Bai Wu read the file.
Because a complete file has been synthesized, the content of this file is much more detailed than the various incomplete versions seen before.
There is a lot of content in the archive, but there is no academic discussion. It is just a memoir.
Memoirs of the leader of a group of scientists from Denglin Technology.
Although it did not involve overly professional knowledge, this file was still valuable, so valuable that Bai Wu thought... it should not be sold for only five gold coins.
It's like Dandeler's diary, Hong Yin's files, or Lou Xiaoping's notes.
Every time he touched these things, Bai Wu knew that he would see the desperate and distorted past of mankind at the end of the world.
But this time it is different. This time it is just pure text and Bai Wu will not have the immersive feeling.
However, the various clues he had seen before had already allowed Bai Wu to know part of the content before he even read the file.
…
…
In May of 2115, Xuan returned to the city.
Today is the day when the Pandora's box is opened for me.
My competitor Xie Yingjie played a dull joke on me.
He said there are humans with super powers in this world, haha.
Although I thought this was ridiculous, he invited me in a very provocative way, mocking my paranoid understanding of science.
He said some very unreasonable things:
"If a person stares at a spoon and it suddenly bends, how should the force analysis be calculated? As you know, there are four basic interactions in this world—gravity, electromagnetism, strong interaction, and weak interaction. So back to the question, if the spoon bends, what force is it?"
"Lao Tao, let me tell you, this world is so fragile that if one force disappears, the whole world will collapse. If one unknown force appears, the world will fall into doomsday."
I originally thought that they were picking on me for no reason, but that afternoon, I received a call from Denglin headquarters, asking me to rush over urgently.
When I boarded the company plane, Xie Yingjie was there, too. He laughed at me as usual, but it sounded like he was laughing at himself:
"Lao Tao, we might... fall into a great confusion, because what we are going to face next may be a physical system that we have never seen before. Oh, I forgot, you are proficient in biology, and we are not in the same field."
Yes, Xie Yingjie and I are not in the same field, but we don’t have many friends because we are always said to be like machines and lack human touch because of our style of doing things.
Mocking each other became our only entertainment. We mocked each other for several years and became friends.
…
2115, May, Denglin City.
I don’t know how to explain what happened that day. Although I studied biology, I know that the operation of cells, birth, aging, illness and death are all based on existing physical laws.
But it all... collapsed.
It's not just the spoon that's bent, it's also my perception of the world.
Today I met a boy and a girl. Their names are both weird, maybe they are brother and sister
One is called Jing Si and the other is called Jing Liu.
This obviously tells me that there are at least four more siblings, but of course that doesn't matter.
What’s important is that Jing Liu is only a ten-year-old girl, but she told me in a hollow tone—
"Your mother is watching the news from Xuanhui Guards right now. The news is about strange temperature changes in some areas. There have been strange weather changes on Black Gold Island, with the highest temperature exceeding 74 degrees. A rescue operation has been launched on the island."
Of course I didn't believe it, but everyone told me to call my mother to ask. At the same time, Jing Liu told me that I would hear my mother's screams first.
Sure enough, the moment the call was connected, I heard my mother screaming because a crow outside the window flew into the glass of my house.
At this moment, I realized that what they said was true, Jing Liu could see the future. My mother was indeed watching the news.
But why is this? Is it some kind of disorder in the rules of space and time, or some kind of hysteresis in light waves
But today, what shocked me was not only this. Jing Si, who was two years older than Jing Liu, demonstrated another kind of subversive power.
They invited me to see a white rat that was larger than a medium-sized dog, and I thought it was some kind of exotic beast.
As we approached, it banged against the tempered glass frantically. It was not until Jing Si approached that it showed fear.
Then Jing Si performed a magic trick in the laboratory. I can only call it magic...
Because a small white mouse used in the experiment mutated strangely at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This made me doubt the biology I had learned. But they seemed to want to see me go crazy on the spot before they would stop -
The mutation of that mouse has not ended. Damn, how can I describe this change? Mechanization
Yes, mechanization.
I was completely devastated, as if I had been betrayed by the god I believed in.
…
2115, May, Denglin City.
I was in a state of confusion for several days after that. I suspected that everything was a huge scam.
It was a joke on me. After all, I was unkind, annoying, and always nagging about efficiency and science.
