novelraw Chapter 180 The Truth of History
Chapter 180 The Truth of History
“Ahahaha—! Ahahaha—!”
A few minutes later, Chi Xiaoguo pushed the door open again, her face still wet, one hand rubbing the back of her head as she laughed awkwardly.
“Wow, I think I just got a little overheated and dizzy earlier! I splashed some water on my face and I’m all better now—mm-hmm, much better.”
“What was it you were saying just now, Senior? About me answering the phone outside, right? No problem, no problem! I’m ready anytime!”
Jiang Ran picked up his phone and checked the time.
It was already 10:52.
Chi Xiaoguo had taken too long washing her face in the restroom, and now there were only eight minutes left before the dorms locked.
“Let’s do it next time.”
He shrugged.
“It’s too late tonight. There are a lot of precautions I need to explain to you, and there’s not enough time.”“So—for today, let’s stick to the normal experiment. I’ll stay outside, and tomorrow we can switch.”
“Okay okay okay.”
Chi Xiaoguo nodded like a pecking chick.
Maybe it was just Jiang Ran’s imagination, but her gaze kept drifting. She never once met his eyes, constantly glancing left and right instead.
But time was tight and the task was urgent, so he couldn’t worry about that right now.
He braced himself on the windowsill, vaulted out, and landed beside the transformer distribution box, pulling out his phone.
“I’m ready!”
“I-I-I’m ready too—wait—”
Chi Xiaoguo was strangely flustered tonight, fumbling over her words.
Biting her lower lip, she picked up her phone, dialed Jiang Ran’s number, and shouted out the window:
“Then I’m starting the countdown! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! 0!”
The Positron Cannon, aimed at the distribution box, roared to life.
That blue radiance, enough to seize the majesty of heaven and earth itself, made every electric meter in the building above pale in comparison.
Jiang Ran also caught the rhythm perfectly and pressed the answer button.
Buzz!
Buzz!
His vision spun, dizziness sweeping over him.
By now, Jiang Ran was already thoroughly used to this phase and handled it with ease.
Two seconds later, all discomfort vanished.
The enticing aroma of cake drifted toward him.
Jiang Ran opened his eyes—
“Sir, would you like to try our new orange juice? It’s free!”
The same scene as always.
The maid-uniformed waitress noticed him and approached with a smile.
“N-no thanks.”
Jiang Ran waved his hand.
Ever since realizing that everything before him was fake, just a computer-simulated virtual world, he had completely lost interest in food without physical reality.
He turned away.
Then turned back again.
“…Actually, forget it. I’ll take a cup.”
He pressed his lips together.
Even if the juice was fake—
It was still ridiculously delicious, and he was a little thirsty.
“Hehe, our new drink definitely won’t disappoint you!”
The maid waitress happily pulled out that eye-wateringly huge cup, filled it to the brim with orange juice, and handed it over.
“If you like it, come find me for a refill anytime!”
Every single time, it was the exact same line.
The repetition made it harder and harder for Jiang Ran to believe she was a real girl.
The more he looked, the more she resembled an NPC controlled by computer code.
He carried the orange juice to the roadside and gulped it down.
Refreshing.
Honestly, the juice here really was unbelievably pure.
Unbelievably good.
After finishing it, he tossed the paper cup into a trash bin.
Then he hopped onto a shared flying motorcycle.
He sped toward the familiar clock shop.
To keep precise track of time, a watch was still necessary.
Soon enough, he had the free electronic watch strapped to his wrist, mounted the flying motorcycle again, and started searching for a bookstore by the roadside.
Perhaps printed books had truly been eliminated in this era.
He circled around for quite a while without finding a single bookstore.
In the end, he had to land and ask a passerby for directions before finally learning the location of the library, then accelerated toward it.
All that detouring had wasted a lot of time, and Jiang Ran felt a pang of regret.
Thirty-nine minutes and eleven seconds sounded generous.
But after deducting all the preparation work and all the time lost in transit, there really wasn’t much left.
On the way to the library, he passed that classical building again and spotted Peng Ying sneaking around by the wall.
“What is that guy even doing?”
Jiang Ran was curious, but today he had no time to play around with Peng Ying.
That could wait.
Another ten minutes passed before he finally reached the library.
He lifted his wrist to check the time.
It was already 10:22.
That left him only seventeen minutes to search through historical records.
“Hurry, hurry.”
He sprinted all the way, asking and searching as he went, and finally found the historical documentary section on the third floor.
Although the library preserved a traditional atmosphere, it was also highly advanced in every way.
For example, every table and every seat had a tablet embedded directly into the wooden desk.
These tablets could not only display ebooks but also search the database for archived materials.
Compared to that, the paper books on the shelves were more like symbols—commemoration, ritual, the continuation of spirit.
But Jiang Ran had no leisure for that kind of appreciation.
If he had known it was this convenient, there would’ve been no need to personally run to the third floor.
