The fifth day, in the evening.
The Blacklight Biotechnology Headquarters Building in the Eco Science City, the highest 62nd floor.
Chen Chen was sitting before a huge red sandalwood desk. In front of him, a barbell loaded with a large number of plates was suspended in the air as if a giant invisible hand was holding it and even twirling it flexibly.
While this huge barbell was spinning at high speed, it even dragged the air and made a whirring sound. Chen Chen believed that if anyone was hit by the barbell now, they would immediately be shattered into pieces.
It was only ten minutes later when Chen Chen felt a slight warmth in his nose. He subconsciously touched it but noticed his hand was stained with blood. With a glance from him, the huge barbell flew backward.
With a “clang”, the barbell parked itself steadily in the corner of the office, becoming still.
“The weight is 300 kilograms, the time is 13 minutes and 25 seconds, so my Field can exert more than 9,000N.”
Immediately, Little X walked up from one side and said, “Sir Godfather, in three months, your Field energy has shot up by six times. You have seen a significant improvement almost every day!”
“That’s right, now I have the confidence to physically fly.”
Chen Chen nodded. With his current power of Field, he was already able to fly at high altitudes. Due to his light bodyweight, he was able to hold on for much longer than thirteen minutes. Nonetheless, this force was not enough to make him fly at supersonic speed.
After he inwardly summed up today’s training experience, Chen Chen took the tissue paper Little X handed him, wiped the blood off his face, and then waved his hand and opened the international website with the environmental holographic simulator.
At once, all recent information about This Man appeared on the major web pages.
“In just five days, Northern America has almost spiraled into chaos.”
Seeing the web pages floating in thin air in front of him, Chen Chen was deeply moved. “It seems that in the Internet era of big data, the transmission ability of memes is greater than I thought. Faced with such memes, humans could do nothing but be toyed to death.”
Little X held her chin like a tiny adult and nodded. “Well, this is the scary thing about memes. Not only can it easily control life and death, but it can even easily control people’s hearts?”
“At present, this seems to be the case.”
Chen Chen nodded. He suddenly seemed to think of something and asked again, “Has the work in other continents been completed?”
“It’s not finished yet, but we can guarantee that This Man’s influence will be suppressed to a very low level.”
Little X naturally understood what Chen Chen was asking and immediately replied with confidence, “I only need to allocate a small part of my computing power to monitor the world. Nowadays, except for Northern America, I’ve planted back doors in the TV stations of all continents. As long as these people watch TV, I’ll show a frame of ‘This Man’s Immunity Pattern’ on their screens every ten minutes.
“Because there’s only one frame, the pattern would disappear before they even notice it, but the effect of this one frame is enough for them to become immune to the This Man meme.
“On the Internet, I have also specially created several pop-up advertisements. These will be disguised as advertisements of the website and inadvertently pop up when netizens go online. The advertisements also contain a frame of the immunity pattern. As long as their IP address isn’t in Northern America, I can get these ads to be delivered accurately…
“With these two methods, I’ve probably immunized four-fifths of the world’s population and the remaining people are those who rarely have access to computers, TVs, and mobile phones. If even my large-scale immunity delivery can’t reach them, the chances of them being infected by This Man is zero, so we don’t need to think about that.”
After hearing Little X’s report, Chen Chen nodded appreciatively. “Good job, thank you for your hard work.”
“I don’t find it hard at all.”
Little X shook her head vigorously, with a serious expression.
At this moment, Chen Chen suddenly walked to the floor-to-ceiling window in a few steps, frowning and looking down at the masses of sentient beings under his feet. “I have to say that it’s a miracle we have developed to this point. There are so many things in the universe that we still cannot understand. If a supernova explodes dozens of light-years away, it can still kill the people on Earth.”
“It’s no wonder that Zhao Shanhe said that, although since World War II there haven’t been any major disasters on the earth, it’s just a coincidence. Human civilization is like a sandcastle built on the beach. Perhaps the next moment, a wave would crash in and the sandcastle would disappear completely…”
“That’s why they need us.”
Little X hopped up from behind, raising her white tender hands to knead Chen Chen’s forehead. “Human civilization needs quantum computers to overcome difficulties for them and you also need me to help you remove all obstacles that stand in the way of your dreams!”
Chen Chen smiled and did not speak but at this moment, Little X looked serious again and said, “Sir Godfather, I’ve detected that the shield bearer in Northern America has used the year’s only quota for the quantum computer, Adam, to predict everything about This Man. However, in Adam’s prediction, only Northern America has a curve disturbance that indicates a high probability of extinction.”
“Looks like they can’t sit still anymore.”
Chen Chen nodded. “What about the original data? If we didn’t implant a back door into the quantum computer, would it predict that we did all of this?”
“Let me see.”
Little X closed her eyes, connected to “Adam” via the quantum USB flash drive, and then opened her eyes again within a few seconds. “No! Just like the three statues in the past, it can only predict some key information at most, but we wouldn’t be discovered.”
Upon hearing this, Chen Chen immediately asked, “What is the reason?”
“One factor is my existence.”
Little X sounded triumphant. “Similar to how my ‘Prophet System’ can’t uncover it, it can’t uncover me as well. The bigger reason is that the meme’s behavior has exceeded its framework of cognition. The only thing ‘Adam’ can do is derive clues about the meme by colliding the quantum possibilities with its own predictions.”
“That’s already impressive.”
Chen Chen said ruefully, “That is to say, a quantum computer has the ability to make predictions based on nothing. Even without any clues, it can also predict using quantum space-time effects and this ability is something you don’t have.”
“I’m indeed a little lacking in the ability to predict the future, but I’ll kick its *ss in all other aspects!”
