“The lock of dormant compartment A-0726 is open, please prepare for the medical staff.”
Jinling Hospital No.3, inside a post-modern renovated ward.
Next to a green potted plant, the doctor in a white coat turned over the holographic data sheet in front of him. He touched his chin with his other hand and asked casually, “Which era does this person come from?”
The nurse thought about it and replied, “It seems to be 2026.”
The doctor couldn’t help but feel emotional.
“2026… This man traveled quite far, almost a century.”
The hibernation technology before the 2050s was very crude. Almost all hospitals injected dormant bacteria directly into the blood vessels of the dormant.
This kind of simple and crude treatment method was quite inaccurate and full of risks in modern medicine, but in that era, it was considered a pioneering technique.
In addition to recovery work, they also needed to perform hemodialysis on the patient and put in the medical nano serum to remove the dormant bacteria in the body.
These procedures were not very troublesome, it was a matter of spending some money.
All the “old popsicles” frozen before the 2050s had to thank the great man named Lu Zhou from a century ago.
Had it not been for the freezing human rights protection fund he established to use these technologies in the field of freezing human resuscitation, and open it to major medical institutions in a non-profit manner, these old popsicles would wake up with a huge amount of debt in their hands.
The hibernation compartment slowly opened.
With the help of a doctor, a nurse, and two medical robots, the man lying on the hospital bed slowly opened his eyes.
“Where is this?”
“Jinling No. 3 Hospital, welcome to the future, the time now is 12:01 on January 12, 2125.”
His index finger swiped on the holographic panel. The male doctor took a document that had just been printed out from the robot man and handed it to the man lying on the bed.
“This is about the protection of the rights and interests of the dormant. Considering that you don’t know how to operate the holographic system, we have prepared a paper version for you. If there are no problems, we hope you can sign in the lower right corner.”
“What the hell is this…”
Wang Peng frowned and looked at the doctor standing by the bed. He said solemnly, “I am an agent from the Intelligence Division of the Ministry of State Security. Please report my situation to my superior. I am not joking around, I came with a mission!”
The doctor and the nurse standing nearby exchanged helpless eyes. They sighed in unison.
“… How many is this?”
“The first one this year.”
“How many what…” Wang Peng frowned and asked, “What are you… What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, but there are often people like you who don’t know anything about the current situation after waking up, then say some strange things to themselves.” The doctor reached out his index finger and tapped on the holographic panel. “I should find a volunteer carer from the same decade as you to communicate with you.”
Footsteps came from outside the ward.
After a light knock on the door, a doctor walked in.
“Is this the dormant ward A-0726?”
The doctor standing by the bed asked, “Yes, why?”
“Someone said he is a friend of the dormant and hopes to visit him to explain to him the situation here.”
The doctor standing by the hospital bed breathed a sigh of relief and turned off the holographic panel in front of him.
“That’s great, let him in.”
Wang Peng looked around with a dazed expression. The two doctors reached a consensus and withdrew the treatment team from the ward.
After a while, the footsteps outside the corridor were getting closer, then there was a soft knock on the door.
“Please come in…”
The door opened.
When Wang Peng looked at the face that appeared at the door, he was stunned.
Director Li, who was standing at the door, also had an awkward expression. He smiled while watching him calm down, then waved his hand.
“Hey…
“Long time no see.”
Wang Peng: “…”
Pretty f*cking long…
…
Director Li sat on the chair next to the hospital bed. They briefly talked about what had happened over the past century.
After listening to Director Li’s narration, Wang Peng opened his mouth and did not close his mouth for a long time.
The disintegration of the Federation of Human Alliance and the prevalence of decentralized sovereignty…
Economic crisis and de-globalization in the 2050s…
Then the era of space navigation and cross-regional cooperation organizations…
These were vocabulary and concepts he had never heard of. His whole brain seemed to be overwhelmed.
Wang Peng tried to filter out the most important pieces of information. He pinched his eyebrows and thought, then said in a reluctant tone, “That is to say… the concept of countries does not exist in this era? And we now… belong to the Pan-Asian Cooperation?”
