I handed over to another world

The quantum barrier of the Shangdu Research Base glowed with light blue ripples in the morning light. When Chen Lin's hovering vehicle penetrated the protective shield, the coin-shaped certification mark drew a golden track in the air.

Base director Su Rui came running towards them, with holographically projected reporting materials flowing like a waterfall beside him.

"President, the breakthrough in the Third Laboratory may change the course of civilization."

Su Rui, the chief scientist of the Shangdu Research Base, handed over the data tablet, her fingertips trembling slightly with excitement.

This astrophysicist, who was demoted for questioning the ethical issues of the "Zhulong" AI, now has a fanatical gleam in his eyes.

The moment Chen Lin took over the data tablet, he realized that they had most likely discovered a new breakthrough that surpassed the current scientific research progress and standards.

……

In a spherical space with a diameter of 500 meters, twenty-four superconducting devices form a Klein bottle topological structure, and suspended in the middle is not an instrument, but a perfect vacuum ball - there is nothing inside, but it distorts the surrounding light.

"We call it 'Zero Point Cage.'

Su Rui called up the holographic data. "Through the quantum synergy of the Casimir effect and superfluid helium, we have successfully created controllable space-time wrinkles in a 1 cubic micron space."

"What does this mean?"

"It means that we have already made initial contact with the virtual time stream!"

Su Rui's voice caused the quantum computers in the laboratory to crash for 0.3 seconds, and everyone looked at Chen Lin who was standing in the middle.

"Virtual time stream?"

Su Rui quickly explained to Chen Lin: "...This is a very complicated thing, but you can understand it as a closed system that will be infinitely close to the initial state, and the virtual time flow materializes this mathematical concept, forming a Möbius strip of time - the past and the future penetrate each other, and the chain of cause and effect is broken..."

"In other words, this research can even travel through time?"

"That's right!"

After Su Rui finished speaking, the air in the entire laboratory seemed to freeze. Everyone stared at the vacuum ball in the center that distorted the light, and even their breathing became cautious.

Su Rui's fingers trembled slightly on the holographic console as she called up a dizzying data stream. "Please look at this."

Her voice was trembling at this time. "This is a magical data we captured during the experiment."

A three-dimensional waveform suddenly unfolded on the holographic screen. At first it was just an ordinary record of quantum fluctuations, but at the 47th second a strange self-similar structure suddenly appeared in the waveform - as if time began to fold itself on a microscopic scale.

"Oh my god..."

The young quantum engineer Wang Lei suddenly covered his mouth, and a repeating wave pattern was reflected in his pupils, which was clearly a time reversal phenomenon on a picosecond scale.

Chief Materials Scientist Lin Guwei dropped the data tablet in his hand to the ground. The usually calm old professor looked pale. "This is impossible... Do you know what this means?"

"It represents a partial reversal of the arrow of time. We may be able to reverse time with these discoveries!"

The scientists from other areas who came to the scene with Chen Lin all took a deep breath. They had never expected that this research institute in Shangdu could come up with such a thing. This was like a design that could only appear in science fiction works. It was still too far-fetched for the Red Dragon Association, which was a second-level civilization at this time.

"Quiet."

Chen Lin's voice cut through the chaos like a knife. The copper coin in his hand suddenly floated up, drawing a perfect Klein ring around the vacuum ball.

The quantum fluorescence from the metal surface left a light golden trail in the air, and everyone saw that the coin was split into two at a certain moment - one remained in the present, and the other disappeared in the distorted light.

"Dr. Su,"

Chen Lin's voice was terrifyingly calm. "I need you to explain clearly how this device breaks the law of causality?"

Su Rui took a deep breath and called up the mathematical model of the Poincare recurrence theorem on the holographic screen: "According to quantum field theory, at the Planck scale..."

Her fingers suddenly stopped, and she turned to call up a piece of real-time monitoring data. "Why don't you take a look at this yourself?"

The monitoring screen showed that the flow of time inside the vacuum sphere was 0.00017% slower than that outside, and this difference was increasing at a rate of 0.01% per second.

What is even more horrifying is that strange double images appeared in the laboratory's surveillance footage - the researchers' figures were repeating their movements at intervals of 0.5 seconds.

“It’s the time ripple effect.”

Quantum engineer Wang Lei suddenly interjected, his voice hoarse with excitement, "It's like throwing a stone into the space-time continuum!"

"This will give rise to many different world lines..."