He could’ve just sat anywhere.
Very quickly, Jiang Ran searched the tablet for the world’s developmental trajectory from 2025 to 2045, hoping to quickly uncover the origin and truth behind this virtual world.
“Found it!”
The tablet’s search function was impressively accurate.
Soon, he pulled up a historian’s commentary:
“In 2028, due to cyclical solar activity, an unprecedented natural disaster swept across the globe. Sixty percent of the world’s population perished, and Earth’s environment became unfit for human survival.
The air became filled with deadly toxins, atmospheric temperatures skyrocketed, and human civilization stood on the brink of annihilation. Species extinction seemed inevitable.
Fortunately amid disaster, the great Mr. Pombet had prepared ahead of time. He overcame the technical barriers of consciousness upload and, years in advance, deployed a vast quantity of servers and data centers around the world, securing a path for the continuation of human civilization.
Consciousness upload technology allows human consciousness and memory to be extracted from the brain, detached from the flesh, and transformed into ‘digital life’ composed of computer data.
Digital life can survive within a virtual network world, unaffected by the hostile outside environment and unconstrained by scarcity of resources. For the humans transformed into digital lifeforms, this represents a higher stage of species evolution—a path toward a truly happy utopia.
The virtual digital world built by Mr. Pombet is indistinguishable from reality. Thanks to breakthroughs in controlled nuclear fusion, the energy supply problems of servers and data centers were resolved.
The post-disaster Earth is unsuitable for human habitation, but toxic gases and extreme heat do not affect server operation.
Thus, with Mr. Pombet’s selfless assistance, a total of 2.3 billion people underwent consciousness upload in time and entered the virtual digital world to live.
From this moment on, humanity entered a new era and began writing a new chapter.”
“So it really is a virtual world.”
Although he had already reasoned out the conclusion, when everything was finally confirmed, Jiang Ran still couldn’t help feeling shaken.
He looked around at the people moving through the library.
If this historical account was true, then all these men, women, elders, and children had once lived real lives on Earth.
According to the record, the reason they abandoned their bodies and became digital life had been survival.
A natural disaster in 2028 devastated the globe, making Earth’s environment unlivable and killing sixty percent of the population.
For the survivors, only two paths remained:
Stay on post-disaster Earth and wait to die in toxic air and extreme heat.
Accept Mr. Pombet’s consciousness upload surgery, abandon the flesh, transform memory and consciousness into a “digital lifeform,” and enter the virtual digital world.
Jiang Ran believed some people would rather die on Earth than become “electronic pets trapped inside a server cage.”
At least, that was how he felt—
Well.
He had to admit that was easy for him to say from where he stood.
Perhaps when the moment of life and death truly arrived, the truth of “better to live badly than die well” would strike him over the head and wake him up.
But—
“2028… that disaster is way too close.”
That was what truly shocked Jiang Ran.
His real world was already at the end of 2025.
If this historical documentary was telling the truth, didn’t that mean human civilization had only two years left before total extinction?
Even if this virtual world counted as another form of continuation—
From a physical and biological perspective, it was no different from humanity dying out.
If the real outside world truly was filled with poison gas and temperatures had risen to 50 degrees Celsius, then no one could survive.
Even if a few lucky people somehow held on under extreme circumstances, it would only be temporary.
No one could endure for twenty years.
According to the records, by 2030 there were no living humans left outside on Earth.
Only inside the virtual digital world did human civilization continue.
“But is that really a long-term solution?”
Jiang Ran scratched his head.
“If humanity stays trapped in this virtual digital world forever, what kind of future is that? Wouldn’t they just be imprisoned here for life?”
“More importantly, won’t the servers and data centers in the outside world eventually malfunction and break down?”
With that question in mind, he lowered his head and continued reading the historian’s commentary:
“Mr. Pombet’s digital world project is perfectly designed. Robotic factories in the external world have already formed a self-expanding cycle.
Robots maintain the data centers and servers while continuously manufacturing new hardware to meet the ever-growing storage demands of the digital world.
According to Mr. Pombet’s projections, under the current framework the digital world can continue to exist for a full 30,000 years.
Digital humans will be able to reproduce, develop science and technology, and advance toward even greater possibilities within this utopian world.
The greatest advantage the digital world has over the real world lies in [infinite resources] and [accelerated processes]—
Whether in architecture, scientific experimentation, or academic research, all of it can be accelerated through the special structure of the virtual world.
Under such conditions, one year of development in the digital world may far surpass ten years in reality.
Within this development speed that transcends time itself, humanity’s potential becomes limitless, freed from the constraints of the physical world.
The digital world is both humanity’s shelter and humanity’s Eden.
Once civilization develops far enough within the virtual world, an entirely new future is inevitable.”
At the end of the article, one of Mr. Pombet’s famous quotes was cited:
“Thought need not remain trapped in flesh; civilization needs a new way forward!”