by <unknown>
Five indistinct figures were sitting around the conference table, each with its own number, from 01 to 05.
This highest-level meeting of the Blacklight Foundation was the so-called "Lilith Assembly".
It was named this because in the Jewish Bible, Adam's first wife was Lilith. Currently, the artifact of human foreknowledge was the quantum computer "Adam". Therefore, this meeting that was also used to safeguard and prevent human beings from becoming extinct was called the Lilith Assembly.
At this time, everyone in the meeting room was obviously in high spirits. 01 said, "I believe all of you have received the latest progress in the exploration of the other dimension. That dimension turned out to be a world where humanity has been destroyed. This is the biggest discovery since we started exploring it!"
"So, how did we discover that?"
Chen Chen asked absently, "As far as I know, isn't that dimension already occupied by that kind of weird infectious meme?"
"We used a high-altitude reconnaissance plane."
01 immediately explained, "To better explore the entire world, we mobilized a batch of military reconnaissance planes on all continents. These reconnaissance planes explored the world around the clock, even as far as tens of thousands of kilometers away. The results were shocking. It was discovered that the Flower of Flesh meme didn't occupy the entire world on the other side, but only a small part of it.
"Once we arrived at the European Continent on the other side…"
03 followed up. "In the European Continent over there, we found countless building remains and even found various familiar cities and buildings such as the collapsed Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame Cathedral, and innumerable landmark buildings that only exist in our reality. It's only then that we're sure that the world on the opposite side is also the same Earth!"
Chen Chen sighed secretly, then asked, "What then?"
"Then, we also found that there were traces of human corpses in the wreckage of those cities, so we took the risk and spent a few days using a helicopter to cross tens of thousands of kilometers again, crossing the blockade of the Flower of Flesh, and arrived in the city where human bodies had been found."
03 then said, "Then, we were shocked to find that those corpses turned out to be zombies that only exist in movies!"
"Zombies?"
Chen Chen's voice was rather astonished. "Are you kidding me?"
"No, although it's indeed unbelievable, what I'm saying is the truth."
03 took a deep breath and spoke again, "Those zombies are in a strange dormant state on ordinary days. In this state, their physiological activities are reduced to a level close to zero. They were passive and quiet until the helicopter had landed, then they were awakened by the noise and rushed toward our foundation soldiers, but were quickly shot dead on the spot.
"However, we subsequently obtained samples of these zombies and analyzed them, finding that there was a special virus in their bodies. This virus is surprisingly similar to the Ebola virus, the Blacklight virus, and other filoviruses. This virus has turned them into the aggressive living dead who like to eat human flesh!"
With that said, a sheet of information appeared in front of everyone out of thin air. Chen Chen scrolled through it casually, only to see that it was an experiment report about the virus.
"This thing is like…"
Chen Chen said softly, "It's like a movie. What's the name of that movie?"
"Resident Evil!"
02, who had not spoken all this while, suddenly voiced out, turning his blurred face to 01. "The Resident Evil movie from 2002 is a Hollywood movie shot in Northern America. Am I right, Supervisor 01?"
"02, what do you mean?"
01 suddenly became a little unhappy. "Are you suspecting me?"
"Of course not. I just want to ask you, why would a movie shot in Northern America appear in reality?"
02's tone was full of inquiry. "Did those of you in Northern America know about the existence of this dimension for a long time, so you made this movie on purpose? And the location on the other side of the passage is also in Oregon, Northern America. Are these all coincidences?"
"Have we gone mad, resulting in such baffling behavior?"
01 was a little miffed. "Although I don't understand why this happened, Northern America has nothing to do with this dimension. Whether you believe it or not, that's the truth!"
"This isn't the time to blame each other."
Chen Chen immediately quelled the sparks flying between the two of them and he asked, "This isn't the time for internal conflicts. After all, the situation on the other side may be more complicated than we thought. What we need to do now is to unite and explore the other world together, right? Supervisors?"
"Yes, 05 is right, we should work together."
04 agreed to the compromise.
Seeing this, 01 and 02 did not continue to argue.
"Next, we also explored the surrounding areas of the city and as a result, outside a village, we found a piece of cropland that wasn't neglected."
03 continued to explain, "So our task force soldiers surmised that there were people living there and this turned out to be the case. Indeed, we found five human survivors in that village."
"Very good…"
Chen Chen nodded and exclaimed, "This is indeed a massive discovery. The world on the other side of the passage isn't only the same Earth but also has the same human beings and the same civilization. This is simply a miracle!"
Chapter 517: The President's Visit |
"Name?"
"Danny Brolin…"
"Age."
"… I'm probably… Over fifty."
"Why do you say that, don't you know your own age?"
"Heh heh… I only remember that when the outbreak crisis occurred, I was twenty years old. Now at least thirty years have passed, but does time have any meaning for us survivors?"
"Where are you from?"
