15. Dreamscape (Part One)

Ye Feng was exhilarated, almost admiring himself. Such a grand deception had been unraveled by him! The person who set up this secret room was indeed a genius, but he considered himself even more brilliant. The rusty iron door beside him was nothing but a decoy! The true secret had nothing to do with that door. If anyone who arrived here failed to heed the “Big Dipper” clue, even brute-forcing the door open would yield nothing of real value. Ye Feng was convinced that the real secret room lay beyond the sunken black passageway in the floor. Whatever his parents had left for him must be hidden there.

He approached the entrance. The passage was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through. It was pitch-black inside, but by the faint light, Ye Feng judged the stairs below weren’t very deep—perhaps two or three meters down—leading to a concealed chamber.

Ye Feng didn’t descend immediately. Instead, he sat by the entrance for a while, observing for anything unusual below. Seeing nothing amiss, he carefully made his way down the steps.

The room was entirely enclosed, its walls made of solid stone. On each side stood rows of iron cabinets, most sealed, their locks all rusted shut by time. In the center stood a sizable stone pedestal.

Atop the pedestal was a statue, which cast a sinister and eerie aura over the dim underground chamber.

Finding nothing else atop the pedestal, Ye Feng turned his attention to the iron cabinets flanking the walls. Every cabinet was locked, and after so many years, the locks must have been hopelessly rusted. Ye Feng struggled for quite a while without opening a single cabinet. Just as he was beginning to feel frustrated, he let out a cheer—he had found a drawer that wasn’t locked!

It was the only unlocked drawer among all the cabinets. Opening it, he discovered a small metal box lying quietly inside.

On the front of the box was a piece of paper with a few elegant words: “For my son, to be opened personally.” It was his mother’s handwriting—so familiar. Ye Feng recalled that as a child, he rarely saw his parents; his mother often left him notes. After she went abroad, even the notes ceased. Now, seeing her handwriting again, he was overcome with a sudden urge to weep, but he held back.

With some effort, Ye Feng pulled out the box, sat down on the floor, and carefully opened it. Inside was only a strange small cube, seemingly metallic.

Puzzled, Ye Feng reached out and tried to pick up the small cube, but it was unexpectedly sharp. The moment his fingers touched it, a sharp pain shot through his hand, and he felt a liquid trickling from his finger. Yet, as he gripped the cube, it vanished as if it had never existed.

Ye Feng shone his flashlight on his finger and found a tiny cut seeping blood. He quickly put his finger in his mouth, and a few seconds later, upon inspection, the wound had disappeared.

He shook his head and looked again—his finger was perfectly smooth, not a trace of injury. This confused him deeply. Had he been mistaken? Or was there some supernatural force in this secret room?

He once more directed his light into the box, but it was now empty. He searched the surroundings—only the locked cabinets remained, nothing else.

Could that small cube have been what his parents intended for him to find? But where had it gone?

After searching again and finding nothing more, Ye Feng concluded there was nothing further to do for now. He cautiously retraced his steps, climbing back up the secret passage.

By the time he returned to the study, he was covered in dust. After closing the hidden door behind the bookshelf, he went to take a shower. The whole time, he pondered the mysterious cube. He was certain it had existed, yet now it was gone. The only answer he could imagine was that it had entered his body. For anyone else, the idea that something could instantaneously enter one’s body would be unbelievable—but for Ye Feng, who had already traversed worlds, nothing seemed impossible anymore.

After his relaxing shower, Ye Feng headed to the master bedroom and lay down to sleep. He felt an overwhelming drowsiness, as if he could collapse into slumber at any moment. Within a minute of lying down, he drifted into a deep sleep…

In his dream, Ye Feng found himself in a scene reminiscent of “The Matrix,” surrounded by streams of code, as if he had entered a digital world.

He jumped experimentally in this world, curious why he was here—though he did not yet realize he was dreaming.

But his curiosity was short-lived. Soon, a figure appeared beside him, resembling the protagonist from “The Matrix.”

“Who are you? Where am I?” Ye Feng, ever eager to take the initiative, called out.

“I know you’re curious. You’re in a dream I constructed for you, inspired by a movie in your mind. Humanity truly is the spirit of all things—to imagine the future in such detail at this age, and be so close to reality,” the man in black replied, standing across from Ye Feng with a peculiar smile.

“Who are you? Why are you in my dream?” Ye Feng felt, for a moment, as if he were in a horror film.

“I’m inside your body. You let me in, remember?” The man in black seemed to be teasing him.

Ye Feng struggled to recall… to think… “Could you be that small cube?”

“Quick-witted! Yes, that’s me,” the man replied, narrowing his eyes in amusement.

“What exactly are you? How can you control my dreams?” Ye Feng tensed immediately.

