Chapter 93: I Met a Ghost

Chapter 93: I Met a Ghost

First, he changed Zhong Lei’s fate, forced her to further tap her potential, created the era-transcending song “Baptism of Fire”, which became the spiritual pillar of a generation and helped humanity complete a technological advancement.

Second, he changed Ou Junlang’s fate, enabling the Ouhe Group to create more era-transcending scientific and technological achievements, becoming the core foundation for the technological advancement.

Third, more advanced Materials Science and fundamental sciences, along with a special researcher, Ou Qinglan, who used her personal time to complete a Detector, pinpointed that the source of the explosion did not come from an external attack, but from inside the Warship.

Fourth, he personally threw himself into the front lines of the war, honed superb Azure Dragon Armor operation skills, and raised the entire Human Civilization’s Individual Combat Armor operation level by a notch. Although it seemed useless in the end, if not for day after day of training and relentless self-push, Chen Feng could not have maximized the kinetic energy of the Azure Dragon Armor – Modified at the final moment, nor could he have returned to the Tianxin at the last second to witness the explosion of that chess piece from a bystander’s perspective.

Fifth, and this was the most important point.

He still did not understand how the enemy hid the bomb inside the chess piece, or what the bomb’s principle was. It was only so small, with no detectable energy fluctuations, yet it could utterly destroy the entire massive Warship the moment it detonated.

This undoubtedly belonged to a technological field he could not yet comprehend, one Humanity had not mastered at all.

But this seemed to conversely indicate a problem: the enemy was not flawless, nor were they as invincible and terrifying as imagined!

Otherwise, the enemy would have had no need to use a scheme!

Schemes, in fact, exposed weakness.

The enemy had flaws; they were not absolutely undefeatable.

Many things were illusions, shrouded in layers of mist.

Possessing a light curtain capable of enveloping the Solar System suggested a technological level so high it should be incomprehensible to Earthlings.

According to the Kardashev scale, it should at least be somewhere between a Type II Civilization – Planetary Civilization and a Type III Civilization – Galactic Civilization.

Indeed undefeatable, beyond reach, they should have simply wiped out humanity in a more direct and overwhelming manner, like Thanos snapping his fingers.

But in their actual actions, the opponent adopted an extremely conservative approach of infiltration and internal sabotage.

These two situations conflicted with each other, were very incongruous, and seemed highly illogical.

There must be a loophole in the middle that humans were still unable to perceive, waiting for Chen Feng to discover.

This was the answer Chen Feng found during this thousand-year journey into the future, an answer only attainable by standing on the frontline battlefield as a firsthand witness.

Looking at the same event from different angles gave completely different impressions.

When a Subsistence Allowance Recipient watched TV, seeing the firework-filled expanse of space, they might have a sense of being snapped away by Thanos.

But as a frontline soldier, witnessing the chess piece explosion firsthand and piecing together the details and process, he realized that for this finger-snap of annihilation, the alien Civilization had actually made thorough preparations.

This was the most important answer he had drawn so far.

Although, in terms of outcome, this answer held no significance for Human Civilization, because humanity had already been defeated.

But for him personally, it was of great importance, boosting his confidence immensely.

The above five points were Chen Feng’s comprehensive summary of his own journey through these thousand years.

This was the first step of deduction completed in his mind before he woke up.

The focus of the second step of deduction was precisely on Tang Tianxin’s tears and the chess piece in her hand.

He began to analyze what kind of scheme the alien Civilization had used, and how they had achieved it.

Tang Tianxin was not a weak person; she would never cry from fear of death.

There was only one explanation: at the final moment, she realized the source of the explosion was her chess piece, and her mental state instantly underwent a drastic change.

The part of her mind that had been frozen, the region belonging to emotions, became active again.

She believed she was the traitor who brought destruction, or at least one of them.

The beliefs she had long held in her heart instantly collapsed, plunging her into intense remorse and pain.

She realized the longstanding strangeness of her own state.

She had been infiltrated all along, had her thoughts subtly altered, developed this pointless chess-playing hobby, and personally brought the bomb onto the Warship, causing humanity’s defeat without even seeing the enemy.

Tang Tianxin’s self-blame stemmed from being too close to the situation and having no time for reflection and analysis.

Chen Feng was both a bystander and a firsthand witness, and he had the opportunity for examination and reflection afterward.

Through the unsolvable cheat of the time loop, he could see from the past a faint trace of the real enemy’s path.

Since all captains other than Tang Tianxin were forcibly given an unusual yet plausible personal hobby, it indicated that this infiltration was long-term and all-encompassing without blind spots.

Tang Tianxin was not the only victim of the infiltration.

