[Excerpt from Interview Recording – The Fruit That Took Two Million Years to Ripen]

“What is the fruit?” I asked.

“We don’t know, we can only guess at the results,” Old Wang answered decisively. He was still wearing his mask, a light blue surgical mask that barely covered half his face. His pair of black eyebrows were short but thick, and beneath them, small eyes with pitch-black pupils quickly scanned the surroundings. Water droplets still clung to his buzz cut. We sat by the window – Nanjing in winter was damp and cold. It was raining outside. You couldn’t see the raindrops, but you could see transparent streams of water gathering on the glass. The streets were empty, pedestrians hurried past, umbrellas of different colors, and masks of the same color.

We met in a KFC. I ordered two colas and two portions of fries.

Wang Ning took off his mask and took a big sip of ice-cold cola, letting out a long sigh: “Ah, this cursed weather, it’s so damn humid. Teacher, how long have you been in Nanjing?”

“About a week,” I answered.

“It’s not safe going out these days,” Wang Ning grimaced. “You never know when new cases might pop up.”

“Director Wang, let’s get back to talking about the fruit.”

I brought the topic back on track.

“Hmm… I’m just speculating, you know. These are just theoretical results, not experimentally verified. It’s not rigorous, I take no legal responsibility – Teacher, just treat it like a story.”

Wang Ning spoke with a french fry dangling from his mouth.

“Tian… Tian…” Old Wang looked at me with furrowed brows.

“Tianrui,” I reminded him.

“Ah right, right, Teacher Tianrui, what do you think the fruit is?”

I thought for a moment: “Is it humans?”

“Yes, but not entirely. You might think the fruit refers to something like the fruit of wisdom because humans are advanced primates with higher intelligence, so humans are the fruit – the fruit that nature took millions of years to produce.”

Wang Ning answered.

“But the fruit isn’t just humans. The word ‘fruit’ really is literal – it’s not a reference or a metaphor. Teacher, have you seen crops? Harvesters collect crops like wheat, rice, cotton, and such agricultural products. When we talk about the fruit of crops, we’re only referring to the grain or cotton bolls or peaches, not the entire rice plant or cotton plant… Now, Teacher, look – if I were a crop, what would be the fruit?”

Wang Ning pointed to himself.

I looked at this man who weighed over two hundred pounds up and down, from top to bottom and back again, finally letting my gaze rest on his face.

“That’s right, it’s here, isn’t it?” Wang Ning tapped his head.

“It’s quite simple and direct, not roundabout at all, but we spent quite a while thinking about it back then. Our initial thoughts were similar to yours – we overthought it a step, also believing ‘fruit’ was a reference, a metaphor for humans as higher intelligent beings. But later we discovered the truth was simpler than we imagined. In the Harvesters’ eyes, we aren’t the fruit – we’re the crops. Crops. Real crops. The only difference is that crops in the fields are fixed in place, while we’re mobile crops.”

As he spoke, Wang Ning sat up straight and asked me:

“Doesn’t the human body look like a crop?”

I suddenly realized he was right.

The human body does look like a crop – it stands upright on the ground, bearing its heavy fruit at the highest point, with no fundamental difference from rice or wheat. With seven billion people in the world, seven billion crops are growing densely on Earth.

Throughout human evolution, this crop has stood increasingly straight, and its fruit has become increasingly tempting.

I stared at Wang Ning’s face, and gradually his image changed in my eyes. He was no longer a living human, but a protein and fat-laden plant. All his behaviors – whether eating, learning, working, or sleeping – were nurturing that fruit, providing nutrition for that large, round fruit.

Now that the fruit was ripe, wasn’t it time for harvest?

This thought sent chills down my spine.

I hurriedly took a sip of ice-cold cola to clear my head.

“Teacher Tianrui, you don’t look well,” Wang Ning reminded me.

“This revelation is a bit terrifying. I need a moment to collect myself.”

I mindlessly chewed some french fries and continued questioning:

“So the Giant Eyes, these Harvesters – their purpose in destroying humanity was to harvest heads?”

