From Robinson Crusoe

Human beings have made many speculations about the moral level of advanced civilizations.

Some people think that advanced civilizations are like primitive beasts, which value reproduction, are eager to plunder more resources, and love to expand their territory in order to rule the universe.

Some people think that civilizations that are already capable of interstellar travel have most likely overcome their internal conflicts and achieved internal unity. They oppose meaningless waste of resources and will treat humans with a more rational and peaceful attitude.

Some people also think that the biological structure and perception system of advanced civilizations may be very different from those of humans.

In their world, pain can be pleasurable, while joy can be sad, so they are likely to be influenced by this and develop moral concepts that are completely opposite to those of humans.

But no matter what the speculation is, in the hearts of human beings, the advanced civilization that steps into the sea of stars must not be stupid or naive.

Even if their lower-class people are wrapped in a petri dish like the Garden of Eden, they can live happily from birth to death without having to think about anything except happiness.

The ruling class among them who is responsible for leading the entire civilization forward and determining the future direction must also be a wise man.

Chen Zhou once viewed advanced civilizations in this way.

But when he actually came into contact with these imaginary creatures, he discovered that their moral concepts neither served the continuation of the race nor constrained themselves through ethics and social norms like humans.

They are even less like the silicon-based creatures imagined by humans, who take an extremely rational path based on resource coordination and probability.

Their moral logic is similar to that of humans in some ways, but also contrary to common sense.

Their bad taste, mischievousness and a certain degree of keeping their promises have been shown to Chen Zhou more than once.

At this moment, this mysterious Space-Time Administration is showing off like a naughty child—

The jigsaw puzzle board consisting of 3000 pieces instantly turned into a glowing blue mirror. The gap on its surface had not yet healed, but this did not affect its ability to show Chen Zhou what an "incredible" level of technology was.

The gradually brighter light blue became stronger and stronger, covering everything in the cave.

The thin light curtain seemed to solidify into substance, blurring Chen Zhou's vision.

The world in his eyes quickly turned into pure blue, a solid, unfluctuating blue, like ice from ten thousand years ago, imprisoning him in it.

The doors, windows, exterior walls, tables and chairs of the cave all disappeared in the blue light.

There is only one abrupt existence in this "cage" expanded by more than 3,000 puzzle pieces——

The shape of the missing 3001 puzzle pieces has been magnified several times and is tilted to the side, like a door leaving a cage.

Looking at the pure blue room in shock, Chen Zhou tentatively reached out to touch the "wall" made of light curtain in front of him.

He originally thought that this was an illusion created by some high-end "holographic imaging" technology. When his fingers touched the stable blue light curtain, he discovered that the light had actually condensed into substance.

In other words, those ordinary-looking little cubes floating in the sky had already trapped him in an independent space.

The unscrupulous show of skills by the Space-Time Administration reminded Chen Zhou of a video that was once widely circulated on the Internet.

In the video, a foreigner is holding a tablet computer with a lively fish on the screen. The foreigner puts the screen in front of a cat.

When the cat stretched out its paw to touch the fish, the foreigner slid the screen lightly, and the fish disappeared. The cat was left staring at the screen with its mouth open in astonishment, racking its brains to figure out why such a big fish would suddenly disappear.

He felt that at this moment, he was the cat being teased, and the blue space that trapped him might be no different from a tablet computer to advanced civilizations.

……

Before Chen Zhou could get over his shock, a few lines of words suddenly appeared in front of him, attracting his attention.

These words are written in standard regular script, with five lines from top to bottom, representing the five rewards that can be chosen after completing the puzzle.

The first one is "knowledge".

Under knowledge, there are "tools", "resources", "seeds" and random.

The first four options are simple two words, and only the fifth option adds a simple explanation:

“This option will randomly get two of the first four items, but the prize pool will be mixed with more low-level items and very few rare items.”

"This……"

Looking at the five options from top to bottom, Chen Zhou fell into deep thought.

The first option, knowledge, most likely represents knowledge that already exists on Earth, and he also hopes that it is knowledge on Earth.

Chen Zhou has always been very self-aware, and he knows very well the extent of his own comprehension ability and knowledge reserves.

Even if this option could reward him with the manufacturing information of a jump engine or antimatter reactor, he would not be able to learn it, let alone build it.