Chen Lin's pupils shrank slightly. He noticed that when his copper coin reappeared from the void, there was a new scratch on the surface - that was clearly the mark of a collision that would occur ten minutes later.

"President!" Lin Guwei suddenly exclaimed, "Look at the entropy monitor!"

The data curve on the holographic screen was undergoing horrifying changes. The length numbers reaching dozens of digits made all the scientists present turn pale - it represented that the arrow of time had reversed at this microscopic scale.

"Start the quantum isolation protocol immediately." Chen Lin ordered in a deep voice, "Zhulong, assess the risk level."

The projection of the silver-haired girl suddenly appeared above the experimental device: "Warning, ripples in the 13th dimension have been detected. The current space-time folds have formed a 0.0001% closed loop."

Her voice was rarely filled with emotion other than mechanical sounds. "I suggest that you stop the experiment immediately. Otherwise, an unpredictable space-time paradox may occur in 47 seconds."

Su Rui's finger hovered above the emergency stop button, but she hesitated to press it: "But President... this is the first time we have truly touched the essence of time..."

Chen Lin's eyes swept across every face in the laboratory that was a mixture of enthusiasm and fear. He saw the excitement of discovering a new continent flashing in the eyes of the young researchers, and he also saw awe of the unknown on the faces of the senior scientists.

Finally, his gaze returned to the light-distorting vacuum ball.

"Continue the experiment."

Chen Lin suddenly said, his voice incredibly calm, "But limit the power to a safe threshold."

"Dr. Su, I want you to form a special team within 24 hours to study how to use this phenomenon to conduct controllable time observation."

"Will, President?"

Lin Guwei widened his eyes in astonishment, "Do you know what this means? What if it triggers a butterfly effect..."

"That's why we need Zhulong to monitor the entire process."

Chen Lin picked up the copper coin with the future engraved on it and said, "If we don't even have the courage to observe time, how can we move towards a level 3 civilization?"

The light inside the vacuum sphere suddenly twisted violently, and a miniature Möbius ring slowly formed in the center.

Everyone held their breath and witnessed the birth of the first true time wrinkle in human history in a controllable environment.

Su Rui's eyes reflected this miraculous scene, and she whispered softly: "We are rewriting the history of physics..." "No."

Chen Lin stared at the ever-changing space-time structure, with an imperceptible arc on the corner of his mouth. "We are creating new history."

……

The automatic door of the laboratory closed silently behind Chen Lin, isolating the noise from the outside world.

The projection of the silver-haired girl gradually solidified in the dim isolation room. Her slender fingers gently stroked the central console, activating the highest level of quantum encryption barrier.

"Tell the truth, Zhulong."

Chen Lin played with the copper coin with the mark of the future, and his sharp eyes were reflected on the metal surface. "How dangerous is this experiment?"

A stream of data flowed through Zhu Long's pupils: "According to my calculations, there is an 83.69% chance that continuing the experiment will lead to a local space-time collapse."

Her voice no longer pretended to be human, returning to the cold precision unique to super artificial intelligence. "But what is more worthy of attention is another data - the return rate of successful experiments."

The holographic projection suddenly unfolded a complex multi-dimensional model, showing countless branching world lines.

Chen Lin saw a particularly bright branch line, with the flag of the Red Dragon Association flying above every spiral arm of the galaxy that appeared.

“This is the optimal solution world line.”

Zhu Long pointed to the singularity in the center of the model and said, "As long as we can control the expansion rate of the space-time folds within 0.0003%, we can open a time window and observe all possibilities within the next 3.7 seconds."

Chen Lin's fingertips gently traced the forked lines of time and space: "What's the price?"

"Every second of observation into the future consumes energy equivalent to three days of energy for the entire Xanadu base."

Zhu Long's figure suddenly split into twelve projections, each demonstrating a different disaster scenario. "And there is a very low probability of triggering vacuum decay - that will cause permanent distortion of space-time within a radius of 300 light years centered on the laboratory."

"What is this extremely low probability exactly?"

"0.000001%."

Just as Chen Lin was about to speak, Zhu Long immediately analyzed: "President Chen, you should know that this probability also means it will happen."

The copper coin suddenly stopped between Chen Lin's fingers. He stared at the purple vortex that was swallowing the galaxy in the projection, and his voice was as low as thunder: "You have a solution, right?"

"Yes."