Chen Feng had not only looked at data on contemporary captains.

In his leisure time, he had also used his privileges as the All-Army Competition champion to browse through the files of many past-generation captains as if reading storybooks.

He could trace it back to five hundred years ago, around 2500, shortly after the World Government was established.

Chen Feng discovered that from that time onward, captains had already started developing strange hobbies.

The degree of infiltration did not forcibly twist their personalities; it did not fundamentally shake or replace the captains’ thinking.

The person was still the same person, but compared to their original nature, a little extra something was attached.

So the answer came out.

As early as now, five hundred years into the future, but five hundred years ago from the future, at the beginning of the World Government, humans began to be infiltrated.

But perhaps this infiltration came at a certain cost, or perhaps due to distance or various other possible reasons, it could only target a small number of people, namely the captains, or perhaps some higher-level Leaders.

Moreover, to avoid detection, the infiltration’s effect was not strong; it lay hidden in a very covert manner, only erupting suddenly at the final moment.

No one knew they had been infiltrated; everyone believed their decision-making motives were perfectly fine.

But the fact was, the invisible enemy had calculated humanity thoroughly from the very start.

Therefore, many policies over the past five hundred years seemed strange and hard to understand to Chen Feng.

Human Clones and artificial gene synthesis, suppression and eradication of human emotions, indulgence towards broken-down Subsistence Allowance Recipients, blocking the upward mobility and learning opportunities for the lower strata of humanity…

On the surface, these strategies were all for more efficiently maintaining stability and accelerating technological progress, and they indeed achieved decent results.

But progress that does not lead to victory is always meaningless progress.

The so-called successful acceleration was merely a result of the World Government’s self-delusion, costing an entire generation’s lives in exchange for one technological revolution.

Once Civilization’s history was closed with a period, no one would ever know what real acceleration should have looked like.

Chen Feng now had a different view.

Strangling human emotions, turning everyone into machines and parts, extreme specialization of labor, leaving only the continuation of Civilization as the sole motive for social ideology, was actually not perfect.

Imaginative thinking and creative inspiration often do not come from specialization, but from broad and extensive knowledge.

Under a societal framework where the military system was the main body, human creativity was stifled.

The so-called high-welfare society brought by seemingly excessive productivity satisfied only basic survival needs, but fell far short of the needs required to solve the crisis and break out of the Solar System.

Productivity was only relatively excessive, not absolutely excessive.

One could hide the truth of the Doomsday to prevent panic and terrorism, but one should not hide science from the people, stifling creativity and upward mobility.

If everyone could be mobilized to work together, perhaps humanity could have broken through the technological bottleneck without the need for such a tragic story as the predecessor of the Xuanwu Institute.

From the very beginning, overly mechanistic logic should never have been allowed to replace human emotions in making choices for human genetic combination.

The probability of people born this way becoming Subsistence Allowance Recipients was too high, and their willpower was too broken.

Like Tang Tianxin, seemingly born from free combination, her essence was the same as the result of machine selection.

Among countless Synthetic Humans, why was Chen Feng the only genius? Because he was inherently different; others did not have this blessing of fate.

What should decide the reproduction of the human race should be the reproductive instinct formed through millions of years of evolution; offspring should not be the so-called optimal solution from theoretical calculation.

Assuming there were no enemies, assuming humanity could continue to exist, the possible eventual outcome of such an “optimal solution” would still be the mechanization of humanity, ultimately being completely replaced by machines, which would be another conceptual form of extinction.

Reproduction should be an emotional product; only then would it have infinite possibilities.

So, Chen Feng had reason to believe that behind the birth of a fully ideologically unified militarized World Government in this Timeline, there might have been the enemy’s secret guidance, making it a dead-end path.

An impulse sprouted deep in Chen Feng’s heart. He should, and he must, find a way to change the future’s landscape.

With his current abilities, he couldn’t just rely on imagination to figure out and try another path, because he didn’t know what the right path was either.

But undoubtedly, there must be more creative social structures, possibly any one of a parliamentary system, monarchy, democracy, Federation, or a pure military system.

But he believed he would find the right path sooner or later, because he had the chance to try and make mistakes.

He would try to change the future and observe the results of his changes.

If it was wrong, he would start over again.

He would keep finding the wrong results, then eliminate the wrong choices, eventually converging on the one and only correct path.

The moment he understood this, he opened his eyes.

He was no longer completely ignorant about the future disaster.

He got up, washed up. Chen Feng looked down, fiddling with his phone, starting to think about matters of this era.

The goal in his heart became a bit clearer, and he was very aware of what he should do next.

It didn’t take long for him to make a decision. He would wait another half hour, then contact Zhong Lei who had gone to Zhonghai to work on the song “Monotony,” and at the same time book his flight ticket to Zhonghai.