“Yes. According to the information we later obtained, these things often cut people into segments twenty or thirty centimeters long. We analyzed this and believe it might be a standardized harvesting operation. Because human bodies vary in height and build, but heads are generally similar in size. Cutting the crops into small segments, collecting the fruit separately, and pulverizing the other parts like straw. The Harvesters aren’t weapons – they’re probably agricultural harvesting machines.”

Wang Ning spoke languidly.

It was a horrifying yet absurd hypothesis – that what destroyed humanity was agricultural harvesting machines.

“Earth,” Wang Ning pointed outside the window, “is just a big farm. When the crops mature, they come to harvest. After harvesting this batch, there will be another.”

“Another batch?” I asked.

“Humans are extinct, but eventually other life forms will fill the vacant position. Someday, intelligent beings will evolve on Earth again, and the fruit will slowly ripen again. It’s like chives.”

Old Wang spoke casually.

“Teacher, let’s think further – do you believe we’re the first batch of crops to be harvested on Earth? Earth’s history spans 4.6 billion years, with the first life appearing 3.6 billion years ago. Yet a glorious civilization might not even take 10 million years from birth to destruction.”

“What’s the purpose of harvesting heads?” I asked.

“Maybe collecting intelligence? You’d have to ask the Harvesters about that – we don’t know.”

Wang Ning shook his head.

“It’s terrifying. It’s something humans can’t comprehend.”

I said.

“Humans indeed can’t comprehend them, but humans subconsciously know of their existence – just like newborn gazelles know leopards are deadly threats. It’s memory buried in our genes. Our consciousness comes from our brains, and the brain is fruit… fruit with consciousness, has fruit instincts. A fruit’s instinct is to avoid being harvested.”

Wang Ning raised both hands and wiggled his fingers.

“All our actions are controlled by the brain. We can view all human behaviors – both conscious and unconscious – as efforts to escape the Harvesters’ harvest. As a group, human behavior is always outward-oriented, and expansionist. We want to leave Earth, land on the Moon, land on Mars, and develop space colonies, because we know we can’t stay confined to Earth forever. Permanent confinement to Earth will ultimately lead to civilization’s extinction – our brains tell us this, right?”

I nodded.

“But why do our brains tell us this? Even they can’t clearly explain where this strong drive to leave our origin point comes from. Why do we believe staying on Earth forever will eventually face extinction? Why do humans always have this inner complex about distant journeys? We thought it was because of humanity’s eternal exploratory spirit, perpetual curiosity, and innate desire for expansion – but where does this desire come from?

It comes from the collective instinct of brains as fruit, the group subconsciousness that fruits are born with. This has nothing to do with romance, only survival. If we don’t escape the cropland, one day we’ll all be harvested.”

Wang Ning paused, then continued:

“For any species, the purpose of expanding their population is to avoid extinction by something. This is subconsciousness rooted in genes – you might not know it exists, but you’re acting according to what it says.”

I was dumbfounded.

“This was Old Zhao’s hypothesis, by the way,” Wang Ning added. “What he said might sound sensational.

Just treat it as a story.”

I rubbed my cheeks vigorously. I had never observed human groups from such an eerie perspective: they were a group of crops, crops trying to escape the farmland under the fruit’s command.

From birth, they had been trying to escape this place.

But thinking about it, it made sense – if rice and wheat had feet, they would certainly scatter and flee when the combine harvester entered the field.

I took a big gulp of cola and swallowed it. The cold drink could cool my head slightly, so I wouldn’t be caught by temperature-checking staff at the subway station and sent to quarantine.

“So when the Giant Eye was hunting that girl, it was just an agricultural harvester collecting the last crop?”

“That’s right. The Giant Eyes’ behavior patterns were very peculiar, extremely peculiar. From a human perspective, they were heinously evil, terrifying monsters. But from other life forms’ perspective, they were practically nature’s best friends… Where were we in the story again?”

“Your first video communication that night.”

I reminded him.

Wang Ning nodded.

“Right, let me continue:”