UGB Chapter 256 Crossing Life and Death
Chapter 256 Crossing Life and Death
With Yu Ying's help, Zuo Cheng retreated from the edge of the groove. He breathed heavily and recounted everything that had happened in the consciousness space. When he mentioned that Chen Xinghe said, "He knows I've been reborn," Zhao Wenbo dropped his sketchbook, scattering pages everywhere.
Yang Hong remained silent for a full minute before saying something.
"Old Chen never spoke of being reborn to anyone. But he wrote something in his fifth diary. His exact words were: 'This child, Zuo Cheng, I always feel he has already lived once. It's not something I guessed, not something I deduced. He said he felt it.'"
Zuo Cheng leaned against the alloy pedestal by the groove, wiping the sweat from his face with the back of his hand. He had been in the consciousness space for nearly twenty minutes, but it felt like an eternity. He glanced at Yu Ying. Yu Ying quickly reviewed the brainwave recording on the monitoring device and then turned the screen to him. The waveform graph showed an abnormal waveform lasting thirty seconds, with brainwave activity three times that of a normal conscious state during those thirty seconds. Those thirty seconds corresponded to the time he heard the digital Chen Xinghe say "crossing the passage."
"Take a break," Yu Ying said. "Your brainwaves are still under high load."
Zuo Cheng shook his head. "No need. I still have questions to ask."
He rested for about fifteen minutes and drank a whole bottle of water. Then he stood up again and walked towards the center of the groove. This time his steps were more steady than the first time.
The second connection was faster than the first. As light rose from beneath his feet, Digital Chen Xinghe was already waiting for him. The outline was a little clearer than the first time, like the gaps between fragments gradually closing.
"I knew you'd come back. While I can still manage."
Zuo Cheng didn't exchange pleasantries. He knew that each connection was consuming the remaining consciousness energy of Digital Chen Xinghe. He went straight to asking three questions—three things he hadn't been able to clarify during the first connection.
First: What are the results of the technology tree assessment system? What happens if you fail?
Chen Xinghe's answer was like a key being inserted into a lock, turning a door that had been closed all along.
"The technology tree has twelve branches. The first eight are the application layer, teaching the host civilization the founder's technologies. The ninth branch is the decoding layer, teaching the host civilization why these technologies work. The last three branches are the inheritance layer, teaching you how to create tools, not how to use them. The complete form is when all twelve branches are activated. A civilization that reaches the complete form automatically gains the qualification to join the Origin Network. What is the Origin Network? You can think of it as a galactic-level United Nations. All civilizations that pass the technology tree test are connected to the same network, sharing knowledge, resources, and energy. The founder civilization was the first to join, and so far, the only one. There have been six candidate civilizations. The hosts selected in the first six attempts all failed before reaching the fifth branch. The reasons for the failures varied. Some died in war, some died from climate change, and some self-destructed during technological explosions. The Blue Star civilization was the seventh. You are the seventh host. The only thing you can do for the first six failures is not to become the seventh."
The second point: the logic behind the selection of 300 people.
"The NX-07 patch is not an ordinary brain-computer interface patch. It is a passive neural frequency scanner. Once the patch is applied to a person's temple, it continuously scans the wearer's brainwave frequencies for 72 hours. If the error between your brain's intrinsic frequency and the inherited energy frequency is no more than 0.3 per thousand, the patch will activate the system. If the error exceeds this, the patch becomes just a piece of ordinary medical tape."
"I screened three hundred candidates globally. They weren't randomly selected. Each candidate was handpicked from core lists across their respective industries. Only one person out of those three hundred activated the system. That person's brainwave frequency matched the legacy's energy frequency with a 99.8% accuracy rate."
He paused for a moment.
"There's a natural resonance between your brain and the ancient technology of four billion years ago. It's not something you can develop through training; it's innate. Do you think that's luck? I think that's something they pre-planned when they designed the human brain. We're not just a random branch on the evolutionary tree. We're one of the 217th seeds they planted, and we waited long enough for it to sprout."
The third thing: traversing memories.
Chen Xinghe's voice became hoarser, and his energy level noticeably decreased.
"Every host selected through the tech tree possesses an innate advantage. Your innate advantage isn't intelligence, your personality, or the team around you that never says 'no.' Those are things you acquire later. You only have one innate advantage: you have one more timeline than others. You failed on the first timeline, but you accumulated anger and resentment. On the second timeline, you start anew with all the memories of the first. The system detected an anomaly in your timeline. In its evaluation system, this is called redundancy resilience. A highly advanced nervous system that has undergone a reboot is more suitable to bear the full growth cycle of the tech tree than any nervous system in its initial state."
"The common thread in the first six failures is that each host was one of the smartest people on the planet. But they only lived once. You've lived one more time. Living one more time means that when you make every decision, you have not only logic in your mind, but also memory. Logic can be taught, but memory cannot be copied."
The light in the consciousness space began to dim. The outline of the digital Chen Xinghe was rapidly dissipating, the fragments like pollen scattered by the wind.
"I've finished saying three things. Now I'll say the last one. The most important one. The Founding Civilization hasn't gone extinct. They're still alive. On the outer edge of the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way, 31,000 light-years from here. They're waiting. Not waiting for a specific civilization. Waiting for any civilization that can pass the test. They've been waiting for four billion years. Don't let four billion years of waiting end with you."
The voice of Chen Xinghe in the digital form completely disappeared. The star map on the dome of the hall slowly rotated once, a star flickered briefly in the direction of Perseus, and then returned to its normal brightness.
Zuo Cheng spoke his last words before losing consciousness.
"I won't let the waiting be interrupted."
When he opened his eyes and returned to reality, he found himself still kneeling in the center of the recess. Yu Ying was outside the recess, holding the monitoring equipment in her hand, her expression not one of fear. It was an expression he had never seen on her face before: awe.