Chapter 106: Butterflies Never Fly Backwards

Chapter 106: Butterflies Never Fly Backwards

After a long time, Zhong Lei stretched and sat down next to Chen Feng. She crossed her legs and used a fork to lift a piece of cake from the plate in her hand to her mouth.

“I’ve heard before that Chinese musicians working with Europeans and Americans are often in a weak position and find it hard to get respect. But why do I feel like you’re the one bullying others?”

Chen Feng turned his head away, his gaze falling on the Strawberry Cheesecake on her plate.

“This kind of cooperation we have is what you call real cooperation. The weak kind you mentioned is just piggybacking on fame. Those without talent who still want to boast will end up living under someone else’s roof and bowing low. We earn our keep with our skills, so others naturally understand the word ‘respect’. Do you like this kind of cake?”

Zhong Lei shook her head. “No, it’s too sweet.”

“Then why are you eating it?”

“It’s a waste to throw it away.”

“It didn’t cost any money.”

Zhong Lei ate the last bite. “But it’s still a waste.”

After saying that, she went back to writing lyrics. Chen Feng’s eyes returned to the movie, but his mind wandered far and wide.

He kind of wanted to make a movie, a science fiction movie.

He wanted to show the world what he had seen and heard through the form of a sci-fi film.

He didn’t expect others to believe it, but if it could serve as a warning to humanity in advance, that would be good, right?

By showing the most pessimistic outcome of the future, the result of humanity’s failed struggle, perhaps hundreds of years later, when the entire Civilization once again stood at a fork in the road and needed to choose the next path, there would at least be a chance to eliminate one wrong answer.

But just as Zhong Lei said.

That kind of plot was too pessimistic and hopeless, and lacked eye-catching personal heroism, so the box office prospects were likely dim.

Moreover, making a good sci-fi film required huge investments. With his current financial resources, influence, and connections in the industry, it wasn’t enough.

Writing a script was also hard work.

He wasn’t good at writing stories, but the script for this story could only be written by him personally.

So this matter needed careful planning, taking things one step at a time.

Six days later, the two returned to Hanzhou.

Several pieces of good news awaited Chen Feng.

The remaining unsold songs he had written also all found places. He prepared two for Qin Lu to release as singles.

Four more were sold, and the prices were quite satisfactory.

All of Chen Feng’s inventory from this return trip was turned into cash.

Furthermore, Lu Wei had created a new song, and its quality was very high.

This was a truly new song, one that had never appeared in the previous Timeline.

Chen Li, He Jiaqi, and many other serious musicians in China had all released new songs in the past two or three weeks, popping up like bamboo shoots after a spring rain.

Competition on major platforms like Q Music became unprecedentedly fierce.

Chen Feng had listened to most of them, feeling both surprised and relieved.

The overall quality of these new songs varied, but the past uniformity of style, the laziness of self-repetition, and the disgusting phenomenon of borrowing and plagiarism were greatly reduced.

It seemed these musicians had suddenly become enlightened, striving harder for innovation and change, daring to explore, and focusing on creativity.

The butterfly effect had intensified.

Under his constant and forced efforts to accelerate growth, the entire Chinese Music Industry was like a waking beast, charging out of the cage of constrained thinking.

A new Renaissance movement was sprouting like a budding bean shoot.

The spark of this artistic revolution was lit.

This was the ripple effect caused by Chen Feng releasing the many classic works accumulated over decades by core figures of this era in an extremely short time, like a volcanic eruption, akin to the first fission ignited when detonating a nuclear bomb.

Compared to his previous unconscious, passive changes to the future, this time Chen Feng used music as a medium to actively change the present.

This change was visible to his eyes.

He began to feel boundless anticipation for what kind of scene he would see upon entering the future again.

In such a mood, the night of February 25, 2020, arrived.

But he found it hard to sleep that night.

Because that afternoon, he received a text message.

It was from his adoptive father, whom he hadn’t been in contact with for years.

He asked Chen Feng why he still didn’t come home for the New Year, and also asked if the famous musician Chen Feng online was him.

Many complicated thoughts swirled in Chen Feng’s mind.

But he didn’t call back.

He transferred two million yuan to the bank card that hadn’t received a single living expense payment since high school.

Some things, once they happen, can never go back to the way they were, because butterflies can never fly backwards.

He fell asleep!

He woke up.

“Private Chen Feng! Fall out!”

Chen Feng looked at the familiar square face in front of him, and the corners of his mouth slowly curved upwards.

He smiled.

It was good to see this familiar face again.

He then shifted his gaze into the distance.

In the sky, the scorching sun hung high.

Under the blue sky, thousands of spindle-shaped transport craft shuttled back and forth.

These vehicles were very fast. They seemed like a tangled mess, but their travel paths were strictly separated from each other, each able to move steadily along its own stable, dedicated track.

Unlike past Earth-bound vehicles, these spindle-shaped crafts, whether hovering or accelerating, no longer emitted flames underneath. They appeared to be floating.

