Chapter 114: The World is Drunk, I Alone Am Sober

Chapter 114: The World is Drunk, I Alone Am Sober

A pitch-black night, with a bright moon and sparse stars.

Chen Feng stood on the balcony of his personal suite, gazing at the sky, his mind wandering far away.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A notification sounded. The owner of a room downstairs had returned.

Chen Feng picked up his communicator. “Brother Hu, are you there?”

Ding Hu’s slightly weary voice came through. “What’s up?”

“Wanna chat?”

“I’ll be right there.”

Three minutes later, Ding Hu appeared on Chen Feng’s balcony. He sat down, crossing his legs. Holding a wine glass, he commented, “Tsk tsk, a Captain’s treatment is really good. Even the drinks are fresher than mine.”

“Brother Hu, don’t tease me. Did you just come back from a mission?”

Chen Feng noticed several red marks on Ding Hu’s face. They were traces left behind shortly after deep wound repair by an Atomic Therapy Device.

“Yeah. There was a collapse in the lower section of the mining station on Rhea. Some equipment was damaged. I took a maintenance team over.”

“And these on your face?”

“There was another collapse while we were setting up the equipment.”

Chen Feng was slightly startled. “Ah? Were there any casualties?”

“We lost three comrades. Thankfully, the mission was ultimately completed successfully.”

Chen Feng remained silent for a long time.

“Brother Hu, when you saw your comrades sacrifice themselves, were you sad?”

“Why should I be sad? You have no idea how important that mining station is. Dying in the line of duty for a major mission is an honor. I don’t grieve over my comrades’ sacrifices. I only feel proud of them. I also wouldn’t want others to have any emotional fluctuations because of me if I die in the future, affecting their judgment.”

“But they still died, didn’t they? How can you be so cold-blooded?”

Ding Hu thought for a few seconds. “I tried to save them at the time. I used my body to block the collapsing ice. But their engineering armor wasn’t as sturdy as Starblade Armor. They still died. If possible, I’d rather have died in their place. I’m not cold-blooded. I just know I shouldn’t be sad.”

Chen Feng pondered Ding Hu’s words for a long time.

“Always living so rationally seems a bit less like a human, more like a robot.”

Ding Hu asked in return, “How so?”

“Let’s talk about the definition of life first. Brother Hu, do you know the structure of an E. coli bacteriophage?”

As he spoke, Chen Feng had his Intelligent Assistant, Weiwei, project a 3D diagram of a bacteriophage.

Ding Hu had clearly never paid attention to such primitive knowledge before. Seeing it for the first time, he found it quite interesting.

Chen Feng pointed at the projection and asked, “Doesn’t this look like the lunar module used during humanity’s first moon landing?”

Ding Hu nodded. “Quite similar. It’s really a delicate biological structure. Nature is incredible.”

“Do you think this is a living thing or a machine?”

Ding Hu thought about it. “In a way, it’s a machine.”

Chen Feng asked again, “But bacteriophages also have DNA.”

Ding Hu considered it. “Okay, it’s a living thing. But through artificial synthesis, we can directly create bacteriophages now.”

Chen Feng smiled. “So isn’t that a paradox? We can synthesize it, but nature also synthesized it. Is it a machine or life?”

Ding Hu was stumped by the question and fell silent.

Chen Feng took a deep breath. “Actually, we humans are just tens of millions of times more complex than a bacteriophage. Our essence is really the same.”

Ding Hu firmly disagreed. “But to this day, we still can’t use an Atomic Device to directly create a human.”

Chen Feng said, “That’s only now. What about after another thousand years? Do you think it’s possible?”

Ding Hu thought for a full five minutes. “Maybe?”

Chen Feng didn’t answer him further. He only said, “Theoretically, if we can create atoms point by point, then we should be able to create humans from nothing, point by point. But why did researchers abandon this research? And why do all theoretical conclusions point to one answer: that it can never be done, because the difficulty coefficient is infinitely large?”

Ding Hu was surprised. “You actually looked into this?”

“Yes, I read all the related articles. The researchers analyzed many difficulties, but in my opinion, they were all way off the mark. They only got one conclusion right: the difficulty is infinitely large. But isn’t the essence of the human body just various organic molecules combined and stacked together? Why is the difficulty coefficient infinitely large?”

Ding Hu was stumped by Chen Feng again.

“Brother Hu, I’ll tell you the answer. Because we can replicate the body, but we cannot replicate the mind. We cannot replicate emotions. When thoughts and emotions become complex to a certain degree, they become infinitely complex things. They can even encompass the entire Universe. So they can never be artificially synthesized. We can synthesize a human body, but it’s just an empty shell. We can install a chip in the shell, make it act under the drive of bioelectricity, making movements that look exactly like a real person’s. But it truly is not a person.”

What Chen Feng was talking about was research conducted by a group of scientists as early as two hundred years ago. The papers were publicly available, even in middle school curricula.

Of course, after multiple failures, the government had shut down the project.

Although the project failed and was considered highly unethical, it did provide important scientific references.

Ding Hu frowned, looking at Chen Feng. “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying, when friends, brothers, comrades, or family die, we should be sad when we need to be sad. Because emotions are essential to us. Without rich emotions, humans cease to be human. They become machines. I even think that entities like bacteriophages, or any animal or plant whose actions are solely based on biological instinct and cannot use emotional judgment to act against instinct, are not truly alive!”

