"Cough cough cough..." Liang Xian climbed onto the inflatable raft while coughing, and pulled up Asan beside him.
"Cough, cough, cough... Ugh!" Ah San also choked on a lot of water. After coming up, he started coughing violently, saying as he coughed, "What kind of water is this? Why is it so smelly?"
As soon as they entered the other world, their bellies were filled with water. There was no feeling of falling into the water, but rather they entered the water directly after being teleported from the hole.
The three of them had no experience and inhaled water directly into their bodies while breathing. However, Tan Yan held his breath and used his supernatural power before he felt the water. He floated on the water and took out the inflatable raft from his backpack. There was plenty of oxygen in this world. After he inflated the raft, he pulled the three people up one by one.
"Puh, puh, puh!" Qin Li felt extremely nauseous and lay on the raft vomiting water.
"Why is it so smelly? It smells a bit like..." Asan stopped talking halfway. He patted Qin Li, who was vomiting violently beside him, and asked him to raise his head.
Qin Li looked up and saw that they were floating on the endless water, with corpses floating in the distance.
Not just humans, but animals as well.
"Ugh..." Thinking that he had just soaked in such water and accidentally drank it, Qin Li spit it out directly.
Ah San and Liang Xian were a little stronger than him. Liang Xian had awakened his special ability in the real world and knew how to use it. When he felt the water around him, he immediately tried to hold his breath. He only soaked his body in water and didn't choke much. Ah San was mentally strong and just spit out the water in his mouth to suppress the feeling of nausea.
"Go and take a look." Ah San pointed at the bodies and said, "We must determine the cause of death of those people."
Tan Yan nodded, and just as he was about to start the raft, he was stopped by Liang Xian.
"Let me try," Liang Xian said, "Didn't we agree on this before? If you can avoid taking action, then don't. The reason we didn't bring any newcomers in this time is to train our strength."
"That's true..." Ah San hesitated, "But can you do it?"
To be honest, since Asan awakened his supernatural powers, he has tried countless times in the real world to feel the special energy in the air according to Tan Yan's instructions, but unfortunately he gained nothing.
"Almost." Liang Xian said confidently.
The main way to move the raft is to control the water flow and wind speed. Now there is no wind on the water, so there is no need to consider the issues of headwind and headwind, and it is easier to move.
Liang Xian took a deep breath, stared at the water, recalled the feeling of using his consciousness that day, and imagined that he could push the raft.
Gradually, he seemed to really feel the particles that Tan Yan said were constantly moving around him. The feeling was very mysterious, invisible but able to be felt. It was like some energy that was unconsciously moving around him. Once he felt or observed it, he could use it.
Liang Xian tried to push those particles, and they began to rotate according to Liang Xian's intention, gradually condensing together, and finally turned into a force that pushed up the raft.
"Oh my god, you can really do that?" Ah San was shocked. "How did you do it?"
Liang Xian didn't have the energy to answer him. He was not as comfortable as Tan Yan and had to concentrate fully to control the raft.
The floating corpse was several hundred meters away from them. Just this few hundred meters of distance almost exhausted all of Liang Xian's mental energy. When he was about to arrive, his eyes were already dazed and his pupils could not focus.
Tan Yan supported him from behind and rubbed Liang Xian's temples with his fingers, and Liang Xian felt much more comfortable.
He just felt his brain become a mess, his thoughts were all tangled together, an idea popped up in his mind, but he couldn't catch it, and it was difficult to concentrate. But when Tan Yan's hand touched him, he felt that these thoughts separated and condensed again, and his head could think about problems again.
After all, what does "consciousness" rely on to exert its power
Liang Xian does not believe in the so-called absorption of spiritual power or magical elements. He believes that everything in this world can be explained by science. What cannot be explained is not the supernatural or fantasy, but people's knowledge level has not reached that level.
The energy particles floating around them must be observable and perceptible energy, just like the wind energy, water energy, internal energy, electrical energy, and light energy they usually use, but humans have not yet fully mastered it.
