The Last 299 Days of Humanity

A deep-seated weariness, like an invisible shackle, tightly bound Yu Qing. He leaned against the edge of the cold control panel, his fingertips unconsciously tapping the surface, producing a monotonous and oppressive sound.

Outside the window, Wengshan continued its orderly operation under the night sky, while the scattered lights of the new urban area in the distance resembled stubborn fireflies in the darkness. However, this empire he had painstakingly built could not bring him any comfort at this moment; instead, it was like a huge machine that constantly drained his energy.

A cold number swirled in his mind. This wasn't a countdown to some celebration, but the first day of Operation Deer Terrace—the day he could take control of intercepting the sword of Damocles hanging over him and the entire world.

According to the cold logic left by the old man Yu Yunshan, if you try to intercept an action that has already been activated too early, the heir will definitely be in a state of coercion. But if you try to stop it too late, the action has already begun, and it is neither possible nor meaningful.

He had originally planned to complete a crucial part of the "consciousness upload" within those thirty-six days. But he worried whether his increasingly decaying body could hold out until the day he entered the ultimate office.

At this moment, he felt not only mental exhaustion, but also a clear and unmistakable lamentation coming from his body.

He felt his heart was like an overused pump, often sending sharp, stabbing pains through him; his vision would blur for a moment without warning; and the weakness that spread from the depths of his cells almost devoured him.

He had a strong premonition that this physical body might not be able to hold on for another thirty-six days. Forcibly uploading his consciousness at this point would be tantamount to suicide.

He needed a completely safe and quiet place. Not just to complete the final preparations before uploading, but also to get a few days of complete, undisturbed rest.

He even had a near-cruel idea: to take the opportunity to "disappear" and see what kind of chaos would erupt in Wengshan without Yu Qing in charge, or whether it would show unexpected resilience.
This is perhaps the most realistic stress test for his management system and for those "city lords" who have experienced the crisis of the "cleaners".

But looking across Wengshan, and even the whole world, where can one find true peace? Yadu's defense system can withstand open and covert attacks, but it cannot stop those ten invisible guards who are always by his side, as if they have become one with his shadow.

Although they were his aunt's well-intentioned protection, they were also a manifestation of her, the will of Tianqing City, and an omnipresent surveillance eye.

After much deliberation, it seems that only one place fits the criteria—the ultimate office.

Access to the ultimate office requires navigating three extremely secretive, one-time-use physical passages. Each passage becomes permanently unusable due to complex spatial encryption protocols and the self-destruction of its physical structure.

Yu Qing had already used it once and had a basic understanding of the interior. Now, he only had two more chances left.

This is a difficult choice. If he goes in this time only to rest and complete the upload preparations, and then comes out early, only to have to go in again soon to intercept "Operation Lutai," then he will completely lose this last refuge after the operation.

Finally, he made up his mind: this time, he would stay until the thirty-sixth day! He completed the final debugging and adaptation of the consciousness upload in the office, and then directly operated the procedure to stop "Operation Lutai".

In this way, at least the threat of "Lutai" can be eliminated, and the ultimate office can theoretically still retain one last chance to enter, as a last resort in the future if all else fails.

The core challenge of the plan lies in—how to completely rid himself of those ten invisible guards? He cannot let them know that such a place exists. This is his last trump card, and he absolutely cannot reveal it to anyone else.

He still vividly remembered his previous comical failures when he tried to secretly study the Tianqing City box. This time, he needed to be more subtle and pull off a sophisticated "escape."

He initiated the periodic pressure release procedure for the Wengshan deep geothermal well, while simultaneously fine-tuning several secondary energy nodes of the new defense matrix obtained from Yadu.

This caused the entire Wengshan area to be filled with chaotic and intense energy background radiation for the next twelve hours, like pouring a large amount of ink into clear water, greatly interfering with any form of energy tracking and sensing.

He then claimed that someone else was trying to infiltrate Wengshan to his advantage, diverting the attention of the invisible guards to finding the "enemy."

At this point, under the pretext of safety, he could legitimately utilize hundreds of specially made "stand-in" humanoids. These humanoids not only simulated his biological signals and energy fluctuations but also had different behavioral pattern chips built in.

Several "Yu Qing" were "handling official business" in different office locations, while some "Yu Qing" were "conducting inspections" in the laboratory, and some "Yu Qing" even took aircraft to "patrol" the area around Wengshan.

The simultaneous appearance of countless "Yuqing" signals created a mirrored maze capable of confusing any tracking system, leaving the ten stealth guards overwhelmed.

