Chapter 995 - This Game Is Too Realistic

Chapter 995: Superposition State There was no doubt that it was a human alliance landing craft, but inside, instead of fully armed soldiers, there was only an emergency stasis pod. The soldiers from the space combat unit carefully lifted the stasis pod out and re-established a perimeter around the accident site. Then, they transported the pod to the nearest medical facility. After connecting it to a power source, they followed standard procedures to open the pod's hatch. As the hatch opened, a young woman dressed in a silver-grey tight-fitting suit was revealed lying inside. The sight of the girl in the stasis pod made everyone around instinctively hold their breath. Her hair was almost completely gone, and her skin appeared as if it had been scorched, with large patches peeling away from the dermis, making her features nearly unrecognizable due to the distortion caused by pain. The most alarming sight was a gunshot wound on her abdomen, with frozen blood pooled within the cockpit. The scene could only be described as unspeakably horrific, making it hard to imagine the agony she had endured. Wu Mengke, standing in front of the holographic screen, felt a sharp pang in her heart and almost instinctively shouted out. "Save her!" Without her needing to give any orders, the medical staff waiting nearby were already in motion. They fitted her with a ventilator, quickly connected life support, and began emergency treatment. Freezing in a stasis pod when critically injured is extremely dangerous, as a single mistake could result in death. Fortunately, those accustomed to the wastelands seemed to have an indomitable vitality akin to that of cockroaches. Additionally, she was equipped with bionic prosthetics from the academy, a miracle that pulled her back from the brink of death. "Her condition looks like she took a neutron torpedo hit..." Koala, working on the prosthetics maintenance, couldn't help but click his tongue and murmured in amazement, "It's incredible she's still alive." A colleague from the fourth department remarked, "Maybe it was because of the ship's deflector shield. Remember that 'research ship' from before? That guy didn't suffer much damage." The engineer standing beside him nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his chin as he mused. "A plausible hypothesis. The guy likely lost consciousness quickly due to the EMP because of his higher level of prosthetic enhancement, leading to less radiation damage... while this girl, on the contrary, resisted the EMP but was affected by neutron radiation." Koala, puzzled, asked, "But why was she on another ship? And one that's a Human Alliance Astral Navy model..." "I don't know," the engineer shook his head, gesturing with two fingers for emphasis. "I can only hypothesize: one ship was their own research vessel, and there was another already part of that wreckage... Does that make sense? It was part of the ruins." Koala stared at him blankly as a peculiar expression gradually formed on his face. A landing craft that was already part of the wreckage... It almost felt as if their "Dawn" project had failed... He wasn't alone in that thought; many others around had fallen silent. While the engineers of the fourth department speculated on the strange prosthetics the patient bore, the doctors from the seventh were more focused on her condition. "What a terrible state... that girl." "Yeah..." "A few seconds later, and she might not have made it." Amongst the whispering doctors and nurses, Lin Youyou just stared blankly at that face. Noticing her expression, a colleague looked at her curiously. "...Do you know her?" Lin Youyou nodded with a subtle expression. "Sort of." "What do you mean 'sort of'?" After a moment of silence, Lin Youyou spoke. "Someone mentioned her name to me... I have a strong intuition that she is the girl that kid mentioned." What was supposed to be a promise kept two hundred years later had manifested sooner than expected. Her colleague, puzzled, asked, "Who is she?" "Jiang Xuezhou." After a moment of deliberation, Lin Youyou nodded confidently. "She's Jiang Xuezhou, without a doubt." He had become her. As for themselves, they remained stuck in this suspended moment of time—or rather, this crevice of space-time. It was all so strange... Just then, a soft exclamation interrupted her thoughts. "The patient is waking up!" "Wait, she's speaking!" Upon hearing her colleague's excitement, Lin Youyou quickly rushed over to the treatment bed. The girl's breath was shallow, her cracked lips fluttering like a candle in the wind, evoking a deep sense of sympathy... Lin Youyou heard her faint voice, seemingly calling out a name. "Ye Shi..." "It's so cold here..." ... So cold— As Ye Shi's consciousness plunged into the abyss, that was the only sensation he could perceive. The piercing cold seemed to seep through his senses, through his skin and hair, into his very soul. Instinctively, he wanted