After Liang Xian felt better, he exerted more strength and pushed the raft next to the group of corpses.
Asan took out a long wooden pole from his backpack and poked the corpse next to him.
He looked like a human male, with black hair and yellow skin, and looked like a yellow person, but his face was so soaked that it was hard to tell. There were many black spots on the exposed parts of the corpse's skin, which made it look like he didn't die by drowning, but rather had some kind of disease.
"Look ahead." Asan's expression was very solemn. It would be terrible if the end of this world was caused by an epidemic. They had just choked on water.
The further you go, the more frightening it becomes. Almost all the corpses have these black spots on them, including some of the pets such as cats and dogs around, which also died in horrible ways.
"The Black Death." Liang Xian said solemnly after taking out an instrument to extract body fluids from the corpse for testing.
The Black Death is one of the deadliest plagues in human history and is a Class A infectious disease - plague. Current medical standards can prevent and treat this Class A infectious disease. There are already EV-free strains of dried live bacteria vaccines for the plague. Although it took the lives of tens of millions of people in the fourteenth century, it is no longer a terrible plague now and will never be the cause of the end of the world.
"Look at the clothes they wear, they are very similar to ours," Ah San analyzed, "It shouldn't be that they can't even cure diseases that are hundreds of years old, right?"
After knowing it was the Black Death, he was not so nervous. Modern people are given many vaccines at birth to prevent and treat many infectious diseases. The Black Death virus is currently considered extinct and basically does not pose a threat to humans.
"There are so many corpses here..." Qin Li looked around. After they drove the raft here, this place was almost full of corpses. The endless water surface was densely packed with corpses.
It's a bit like...
Several people suddenly remembered something and their faces looked unhappy.
When they first crossed into the other world, Ah San led everyone to walk a few steps in the direction of the base, and indeed found a secret base. This means that when they crossed into the parallel world, the geographical location is the same as the location before they crossed. This time, the hole appeared again in the suburbs of City B, but there was no hole in Ping County. They entered the "hole" from the suburbs of City B, which was obviously a plain area, but appeared directly in the water.
Ah San's face turned pale and he pointed underwater: "Could it be..."
Would just a few corpses on the surface of the water make the living water full of corpse stench? Why did the originally plain area turn into a sea of rivers, lakes and seas
Before coming to this world, their team had analyzed the causes of the end of the world countless times. The "Void" research team investigated the possible causes of the end of the world recorded by humans, which can be roughly divided into four categories:
From the universe, from the earth, from other creatures, and from human beings themselves.
Whether it is the lava world or the disappearance of the atmosphere, they can all be classified as coming from the earth. Now this kind of landform change seems to come from the earth as well.
Through the appearance of the corpses, they have been able to roughly confirm that this is a parallel Earth, and through the changes in the landforms, they have roughly guessed what kind of apocalypse this place has experienced.
"How could such a plague occur if there was only a flood?" Ah San asked in confusion, "And if it was just a flood, mankind shouldn't have entered the end of the world all of a sudden..."
At least the government could send ships to rescue people immediately. Life might have been a little harder, but so many people wouldn't have died.
Liang Xian did not answer. He just stared at the water and said, "We have to go in and take a look."
Everyone understood the truth, but no one dared to move for a while.
It's not just the stench of corpses in the water and the plague that can kill people, but also the fear of the unknown.
They were a little scared of seeing what was under the water.
Liang Xian took out a waterproof camera and said, "In theory, we brought the camera with us, and all the matter belongs to our world. It should be able to follow us back through the hole. If we can take photos or videos of this world, it will be of great help to the research team."
This time they were well prepared. The research team gave each person a large backpack, which contained not only food and weapons, but also various instruments. After compression and reset, all the instruments were made as small as possible to avoid taking up too much space.
Liang Xian wanted to change into a waterproof suit, but was stopped by Ah San: "You are already tired enough. I am a good swimmer. I will go down."