"I'm a Scot and my hometown is Linlithgow, Scotland…"
"What's your relationship with the other four people?"
"Jennifer and the others? They are my wives. We originally wanted a few children but after a previous wife of mine became pregnant, the baby was infected with the ubiquitous T-virus in the womb, and in the end, the baby tore apart her belly… From then on, we didn't plan to have children anymore. Even when anyone gets pregnant, it'll be quickly aborted…"
"I heard your wife Jennifer say that she used to have a husband, but you killed him?"
"Yes, all men were protecting themselves. To prevent him from killing me, I killed him first…"
"Then seize his wife?"
"She came willingly because without me, she wouldn't survive outside for three months."
"And the same happened with the other wives?"
"No, one of them is my original wife…"
"You mentioned the T-virus before, what is that?"
"It's the stuff that resulted in those who are neither dead nor alive in the outside world. We call them zombies. Human civilization was destroyed by them. The T-virus caused most humans to become that kind of zombies. Only a few people survived and were hunted by those zombies…"
"They don't seem to be in large numbers?"
"Hehe… After so many years, most of the wounded zombies have decayed but humans are about to disappear completely too, right?"
"Where did the T-virus that you mentioned come from?"
"Umbrella, of course, it came from Umbrella, that d*mn b*stard corporation. This news was reported on TV before the zombie virus spread, so everyone knows where the T-virus came from. …"
…
One day later, Chen Chen was sitting in his office on the top floor of the Blacklight Building in the Eco Science City when he received the first-hand interrogation video from the Blacklight Foundation.
In the video, a researcher wearing a white lab coat was sitting at a desk in an empty and airtight interrogation room. Opposite him was a white man with a large bushy beard and an old face, whose eyes were stil
l fierce.
Then there was a lengthy conversation between the two, over three hours in total, covering the man's past and present, and other trivial matters.
After that, it was the remaining four women. From the interrogation of these women, it was learned that this man named Brolin had killed at least eight survivors, all of whom were men. He seemed to have intentionally killed those of the same sex to prevent his opponents from competing with him for women.
Chen Chen just skimmed the video randomly and moved the progress bar to the end.
Now, the four continents had determined that the real identity of this dimension was the movie Resident Evil and the T-virus had also been acquired by them.
Chen Chen was not too concerned with this because the T-virus had long been something rudimentary to Chen Chen. It was most useful for making organic biological weapons because the T-virus could only be used on living embryos. If it was used on adult life forms, they would only have one outcome — to become a zombie.
If one wanted to customize the T-virus to fit one's genes like Chen Chen, one would need — first, a massive amount of funds, second, superb biotechnology, and third, a super artificial intelligence to analyze virus proteins.
These three conditions were like three insurmountable obstacles, eliminating the possibility of human development of the T-virus. At present, there was no biological laboratory in the world that had these three capabilities at the same time.
Therefore, for at least 30 years, Chen Chen would not be worried about the four major continents using the T-virus in any harebrained schemes. Moreover, 30 years later, Chen Chen would grow stronger and then he would not need to care about the T-virus being mastered by the Earth Federation.
Next, what the four continents had to do was develop the Resident Evil dimension. Although that world had been lost for more than 30 years and most of the fragments of human civilization had decayed, there were still many things that could be obtained.
In particular, the land and mineral resources of that world were like a large inheritance left by one's ancestors that was suddenly acquired by an ordinary person. After acquiring a parallel world, the four continents expressed joy at the prospect of profit, like old farmers in the autumn harvest.
Nonetheless, since this was under the Blacklight Foundation too, Chen Chen naturally had a share in this as well.
Chen Chen did not care much about this. He was not like the other polities that needed resources to feed the people and increase their GDP. If the four continents were like four huge families, then Blacklight Biotechnology was a solitary figure who could feed one whole family without going hungry.
What Chen Chen cared about was humanity in general and himself. This was not because Chen Chen was highly principled but because Blacklight Biotechnology existed based on human civilization in the first place. If human civilization was gone, then Blacklight Biotechnology would also lose the point of its existence.
Plus, Chen Chen's purpose had always been very clear, that was longevity, but longevity alone was meaningless. The reality was not like a novel. There were no so-called martial arts in this world, whereby one person could suppress an entire world, and so on. Humans themselves were social animals. Thus, Chen Chen hoped that his parents and relatives could accompany him for a long time.
They represented the point of Chen Chen's longevity.
After human beings had achieved a long lifespan, a series of changes in the moral cognition system was likely to occur, but this was also a manifestation of the diversity in human civilization.
Just like in ancient times, people often said that "there are three ways to be unfilial; having no sons is the worst." This was in line with the social and national conditions in ancient times because the ancients had a short life span. Only by increasing the fertility rate could the continuation of civilization be guaranteed.