But no one present at the time was the kind of person who could make such a joke. Even that bastard Xie Yingjie was a person who took academics very seriously.
I can now imagine that when he said those words to me, he might have already experienced even deeper shock and confusion.
So the ones who were comforted in the end were Xie Yingjie... and Jing Si and Jing Liu.
I will always remember what Mr. Xie said to his two children that day.
"Study us."
"I've seen that the person who truly brings hope to this world is not you, but you are indeed the inheritor. I can't see too far into the future, but in the future, there will be someone who will save the world because of your plan."
"save the world?"
These four words came so abruptly that I felt as if I were suddenly in a cliché movie scene.
But Xie Yingjie said:
"In the beginning, our ancestors didn't understand math, physics, or anything, just like we don't understand the power in them. But we can learn slowly, right? As long as we keep researching, we will definitely find the secret of this power."
No one can imagine the inspiration this sentence brings to me. Yes, such a complex scientific system has been researched by giants. Now that we are standing on the shoulders of giants, why can't we continue this legend
Maybe some huge disaster is approaching. Rather than enjoying the rest of my life, I would rather solve this new problem!
"Study us. We will cooperate with all the experiments. As long as you can find the secrets of us before a greater disaster comes and before that tower appears, that'll be enough."
What is a tower
Jing Si and Jing Liu refused to tell me because it was meaningless.
I later learned that the tower was humanity’s last resort, a weapon that would force humanity to give up resistance.
…
2117, November, Denglin City.
The experiment has not made any progress, and to date, the abilities demonstrated by Well 4 and Well 6 are still full of mystery.
I even invited Jing Liu individually and asked her to observe the future to see whether we have solved the mystery of them.
Jing Liu nodded and said:
"It's unlocked."
"So how did you solve it?"
I was thinking, if my future self solved their puzzles, and Jingliu can know the future, why doesn't he get the answers directly from my future self
Just like she had predicted before.
But just as I had worried, everything was explained away by the butterfly effect.
This is something that I find very contradictory. If Jing Liu's purpose is to hope that we study her and Jing Si and find out their secrets, and we in the future do solve these mysteries, then as someone who can know the future, doesn't it mean that she already knows the answer
Then why are you asking us
Or... did she lie to us
…
2118.
There is no result. The funding from above is a lot, even more than last year, and it is expected that it will be even higher next year.
They obviously wanted to master the power of Jing Liu and Jing Si. If this power was used in war, it would be invincible.
For this reason, I also talked to Jing Si and Jing Liu. Jing Si was very pessimistic about this. He said that there would be no war because there would be something more terrible than war that would eliminate all possibilities.
Jing Liu believes that someone will be able to turn the tide because this is the future she sees.
2119.
The funding is increasing.
It seems to be related to the appearance of monsters in some areas. Jingsi's temper has also changed a little. This child sometimes looks at us with a look that scares us.
That look was just like... looking at food.
No, perhaps more indifferent than that, and also with a certain confusion.
So far, Jing Si and Jing Liu have refused to reveal any information about the other four people. We are not even sure whether Jing Yi, Jing Er, Jing San, and Jing Wu exist.
They were really tight-lipped about these four guys who might not exist. Every time they talked about this topic, the brother and sister would keep silent.
If they exist, what abilities do they have
…
2120.
Funding is still increasing, and the initial mutation and fall from grace caused many people to laugh at him.
But now, many of those who once ridiculed it have begun to study it.
Because the words "evil" have already appeared in the eyes and ears of the public. Just like my cognition was overturned at the beginning, the existence of evil has also begun to overturn the cognition of everyone in this world.
We must speed up our research and find a way to deal with the evil, because Jing Liu told us that time is running out.
2121.
We have made our first progress.
With the help of Xie Yingjie, we created a method to make the evil produce weak light properties, although it seems a little late now, because these monsters have appeared on the outskirts of various cities.
We have no way to make humans who have already turned into monsters develop this weakness. We can only do this before they turn into monsters.
This is also Xie Yingjie's theory. In his opinion, if organisms can be mechanized, then we have no way to use biological means to deal with the evil of mechanization, unless... we plant the weakness in them before they become machines, when they are still human.
This seems like an impossible thing to achieve, but after our experiment, we found that it is really possible...
If a person is injected with the reagent we developed in advance, even if the person undergoes mechanized changes, he or she will still be afraid of light.