"But there might be viruses in this water..." Liang Xian frowned and said, "I can already use my supernatural powers, maybe I can breathe underwater, let me do it."
"Then let me put it another way," Ah San said with a scoundrelly smile, "I can't let you train alone. Give me a chance. I'm still your assistant. If my abilities aren't as good as yours, how can I teach you in the future?"
He was right. The main purpose of entering the apocalypse was to train their abilities. The mission of the Hollow Team was not just one world, but countless worlds. If this world was really just a flood, then it was actually quite simple. After all, they didn't need to survive here. They just needed to collect as much information as possible and leave.
Liang Xian did not stop Asan anymore, he just told him about his feelings of using his supernatural powers.
Asan and Qin Li, who had not yet found the trick, listened carefully and took notes, but it felt too mysterious. Liang Xian had already grasped the principle, but his explanation was not much simpler than Tan Yan's.
"Consciousness? Controlled by mental power? The kind that communicates between heaven and earth?" Asan asked.
"Or is it affinity for magical elements?" Qin Li didn't understand either.
Liang Xian: “…”
"Throw away the novels in your head," Liang Xian frowned, "It's 'consciousness' and 'observation'. These energies are uncertain. Only when you observe them can you confirm their existence..."
Halfway through his words, Liang Xian suddenly thought that what he said actually sounded a little familiar.
"Schrödinger's cat?" Asan, who had learned quantum mechanics quite well, also realized that Liang Xian's statement was very similar to the famous thought experiment in quantum mechanics.
This is a thought experiment about the superposition of life and death of a cat. It says that if there is a cat and a small amount of radioactive material in a box, there is a 50% probability that the radioactive material will decay and release poison gas to kill the cat, but there is also a 50% probability that nothing will happen and the cat will still be alive.
In classical physics, one of two results will happen in the box, and an external observer can only know the result by opening the box. But in the quantum world, when the box is closed, the cat is in a state of neither life nor death, and only by opening the box and observing, when the matter is manifested in the form of particles, can it be determined.
At this time, it is possible to produce a parallel universe, that is, two worlds of death and death. Parallel worlds appear in different observations and results.
Classical physics may not be able to understand how such a cat can be in a state of superposition of life and death. Our usual view is that it is either life or death, but the world of microscopic particles is different from the macroscopic world. When electrons are not observed, they have no definite state. This is one of the weirdness of quantum mechanics.
"Have you ever thought about this? Newton's third law says that the action force and reaction force are equal, and our consciousness can be changed by the external world. Everyone thinks there is nothing wrong with this view. But why can't consciousness have an impact on the objective world?" Liang Xian finally understood the source of his supernatural powers and explained excitedly.
Ah San, Qin Li, and Tan Yan all looked numb, and Qin Li even said, "You are too idealistic..."
"No, it's not idealism." Liang Xian almost took out a book to teach the three people directly, "Penrose once collaborated with Hawking to discover the various characteristics of black holes. I don't know if you have read his book, called The Emperor's New Brain, which studies consciousness."
"I haven't seen it." The three of them shook their heads.
It is already very difficult for them to study the textbooks. Tan Yan can't even pass the college entrance examination now, so how can he have the time to read extracurricular books!
"According to Penrose's theory, there are a huge number of entangled electrons in our brain, and our consciousness is formed by the collapse of these entangled electrons. In other words, consciousness itself is not an invisible thing. It has quality and quantity, but it is too small for us to perceive it at all." Liang Xian said excitedly.
Three people: “…”
That is, Ah San followed a little bit, and he thought for a while and said, "You mean, our consciousness is composed of microscopic particles in an extremely complex and unimaginable entangled state, and there are countless such particles in the external environment. The reason why we can use supernatural powers is because consciousness can control these particles, that is, use quantum force, is that what you mean?"
