Doomsday Dream

"Zhihui!!!"

Chen Mengchuan jolted upright with a hoarse roar, gasping for air, his head splitting with pain!

After a long while, his expression froze. He stared blankly at Father Chen and Mother Chen beside him before tremblingly asking, "Dad?... Mom?"

"You scared both your father and me half to death." Mother Chen grumbled. The dark circles beneath the elderly couple's eyes were obvious.

Father Chen snorted. "Always showing off."

"Where is this? Why am I... here?" Chen Mengchuan asked, dazed and disoriented. His mind was filled with horrifying scenes from the nine hours after the apocalypse descended.

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

"A hospital... Luoyin Water?" A wave of dizziness crashed over him. Chen Mengchuan's vision went black as he grabbed the bedrail, nearly passing out.

He remembered how his AI project at the Xia Science Academy had been stolen, how he had been humiliated. In his anger, he had quit his job at the Xia Science Academy and returned to his hometown, Jiangmu Ancient Town. Later, he had saved a child who had fallen into the water...

Countless memories raced wildly through Chen Mengchuan's mind like a long film on fast-forward...

A dream? Chen Mengchuan shook his head. Those images had been far too real to be explained away as a dream.

"..."

"I'm talking to you. Did you hear me or not?" Father Chen frowned, clearly displeased.

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

"He just woke up. Say less." Mother Chen turned and scolded her husband.

"Hmph. If it weren't for the fact that he saved that child..." Father Chen snorted. His gaze wavered, holding both lingering fear and pride in his son's act of saving someone.

"How is that child?" Chen Mengchuan asked blankly.

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

Before she could finish, Mother Chen's tears began streaming down her face.

Chen Mengchuan blanked out for a moment, pain rising in his heart. He hurriedly comforted her. "Mom, I'm fine. Don't cry. I won't be so impulsive again. Please don't cry."

After eating some porridge, the child's parents and grandparents came over with the child.

The moment the family saw Chen Mengchuan, they all dropped to their knees and burst into tears, repeatedly expressing their gratitude. Moved by them, Chen Mengchuan and his family also teared up.

The child's grandfather pressed the child down and had him kowtow respectfully to Chen Mengchuan three times. The child called Chen Mengchuan his godfather, Father Chen Grandpa, and Mother Chen Grandma.

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

Sun Weijie had taken over the family business at a young age and married at nineteen because of an unexpected pregnancy. In the photos he brought, there were many pictures of Father Chen and Mother Chen with his young son. He had always fulfilled Chen Mengchuan's filial duties for him...

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

"Godfather, my name is Sun Weijie. I'm five years old," the boy answered, his clear, childish voice exceptionally loud in Chen Mengchuan's ears.

After leaving the hospital and returning home, Chen Mengchuan, whose mind was still a mess, accompanied his parents as they received wave after wave of relatives and friends who had come to visit.

Each concerned, vivid face only made Chen Mengchuan more confused.

When night finally came, Chen Mengchuan, exhausted beyond measure, greeted his parents and returned to his room, where he collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep. Father Chen and Mother Chen looked at the living room, kitchen, balcony, and all the fruit and nutritional supplements piled around the house, feeling overwhelmed.

When Chen Mengchuan woke the next morning, he was somewhat dazed. Looking at his parents' bedroom door, he felt an inexplicable sadness in his heart. He then went into the kitchen, washed rice and cooked plain congee, boiled several eggs, sliced a plate of pickled vegetables, and went out to buy a few fried dough sticks.

By the time he returned home, Father Chen and Mother Chen were already up.

"Why aren't you sleeping longer? Does this family need you to make breakfast?" Mother Chen scolded him.

"If he loves showing off, let him show off." Father Chen replied as he made tea beside the coffee table.

After serving the congee, Mother Chen shot back, "Say less. Yesterday, I didn't see you acting like this. You were smiling so much your mouth wouldn't close."

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

Chen Mengchuan's words made Mother Chen's eyes redden again.

After breakfast, Chen Mengchuan sat before his father, took the teacup Father Chen handed him, and took a small sip.

Holding the teacup, Chen Mengchuan looked at his father. Countless words filled his chest, yet he did not know how to begin. His mind was full of scenes from the dream, scenes of alien mechanical life exterminating humanity twenty years later.

In that dream, only nine hours had passed from the moment those alien mechanical lifeforms landed on Earth to humanity's extinction. Humanity, which had enjoyed six years of technological explosion, had not possessed even the slightest effective means of resistance against superior technology. Armies, tanks, fighter jets, anti-air missiles, even nuclear weapons... they had not been on the same technological level at all.

Twenty years... How could he change the fate of himself, his family, and humanity as a whole?

Should he stand up and shout to the world that aliens would descend in twenty years? Call on humanity to advance technology and save itself?

Chen Mengchuan let out a deep sigh. Everything was too unrealistic. Right now, he was merely a minor former researcher who had resigned from the Xia Science Academy.

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

After such a strange dream, after seeing the past and future, he naturally could not follow his old path again. He would never go to the Island Nation again. The painful twenty years in his dream had made him understand that China was his root. As for Ayase Sonoko, his wife in that dream... Chen Mengchuan felt deeply conflicted.

Let fate decide.

After drinking two cups of tea, Father Chen slowly replied, "If you have an idea, go do it. Tell me what you need. This old face of mine can still pull a few strings."

Father Chen's words surprised Chen Mengchuan. He looked up at his father. In his memory, his father had always opposed him in everything and constantly put on the stern air of a father.

"Hmph. Just don't disgrace me." Father Chen snorted.

Looking at his father, Chen Mengchuan suddenly laughed. For no reason, tears nearly burst from his eyes.

In that strange dream, he had said far too many heartless things to his father and disappointed him again and again. In the end, their father-son relationship had completely broken down. Chen Mengchuan had abandoned everything and gone to Yokohama, Japan, becoming truly estranged from his family until death. They had never met again...

Before their divorce in the dream, Ayase Sonoko had wanted to return to China several times and discussed it with him repeatedly, but he had been too proud to return home. They had often argued fiercely over it, followed by cold wars.

"A real man cries over something this small?" Father Chen looked at his son, his own heart stirring as well.

After taking several deep breaths, Chen Mengchuan suppressed his turbulent emotions. Thinking of the countless research data and projects in his mind, he slowly said, "I'm planning to create an Artificial Intelligence."

Father Chen froze for a moment. His brow furrowed slightly as he shook his head. "You know better than I do how difficult the Xia Science Academy's Xuan Yuan Artificial Intelligence project is. How do you plan to do it?"

Chen Mengchuan took a sip of tea, his gaze focused on the empty cup as he slowly said, "Everyone is wrong. The Xuan Yuan project is doomed to fail, and it isn't because of the hardware. When it comes to Artificial Intelligence theory, the United States, the European Powers, and the Island Nation—everyone is wrong..."

Father Chen looked at his son. His furrowed brow tightened further, then soon relaxed. His son was not the kind of person to make empty boasts.

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

"Are you confident?" Father Chen asked.

Chen Mengchuan nodded, silently adding, In that strange dream, I had already created her.

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