The Last 299 Days of Humanity

When Yu Qing heard his aunt casually mention her plan to "reset" Yadu and return it to its original state, a huge wave of shock surged through his heart, leaving him almost speechless.

To completely wipe out a vast city-state with hundreds of thousands of people and advanced technology from the earth? This was far beyond what he could imagine a punishment; it was more like a god casually overturning an anthill, so cruel it was suffocating.

A chill ran through him. Did he have the power to stop all of this? The answer was clearly no. Before the will of a dimensional being like Azure City, he and everything he possessed were as insignificant as dust.

However, rational understanding could not completely suppress the surging emotions deep within. In a sense, the people of Yadu, by secretly conducting dangerous experiments and disregarding the lives of others, were indeed reaping what they sowed and deserved their fate.

However, he simply couldn't stand idly by and remain indifferent to the devastating blow that was about to befall a place he knew so well, where he had worked closely, and where countless vibrant lives were living.

That wasn't just a string of cold data; it was the cities he had visited, and the real people he had interacted with, like Xiaoqin.

A thought popped into his head uncontrollably: Should he notify the people of Yadu? Even if it was just to give a chance to escape to the very few people he believed shouldn't be buried with him? But as soon as this thought arose, it was suppressed by a deeper fear.

Will this anger my aunt and Tian Qingcheng? How will they view this act of "betrayal"?
If he were seen as an untrustworthy, treacherous traitor, would he, Wengshan whom he was trying so hard to protect, and even Yu Wa and Chen Jiang in Dongbang, immediately follow in Yadu's footsteps? He couldn't afford to take that risk.

He only endured half a day of extreme inner conflict and anxiety (from receiving the news until evening), the urgency of the situation leaving him no time to repeatedly consider right and wrong, gains and losses. Yu Qing ultimately made a compromise and risky decision.

He couldn't openly warn Yadu, as that would be too much of a target, but he could try to save specific people he deemed worthy of being saved.

He thought of Xiaoqin, the lively yet stubborn girl who had helped him in Yadu, full of curiosity about new things. Unlike those high-level decision-makers, she was likely unaware of the dangerous underground experiments.

He immediately and secretly activated a contingency plan that had been prepared long ago but never used. He summoned a humanoid messenger that looked no different from an ordinary humanoid, but whose core was a highly classified model.

These humanoid beauties were originally prepared to contact Yu Wa and her group from the Eastern Alliance under special circumstances; they were implanted with top-notch stealth and counter-surveillance programs.

He gave this humanoid girl only one core instruction: at all costs, deliver an encrypted message to the target person—Xiaoqin—in person.

“Listen,” Yu Qing whispered to the humanoid messenger, his tone grave, “Set off immediately and infiltrate Yadu as quickly as possible.”

You need to find Xiaoqin and tell her in person that Shengtian Company, known as "Changjin" in the west, is about to hold a new product launch event to showcase a groundbreaking neural interaction device whose experience "will definitely make her fall in love with it."

He emphasized that this was an internal preview, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and that she and her friends must depart for Changjin immediately without delay.

He deliberately chose "Changjin," a relatively safe location on the western edge of the country, far from Wengshan, and used the phrase "love it so much"—a word he and Xiaoqin had jokingly used to describe her obsession with technology products—to increase the credibility and sense of urgency of the information.

He knew Xiaoqin well; she was someone with an almost obsessive curiosity about cutting-edge technology, and she liked to get to the bottom of everything. Such an alluring invitation, tinged with a touch of mystery, was very likely to make her act immediately out of her intense curiosity.

As long as she leaves the core area of ​​Asia City, she can temporarily escape this calamity.

The messenger received the order and vanished into the night like a ghost. Yu Qing silently prayed that this hasty plan would succeed, at least saving this innocent person or many others.

However, things often don't go as planned.

On the way to Yadu by the humanoid messenger (that very night), the scandal of Yadu secretly conducting an extremely dangerous dark matter experiment at the foot of Wengshan Mountain in the west had spread like an out-of-control virus to every corner of the world through various media and underground information networks.

