Those years of engaging with the system for animal insurance

The wheels rolled, following the ruts when they came, and drove to the distant city.

This city is not big, and as far as the eye can see, it is full of British-style buildings.In the whole place, the highest point you see at first glance is the church, and the glass of the church is also the brightest color around.

The ground of the city is covered with rubbish, and everyone who passes by walks on the street with a blank expression.

Flying all the way, Li Cixin found that the plains around the city were basically reclaimed for arable land.The beautiful country at this time was still an agricultural country of immigrants.

Due to the different economic models in the North and the South, there are huge differences between the North and the South.

In the north, the bourgeoisie mainly employed labor; in the south, there were plantation slave owners who held slavery.

Seeing a carriage full of passenger pigeons approaching, many people stopped and surrounded them.

One of them, a middle-aged man with a rich figure and a beard, asked the hunter who was driving the carriage:

"Dear William, would you please sell me two traveling birds?"

"Sorry, gentleman. My traveling birds are for bedding, so I can't sell them to you now. If you need them, other hunters will help you. After all, there are more birds than ants on the ground."

The red-necked man stroked his beard and said with a troubled expression:

"But theirs are all traveling birds that have been killed. My wife blames me and hopes that I can sell them back in one piece."

The hunter frowned and thought about it, then said, "Alright then! But I will sell it more expensive."

The hunter turned over and got out of the car, ready to take two out of his net bag and sell them to the other party.

Sudden!Somehow, the rope tied to the net broke without warning.

A huge opening appeared over the flock of passenger pigeons.

As the first passenger pigeon flew out, all the passenger pigeons followed each other and rushed to the sky.

"Oh, damn it, my dove, my dove!"

Everyone present did not expect such a situation to happen. The hunter hurriedly reached out his hand, trying to stop the fleeing pigeons, but it was of no avail.

I can only watch the passenger pigeons break through the cage and fly into the sky.

He hastily pulled out his gun and fired a few shots into the sky.A passenger pigeon dropped a lump of bird droppings on his head before flying away.

After the chaos subsided, the man who had just planned to buy passenger pigeons had already been scared away, leaving a field of bird feathers.Three passenger pigeons were shot down, plus those injured and unable to fly in the net bag, there were a total of more than a dozen pigeons in total.

It means that the whole morning is wasted.

As the instigator of this incident, Li Cixin was hiding in the dark.Toured the whole city.

Since this is the south, there are quite a lot of black slaves.Those white civilians from Europe acted as the backbone of the city and formed a bustling commercial street, where food, clothing, housing and transportation were all available for sale.

In places that specialize in selling poultry, there are many vendors with passenger pigeon meat on their stalls.

These passenger pigeons have basically been processed, the pigeon down has already been pulled out, and the internal organs have been emptied.

It is rare to see live passenger pigeons here. After all, there are too many of these passenger pigeons, and it is really difficult to store them.

Most traders received passenger pigeons from hunters at a very low price, much cheaper than other poultry such as chickens, ducks, and geese.

In addition, passenger pigeon is delicious, so buyers are particularly fond of this special meat, and there is no such thing as a situation where it cannot be sold because it is not fresh.

Li Cixin walked around the whole vegetable market, squatted near the biggest passenger pigeon dealer, waited for the sun to go down, and went home with him.

The street vendors live in a small alley, due to the poor urban planning in the early days.The stinking ditch in front of the door has become a place where all residents dump sewage, exuding a disgusting smell all year round.Like, the feeling of mixing rotten eggs with rotten meat.

Li Cixin held his breath the whole time and rested on the roof.This time, he was still doing a task, violating the raccoon's day and night routine.

It was four or five o'clock in the morning the next day, and the sky was still dark.The vendor has already gotten up, led his donkey, and started to go out to buy goods.

There is no refrigerator in this era, in order to ensure that the meat of the slaughtered passenger pigeons does not deteriorate.Vendors basically go out early in the morning to buy goods.

The hunters gathered the passenger pigeons they captured in a warehouse on the edge of the city.

Live passenger pigeons are the most expensive and most valuable because their down has not been contaminated with blood.And the price of a duvet made of pigeon down far exceeds the price of selling thousands of pigeon meat.

This is not something ordinary people can afford, so that these vendors can get fresh passenger pigeon meat smoothly in the early morning of the next day.The owner of the warehouse will drive a group of black slaves to work night shifts.

Li Cixin was lying on the window, a fishy smell unique to birds poured into his nostrils, and by the light, he could clearly see the process of handling the passenger pigeon.

