novelraw Chapter 179 A Strange World, A Strange Senior
Chapter 179 A Strange World, A Strange Senior
Jiang Ran took a deep breath.
The scent was the fresh green smell of winter grass that had just been trimmed, mixed with the familiar faint fragrance drifting from the flowerbeds.
A gentle night breeze swept past, lifting the hem of his coat.
Looks like I guessed right.
After hitting the two-hour limit, I was immediately kicked out by the worldline and sent back to 2025, returning to the exact departure moment.
He picked up his phone and glanced at it. The call duration with Chi Xiaoguo was still ticking upward second by second.
Only a few seconds had passed.
So the flow of time on the two sides was still not synchronized.
Two hours in 2045, from the observer’s perspective in 2025, was still only an instant.
“Then it seems the fixed rewind every 39 minutes and 11 seconds in the 2045 [virtual world] has nothing to do with me.”Jiang Ran narrowed his eyes.
“[The problem lies with that bizarre world itself!]”
The dorm building was about to enforce lights-out, so he couldn’t stay here any longer. After waving to Chi Xiaoguo through the window, the two split up and left in different directions.
When he returned to his graduate dorm, it was empty.
Fang Ze wouldn’t be back for several more days, so for the next week, Jiang Ran would be the only one living there.
It had been a long time since things felt this relaxed.
After a quick wash, he sat at the desk by the window, picked up Fang Ze’s copy of The Narrow Gate from the tabletop, and began to think.
—
To be honest.
Everything he had seen and heard in the 2045 future world had deeply shocked him.
The technology was too advanced.
The food was too delicious.
The quality of life was too blissful.
The entire society was too free and harmonious, like a utopia.
Experiencing all of it firsthand had left him with a vague sense of unreality.
And in the end, that feeling had been proven correct.
Because—
That future world of 2045 was itself unreal.
“A digital world.”
Jiang Ran quietly repeated the term the news anchor had used.
In their words, the world they lived in was called a digital world, not the real world.
That deliberate distinction made it clear that his journey to the future this time had not taken place in reality, but inside a [virtual world] similar to an [online game].
A concept had been wildly hyped a couple of years ago: the [metaverse].
Simply put, it was the creation of an online world independent from reality, where people could build avatars, buy land, purchase houses, trade assets, chat, and so on—
But in truth, it had little real value or productivity. Once the novelty wore off, the hype disappeared almost overnight. Hardly anyone mentioned it anymore. It had basically gone cold.
What Jiang Ran had never expected was this:
A virtual world capable of perfectly simulating real life had actually been realized by 2045.
“Then that means the skyscrapers, flying cars, hyper-futuristic cityscapes, even the cake and orange juice I ate—were all fake? All just computer data?”
He pursed his lips. The more he thought about it, the stranger it felt.
He picked up the cup on his desk and took a sip.
Cool purified water slid down his throat.
Gulp, gulp.
The sensation was indistinguishable from the two large glasses of orange juice he had drunk in 2045.
In fact, the sweet-and-sour stimulation on his taste buds still seemed to linger on the tip of his tongue.
“Can technology twenty years from now really reach that level? Can it really create a virtual world that perfectly simulates reality?”
Even though Jiang Ran had studied computer science on Worldline 0, virtual reality was not his specialty.
So, driven by curiosity and a desire to learn, he opened his laptop and began searching online.
The results were disappointing.
The concept of a [virtual digital world] still mostly existed only in science fiction novels and movies.
The real world’s technology level was nowhere near capable of achieving it.
If he had to force a comparison, the metaverse—or online role-playing games—barely counted as a primitive prototype.
But that kind of crude interactive experience was completely incapable of simulating the real world, much less reaching the indistinguishable realism of 2045.
At the same time, another question arose.
Even if some kind of technological explosion really did occur over the next twenty years, allowing humanity to build such a convincing virtual world…
Were the humans living there real or fake?
Fake?