Yes, he intended to snatch away the achievements that originally belonged to Zhong Lei, with an even more shameless attitude.

The composition and arrangement of “Baptism of Fire.”

This made him seem despicable, but he had his own motives.

At least this time, copying the song wasn’t for money or fame.

The ultimate height the song “Baptism of Fire” could reach was determined by two main factors.

The lyrics and the music.

The lyrics were already written by Zhong Lei, so they couldn’t be copied.

But the composition work, which determined the other half of the artistic achievement, Zhong Lei definitely hadn’t completed it all yet.

Even if she had a rough idea in her mind, at least she hadn’t revealed it in front of Chen Feng.

Then, given Zhong Lei’s personality, even if Chen Feng copied it right in front of her, she definitely wouldn’t think in the direction of plagiarism or theft. Instead, she would surely believe they were once again sharing a mental connection.

“Baptism of Fire” completed this way would still possess the exact same artistic achievement as before. It could still become a military song and preserve the achievements of the Xuanwu Institute.

But another change occurred.

After this portion of artistic achievement was taken from Zhong Lei, her talent would surely be released in a different but equivalent form through another song!

Then perhaps, besides “Baptism of Fire,” Chen Feng could squeeze out another work from the future generations that was equally soul-stirring and could inspire a whole generation.

Besides Zhong Lei, Chen Feng also needed to firmly grasp another key person: his not-yet-official disciple, Ou Junlang.

Standing on the balcony, Chen Feng took a deep breath, gazing at the rising sun on the horizon.

Then he looked down again at Ou Junlang’s contact on his phone, a deep smile hanging on his face.

This time, if I don’t make you into a megastar for the ages, make you unable to return to the Ouhe Group for your whole life, then I’ll change my surname to Cheng!

First, go find Ou Junlang to sign a contract, achieve deeper cooperation, making it easier to control the quality of the works produced by this Fatty.

Having made up his mind, he immediately leaped, flying out from the balcony.

“Weiwei, have the Shuttle come pick me up to…”

“…”

Crap, I’m already back!

This world doesn’t have Shuttles!

This is the fourth floor!

No one will catch me!

So thought Chen Feng, flying through the air, performing a stable free fall under 1G conditions.

What the hell have I done?

Thump!

Chen Feng didn’t die. Instead, he landed steadily.

His feet felt a bit numb, but that was all.

Chen Feng stared blankly at his own hands, then looked up at the height above.

On the fourth-floor balcony, his drying underwear was swaying gently in the breeze.

His thoughts raced.

I really did jump from the fourth floor, but I’m completely unharmed.

What happened?

What did I do in that moment in the air?

He began to recall.

He quickly remembered his actions during his free fall when he was completely submerged in his subconscious.

The instincts gained from nearly a year of Azure Dragon Armor training made him unconsciously adjust his posture, as if wearing the Azure Dragon Armor and descending from the sky.

He succeeded. Using the bending of his feet upon landing, he successfully cushioned the impact force.

But…

He looked down again at the basketball shoes that had burst from the instantaneous heavy pressure, scratching his head.

The floor-to-ceiling height of this loft apartment was about 5.8 meters. Four floors totaled roughly 15 meters.

After jumping from the fourth floor, free-falling 15 meters, his speed upon touching the ground should have been 12.12 meters per second.

To cushion the force, after squatting down, his center of gravity lowered about 30cm before he stabilized.

So, from the moment he touched the ground until he completely stabilized, he experienced an acceleration of 247.34 meters per second squared, which is 25.23G.

Basically similar to being hit by a truck. Yet in the end, he was completely unharmed, only his shoes were wrecked.

Have I awakened superpowers?

Chen Feng got goosebumps all over.

Wait, how did I calculate the answer so easily?

My mental arithmetic and logical thinking abilities aren’t this strong!

Chen Feng began to realize something was off.

From after being blown to death until now, his thinking had been very clear. Even when encountering doubtful or difficult points, he could quickly draw inferences and deduce the correct answer from other aspects. It was completely unlike before, where a little thought would lead him into a mental dead end, then he would get irritable and want to give up.

That’s why he could so easily digest such a massive amount of information, tease out various answers, and make decisions quickly.

Adding this failed suicide jump and the super mental arithmetic ability, there could only be one explanation for the phenomena on him.

Just before being blown to death, he had recently injected the Coagulation Serum. At the time of death, he was still that perfect soldier.

Each time he returned to the past, his physical constitution was preserved.

This time was the same. Only, what was preserved wasn’t just the results of training—the effects of the Coagulation Serum were completely preserved too!