"That's it." Liang Xian waved his fist and explained, "For example, with Tan Yan's strength, one punch may only knock off a few leaves from a towering tree. But he needs to break the tree directly, so when the punch is delivered, the brain produces a strong "consciousness", and the electrons that make up the "consciousness" begin to become entangled with the particles in the external environment or even the electrons of the tree, giving these particles a signal to break the tree. This force acts on the trunk, breaking it, but in our naked eyes, what we see is that Tan Yan broke a two or three meter tree with one punch. We think this is Tan Yan's physical strength, but it is not."
"So the reason why Tan Yan can lift a meteorite weighing hundreds of tons is not because he is strong, but because after communication, the meteorite and the particles around it have succumbed to Tan Yan's consciousness and are willing to be lifted up by him?" Asan had a "are you fucking kidding me" expression on his face.
"Although it's incredible, it's true." Liang Xian looked relieved. He finally understood the source of his power.
Similarly, Tan Yan's "consciousness" believes that superpowers cannot be used in the real world. His consciousness affects all those who have heard him say this. These people's brains are not as developed as Tan Yan's, and their "consciousness" submits to or forms this "concept" according to Tan Yan's "consciousness". Unless the person with superpowers is stronger than Tan Yan, this "concept" will not be broken.
Asan had a blank expression. He did understand Liang Xian's theory, but he found it even more unbelievable.
After studying materialism for decades, I suddenly became an idealist. Moreover, the power of idealism is so strong that it is difficult for anyone to accept it.
"The key points are 'observation' and 'communication'," Liang Xian continued to explain the abstract theory, "I think we can breathe freely in water, for example, using particles to form an extracorporeal respiratory system, similar to gills..."
Ah San: “…”
He looked at Tan Yan: "You just understand all these theories and then you can use your supernatural powers?"
"No," Tan Yan shook his head woodenly, "I just suddenly felt the energy around me, and after practicing using it, I was able to use it later."
Ah San looked relieved: "Then I'd better communicate with heaven and earth."
Although he is also a top student, he really cannot understand such abstract stuff. It is better to let Liang Xian figure out the theoretical abilities on his own. After all, he has the example of Tan Yan, so he can use it even if he doesn't understand it.
Liang Xian: “…”
I feel so lonely. I really miss Cui Heyu at this moment.
Ah San put on a waterproof suit and put his hands in the water. "Let me try to feel it first."
Although he didn't quite understand, Liang Xian's words still gave him some inspiration. His brain had been initially developed and was very active, and he felt things differently from other people. After putting his hand in the water, Ah San felt the water flow and soon discovered something different.
Those things followed the water flow and surrounded his fingers. Although Asan didn't want to admit it, he could really feel that these particles came in accordance with his "consciousness", or to put it in a more childish way, they came in response to his summons.
"Be careful, take it easy," Liang Xian warned, "You may get a headache the first time you use it. This is probably a sign of overusing your 'consciousness'."
Strangely, Ah San didn't feel a headache. He felt that these things in the water seemed very docile, more docile than those in the air.
He slowly immersed himself in the water, without the use of oxygen, and dived down little by little.
It would be nice if I could breathe in the water without touching it, Ah San thought, there might be viruses in the water.
As he thought about this, he felt the particles gradually condense at his chin and connect to his mouth. There were more and more particles, and the thing became thicker and thicker, gradually taking shape.
In the eyes of outsiders, it just looked like Asan had grown a pair of transparent gills on his chin!
There is also a layer of transparent membrane covering his head and face, which seems to be waterproof, allowing him to open his eyes and see things in the water while protecting his skin from touching water.
Liang Xian and Qin Li's jaws dropped in shock. Ah San seemed to be quite adaptable and didn't seem to have a headache at all.
"So that's how it's used," Ah San proudly gave Liang Xian a thumbs up, "I'll go down now."
He took some waterproof weapons and dived into the water. As soon as he entered the water, he felt as if his legs were wrapped by something. Looking back, he saw a transparent fish tail!
Hahahaha, I really turned into a mermaid, Ah San thought with an ordinary face.
