Chapter 382: The Plan of Four Sub-Eras
“In other words, I’ve slept for a total of 68 hours, which is less than three days?”
Looking at the calendar displayed on the phone, Chen Chen wore a look of wonder. “I spent more than a month in another world but only three days have pa.s.sed in reality?”
As if something had occurred to him, Chen Chen turned his head again and asked, “For the past three days, has everything been normal with the USB flash drive?”
“Yes, except for its sudden appearance here after you woke up, there has been no change in the USB flash drive at other times.”
Little X nodded her little head and said with joy, “So, have you solved the hidden danger?”
“That’s right. It was a close call, but I finally found the other party and killed him. It turns out that the antimeme was my predecessor...”
“Do you mean... The previous holder of the USB drive?” Little X asked in bewilderment.
When Chen Chen replied, he could not help sweating a little. The antimeme itself had the ability to swallow all relevant information, so it was almost impossible to comprehend. Nonetheless, even in this case, he found a way to ruin its plans.
He was able to do this not just because of the calm thinking he had developed in reality, but also because he had been very lucky...
“But even now, I still don’t know who that person was, what his name was or what job he did.”
Thinking of this, Chen Chen could not help frowning. “X, check the Internet to see if there’s any information. The effect of the antimeme has been nullified, so the Earth Federation is very likely to have recalled ‘his’ existence. Maybe we can find out about his past on the Internet.”
“Let me try.”
Little X agreed, then she closed her eyes immediately, and began maniacally searching the entire Internet for any suspicious information.
These snippets of information were fished out one by one, after which they were quickly a.n.a.lyzed and calculated by Little X using extremely terrifying computing power. Then, any excess data was discarded. It was not until half an hour later that Little X had roughly scanned through certain websites.
“No, I still can’t find any clues.”
Little X shook his head. “Should I turn on the Prophet System to reconstruct our target’s past?”
“There’s no need for that.”
Chen Chen waved one hand. “Two possibilities: First, my predecessor is not yet dead and the antimeme is still working, so no information can be found online; second, the movies on the USB flash drive were all released from 1998 to 2003, that is to say, the owner of the USB flash drive might have vanished more than 20 years ago, so there’s nothing on the Internet either.
“If it’s the first one, then it’s useless to turn on the Prophet System. If it’s the second one, it won’t be necessary because the Internet may not remember his existence, but it’s impossible that the high-level members of the Earth Federation wouldn’t know. After all, the emergence of the Earth Federation was advocated by the previous owner himself. Now it has only been 20 years since then. I believe that many of the high-level members are still alive. If they suddenly remember everything, they will naturally start to investigate. Then, we’ll be able to discover the traces of their activities.”
“So we’ll just see how things play out?”
Little X pouted and sat on one side, a little bored. She started to toy with a water gla.s.s.
Chen Chen laughed. “Well, since there’s no threat now, let me go out.”
“Okay,” Little X agreed. The crane and the other equipment that had been waiting for a long time began to dismantle the outer layers and armor of the isolation room.
As this went on, Chen Chen’s heart suddenly leaped. He stood up, then sat down in front of the laptop, and directly inserted the USB flash drive he was holding.
When Chen Chen opened the USB flash drive on the computer, he noticed that the four very familiar movies on the USB flash drive were now completely gone...
Those four movies were Ju-on, Final Destination, One Missed Call, and Ring.
In addition, there were many more movies on the USB flash drive. These movies were diverse, including science-fiction, historical dramas, and even modern romances.
These were all placed here by the FBI in the other dimension when Chen Chen was having his dream.
“Sure enough, the movies in the USB flash drive have changed...”
Chen Chen could not help feeling a little stupefied. When he first got the USB drive, a question had occurred to him: if the USB drive could only accommodate movies that were in line with reality, why were the four horror movies there?
Could it be that the four horror movies were not unrealistic?
This idea had occupied Chen Chen’s mind for a long, long time, causing him constant apprehension, for fear that one day he would slip up and play the four horror films by mistake.
However, now, this worry was finally gone because these four films had been opened in another world, and then deleted by Chen Chen himself.