This is of course incomprehensible to us, but we don’t need to understand it now. Xie Yingjie and I are now like businessmen who only need to see tangible benefits.
2122.
More and more cities were destroyed, although the evil were suppressed because their numbers were small.
One thing we found is that the inside of the city is completely different from the outside of the city. Although there are people who mutate in the city, the number is nothing compared to the outside.
It's as if... there is some kind of regional restriction, the city is the inner circle, which is a lightly mutated area, and the area outside the city is the outer circle, which is a highly mutated area.
This is still something we cannot understand, and Jing Si and Jing Liu don’t know either.
And Jing Si became more and more irritable.
Jing Liu's comfort is still effective. In the future she foresees, a savior will appear, and this savior carries an antibody!
An antibody that can completely isolate one from evil and depravity!
But in my opinion, Jing Liu may be able to see the future, but she definitely cannot see too far into the future, otherwise why doesn't she tell us the answer
She was just deceiving Jing Si.
But it doesn't matter. It's good for all of us if Jing Si can settle down. After all, every time he gets angry, there will be biological mutations in this building.
Sometimes it's something else, sometimes it's people.
2123.
The world became strange. Funding for scientific research suddenly decreased a lot. Masked knights began to fight against evil in the city, and many strange churches appeared.
Xie Yingjie told me that the tower had appeared. In fact, he had told me about it last year. He had even been inside.
He told me that the tower was very strange, like a place that could isolate all abnormal rules.
Our sacred system of physics remains sacred in the tower.
I scoffed at this.
"You have to accept the reality, Xie Yingjie! In the past, we were just frogs living in a well, occasionally seeing the world outside the well, and the tower is just another well! Do you want to go back to the well?"
Xie Yingjie was convinced by me, but most people became impatient. In fact, they had been very anxious since last year. They wanted plane tickets and boat tickets.
But Jing Liu dashed their hopes at that time.
"There are people like me living in the plane. That plane will not reach its destination, it will just go into a loop."
"Cruise ship? That's a scam. Time is running out. What you need to do is to continue studying us and find our secrets."
But as more people entered the tower, and as many happy reports came from the tower...
There are fewer and fewer people who are willing to study evil together.
…
2124.
Another group of people left, some went looking for shelter, and some went looking for the tower.
I didn't leave, and Xie Yingjie didn't leave.
Jing Si became more and more violent. Six young people in the company had been infected and turned into monsters, and were finally killed by Jing Liu.
Of course, their corpses became the material for our study of evil.
Xie Yingjie and I... are not good at dealing with people, and we are not very able to understand the many complex emotions between people, but we feel Jing Si's distress.
He was troubled by the pressure, just like Xie Yingjie and I. We must find a way to make the evil no longer bother us.
As for the strange rules of this world, we can only study them after the evil is expelled.
We built a new laboratory for Jing Si, and Jing Si also had three weaknesses.
After so many years, we finally found a way to weaken the evil. This is the result of our joint efforts.
We believe that one day, mankind will be able to defeat and expel evil with its own strength.
2125.
This year, everyone was walking on thin ice and trembling with fear. Because Jing Si was becoming more and more terrifying, the city was becoming more and more terrifying.
We need manpower, security guards, cleaners, cooks, doctors, even researchers, electricians...
The tower attracted too many people. Only Xie Yingjie and I have been working hard to study the secrets of the evil.
In order to speed up the process, we have to recruit some people, so we have to tell a lie...
Denglin Technology Branch, Denglin Technology Headquarters, the secret of evil has been researched here. Here, humans will not be troubled by evil.
This lie is actually half true.
Due to the presence of Jing Si and Jing Liu, the evil ones dare not approach here. As long as Jing Si does not go crazy, the people here do not have to worry about becoming evil ones.
So, after failing to contact the top leaders, I and the last 43 scientists decided to continue our research.
It's just... I can also foresee that in the end, there may not be many of us forty-four left.
2126.
After a year of working day and night, Xie Yingjie and I both knew that time was running out.
There was chaos outside the company, and many of the people who were doing research together couldn't hold on any longer. Everyone started to fall ill frequently.
Some emotional colleagues became depressed and listless.
We have completely lost contact with the higher-ups, and the only information we can receive is basically wireless calls for help from other cities.
