Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 888 "That is hope"
As for the second illusion, it made Ke Lan further realize the stupidity and selfishness of human beings - those resistance organizations that shouted slogans of equality for all actually became tools of the superiors, and spared no effort to destroy the last hope of survival of the human race.
The attackers who thought they were "sacrificing their lives for justice" were actually just a group of incompetent and angry idiots. They would rather everyone be buried with them than watch a few "seeds" fly away to the distant universe on the ark.
From a personal perspective, it is understandable to have such emotions, but from the perspective of the entire race, these people are a cancer and are "inferior individuals" who should be eliminated.
Human rights are the product of civilized society. If even human civilization is facing the crisis of destruction, then what is the meaning of such a thing?
Perhaps, the members of the Undead Crew also look at the people on the Ark now with this kind of eyes... As long as humans can survive, no matter how many people die, no matter how extreme the things they do, they will not hesitate.
They don't care about the process, they only care about the results.
What humans need is unity, not sacrificing their souls and bodies to "Him"...
Even if "He" did not deceive humans, what is the difference between this approach and the "Human Instrumentality Project" in "EVA" that turned all human beings into orange juice?
The existence of every individual is meaningful, and human civilization is made up of countless such individuals... If everyone's self-consciousness is erased, is there still any meaning to the existence of civilization?
The walking dead cannot be considered human beings, and even less can a group of zombies who only know how to follow their killing instinct.
No matter how disappointed Ke Lan is with humanity and reality, he will never place his hopes on "Him".
After thinking about this clearly, Ke Lan suddenly felt enlightened - Neto created these illusions in order to undermine his will. As long as he knew the other party's true purpose, no matter how the illusion changed, the things in the illusion would no longer have any influence on Ke Lan.
He suddenly thought of a way to break the impasse.
"You can jump down and try it." Ke Lan said to the boy.
"What?" The boy's expression froze - according to the normal development of the plot, the boy would not only not listen to such an "unknown" voice, but would also have to curse the voice as a psycho in his heart. But perhaps because he had already lost all hope, after the initial hesitation, he actually used his hands and feet to climb over the guardrail and stood on the outer edge of the overpass.
The width of the space on the outer edge of the overpass for people to stand on was less than three inches. The boy could only step firmly on the ground with his heels, and most of the front of his feet was suspended in the air. If he hadn't hooked his arms back to the guardrail, he would have fallen down by now.
The cold wind made the boy's hair messy. His breathing began to become rapid. Looking at the traffic passing by under the overpass, a look of struggle appeared on his face.
"Are you scared?" Ke Lan asked with a hint of smile in her tone.
"Anyone...would be scared, right?" the boy said unconvinced.
"If you are afraid of death, why do you want to die?"
“There’s no point in living… I’m so disappointed with this terrible world.” The boy closed his eyes tightly. “I think there are many things wrong with this world, but I don’t have the ability to change it… I hate this world, and I hate myself.”
"You're right about the middle sentence." Ke Lan laughed, "There are indeed many things wrong with this world, because it's not a real world at all."
"You're still joking with me at this time?" The boy was a little angry. "I don't know why I heard your voice , and I'm not interested in your pranks at all... But you're right, I really don't have the courage to jump down by myself... If possible, can you push me from behind? There are no surveillance cameras here, and no one can see that you pushed me down."
"I'm sorry, I can't do it." Ke Lan rejected the boy's request, "Your life should be in your own hands, even though, even you are fake."
"What on earth are you talking about? I don't understand!"
"Jump down, you won't die... You will see the truth of this world." Ke Lan slowed down her speech and whispered in the boy's ear like a devil tempting people to fall.
"What do you want to say? Can you just tell me?" the boy asked doubtfully. "I don't know who you are, and I can't understand what you are saying. If you have any purpose, just tell me directly. If I can help you in my last moments, I will consider it."
"I'm glad you're willing to help. I do have a small purpose." Ke Lan said... What surprised him was that although the boy had suffered a lot of misfortunes, the kindness in his heart did not seem to be completely annihilated. This little bit of "kindness"... might be the "key to breaking the deadlock" hidden in his heart.
"I'm trapped in this world." Ke Lan said truthfully.
"Are you there to amuse me?" The boy also laughed. His hands, which were originally tightly gripping the railing, loosened little by little, and his body began to lean forward little by little.
"I'm telling the truth." Ke Lan said in a very calm tone, "You believe me."
He used a declarative tone, "Do you believe me?", rather than a rhetorical or requesting tone like "Don't you believe me?" or "Please believe me."
This sentence, like a magic spell, made the boy's eyes change instantly... In just one second, he seemed like a different person. He took two deep breaths, then used his hands to flip back behind the railing.
"I believe you," the boy said. "So, what do you want me to do?"
"Jump off the overpass," Ke Lan said, "but don't jump with the intention of dying... Whether it's the overpass, the car, or the road, they don't really exist."
"Okay." The boy said, holding the railing with both hands, and jumped over - this time, he did not hesitate at all, and let go of his hands the moment his body jumped over the railing, and the whole person fell freely under the overpass.
Ke Lan's perspective also fell parallel to him.
Just as the boy was about to hit the road, the originally flat road suddenly began to twist , as if something heavy had fallen on a thin elastic film... The boy sank into the ground, and as he continued to fall, the asphalt road surface was infinitely stretched, and even the vehicles on the road were deformed.
