Overlapping Space-Time

Chapter 9: 1.09 Overlapping Timelines

The way to understand the myriad states of the mortal world can be through comprehensive investigation reports delving into various professions, or it can be by personally climbing the single-plank bridge of a thousand armies, the ascending passage it provides.

During the climb, one can understand the young and strong who pass through the ascending passage, those who don't, the groups that enter the ascending passage and then connect with various industries, and the groups that wander outside after failing. Of course, one can also understand the proportion of these groups in society.

The "Investigation of Things" imperial examination in this world has ended. After checking the public scores on the electronic system, it's time to go to school to collect one's score certificate. Under the safety escort of plainclothes martial artists, wearing a coarse cloth school uniform and "fake myopia glasses," Wei Keng (he) rushed to the school where his academic records were registered and collected all the documents proving his academic achievements.

This process was procedural. Wei Keng (he) tried his best to complete his file records in this world. Of course, after obtaining his academic proof at the school, Wei Keng (he) also quietly observed other people who came to handle similar certificates—that is, the successful candidates who made up a large proportion of the public examination.

Following them, Wei Keng (he) was curious about their plans for the future. However, after following them for a while, they arrived at an arcade.

Wei Keng (he) saw these junior high school dropouts excitedly rubbing their hands, discussing the discount on arcade tokens that day, which allowed them to exchange 20% more. He opened his mouth.

The reason for their success was a lack of understanding of "education changes destiny," and thus no future planning. "Substituting the mindset of successful candidates into that of the failed ones when thinking about the future" is fundamentally flawed. These youths who didn't do well in the exams were excessively joyful.

Of course, the ultimate reason lies in the problems with the National Examination for Filial and Honest Officials policy. The young, having lived in this world for less than twenty years, absolutely wouldn't think about the future from a ten-year perspective. The farthest these youngsters could think was whether they could be nominated in the next two or three years. If they even gave up on their academic achievements, the farthest they could think about would probably be not having enough for their monthly game card top-up and their ranking dropping.

When it comes to being a shut-in, Wei Keng (he) has plenty of experience, but seeing so many young people becoming shut-ins in this target dimension, he couldn't help but feel a sense of panic.

Wei Keng (he) sighed helplessly: "The world of the older generation is planned by Gold Power, constantly depleting resources in one gamble after another. Therefore, schools, families, and public morale that truly foster 'great achievements over a hundred years' are not fulfilling their responsibilities. Relying on the self-control of the young?

Heh, at an age where they haven't fully learned basic knowledge, are restless, and their minds are not fully developed, games can occupy the entire ambition of their youth. But what about twenty? What about twenty-five? They will eventually get tired of games, especially if they use cheats and constantly beat the computer. They'll get tired of it in less than a month. When they then shift their attention and venture into the jianghu for a living, what will happen?"

Seeing these ambitious youths with frivolous words and superficial behavior, Wei Keng (he) thought of the idlers and ambitious individuals in the marketplace. These restless young adults today must have been like this ten years ago. As for the next ten years, the cycle would be continued by the next generation.

In the main world, Wei Keng (he) didn't need to think about this problem. He just needed to know: follow his teachers, comply with social supervision, study diligently, and as a background character, provide competitive pressure for those smarter than him. In the future, smarter people would get better positions and would be more capable than ordinary people like him, building the world better. Here, Wei Keng (he) suddenly realized there was no one in front of him. It seemed the responsibility of building the world had fallen directly on him? He was quite at a loss.

The inspection ended. Wei Keng (he) got into the car sent by the group. The youths behind him, who were hooking up as they left the arcade, gradually receded from the car window, but Wei Keng (he)'s thoughts did not end.

Many people say: "Better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of a phoenix."

Wei Keng (he) could consciously be a vibrant root beneath a towering tree. But now he had become a rotten root, the tip of a decaying tree. This didn't make Wei Keng (he) feel glorious; instead, he felt the chill of being too high.

The nation prospers by cultivating talent, and cultivating talent is related to public morale, schools, and family education. Therefore, it is also related to enlightening the masses and establishing stable property.

Under the dominance of the evil Gold Powerism, in this dimension, including Shenzhou, not a single entity focuses on solving the problems of people's livelihoods and cultivating talent. The only consideration is how to control this increasingly foolish and specialized world in their own hands.

However, speaking of stable property, Wei Keng (he) took the opportunity to check the records of men and women participating in stable property. After reading them, he thought, as expected, women were at home. However, in this way, women could receive social welfare based on their headcount. This led to a higher proportion of male births in the statistics, making the population structure appear more favorable, with the proportion of young and strong constantly increasing over more than twenty years.