Everyone was short of supplies, so Xie Yingjie and I had to make some changes. We only had one meal a day. We even tried to have fun in the midst of hardship and calculated the minimum nutritional intake needed to keep the brain thinking.
A young colleague asked me, is it worth it? Didn’t Gaota invite me before
I don't care what's worth it or not, I just know... the tower is not a safe haven, it's just a premeditated existence.
Xie Yingjie and I will definitely think of a way to expel the evil!
2127.
In the first half of this year, I put forward a conjecture.
If we simulate the brain waves of humans when they are afraid, or angry and sad, will we be able to make the evil feel satisfied
Will this make the evil give up attacking humans
When I proposed this conjecture, all my colleagues looked at me in surprise...
At that moment, I was sure that we had finally found the direction! Even the material problem that had troubled us was solved!
The city became chaotic and dilapidated, and people resisted evil and fought for resources.
But what surprised me was that... every morning, there was food at the entrance of the company. The food was placed in a prominent position, and those people who were robbing houses did not come to rob them.
At that moment, I realized one thing: we have not been abandoned. At least the people of this city still support us!
This gave us great excitement and encouragement.
It's just that this kind of encouragement is like a last glimmer of light before destruction.
The situation at Jing Si is getting worse and worse.
His relationship with Jing Liu has been deteriorating, because Jing Si also seems to think that Jing Liu is deceiving us.
All the beautiful futures are fake, and perhaps only destruction is waiting for us
I shouldn't have thought this way... Especially since I already had an idea to expel the evil, but this idea...
Maybe it will never be possible.
Because in the second half of this year... Xie Yingjie left and went to the tower.
Before leaving, he told me that the tower would be closed in a year, and if I agreed to go to the tower with him now, I would be invited directly to the fifth floor.
I have a rough idea of what the fifth floor means, and I also know what it means for the tower to be closed.
I felt no joy at all. My whole life had been an inhuman, machine-like pursuit of knowledge.
My mother once said that I only cried when I was born. In the following decades, I never had such emotions because I was very happy to be immersed in the world of academia. It was difficult for me to empathize with human birth, aging, illness, death and emotions.
But at this moment, I felt a blockage in my chest.
Why did he have to leave me at this time? Without Xie Yingjie's help, how could this idea be realized
I still remember his last words:
"The prophecies are all lies to us! There is no savior! Our efforts will be fruitless, so let us hide in the well and be frogs again! Lao Tao, come with me! We are just human beings, and there is no way we can deal with this sudden power! Life is only a hundred years! Why must we bear such a heavy responsibility?"
Even in 2115, when I saw Jing Si and Jing Liu, I had never felt so sad.
"Let's go. If you stay here... you won't live long."
Yes, at the rate at which the world's physical laws are changing, I might soon become a monster.
But... I don't want to leave!
Life is only a hundred years long, so we should live in the present. Xie Yingjie, I hope you can find your own peace in the tower.
What can calm me down in this world is what you said to me in 2115—
As long as we continue to research, we will definitely find the secret of this power.
…
…
Bai Wu quickly finished reading the memoir, and he soon became confused—
Who is the owner of this game area, Jing Liu or Mr. Tao
Now he was not sure of the answer, so his thoughts returned to the contents of his memoirs.
Life is only a hundred years long, but in fact, Mr. Tao did not know that many people who entered the fifth floor of the tower have an endless lifespan.
Bai Wu suddenly thought that maybe Xie Yingjie was still alive.
Perhaps there is a Xie family manor on the fifth floor of the tower.
What would Mr. Tao’s only friend in his life think if he knew Mr. Tao’s fate and determination, and the contents of this document
Without the negative emotions, Bai Wu felt empty inside again.
There is no doubt that Mr. Tao failed.
Even if Xie Yingjie stayed, his success would be slim. In a sense, Xie Yingjie did nothing wrong. He just made a choice that most people would make.
Faced with the world's mutation, a force more exaggerated than divine power, Xie Yingjie surrendered, but Mr. Tao did not.
One lives in the present, the other lives in his own ideal.
But the words "I don't want to leave" still made Bai Wu feel a little regretful.
"Did you find anything?"
Seeing Bai Wu coming to the door of the file room, Wujiu asked.
"I know some past events, but I'm not sure if they can be used. Let's go to the next place."