to curl up, but found himself unable to move. It felt as though he had plunged into the Arctic, only to be seized by an invisible hand that dragged him from the ocean's surface straight to its darkest depths. Yet just as he was about to hit the ocean floor, the world seemed to flip upside-down. Instead of his nose touching the seabed, he emerged on another ocean surface, from the other side of the planet. "Buzz—" Accompanied by a tide-like din, his lost senses rushed back in an instant. Had it succeeded...? Ye Shi reflexively sat up, only to slam his forehead against the stasis pod's hatch. This action triggered the pod’s safety mechanism, or perhaps the safety protocol had been passively engaged long before. Yellow warning lights flashed with alarm-like symbols, accompanied by a hiss as the tightly sealed metal lid slowly opened. "Cough—" Ye Shi felt unprecedentedly weak, his body heavy and unsteady, his back still resting in the icy chamber. Yet he summoned all his strength to grip the edge of the hatch, flipping himself out of the ice. Yes, flipping out. There was no gravity. Moreover, the outside space was colder than within the stasis pod, though perhaps due to the thin air, the temperature felt not as harsh. Ye Shi felt a spark of joy in his heart. The absence of gravity at least meant he had departed from the timeline of two hundred years ago. However, his face soon changed as the thin air began to suffocate him. "Damn it—" Cursing, Ye Shi swiftly had an idea amidst his panic. He moved his index finger to press the back of his neck twice, initiating the internal circulation mode of his artificial lungs. He seldom used this mode while on Earth, nearly forgetting its existence. With this mode activated, the lungs would close the air outlet and collaborate with other digestion and metabolic organs. Utilizing electric energy, catalysts, and water from respiration, it simulated photosynthesis to generate glucose and oxygen. Though theoretically, continuous energy input could maintain this cycle indefinitely, there was, in fact, mass loss in practical operation. A person equipped with extensive bionic prosthetics, after all, wasn't truly a synthetic human; he couldn't survive completely detached from Earth's ecological environment. This function was roughly enough to keep him alive in outer space for about twenty-four hours, possibly even less. But— That time should be ample enough. According to the plan, the crew of the Orpheus would soon arrive for their rendezvous. Calming himself, Ye Shi surveyed his surroundings. The twisted steel and malformed cockpit unmistakably belonged to Jiang Xuezhou's research ship. However, what tightened his heartstrings was the absence of any sign of Xiao Jiang. "Strange..." Where is she? He had clearly heard her voice! And just before he awakened! Not only did he hear it, but the frost marks on the glass were distinctly her breath! A premonition of dread crept over Ye Shi as he tirelessly searched through the wreckage. He even tore down the warped alloy door, crawling into the passenger cabin behind the cockpit, yet found no trace of anyone. It was as if she had vanished into thin air. With time slipping by, that creeping dread turned into a chilling terror. One possibility abruptly emerged in his mind— She was still inside! Inside that "rift in space and time"! But how could that be?! Wasn't he the only one who had entered?! Ye Shi's face shifted through expressions of shock and disbelief, even tinged with a hint of anger. Just a few moments ago, someone had promised him they'd come to his rescue, and yet here he was, still alone. Either they had failed, or they'd completely forgotten about him. Or perhaps, driven by impulse, they attempted to interfere with the universe beyond the event horizon, only to be swallowed by the river of time. The plan had gone awry… The reinforcements hadn't arrived! Or perhaps they existed in entirely different parallel worlds, and their encounter within the hyperspace corridor was merely a fleeting brush past each other. He hadn't changed his own future, nor theirs. Instead, due to some overly clever interference in a parallel world, a monster known as "Celestial Being" was created. "Damn it..." Ye Shi slammed a fist against the wall, but the counter force sent him bouncing to the other side of the cramped cockpit, leaving him momentarily disoriented. Yet this bumping around served to make him realize the importance of staying calm. This was no time to panic. The more dire the situation, the more crucial it was to maintain composure. Steadying himself by holding onto the wall, he regulated his heartbeat, trying to keep his calm. Next, he attempted to log out. The result was the same as before. It was as if the logout function had been removed from the remote; he just couldn't exit. Which meant he was still trapped in a "scenario"... Realizing this, Ye Shi actually felt a sense of relief. He had figured it out. When inside a