However, in modern times, due to the changes in social civilization, humans were now beginning to see examples of [span]DINK[/span], cohabitations, and even homosexual unions. Coupled with the civilianization of age-reversal treatment programs, human life expectancy had increased dramatically and future generations were no longer the most important thing to human beings. This was also in line with the conditions of modern societies and nations.
As another example, if Chen Chen developed a virtual world that was comparable to the real world, where humans could do everything they wanted to do, then once a large number of humans had joined, it would inevitably lead to the loss of real-world interests and also produce a group of opposing and resisting voices, criticizing this virtual world game, criticizing those who play the game for being distracted by trivial hedonism. Institutions similar to "Yuzhang Normal University" would even appear, and so on.
This was a normal phenomenon. However, if that virtual world was further refined and connected with real currency systems while at the same time, when one's consciousness joined in, one's real body would be better protected and one's lifespan would be prolonged, then gradually, the virtual world would transform from being something cursed by thousands of people, into one of the new social norms.
Even in the future, human beings might be divided into two camps by default. One was developing in reality and the other was developing in the virtual world. None was superior or inferior. Between the two, just like how some people chose humanities while others chose science; some people chose scientific research after graduation, and others chose to grow in the entertainment industry.
This was just another shift in the moral cognition system.
There was an old saying: a saint moves with the world and thus never becomes exhausted no matter the situation.
Long ago, Chen Chen proposed three major strategies for the development of Blacklight Biotechnology: biomedicine, the aerospace industry, and the Internet. Among them, biomedicine represented the continuation of human civilization and it was the path of human evolution. If he gained control of this field, he would gain control of humanity's present.
In addition, the aerospace industry represented humanity's future. This was not a future of a few decades, but a future of over a thousand years!
As for the Internet, it corresponded to reality and represented humanity's spirit. It could even become an indispensable way to transform real-world class conflicts, stabilize the social order, and create an alternate social system!
At this time, in the aerospace industry and in biomedicine, Blacklight Biotechnology had been at the forefront of the Earth Federation and had become the bellwether. Regarding the Internet, Chen Chen had proposed a plan of four sub-eras —
The first of these was the VR sub-era and this sub-era was led by the "V.1 Haptic Shock Chair" released that year. In the following years, the haptic shock chair would reach the V.2 generation and the accompanying brain-control technology and display technology would also be more developed and closer to reality.
The second era was the era when artificial intelligence had entered civilian use. Chen Chen's plan for this had just started this year and the bionic personal butler named "Little Ai" had entered thousands of households.
It could be said that since the release of "Little Ai", the babysitter market and some simple labor markets had suffered heavy losses and public opinion also had a mixed reception to the bionic personal butler. Some people thought that these androids created the phenomenon of the uncanny valley. Some people were worried about the intelligence explosion that might occur in a hundred years and others were concerned about their own interests, protesting all day, trying to force Blacklight Biotechnology to cancel the research and development of bionic technology.
Toward all this, Chen Chen was naturally dismissive. Human science and technology must always be improved and the advancement of science and technology would lead to the elimination of any old industry. This was an irreversible fact, just like the wheels of history rolling forward. These oppositions were like an ant trying to stop an elephant and they would inevitably end up being crushe
d.
According to an ancient saying, this was called the general trend.
As for the third and fourth stages of the four sub-eras plan, they would not be able to progress until after decades, when the second era was completely stabilized and widely accepted.
These thoughts were circling each other and they flashed through Chen Chen's mind, but when Chen Chen was secretly reflecting on his future plans, the elevator door opened again with a "ding". At the same time, Little X walked into Chen Chen's office.
"Sir Godfather, Zurama has secretly come to the lobby of the building and he wants to see you now."
"Zurama?"
Chen Chen raised his eyebrows, then smiled coldly. "Bring him in."
With that, Chen Chen leaned back on the leather seat behind him, silently waiting for the other party's arrival.
Little X nodded and returned to the elevator again.
Two minutes later, a middle-aged black man with a radiant face who looked to be in his forties appeared in Chen Chen's office.
Zurama used to look a bit like Morgan Freeman, that was, the old man who finally got the USB drive in the movie Lucy. Now although he had become younger after recuperation, he looked all the more like Morgan Freeman.
Watching the other man's arrival, Chen Chen did not even stand up. He just asked lazily, "Mr. President, how come you have the time to grace us with your presence?"
"Alright, it's been so many years. You don't have to act politely with me anymore."
Zurama smiled helplessly. He sat directly in the chair opposite Chen Chen's desk as if he had done this a thousand times. Little X on the side immediately brought a set of teacups and poured a kind of brewed tea into it.
Smelling the refreshing fragrance of the tea, Zurama could not help but close his eyes, a little captivated. Naturally, any tea that could make its way into Chen Chen's office would not be some nameless common tea.
After many visits to Chen Chen's office, Zurama gradually fell in love with the tea culture in China.
Next, it was Zurama's tea-tasting time.
Chen Chen did not bother Zurama. He just drank his tea in silence and waited for Zurama to make his request.
