Jiang Ye described his idea for the Alien Colonization Investment Bureau.
"You mean..." Ju Lanlan's tone was uncertain.
"You'll be the head," Jiang Ye said. "The base salary is five hundred thousand a month, which you're surely not interested in. And another thing, you can take thirty percent of the total profit that the Alien Colonization Investment Bureau makes."
"Great! It's settled then!" Ju Lanlan was surprisingly agreeable, not even trying to refuse.
"Go to the top floor of the Macroeconomic Building and find Feng Zhi Shuang. She'll teach you the specifics of operations," Jiang Ye said. "I'll give you a team, but you'll also need to find some reliable people to assist you. Try to get this organization up and running within a week. I'm in urgent need of funds."
"No problem, I'll go right after I shower," Ju Lanlan agreed.
After hanging up, Jiang Ye let out a long sigh. Both methods for raising money were starting to get underway, but it would still take several days at the earliest.
There were a few unread messages on his phone, photos of the completed Four-Eyed Deer farm. Jiang Ye had expected the farm to be a high-tech place with fully automated breeding equipment. Instead, it was just brick walls dividing different areas on the plain, keeping the four-eyed deer in small groups so they couldn't see each other and become agitated. From above, it looked like a herd of sheep.
Jiang Ye slept for eight hours, feeling refreshed. After eating, he entered the remote control cabin.
"We've dug up a Dilong egg! It's a cocoon egg!" Isabel called out over the comms as soon as he put on his mecha. "Jiang Ye, head north into the forest, about a kilometer. I'll wait for you there."
"Coming, coming!" Jiang Ye replied immediately. "Do I need to bring anything?"
"No, the egg has already been excavated, and there's no danger," Isabel said.
Jiang Ye pushed open the door of the birth pod and was stunned by the sight of the camp.
He could barely recognize his own camp. Towering defensive turrets, metal pillars about two stories high, stood in the four cardinal directions. The sheer size of the point-defense guns was far beyond his expectations. The part covered by the casing was as large as a small car, with eleven black rotating gun barrels and topped with a two-meter-tall cylindrical radar device.
For now, peace reigned, and the point-defense guns were all quiet.
Occasionally, small birds would fly up in the rainforest, and the gun barrels would immediately turn to track them automatically. It was clear that these weapons were very sensitive, capable of detecting targets as small as sparrows. Of course, they wouldn't fire indiscriminately unless a bomb bird was diving towards the camp or someone was manually operating them to shoot at small birds. There was no point in using point-defense guns to shoot sparrows. A brief one-second burst would unleash 266 large caliber shells, obliterating the birds without a trace, leaving not even a feather, as if they had vanished from this world. Jiang Ye figured if he stood in front of a point-defense gun, he'd be reduced to mincemeat instantly, and a flyer caught in such firepower would be like a paper airplane thrown into a furnace, quickly turning to ash.
Jiang Ye left the camp and advanced into the damp rainforest.
The ground was covered in a sticky, black-green grease, all from decaying leaves. During the storm a few days ago, all the leaves in the rainforest had become fertilizer. However, Jiang Ye didn't smell anything foul, likely because his mask blocked it. New leaves were already swaying in the air, but they hadn't grown to hand-size yet. As a result, a lot of sunlight filtered through the gaps between the leaves, hanging in the forest like countless golden threads.
As he walked, he saw some swordsmen lying on the ground ahead, repeatedly stabbing the ground with their long swords. Their movements were similar to old-fashioned mine-sweeping, but the things they were looking for were more deadly than landmines: Dilong eggs.
"Jiang Ye, Jiang Ye! You've gone too far! Turn back, I'm waving at you!" Isabel's voice came through his earpiece.
Jiang Ye turned back and saw, about a hundred meters away, a charging mecha pilot jumping and waving frantically.
"I see you, I see you, stop jumping, you look like a skyrocket," Jiang Ye waved back.
Jiang Ye walked over and saw a toppled tree. A large pit had been dug at the base of the tree, and at the bottom of the pit lay a stone-like gray giant egg.
Jiang Ye had originally thought Dilong eggs would be at most the size of a basketball, but the actual size greatly exceeded his expectations. The entire egg could fit at least a dozen people, and it was larger than the head of a Moai statue on Easter Island.
"What did you call this earlier? A cocoon egg? What's a cocoon egg?" Jiang Ye asked.
"There are two types of Dilong eggs. One is a regular egg, about the size of an ostrich egg, which hatches into a small Dilong. Dilongs lay them anywhere, anytime, like silly hens scattering eggs. The other type is a cocoon egg. When a Dilong's physical condition is poor, or it judges the environment unsuitable for survival, it melts down its internal organs and nurtures a large egg within its abdominal cavity. This egg is its manifestation, somewhat like a frog degenerating into a tadpole. Before dying, the Dilong will find a place to bury itself to prevent the cocoon egg from being found and destroyed," Isabel explained.
"This little creature's evolution is quite complex," Jiang Ye remarked.
"It's not evolution, it was designed by the Mir people," Isabel corrected. "Cocoon eggs are landmines the Mir people left for us."
"What do we do with this egg now?" Jiang Ye asked.
"It's simple. You smash it, get all the egg liquid out, and let it die," Isabel said. "Some soldiers wanted to break it before, but I stopped them. This type of egg yields a lot of merit points, so I specifically saved it for you."
"Oh, how thoughtful," Jiang Ye said, suddenly drawing his greatsword. "Let's chop it up!"
He swung with all his might. The eggshell was tougher than he expected, feeling like he was chopping through a truck tire. Fortunately, the swordsman mecha's arm strength and the greatsword were also formidable, and it managed to cut in.
Merit Points +60,000!
"Holy crap, this egg is really valuable!" Jiang Ye was startled by the high reward.
The eggshell cracked like a spiderweb at the top. Jiang Ye pulled out his sword and continued to chop relentlessly. Yellowish-green liquid splattered out continuously. After more than twenty blows, he finally opened the top of the egg.
The two of them gasped at the sight within the egg.
In the yellowish-green solution, countless blood vessels and forming flesh floated. Every inch of the solution had tiny bubbles, like an oily carbonated beverage.
Many fully formed organs were already visible, such as snake-like intestines, water-bag-like acid sacs, and bones several times thicker than those of a beast of comparable size. Most peculiar was the brain. While the brains of ordinary animals were a single, wrinkled mass, the Dilong's brain consisted of six connected yellow lumps. These lumps had no wrinkles but were covered in countless holes, like a honeycomb, as if hundreds of bees were about to emerge from them.
"Smash!" The greatsword plunged in.
Jiang Ye used the greatsword to poke and stir vigorously, like churning a sauerkraut vat with a stick, destroying the formed organs. Then he chopped the skeleton into pieces. An unhatched life was thus extinguished.
"It's done, let's go back," Isabel nodded. "The situation has completely changed in the half-day you were gone."