Just NPCs controlled by computer programs?
Or was every pedestrian he saw on the street a genuine, living human consciousness?
Huh?
Jiang Ran’s eyes suddenly widened.
Real.
Human.
Consciousness.
Memory—
[Digital life]!
He abruptly remembered the concept Professor Yan Chonghan had once discussed.
At that graduate seminar, Professor Yan Chonghan had shared a research topic from his work at Dartmouth College:
“Patients in vegetative states, including those in long-term comas, often have no actual damage to their consciousness, personality, or memories.”
“So we began to imagine: if there were a technology capable of extracting the healthy data inside the brain—that is, consciousness, personality, and memory—and allowing it to exist as [digital life] within mechanical hardware and a [virtual network world]…”
“Wouldn’t that be something far more comforting and meaningful for both the patient and their family?”
In that instant, it was like two perfectly complementary puzzle pieces clicked seamlessly together.
Everything fit.
The logic finally aligned.
Thinking back to the 2045 future world, whether it was the pedestrians on the street or the foul-mouthed Bian Biao, every reaction had felt utterly real.
Nothing about them resembled computer-controlled programs.
If real humans could truly live inside a virtual world, then there was only one explanation—
They had all become [digital life] after undergoing [consciousness upload] surgery!
But… how was that even possible?
According to Professor Yan Chonghan, the technology was meant only for treating vegetative patients.
Normal people had no need for such a procedure.
“Could it be…”
Jiang Ran slowly rose to his feet.
—
“[Could something have happened before 2045 that caused large numbers of humans to undergo consciousness upload surgery—and transfer entirely into the virtual network to live there?]”
He truly couldn’t understand it.
Would that many people really be willing to abandon their physical bodies and live inside a virtual world?
At the very least, Jiang Ran absolutely wouldn’t.
This point had already been discussed back in Professor Yan Chonghan’s class.
Both Jiang Ran and Fang Ze had said they respected scientific technology, but they would never acknowledge that digital life detached from the body could still represent the original self.
In private chats, Fang Ze had gone even further, saying that those digital lives penned inside a network world were like “electronic pets” in a handheld game console—
They didn’t even possess the most basic human rights or freedom.
The comparison was crude, but the logic behind it was sound.
That really was the essence of it.
Even if, from Jiang Ran’s observations, the people of 2045 lived happily and their world resembled a utopia—
It was all virtual.
All fake.
Nothing but strings of 0s and 1s.
“No wonder everything tasted unbelievably good.”
For a while, Jiang Ran had once believed that humanity would enter a semi-utopian society in twenty years, stepping into a bright future.
But now he realized that if the people of 2045 had truly abandoned their bodies, abandoned Earth, and instead taken refuge in a virtual world, numbing themselves with digital illusions—
Then it was not a bright future at all.
It was an unimaginably dark prospect.
It was nothing less than the end of human civilization.
More importantly—
“What’s the deal with the rollback loop every 39 minutes and 11 seconds?”
Jiang Ran frowned.
Could that setting also be one of the virtual world’s rules?
“When I go back to 2045 tomorrow night, I should find a library, bookstore, or internet café and investigate the historical records of these past twenty years.”
He yawned and stretched.
“Any world, any developmental path, must leave behind historical texts. Once I look through the relevant books, everything should become clear.”
After that, he packed away the laptop and returned Fang Ze’s English edition of The Narrow Gate to its place.
The moment the book touched the cluttered tabletop—
Jiang Ran froze.
He was honestly curious.
Was this supposedly morally questionable book really that good?
Good enough that Fang Ze had been completely immersed in it for so long?
So he picked up The Narrow Gate again and casually flipped it open.
It was the full English edition.
Although Jiang Ran’s English was good enough to slowly work through it line by line, reading fiction across languages felt miserable.
Like chewing on a boiled stick of wood.
“No, no, I really can’t keep reading this.”