This triggered a global wave of condemnation and panic. Asia Pacific instantly became the target of public criticism, facing immense external pressure and inevitably entering a state of high alert and tension internally.

The messenger successfully approached the outskirts of Yadu using disguised identities and counter-surveillance techniques. However, due to the media storm, Yadu has quietly raised its security level.

The first electronic identification checkpoint was several times stricter than expected, requiring dynamically updated temporary access codes.

The messenger was forced to activate an emergency protocol and barely bypassed the system by using an extremely secretive, undocumented backdoor vulnerability (originating from a dedicated test channel left by Yadu when building the defense system for Wengshan).

As the messenger hurriedly entered the city, it discovered a significant increase in the number of patrolling security units and plainclothes officers, with frequent random identity checks. It was forced to constantly change routes, using the shadows of city buildings and the underground pipe network to maneuver, greatly impacting its speed.

On one occasion, it was stopped by a patrol team of vehicles and asked to undergo a deep biometric scan. Its simulated human physiological indicators were almost detected as abnormal. In a critical moment, it used environmental interference (triggered the alarm of a nearby maglev car) to create chaos and managed to escape.

When the messenger finally arrived at Xiaoqin's apartment complex, it found unidentified surveillance personnel downstairs. It was unsure whether these were from the Yadu security department or sent by some other force.

The messenger dared not go directly to the door, but instead tried to hack into the apartment building's internal communication system to contact Xiaoqin's personal terminal. However, he found that her communication channel seemed to be interfered with or monitored, and the connection was extremely unstable.

Early in the morning, after a night of twists and turns, the messenger finally found an opportunity—he intercepted Xiaoqin at a relatively quiet underground transportation hub as she was heading to a certain location.

However, the humanoid girl's action almost made Xiaoqin send out distress signals. When the messenger hurriedly told Xiaoqin his purpose, Xiaoqin's reaction was far from what Yuqing had expected.

After listening to the messenger's account, her face showed not curiosity and excitement, but deep vigilance and suspicion.

"Changjin? New product launch?" Xiaoqin frowned, looking the messenger up and down. He seemed ordinary but was a little too "standard".

"At a time like this? The West is a powder keg right now, everyone's watching. If our people from Yadu go there now, wouldn't they be walking into a trap? Besides..." She lowered her voice, her eyes sharp, "How do I know if you're sent by another force to lure me out and harm me? Where did you get this information? And there's no need to make such a small matter so mysterious, is there?"

The humanoid messenger tried to emphasize the authenticity and urgency of the information as per procedure, but Xiaoqin's doubts were already deeply ingrained. In the atmosphere of widespread unease and fear, any unsolicited invitation from outside, especially one related to the West, seemed extremely suspicious.

At this point, the messenger had no choice but to try to produce a pre-set encrypted token pattern representing Yu Qing. Xiao Qin's eyes flickered when she saw it, as if she was touched, but she was immediately interrupted by a familiar person calling from behind. She immediately became vigilant and quickly left.

The messenger followed closely behind, but she ultimately declined to go to Changjin on the spot, citing that she was too busy and needed to think it over. She also became noticeably more vigilant about her own safety and quickly disappeared into the crowd.

When the humanoid messenger relayed Xiaoqin's rejection and highly skeptical feedback back to Yu Qing (the next morning), Yu Qing felt a sense of powerlessness and frustration.

He understood Xiaoqin's concerns; given the current media storm, her reaction was perfectly normal. However, he dared not openly confront Xiaoqin to clarify anything, as that would be tantamount to directly telling his aunt that he was secretly plotting something.

Seeing that even this only "hidden thread" had been severed, he seemed powerless and could only watch helplessly as tragedy unfolded.

However, a strong sense of guilt and the remnants of humanity deep within him prevented him from giving up. He felt he had to do something more, even if the hope was slim and the risks were enormous.

An extremely bold, even insane, idea gradually took shape as he pondered it—he was going to tell his aunt a colossal lie, a lie powerful enough to temporarily shake the decisions of Tianqing City.