“Not quite, it’s just a set of new concepts and repackaged things from the past.
“The Pan-Asian Cooperation headquarters and political center are in Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei. The science and technology and economic centers are in the Yangtze River Delta city group. The boundary extends from Ridao in the east to the coast of the Caspian Sea in the west. There’s also the city on Mars…”
Director Li’s tone was somewhat emotional.
“Compared to the past, we are so much stronger now.
“It’s not an exaggeration to say we are in a flourishing age!”
A bitter smile appeared on Wang Peng’s face. He didn’t know how to respond.
He pressed his index finger between his eyebrows and spoke after a while.
“Before I went dormant, the Pan-Asian Cooperation was just an economic organization…”
“I know, and it was a marginalized one,” Director Li said. His face was stained with melancholy.
A cooperation, which no one was interested in before, suddenly evolved into a ruling god in the sky.
Even though it wasn’t like this was unacceptable to him…
It was just that the changes were too big.
“What about you now?”
“I’m working as a volunteer in the hospital, this job is quite interesting.” Director Li smiled and continued, “It’s not because of the money. The state subsidies provided to me are pretty generous. The Pan-Asian Cooperation gives me 10,000 credits to my personal account every month until I die… You should receive the same. After all, we’re kind of on a work mission.”
Director Li had a complicated look on his face.
Although Director Li came to this new era with a different mission than Wang Peng, everything changed when he woke up. He was then told by the authorities that the mission was canceled. All this made Director Li couldn’t help but doubt his life. Why did he come to this new era in the first place?
However, it pleased him to see the development of his homeland.
He also liked his current life. He occasionally did unpaid volunteer work, gave psychological counseling to those who woke up from dormancy, taught some children, and told the story of Professor Lu and the controllable fusion journey.
Time was flying by.
But…
For Wang Peng, such a fact was somewhat unacceptable.
After gulping, Wang Peng looked at Director Li and spoke.
“Where is… your family?”
Director Li smiled.
“Do you mean my offspring? They are well, but they were a little surprised at their ancestor who popped out of nowhere. We often get together to have a meal and talk about the past. But we don’t live together. After all, the generation gap is too big, and they also have their own things to do. Besides, I don’t need them to support me.
“But… you will definitely not get used to it at the beginning. Interpersonal relationships are fragmented and it is difficult to make friends with differences in values. Fortunately, technology is quite advanced. When I feel lonely, I can hire a robot as a companion. Take your time, you are younger than me. One day, you will get used to these things.”
Director Li stood up from his seat.
“Today, I came here to see you mainly to tell you about what has happened over the years. In fact, I only woke up a year ago. The people from the Freezing Human Rights Protection Foundation will come over and check your identity and see if we can arrange a preparatory school for you. After that, there will be someone who will teach you how to use AR glasses and holographic bracelets, and how to integrate into this new era… I won’t bother you any longer.
“When you’re discharged from the hospital, let’s have a meal together. The thing that satisfies me the most in this fancy era is probably the food.”
Before leaving, Director Li said that he would see him again tomorrow.
After Director Li left, Wang Peng read the document in his hand and finally signed his name on the last page.
His allowance was slightly less than Director Li, only 8,000 credits per month.
However, according to Director Li, the purchasing power of this kind of credit point was much stronger than that of yuan back then. A good car would only cost about 100,000, while a bottle of Coke could be purchased at a vending machine for only 1 credit.
Wang Peng was not really worried about money.
He had worked in the military before, and he never cared about money.
8,000 credits a month was obviously enough for himself. Even if he didn’t do anything, he could live a prosperous life under the support of the Pan-Asian Cooperation.
However, before closing his eyes, his superior’s instructions to him have lingered in his mind.
Should I continue my mission?
Wang Peng stood in the bathroom of the ward, looking at himself in a mirror made from unknown materials. This was the first time that Wang Peng saw in his own eyes a trace of confusion that shouldn’t be there…