The most crucial step he took involved utilizing a fragmented notebook deep within Shengtian Company's core database, containing information about Yu Yunshan's early research on space theory. That notebook documented the phenomenon of "spacetime rifts."

Although Sheng Tian did not continue this research, fortunately, Yadu's defense system contained this technology. It was used for covert microscopic spatial repairs in extreme situations.

This technology can be used to create a microscopic "spacetime rift" that lasts only 0.18 seconds and completely blocks all internal and external information exchange.

0.18 seconds, so brief as to be almost imperceptible. But in that instant, the surrounding air seemed to freeze, the light distorted, and the sound vanished.

Yu Qing quickly placed his palm on a specific series of protrusions on the rock wall. The rock wall rippled like water with pebbles thrown in, revealing a small, unstable entrance that could only accommodate one person at a time.

He was quickly pulled into a force field.

The instant his figure vanished, the spatial rift closed. Everything returned to "normal." The background energy radiation began to slowly decay. He was now outside Wengshan City, standing beside a concealed flying vehicle.

The figures of the ten invisible guards flickered and converged rapidly around the spot where Yu Qing disappeared. They keenly sensed the brief but extremely unusual spatial fluctuations, as well as the complete disappearance of all of Yu Qing's life signals at the same moment.

Unable to comprehend this technology that exceeded their detection limits, they could only relay the highest-priority alert—"Target lost, suspected to involve unknown space technology"—to their aunt far away.

Yu Qing successfully "evaporated" from everyone's sight. His aircraft flew close to the ground towards Changjin. The entrance to the Ultimate Office was located in a mountain stream more than 20 kilometers outside Changjin. No one had set foot there for more than two hundred years.

Yu Qing input the target's five-dimensional coordinates, and the spacecraft quickly entered the entrance of the cave. The process of the spacecraft passing through the passage felt like being forcibly shoved into a cold, viscous, and pressurized pipe, surrounded by rapidly passing, incomprehensible geometric blocks of color and a low, humming sound from the space.

After a brief period of dizziness and weightlessness, the aircraft arrived in a huge natural rock hall. As he stepped out, a stone wall beside him quickly opened. After he entered, two humanoid figures led him into a large sphere.

The sphere rolled rapidly, but his head remained upright. After a few minutes, the sphere stopped, and he was led out by the humanoid girl and taken to an elevator. Soon after, his feet touched the ground, and he found himself inside the Ultimate Office. This was clearly another room in the Ultimate Office, not the same location he had entered initially. He carefully examined this place, which Yu Yunshan considered the last bastion. Monotonous, cold, and pragmatic to the point of being harsh.

The space is not spacious, about forty square meters. The walls, ceiling and floor are made of an unknown material that is dark gray, neither gold nor stone, and cold to the touch. It is a single, seamless whole, with no seams or joints to be found.

The air circulation system operates silently, maintaining a constant temperature and humidity. The light source comes from the ceiling itself, emitting a uniform and non-glaring cool white light that illuminates every corner, leaving no shadows and lacking any sense of life.

To his surprise, no assistants came to greet him this time. Where were the two assistants from last time? Was this path always this deserted when we entered? Or were they going in another direction? This doesn't make sense...

Against the wall stood a sleek, silver hibernation pod. Just as he was wondering what was going on, a humanoid woman approached from behind him and said softly, "Master, you're back. Would you like to rest in the hibernation pod for a while? You can take care of things there while you rest."

Why didn't I see you when I came last time?

“Master, I am the assistant you saw last time. We go into a semi-dormant state whenever you leave, only fully waking up when you return, but automatically changing our appearance. After three times, we will stop…”

Yu Qing waved his hand and said, "I know."

"...Yes, Master, what do you need me to do for you now?"

"I want to rest undisturbed for thirty-six days, and then go to the main control room."

"Okay, master."

The assistant walked to the hibernation pod, set up a 36-day hibernation program, and connected to the life support monitoring system. The hibernation pod slowly opened.

Yu Qing walked over and asked, "So, all I can do during this time is sleep?"

"No, Master. You can still receive external information and handle some matters as usual."

After saying that, the humanoid girl put the information terminal, the interface helmet, on his head.

He lay comfortably in the hibernation pod, intending to sleep soundly for a couple of days. However, he found that while his body obediently stopped moving, his mind was still racing with thoughts that he couldn't stop.

So, he mentally studied the execution details and termination procedures of "Operation Lutai" to ensure everything went smoothly. His thoughts were immediately transmitted to the sensor system on his helmet, and the data on Operation Lutai was quickly pushed to the front end.