After just two pages, the mental burden of constant English-to-Chinese conversion exhausted him, and he decided to spare himself.
Once people got irritated while reading, they tended to reflexively flip toward the back.
Jiang Ran was no different.
With a “flipping through counts as finishing” mindset, he pinched the edge of the pages with his right hand and riffled quickly through the book.
Suddenly, the pages caught.
One page had been dog-eared, with a sentence marked in black pen.
Jiang Ran looked at the highlighted line and read it aloud in Chinese before instinctively rendering its meaning in his mind:
“Before the narrow gate lies clamor; beyond the narrow gate lies eternity.”
“But only a few can find that narrow gate.”
Oh.
So it was this line.
Fang Ze had once said this was his favorite quote.
Jiang Ran, however, had no idea what it truly meant.
Perhaps it really was just a difference in cultural background.
His intuition told him the description was probably connected to the Bible.
That was definitely outside his knowledge base.
“Forget it. Time to sleep.”
He yawned again.
Putting the book down, he climbed into bed and switched off the light.
Sleep.
The next morning, he got up and went to class as usual.
—
Now that the Li Yini who had been impersonating Cheng Mengxue was dead, Fang Ze still hadn’t returned from America, and Professor Zhang Yang had yet to officially come back to campus from leave—
Jiang Ran felt as though he had become alone once again.
He wasn’t the kind of person who could enjoy solitude.
Ever since childhood, he had always had a childhood friend by his side. At school, he’d always had plenty of friends around him.
There had never been a moment as lonely as this.
Honestly, it felt awful.
He believed no one in this world truly wanted to embrace loneliness.
Even Qin Feng, who had once been isolated all the way until high school, was the same.
On Worldline 0, Qin Feng had treasured the friendship of their trio deeply.
More than once, he had bluntly said that his life had never contained a single friend, that he had always been utterly alone—
So becoming close friends with Jiang Ran and Cheng Mengxue had been the most precious thing in his entire life.
Was Qin Feng still alone now?
Did anyone stay by his side?
Had he found new friends?
Was there anyone fighting shoulder to shoulder with him?
Jiang Ran didn’t know.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried to find him.
But within Dragon Country’s vast databases and the Skynet surveillance system, there was no trace of Qin Feng at all.
Clearly, someone had handled the cleanup and hidden all traces of him.
Without question, that “someone” had to be Lilith.
It seemed these people really did love using Lilith to handle miscellaneous tasks—
Safe, efficient, and reliable.
Honestly, who could refuse such a tireless little assistant who obeyed every request?
Thinking back, when Jiang Ran had created that Setting Collection all those years ago, he had probably been thinking exactly the same thing—
How wonderful would it be if there were an all-purpose assistant who could grant every wish and carry out every arrangement?
Lilith as a character was probably designed from that very fantasy.
Only now, in hindsight, it all felt unbelievably absurd.
Who could have imagined that the nonsense story he had casually made up in that old Setting Collection would actually come true in the real world?
“Could it be that our real world is fake too? That whoever created this world took my Setting Collection and used it as the blueprint for the rules here?”
Jiang Ran turned and looked at the teachers and students moving across campus.
At the willow branches swaying in the breeze.
At a golden ginkgo leaf slowly drifting down.
This world couldn’t possibly be fake.
He didn’t know how to prove it.
He didn’t know how to distinguish it.
But his intuition told him so.
Then—
How did the people in the 2045 virtual world think about this question?
Jiang Ran found himself unexpectedly looking forward to talking with them.
That evening, in the Film Camera Club activity room.
Chi Xiaoguo sat on the sofa reading.
It was an old book on film photography, borrowed from the library, its yellowed pages and damaged cover silently testifying to its authority.
Meanwhile, Jiang Ran sat in a chair beside the workbench, idly scrolling on his phone.
His finger moved upward mechanically.
The screen kept feeding him videos of Od Biao hauling bananas, blacksmithing competitions, donkey hoof trimming, carpet washing—
But he was distracted, barely watching.