Moreover, considering the difficulty of this "Pure Blue Hell", it is obviously impossible for high-end goods to appear among the rewards, and the effort and reward are completely disproportionate.

Then according to the principle of reciprocity, this option should bring him a skill book similar to the "Complete Book on Rattan Weaving", such as a more comprehensive pottery-making manual, or a Chinese herbal medicine encyclopedia, an animal and plant encyclopedia, a professional animal husbandry manual, a farming manual, etc.

Of course, this option has a chance of giving him useful knowledge, but also a chance of giving him useless knowledge.

For example, professional calculus, linear algebra, and introductory textbooks, or books that can make a person bald after reading such as C++ Primer, Javascript Authoritative Guide, and JavaScript Advanced Programming.

It is even possible that there will be knowledge such as The Classic of Tea and The Complete Book of Tea, which will be of little use even in modern times.

The second option tool is also affected by luck.

But from Chen Zhou's point of view, the probability of waste appearing in the tools is obviously lower than the probability of "useless knowledge" appearing.

Tools such as axes, saws, hammers, chisels or professional carpenter's tools and stonemasonry tools account for a considerable proportion of all tools.

If worst comes to worst, there are always farming tools and fishing tools to provide a backup.

Even if you don't have any duplicate fishing tools, you can just cut up a few pieces of iron or plastic and use them.

The metals and plastics used to make general tools are relatively durable and suitable for modification into other tools or for use in making firearms.

The third option, resources, has a much wider scope than the first two options.

As we all know, resources are divided into renewable resources and non-renewable resources. If we further subdivide them, they can be divided into several categories, such as water resources, mineral resources, and wildlife resources.

In addition, many modern industrial products, such as cloth, nylon, asphalt, steel, wood, and plastic can also be counted as resources.

There are also various types of food, rice, flour, and many medicines, which are also resources.

In this vast sea of categories, the probability of both practical items and useless items appearing is not low. It can be said that the third option is the most elusive one, with too much randomness.

If he is lucky enough to be rewarded with a batch of seamless steel pipes with rifling, his gun-making business will have a qualitative leap.

Even if there is no such thing as seamless steel pipes that can be considered cheating, giving him a box of medicines with a longer shelf life will be enough, which can at least ensure that he will not die from a cold or inflammation for 2 to 3 years.

……

After looking over the first three options, Chen Zhou hesitated and looked at the fourth option - seeds.

The range of seeds is also quite large. They may be the onions, ginger and peppers that he is most looking forward to, or they may be the corn, potatoes or millet, yellow rice and sweet potatoes that he really hopes to get as staple food, or they may be various vegetables and fruits.

But we can't always think positively. If we count the seeds in the world, only a small part of them are usable crops. The majority of seeds are grass seeds, tree seeds, or some plants he has never heard of. Even if they grow and bear fruit smoothly, they may not be edible.

To be honest, compared to the option name of seeds, Chen Zhou would rather the option be called "crops".

The range of crops is much smaller than that of seeds. The difference between the two is like shopping in a supermarket and buying lottery tickets. Buying lottery tickets certainly has a terrifyingly high upper limit, but how many people in the world can reach that upper limit?

……

As for the last option, if you ignore the second half of the description, its cost-effectiveness is still quite high.

After all, there are only four options in total. If you randomly select two of them, there is at least a 50% chance of selecting the tool. In addition to the tools, it is not a loss to give away any of the other three items: knowledge, resources and seeds.

Even if you can't choose the best tools, the worst result is to choose useless knowledge and useless seeds at the same time.

Anyway, this reward has a strong gambling nature, so if he is really that unlucky, he will accept it.

However, the problem lies in the half sentence added after the description -

There will be more low-level items and very few rare items mixed into the prize pool.

This sentence seems to raise the upper limit of random options, but for Chen Zhou, a man whose luck has never been very good, it actually lowers the lower limit and weakens the fifth option.

Originally, there was a chance that you could get two good things, but with this condition, it's basically 100% certain that you'll get garbage.

He could already imagine that those defective products of modern technology were waving at him. Silicone mobile phone cases, butt plugs, electronic wooden fish, shoe horns and other strange gadgets kept reappearing in his mind, reminding him to reject this option with too high a gambling element.

……

It was late at night when I finished the puzzle, and the light in the cave was dim from the oil lamp.

