Surrounded by things he couldn't understand, Raymond rubbed his forehead. He had a feeling that there was something crucial missing in all of this.
He sighed, deciding to put those thoughts aside for now, and turned to the mummified little monkey, asking, "What about the stone? Your meteorite? Did you eat it?"
The little monkey ignored him, continuing to stare at the TV.
"Ugh..." Raymond was frustrated. Although they hadn't come to blows, the monkey clearly disliked him. It seemed that the lingering hostility, while not as intense as the big dog's, still affected their interactions. And perhaps his shocking the monkey once was partly to blame.
It was clear they needed to improve their relationship!
With a loud bang, the little monkey fell off the couch for the third time.
"Fool, don't be so arrogant when your life is in someone else's hands," Raymond said sternly, trying to educate it seriously.
"Ben Mao, ask it where the meteorite is," Raymond said, then added, "Tell it I'm not interested in the stone, just asking."
The stone that could trigger evolution held no interest for Raymond, nor for Ben Mao. It was just a collectible to them.
So, he was simply asking out of curiosity, not with any intention to seize the meteorite.
As for whether the monkey believed him or not, Raymond couldn't control that.
"Meow!" Ben Mao dutifully began translating.
Clearly, although the little monkey was extremely unfriendly towards Raymond, it seemed to have some respect or fear towards Ben Mao. After glaring angrily at Raymond, the little monkey hesitated for a moment before reluctantly speaking, "chi! chi!"
So, another round of incomprehensible dialogue ensued, followed by more guessing games...
Raymond had never felt that communication could be so exhausting before today. And the answers he got from the little monkey left him stunned.
"Thrown away?! You threw away the stone?!" What kind of action was that?
Raymond's first reaction was—this monkey was lying.
But after furrowing his brow, he had Ben Mao ask again more carefully.
After another round of frustrating communication, Raymond slowly pieced together what had happened.
The little monkey had felt an attraction coming from the direction of a loud noise when the meteorite fell in the city. Initially startled, it instinctively wanted to get away, but at the same time, it felt drawn to investigate. It found chaos, with animals fighting over the scattered rocks. Despite the lack of visible signs of struggle, there was a confrontation for the stones!
But why were there no traces of this confrontation?
Was the monkey lying?
"Are you sure?" Raymond frowned, asking.
Ben Mao translated, "Meow meow meow!"
"Chi! Chi chi!" The little mummy monkey jumped up angrily, baring its teeth at Raymond.
Alright, even without Ben Mao's translation, Raymond could guess what it meant this time.
He furrowed his brow, pondering for a moment, then said, "Go on." Ben Mao continued translating. Communication continued to be difficult.
According to the little monkey, after grabbing a piece of the meteorite, it hid away in a secluded corner, fearing it would be stolen.
From then on, it carried the meteorite with it everywhere, even sleeping with it at night.
Gradually, it began to take an interest in things it had never cared about before, and questions it had never considered started popping into its head. One day, it suddenly felt the world becoming clearer, its thoughts smoother, and the meteorite it had once been so attracted to became no different from an ordinary stone.
So, it discarded the stone and left the place.
Raymond added some of his own speculation based on Ben Mao's translation. After all, communication through gestures and props, like Ben Mao did, was a rather crude method and couldn't cover every detail. Some interpretation was needed.
"It didn't eat it..." Raymond pondered silently. When he had applied ointment to its belly a few days ago, Raymond had felt no hard objects in its stomach, so it was probably not lying.
After all, swallowing the meteorite wasn't necessarily the only way to use it. The big dog had swallowed it, but that didn't mean other animals did the same.
"Eating it wasn't the purpose of the meteorite."
The big dog had swallowed the meteorite, just as the little monkey had hidden away with it, both out of fear of being stolen.
"What about throwing it away? Was it useless then? But it's still a meteorite, it hasn't disappeared..." Raymond pondered silently. "It seems that the key to evolution isn't the meteorite itself, but something on it. Could it be some unknown microorganism from space?"
He couldn't help but think of some science fiction movies and novels he had seen before, where there were often unknown viruses or microorganisms from space.
As he thought about it, Raymond suddenly had an idea and took out the meteorite he carried with him.
"What about this? Any interest?" he asked the little monkey.
Even before Ben Mao could translate, the little monkey understood what he meant. It shook its head, indicating no interest.
Raymond sighed with some regret. He felt that the big dog died too early, and its level of intelligence didn't seem high enough. So the meteorite found in its stomach might still have some use. For example, if there really were viruses on it that could trigger biological evolution, then the remaining pieces might still be useful. But now, the little monkey showed no interest.
Clearly, it was just an ordinary meteorite now.
Afterward, Raymond had Ben Mao ask the little monkey some other questions. For instance, he asked if it knew where the other animals with meteorites were. However, he didn't get any useful information.
Thinking about it, Raymond realized it made sense. When he saw the meteorite crash site, there were many craters, but only a few dozen at most. Even if some larger meteorite fragments were split up or shattered upon impact, there would only be a few hundred or at most a thousand animals with meteorites, by his estimation.
A few hundred to a thousand animals might sound like a lot, but spread out across a big city, it would be rare to encounter them, though not impossible (Raymond had already met two). Any encounter would likely be by chance.
Thus, Raymond didn't have much hope that the little monkey knew the locations of other animals. He was just asking casually.