Still, now it seemed that Chen Chen’s concerns and caution were not groundless. If he had carelessly opened Ju-on when he first got the USB flash drive, well, he only had to look at what happened in the dream world to know the outcome.
“But then again, what was the reason the previous owner would resort to fusing himself with the antimeme? And he also placed four horror films in the USB flash drive, waiting for someone to take the bait?”
Chen Chen had a vague theory, but if he wanted to verify it, he would have to head to the movie, Event Horizon...
Event Horizon was jokingly called the prequel of Warhammer 40,000 by many netizens because the setting was somewhat similar to the backstory of the tabletop game Warhammer 40,000. In particular, the unknown s.p.a.ce that the s.p.a.ceship entered was just like the subs.p.a.ce in the Warhammer world. It was also meant to represent a certain kind of madness, chaos, despair, and so on.
Of course, currently, Chen Chen would not enter that movie just to die. Even if he were to go, he would have to wait until his own technology was sufficiently advanced. Now, he still had not even made it to s.p.a.ce, let alone explore the ant.i.thesis of the human world — the subs.p.a.ce.
This was comparable to opening Ju-on without sufficient strength — barging rashly into Event Horizon might very well kill him too.
Thinking of this, Chen Chen understood the importance of having a steady foundation. Otherwise, he would end up like his predecessor. Even though the entire world had formed into a federation, that guy still ended up having to fuse himself with an antimeme, becoming something that was neither human nor spirit.
At this time, with a creaking sound from outside the isolation room, the door was finally opened fully.
“Sir G.o.dfather, the armor has been disa.s.sembled. You can come out now.”
Little X interrupted Chen Chen’s pondering and notified him from behind.
“Coming.”
Chen Chen plugged out the USB drive and walked out of the isolation room.
Nonetheless, this time, Little X’s Black Knight clone was following Chen Chen closely. As Chen Chen was a rather fast walker, Little X had to hop and skip to keep up with Chen Chen’s pace. It looked a little funny from a distance.
“s.p.a.ceX has signed a contract of intent with us during the three days of your absence. If everything goes smoothly, we’ll be able to buy 10% of s.p.a.ceX’s shares in just a few weeks.”
Little X conscientiously reported as she walked. “However, if we want to invest in s.p.a.ceX, we must first report to the committee on foreign investment, CFIUS. Now CFIUS has actively contacted s.p.a.ceX to confirm this. We can only invest after obtaining their approval.”
Chen Chen could not refrain from frowning when he heard this. As all this was related to the aeros.p.a.ce industry, it was indeed difficult to acquire a company like s.p.a.ceX. Moreover, the West itself was a bunch of rogues, especially North America, the first continent of the Earth Federation. What happened years ago was still vivid in everyone’s mind and Chen Chen was reluctant to end up like that company.
Therefore, when he founded his company, Chen Chen had not considered North America at all.
“Then let’s offer a reward.”
Chen Chen thought for a while and commanded, “Announce a reward on the G.o.d’s Forbidden Zone forum. As long as a family is willing to help us lobby the authorities, we’ll pay them 10,000 information points and the family that’s successful in their lobbying will get around 50,000 to 100,000 information points.”
“Very well. But recently Rodriguez, Edwards, Munster, your servants Blanc, and several other consortia have provided some updates.”
Little X continued. “Dozens of North American council members simultaneously called for investigations into our company at the district council meeting. Because we hold a large part of Osmond Biotech’s shares, they suspect that we’re stealing the technology for Alzheimer’s drugs...”
Chen Chen’s steps halted and a sullen look came into his eyes.
“This is why I hate opening a company in the West.”
Chen Chen snorted coldly. “Are our members from the plutocratic families useless? They’d better do their best to suppress this proposal. I don’t want to see this proposal implemented.”
“Understood.” Little X nodded.
It must be said that, with the growing influence of Chen Chen’s company, it had fully attracted the attention of Western regimes. If Chen Chen had not roped in a large number of European and American consortia with the “mankind anti-aging project”, the ax would have fallen long ago in the form of North American sanctions. This was what happened to the company which developed 5G back then.
