A Twisted Life

The middle-aged researcher sat in his laboratory, reviewing the research papers of several students. He would be listed as the corresponding author, and these articles would become his own research achievements.

As he grew older and his thinking became increasingly rigid, he had to rely on the work of his students to maintain his reputation and status.

Using the power in his hands to trade for his students' innovative results was exactly what his own mentor had done to him in his youth; back then, he could only watch helplessly as his own work was snatched away.

Fame, connections, status—years of accumulation had given his mentor an absolute position of dominance over his students. And now, he had become that very same person.

The middle-aged researcher had no memory of the past year; at this moment, he was still living his original, daily life.

A calm, ordinary, repetitive life, day after day.

Screening students' papers to find the results he needed. Attending various banquets to maintain interpersonal relationships. Making phone calls to his wife and children, feigning the image of a good husband and father. Occasionally meeting with his mistress, whose youthful, vibrant body could awaken his long-dormant desires.

Dreams and passion were gradually extinguished, and the wear and tear of the body made his mind stiff and dull. He simply followed the path of the past, repeating a similar life day after day, eventually drifting toward death without even realizing it.

Without a doubt, such a person could produce very little information; he was an unqualified source of information.

However, the pursuit of status and fame is not an obstacle to thinking.

On the contrary, those who can occupy high positions and enjoy fame and fortune often possess self-discipline, as well as the ability to receive and process new knowledge, that exceeds the average person. Capable of doing what others cannot, they possess desires and execution power far stronger than the common man.

It is the numb, repetitive life, day after day, that causes people to gradually forget how to think.

In games, killing monsters grants experience to level up, and bosses conquered through all-night raids drop precious equipment. This model, where effort yields visible, equivalent rewards, allows people to clearly feel that everything they do is not in vain.

However, in reality, effort does not necessarily yield rewards, while not putting in effort is certainly easy. When effort fails to provide positive feedback, people naturally give up bit by bit.

Waking up from the dreams of youth, discovering one is not the chosen one, realizing that reality does not shift according to one's will, and gradually admitting one's own mediocrity.

Smoothing out the sharp edges of the past, forgetting to learn or think amidst repetitive, mundane work, and simply moving forward in a daze.

"Therefore, intuitive and immediate rewards can provide positive feedback, prompting people to maintain their vitality."

The middle-aged researcher was in his office screening his students' papers when an envelope suddenly appeared in the bottom left corner of the blue screen floating before his eyes. It flashed incessantly, accompanied by a rhythmic beeping sound.

The researcher clicked to view it and discovered that a paper he had previously published had been seen by an academician. The academician believed that some of the viewpoints and conclusions within were quite valuable and hoped to invite the researcher for a face-to-face discussion.

The expression of the previously listless middle-aged man suddenly became animated.

His years of scientific research had not yielded many valuable results, and the clever mind he had once been so proud of was, here, merely ordinary.

His dreams shattered, he had gradually accepted his own mediocrity and turned to seeking status and fame; yet, in this regard, he was inferior to those willing to discard their dignity. This pride meant he hadn't gone very far on this path either.

In the end, as he grew older, he stopped harboring excessive expectations, simply maintaining his status through his students' research and repeating a similar life every day.

But now, at nearly fifty, he had received a massive surprise. That paper had been co-published with a student just a few days ago, and he hadn't even placed much importance on its content himself. He never expected it to be highlighted by an academician.

Quickly reading the paper from beginning to end and then questioning the student in detail about his thought process, the researcher burst into immense enthusiasm in a short span of time. He had to prepare for the exchange with the academician; this might become a crucial step in turning his life around.

Feeling the active thoughts and intense electrical signals released by this brain, the rate of energy consumption rising by several notches, Li Heng could not help but admire the subjective initiative of humanity.

By exerting only a tiny influence, he could trigger the generation of several times the amount of information, even surpassing those brains possessing youthful memories.

The middle-aged researcher made all the necessary preparations and, that evening, had a quite harmonious exchange with the academician. The academician showed significant interest in his theories and ideas and invited him to join an important experimental project.

Ending the dinner, the middle-aged man sat in his smart electric car on the way home, bobbing his head and humming a tune. In a few days, he would join that research project; he would no longer be an expendable, ordinary researcher.

Time passed quickly. He soon joined the research project, and the experimental process went unexpectedly smoothly, yielding many important research results in a short time.

Within a few months, he had leaped like a carp over the dragon's gate, becoming a newly minted academician of the Academy of Sciences. Fame, status, money—everything he had pursued in the past had become within easy reach.

Lying in a newly purchased villa in the suburbs, the middle-aged man held his mistress and pondered the massive changes of the past few months.

