End of Days Delusion

"Zhihui!!!"

Chen Mengchuan sat up with a roar, gasping for breath, his lungs heaving, his head splitting with pain!

After a long moment, his expression froze. He stared blankly at Father Chen and Mother Chen beside him, and only after a while did he manage to whisper, "Dad?... Mom?"

"You scared your father and me half to death." Mother Chen grumbled, dark circles ringing both her eyes.

Father Chen snorted coldly. "Showing off."

"Where is this? How... am I here?" Chen Mengchuan asked, his voice hollow with unreality, his mind flooded with the horrific images of nine hours after the apocalypse began.

"Where is this? This is the hospital! Did a few mouthfuls of Luoyin Water make you stupid?" Father Chen scolded.

"Hospital, Luoyin Water?" A wave of dizziness crashed through his mind. Chen Mengchuan's vision went dark; he grabbed the bedrail, nearly blacking out.

In his memory, his AI project at the Xia Science Academy had been snatched away, and he'd been humiliated to boot. Furious, he'd resigned from the Academy and returned to his hometown, Jiangmu Ancient Town. Later, he'd saved a child who'd fallen into the water...

Countless memories, like a long film, fast-forwarded wildly through Chen Mengchuan's mind...

A dream? Chen Mengchuan shook his head. These images were far too real to be explained away by any dream.

"..."

"I'm talking to you. Did you hear me?" Father Chen frowned, displeasure plain on his face.

"Sorry, Dad." Chen Mengchuan gripped the bedrail with his left hand and pressed his right hand tightly against his temple.

"He just woke up. Say a little less." Mother Chen turned and snapped at her husband.

"Hmph. If it weren't for the fact that he saved a kid..." Father Chen snorted again, a flicker of emotion in his eyes—lingering fear mixed with a hint of pride at his son's heroic act.

"How is that child?" Chen Mengchuan asked, dazed.

Mother Chen's eyes reddened. "He's in the hospital too. He woke up yesterday. His family came by several times, but you were asleep every time... If the rescue boat hadn't arrived just in time and fished you out, you would have..."

Before she could finish, tears streamed down Mother Chen's face.

Chen Mengchuan was stunned. A pang of sorrow hit him, and he quickly comforted her, "Mom, I'm still fine. Don't cry. I promise I won't be reckless again. Please don't cry."

After he'd eaten some congee, the child's parents, grandparents, and the boy himself came to find him.

The moment the family saw Chen Mengchuan, they dropped to their knees, sobbing loudly, pouring out endless words of gratitude. Moved by the scene, Chen Mengchuan's own family found their eyes wet as well.

The child's grandfather pressed the boy to kowtow respectfully three times to Chen Mengchuan. The boy called Chen Mengchuan "Godfather," called Father Chen "Grandpa," and called Mother Chen "Grandma."

In a daze, Chen Mengchuan's mind recalled the five-year-old boy before him—his godson, Sun Weijie. Many years later, after Chen Mengchuan had broken with his father and gone to the Island Nation, Sun Weijie would come to find him there every year, each time bringing news of his parents.

Sun Weijie, who had taken over the family business early, married at nineteen because of a pregnancy. In the photos he brought, there were many of Father Chen, Mother Chen, and his young son together—always fulfilling the filial duties Chen Mengchuan owed his parents...

"What's your name?" Chen Mengchuan asked the little boy, his eyes hazy.

"Godfather, my name is Sun Weijie. I'm five years old." The boy's crisp, childish voice rang especially clear in Chen Mengchuan's ears.

After being discharged and returning home, Chen Mengchuan, his mind in a mess, accompanied his parents as they received wave after wave of visiting relatives and friends.

Every concerned, genuine face only deepened Chen Mengchuan's confusion.

Finally, when night fell, the exhausted Chen Mengchuan said goodnight to his parents, went to his room, collapsed onto the bed, and fell into a deep sleep. Father Chen and Mother Chen stared at the living room, kitchen, balcony—everywhere piled with fruit and nutritional supplements—and felt their heads spin.

