Sitting next to Bob, Zhang Fan felt incredibly stupid. Why did he even bother saving him?
Looking back now, if Bob hadn't been weakened by blood loss, that punch would probably have blown his head off.
But Zhang Fan couldn't stomach eating primates. It was better to save its life than let the carcass rot and stink in the base.
Zhang Fan could only console himself with this thought.
Just as he was lost in thought, Bob woke up. His beady black eyes noticed Zhang Fan beside him, and then the muscles on his back began to bulge noticeably. He opened his mouth to reveal white fangs.
"Roar—"
This is clearly a prelude to an attack.
I'm going to die! ...
Mr. Dongguo shouldn't have saved the wolf; now he's about to get himself killed.
Zhang Fan regretted it. His body tensed up. It was too late to run away now, so he just stood there, frozen.
Bob had already stood up and spread his arms. The 2-meter-tall gorilla standing in front of him was very intimidating, just like a big black bear standing in front of him.
Bob raised his right arm as if to strike, and Zhang Fan closed his eyes, already prepared to be knocked away.
But there was no movement for a long time. Zhang Fan opened his eyes again and saw Bob smelling the bandage on his right arm, then smelling Zhang Fan's body, and then sitting down next to Zhang Fan and rubbing his body against Zhang Fan's body.
Holy crap, don't do this to me, you grown man! It's disgusting!
Zhang Fan tried to push Bob away, but a 250kg gorilla wasn't so easy to move. Zhang Fan was jostled and swayed from side to side. Bob then took off his boxing gloves and hung them around Zhang Fan's neck.
"Are you trying to curry favor with me and repay a debt of gratitude?"
Zhang Fan touched Bob's head, and Bob obediently squinted his eyes and lowered his head to let him touch it.
It's often said that gorillas have high intelligence, equivalent to a three-year-old child, and it seems to be true; at least Bob didn't repay kindness with enmity. Chosen by scientists as the "leader" of the gorilla world, Bob's intelligence is estimated to be even above the average for gorillas.
"How did you get out of here?" Zhang Fan thought he must have gone mad from loneliness to be talking to a gorilla.
But Bob seemed to understand him, supporting himself with his arms as he stood up, and then looked back at Zhang Fan.
"Do you want me to come with you?"
Bob nodded and walked forward, and Zhang Fan quickly followed.
"Bird's Nest" base.
Space-eating animal experiment chamber.
The hatch was open.
The experimental chamber was dark. Zhang Fan checked the circuit and found that the power switch for the experimental chamber had tripped. Upon inspection, he found that a short circuit in the wires caused the trip, and the chamber door opened automatically.
After Zhang Fan made some simple repairs, he turned the power back on, and the experimental chamber lit up.
The experimental chamber was about the same size as Zhang Fan's living quarters, with a huge metal cage with iron bars in the middle, surrounded by various equipment and monitoring instruments.
Next to the metal cage was an automatic feeder. After the power was restored, cake-shaped food fell from the protruding pipe into a dish below. Bob ran over, picked up a coarse cake, and started eating it; he seemed quite hungry.
Zhang Fan walked into the metal cage. The steel bars, about the thickness of a finger, in front of the cage were bent to both sides by brute force, and some of the bars were even broken off, with blood still stained on the sharp ends.
Zhang Fan gained a new understanding of Bob's brute strength. It is estimated that even the scientists who imprisoned him did not expect that Bob could break the steel bars of the cage with brute force.
Zhang Fan retrieved the experimental records from the computer in the experimental chamber.
Bob arrived on Mars aboard the Firebird, in the same batch as Zhang Fan.
This is not surprising. If we delve deeper, the first creature to enter Mars was not a human, but a gorilla named Caesar.
On November 3, 2057, NASA launched a Mars probe, built entirely according to the essential requirements for human spaceflight. Caesar was confined in a cage inside the spacecraft.
It wasn't until four years later, on April 12, 2061, that NASA sent the first human astronaut into Mars orbit.
What became of Caesar in the end?
NASA's official statement is that Caesar survived in Mars orbit for a month before dying.
However, later declassified documents raised suspicions that this was merely a narrative used by the US to pressure Ross in the new space race. In reality, Caesar may have died during the long interstellar journey before even reaching Mars.
Regardless of the truth, one thing is certain: Caesar's body is still drifting in Martian orbit, the cold spacecraft serving as its grave. And to commemorate him, humanity has even issued commemorative stamps.
What will become of Bob?
Zhang Fan read the final part of the experiment plan and realized that Bob's fate wouldn't be much better than Caesar's. Bringing a chimpanzee back to Earth from Mars was too costly and unnecessary.
People might pay attention to the news that humans sent a chimpanzee to Mars, but what happens to the chimpanzee afterward? Nobody cares.
Its final fate is to become a dried-up corpse in the Martian desert.
Zhang Fan recalled Professor Su saying that biologists believe chimpanzees' perception is most similar to that of humans, which is why they chose chimpanzees as experimental subjects. Furthermore, chimpanzees' behavior is similar to that of humans, allowing them to be trained in a short time.
In Africa, gorillas are everywhere and don't attract much attention. This is important; it reduces a lot of unnecessary trouble.
As the "leader" of the chimpanzee world, Bob's leadership career has forged his strong physique and mental resilience, which are exactly what the scientists in the lab need, making his selection a natural choice.
Bob displayed exceptional intelligence and strength during training. In one experiment, American astronaut and boxer Bob tried to fight it, only to be easily defeated and humiliated.
Zhang Fan sat next to Bob and patted its head. Bob happily squinted its eyes and rubbed against Zhang Fan's face before continuing to eat its biscuits.
Bob had already recognized Zhang Fan.
During training at the Shenyu Group's Blue Star Base, aside from Su Muran, Bob was the person who spent the most time with Zhang Fan. Although there were thousands of staff members at the entire base, most of the people Zhang Fan came into contact with treated him as an experimental subject, no different in essence from a lab rat in a culture room.
As experimental subjects and members of the same Mars mission, Zhang Fan and Bob naturally had many interactions during training. Perhaps out of a shared awareness of being experimental subjects, or perhaps out of sympathy for each other, a single guy and a silly gorilla became good friends.
"It's true what they say, fools are lucky," Zhang Fan remarked, patting Bob who was happily eating.
For Bob, life on Mars now might not be worse than back at the training base. Even if his Martian life is ultimately destined to be a tragedy, it's still better than being a single guy, right? Too bad he's not a female gorilla…
Bah!
How disgusting!
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