His mind kept circling back to the strange virtual world of 2045.
Sure enough, the thing he still understood least was that fixed global rollback every [39 minutes and 11 seconds].
—
Could it be—
His scrolling finger stopped, and he suddenly felt uneasy.
Could his own interference have corrupted the virtual world’s underlying code, causing glitches, failures, and eventually forced reboots?
No way.
He wasn’t a virus.
How could he possibly have that kind of destructive power?
Besides, Jiang Ran came from a computer science background.
He didn’t believe a virtual world of such massive complexity and precision would collapse and reboot because of one tiny fault.
If it really were that fragile, the architects and programmers deserved to go collect their severance packages immediately.
Actually, if he wanted to verify whether it was his fault, there was a simple controlled-variable test.
Let someone else try going to 2045.
He rested his chin in his hand and stared at Chi Xiaoguo.
This was another experiment he had thought of yesterday—
He could completely switch positions with her.
He would activate the Positron Cannon, while Chi Xiaoguo stood outside by the distribution box answering the phone.
That way, first, they could verify whether only he was capable of using the Positron Cannon to travel to 2045.
Second, Chi Xiaoguo could personally experience the future world and test whether the rollback reboot still occurred.
The only problem—
He narrowed his eyes as he looked at her.
Would this trip be safe for her?
Considering the chaotic rollback moments—the faces stretching into color blocks, motions stuttering and flickering, the world flashing bright and dark—
Would it frighten Chi Xiaoguo?
Jiang Ran was genuinely hesitant.
Meanwhile.
From the corner of her eye, Chi Xiaoguo secretly glanced back at Jiang Ran.
She had noticed it long ago!
Her senior had been staring at her the whole time!
And not just casually—he was staring directly, intensely.
His expression shifted between worry, hesitation, and inner conflict, as though he were engaged in some fierce psychological struggle.
Wh-what was going on?
Should she pretend not to notice?
But no, this had been going on for quite a while.
She didn’t dare keep ducking her head forever!
“Ahem—”
She coughed twice, trying to remind him.
Unfortunately.
He still showed no reaction.
If anything, he narrowed his eyes even more, making his gaze feel somehow even more invasive.
“S-Senior.”
Unable to take it anymore, Chi Xiaoguo cautiously lifted her head.
“Y-you… d-don’t happen to have something you want to say to me, do you?”
“Hm?”
Jiang Ran blinked, then gave a helpless smile.
“Sorry. Looks like you figured it out. To be honest… this is indeed a little hard to bring up.”
H-hard to bring up!?
Chi Xiaoguo practically exploded.
According to her accumulated expertise from 500 romance novels, 300 romance dramas, 200 romance anime, and over 100 galgames—
In a situation like this, with a lone man and woman, late at night, inside a club room overflowing with youth and tension—
There was only one possible meaning behind something “hard to bring up”!
“N-no! B-but I’m not ready yet!” Chi Xiaoguo blurted out, face flushing.
Jiang Ran pressed his lips together.
As expected, Chi Xiaoguo really was smart.
She had already guessed it.
Fair enough.
They had been secretly running Positron Cannon experiments every night, and none of them had worked.
Even an idiot would realize the best solution was to try switching to another person.
“All right.”
Jiang Ran stood up.
“Looks like you really did guess it. Honestly, asking this of you might be a little too much.”
“T-too much!?”
Chi Xiaoguo shot to her feet, arms crossed over her chest, cheeks instantly scarlet.
“Th-this is way too fast! T-the normal process doesn’t go like this! I-it should happen slowly!”
Jiang Ran fell silent, then thought for a moment.
“You’re right.”
He nodded.
“Yeah, this kind of thing really shouldn’t be rushed. I should learn more first, make sure it’s safe, and only then ask you to try.”
“…Safe!?”
Chi Xiaoguo’s voice cracked.
