The Last 299 Days of Humanity

The absolute silence of the "ultimate office" was instead filled with a suffocating, viscous unknown and an increasingly oppressive feeling of being choked by an invisible hand. This silence was no longer a vacuum, but rather filled with a certain will to wait and scrutinize.

His original plan to take a deep rest and mental adjustment here in preparation for the upcoming "consciousness upload" was completely forgotten by this terrible conjecture, and the whole plan was shrouded in a thick, impenetrable shadow of conspiracy.

This hibernation pod doesn't look like a recovery device at this moment; it looks more like a marked container of "experimental samples" waiting to be processed.

He almost roughly manually activated the emergency release valve inside the hatch. A slight hiss of air pressure was heard, and the hatch slid open smoothly. He sat up, stepped out, and walked barefoot onto the cool floor. The real touch, however, brought him no sense of security at that moment.

The android assistant, who had been waiting outside like an invisible man, immediately moved over silently. Its eyes gleamed with a gentle blue light as it asked, "Master, are you feeling uncomfortable due to the internal environmental parameters of the hibernation pod? Should we adjust them immediately?"

Yu Qing didn't answer, nor did he even glance at it. His gaze pierced through the assistant's mechanical shell, landing on a focal point in the void, where a picture of a conspiracy he was constructing seemed to be unfolding.

He simply commanded in an unquestionable tone, tinged with a hint of anxiety he himself was unaware of: "Take me to the central control room. Now."

Stepping into the central control room again, the holographic interface here was indeed subtly but crucially different from the one I had seen last time.

Countless streams of information flowed and swirled like the Milky Way, but at the center of that vortex, a simple yet undeniably authoritative icon floated prominently, with the words "Lutai Protocol Status: Activated" clearly displayed below it.

The words "Activating" flickered with a faint, ominous red light, like a dying star in a distant galaxy.

This time, Yu Qing's gaze was no longer merely one of solemnity and responsibility, but also one of almost dissecting scrutiny, doubt, and a gradually burning anger at being deceived by the person he trusted most.

His gaze seemed to transform into a scalpel, wanting to peel away the ornate interface shell of the icon and look directly at the potentially empty core behind it.

If this "Operation Lutai" will never actually happen, and it's just a realistic illusion, a huge lie, then why would he need to foolishly wait for the 36-day countdown to end before he can take action to stop it?
Are these thirty-six days a buffer period for the world's destruction, or a deadline for him, the "protagonist," to complete a specific storyline?
Even if it were true, he could no longer wait passively. He had to use this precious time to dig deeper into the truth and uncover the truth behind the huge mystery that shrouded the fate of Shengtian Group, the Yu family, and even his own.

The true nature and ultimate purpose of "Lutai", the mysterious and seemingly more essential backup protocol "Mirage", the true intentions of the old man Yu Yunshan, his ultimate pursuit beyond the comprehension of ordinary people, and... his elusive whereabouts, whose fate remains a mystery.

He clearly realized that every choice and action he took next would not only affect the potentially illusory direction of "Operation Lutai," but also potentially touch upon a deeper core behavioral logic and a secret hidden in the dust of history and the ruins of data.

This secret may be more terrifying than the physical destruction represented by "Operation Lutai" itself, because it points directly to the meaning of existence and the boundaries of reality.

In the silent final office, Yu Qing's "rest" plan was completely shelved. An inner storm concerning truth, trust, and the meaning of self-existence had just begun, sweeping through every corner of his consciousness at the speed of thought.

Little did he know what kind of chain reaction this storm of inquiry into the past, which he had started based on a conjecture, would ultimately produce.

Will this storm spill out of this secret room, affecting Wengshan outside, the vast and sensitive business network of Shengtian Group, and even further impacting other city-states in the world that rely on or are constrained by Shengtian technology?
And perhaps... the most dangerous thing is... to alarm that "ghost" who may never have truly left and has been quietly observing from the shadows: the cunning and scheming old man, Yu Yunshan.

The thought didn't bring fear, but rather a strange excitement mixed with a desire for challenge. He took action.

He began with a frantic, meticulous, and purposeful data mining exercise.

With his supreme authority as the sole heir, he could theoretically access and view all non-physical archives left behind by Shengtian Company since its founding, including those data graveyards marked as "permanently sealed" or "theoretically abandoned".

He no longer limited himself to documents directly related to "Operation Lutai." He expanded the search scope infinitely, like casting a giant net to salvage all the digital assets left behind by Yu Yunshan:
Early fragments of research notes, written in messy handwriting and full of leaps of thought but sparks of inspiration; seemingly insignificant snippets of personal diaries recording daily trivia or sudden whims; and original blueprints for the company's power structure and security system.

