The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Yu Qing soon realized that his aunt's statement, "Thoughts will differ under different objective conditions," might be true.

This was not some sudden philosophical insight, but rather a gradual, silent process, like water dripping on stone, that permeated and eroded his existing cognitive and behavioral patterns.

The emotions and needs he used to take for granted seem to be gradually stripped away and diluted, replaced by a cold, goal-oriented rationality. The most significant change is in his attitude towards his own physical body.

He seemed no longer to care about his increasingly frail body, knowing he would discard it soon anyway...

This thought was like a powerful psychological immunity, a decree that absolved him of all sensory discomfort and physiological needs, rendering his previous caution and maintenance of health meaningless.

In the past, despite the damage to his physical foundation, he would still maintain his routine like a diligent engineer maintaining a delicate and precise instrument, strictly adhering to his schedule, paying attention to nutritional balance, and regularly undergoing physical therapy and energy replenishment to extend his lifespan and maintain his stable operation as much as possible.

After all, this body is the only vessel through which he perceives the world and executes his will; it is the physical proof of his "existence."

But now that this machine is destined to be phased out, replaced, or even "surpassed," maintaining its pristine condition and optimal operating state seems superfluous, even a waste of resources. A strange "pre-scrap mentality" took hold of him.

He devoted himself day and night to the preparations for the "consciousness transfer," completely neglecting his physical rest. The lights in his study and the core laboratory often stayed on all night, casting his shadow on the wall, which stretched and shortened, like a restless ghost.

In the past, when he felt fatigued, his temples throbbed, and his vision began to blur, he would always force himself to stop, rest for a moment, or engage in brief meditation to restore his energy. These warning signals from his body were the boundaries of his actions.

But now, he ignores these warnings from his body and has even begun to examine these discomforts with the indifference of a researcher.

Headache? It's nothing more than the pointless groan of nerve endings due to excessive energy consumption, an inevitable phenomenon of carbon-based circuit overload. Fatigue? That's a basic limitation of carbon-based life, an inherent defect of an inefficient bioenergy cycle system, and will soon cease to be a problem.

He even began to drive this body with an almost cruel "make the most of everything" mentality, as if testing the extreme performance of a piece of equipment that was about to be scrapped, recording its decay curve under various loads, and seeing how much energy it could still burn for its ultimate goal and squeeze out as much residual value before it completely broke down.

He would sometimes deliberately stay up all night to observe how long his attention span could last before it collapsed; he would simplify his diet to test how much mental activity the minimum energy input could support. This body had transformed from a "home" into a "temporary camp," from a "sanctuary" into an "experimental subject."

This mindset is unsurprisingly reflected in his daily life, especially his diet. He is no longer as particular about food as he used to be, and even seems to be just going through the motions.

In the past, even though he himself did not care much about food, his superior conditions meant that his meals were always carefully prepared by top-notch humanoid chefs who were proficient in molecular gastronomy and nutrition. Each dish was a work of art, nutritionally balanced, and excellent in color, aroma and taste, providing the ultimate comfort to the senses.

But now, all of this has become a redundant ritual. He often has someone deliver some high-energy, monotonous liquid food or compressed nutrition bars to his study, which he swallows hastily in a few bites, like refueling a machine, just to keep his basic physiological needs running, and the taste is completely irrelevant.

Sometimes, when he's busy until late at night and feels hungry, he'll even cook himself a bowl of the most ordinary synthetic food with a strong additive flavor—the kind of cheap industrial product that provides quick calories. He'll slurp it down in a few bites, even drinking the soup with its suspicious oily sheen, then wipe his mouth and continue working.

This deliberate "roughening" of the environment seems like a desecration of the old way of life, accelerating the break with the past through self-deprecation.

One day, when Donghao pushed open the door, she saw him holding a bowl of suspiciously colored synthetic food, eating it very quickly. Donghao was stunned. Since following Yuqing, she knew that although this master did not crave luxury, he had extremely high, almost instinctive, requirements for the quality of life.

The scene before her was as shocking as seeing a phoenix pecking at carrion. She couldn't help but step forward, her voice filled with barely concealed worry and a hint of fear: "Your Excellency, your body... how can you eat such things? I'll prepare something immediately..."

Yu Qing simply waved his hand, without even looking up, interrupting her. His eyes even carried a strange, almost pleasure-like sense of detachment: "It's alright, Donghao. None of this matters anymore."

His tone was calm and even, as if stating a perfectly natural fact. His attitude was as if he wasn't eating cheap fast food, but rather performing a ritual to say goodbye to his past way of life, a deliberate disdain for his old body, to prove that he was "transcending".