"Wait."

Wei Keng (he) rewound the query page on his tablet, then re-entered the keywords and looked at the population curve. His gaze fixed on the timeline and the population in different age groups, linking his consciousness to the system to record it. Then he opened the curves of resource output such as grain and cloth, and let the transmigration system record them as well. Finally, he placed the two curves together.

Wei Keng (he) used simple curve graphs to estimate the trend of conflict development, and gradually, he had a rough idea of the timing of the "war" in the future.

From a certain insane perspective: "Young fools are like expired firearms and ammunition; if not used, they become scrap."

Social practice has initially concluded. After returning to the group's main base, Wei Keng and Ke Feijia began a long phone call.

In Shenzhou, nominally, Wei Keng's Luoshui Group was also one of the sponsors for Ke Feijia's project, so a private call between the two was quite normal.

In the experimental base, after emerging from the enclosed high-energy field equipment area, Ke Feijia was still wearing his anti-radiation powered armor.

Leaning back in his chair and looking at Wei Keng, who still had a scholarly air about him, Ke Feijia asked with slight concern, "Are your exams over?"

Sitting at his desk, Wei Keng spun a pen and replied, "Uh, sorry. For the past six months, I've been busy with my own matters and haven't been able to help you much."

Ke Feijia: "No, no, no, that's very good. It's your first time arriving in another plane. In the beginning, you don't need to help with anything, but rather try to understand the world. I was originally thinking about how to assess your understanding of the plane's information."

The orthodox Huizhi Provincial Examination involved subjects such as astronomy, geography, society, history, mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Any knowledge system that could select talented individuals was incorporated into the provincial examination system. By passing such a public examination, Wei Keng's cultural knowledge had a deeper connection to this world, making him receptive to various situations.

What Wei Keng and Ke Feijia needed to discuss was a re-understanding of this plane.

Originally, this plane was classified as an Adjacent Plane, meaning its history differed from Earth's main world, but its other physical rules were the same, akin to a parallel world. However, it has now been confirmed that this world exhibits "supernatural" phenomena that are impossible in the main world, thus it is suspected to be classified as a Near Plane.

Not to mention anything else, in the 1960s of this plane, it is said that Western scientists had scientifically verified the phenomenon of psychic powers through meditation. However, the global application of related technologies, whether by Soviet Russia's KGB or the European and American Joint Intelligence Bureau, was kept under extremely tight security by relevant departments. The information obtained by Shenzhou's upper echelons was extremely limited.

Currently, ordinary people in Shenzhou are informationally isolated, but Wei Keng, Ke Feijia, and other high-ranking officials in Shenzhou know that Eastern Traditional Qigong is not a scam here.

In 1955 of this plane, Shenyang's Shinra Research Department, while researching the Tesla Reactor, discovered a new particle: the Meson-Macro Particle. They provided some explanation in public publications, but subsequently, there was no further research on this particle in any country's public technical magazines.

In the 21st century of the main world, experimental reports on Deuterium Tritium and Lithium-6 particles under high energy are not publicly released.

Countries are currently keeping research in this area secret because the various energy states of these particles are similar to the physical layer phenomena of human consciousness in this world. They can be influenced and controlled by humans, and on a macroscopic level, they can form visible phenomena.

To put it this way, the oxidation of carbohydrates and the formation and metabolism of the human body are all at the same energy level. If humans gain strength to hit someone by eating carbohydrates, then in this world, if humans' consciousness were to "feed" on related substances, could it allow human intent to unleash some energy?!

On this plane, there are already mystics like Qigong masters and psychics! Although their numbers are extremely small, and they hide in the corners of society due to their scarcity, they have never been officially recorded in history. However, the scientific technology of the industrial age can mass-produce phenomena that were originally extremely rare.

Ke Feijia is at the forefront of this technology. In a demonstration video from the test site, it can be seen that a ball of light appears in his palm, and he then shatters a vase with it.

Indeed, if he himself could not demonstrate the application of this technology, why would Shenzhou's major corporations invest so much money in this project and hand over the leadership of the project to him?

Of course, such superpowers cannot be brought into the main world because this technology is the Meson-Macro Particle.

As observers, we often encounter the saying, "From a horizontal view, it's a ridge; from a side view, it's a peak."

That is to say, the same object presents different effects from different angles. In different planes, the observable forms of material particles also differ.

