more interested in social cachet than genuine affection.
"Come on — let's go shopping. We need new outfits for the reunion. You'll look fabulous and I'll look like I hit the jackpot. Besides, you've been farming your whole life and have plenty of money. Since you're going to die anyway, you might as well enjoy it."
He sighed but allowed himself a small smile. "Seems I've gained a superficial girlfriend."
Chen Xi's enthusiasm didn't wane. She led him into town on her electric scooter. They budgeted carefully, strolling most of the main shopping street. She bought a stylish outfit for three hundred yuan; he followed suit, spending a similar amount. Exhausted but satisfied, they returned to the countryside.
Back in the courtyard, Xu Zhi mused, "At least I have a caretaker now. Chen Xi's excitement fades quickly, but she'll prepare meals for me daily. And I'll no longer need to eat out, which is good — my stomach cancer demands clean, nutritious food."
He returned to the sandbox table to inspect the odd cyclopean creature that Chen Wenshan had evolved. Though the individual had been squashed, its species persisted in the mini‑sandbox — but extinction was imminent. Any organism devoting two‑thirds of its body mass to a single eyeball was evolutionarily doomed, wasting precious energy.
"Does it have any supernatural potential?" Xu Zhi asked the hive.
"It does," the hive replied. "This species is simple‑minded, aggressive, and malevolent, but its enormous eyeball grants it extraordinarily strong mental power."
Such a malformed creature might yet evolve into something formidable if given time — much like the insect‑apes had started from weakness. Xu Zhi considered integrating it into the larger sandbox.
He decided to expand the big sandbox by creating a ten‑square‑meter swamp region within the hundred‑acre world. Post‑Flood geology would plausibly produce marshlands — flooded lowlands of nutrient‑rich mud. To fertilize that marsh, he thought of natural compost.
Rather than human waste, Xu Zhi sourced chicken and cow manure from neighbors, citing his farmland's need for fertilizer. Back in the courtyard, shovel in hand, he began converting the designated area into a swamp: churned mud, water channels, and rich organic matter.
As he worked under the afternoon sun, Xu Zhi contemplated the grand experiment ahead — introducing the aberrant "big‑eye" species into a new wetland biome, testing whether its strange traits might yield unexpected evolutionary breakthroughs in his vast sandbox world.