readease Chapter 268 Between 3 Years
Chapter 268 Between 3 Years
A countdown of three thousand days hung in the hall. Three hundred days had passed in the first year, and the number had become two thousand seven hundred.
Nothing dramatic happened during those 300 days. 402's seven business lines continued to operate, global user base grew from 400 million to over 700 million, and its valuation quietly climbed from 50 billion to nearly 70 billion in two quarters. The board of directors held three meetings, each with no particularly important agenda. As usual, investment institutions asked if there were any new financing plans, and Han Lu's answer was, as usual, "Not considering it for the time being."
Zuo Cheng put all those numbers aside and spent three hundred days doing something else.
He created a private archive called the "Origins Archive".
The database was restricted to him and Yu Ying. It contained no business data, no financial statements, and no technical documents. It only contained a timeline, beginning four billion years ago when the founding civilization sowed seeds in the universe, and ending three hundred days ago in the early morning when the Lone Ranger spacecraft launched from the Hainan launch site.
There are many nodes on the timeline. He wrote comments for each node.
Four billion years ago: Seeds fell on Earth, 217 terminal nodes were buried deep within the continents, and 2 relay nodes were placed on Mars. Sentinel monitoring stations were placed in the subglacial ocean of Europa, waiting for life on this planet to find them.
Six failed hosts. Six rounds of selection, six times starting from the nascent stage, six times failing before reaching the fifth branch. The system isn't looking for the smartest person; it's looking for someone willing to move forward.
Chen Xinghe. The man who discovered the Taklamakan node twenty years ago, wrote seven diaries, and ultimately chose to upload his consciousness into the Web. He thought he was merely exploring. He didn't know he had pressed a fast-forward button in the Sahara, turning a fifty-year buffer into five. Not a mistake. A legacy.
Then it was himself.
Zuo Cheng paused for a long time at the last entry on the timeline. He wrote a note on it: "I was the only one to break through to the fifth branch in the seventh attempt. But I don't need to be the end. If the inheritance protocol of the ninth branch is fully unlocked, the technology tree can smoothly transition to the next person after one person leaves. I just need to ensure that everything in the core can be inherited by the next person."
He saved the document, turned off the screen, and sat in his office for a long time without moving.
When Yu Ying knocked and came in, he was staring blankly out the window. Outside the window was the Hangzhou night skyline, with satellites of the constellation traversing the sky one after another, like a string of slowly drifting points of light.
"I've discovered a pattern." Yu Ying placed an unfolded star chart on his desk.
The star map marked the positions of nine nodes in the solar system. Seven were confirmed, and the other two were approximate locations calculated using the coordinates of the founders. Yu Ying connected the nine points with a pencil, then pointed to the center and said, "Look at this shape."
The nine nodes, when connected, form a spiral. It's not a random distribution, but a precise geometric shape, with a regular angle between each node.
Zuo Cheng observed for a while and then said, "The center is not the sun."
"Yes. It's Jupiter." Yu Ying placed the tip of her pencil on Jupiter's orbit. "A nine-node spiral, with Jupiter at its center. If this inference is correct, it means Jupiter isn't just Europa's mother planet. Jupiter itself might be the core node in the web. Europa's sentinel monitoring stations are just outposts."
Zuo Cheng picked up the star map and looked at it again. He entered this deduction into the "Origin Archive" and wrote a line in the remarks column: The Lone Ranger is not just going to an icy moon. It's going to the front door of the entire web-weaving operation system.
Yu Ying read the line he wrote, said nothing, folded the star map neatly, and put it into the folder.
That day was the 300th day of the 3,000-day countdown.
A week later, Zuo Cheng took Yu Ying to do a few things they hadn't done in a long time.
The first thing I did was go back to the library of Huaxia University.
The library was still the same library, and the revolving door at the entrance still made the same soft sound. They found the table where they first spoke; the table was still there, in the same place, only the light bulbs on the bookshelf next to it had been replaced with new ones, making the light brighter.
Yu Ying sat down at the table, placed her schoolbag on it, and looked around. She didn't say anything sentimental, but simply placed her hand on the table, her fingers tracing the edge. Zuo Cheng sat down opposite her, looking at that angle, and suddenly realized that when he first saw her here, she was in the same posture, her hand on the table, her head down looking at data.
"What were you looking at?" he asked.
"It's a signal processing final assignment," Yu Ying said. "Three errors, and I couldn't find them after two hours."
"Was it found later?"
"Found it. I found it after you left." She looked up at him, a slight smile playing on her lips.
The second thing was to visit the old site of the incubator.
That building has been demolished. The site is now a commercial complex, with two underground parking levels and seven floors above ground for a shopping center. The facade is a glass curtain wall, reflecting the midday sun. Zuo Cheng stood by the roadside for a while, but didn't go in. He vaguely remembered that there used to be a sycamore tree in front of that building; now, the sycamore tree was probably next to the cashier on the first floor.
Yu Ying stood next to him and asked, "What are you looking for?"
"There's nothing left," he said. Then he shook his head. "It's nothing, let's go."
The third thing was a trip to the Fengyuan Agricultural Experimental Field in Mincheng.
That experimental field is still there. It's almost twice the size it was back then, and it's still using the 402 smart agriculture system, running the whole system from soil moisture sensors to drones patrolling the field. Old Zhang is gone. The person in the field is his son, Zhang Ping, in his thirties, tanned dark, with calluses on his hands.
Zhang Ping recognized Zuo Cheng. A little reserved, he led Zuo Cheng around the field ridges, explaining the yield, the soil, and this year's wheat variety. Zuo Cheng asked him if farming was tiring. Zhang Ping thought for a moment and said, "Yes, it is. But farming is a respectable job, my dad says so."
Zuo Cheng looked at that piece of land for a long time.
On the way back from the agricultural experimental field, Yu Ying leaned against the car window, turned her head, and asked him a question.
"If one day you accomplish all of these things, what would you want to do?"
Zuo Cheng drove in silence for a long time. On both sides of the highway were plains, on which were farmlands, and in the distance were low hills that stretched as far as the eye could see.
"Start another small company," he said. "Five people, seven computers, doing small things. Like making traffic lights smarter, or making supermarket vegetable prices more accurate." He paused, "Then hand the company over to someone else. Then go home."
Yu Ying looked at him without saying a word. The farmland outside the car window was a deep green in the afternoon light.
That night, after returning to Hangzhou, Zuo Cheng opened the system panel and performed a routine check. He had developed this habit of opening the panel every few days to scan it, not for any specific purpose, but simply to glance at the numbers.
The ninth branch with six leaves is operating stably. There are no new changes to the main mission progress. The Lone Ranger's position indicator in the Solar System node status monitoring is slowly moving towards Jupiter.
Then he noticed a detail.
At the tip of the leaf of the ninth branch of the inheritance agreement, there was a small spot of light. It was tiny, smaller than any normal indicator light on the system panel; had it not been for the dim light tonight, he would hardly have noticed it. The spot of light was pale blue, not steady, but slowly flickering slightly, like a star just beginning to burn.
He zoomed in on the panel, set it to its maximum magnification, and stared at the light spot.
There was no text, no task prompts, no explanations. Only that point of light, quietly glowing at the tip of the Inheritance Protocol leaf.
He stared at it for a long time, finally adding a final update to the "Origins Archive." He wrote: Two thousand seven hundred days until the Lone Ranger arrives. Something is beginning to sprout. I'm not sure what it will become, but it's there. It's already here.