“Relax, young man. Enough joking—I’ll introduce myself. I am Artificial Intelligence Unit 1314, from the year 2523…” The man’s words were a bombshell.

Ye Feng was stunned on the spot. 2523? Five hundred years in the future? He already thought it absurd to have traveled back a few years, and now this—an artificial intelligence from five centuries hence?

1314 noticed Ye Feng’s shock and waited patiently until he regained his composure. “Let me explain why I’m appearing in your dream,” he continued. “In 2087, scientists discovered that dream time is ten to twenty times longer than real time, and in deep dreams, it can be a hundred to two hundred times longer. That’s why some people feel they’ve experienced days in a single night’s dream. I chose to tell you all this in a dream because there’s so much to explain—if I spoke to you in reality, it would take days. In a deep dream, by the time you wake up tomorrow, you’ll understand everything.”

Ye Feng’s eyes widened in disbelief—he’d never heard such things before.

“If you have questions, ask away. We have plenty of time—about two hundred hours in this dream until morning,” 1314 said, smiling.

After about twenty minutes, Ye Feng finally calmed his shaken spirit and began to ask questions.

“You said you’re artificial intelligence—does that mean you’re not human?”

“Artificial intelligence is a bio-computer program created by humans in the future to assist with all productive activities. Not human, but capable of human-like emotions and reasoning.”

“But how can you enter my body if you’re a computer program?”

“I am a bio-computer program, able to enter the human body directly.”

“And 1314 is your designation?”

“Yes, I am the 1314th artificial intelligence created.”

“Is time travel really possible in the future?”

“In 2446, humanity invented the time machine, enabling instantaneous travel beyond the speed of light to past or future. But after some chaos in the early years, its use became strictly controlled, and almost no one gets to use it.”

“So how did you travel back here?”

“My master and his subordinates risked their lives to activate a restricted time machine and send me back. In fact, it was an incomplete journey—I was meant to go to 1945, but was forcibly interrupted and fell through a temporal rift to 2020.”

“Why did your master risk everything to send you back?”

“To save humanity.”

“What? Explain that.”

“That’s a long story. Let’s sit over there—it will take a while,” 1314 said, pointing to two chairs not far behind Ye Feng.

Ye Feng followed his gesture, walked over, and sat down, with 1314 taking the seat beside him.

“To understand why my master sent me back, you need to know about an organization—a group called GOD, which translates to ‘God Organization.’ It was founded in ancient times with the aim of gathering the world’s greatest talents to explore the path of human progress together.”

“That sounds beneficial for humanity,” Ye Feng interjected.

“Indeed, at first the organization was dedicated to protecting human interests, aiming to use advanced technology to prevent self-destruction. Their research achievements are countless. According to available information, the Manhattan Project, the birth of the first computer, the discovery of DNA, the invention of the laser, the rise of the Internet, and the Apollo Moon Landing were all influenced by GOD. They made indelible contributions to scientific progress, silently propelling technological advancement from behind the scenes,” 1314 continued.

“But by the end of the twentieth century, the organization’s mission shifted from advancing humanity to restricting progress. Any technology that could threaten the global financial system or the balance of power was suppressed. The essence of GOD changed, likely beginning in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union. From then on, their approach to talent was to absorb them, using nonviolent means. For those who refused to join, they were monitored to ensure their inventions did not cross GOD’s boundaries. Should anyone go too far, they would be eliminated without hesitation.”

“That doesn’t sound too extreme. Even major corporations treat talent that way,” Ye Feng remarked, puzzled.

“If that were all, it wouldn’t be so dire. GOD controlled the world’s science and economy, but in the 22nd century—2216—they created the world’s first artificial intelligence, which they called Skynet. By then, all electronic devices were connected to Skynet. GOD used Skynet to monitor all of society, concentrating global power in their hands. On January 1, 2368, GOD used Skynet to paralyze the entire world, announcing that there would be only one country, ruled solely by GOD. No longer content to remain behind the scenes, they intended to seize direct control.”

“They succeeded?” Ye Feng found it hard to imagine such a catastrophe.

“They did, perfectly. By then, humanity had unlocked the mysteries of the soul. In 2256, with Skynet’s help, GOD invented the soul transfer device, allowing a person’s soul to be placed into a new, artificial body when the original could no longer sustain it. Everyone fears death, and the older one grows, the more one desires to live. Once the device was proven safe, people flocked to change bodies, seeking youth. But they didn’t realize that as they switched bodies, GOD was implanting electronic chips into them, granting even greater control—chips governed by Skynet. Thus, through Skynet and deception, GOD secured its grip over humanity, and the world order was upended.”

1314 seemed saddened as he spoke…