After asking his questions, Raymond decided it was time to kick the monkey out. A man could be so heartless.
"Alright, I have nothing else to ask. You can go now," Raymond said.
"Meow meow meow meow!" Ben Mao translated.
The little monkey was stunned. Then, angrily, it jumped off the sofa, bared its teeth at Raymond, and stomped around, gesturing at its bound hands and feet.
Raymond smiled, saying, "I almost forgot." He squatted down and untied the rough ropes binding the monkey's limbs.
"Okay, you can go now," Raymond said.
Once freed, the little monkey stretched its limbs, nodded in satisfaction, then jumped back onto the sofa and grabbed the remote control from the coffee table, trying to switch the disc. It didn't like the current movie.
Raymond was dumbfounded!
It looked like the pesky monkey intended to stay!
"I've never seen such a shameless monkey!" Raymond was furious, raising his hand to smack its head.
But the little monkey, having suffered three times, was prepared. It dodged around, holding the remote control.
Raymond grabbed a cushion and threw it at the monkey.
The monkey agilely dodged.
"Ben Mao!" Raymond called out his trump card.
The monkey couldn't evade this one. Reluctantly, it hopped to the balcony, opened the glass door, stepped out, and then stepped back in repeatedly.
"Wait!" Raymond suddenly shouted. After a pause, he continued, "Leave the remote control."
Ben Mao translated: "Meow meow meow meow!"
The little monkey squeaked angrily, threw the remote control to the ground, stomped on it until it was smashed to pieces, then arrogantly raised its head and left.
Raymond's mouth twitched: "Damn, this idiotic monkey!"
Fortunately, he had a spare remote control.
Raymond swept up the broken pieces and took out the spare remote control from the TV cabinet, put in the batteries, and continued watching his movie leisurely.
However, that night, his nightmare began...
"Bang bang bang—!"
"Thump thump thump—!"
"Scratch..."
"Zhi... Zhi zhi..."
"Beep beep—!"
Enough already?!
Raymond angrily got up and opened the curtains.
Outside the window, it was indeed the pesky monkey.
"Zhi zhi zhi!"
It scratched its ears and looked smug, with a particularly annoying smile. Raymond's mouth twitched again. He had never seen such an infuriating animal.
Setting aside appearances, once these animals gained intelligence, they really weren't much different from humans. They had various personalities and thoughts, far from being identical.
Like this monkey—how could it be so annoying???
Didn't it understand that seeking trouble leads to trouble? Didn't it know how to learn from its mistakes? Wasn't it afraid Ben Mao might kill it?
Idiot!
Such an idiot!
"In the old world, you would be executed for this," Raymond said seriously.
If the world wasn't so dull, he might have wanted to kill the pesky monkey himself. But instead, he sighed, opened the window, and said, "Fine, come in."
Given the monkey's stupidity, if Ben Mao drove it away once, it would come back a second time; if driven away twice, it would come back a third time; and so on.
Yes, the monkey was that annoying. Raymond accepted this.
Since he couldn't get rid of it, to avoid being harassed, he decided to let it stay. After all, having one more monkey wasn't a big deal.
He couldn't really let Ben Mao kill it. Though the monkey harassed and antagonized him, it wasn't like the big dog that had tried to kill him. More importantly, when life becomes unbearably dull, even a villain can seem cute.
Raymond was someone who might consider suicide out of sheer boredom.
If he really wanted to kill the monkey, he wouldn't have let it go during the day, nor would he have treated its wounds.
"Does it understand this, or is it just being cheeky?" Raymond pondered.
Seeing the window open, the little monkey wore a triumphant expression, climbing in without worry.
Once inside, it proudly raised its head, walked to the door, opened it, and left the room.
...
The next morning.
When Raymond woke up, he found the little monkey watching "King Kong" in the living room.
Ben Mao was also there, lazily sitting on the sofa.
Seeing Raymond come out, Ben Mao jumped down, ran to him, and rubbed against his leg affectionately.
The little monkey ignored Raymond and continued watching TV. Having finished "King Kong," it was now watching "Rise of the Planet of the Apes."
Raymond noticed that the TV was showing a scene where the apes were battling humans.
Raymond sighed, thinking about how unpredictable the future was. Despite everything, he was stuck with an annoying yet strangely endearing monkey and a loyal cat. He went about his morning routine, making a mental note to figure out what to do with the monkey later.
After breakfast, he sat down to watch the movie with them, contemplating the strange twists his life had taken since the meteorite fell. Despite the occasional annoyance, Raymond felt a sense of strange camaraderie with his unusual companions.
He pondered the little monkey's story about the meteorite. The thought that the meteorite itself wasn't the key to evolution, but something on it, intrigued him. Perhaps it was some unknown microorganism from space, something he'd seen in science fiction movies and books. He wondered if there was a way to test this theory.
As the day progressed, Raymond found himself becoming more accustomed to the little monkey's presence. The monkey, on the other hand, seemed to be settling in quite comfortably, almost as if it had found a new home. The television continued to be the center of its attention, and it was clear that the monkey was fascinated by the stories of powerful apes on screen.
Raymond realized that despite his initial frustration, having the monkey around added an unexpected dynamic to his life. It was a reminder of how things had changed and how adaptable he had to be to survive in this new world.
"Well, I guess it's not so bad," he muttered to himself as he watched the movie, the cat purring contentedly by his side and the monkey engrossed in the action on the screen.