Little X puffed up her cheeks and said.
“That was not what I meant…”
Chen Chen hurriedly smiled and assured her. “I mean, if its quantum power is combined with your Prophet System, would it be possible to predict the past and the future more precisely and with a greater range?”
“Hmm, that’s true…”
Little X then made a thoughtful face.
“Alright, don’t be angry. I worded it wrongly.”
Chen Chen ruffled Little X’s hair. He had just stood up when Little X spoke again, “Sir Godfather, Cheng Cao has something to report to you.”
“Connect him.”
Chen Chen said decisively and at the same time, Cheng Cao’s voice rang out directly in the office.
“Boss…”
Cheng Cao’s voice still sounded as stoic as always. “As per your request, I’ve found Wang Luo. She’s the deputy director of the political department in the Shangdu Branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, according to my investigation, she hasn’t contacted Wang Xi in all her life and there’s no such name as Wang Xi in all of her information.
“But the weird thing is that when I tracked down her mother Zhou Yun’s address, I found that Zhou Yun only included herself in the household register, but the page of the head of the household was left empty, completely blank…”
Chen Chen sighed secretly when he heard this. Of course, he knew why the main page of Zhou Yun’s register was blank.
“Not only that…”
Cheng Cao continued. “There’s a lot of men’s clothes in Zhou Yun’s house, but Zhou Yun is unfazed by these clothes and can even be said to be ignoring them. So I explicitly ordered a subordinate to pretend to be friends with Zhou Yun and find out what she thinks. Only then did we discover Zhou Yun’s impression was that she has always had those men’s clothes and she doesn’t know whom those clothes belonged to.
“And when my subordinate asked whom her husband was, Zhou Yun herself also displayed a moment of confusion, but this confusion quickly disappeared, and her subconscious seemed to automatically avoid these topics…”
“I see. Cao, continue to investigate and find out everything that you can.”
Chen Chen gave this order and then asked Little X to cut the call.
“Sir Godfather, are you still worried about Wang Xi?”
Little X asked apprehensively.
“Indeed. All the information about Wang Xi no longer exists in this world and even you will forget him. This kind of antimeme is really horrifying…”
Chen Chen looked solemn. “I don’t know if Wang Xi is dead or if he had gone into hiding intentionally, let alone what the existence of the USB drive has to do with him, but there must be a terrible conspiracy in all this…
“A conspiracy that spans more than 30 years and involves me, Zhao Shanhe, and even the owner of the USB flash drive before Zhao Shanhe…”
Chen Chen continued. “Moreover, I have a bigger question — if the USB flash drive had existed in the world as early as thirty years ago, that is, at the time of Zhao Shanhe, has it always been in the form of a USB flash drive?”
“Huh?”
Little X was stupefied when she heard Chen Chen’s words. After hearing this, she immediately realized that the earliest USB flash drives had only appeared in 1998 and the USB port only began to appear in 1996. In that case, before 1996, during the time of the last USB drive owner Zhao Shanhe, what kind of form did the USB flash drive take?
“Could it be that the USB flash drive can still change its form?”
Little X asked.
“That’s undetermined.”
Chen Chen shook his head. “But haven’t you noticed? In Zhao Shanhe’s video, he didn’t call the USB drive a ‘USB drive”, but used a more intuitive name, ‘dimension key’, right? Does this mean that when he was holding the USB flash drive, it didn’t exist in the form of a USB drive?
“Besides Professor Wang Xi’s disappearance, there’s almost no evidence that he’s related to the USB flash drive, but the more this is the case, the more it means that there’s a deep secret in all this, and this secret is probably extremely dangerous…”
Having said this, Chen Chen suddenly thought of something. He said abruptly, “By the way, I keep forgetting to check one thing. The file about Zhao Shanhe that you searched for, where is the server storing this file?”
“Let me check.”
Little X closed her eyes and then opened them again. “I’ve found it. That server containing the file related to Zhao Shanhe is stored in the school server room of Shangdu Jiao Tong University. There are a total of six servers in this server room and the server with the file is No. 1, which is also the oldest server. The server was set up in 2003.”
“The timing matches…”
Chen Chen narrowed his eyes when he heard these words. “Tell Cheng Cao to get that server and ship it over.”
“Okay, I’ll give the order now.”
Little X replied.
“Remember to tell Cheng Cao to be careful.”
Chen Chen continued. “As far as I know, it’s likely to be the first thing that can withstand antimemetic erosion. If that’s the case, the server itself is likely to have buried clues about Zhao Shanhe and it’s even more likely to house unknown dangers.”
After giving this warning, Chen Chen returned to his seat and fell into deep contemplation.
While Northern America was abuzz due to This Man incident, Blacklight Biotechnology began to release an even more shocking piece of news in the entire Earth Federation.
This news was outside Northern America and instantly suppressed the popularity of This Man, becoming headline news in all continents —
Blacklight Biotechnology announced to the world: The department of Biological Research Center in the Eco Science City, on 16 December 2024, had deciphered 99% of the cancer genetic chain and could now use genetically modified cell technology to cure all known human cancers!
Once the news was announced, the entire world was in an uproar.
If there were history books in this world, then in future history books, 2024 would be the first year that human beings formally eliminated cancer…
Following that, another update was also released — due to political oppression by the Northern American Continent, Blacklight Biotechnology was determined, from this day onward, to withdraw their FDA applications for three cancer-targeted drugs namely, the targeted drugs for “lung squamous cell carcinoma”, “triple-negative advanced breast cancer”, and “poorly differentiated advanced combined liver cancer”. Phase III clinical trials in Los Angeles, Northern America, would also be suspended indefinitely.