Liang Xian: “…”
He was so distressed that he almost hit the raft with his hands. "I was just pushing the boat and I almost couldn't breathe. I almost fainted. How could he be so relaxed?"
It's obvious that Asan's brain is not as developed as mine!
When I think back to the terrible headaches I got from using my superpowers in the real world, I suddenly feel even more useless.
"I am not as comfortable in the water as he is," Tan Yan said, "I couldn't swim before, and it was a little better when I used my supernatural powers, but I still felt uncomfortable in the water."
Most people in the north are landlubbers. In Tan Yan's era, there was no opportunity to learn swimming. When he first entered this water-related strange world, he was so watersick that he almost died.
After feeling annoyed, Liang Xian thought for a while and said, "It suddenly occurred to me just now that everyone is born with different physiques and excels in different areas. Could it be that for this reason, even if we both awaken our consciousness, our abilities develop in different directions? Ah San entered the area he excels in, so he can easily create gills and a fish tail, but I'm not the type to push a boat... or I'm not good at controlling the wind, so it's particularly difficult for me?"
"That makes sense." This time Tan Yan understood a little, "I'm just not good at studying."
Liang Xian: “…”
It seems that studying has become a pain in Tan Yan's heart. I have to help him with his studies when I go back.
"Then what am I good at?" Qin Li looked desperate.
Everyone was just as useless as they were last time in the other world, and they struggled forward under the protection of Tan Yan. This time, Liang Xian and Asan showed different powers as soon as they arrived, but he still felt nothing and was a little sad.
"How about... next time you try pushing the boat? Maybe you and wind energy are destined to be together?" Liang Xian consoled.
"Then let's wait for Assistant Coach Chai to come up." Qin Li said without hope.
Tan Yan was very happy. Even though they were surrounded by floating corpses and enduring the stench, it was different from before.
Young people are not afraid of difficulties and obstacles, and can still spread their wings and fly in such a desperate scenario. Seeing their progress makes me feel very comforted and warm, and I am no longer alone.
Although Tan Yan was tired, he was still strong and able to persevere. But now, next to Liang Xian and the others, he really realized that he was already an old man...
The three of them sat back to back on the raft, looking around vigilantly. However, Tan Yan leaned against Liang Xian but looked very relaxed.
The young man's shoulders were so full of energy that it seemed like he could really share some of the burden with these people.
Just like this for about an hour, Asan emerged from the water. He climbed onto the raft, and the transparent film automatically dissipated, leaving Asan without a drop of water on his body.
Everyone wanted to congratulate him, but Ah San didn't look happy. He took out his digital camera, turned on the small screen and played a picture for the three people to see.
Ah San pointed underwater: "There's a city underneath."
As they flipped through the photos, the expressions of the three of them became solemn.
As the capital of China, City B has many iconic buildings that can be seen at a glance. These buildings are very clear in the photo, but now they are all under water.
The geographical location they traveled through did not change, but City B had turned into an ocean. Under their feet were countless historical buildings in City B and... tens of millions of people!
The author has something to say: Descartes: What did I say before
Quantum mechanics: Okay, I'll take the blame, I'm invincible!
emmmm... Students who don’t understand the theory can skip it. Anyway, it is enough for you to know that consciousness can be explained by quantum mechanics, that consciousness can affect the surrounding environment, and that consciousness is very powerful.
If you can understand it, I really think that quantum mechanics is amazing. If many of its ideas and assumptions can really be realized, if quantum computers really appear one day, then I really don’t know what the world will become. It’s very scary.
ps: Because I recommended Long Qi's "Leaning on Bamboo at Dusk" yesterday, someone said that Long Qi should be changed from a short dragon to a long dragon. How can this be possible? She is only 7 centimeters long, which is the length of a 7jj coin. Unless she changes her name to Long Eighteen, Long Twenty, or Long Thirty, it would be about right...
PS: The update time is around 14:00 every day, around 14:00~~