scenario, real-world time moved slower, or alternatively, his time moved faster. A simple logic could prove it. He had stayed on the Orpheus-class missile cruiser for two whole weeks—if the game and reality ran at a 1:1 speed, even if Jiujiu ignored her brother, he'd have been dead by now in the real world. There was only one explanation. The scenario he was in and the real world had different time flows! Moreover, the difference wasn't just about being faster or slower; it involved inserting a stretch of "time that didn’t belong to this timeline." As a result, even though several days passed within the scenario, only a brief time—an hour or two—passed in reality. Since so little time transpired in the real world, the same was true for the game world outside the scenario. He wasn't sure how this operated technically. Maybe through psychological suggestion, maybe through computational simulation… But this explained why he kept hearing the same four phrases repeatedly. As for Jiang Xuezhou's absence, only one explanation remained— She had entered a scenario too! But why, despite her being in the scenario, couldn't he and the crew observe her presence— No, it wasn't that they couldn't observe each other! There was simply a time difference! In fact, it was likely she arrived just as he was leaving. And that was why they couldn't observe each other. A sense of understanding gradually seeped into Ye Shi's mind. Everything that had been vague and unclear started to sharpen in focus as he unraveled the threads, linking together the fractured pieces of the puzzle in his mind. A starship orbiting synchronously above had fired a neutron torpedo at their research ship. Though the research ship's deflector shield absorbed some of the damage, it was not the neutron radiation that knocked him out; it was the EMP from the nuclear blast that overloaded his bionic components. The smaller the component, the more susceptible it was, especially since his body was practically infused with them from head to toe. His memory shattered there. And while he lay unconscious, the relatively less EMP-affected Jiang Xuezhou dragged him into the stasis pod. The primary damage she suffered was likely from neutron radiation. But thanks to the deflector shield, her injuries weren't fatal. Of course, there were more than one stasis pods on the research ship, yet she chose not to lay down in one herself. Because if both of them went into stasis, without reinforcements and with the enemy still active, they'd be surrendering to death! She had only one option— And that was to continue fighting! While she was still awake. In Ye Shi's mind, he put himself in her shoes, imagining unconscious Xiao Jiang lying before him. "...If I were in her place, I wouldn't just sit and wait for death. I'd do everything in my power to save her." But how to save her? His brain worked at a fevered pace, simulating countless possibilities like an overclocked computer. Though his intelligence attribute was never low, it was the first time in this game he had fully engaged all his mental faculties to think about things sensory players never considered... "My strength is perception, so I'd likely think of an ambush... Her strengths lie in programming, mechanical know-how, and understanding relics... She'd have to draw on the environment itself for solutions." She was a specialist in artificial intelligence. Her programming skills were nearly genius-level, having served with the Beacon Squad, where she gained profound insights into exploring Human Alliance-era ruins. So... There was only one thing she could do. That was to actively seize control of the starship, competing with the "Celestial Being" already boarding it for command! In doing so, the fake "Luo Yi" onboard would no longer be free to pursue him. That guy could only relentlessly chase after her! Thinking of the girl who feared darkness and cold doing so much for him suddenly brought a swell of emotion to Ye Shi, causing him to clench the fist supporting him against the wall. "Damn it, if I can't clear this scenario... I'll just delete my character and start anew..." Everything became clear. The remaining unclear threads had narrowed to just a few pieces of the puzzle. Including why he still couldn't log out, and why the reinforcements that should've arrived the instant he woke up were inexplicably absent... Though the actual process was possibly more convoluted than he'd imagined, the overall picture wasn't hard to guess. During the time he slept, she likely gained control of the starship, or at least control over certain regions and systems. Such as the warp drive at its core... In the worst-case and most extreme scenario, her last resort would only be one— To deplete the last ounce of translocational energy from the ship and open a hyperspace channel to jump to another galaxy, effectively exiling this starship capable of world destruction beyond the solar system. To prevent her from opening the hyperspace