Homo Sapiens

After the reporters finished their questions,

Lilith led them aboard a train.

Inside an ordinary train car,

the journalists from Yomiuri Shimbun, Korea Daily, Global Times, and Phoenix Media—representing the three nations of East Asia—were placed in soft-sleeper compartments across the aisle from one another.

They slid open the small doors facing the corridor, allowing them to see the others.

Mitsui said to Jin Dayu of Korea Daily, who was in the opposite compartment, ”Mr. Jin, the width of this train must be around four meters.”

”The route guide says this railway uses a 1600-millimeter track gauge, which is considered broad gauge.” Jin Dayu had his head down, his hands rapidly typing up a news report on his laptop.

A look of longing for the future appeared on Mitsui’s face. ”The Homo Sapiens Company’s subway technology is truly incredible! If we could bring it to East Japan, we might be able to build a direct line from Huaguo’s Min Nan Province, connecting to Taiwan Island, the Okinawa Islands, and the East Japan Archipelago.”

”Heh... Mr. Mitsui, your idea is too naive. Who’s going to pay for it? And would America even allow it?” Jin Dayu retorted without looking up.

As veteran foreign correspondents, they all knew that East Asian integration was something America would find absolutely intolerable.

One only had to look at the now-integrated Southeast Asia to understand that once East Asian integration was complete, America would lose all its footholds in Eastern Asia.

After losing Southeast Asia, America’s global hegemony was already in jeopardy.

If it then lost its two strategic footholds in Northeast Asia, the consequences would be catastrophic, potentially causing the direct collapse of America’s global hegemony.

Hearing this, Mitsui gave a wry smile. ”You’re right. America... they’re a problem we can’t avoid.”

After the train started moving, several attendants pushed small carts down the corridor, selling desserts, drinks, and fruit.

Wu Qingli of Phoenix Media and Guan Hongzhi of Global Times were also typing up their news reports, chatting idly as they worked.

Suddenly, the two of them heard a voice at the door of their compartment.

”Would you like any drinks, desserts, or fruit?” an attendant asked in Chinese.

Wu Qingli stood up and looked over the items on the three carts. She first glanced at the drinks. ”Two bottles of lemon tea, a mango pudding, and a matcha cake.”

Next, she looked at the fruit cart. It was arranged in layers, all filled with classic tropical fruits: bananas, lychees, longans, mangosteens, rambutans, wax apples, and guavas.

”A serving of lychee and a serving of guava, please.”

The attendant opened a small glass window on the cart, used a pair of scissors to snip off ten lychees and one guava, then placed the guava into an ultrasonic cleaner. After taking it out, they cut it into four pieces, placed it in a small paper box, and handed it to Wu Qingli.

Mitsui, from the opposite compartment, also ordered lychees and longans.

Returning to her seat, Wu Qingli handed the matcha cake to her cameraman and picked up a lychee herself. As a native of Yangcheng, she naturally recognized it as a Nuomici lychee.

”Ms. Wu, did you notice anything about the lychees?” Guan Hongzhi, who was in the opposite compartment holding a box of lychees and a box of mangosteens, asked pointedly.

After eating a lychee, Wu Qingli thought for a moment before replying, ”The lychees? They’re good! Very fresh.”

”The mangosteens and the lychees are both incredibly fresh, as if they were just picked from the branch. And their ripeness level is very high,” Guan Hongzhi explained.

”...” Wu Qingli looked at the lychees and guava in her hand. She speared a piece of guava with a toothpick. Even before it reached her lips, she could smell the rich guava fragrance. The moment she tasted it, she was certain it was a tree-ripened guava.

Guava is a very particular fruit, with its growth cycle generally divided into three stages: the swelling stage, the green stage, and the yellow stage.

The swelling stage is when the fruit is growing; during this period, the fruit is hard and astringent.

In the green stage, the fruit stops swelling, the flesh becomes tender, and the astringency slowly fades. It’s firm yet pliable, perfect for picking and selling. The vast majority of guavas on the market are picked at this stage.

Then comes the yellow stage, when the astringency completely disappears. The core begins to produce large amounts of flavor compounds and sugars, and the flesh becomes softer, smoother, and sweeter. Guavas at this stage are a whole level more delicious than before.

Whether it’s pink-fleshed or white-fleshed guava, both are most delicious during the yellow stage. However, because yellow-stage guavas don’t ship well, it’s rare for people outside their native regions to eat a naturally ripened one.

After eating a piece, Wu Qingli found herself wanting more. ”This guava really does seem tree-ripened. It’s just like the ones I ate as a child.”

”It seems the Homo Sapiens Company has developed another special preservation technology,” Guan Hongzhi guessed.

In fact, he was right.

The Homo Sapiens Company had indeed applied some new technologies to fruit and vegetable preservation.

For example: plant life-support preservation chambers and nano-spray coating technology.

The fruit cart they had just seen used the plant life-support preservation chamber technology.

This technology involves connecting fruit picked from the tree to a biological life-support device. The core of this device is a genetically-recombined, universal grafting plant tissue.

As long as the fruit’s stem and a piece of the branch are preserved, they can be inserted directly into the life-support device, allowing the fruit to remain alive.

This method can extend the shelf life of even delicate fruits like lychees and longans to about 15 days.

Furthermore, the application of this technology allows fruit orchards to extend their harvesting periods while still guaranteeing the fruit’s flavor.

This solved a problem seen with fruits like black plums and kiwis. It’s not that those fruits were bad, but they had to be picked before full ripeness to survive shipping. Since customers were often unaware, the resulting flavor was often underwhelming.

Many fruits face this issue, forcing a trade-off between transport durability and flavor.

Now, the Homo Sapiens Company’s Haitian Agriculture division is working hard to resolve this conflict between transportability and flavor.

For instance, by using special, professionally designed boxes that must also be reusable.

Another example is a special nano-spray applied to fruits and vegetables with relatively smooth skins. This forms a nano-coating that can effectively extend their shelf life by 7 to 15 days.

This nano-coating can be washed off with water, breaking down into harmless, common natural components.

Through these technological innovations, spoilage of fruits and vegetables within the Homo Sapiens Company’s supply chain has been reduced by 92% during transport and 97% during storage, respectively.

Moreover, the now-interconnected internal railway network has further shortened the distance between the various places of origin and the consumers.

This represents an improvement across the entire system.

It yields numerous benefits, improving production efficiency while reducing both production and sales costs.

In the market, this translates to consumers being able to buy cheaper, more varied, and more delicious fruits and vegetables.

The train sped through the southern part of Luzon Island, crossed over Mindoro Island and Palawan Island, and finally arrived at Sandakan City on Borneo.

Lilith led the group of reporters off the train here.

From the underground station, they ascended to the ground-level station.

Seeing the sun in the sky, Robert, Wu Qingli, Mitsui, and the others quickly confirmed their location: Sandakan City on the island of Borneo.

Lilith was now going to take them to the northern part of the city to visit another civilian technology application that was soon to be unveiled.