The necks of live passenger pigeons are broken to ensure the cleanliness and integrity of the down.

Afterwards, the skilled workers fluttered their fingers, and the pigeon velvet fell down.At this time, they were still alive, but their spines were broken and they could not move.

Passenger pigeons that have been stripped of their down are thrown into the next step.Immerse it in boiling water, and the cauldron of boiling water that has killed countless passenger pigeons turns turbid and black.

The passenger pigeon that was thrown into it fluttered a few times in reflex, and immediately became silent.

The workers in the next process fished them out, quickly pulled out their long feathers, and after a simple firing, they disemboweled them and became a meat pigeon that could be sold.

When Li Cixin observed, there were very few live passenger pigeons left.

Vendors, big and small, came here to buy goods one after another.At dawn, they will leave with the pigeon meat.

At the same time, Li Cixin also noticed that there were bursts of yellow smoke rising from the forest not far away.

Li Cixin understood that it was not a mountain fire, but sulfur smoke.

Like these street vendors who come to buy goods in the early morning, hunters also like to choose night activities.

It's just that they are in the middle of the night, so that the passenger pigeons suffocated with sulfur can be sent to the factory warehouse for processing at the specified time. This is the passenger pigeon industry chain in this small town.

For such a large-scale and profitable matter, Li Cixin knew in his heart that it would be difficult to solve it by simply releasing life, and in many cases he was also at a loss.

So, he referred to previous experiences.It seems that only germs can be selected.

After a lot of searching in the system, Li Cixin finally found a virus that could affect the human body but not passenger pigeons.

However, just as he was about to implement his plan, Xiao Bao spoke out:

"Master, you can no longer use this method of operation to protect these animals?"

Li Cixin was puzzled: "Why, it wasn't available before."

Xiaobao: "Refer to the original rules of the system, you can't take more of this kind of germ, you have exceeded the limit. And the number of passenger pigeons is too large, which is not a good thing for these germs, which greatly increases the probability of mutation. "

"What method can I use?" Li Cixin had no choice but to put the found germs back.

"You can choose genetic modification."

Hearing this, Li Cixin asked curiously: "Are there any related tools?"

"Yes, here is a searchlight for gene editing. The genes of some living organisms have the ability to modify and implant. You can choose to transplant passenger pigeons, increase the gene of fear of humans, or other things to solve this problem. "

Li Cixin took out the gene editing searchlight and asked:

"Are there any restrictions on this thing?"

Xiaobao: "This instrument cannot edit the genes of adult individuals, it can only target embryos and fertilized eggs."

"Oh, that is to say, I can selectively edit the genes of bird eggs or other animal embryos with this photo?"

"Yes!"

"That's great!"

Li Cixin played with the searchlight happily, but after feeling bored, he put it back again.

After releasing all the live passenger pigeons in the city, Li Cixin flew into the blue sky and began to follow the trail of the passenger pigeons.

Passenger pigeons are animals that breed collectively. The breeding season is from March to September every year. Hundreds of thousands of them often build nests together. The nests cover an area of ​​several square kilometers of forest.

Such a dense distribution also gives the hunters an opportunity.

Often smoked with sulfur, you can fumigate a large area.

In contrast to the huge passenger pigeon flocks, passenger pigeons produce only one egg per clutch.During this period, passenger pigeons will become monogamous, hatch and raise their offspring together.

Such collective reproduction is not uncommon in nature.

It may be this way of breeding together that ensures that passenger pigeons form such a spectacular group in nature, relying on the number of piles.

But that's exactly what happened. After encountering humans with a lot of means, this breeding method of passenger pigeons has become a burden instead.

In the 19s, after the civil war in the beautiful country, the bourgeoisie unified the country.

From 1870 to 1890, the number of passenger pigeons plummeted.

In response to this problem, Li Cixin has already thought of how to edit the genes of passenger pigeons.

Li Cixin continued to search in the various forests. He had to find them before humans discovered the nesting places of passenger pigeons.

Step [-]: First look for a forest that is relatively close to a human town.Because the passenger pigeons here are the easiest to be targeted.

After finding it, Li Cixin turned on the gene editing searchlight. What he wanted to change was the collective breeding and rest of passenger pigeons.

When transforming the eggs and chicks, Li Cixin added genes of fear of humans and spatial independence to them.

The former can help them stay away from human settlements and make it more difficult for humans to find them.

The second is to ensure that passenger pigeons will not be caught in one pot because they are too dense during breeding or resting.

The searchlights work really well, once set up and adjusted, each egg shines for a few seconds and the edit is done.