“These are machines created by nature. The difference between nature’s machines and the machines humans create is simply that the machines created by the cooperation of universal laws and nature are more precise. Human-made machines haven’t reached that level of precision yet. There’s no essential difference.”

“Only the birth of rich emotions represents a living organism stepping out of the category of a machine. As for us humans, the reason we are an important race surviving in the Universe, the reason we want to continue existing, what we need to preserve isn’t our physical bodies. It’s the collective thoughts of all humanity! It is because we have thoughts and emotions that we have the right to consider ourselves a true Civilization!”

“Without emotions, what difference is there between us and the rare animals and plants that went extinct in the long river of history? Amplified to the scale of the Universe, we humans would just be a pitiful, extinct rare species, a precious machine.”

“The reason we refuse to give up, the reason we still want to keep living, the reason there have been people willing for hundreds of years to board ships loaded with gene banks and crash into the Invader Barrier outside the Solar System, trying to break through and continue the race, even when there’s no hope at all, with people taking up the cause one after another… it’s because our emotions tell us we don’t want to perish!”

“Even sacrifice—it’s the deepest emotion hidden in everyone’s heart that makes us willing to sacrifice, not some bullshit logic! If we followed logic strictly, no one would want to die! Because survival is the most fundamental, most basic logic! Our emotions have always been defeating logic. So why can’t all of you ever wake up?”

“Brother Hu, wake up! Logic is indeed useful, but no matter how perfect logic is, it can never completely replace the need for emotion. You’re like this. General Tang is like this. Everyone is like this. Can’t you all really see that this situation is wrong?”

Chen Feng grabbed Ding Hu’s shoulders and shook him violently.

“Your comrade just sacrificed himself! You risked your life to save others and still couldn’t save them! You should be very sad! Even if you’re strong enough not to cry, at least show me a sad expression!”

A long time passed, as if frozen.

Chen Feng almost thought he had succeeded.

But Ding Hu shook his head woodenly. “I can make a sad expression. But that would still be a rational judgment on my part, not an action born from emotion. I still don’t quite understand what you mean.”

Chen Feng turned his head to look at the standalone villa belonging to Tang Tianxin, the Base Commander.

He knew she had heard his words too.

Chen Feng’s speech was originally meant for everyone to hear.

It was just a pity that it seemed no one could understand.

The night sky remained tranquil, with only the distant whoosh of Shuttles constantly piercing through the air.

Chen Feng waved his hand. “Brother Hu, go get some rest. I’m tired. You must be tired too.”

He hadn’t felt this kind of loneliness in a long time.

This was the situation he had once dreamed of, because he himself was the first person who didn’t want to get involved with anyone, just wanting to pass through a thousand years and drift along.

But now he particularly hated this state.

This damn place was truly awful.

Ding Hu nodded. “Then I’ll go.”

“Go ahead.”

“Actually, I forgot to mention one thing. Among the sacrificed technicians, Liu Weiwei was my assigned partner. She is the mother of my son. I’ve also watched old movies and TV shows. In such situations, I really should feel heart-wrenching pain. But I just can’t feel it.”

As he said this, Ding Hu shook his head, turned around, and left.

Chen Feng felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar.

This was the heaviest blow he had received since he began striving with determination.

It almost made him break down on the spot.

But half an hour later, he finally managed to pull himself together.

Because he remembered again that single tear Tang Tianxin shed during the last final moment.

That single glistening tear floating in the air suddenly became the firmest anchor point deep in his heart.

Given the current intensity of the infiltration, even if humanity perished, even if Tang Tianxin discovered her little hobby was a pitiful conspiracy, and she finally realized she had been used, she might feel pain, regret, dismay, despair. But she shouldn’t have shed a tear.

Her tear proved that in that instant, the basic human emotions within her body revived. The passively dormant amygdala regained its vitality.

There were two possibilities.

In that instant, the latent psychological suggestion weakened.

Or, because Tang Tianxin was pregnant, she secreted more progesterone, making the maternal part of her emotions particularly active, breaking through the shackles of the infiltration suggestion.

Chen Feng took a deep breath and reminded himself.

There is still hope.

I must not give up. I must not despair.

Looking around, in this whole world, I am the only awake person.

I have to get her pregnant.

I must try to awaken that part of human emotion within her. I must open a breach in the nearly unbreakable wall built by the psychological suggestion!

Chen Feng’s intuition told him that if he succeeded this time, maybe next time he could completely eradicate the psychological infiltration.

He gritted his teeth and thought.

Am I not dazzling or outstanding enough yet?

Then I’ll become even more dazzling!

Since emotional tactics don’t work, I’ll just keep getting stronger. Stronger beyond compare. I’ll use my fresh, tender body to seduce her!

Chen Feng opened a technical document.

The document was about the Gene Fluid injection that every baby inevitably undergoes at birth, something one can only experience once in a lifetime.

He wanted to gamble.

He gambled that this body of his, copied and pasted from a thousand years ago, had never received a Gene Fluid injection.

He gambled that the effects of the Serum and the Gene Fluid only looked similar, but were different in essence.

He gambled that he could undergo another qualitative change.

Even if the mortality rate for babies was one-third, and for adults it was twice that of babies, as high as two-thirds.

He decided to gamble anyway.