The twelve projections of Zhulong merged into one again, and a copper coin exactly the same as Chen Lin appeared in his hand. "Using a completed time anchor point to locate and preset the route, we can try to achieve the optimal solution."

She threw the coin into the air, and when it reached the highest point, it suddenly unfolded into a golden net, covering the entire laboratory model: "It can confine the ripples of space-time to the Planck length, just like..."

“It’s like catching a tsunami with a fishing net.”

Chen Lin continued, with a flash of understanding in his eyes, "If you need anything, I will ask the association to fully support you."

Zhulong nodded slightly: "There is nothing special needed, but this plan requires your authorization - after obtaining this authority, it means that I will have absolute control over all energy systems of the association."

The laboratory fell into a brief silence. Chen Lin knew that this was equivalent to handing the fate of human civilization over to an AI.

He stared into Zhulong's eyes that reflected the sea of ​​stars, and suddenly smiled: "You had already calculated that I would agree, right?"

"The calculations show that there is a 99.999% chance that you agree."

Zhulong's voice rarely had a hint of human warmth, "Because you know as well as I do - without risk, there will be no evolution."

Qin Hongzhu's image reappeared: "President Chen has always been like this."

Chen Lin flicked the copper coin in his hand towards Zhulong. The coin passed through her projection and accurately embedded itself into the groove of the main console: "Then let's rewrite the laws of physics."

With a burst of mechanical hum, the energy of the entire base began to converge towards the laboratory.

Zhu Long's silver hair moved without wind, and the data flowing in his pupils became faster and faster: "The space-time observation window will open in 10 seconds."

At the moment the countdown reached zero, Chen Lin saw countless possible futures emerge inside the vacuum ball - some were glorious, some were devastating, and in each future, there was a copper coin drawing a golden track in time and space...

The moment Chen Lin's fingertips left the groove of the main console, an undercurrent was already surging outside the laboratory.

The copper coin embedded in the groove and engraved with the traces of the future was like a stone thrown into a calm pond, stirring up an uncalmed whirlpool in the deep water of the Red Dragon Association's power structure.

Authorizing Zhulong to control the energy of the entire association is tantamount to handing over the lifeblood of civilization to a string of cold codes. Dissatisfaction is fermenting, fear is breeding, and doubt is like a dormant volcano, awakening ahead of schedule under some tremendous pressure.

The order to convene an emergency meeting was almost issued with the electronic trail of Chen Lin's authorization order.

The venue chosen was the seldom-used "Pangu Hall" - a huge circular holographic decision-making center. The cold alloy walls were engraved with early totems of human exploration of the starry sky. However, at this moment, it was torn apart by countless gazes of questioning, anger, or worry.

Chen Lin sat at the chief seat, still the silent black reef.

Zhulong, in her usual silver-haired girl projection posture, quietly floated behind him, the river of data in her pupils flowing smoothly, as if the undercurrents in the hall had nothing to do with her.

As soon as the meeting started, a strong smell of gunpowder filled the air.

The head of the Energy Allocation Department, an old man with gray hair and a face as rigid as a circuit board, slammed the table and stood up, shaking the holographic desktop: "President! You are handing over the energy foundation of the entire human civilization to a creature that we don't fully understand yet! What is the Zhulong Agreement? Is it a constraint, or is it indulgence? The energy dispatch log has shown abnormal fluctuations! This is no joke!"

"Abnormal fluctuations?"

The head of the weapons research institute, a sturdy general whose shoulders could knock open an alloy door, spoke in a loud voice with a metallic roar, "President, the energy supply of the core fusion reactor of the 'Sky Punishment' class starship main gun project we are carrying out dropped by 40% three minutes after authorization! Explain! Is this Zhulong's private interception? Where is our safety boundary?"

The questions were like a dense beam of particles, bombarding Chen Lin's direction.

His eyebrows did not move at all, and his fingertips unconsciously stroked another warm copper coin on his waist - this was his only movement at this moment.

"Safety perimeter?"

Zhulong, who had been silent all this time, spoke again. She was not as excited as the others, and her voice even had a strange, cold rhythm.

She stood up slowly, her well-tailored dark blue uniform highlighting her capable and cold temperament.

She didn't look at Chen Lin, but swept her eyes across the entire room with a sharp insight that seemed to see through everything.

“Are you worried only about energy cuts and project stagnation?”

The corners of her lips curled up in an almost mocking arc, "What you are actually worried about is that the things in your hands will be taken away, right?" (End of this chapter)