Moreover, some of Yadu's actions at this time inadvertently facilitated Yu Qing's dissemination of this lie.

Just before Yu Qing was about to contact his aunt, he received some unverified, sporadic messages from Yadu, suggesting that Yadu's higher-ups seemed to have activated some kind of emergency plan.

The core areas of Yadu are now physically isolated. This unusual move deepened Yu Qing's unease and made him feel that his lies might have a semblance of evidence.

He took a deep breath, composed himself, and contacted his aunt.

When his aunt's aloof face appeared on the communication interface (the following afternoon), Yu Qing tried to make his tone sound calm and worried, yet also anxious as if he had discovered a major turning point.

“Aunt,” he began, “regarding Yadu, I just… recalled an extremely important detail that may relate to the consequences of our previous actions.”

His aunt raised an eyebrow, signaling him to continue.

“In my limited interactions with many people in Asia before, I happened to hear them mention something like a ‘planetary consciousness upload backup protocol’.”

Yu Qing carefully wove his lies, each word treading on thin ice: "They seem to be secretly carrying out a plan that is far grander and more secretive than the dark matter experiment."

They claim to have established a vast repository of consciousness data in multiple secret nodes around the world, including deep within the homeland of Yadu, with the aim of… well, according to them, ‘preserving the spark of an entire civilization in digital form when necessary.’

He carefully observed his aunt's reaction and continued, "I don't know if this 'agreement' is real or if they are exaggerating."

But... I'm thinking, if they really are conducting such a large-scale consciousness digitization activity, then they should just physically 'zero out' Ato...

Yu Qing deliberately hesitated before continuing, "Could this accidentally trigger some kind of defense mechanism that we don't yet understand, or cause the stored consciousness data, which may contain unstable factors, to go out of control, leak, or even... pollute a broader information level?"

After all, the nature and risks of consciousness data, especially large-scale aggregations, may be even more unpredictable than those of unstable dark matter.

As Yu Qing finished speaking, his heart pounded violently in his chest. The lie was riddled with holes and couldn't withstand close scrutiny, but he was betting on Tian Qingcheng's heightened sensitivity and caution regarding the realm of "consciousness."

The people of Tianqing City have zero tolerance for any potential risks that might disrupt the stability of their "cradle" and their own migration plans.

He shifted the focus of Yadu's threat from a known, quantifiable physical danger to an unknown level involving the nature of consciousness, which could be more pervasive and uncontrollable.

To be honest, he himself didn't even know what that bullshit "planetary-level consciousness upload" was. But the more absurd it was, the more attention his aunts and the others probably paid to it.

Sure enough, his aunt remained silent for a moment, her deep gaze seemingly able to penetrate the screen and look straight into the depths of Yu Qing's soul. Yu Qing resisted the urge to look away, striving to maintain a calm facade.

After what felt like an eternity, Auntie finally spoke slowly, her voice devoid of emotion: "Planetary-level consciousness upload backup? ...An interesting statement. If true, this certainly introduces a new concept."

She didn't immediately expose Yu Qing, but said, "I will submit your 'memory' information for re-evaluation. The 'zeroing' plan will be suspended until the existence of this so-called 'agreement,' its technical path, and potential risks are thoroughly investigated."

The communication was cut off. Yu Qing slumped back in his chair, almost collapsing from exhaustion, his back soaked with cold sweat. He had succeeded, at least temporarily.

From a purely self-interested perspective, his help to Yadu might be a foolish decision. The state of the world is now crystal clear: any race or city-state more powerful than Wengshan could one day become Wengshan's nemesis.

But no matter what, he couldn't be that selfish and cold-blooded. In the end, he still managed to buy a precious breathing space for Yadu and those innocent lives with a carefully crafted lie pointing to unknown risks.

This time may be brief, and the consequences of exposing the lie would be unimaginable, but at this moment, he felt a faint sense of peace knowing that he had at least tried. However, this peace was overshadowed by a deeper anxiety about the future. (End of Chapter)