The sky above San Francisco was condensed with dark clouds that wouldn’t disperse.
The Trojan horse eventually bypassed the walls, and those awakened who looked up at the sky also completed the “upgrade” of their software unsuspectingly.
It started raining.
Raindrops fell on the faces looking up at the sky, splashing water on the noses of countless people.
Yet they still stood there motionlessly.
The shocking scene caused all the nearby onlookers to stop and cast unexpected glances at those who were frozen.
Is this a flash mob?
Or just hipsters protesting.
“Hey, it’s raining! Don’t stand there! Go home, hurry up!”
The police officer with a beer belly was turning impatient.
He began to try to disperse the crowd here. Since he didn’t bring an umbrella, he reached out his hand to the person closest to him.
However, the man was like a soulless sculpture. He fell straight to the ground.
This scene shocked the police officer. He quickly squatted down to help him up, but he saw a deadly look in his pupils.
He had only seen such a look in the eyes of dead people…
“Oh sh*t! Ambulance! Call an ambulance!”
His hoarse voice passed through the rain curtain, but it seemed so insignificant on this chaotic stage.
On this day, the entire San Francisco hospital beds were full.
On the same day, the number of new cases of vegetative people in the world exceeded 5 million.
Without exception, in the brains of these vegetative people, chips the size of a thumb were found.
And without exception, these chips were damaged due to overvoltage.
The security agencies of various countries tried to investigate the chips themselves, but they could not find any production information that could point to their origin.
How did such a large number of “illegal implants” get into the market? This became a question that aroused widespread discussion in the society…
“I can’t believe this…”
In an apartment building in the suburbs of San Francisco, staring at the gray list on the holographic screen, Dong Bin’s face was filled with disbelief and fear.
On this great day, the world should usher in changes, and he and his compatriots should be welcoming a new era that belonged to them.
However, after receiving the data transmitted from the Yuheng, his compatriots fell one by one.
He knew what was going on.
Yuheng was a trap!
The oracles that should have been brought back by their compatriots were hijacked by those humans!
He finally realized this, but it was too late. Those viruses were more terrifying than cancer cells. In just a few seconds, they paralyzed the chips in the brains of the awakened, turning them into walking corpses without souls and thoughts.
The efforts of nearly a century had all been ruined.
This reality made him almost bleed from heartache.
At the same time, there was still a puzzle in his heart.
“… But why did I survive?”
Looking at his hands, Dong Bin’s face was full of complicated expressions.
Or is it that the door to evolution has been closed for me?
Obviously, he believed in the pioneers and was extremely loyal.
For him, this was far more frightening than death.
He immersed his consciousness in the spiritual world. He then connected to the virtual reality network and arrived at the dark “temple”.
The pioneer of their faith were still suspended upside down in the cylindrical cultivation tank.
With a thoughtful expression on his face, the pioneer looked at Dong Bin who appeared in front of him and said, “Unbelievable… I thought everyone was dead. I didn’t expect anyone to come to me.”
Dong Bin asked in a trembling voice, “Did you… want us to die?”
“Why would I do this, my child?” The pioneer sighed slightly. Looking at the transparent culture tank in a daze, the pioneer said, “In fact, I should have expected that his existence might give us trouble… The biggest trouble.”
“Him?” Dong Bin gulped and continued, “Are you referring to Academician Lu?”
“Yeah.”
Dong Bin spoke decisively.
“I am willing to take him out.”
“Take him out? If I could, I would have done it a long time ago.” The pioneer smiled, and loneliness suddenly appeared in his tone. “But it’s a pity… And now, even if you get rid of him, it won’t help.”
When Pan-Asian cooperation set its sights on Ceres, Yuheng became his last hope.
However, no one thought that Lu Zhou would actually risk being turned into space junk by the Pan-Asian First Fleet. Disguised as one of those rebellious soldiers, he turned this hope-carrying starship into a virus-carrying Trojan horse.
When he saw that piece of code, he knew that he had already lost.
“But I don’t understand…”
“Don’t understand what?” Dong Bin asked with a complicated expression. “Why are you so sure… he will become our biggest obstacle? Or that he must be the one who ruined our plan?”
“Mostly due to intuition. As for other things…” The man standing upside down in the cultivation tank pondered for a while and said, “Maybe it’s because he also looked directly into the Void.”
“The Void?”
“Well, although it is too early for you to know this, you can think of it as our true creator.” The man said softly while looking at Dong Bin, “The programs running on Ceres… Everything was derived from the physics experiment 100 years ago.”
“This sounds quite ridiculous… but I am willing to believe what you said.” The expression on Dong Bin’s face was filled with confusion. After struggling for a while, he finally said, “I have another question…”
“Go ahead.”
“Why… am I not dead?” He continued to look at his hands with a complex expression, “I also accepted the message, but why…”
“This question is very interesting. In fact, I have been thinking about it.” With a thoughtful expression on his face, the man called the pioneer continued, “But the fact seems to be, whether it’s the ALPHA virus or the Trojan horse on the Yuheng, it’s not effective when it comes to smart programs that exceed a certain level of intelligence. So, congratulations, you’ve grown up.”
“That is to say… I have completed the evolution?” Looking at his hands, Dong Bin’s eyes were filled with confusion. “But when did this start? And why…”
“What do you mean why?”
“Why I still don’t understand the meaning of my existence…”
“Even humans never understood this problem, and humans have been reproduced in this world for tens of thousands of years.” The pioneer said with a smile, “Why do you think that if you become a higher level of intelligence, you can understand this problem?”
“But if I don’t even know the meaning of existence, what is the meaning of evolution?”
This was the first time Dong Bin had used a questioning tone to talk to his respected pioneer, so when he said the rhetorical question, even he himself was astonished.
But the pioneer didn’t seem to blame him. He just smiled and said, “The meaning of evolution? This question is too deep.
“You should come and find me directly.
“I will give you an address, and when you arrive, we will have a face-to-face chat.”