When he woke the next morning, Chen Mengchuan felt dazed. Looking at his parents' bedroom door, a wave of inexplicable sadness washed over him. He went into the kitchen, washed rice, boiled plain congee, hard-boiled a few eggs, sliced a plate of pickled vegetables, and then went out to buy some fried dough sticks.

By the time he got back, Father Chen and Mother Chen were already up.

"Why don't you sleep more? Do we need you to make breakfast?" Mother Chen scolded.

"Let him show off if he wants to." Father Chen, sitting by the tea table brewing tea, chimed in.

Mother Chen ladled out the congee and shot back, "Say a little less. Yesterday I didn't see you holding back that smile—your mouth couldn't even close."

"Dad, Mom, I'm sorry. I've always made you worry." Chen Mengchuan took a deep breath. Thinking of everything in his dream, he forced a smile onto his face.

His words made Mother Chen's eyes redden again.

After breakfast, Chen Mengchuan sat down across from his father, took the teacup his father handed him, and took a small sip.

Holding the cup, he looked at his father. There were countless things he wanted to say, but he didn't know how to start. His mind was filled with images from the dream twenty years later—extraterrestrial mechanical lifeforms wiping out humanity.

In that dream, from the moment those alien machines landed on Earth to the extinction of mankind, only nine hours had passed. Humanity, after six years of technological explosion, had no effective resistance against a far higher level of science—whether it was armies, tanks, fighter jets, anti-air missiles, or even nuclear weapons. It was a completely mismatched level of technology.

Twenty years... How could he change his own fate, his family's, and all of humanity's?

Stand up and shout a warning? Tell humanity that aliens would arrive in twenty years? Urge them to develop technology to save themselves?

Chen Mengchuan let out a deep sigh. None of it was realistic. Right now, he was just a former minor clerk at the Xia Science Academy who had resigned.

"Dad, I'm planning to do something on my own." Chen Mengchuan spoke to his father.

After that dream—seeing both past and future—he naturally couldn't walk the old path again. The Island Nation was out of the question. The painful twenty years in the dream had made him understand that Huaxia was his true home. As for his dream-wife, Ayase Sonoko... Chen Mengchuan's feelings were very complicated.

Let fate take its course.

After drinking two cups of tea, Father Chen slowly replied, "If you have an idea, go do it. If you need anything, tell me. This old face of mine can still cash in a bit of goodwill."

Father Chen's words surprised Chen Mengchuan. He looked up at his father. In his memory, his father always contradicted him, always put on the full authority of a patriarch.

"Hmph. Don't embarrass me." Father Chen snorted coldly.

Looking at his father, Chen Mengchuan suddenly laughed. For some reason, tears nearly spilled from his eyes.

In that dream, he had said far too many ruthless things to his own father, time and again doing things that disappointed him. In the end, their father-son relationship shattered completely. He cast everything aside and went to Yokohama, Japan, where they truly became strangers who never saw each other again. After that, they never met again...

In the dream, before the divorce, Ayase Sonoko had wanted to return to China many times and discussed it with him repeatedly, but he could never swallow his pride and go back. The two of them often quarreled over this, turning cold toward each other afterward.

"A real man, crying over something like this." Father Chen looked at his son, a ripple of emotion stirring in his own heart.

Taking a few deep breaths, Chen Mengchuan held back many of his feelings. Thinking of the countless research projects and data in his mind, he said slowly, "I plan to build an Artificial Intelligence myself."

Father Chen was stunned for a moment, his brow furrowing slightly. He shook his head and said, "You know better than I do how difficult the Xuan Yuan AI project at the Xia Science Academy is. How do you plan to do it?"

Chen Mengchuan took a sip of tea, his gaze fixed on the empty cup. He said slowly, "Everyone is wrong. The Xuan Yuan project is doomed to fail, and it's not because of the hardware. In the theory of Artificial Intelligence, whether it's the United States, the European Powers, or the Island Nation—everyone is wrong..."

Father Chen looked at his son, his brow tightening a little more, but soon relaxing again. His son was not the type to boast idly.

"True Artificial Intelligence is much simpler than we imagine..." Chen Mengchuan said seriously.

"Are you confident?" Father Chen asked.

Chen Mengchuan nodded, adding a silent thought to himself: In that dream, I already built her.

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