He was immersed in the vast stream of data. The files concerning "Operation Lutai" were highly encrypted, but thanks to his successor's privileges, he was able to peel back the layers. Most of the content was no different from what he already knew.

However, while searching through early design logs and redundant backup data related to "Lutai", he noticed some extremely hidden "fragments" that seemed not to have been completely deleted.

These fragments are hidden deep within massive system junk files and temporary caches, as if someone deliberately tried to erase them, but for some reason failed to completely remove them.

These are not complete records, but rather scattered keywords, traces of design modifications, and several fragments of private memos filled with contradictions and self-doubt, in a tone quite different from Yu Yunshan's usual calm style:
"...'Lutai's' deterrent power is built on its actual destructive capability. But true control may lie in making everyone believe you have this capability, rather than necessarily using it..."

"...Backup protocol 'Mirage' initialization complete. If 'Deer Terrace' is a sharp sword, then 'Mirage' is its shadow, a shadow realistic enough..."

"...They will never understand that the greatest fear stems from the unknown. A judgment that hangs in the balance forever can shape order more effectively than ultimate destruction..."

"...I don't have much time to prepare; I must leave behind sufficiently confusing clues. The truth can't be too clear, otherwise it loses its value. Those who come after me, if you make it this far, which version will you choose to believe?"

These fragmented pieces of information struck Yu Qing's mind like bolts of lightning!
A terrifying, absurd conjecture uncontrollably surfaced in his mind:
Could it be that the true power of "Operation Lutai," the sword of Damocles hanging over him and the world, does not come from its meticulously described physical destruction mechanism, but rather from the unparalleled psychological deterrence it brings?
Perhaps, from the very beginning, old man Yu Yunshan set up a huge, double-layered scam?

On the surface lies the detailed, terrifying, and seemingly flawless "Lutai" destruction program; but deep within, there may be a virtual projection protocol called "Mirage," which simulates signs of a global catastrophe but has no real destructive power.
His goal may not have been to truly destroy the world, but rather to protect his successors and the legacy he left behind by creating an ultimate threat that would deter any potential enemy from taking action, a threat that would lead to mutual destruction.

Even... to influence and manipulate order on a larger scale?

If this conjecture is true, then the heavy pressure Yu Qing bears, and all the struggles, calculations, and even unscrupulous means he has undertaken to achieve it, may all be based on a carefully woven threat that may not even exist?
The idea made him feel a dizzying sensation, along with a tremendous anger and a sense of absurdity at being manipulated.

What shocked Yu Qing even more, and made his soul tremble, was: Old Master Yu Yunshan, is he really dead? Was his life and death just a carefully orchestrated grand drama for the whole world to see?
Is his so-called "death" just another form of "concealment"? A higher-dimensional "escape from the body" that breaks free from the constraints of the physical body and social identity?
For beings like them, who hold all of humanity's resources, control unimaginable cutting-edge technology, and view traditional ethics and physical laws as malleable rules, faking a flawless death might not be difficult, as easy as a programmer deleting a piece of redundant code.

He might be hiding in a corner that is more secretive and beyond imagination than this "ultimate office".

It might not even be the "deepest part" of physical space, but rather the data abyss of the cyber ocean, an independently operating private blockchain node, or even a completely virtual interlayer of reality built using "mirage" technology.

He was like a true ghost director, not only observing, but perhaps also silently orchestrating the course of certain key moments.

He quietly observed everything in the world, watching his descendants struggle, make choices, suffer, and even transform and survive in the intricate web of fate that he had laid out before the end of his life.

This sudden thought, sharp and chilling like an icicle, sent an uncontrollable shiver down Yu Qing's spine. He could even clearly feel every hair on his body standing on end, and the heavy, erratic pounding of his heart in his chest.

He felt as if he were in a huge, boundless maze, the walls of which were made of information and lies, and the passageways twisted and deformed as his perception changed.

His previous determination to stop the "Lutai Operation" at all costs, which was capable of destroying Wengshan and even more city-states, may have been just the entrance to another, more complex, ingenious, and desperate trap, a standard experimental scenario used to test his "heroic complex" and "sense of responsibility."

If even this ultimate, imminent threat is false, a man-made "narrative engine" that drives him, and even the entire world, then what is the point of all his struggles and meticulous calculations over this period of time?
Was it merely to prove some pre-existing character trait to the hidden observer, or to complete a test? An unprecedented sense of emptiness, mixed with the anger of being manipulated, began to corrode like concentrated acid the very foundation that had sustained his actions during this time. (End of Chapter)