channel, "Luo Yi" most likely launched and detonated another neutron torpedo at close range or triggered an onboard detonation. This was the most probable course of events. That guy was probably a synthetic human, highly likely manufactured by the Gemini-class vessel. Which was why he could brazenly deploy such strategic-grade weapons. But that wasn't the point. The point was that the neutron torpedo detonating within the hyperspace corridor turned this abandoned Orpheus-class cruiser into a new "black box," now belonging to the timeline of the Wasteland Era of 215—a timeline about to enter a new epoch. A neutron bomb's explosion and a hyperspace jump couldn't occur simultaneously, as hyperspace doesn't recognize time, which inherently prohibits the former from enabling the latter. Thus, they must occur sequentially, even with the inevitability of the neutron bomb's explosion. Consequently, their occurrence represented a quantum superposition state—detonating at both the entrance and exit of the hyperspace corridor. In this superposition state were not just the crew members from over two hundred years ago but also himself, Jiang Xuezhou, and another synthetic being with the same name as Luo Yi. The entanglement of two timelines was neither at the moment the research ship collided with the Orpheus nor the instant the first neutron torpedo exploded, but precisely when he was in stasis—at the moment this starship entered the hyperspace corridor beyond the event horizon! At that very moment, Jiang Xuezhou, for some reason, was thrown into a life-and-death superposition state. While his stasis pod fortuitously formed a "Faraday cage," he was not only spared a second "strategic EMP strike" but inadvertently roused due to EMP effects on the pod’s external circuits. His awakening coincided with her closing eyes, marking the starting point of their intersection with another timeline. Her revival or death would signify the end of that intersection! Though Ye Shi's understanding of physics was merely at an undergraduate level, limited particularly in the realms of high-energy phenomena to the likes of Young's double-slit experiment, he knew there was little time to dwell on such matters now. Perhaps Professor Gale could offer a more scientific explanation, but at this moment, it wasn't important. In this second black box, he was no longer merely an observer; he was the cat itself in this superposition state. Regardless of whether the allies from two hundred years ago still remembered that distant promise, or if from the very beginning they were fated never to meet, the so-called deception of the observer was simply a one-sided wish... Ye Shi had to do what only he could do right now. Here, time held no meaning, and no one could save her. Except him! Grasping the edge of the gaping hatch, Ye Shi kicked open the warped cockpit door, floating alongside the spinning metal panel into a pitch-black room. There was no longer any need to conceal his presence. In fact, it was better if the impostor calling himself "Luo Yi" came looking for him! The sound of twisted steel creaked through his grip on the doorframe. Simultaneously, he illuminated his flashlight, swiftly surveying his immediate surroundings. He was in the canteen on the lower deck. He remembered it clearly, even recalling his last meal of potato and beef eaten here—though that dish remained not in his stomach, but in the "rift in space-time" that didn't belong to the primary timeline. Miraculously, these memories persisted, and even the faint aftertaste lingered on his tongue. Familiar utensils and tables drifted in one corner of the room. There were no flickering lights—only impenetrable darkness, the chaos resembling a crash site. Familiar faces were absent; neither the dining crew members nor the bionic chef remained, which was only to be expected. Gazing at the corridor outside the canteen, which resembled a black well, Ye Shi clenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes, allowing his five senses to plunge into the profound darkness, spreading outward from the grip on the doorframe. This sensory expansion resembled a dense spider web, capturing the slightest disturbances with his neural synapses. Every nuance, from the faint collision of debris with walls to the gentle rustling and even the almost imperceptible breezes, couldn't escape his notice. These were no naturally occurring sounds. Ye Shi's eyes snapped open. Though his vision couldn't penetrate the layers of wreckage to see the intruder's face, he keenly sensed the individual's movement through a corridor. That familiar yet unfamiliar sensation was unmistakable— It was precisely the "accident scene" he had always been forbidden entry to! He detected the man with the jetpack, pressing its controls two short bursts then one long, like a ghost gliding through the zero-gravity corridor, leisurely approaching the gym, cordoned off in some parallel universe. “…I see you!” To be continued.