Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Passive Evolution

Just after nightfall, a small restaurant.

A dozen people were gathered around a table.

Lu Li won the competition today and received a prize of three thousand US Dollars, so naturally, he wanted to celebrate.

And so, amid the coaxing of his colleagues, he treated everyone to dinner.

Brother Cheng, drinking beer and slurring his words, marveled, “Xiaolu, you were incredible during the competition just now, eating so many hot dogs in ten minutes, it’s just brutal.”

Xiaomei gave a thumbs up and said, “I really don’t know what words to describe your stomach!”

Xiaozhao, who was munching on some spicy chicken, also expressed his admiration, “A hundred and one hot dogs, I can only describe you as a monster!”

“Isn’t that so.”

“I’ve seen a lot of competitive eaters online, but none are as freakish as Xiaolu.”

“With your appetite, why even work a regular job? Just sign up with any influencer company and become a mukbang host, you’ll definitely go viral.”

Xiaoqing and other colleagues were also there, exclaiming in amazement.

Lu Li didn’t really respond much.

Even though he had eaten a hundred and one hot dogs earlier.

But at this point, he still didn’t feel full.

Seeing a table full of good food, he continued devouring it like a whirlwind.

Everyone who had been chatting fell silent in shock.

Xiaoqing gasped, “Xiaolu, you just ate a hundred and one hot dogs, and now you’re still eating like this. Aren’t you afraid your stomach will burst?”

Brother Cheng was sweating profusely and said, “Xiaolu, listen to me, stop eating or you really might burst your stomach like Xiaoqing said.”

Another colleague named Old Zhang looked over with a skeptical gaze, “Why don’t you take advantage of the holiday and get checked out at the hospital tomorrow, eating like this, I’m worried you might be sick.”

Everyone was terrified by Lu Li’s outrageous eating.

Lu Li couldn’t help but sweat a little.

He knew his body was fine.

The food was digested as soon as it was eaten, how could it burst his stomach?

However, he couldn’t openly reject his colleagues’ kindness, so he had to pretend to stop eating.

Eventually, the meal ended.

The bill totaled over five hundred yuan.

After his colleagues left one by one, Lu Li immediately asked the small restaurant to pack the leftover food for him.

…

Back at the rental apartment.

Lu Li once again devoured the leftovers as if reincarnated from starvation, clearing them out completely.

After eating, he finally felt satiated.

“Phew.”

Lu Li sat at the computer desk next to the window, looking at the plastic containers with only sauce left, and smacked his lips, “These days, I finally feel full once.”

Strangely enough, ever since the day his genetic lock unlocked, his appetite began to increase.

At first, it didn’t increase much, just a little more than usual.

However, in just a few days, Lu Li found that no matter how much he ate every day, he still felt extremely hungry.

He was just afraid of overeating and harming his body.

Until he participated in Nathan’s hot dog challenge today and ate freely.

Only then did Lu Li confirm that as long as he was hungry, he could eat without worry.

“My appetite is a bit terrifying, eating so much in a day, how much money will I have to spend on food?”

Lu Li couldn’t help but feel a little headache, “Looks like I’ll have to work hard to earn more money, or else I won’t be able to fill my belly every day.”

Thinking this, he tidied up the room and threw the trash downstairs.

Once back upstairs.

Lu Li took a hot shower in the bathroom then went to sleep.

In his sleep.

Lu Li had the same dream as when he was evolving before.

The Little Golden Man gathered light, continuously focusing it on his eyes and some part of his stomach.

A few days ago, the time the Little Golden Man spent gathering light was short, as if not enough energy was supplied.

Today was different, the energy seemed endless.

After the Little Golden Man stopped providing light energy to his eyes and abdomen, he distributed the remaining part throughout Lu Li’s body.

…

The night passed without incident.

The next day, being a holiday, he slept until nine in the morning.

As soon as Lu Li opened his eyes, he immediately felt refreshed all over his body.

This was completely different from the fatigue and exhaustion he felt upon waking in previous days.

He lay quietly on the bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking, “The previous days’ fatigue upon waking should be due to insufficient energy replenishment. Yesterday, I ate enough to provide my body with a large amount of energy, so today I’m not tired?”

Lu Li still remembered last night’s dream, and he could speculate approximately.

Suddenly, he recalled some things that a young blogger had mentioned.

Lu Li quickly stretched out his hand, picked up his phone from the bedside cabinet, and found that video to watch again.

He wanted to confirm something.

He dragged the progress bar.

Soon, he found the content he wanted to watch.

Lu Li stared seriously at the screen.

“…If you want to actively possess certain skills, such as x-ray vision, then you can constantly self-hint your body to evolve in this direction. Once the body receives the instruction and absorbs enough energy, you can really have x-ray vision.”

On the screen, a young blogger was explaining evolution information.

Lu Li showed a pensive expression, “Active evolution requires self-suggestion, and the body receives instructions. Only by absorbing enough energy can the evolution be fully suggested.”