The Meson-Macro Particle can be observed and captured in this plane, but as the perspective shifts dimensionally towards the main world, this substance, whether in terms of time or space, continuously shrinks, ultimately becoming zero-dimensional in the main world!

[When the Meson-Macro Particle is transmitted back to the main world through energy facilities, its half-life and spatial fluctuations drastically decrease during the dimensional conversion process. Upon reaching the main world, it becomes something unobservable within the vacuum quantum fluctuations of the main world.]

The Meson-Macro Particle, a trace particle undetectable in the main world, is not the only case discovered by the Spacetime Exploration Bureau in various planes. Humanity has consistently made new discoveries during exploration of the surrounding spacetime, and our understanding of matter is gradually evolving into a system larger than the periodic table and fundamental particles like quarks.

Spacetime departments worldwide have simultaneously begun preliminary measurements of the variations in the properties of these substances across different planes, attempting to use them as coordinates for different regions of spacetime. Of course—this matter is still too far removed from Wei Keng's current understanding; he only needs to know about it for now.

Wei Keng's conversation with his teammates this time didn't primarily focus on superpowers. Instead, it was about another phenomenon discovered during their research into Meson-Macro Particles.

Ke Feijia: "In the latest experiment, we verified the phenomenon of time overlap for material information within Energy Zone 14. The data we measured is astonishing, on an astronomical scale!"

Wei Keng: "I just arrived in this world, and my education level is only high school. Get to the point. I'll research related fields in-depth when I choose my major in the next two years."

Ke Feijia: "Time travel, you know about that, right? When manufacturing time crystals on Earth, it was limited to a very small, microscopic scale where information could echo repeatedly."

Wei Keng nodded. Having a comparison, he now understood.

Time reversal had always involved space. Reversing one's body back to infancy was reversal, and reversing one's city back forty years was also reversal. The difference was the scale of space involved, and thus the scale of reversal.

Wei Keng asked Ke Feijia, "What's the scale of reversal here?"

Ke Feijia: "As I said, once it reaches a certain magnitude, it's astronomical."

Seeing that Wei Keng was still hesitant to think on a grander scale, he clarified directly: "Once it reaches a certain magnitude, the entire Earth's timeline will change. Only the observer might retain information from before the reversal."

Wei Keng: "Travel to the past, then change the world, and then change the present!"

Ke Feijia nodded.

Wei Keng: "So, if someone changes the past now, can we realize that the past has suddenly been altered?"

Ke Feijia: "We are part of the flow of spacetime in this world. Because our memories are based on the matter of this world, if the world changes, our memories change too. We can't directly perceive historical changes in our thought processes. However, nodes in our consciousness will record it! Theoretically, every time the world's history undergoes a significant change, the global Meson-Macro Particle properties become more active, and the Observers continuously record the state of these nodes."

Wei Keng: "Oh, no wonder. I was wondering why I couldn't contact them."

The Observers exist outside the flow of time. However, if they were to directly converse with a Transmigrator who had fully descended into this plane, it would be equivalent to direct observation. The Observers' phase-state chambers in their dimensions would also be affected by changes in the spacetime flow. Therefore, they could only review fragments left by Transmigrators in the spacetime flow and send information unilaterally.

Ke Feijia: "They are fine. What we need to be careful about is—listen closely, this is the important part: in the future developments we encounter, there might be people who understand our direction of action. They will make arrangements targeting us based on information from downstream in time."

Wei Keng paused: "You mean~"

Ke Feijia: "Yes, be careful. If we accidentally do something that changes history, who knows, some entities from downstream might arrive in the present and give us a..." He made a slicing motion across his own neck with his hand.

A few minutes later, after Wei Keng had barely digested the information, he asked another question: "During the period we have descended, have the nodes recorded any spacetime overlap phenomena?"

Ke Feijia: "Currently, the Meson-Macro Particle situation recorded by the nodes is stable. But that doesn't mean there won't be future travelers. Perhaps the key figure in changing history is under good protection and hasn't appeared in public. So, downstream entities arrive here, but they can't access key personnel and thus can't change history on a large scale, which is why our nodes don't record significant changes in Meson-Macro Particles."

He then looked at Wei Keng and advised, "Therefore, all the exams you've participated in must be kept secret. Don't reveal them, even to the future."

Wei Keng nodded: "Okay. Then, what about your safety?"

Ke Feijia raised his hand, and airflow appeared in his palm. With his superpowers, he didn't need Wei Keng to worry about him.

Red Alert characteristic.