Chapter 20: Added a Fake Girlfriend

Chen Xi stood at the door, peering into the courtyard. "How can you plow the field by yourself and be so happy about it? Is farming really that interesting?"

"It's alright, farming makes me happy," Xu Zhi replied.

"You're such a smart aleck. Does teasing me make you happy?" Chen Xi glanced at Xu Zhi, then was instantly taken aback.

"How could you..."

She stared blankly at Xu Zhi, as if in complete shock.

Xu Zhi suddenly felt uneasy. Could she have discovered his photo editing again? He had clearly changed it back to his original appearance.

"What's wrong?" Xu Zhi asked, trying to sound calm.

"I just feel like your demeanor has changed, you've become so refined... You're definitely cheating, aren't you? I'm convinced," Chen Xi said, her eyes wide.

Though Xu Zhi had reverted his appearance, the transcendent aura from having experienced three mass extinctions and three world-ending events was difficult to conceal. He simply touched her forehead. "Are you sick? Are you hallucinating? What nonsense are you talking about?"

Chen Xi paused, wondering if it really was a hallucination.

After being unconvincingly brushed off, she could only change the subject. "By the way, aren't you really bored staying in the courtyard? How about we go shopping or on a date sometime?"

Xu Zhi looked at her, startled. "Wait, a date? Are you serious?"

"Of course," Chen Xi replied, hesitating for a moment before confidently lifting her chin. She wasn't being coy. "What about your previous girlfriend? The pretty one!"

Xu Zhi explained, "We broke up. She was a colleague. I resigned when I got sick, and we also ended our relationship."

"So, you got a terminal illness at the peak of your career, lost your job, your girlfriend left you, and now you're left to spend the rest of your life alone in the countryside. How pitiful," Chen Xi said. "I can be your girlfriend and stay with you until you die."

"Pity me?" Xu Zhi's eyes widened.

He had indeed felt very pitiful before.

His days were numbered, and his world had seemed gray. He had truly fallen from the pinnacle of his striving career to rock bottom.

But now, life was full of hope. After all, with late-stage cancer, he still had at least a few months to live, which was equivalent to several millennia in the sandbox world. He couldn't believe he wouldn't be able to evolve a way to survive over such a long period!

"I pity you, and this also fulfills a childhood wish of mine. I'm not afraid of you laughing now, but I've always looked up to you as an idol since I was little, even trying hard to get into your school..."

Chen Xi had probably deliberated for a long time and was now completely open. "I've thought it through! Staying with you until you die fulfills my wish, and it also makes you less lonely, bringing some warmth."

"I've volunteered at a hospital, so I'm very good at caring for terminally ill patients." She ticked off items on her fingers. "I can cook for you, shop with you, chat with you, and make sure you're happier before you go."

Before I go?

Xu Zhi was speechless for a moment, then looked at her with a half-smile. "Are you serious? You're going to fulfill a girlfriend's duties?"

Chen Xi flinched, quickly stepping back a few paces and clutching her clothes, looking extremely wary. "What are you thinking? This is just a pure relationship. You're already dying, and you want to ruin my innocence?"

Xu Zhi: "..."

So, her delivering meals for so long and always looking around had a hidden agenda. In this day and age, girls are boldly pursuing boys.

Chen Xi quickly added, "People talk about 'friends on the surface,' so let's be 'lovers on the surface.' We'll have a beautiful relationship. If you don't say anything, I'll take it as a 'yes.'"

"Okay," Xu Zhi replied straightforwardly.

He didn't feel much romantic affection for the girl, probably because he felt they were too familiar to have that heart-pounding sensation. However, he remained calm about it.

"Then in a few days, our high school classmates are having a summer reunion, and you can come with me."

Chen Xi ticked off her fingers and smiled. "You're so handsome, people can't help but take a second look, and now with this aura, you're even more attractive. Girls won't be able to take their eyes off you. If I bring you, I'll definitely look good. Everyone's eyes will be on you, and my friends will be so envious."

Xu Zhi: "???"

So that's what this was about. She just wanted to find someone to show off with, didn't she?

"Let's go! Come shopping with me to buy clothes! For the class reunion, we both need decent, expensive new outfits to show off and make them all jealous!" Chen Xi winked at Xu Zhi and casually patted his shoulder. "Anyway, you've been farming, so you probably have a lot of money. You're going to die soon, so keeping the money is useless. We might as well enjoy it together."

Look at this, is this something a person would say?

I've seen enough; I've fallen into a trap.

This girl came to me because she needed money for clothes and a boyfriend to show off.

Xu Zhi accompanied Chen Xi on their electric bike back into town.

They shopped carefully, walking down most of a street. He bought her a beautiful outfit for three hundred yuan, and under her guidance, he also bought himself an outfit for just over three hundred yuan. Exhausted, they finally rode their electric bike back to the countryside.

"I've suddenly gained a 'girlfriend on the surface,'"

Xu Zhi felt a bit dazed, then burst into a wry laugh.

"It's like having a little nanny. This girl has a three-minute attention span, but she can enthusiastically prepare meals for me every day, and I won't have to go into town for food as often during the day."

After all, with stomach cancer, he needed to pay attention to his diet, and outside food was often unhygienic and lacked nutrition.

He didn't really dwell on these thoughts. He returned to the sandbox in the courtyard and continued his study of the previous evil-eyed creature. Although he had stepped on and expelled the individual, the species' population still remained in the sandbox.

It was now on the verge of extinction.

After all, it would be strange if it didn't go extinct!

Two-thirds of its body was eyeballs. When a creature dedicates almost all its nutrients to its eyes, simply to see more clearly, wasting most of its bodily energy, then it's destined for natural selection to eliminate it.

"Does it have the potential to become a transcendent species?" Xu Zhi asked.

The Zerg Mother Nest replied, "Yes. According to analysis, this creature's thinking is simple, and it's chaotic and evil. However, due to its enormous eyeballs, its mental power is surprisingly extremely strong."

If he ignored it, this clumsy, deformed species would surely go extinct.

However, perhaps like the Worm Apes, it was simply too weak in its early stages. If it didn't go extinct, this "big-eyed monster" species's deformed system might develop and become powerful.

Should he introduce it into the large sandbox and give it a try?

Xu Zhi thought about it and decided to introduce this species into the large sandbox.

He planned to create a swamp in the one-hundred-mu large sandbox. After all, the environment in the large sandbox was too monotonous, lacking both swamp and desert areas.

He would add a ten-square-meter swamp area.

For ants, this would already be equivalent to a huge swamp covering a mountain range.

"As for how this terrain would appear? After a great flood, seawater accumulates, creating muddy swamp areas, which is a normal way for swamps to form. First, there's the muddy terrain: sticky, murky, and fertile. As for fertility, I'll need to find some fertilizer!"

Xu Zhi's first thought was farm manure.

In the countryside, many people use their own excrement for fertilizer, which is natural and pollution-free.

But then he felt a bit disgusted, imagining Worm Apes and various other races exploring this black swampy mud, effectively wading and swimming in a septic tank...

The image, just thinking about it, was too "beautiful," wasn't it?

Human excrement was out. So, he went outside the village, found Chen Xi next door, and asked Aunt Li for some rural fertilizer – chicken and cow manure – explaining that his farmland needed fertilizing.

After getting it back, he took a large shovel and began transforming the ten-square-meter area.