If so, the fatigue I felt a few days ago was entirely due to the energy inside my body being insufficient to complete the active evolution, so it absorbed energy that should have been used to sustain vitality, causing the body to be exhausted every day?

Lu Li believed this speculation was correct.

He recalled a famous scientific theory called the law of mass-energy conservation.

In the early 20th century, the French chemist Lavoisier discovered that the mass of an object in high-speed motion changes with its speed, and he also discovered that matter and field can convert into each other, so the mass of the field should be considered according to the mass-energy relationship.

The development of the concept of mass also brought new developments to the principle of mass conservation.

The laws of mass conservation and energy conservation were merged into one conservation law through the mass-energy relationship, namely the law of mass-energy conservation.

This theory is also abbreviated as the mass-energy conservation law.

Lu Li pondered that whether it was his active evolution or the special abilities that evolved passively, it could be considered as a “field.”

And the birth of the “field” is inseparable from the support of energy.

Especially during the “construction,” the energy required must be enormous.

Therefore, the constant feeling of “hunger” I experienced recently was actually because I wanted to actively evolve X-ray vision, which resulted from a lack of sufficient energy.

Of course, he could roughly judge that after the “field” is “constructed,” although it no longer requires such enormous energy as before, maintaining it daily would still consume energy within the body.

As he was pondering this, the voice of the young blogger came from his phone again, “Every time you actively evolve, the energy required may be very enormous. If the energy in your body is insufficient to complete this evolution, it can be more harmful than beneficial, potentially causing your body to collapse. If this really happens, please remember to immediately replenish high-calorie foods, just as a machine processing objects requires energy.”

Lu Li, who was still speculating, suddenly realized upon hearing this.

Yes!

Wasn’t my previous condition exactly as the young blogger described?

It turns out that over the past few days, I had been putting my body in an “overloaded” state without getting enough energy replenishment, no wonder I felt so weak.

Understanding what was going on, Lu Li felt things had become simpler.

As long as I supplement enough energy, I don’t have to worry about my body collapsing due to evolution.

It must be said that participating in Nathan’s hot dog challenge this time unintentionally solved my problem.

Suddenly, Lu Li thought of how he had continually self-suggested evolving X-ray vision, which made his body particularly fatigued.

Now that his body no longer felt that way, does it mean that his X-ray vision had already evolved to a perfect state?

He decided to give it a try, immediately silently activating the X-ray vision.

The next second, a miraculous scene emerged.

Lu Li found his vision piercing through the ceiling.

He clearly saw a middle-aged couple upstairs exercising in the morning…

Oh well.

A bit eye-searing.

He quickly looked elsewhere to test the limits of his X-ray vision.

Soon, the test results came out.

Lu Li was amazed to find that the X-ray vision could penetrate through two floors!

The normal distance between two floors is about six meters.

Does this mean that my X-ray vision penetration ability has reached six meters?

Lu Li experimented again and finally discovered it wasn’t so.

While his gaze could pierce through two floors, it could only pass through the floor slabs.

If there were cabinets or the like above, penetration would be weakened.

“My vision penetrated the distance of two floor slabs, not two floors.”

Lu Li remembered that the floor slab of the rental he lived in was no less than eight centimeters.

In other words, the penetration power of his current X-ray vision reached about sixteen centimeters.

From the previous two-millimeter penetration, it suddenly increased to sixteen centimeters, an eightyfold boost!

He couldn’t help but rejoice in his heart, “With such strong penetration power, I can completely use it for stone gambling.”

It’s just a pity that stone gambling now usually involves clear or semi-clear markings. While the X-ray vision helps, its usefulness is limited.

“Oh well, I’ll deal with it later. For now, I can rely on lottery scratch cards to make money.”

Lu Li didn’t stress too much about making money.

After all, with X-ray vision, is there any worry I won’t be able to make money?

Perhaps the X-ray vision’s evolution also led to increased consumption.

Just activating it for a brief moment gave him a slight sense of hunger again.

In the past, when Lu Li felt hungry, he had no idea how much food he needed to eat to replenish himself.

This time, it seemed a bit different.

When the hunger sensation emerged, Lu Li sensed that his stomach conveyed the information about how much he needed to eat to be full.

Just eat eight meat buns!

“Uh…”

Lu Li was a bit stunned, “The stomach actually told me that eating eight meat buns would satisfy me?”

He found it extremely unbelievable.

It’s as if the stomach came alive and developed its own consciousness.

Lu Li instantly realized, “Looks like the stomach has evolved as well!”

He recalled the young blogger’s science popularization, explaining that evolution usually divides into two types: active and passive.

The active one needs no further introduction; that’s how I got my X-ray vision.

As for passive evolution, according to the young blogger, it means the body will decide based on the environment.

Lu Li pondered that his stomach’s sudden evolution was probably due to the lack of energy when he wanted to evolve X-ray vision a few days ago.

The body, lacking sufficient energy, subconsciously hoped to replenish it.

Thus, the stomach evolved passively.

Lu Li was suddenly intrigued.

He really wanted to know, with the evolved stomach, besides telling me how much to eat to replenish energy, are there any other functions?

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