Those around him, from Donghao to the other attendants, clearly noticed this unsettling change in him. Moreover, he no longer dined with Xiaoya, Daya, and Bread.

In the past, that dinner was one of the few times of the day when he could temporarily put down his burdens and feel the warmth of home and family. Although it was brief, it was an important emotional anchor.

Now, he has severed that anchor point himself. From initial confusion and waiting to later disappointment and whispers, the girls couldn't understand why their "good brother" had suddenly become so distant.

Donghao and the others believe that this must be due to the enormous pressure from inside and outside the company, as well as the still complicated situation after Changsheng's return, which overwhelmed him and caused him to fall into a state of self-abandonment or a deep depression.

One day, Yao Dan came to report to him on the progress of the latest facility installation in Wengshan. When she entered the study, Yu Qing was standing in front of the holographic star map, staring blankly at the simulated spiral arm of the Milky Way, his fingers unconsciously tracing lines in the air, as if calculating some unseen trajectory.

His cheeks were thinner than before, and there were faint dark circles under his eyes, but his overall demeanor was like a rock covered in ice and snow, hard and cold.

After Yao Dan finished her report, looking at his appearance, she couldn't help but laugh, half teasing and half probing, "Husband, the way you look reminds me of those alchemists in ancient supernatural tales who planned to abstain from grains and ascend to immortality, no longer eating human food."

"Are you, like they say, preparing to sever your ties to the mortal world and attain immortality?" She tried to use a joke to bridge the gap and dispel the uncomfortable sense of distance.

Yu Qing slowly turned his head, his gaze falling on Yao Dan's face. There was no smile in his eyes, nor any displeasure at being offended, only a bottomless calmness, as if Yao Dan's words were just a breeze blowing across rocks, unable to cause the slightest ripple.

He replied casually, "Go about your business."

Only Yu Qing himself knew that this was neither depravity nor asceticism, but a prelude to a "stripping away" process, a proactive "spiritual castration" of himself.

He was mentally rehearsing his farewell to this body that had been with him for over twenty years, bearing all his joys and sorrows, but now increasingly heavy, sluggish, and filled with various "basic needs." Every time he ignored his body's protests, every time he simplified his life, every time he severed emotional ties, it was as if he was clearing away psychological obstacles for that final, complete "upload of consciousness," trimming away the tendrils that might cause "lingering attachment," so that he could step into that new world that his aunt called "inevitable" more "cleanly and decisively," more "without hesitation."

During this process, a complex emotion, a mixture of numbness, anticipation of unknown power, and a vague fear of self-annihilation, settled in his heart. On the surface, however, he appeared more focused and more...inhuman than ever before.

This terrible change, like a spreading ink stain, is not only reflected in his indifference to his own body, but also quietly erodes his most basic and deepest interpersonal emotions, especially his feelings for Yu Yi and Yu Lan, who are pregnant with his child.

Initially, it was just a subtle sense of alienation that he himself tried to ignore. He would still routinely inquire about their health at a fixed time each week, via video or a brief face-to-face meeting, to ensure that the medical team provided the best care.

But the stirrings of anticipation, anxiety, responsibility, and primal expectation that I felt before becoming a father were gone. That instinctive feeling for the continuation of life had now receded like the tide.

Their bodies, which gradually changed due to pregnancy, and the rounded curves that originally symbolized the miracle of life, gradually faded from the sacred halo of "pregnancy" in his eyes, and were reduced to a simple "physiological change" that conforms to biological laws. Just like the flowering and fruiting of plants, it was just a natural process that could even be simulated by technology.

Their emotional fluctuations, whether it was Yu Yi's increasingly gentle dependence due to hormonal changes, or Yu Lan's occasional anxiety and vulnerability due to physical discomfort and uncertainty about the future, sounded to him more like data fluctuations and procedural reactions caused by fluctuations in hormone levels. They were "parameters" that needed to be monitored and managed, rather than signals that required him to invest his emotions to empathize, understand, and comfort them.

He began to subconsciously avoid spending long periods of time alone with them, because the atmosphere that required emotional reciprocation made him uncomfortable and... a waste of time.

Until one late night, his gaze inadvertently swept over a split-screen window on the desktop—which displayed detailed health monitoring data for Yu Yi and Yu Lan in real time:

Heart rate (Yu Yi: 72 bpm, Yu Lan: 68 bpm), blood pressure (stable within the normal range), blood oxygen saturation (98%, 99%), fetal movement frequency (active), and even their respective emotional stress index curves... a series of cold numbers, charts, and flashing indicators.

These data, originally intended to ensure absolute accuracy, now act like a cold scalpel, stripping away all the veil of warmth and tenderness.