The world is like a picture drawn on plasticine. When the plasticine is stretched, the whole world is deformed.
"This is impossible..." Neto's voice once again rang in Ke Lan's ears, with a hint of surprise that had never been there before.
"Nothing is impossible... These illusions are pieced together from fragments of my memory, so I should be the master here, not you." Ke Lan said.
The surrounding scenery began to become chaotic due to extreme distortion, and finally turned into darkness. Then, a point of light appeared in the darkness, and then became brighter and brighter.
"What is that?" The boy's consciousness did not shrink along with the illusion he was in. He was suspended in the darkness, looking at the distant light, and asked in surprise.
"Hope." Ke Lan replied.
The light began to expand, the darkness was dispelled, and a huge ring-shaped star gate was seen floating in the universe, facing the blue water star in the distance.
"This is... Earth? Then this is..."
Countless fingernail-sized spaceships are surrounding the circular star gate, and in the center of the star gate, an extremely large . This aircraft looks like a flying saucer that often appears in science fiction works, except that on the surface of the aircraft, the words "Noah's Ark" are written in large Chinese and English.
The bright light that the boy saw earlier was actually the light emitted after the thrusters of Noah's Ark were ignited. At this moment, the nine main thrusters and three hundred and ninety auxiliary thrusters of Noah's Ark have all been ignited. The power of the reactor is gradually increasing, and the brilliant flames are becoming brighter and brighter.
The star gate is pointing to the unknown depths of the universe, and behind Noah's Ark, the star called "the sun" by humans is flashing a disturbing light. It was because of the observation of this abnormal frequency of flashing that scientists concluded that the sun is aging at an accelerated rate and will expand to the point of swallowing up the earth within 10,000 years.
This abnormal flash, which was originally observable only once every six months or so, later became once every ten days, once an hour... and finally almost once a minute - and the estimated countdown for humanity's escape also increased from ten thousand years to three thousand years, then to one thousand years, and finally to less than a hundred years.
It is a miracle that humans were able to build Noah's Ark and this ring-shaped star gate in just a few decades...The fire ignited by the main thruster completely matches the meaning of the word "hope".
Although Ke Lan did not explain anything, at that moment, the boy had understood the whole story. He opened his eyes wide, watching the accelerator in the inner circle of the ring-shaped star gate start to rotate, and murmured: "Hope... the hope of mankind..."
"The Undead Crew only pursues results, not the process." Ke Lan said to himself, "At least human civilization has not yet perished... Then everything before was right. As long as the game can continue, the final victory or defeat is still undecided."
"But you can't agree with what they did, right?" the boy asked, turning around.
The "they" he was referring to was naturally the Undead Crew.
As the protagonist of the illusion pieced together with Ke Lan's memories, he naturally knows everything Ke Lan knows.
"They only talk about the results, not the process. As for me, I only talk about the future, not the past." Ke Lan said word by word, "There is no regret medicine in the world. I can't change what has happened, but I have to at least do well now and in the future. That's why I fled the Ark and ran to this place... I don't want to reverse anything. I just want to know the truth and make the right choice."
No matter how much the church suppresses the truth, science will eventually triumph over ignorance; no matter how much the resistance organizations try to obstruct the construction of the Ark, the Ark will eventually sail to the distant star field... Human history is indeed full of disappointments, but more of it is hope.
At least, humans have come this far, and civilization still exists... unlike the dinosaurs on Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, where only fossils buried deep in the earth remain.
"It's getting late." The boy looked at Ke Lan. Even though Ke Lan still had no physical body at the moment, their eyes met. He seemed to be able to see Ke Lan's outline in the dark universe, and also find the invisible eyes. "You are right, this world is fake, but hope is real... You should go back. You have more important things to do."
There was a roar like an explosion in the silent universe, and the thrusters at the bottom of the Ark ejected a tail flame hundreds of kilometers long. The entire ship turned into a stream of light and shot away from the sun, while the surrounding scene began to gradually fall apart.
The black universe fell like a black curtain, the twinkling stars went out like lights, and all the virtual things gradually faded from Ke Lan's sight, replaced by the real scene in the jungle hunting ground.
Neto seemed to be still muttering something, but Ke Lan had completely blocked out its voice. None of its words could reach Ke Lan's mind anymore, just like a user who had been banned by an administrator on the Internet.
After making sure that he had returned to the real world, Ke Lan immediately looked around and raised his wrist to check his mechanical watch. The good news was that only less than ten minutes had passed in reality, and no powerful mutants had yet invaded this ownerless area. But the bad news was that Thirty-Three seemed to still be immersed in his own fantasy and unable to extricate himself.
Looking at Sanshisan's appearance, he seemed to have encountered some terrifying monster in a fantasy. He was holding a Nino alloy hand axe in his hand, stumbling back and forth in the woods, swinging the axe continuously, leaving one chopping mark after another on the tree trunks.
But he was only slashing and did not use his "main weapon", those black flying blades - he probably did not have this special ability to manipulate Nino alloy in the illusion of Thirty-Three.
"Thirty-three, wake up!"
Ke Lan walked forward and wanted to wake up Sanshisan, but the other party chopped Ke Lan's face with an axe.
Ke Lan could only dodge, but Sanshisan seemed to have identified Ke Lan and kept chasing him with one axe after another.