At this time, it was clear that the ax of sanctions was still hanging over the head of Blacklight Biotechnology. It was up to the financial groups in G.o.d’s Forbidden Zone to lobby the North American officials and continue to pressure the district council to prevent the sanctions from being issued.
However, in this matter, it was obvious that these consortia could not hold on for long.
“I used to think that we could reach the point where we would be unstoppable before Western regimes such as North America and Europe could react, but now it seems that they still can’t take this sitting down.”
Chen Chen sighed in a low voice. “Since the other party has already noticed me, then we should do our best to expand. There’s no need to keep a low profile for the sake of hiding ourselves. Just let them see that we’re not something they can keep under their thumb!”
“Are we going to go all out?”
Little X was taken aback. “We have a lot of technology now in our hands. What technology should we release first?”
Chen Chen thought for a while. “Naturally, AD-001 won’t do. I still plan to wait until May next year to see if the plot in the movie will come true by then. Moreover, we have already sold various anti-cancer targeted drugs, and there’s no recent biomedicine that is truly essential. In that case, we don’t have to stick to the biomedicine industry.”
“Then, let’s try VR.”
After thinking about it, Chen Chen sneered. “Didn’t we use Musk’s lace electrode technology? In this case, we can go with the flow and claim that we’ve developed a new electrode technology. Using what we got from the Elysium’s dimension as a sample, the new electrode technology will be released and made into a VR device. The VR device’s technology can be obtained from Ready Player One.”
Chen Chen said as he walked, “In this way, we can quickly earn a lot of money and not be restricted by finances.”
“Are you going to change the online landscape?”
Little X was shocked when she heard this. Of course, she had watched the movie Ready Player One. According to the movie, the world was devastated due to a world war. Due to a scarcity of resources and a low quality of life, people’s attention shifted to virtual worlds, hoping to find some comfort there. As such, the game Oasis came into being and quickly unified the entire Internet.
From 80-year-olds to 18-year-olds, everyone regarded Oasis as an indispensable part of their lives. Simply put, Oasis was the Internet and the Internet was Oasis.
However, according to current trends, the online world was changing with each pa.s.sing day. It was probable that once a game like Oasis appeared, it would quickly sweep the entire Internet and completely reshuffle the online landscape without any major changes in reality.
“Even if it changes, what can they do?”
Chen Chen’s mouth curled up in a smirk. “I want to change not only the Internet’s landscape, but also the structure of reality itself. I’ve thought a lot during this period. Biomedicine, the aeros.p.a.ce industry, and the Internet are the three major fields of human society that can lead us to the future. Biomedicine can prolong human life and rejuvenate human beings.
“The aeros.p.a.ce industry can lead humankind beyond the earth and colonize outer s.p.a.ce. This is also one of the areas that human history can never give up on.
“The Internet, corresponding to reality, represents the second world of human society. If the real world represents human needs on the material level, then the Internet represents human needs on the spiritual level. The Internet will only transform, but it will never be eliminated.”
After hearing Chen Chen’s a.n.a.lysis, Little X couldn’t help nodding. She was just about to say something when Chen Chen’s next words stunned her completely...
“The release of VR and the reshuffle of the Internet landscape are just the first step in my plan.”
Chen Chen added. “I’ve divided the future Internet landscape into four sub-eras — the first era: the VR era, namely, the era in which the VR field breaks through the traditional shackles and upgrades from audiovisual to audio, visual, smell, taste, and touch, the five senses!
“This era will inevitably bring about a change comparable to the industrial revolution because it represents the embryonic stage of the virtual world and may even represent the birth of a certain branch of human evolution...
“Next is the second sub-era — the era of artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence becomes common in civilian use and robot butlers enter millions of households.
“I’ve also laid the foundation for this era, and that’s Project Xingtian! Next, I’ll let Project Xingtian continue to evolve and allow the androids to be born...
“After that, the third era — the Skynet era, when I release new powerful artificial intelligence and let it be formally used by the Earth Federation. At that point, the court will hand over all sentencing and trial work to AI, attaining true fairness and justice!
“As for the last sub-era in the plan, I call it... The era of virtual reality!”