Chen Zhou was not used to being suddenly in the bright blue space. He stood quietly in front of the words and thought for a long time.

Finally, he reached out and touched the second option - "Tools" without any hesitation.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the blue wall, his arm fell straight down.

"random".

This longest string of options created ripples that slowly faded and dissipated on the wall.

Immediately, all the blue light screens collapsed piece by piece, turned into powder all over the sky, and evaporated into the air.

Just like a dream, Chen Zhou left that technologically advanced space and returned to his little home.

As for the "puzzle gap No. 3001" that he used as an exit, it did not play any role in the whole process and looked like another very low-level and malicious thinking trap.

……

Chen Zhou's eyes found it difficult to adjust to the dim little room all of a sudden.

After standing there for a while and rubbing his eyes, he first looked at the assembled table, trying to find the reward that the "random" option would bring him.

……

During the process of sliding from tool to random, he went through a fierce struggle in his heart.

A person who is unlucky and has two dollars in his hand can choose to buy a pack of instant noodles or bread to comfort his increasingly hungry stomach. For him, this is the best choice.

But he chose to buy scratch tickets, hoping to win one or two hundred dollars at a time and have a big meal. This is obviously irrational.

As the person who holds the right to choose, Chen Zhou worked for more than half a month and even fell seriously ill in the process of completing the puzzle and almost lost his life.

If he were the old him, he would definitely not gamble at such a cost.

But when he was in that blue space just now and made the choice, what he thought of was not himself who had been following the rules for more than 20 years, but himself who typed "Participate in the challenge" and sent it in the forum.

The more people are restricted by rules, the more they desire to break free from the shackles and yearn for rebellion and freedom.

He thought that exchanging a mere half a month's effort for a choice he would never regret could become the most unique color in his life.

More importantly, as a challenger of a "large-scale reality show", isn't this the result that the audience most expects?

……

There are no rewards on the table, just completed puzzles.

This surprised Chen Zhou a little. He thought that this puzzle would disappear with the collapse of the blue space, just like the blue square last time.

Unexpectedly, it was still lying quietly in the cave, still maintaining its mirror-like state, emitting a faint blue light.

“What does this mean?
The torture was too severe, and I feel bad about it. Can you leave me some compensation?"

He picked up the puzzle piece casually and rubbed it gently with his fingertips.

Its smooth and clean surface does not leave any traces and is spotless. The blue light it emits remains stable, giving people a feeling that it will never go out.

It’s a pity that its light is too dim. Otherwise, Chen Zhou would like to stick it on the ceiling and use it as a lamp.

……

He put the puzzle down and walked to the window, where he saw that the sky was covered with a layer of light.

At some point, the drizzle stopped, and the wet gravel turned a darker color. A small frog jumped into the nursery beside the outer wall, lay among the mint bushes, and stared at him curiously with its big eyes.

I was busy until the early morning. I was already very tired, but I was excited for a while because of the blue space and the five options.

At this moment, the excitement faded away, and Chen Zhou couldn't help feeling extremely tired and wanted to rest quickly.

I poured myself a glass of water and blew out the floor lamp next to the table.

He returned to the bed, took out the wedge-shaped ironwood calendar from the bedside table, carved a mark representing yesterday, drank a sip of water, picked up the gray ball that was resting in the wooden box beside the bed, and crawled into bed.

“It seems that the random rewards should be refreshed on the beach.

It just so happens that I haven’t gone to claim the 35th mysterious reward yet, and my cold has almost healed. I’ll take my backpack and go claim my three rewards after waking up…”

Chen Zhou closed his eyes drowsily and hugged the gray ball tightly.

The little guy couldn't stand the heavy and suffocating love from his master, and tried to get out uneasily, but couldn't break free from Chen Zhou's strong arms, and was forced to turn over.

Rubbing the little guy's soft and warm belly and listening to the snoring sound that gradually started to sound, Chen Zhou felt very sleepy.

Before he fell asleep, he had a beautiful fantasy:

He saw a huge lathe placed on the beach, and around the lathe were piled a large number of crops, fruit saplings, and boxes of books, including professional books, novels for passing the time, and even records and record players.

But within a few seconds, his fantasy was swallowed up by the constant darkness and he fell into an unconscious sleep. (End of this chapter)