Suddenly, a thought, like a venomous snake that had been lurking for a long time, darted into his mind, clear, cold, and with an undeniable logic:
From a functional perspective, and from the perspective of achieving my core goal of "continuing genetic information," aren't they just like two carefully maintained, environmentally controlled, advanced biological containers used to carry and cultivate "Yuqing genetic information continuation bodies"?
The thought instantly plunged him into an ice cellar, a chill running down his spine to the top of his head, and cold sweat poured down, soaking his inner clothes.

He abruptly stood up from his chair, shaking his head violently as if to banish the absurd and terrifying thought from his mind. He paced rapidly around the room, filled with self-loathing and fear.

"Those are Yu Yi and Yu Lan!" he shouted to himself. "They are living, breathing people! People with their own thoughts and feelings! People who have shared intimate moments with you! The mothers of your future children!"

He tried to awaken the emotional connection that should belong to "human beings" within him, that sense of responsibility and warmth. However, the newly emerging, cold concept of "container" was as clear as a brand, even carrying a pathetic and despairing sense of "correctness".

Yu Qing felt an unprecedented panic. He feared that he had begun to go mad, or rather, that he was irreversibly sliding into the abyss of "dehumanization".

He realized that this shift in mindset had a terrifying similarity, or even a more extreme one, to the behavior of constantly modifying and editing one's own genes throughout human history.

The initial motivation for gene editing may have been to eliminate diseases, enhance physical fitness, extend lifespan, or even pursue a more perfect appearance or more specific talents, seemingly "optimizing" oneself and moving towards a higher form.

However, in many cases, this crude modification and "upgrade" of the essence of life is actually a fundamental denial and subversion of "the past self" and the "original state" given by natural evolution.

When a person dares and is able to rewrite their own biological blueprint according to their own will, are they still the same person? That unique individual shaped by countless coincidences?

What is ultimately created is often an entirely new individual, one that is completely different from the past and cannot even be expected by the individual, like a android assembled from parts, replacing the original flesh and blood body.

And what about himself? Isn't the "consciousness upload" he is currently actively preparing for just another form, but a more thorough and fundamental one, of "self-editing" and "self-transcendence"? This is not just about modifying genes; it is about completely abandoning the carbon-based carrier.

This involves transplanting the "self"—that collection of memories, thought patterns, and emotional responses—to a completely new and unknown platform.

In pursuit of superpowers, higher dimensions, and absolute rationality, he is psychologically stripping away those human traits that are considered "lower," "redundant," or "burdensome"—the attachment to the physical body, the dependence on emotions, the desire for intimate relationships, and even the natural yearning for the continuation of one's own bloodline...

He fearfully foresaw that if he continued down this "bright path" guided by his aunt, he might ultimately lose most of the emotions and desires that humans cherish and rely on for survival: love, compassion, sorrow, joy, anger, pity, the appreciation of beauty, the fear of loss, the longing for close connection, the natural affinity for blood ties…

These complex and subtle spectra that constitute the core of "humanity," these rhythms that fill life with both pain and brilliance, may be simplified into code that needs optimization, filtered into irrelevant noise, or even completely deleted and permanently sealed as system vulnerabilities and security risks in a cold, efficient, logic- and energy-conserving new form.

What will he become? A terrifyingly calm "monster" driven solely by logic and predetermined goals? An "existence" that may possess endless knowledge, a long lifespan, and powerful computing abilities, yet has forever lost the capacity to feel love and warmth, to experience sorrow and ecstasy? A ghost that may be more "advanced" on a cosmic scale, but is utterly "dead" in the sense of life?

This sense of alienation and fear about his future self sent a chill down his spine, more so than the internal crisis at Shengtian Company or the threats Haiyuanda had once posed.

He stood in front of the large mirror in the bathroom, looking at his reflection—his eyes growing increasingly deep and empty, his emotions becoming less and less volatile, his expression becoming increasingly frozen. For the first time, he felt a violent tremor and profound doubt about the path leading to "eternity" and "sublimation."

The dripping water from the faucet made a clear sound in the silence, as if counting down the days until his humanity was about to fade away.

Is he pursuing the ultimate evolution of life forms, or a refined, grandiose self-destruction? Is he ascending to the altar, or falling into an eternally cold, emotionally barren abyss?
This question, like a seed frozen at absolute zero, took root and sprouted in his heart, forming a painful, almost tearing tug-of-war with his deep-seated desire for a shift in consciousness and a way to break free from the shackles of death.

He knew he was standing at a critical juncture; one step forward could lead to transcendence or utter ruin. And at this moment, looking around, he found himself utterly alone. (End of Chapter)