The Best of Times

Samad was an excellent lecturer, even better than the best classes Chen Yuanguang had attended at Jiang University.

By "excellent," he meant the fullness of emotion. From Samad's lectures, he could sense the emotions of different literary eras, the emotional preferences found in works from different periods of history.

He could hear a longing for the feelings experienced by the authors of those times.

It was extremely difficult to achieve that through lecturing alone.

Usually, that effect required the combination of film, music, imagery, lighting, and atmosphere to convey emotions more precisely to the audience.

Yet Samad could create that effect in such a casual setting. Chen Yuanguang felt genuine admiration and thought, No wonder he could be a professor at Contemporary Society University.

After taking a sip of water, Samad said, "That concludes today's lecture. Next time, we'll discuss various popular literary works of the twenty-first century. I'll also send some reading lists to your campus account later. Download them and take a look if you're interested."

Chen Yuanguang nodded with a smile. "All right. I'll definitely take a look when I have time.

Professor, if we're discussing popular literature next time, could you focus on science fiction—or, more specifically, science-fiction mysteries?

I'm quite interested in that kind of work."

Chen Yuanguang hoped Samad would recommend some science-fiction mysteries so that he could draw inspiration from them.

Samad had clearly misunderstood him. "Are you trying to find the murderer behind your father's death?"

Chen Yuanguang was surprised. This man knew about it too? "Professor, you heard about it as well?

I remember the media coverage of that rare car accident beside Kek Lok Si Temple didn't use anyone's real name. It should have been even harder to connect it to me, right?"

Samad waved a hand, indicating that it was a trivial matter to him. "The news is blocked off from the lower classes, but among the upper classes, who doesn't know that a younger member of the Yingchuan Hall Chen Clan was taken out?

I was just complaining about Chen Dingsong earlier. I've met your father too. Back when he was still a police superintendent, I gave them a lecture on high-tech crime.

Your eyes and brows look very much like his, and your surname is Chen. Wasn't that easy to guess?"

Samad shook his head as he spoke. "Buddhists say that all appearances are false, and all conditioned phenomena are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows.

Death is the same. All things in this world pass through life and death in endless cycles; everything has its destined course.

Blissful death outside Kek Lok Si Temple, and inside Kek Lok Si Temple, nothing changes.

But in my view, that's all bullshit. There is no destined course. Only what has already happened is destined. If you could return to the past, you could certainly stop your father's death.

It only became destined after the result occurred. It was not destined before it happened.

Science-fiction mysteries can't solve your problem. If you want to find the real culprit, you'll need Alpha's help.

You can briefly tell me what happened."

Chen Yuanguang changed the subject. "Professor, I want to rely on my own strength for this matter."

He did not know what background this old man with a typical Southeast Asian appearance had, so Chen Yuanguang did not want to reveal too much.

He had no interest at all in hunting down the culprit.

Samad had gone from standing to sitting cross-legged. When he recited that Buddhist verse just now, he had carried himself like quite the charlatan.

Samad did not mind. "All right. You need to believe that Alpha can do anything, as long as he wants to.

Other than Alpha, every other method will have loopholes. Even True Judgment might not be able to uncover the truth."

After saying that last sentence, Samad took on an unfathomable air, as though he knew something.

Chen Yuanguang wanted to press him for details, but the thought quickly subsided. He would have plenty of time to interact with the old man. This was not that high a priority.

He always had the feeling that the people he met around him—from Chen Yonglin to Shi Huilan to Samad—were deliberately or inadvertently steering him onto the path of finding the real culprit. The more they did so, the less he wanted to do it.

"Professor, I'm curious. Isn't the society Alpha has built a good one? Even the poorest people can receive basic support, with food, clothing, housing, and transportation all guaranteed.

People can obtain clothes, food, housing, medical care, and so on without working. Compared to before, humanity's standard of living and average lifespan have risen dramatically, while average working hours have fallen sharply.

I can hear your contempt and dissatisfaction with Alpha in the way you speak. Why is that?"

When you did not want to follow the path someone else had laid out for you, you had to forge a new one.

Of course, this was also something Chen Yuanguang was genuinely curious about: what someone as knowledgeable as Samad, perhaps with a background Chen Yuanguang did not know about, thought of Alpha.

"Is it really good? Not necessarily.

There is no better way to describe it than with a line from Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities: it was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Samad rose from his cross-legged position on the chair, waving his arms with something close to madness.

He had recited Dickens's famous quote in the original English.

"This is the best era for individuals, and the worst era for humanity.

Individuals do not need to work, nor can they find work. There are no jobs for them. They can immerse themselves entirely in every kind of pleasure-based entertainment. AI has become so advanced that this entertainment floods every platform. Movies, television dramas, and games erupt in endless waves as though they cost nothing. Even with extended human lifespans, people still cannot finish them all.

AI produces thousands of AAA titles for everyone to play. Those with enough users and popularity can become franchises; once a franchise loses popularity, there will be a new one.

And that is only gaming. The bestselling works produced by all kinds of commercial writing are enough to last a person until death. AI cannot experience emotions, but AI can arrange and recombine things. It can always produce emotional works that humans select.

AI creates literary works, and humans pick out those rich in emotion. We no longer need real writers. The last human writers to become global bestsellers date back to the twenty-first century.

AI has developed pleasure-based entertainment to its peak, and there are no worries about food, clothing, housing, or transportation. This is undoubtedly the best era for individuals.

After seeing the society Alpha built for humanity, I realized how absurd the Cyberpunk of the past was. The underclass lived in utter misery, surviving on painkillers and hallucinogens. How high would the cost of maintaining stability in that kind of society be?

Now energy is nearly limitless. After the explosion in productivity, supporting these humans costs AI almost nothing. Providing material security and pleasure-based entertainment is the proper way.

Cyberpunk settings simply thought society was not stable enough."

Samad seemed exceptionally excited. After saying so much in one breath, Chen Yuanguang even suspected that he was about to run out of air.

At first, Chen Yuanguang thought it sounded rather good. But the more he listened, the more something felt wrong. Based on what he knew, when things came too easily and required no effort, people could easily become empty inside.

It was like spending a university summer vacation at home doing nothing, lying around every day. It felt great at first, but the emptiness came quickly afterward.

And the humans on Earth in this spacetime would be lying there for a hundred years.

Just thinking about it made Chen Yuanguang shudder.

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