Chen Feng’s smile grew even brighter.

Large vehicles being able to float meant human technology had progressed again. The control over force fields had become more precise and refined, finally allowing force fields—once only used as Warship shields—to serve as the regular propulsion for vehicles.

Right at that moment, a uniquely shaped triangular fast vehicle took off from deep within the Base, rising straight up into the sky, heading directly for space beyond Earth.

As the triangular vehicle ascended, the trajectories of the other vehicles in the sky adjusted slightly in sync, forcefully clearing a straight-line path for it from the chaotic dust-storm-like situation, all without interfering with each other and without even slowing down their speed.

The computing power of the Central AI had increased further.

Inside the base, the large Bell Tower still stood.

But the training ground was larger than before.

The current training ground was strictly divided into several sections by a light blue Barrier. Chen Feng’s new recruit squad was only in one corner.

On another side, dozens of soldiers wearing pitch-black Combat Armor were sparring with each other.

These Armored Warriors seemed to be between 1.8 and 2.2 meters tall.

This was their armored height.

The tech level of the Individual Combat Armor had risen again, becoming more form-fitting, a kind of bio-armor.

The bio-armor possessed more features. Its shell looked very soft, but upon impact or during combat, the flexible armor that was hit would instantly harden.

The weapons and techniques these warriors used were also much more complex than the simple spears, blades, and shields from the Azure Dragon Armor the last time he was here.

The elastic straps on the back of their armor could be pulled off. A flick of the wrist could turn them into straight blades ranging in length from several meters to one and a half meters. Or, when retreating, dozens of light points shot outwards from the lower sides of the armor on their thighs. These light points would then swarm towards the opponent, causing chain explosions.

The residual shockwaves from their clashes slammed against the light blue energy barrier, creating water-ripple-like patterns.

This scene told Chen Feng they were engaged in real combat, not data simulation.

Chen Feng, who had spent a long time living poorly in Simulators, just wanted to say, oh my goodness.

Are they this wasteful now?

Actually using real combat for training? Aren’t they afraid of damaging the equipment? Consuming energy like this during training, aren’t they worried about energy shortages?

However, despite his shock, he still felt he had an advantage.

Those qualified to wear armor for combat training were surely elites within the base, yet the most agile among them didn’t exceed 35G.

The gap between them and Chen Feng, who currently had a 50G limit, was still clearly visible.

But he couldn’t understand the training happening in another area.

There were only two people in that area, also wearing that form-fitting bio-armor. But these two were not engaged in close combat, nor were they shooting at each other with guns.

They were very far apart from each other, and each of them had a heavy-duty truck behind them.

Both of them spread their ten fingers and held their hands forward. Beams of light linked their fingertips to screens in front of them.

They occasionally twitched their fingers, and swarms of dense micro-aircraft flew out from the trucks like locusts.

These aircraft fought in the air, using various combat modes: cluster bombing, formation volleys, and suicidal charge-and-explode tactics.

Unlike the individual combat skill drills on the other side, this was more like a scaled-down war.

The two soldiers with beams linked to their fingers were likely the Commanders of this miniature war.

With technological innovation, humanity’s combat philosophy had changed again, giving birth to new types of soldiers.

The bio-armor was equivalent to an improved version of the old Azure Dragon Armor, and this “single soldier as an army” combat philosophy could maximize the traits of elite warriors, allowing one person to perform surgical strikes against enemy formations.

If nothing else, that type of truck probably also had a version adapted for space combat, coordinating attacks with the armored warriors.

There were roughly three types of aircraft.

One type was roughly the size of a soccer ball, the largest among them. Smaller micro-aircraft, the size of flies, would fly out from inside it, rushing towards the combat zone ahead, or flanking for sneak attacks, or stealthily advancing to strike the enemy Commander.

Another type was bullet-shaped aircraft, about ten centimeters long, with very fast flying speeds.

The third type were simply the fly-sized aircraft.

The distance was too great for Chen Feng to see the specific attack methods of these things clearly. He could only judge, based on faint lights during volleys, that these aircraft used ultra-micro laser beams in close combat, along with what seemed to be missiles as thin as nails.

After observing for another ten seconds or so, Chen Feng understood the philosophy behind this command-style combat.

It was an individual combat method combining Artificial Intelligence with human judgment.

The aircraft all had many combat protocols built-in. The Commander’s control didn’t need to be precise down to a specific aircraft, shooting where. They just needed to issue a strategic-level order, and the aircraft could respond accordingly.

The light beams linked to the Commander’s ten fingers were likely the medium for issuing these orders.

The reason they weren’t using brainwave control was probably that this semi-physical link had lower transmission delay.

“Chen Feng, seen enough? Is it nice? You’ve been watching for almost five minutes. Is it pretty?”

Ding Hu’s face suddenly appeared in front of Chen Feng, blocking his view.