Even some documents labeled as "failed experiment records" and usually ignored. He believes that the real secrets are often hidden in inconspicuous corners, in those boundary areas that are deliberately ignored or defined as "failures" by the mainstream narrative.

Like the most patient and stubborn archaeologist, he used all his logical reasoning and intuition to search for any fragmented clues that might point to the truth amidst the gaps in data and the ashes of history.

He mobilized all available computing resources, running dozens of complex cross-indexing and pattern recognition algorithms in an attempt to find unnatural "gaps," overly perfect "logical loops," and seemingly accidental "keyword associations" that appeared more frequently than the probability of randomness in the vast ocean of data.

But what he was most curious about, and what he thought might be the most direct breakthrough, was exactly how the old man, Yu Yunshan, died.

Official death records indicate that he died from the continuous, slow, and irreversible decline in bodily functions, ultimately "dying peacefully without illness."

The death certificate, jointly signed by the world's top medical team, clearly stated: "No obvious organic lesions were found in any organs, consistent with the characteristics of an extremely rare natural death."

However, in some extremely secretive early notes on biological consciousness research that required multiple dynamic keys to access, Yu Qing discovered that Yu Yunshan had repeatedly mentioned "the possibility of consciousness carrier migration" and "the extreme deceptiveness of biological dormancy."

In the appendix of these notes, there are even sketches he personally drew of the molecular formulas of drugs or the principles of neurointerventional devices that could theoretically accurately simulate the physiological state after death (such as brainwave silence, metabolism dropping to a threshold that instruments cannot detect, cell rigidity, etc.).

In the company's official records, these studies were uniformly labeled as "pure theoretical exploration, no in vivo experiments were conducted, and no actual results were archived."

This stark contradiction aroused Yu Qing's suspicions. The old man's "natural death" process, after eliminating all pathological factors, left only the traces of the passage of time, which made him involuntarily think of what he was going through.

That "upload" path points to consciousness separating from the body and achieving digital immortality. Could it be that the old man... had already become some kind of "parallel human"? Was his death merely a successful "version migration" that deceived everyone?
Next, Yu Qing turned his attention to the core paradox—the paradox of "Operation Lutai" and "Project Mirage".

As he delved deeper into the fragmented, remaining data packets of the "Mirage" protocol (although most of the core logic and execution code had been removed using an extremely sophisticated method, leaving only some peripheral logs and resource call records), a startling fact emerged:

This protocol, described as a "backup," requires far more computing resources to start and maintain, and demands greater accuracy and real-time performance on the global sensor network and data stream monitoring nodes than the destructive program of "Operation Lutai," which was designed to trigger a real geological disaster!

According to the vague overview document in the database, "Project Mirage" was merely a "backup" or "shadow" of "Operation Lutai," an alternative plan after the main plan failed. But why would an "alternative plan" require such a disproportionately large and extravagant investment of resources? This violates the most basic engineering logic and resource optimization principles.

Unless… the “Mirage” is not an appendage of the “Deer Terrace,” but the true core? An operation powerful enough to create a deceptive illusion, simulating a global catastrophe, capable of fooling all monitoring equipment, and triggering genuine social panic, collapse, and extreme collective fear…

Super psychological deterrence versus realistically manipulating weapons? If the "Deer Terrace" is a real sword of destruction, then the "Mirage" is a shadow sword that can create the same fear without causing any real damage. The latter is obviously more economical and more... in line with the needs of a certain observational experiment.

Yu Qing's thoughts were suddenly jolted open by a bolt of lightning, and he suddenly remembered another thing that he had always found somewhat "coincidental": Professor Lu's "death".

Professor Lu and Yu Yunshan's "natural deaths" were not far apart in time, and their methods were equally shrouded in mystery, both so clean and efficient that they were impossible to trace.

However, their fields of expertise are diametrically opposed in publicly available records, with no overlap whatsoever. One is deeply involved in business empires, basic energy, network control, and hard technology; the other explores the ultimate forms of plant and animal genes, the bizarre evolutionary paths of life, and the origins of consciousness. Two parallel lines.

However, in an appendix to a deeply encrypted document that appeared to be an early funding agreement for a certain "interdisciplinary biological research foundation," Yu Qing discovered a code name, disguised in multiple ways, pointing to one of Professor Lu's early independent laboratories.

Could it be that their fields of knowledge, at some unknown level that transcends conventional academic classifications, once secretly intersected? For example, regarding the ultimate definition of "consciousness," the non-biological carriers of life forms, or... how to transcend the limitations of the physical body?

Moreover, a more fundamental question arose in Yu Qing's mind: If Yu Yunshan really cared about the Shengtian business empire that he had built with his own hands and devoted his life's blood to, why would he leave behind such a vague succession mechanism that almost inevitably led to power struggles and factional divisions within the company?