And the dense bird's nest made it easier for Li Cixin to operate.

Two weeks later, the first batch of genetically modified passenger pigeon chicks successfully hatched.

Li Cixin can already believe that the breeding period of passenger pigeons will be more scattered in the future, although it is contrary to their original evolutionary direction.But this also shared the risk and ensured the continuation of the population.

Of course, Li Cixin did not carry out genetic modification on all passenger pigeons.

When he traveled across most of North America, he suddenly thought, can passenger pigeons that have been completely modified by gene editing searchlights still be considered original passenger pigeons?

So, he spent several years, probably transforming half of the passenger pigeons, and took the searchlight back.

In 1816, because of the eruption of Mount Tambora, there was no summer in the world.

The earth has fallen into a general cooling, and various feudal dynasties in the Old Continent have experienced disasters to a certain extent.

This also led to more and more people coming to the Americas from Europe to make a living, and the population of the Americas grew rapidly for a time.

This exacerbated the westward movement of population.

Not good for the Indians, and for the passenger pigeons.However, fortunately, Li Cixin's approach had an effect.

Most Indians have learned to vaccinate and domesticate horses.

After the genetically modified new passenger pigeons were combined with the old passenger pigeons, some of them lived scattered and some lived together.The population of passenger pigeons has been continued in the form of risk sharing.

Li Cixin looked at more and more railways being built and fewer and fewer Indians. He also understood that under such a big wave, some things were irreversible by himself.

After the civil war in the beautiful country was over and the bourgeoisie won, industrialization was basically completed here.Steam trains ran over the New World.

The handsome and handsome western cowboy in the movies of later generations, in the hearts of Indians at this time, is a demon who slaughters for bounty.

The scalp of an Indian is worth a lot of money.For every scalp of an Indian, the government rewards 50 to 100 US dollars.

This aroused an upsurge of civilian hunting and killing of Indians.

For such a horrific massacre, Li Cixin met with help if he could.

Finally, many years later, in some remote mountainous areas, the regeneration power of the Indians remained, and the number of passenger pigeons was unexpectedly successful.

Due to genetic mixing, passenger pigeons managed to keep their numbers during the breeding season.Before Li Cixin left, the system estimated that the number of passenger pigeons was at least [-] million.

Although it still dropped a lot, Li Cixin has done his best in this situation.

In addition, some far-sighted people have paid more attention to this kind of animal, and related protection has followed suit, and he has successfully completed this task.

"Drip! The B-level mission "Save the Passenger Pigeon" has been successfully completed, and the completion level is B-level. The gene reward has been sent, whether to return to this world."

"Yes!"

Li Cixin's consciousness returned to the original world, but he did not open his eyes, but closed them, lying on the bed to check the genetic reward this time.

Looking at it all the way, even after experiencing so many genetic modification rewards, Li Cixin was still shocked by this time, because the three gene rewards this time were too powerful.

"One, genes "steal" genes.

[-]. Spore parasitic genes

[-]. Hemocyanin gene. "

On the panel, the origin of each gene is clearly displayed.

The first gene to "steal" a gene came from a freshwater invertebrate called the bdelloid rotifer.They are very magical and can "steal" the genes of other creatures.

Whether it is bacteria, fungi, or the genes of animals and plants, as long as they are beneficial to their survival, they can steal them, and they can continue to screen and take good gene fragments as their own.It's a bit like the looting ability in the novel.

The second is a spore parasite gene, from a fungus.The famous Cordyceps sinensis is like this. The spores are planted in the animal body, absorb nutrients, and finally grow into a complete appearance of the mother.

"Xiao Bao, can I produce spores now?"

"can?"

"Will it become another me?"

"No, don't worry, the old master thought of this problem from the very beginning, so your genes are developing in a disordered direction. The more abilities you have, the more genetic locks you have.

And simple invertebrates like bdelloid rotifers can naturally plunder genes with confidence, and even if you plunder, you cannot copy and reproduce.

Your spore, in theory, would be a host-sucking sarcoma. "

"I see."

Li Cixin looked at the third gene, the hemocyanin gene.

He had already heard about this hemocyanin.It exists in some arthropods, because the blood contains copper ions, so it turns blue when it carries oxygen.

A very typical animal is the horseshoe crab.

Hemocyanin has great advantages in transporting oxygen, antiviral activity, antibacterial activity, coagulation function...these functions.

These three abilities are by far the best "suit".

Li Cixin took a deep breath and instructed:

"Little Treasure, deal with the monitoring and start to transform!"