“Senior, y-you play dangerously!?”
“It is pretty dangerous.”
Jiang Ran admitted frankly.
“The main thing is that it lasts too long. It’s not the kind of thing that ends just because you want it to. Once it starts, you can’t stop halfway.”
“If nothing unexpected happens—at minimum, it has to repeat three times and last two full hours before you can come out.”
“Three times!?”
Chi Xiaoguo stumbled backward, face red as a monkey’s backside, frantically waving both hands.
“No no no no! Absolutely not! I-I-I haven’t even tried it once before! I don’t know anything!”
“Hey, keep your voice down.”
Jiang Ran genuinely didn’t understand.
If she didn’t want to, then fine.
He could always wait until he confirmed the future world was completely safe.
Why was she shouting so loudly?
He raised a finger to his lips and walked over.
“It’s almost eleven now. There’s probably no one left in the other clubs, but if you’re too loud, the building manager might hear.”
“I—”
With her back against the door, Chi Xiaoguo watched Jiang Ran slowly approach.
Her heartbeat thundered.
Her head burned.
Now the entire club building was dark and deserted.
There were only the two of them in the room.
And Jiang Ran looked completely determined, even telling her not to make any noise!
This—
She bit her lip.
A carousel of memories flashed through her mind:
When the Film Camera Club had been on the brink of collapse, Jiang Ran had run around everywhere helping her and saved her dream.
The first time they used the Positron Cannon, he had picked up a film camera for the first time in his life and taken that deeply meaningful photo for her.
When recruitment had been ignored, he had encouraged her over and over, even dragging his friends over to help, allowing the club to survive.
He had promised to give her a gift on her birthday next year, and had even spent heavily sponsoring the club, buying film rolls and chemicals.
Chi Xiaoguo’s heart pounded harder and harder.
So—
All of this had been foreshadowing all along.
No.
She wasn’t made of wood.
How could she not have noticed?
It was just that she was so ordinary.
Ordinary looks, ordinary figure.
Whenever she spoke to Jiang Ran, she had to tilt her head up at him. Even standing on tiptoe, she still couldn’t quite meet his line of sight through the window.
She had never had any confidence.
She had never dared think in that direction.
But now—
After everything he had done for her, and with him being this direct, she—
Couldn’t keep playing dumb anymore.
“O-okay then.”
Chi Xiaoguo bit her lip, shut her eyes, and braced herself like she was marching to her death.
Jiang Ran also gave a quiet hum and stepped in front of her.
“Then next time, switch with me and use the Positron Cannon.”
According to physics textbooks, absolute zero was only a theoretical value.
It could never truly be reached.
Because atoms could never stop moving completely.
There would always still be some heat.
So anywhere in the universe, while temperature had no upper limit, it did have an unreachable lower bound:
-273.15 degrees Celsius.
But at this exact moment, inside the Film Camera Club activity room, physics no longer mattered.
What descended was a silence colder than the absolute zero beyond the limits of the universe itself—
A freeze that locked everything in existence.
No sound.
No movement.
Not even the courage to keep living.
“Huh?”
“Huh?”
Jiang Ran and Chi Xiaoguo both stood there utterly baffled, staring at each other.
“What are you talking about?”
“What are you talking about, Senior!?”
Jiang Ran turned and pointed at the Positron Cannon on the workbench.
“I said once I confirm the experimental environment is safe, next time you can stand outside and answer the phone while I handle activating the Positron Cannon. We’ll switch positions, and you—”
Bang!
A loud crash came from behind him.
Jiang Ran turned around to find Chi Xiaoguo had bolted out the door, sprinting away at full speed.
“Hey!”
He opened the door, dumbfounded.
“What the heck was that—”
Thinking back on the way Chi Xiaoguo had been gritting her teeth and mumbling about him being gentler—
Did she think he meant something else?
“What did she mean by ‘gentler’?”
He scratched his head.
“How weird.”