Why leave no mandatory contingency plan or executor after death to ensure a stable transition for the company and avoid internal strife? This doesn't seem like the behavior of a far-sighted controller.

Unless, for him, Shengtian Company has already fulfilled some historical mission, or it is itself a larger "shell" used to conceal other, more ambitious purposes? A stage to acquire resources, test technologies, accumulate data, and select a suitable "successor" for him?

A clearer, more chilling macroscopic image gradually began to piece together in Yu Qing's mind:
Perhaps at some point in his life, the old man Yu Yunshan had already lost interest in the conventional accumulation of wealth and control of power.

His gaze turned to a more distant and essential realm of existence, perhaps the complete innovation and continuation of life forms, perhaps the ultimate destination and sublimation of consciousness, or perhaps the desire to "direct" the fate of human society itself—an impulse to observe and intervene at the level of a creator.

He and Professor Lu may have reached a consensus, or at least formed a tacit alliance of mutual benefit, at that unknown point of intersection on some ultimate questions concerning the essence of existence.

Professor Lu needs the vast, unregulated resources and perfect cover-up mechanism provided by Shengtian to carry out his shocking life and consciousness experiments that may touch on ethical taboos.
Yu Yunshan, on the other hand, may have seen in Professor Lu's groundbreaking research the key to realizing some grand plan of his own. For example, safely detaching from the physical body, or creating a virtual reality that is indistinguishable from reality.

Thus, the two "died" one after the other, escaping unscathed in a near-perfect way, moving from the light to the shadows, from actors on stage to directors behind the scenes.

Yu Yunshan used the "Deer Terrace," a symbol whose authenticity was difficult to verify but which was enough to attract the highest level of attention, as an ultimate deterrent to protect Shengtian's core interests (or heritage) from the covetousness and disintegration of external forces.

On the other hand, it may be to create a global, extreme "stress test environment" to observe the stress responses, moral choices, and behavioral patterns of individuals, social organizations, and even the entire civilization as a whole under the threat of extinction.

The turmoil within Shengtian Company and the struggles and power struggles among its heirs are merely an important component of this massive observational experiment, a micro-level reference group.

If this speculation is true, then where exactly is the old man Yu Yunshan now?

He might be deeper within this "ultimate office," in a physically perfect, hidden "core control room" that is inaccessible even by these three known passageways, like a spider in its nest.

He may also, like that mysterious aunt, have completed the uploading of his consciousness, existing in a distributed network node or independent quantum server array, or in a specific biological or mechanical carrier, observing everything in the material world from a near-godlike perspective.

He might even be hiding in Wengshan, right beside Yu Qing, observing his "experiment's" every reaction up close with a hint of amusement and a smile, all under an unexpected and unremarkable identity...

He slammed his fist on the cold, hard surface of the control panel, producing a dull, lonely sound.

But he quickly forced himself to calm down with strong willpower. Anger solves nothing; it only interferes with judgment.

If all of this is true, then his current situation is a thousand times more dangerous and complex than facing a real, quantifiable "Lutai" destruction program.

He is no longer a hero trying to save the world, but an actor trying to unveil the director's veil, to peek at the truth beyond the script, and who may be "cleared out" or "rewritten" at any time.

He took a deep breath and turned his gaze back to the icon that was still slowly rotating and flashing an ominous red light: "Lutai Protocol Status: Activating." His eyes became sharp and cold.

If this is a test, an observational experiment, then he insists on making unpredictable choices that are completely outside the "script." He wants to become a true "variable," a bug, in this vast system.

He was no longer in a hurry to find methods to "stop the Deer Terrace" that might not even exist or were already pre-programmed to be triggered only under certain conditions.

He began to mobilize all available permissions to search for more complete fragments of the "Mirage" protocol, attempting to reverse engineer it to find its triggering conditions, control mechanisms, and energy sources.

He wanted to see just how realistic this potential "false destruction," this shadow sword, could be, and how it would operate.
Could he, in turn, use this "shadow" to deal with the "ghost" that may exist and is hidden behind everything? For example, could he create a "mirage" within a "mirage," an illusion targeting the observer?

At the same time, he also frantically searched through the vast information database with greater efficiency and more ingenious angles for clues related to the ultimate purpose of any consciousness uploading technology and the philosophical paradoxes that may arise from the fusion of biological consciousness and non-biological carriers.

He needed to know what the old man, Yu Yunshan, was ultimately pursuing. Was it merely cold, hard observation and data collection? Or was there a far more terrifying, ultimate plan concerning the transformation of life forms across the entire planet, one that required feigning death to be implemented without restraint? (End of Chapter)