Ever since he had been appreciated by the academician, his life had hit a turning point, becoming smooth sailing; it could almost be said that everything he wished for came true. Although he had put in quite a bit of effort during this process, he always had a feeling that it was all too smooth. Whenever he calmed down, he would involuntarily suspect that he was dreaming.

The middle-aged researcher's feeling was, without a doubt, correct. Although the electrical signals Li Heng input into his brain were almost identical to the external information he received through his physical organs, these few months were, in reality, only a few days.

Human brain cells are in a constant state of decline; by the age of 80, about half of the brain cells have been lost.

Li Heng had modified the Hong Alliance's technology for catalyzing biological cell division and applied it to these brains-in-vats, allowing them to grow at dozens of times the speed of a normal person and receive information at high speeds.

However, this also made their lives extremely short. This immature technology caused them to experience a slight, dream-like sense of detachment when receiving information.

Moreover, as a middle-aged researcher with a wealth of real-life experience, obtaining the fame and status he had once craved so easily would naturally lead him to harbor reasonable doubts.

"The process where effort and reward are too smooth actually raises a person's threshold for excitement. The sense of achievement is higher when the same thing is attained after arduous effort. This kind of achievement, obtained as if using a game cheat, instead makes one feel insipid."

If given the choice in reality, this life of smooth sailing all the way to the peak would, of course, be better.

However, for Li Heng, the joys and sorrows of the individual were not the key; the emotional fluctuations and intense thinking generated by the individual during the process were the point. Efficient brain activity could consume more energy and produce more ordered information.

This middle-aged researcher's brain activity was most intense when he was first appreciated by the academician, followed by when he achieved research results during the subsequent project, and finally, it returned to its original, ordinary state once he had achieved success and fame.

As the achievements gained became higher and material life became more abundant, the individual required more stimulation to feel excited and happy, much like data inflation in an online game.

From this point of view, PvP is naturally more enduring than PvE. Fighting with others is full of joy; it is precisely this "inability to obtain" that gives people a sense of reality.

"Therefore, the fictional world must also return to its essence of reality, allowing the individuals within it to freely collide and interact. Excessive interference is not as good as letting things take their natural course."

The test of positive feedback ended.

As the threshold increased, the intensity of the middle-aged researcher's brain activity became lower and lower. This mode of smooth sailing was not suitable for producing information.

The next moment, as Li Heng's thoughts shifted, the world around the middle-aged researcher changed drastically.

The originally luxurious villa became mottled and dilapidated. The floor lost its color, the faded window lattices rattled in the wind, and the brightly lit bedroom became dim and dark.

The middle-aged researcher felt a slick, slimy sensation against his left hand, and from the corner of his eye, he saw his once beautiful and alluring lover transformed into a rotting female corpse, with several twisted maggots crawling within her hollow eye sockets.

His body reacted faster than his brain. Shoving the corpse away, the researcher, clad only in his briefs and too panicked to dress, leaped from the bed and bolted toward the exit of the villa.

Outside, the pristine full moon in the sky had turned blood-red, and several distorted clouds hung in the air like grinning ghouls; the silver electric car parked outside had become rusted and pitted, its door reflecting the eerie crimson moonlight.

Recovering from his initial terror, the man hurriedly activated his smartwatch to contact the outside world, yet every communication attempt met with silence.

Just as the researcher stood there in bewilderment, the old electric car beside him suddenly emitted a creaking, screeching sound, and then its dull, tarnished door was forced open by a tremendous power.

The corpse of his lover, who had been inside the house moments ago, lunged out from the vehicle, extending her swollen, putrid hands as she stumbled toward the man.

Terror, shock, confusion—and then, he turned to run.

The man no longer had the luxury of wondering if he were trapped in a dream; the bizarre and horrific scene was infinitely more real than any nightmare, and the stench of rot combined with the lingering, sticky sensation on his hand told him this was no virtual reality film.

He scanned his surroundings rapidly, feeling a seemingly endless surge of power emanating from every part of his body; his once flabby frame had become incredibly agile under the influence of sheer terror and an intense will to survive, allowing him to narrowly dodge the rotting palms reaching for him from the monster behind.

As the researcher sprinted and dodged through the narrow alleyways, Li Heng carefully sensed the various electrical signals firing in his cerebral cortex, evaluating the impact of the negative environment on the subject.

The sense of crisis and fear left the man no room for calm reflection; his brain was processing environmental data at high speed while continuously outputting control signals to every part of his body.

"A sense of crisis, fear, and the will to survive can provide strong stimulation to an individual, causing the once-calm brain to undergo violent fluctuations due to the massive contrast. However, an individual in the midst of a crisis lacks calm, orderly thought, which actually results in a decrease in the production of coherent information. Therefore, excessive fear and a sense of crisis are not viable."