Mei Yiqiu slid his hand up from Liberia on the west coast of Africa, then across the Sahara Desert eastward, stopping at the land bordering the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea. There, at the mouth of the Nile, the world's longest river, lies the most prosperous region in all of Africa. Now, that golden land is covered in red, and as the professor's finger taps it, the window displays:
City: Egypt
Population: 22.8 million
Sales volume: 323,089 units
Number of users: 792,309
Mei Yiqiu, pipe in hand, smiled. This data was enough to make most cities and regions in the world look good. Initially, no one was optimistic about the sales of the Space Box in the Arabia world and the Middle East. The strong religious and ethnic sentiments there would reject anything foreign or new, especially since the Dream Guide featured a creator god unrelated to their beliefs. Later events showed that, except for Israel, sales in the rest of the Middle East were extremely difficult. However, Cairo was an exception.
Mei Ziqing also found this data strange. She exclaimed, "Everyone says Cairo is the headquarters of the Arabia Alliance, but I didn't expect them to be such dreamers!"
Mei Yiqiu laughed and said, " The Ancient Egypt pharaoh cast a spell on that land; the Arabia can't change anything."
"Professor, you're really joking!" Mei Ziqing said.
"Perhaps it's not a joke!" Mei Yiqiu seemed quite pleased. " The Egypt president once wanted to demolish the pyramids, and although it was met with opposition from all over the world, did they ever care about this pitiful amount of external public opinion pressure? In the end, they did nothing. Besides the fact that the pyramids could indeed make them money, there must have been some other reason."
"What's the reason? Don't tell me the people who went to demolish the tower were cursed by the Pharaoh!"
"Only they themselves know the answer."
Mei Yiqiu looked at the map carefully, then reached out and operated the interface, zooming in on the map where Egypt was located, and then forcefully tapping the location of Cairo.
"Look how amazing it is! The estuary of the world's longest river is located right near the intersection of 30° east longitude and 30° north latitude."
He muttered to himself, then swiped the map eastward, onto the map of China, zooming in on the location of the Yangtze River Delta.
"The estuary of the world's third longest river... well, although the location is slightly off, it's roughly around 120°E and 30°N, which is also the coordinate location of the Three Wu region."
Mei Ziqing, confused, asked, "Professor, what are you trying to say? I don't quite understand!"
The professor then placed his hand back in Cairo, and moved it eastward, saying, "Starting from the Pyramids of Giza, move eastward along the 30th parallel north for ninety degrees of longitude, and you'll arrive here—this is where we are now!"
Is this a coincidence?
"A coincidence?... Oh, maybe. But what if we keep moving eastward by ninety degrees of longitude? Guess where we'd end up?"
The professor continued to slowly move his hand along the 30th parallel north, while Mei Ziqing had already calculated the latitude and longitude of that location in her mind and turned her gaze there— the North Pacific Ocean Basin north of the Hawaii Ridge, but there was nothing there except a blue ocean.
Mei Yiqiu's hand merely touched the spot lightly before suddenly turning south, moving along the 150°W line to the intersection with the 30°S line.
"Ah, that's—" Mei Ziqing exclaimed in surprise, "The place where the underwater pyramids were discovered! And also the site of the research vessel's wreck!"
Mei Ziqing suddenly understood something, but wasn't quite sure, muttering, "Ninety degrees east, then another ninety degrees east, then sixty degrees south... what does that mean...?"
Mei Yiqiu did not answer her question. His finger continued to move eastward, reaching the area around 60°W and 30°S, where he pointed and lingered for a while.
"What place is that?" Mei Ziqing asked.
"The area between the Salado River and Paraná River." Mei Yiqiu, with a pipe in his mouth, squinted, his fluffy white hair resembling a cloud in the smoke.
"Look at the positions of these four points, do you notice anything?"
Mei Ziqing fell into deep thought. "The four points differ by 90° in longitude, but their latitudes are also different. What does that have to do with anything?"
Mei Yiqiu brought up the software interface on the screen, clicked a few times, and the world map transformed into a three-dimensional, slowly rotating Earth. The four points he had clicked remained, connected in pairs by dotted lines, forming a rectangular plane. This plane formed a 30° angle with the Earth's equatorial plane, dividing the Earth into two halves.
As the Earth rotates, the plane shadow formed by the four points creates a projection band on the Earth's surface, covering a vast area from 30 degrees north latitude to 30 degrees south latitude, essentially wrapping the Earth with a belt.
"It doesn't really matter..." Mei Yiqiu said, biting his pipe, but his eyes were looking towards the area east of the Bering Strait and north of Alaska, where the North Magnetic Pole is located.
Bian Ziyuan sat in front of the computer, finished writing the last page of the report, checked it once, and then sent it out via the internal email address https://m. hetushu. com. com.
Since the third generation of the Space Box came out, his work has become much easier. The game program is basically perfected, and because Kronos is highly intelligent, the optimization of the game no longer requires manual operation. The reason he still has things to do is because he invented the initial version of Kronos, so Kronos's optimization program instructions are sent to him, which he then confirms and writes into a report, which only takes effect after Mei Yiqiu signs it.
The program he invented almost cost him his job, which might seem ironic to others, but to Bian Ziyuan it was a tremendous encouragement. Those who stand at the forefront of the times are already the most successful, but how can they compare to those great figures who personally propelled the tide forward?
He believed that Kronos was comparable to any trend, and that he was the hand that created and propelled it.
The only thing Bian Ziyuan couldn't understand was why the professor wouldn't merge Dreamnet into the Internet. Although he knew a little about the Internet developing consciousness, he considered it a tremendously good thing. In recent years, people have been discussing the future of artificial intelligence, but none of the most cutting-edge AI researchers dared to say that AI could develop self-awareness, not even his Kronos.
If the Internet, having developed to its current scale, suddenly developed independent consciousness, capable of self-reflection and self-improvement, what a magnificent discovery that would be! Humanity's destiny might be forever altered!
According to Bian Ziyuan, the evolution of the human body and intelligence has slowed down significantly in the last few thousand years, indicating that evolution has entered a bottleneck period. As technology has developed to its current state, people have begun to turn their attention to the stars and the sea. The vast universe is the future of mankind, and humanity will eventually have to abandon Earth, its comfortable home, to seek a wider living space.
However, the human body has evolved to adapt to Earth's environment. Once separated from Earth's gravity and magnetic field, humans simply cannot survive. Therefore, all cutting-edge technologies, including spacecraft and manned spacecraft, must consider environmental simulations suitable for the human body, including appropriate gravity, air pressure, and a sustainable ecosystem. These factors severely hinder technological progress and prevent humanity from reaching the stars.
"Did you know that our physical bodies are completely useless! Abandoning the physical body is an inevitable trend for the future development of humanity! Only by connecting consciousness to machines can we go further!"
During a meal, Bian Ziyuan, quite drunk, said to Old Yu, who was also flushed from drinking.