Bringing the Railway to Daming

Zhu Yuanzhang remembered that Liu Kuan had previously played a novel by that science fiction master called "Moonlit Night," which seemed to have been recreated using some kind of AI, and it left a lasting impression on the reader.

Therefore, he was quite looking forward to this video.

The title on the video's cover reads: "AI Recreates Liu Cixin's Masterpiece of Doomsday Prophecy!"

Doomsday prophecy?

Is it going to be like that movie "Moonlit Night," telling the story of how humanity depletes Earth's resources due to technological development, leading to the end of the world?
"The Wandering Earth" is also about the end of humanity, so why do so many so-called science fiction writers in later generations like to write about the end of humanity?

The video began as these questions popped into Zhu Yuanzhang's mind.

The voice of a man from later generations providing narration could be heard clearly.

"The world's richest man bought the entire planet, and 2 billion people have to pay for even breathing. How terrifying is the gap between the rich and the poor when it reaches its limit? Hello everyone, welcome to enjoy Liu Cixin's post-apocalyptic novel published in 2005, 'The Support of Humanity,' which is even darker than 'The Three-Body Problem'!"

The video footage was generated by AI, consisting of AI-generated artwork and animations. Although the content was obviously unrealistic, everyone was captivated by it.

After a series of introductory shots edited from the main content flashed by at the beginning, a man who looked like a soldier from the future appeared on the screen, holding a gun from the future and killing people.

"Smoothbore is a top assassin. One day, he received a special job. The 13 richest people in the world hired him to kill the 3 poorest people in the world."

The 13 richest people hired hitmen to kill the 3 poorest people?

For a moment, Lao Zhu, Zhu Biao, and the others looked puzzled, and became even more eager to see what would happen next in the video.

Although novels were already quite popular in the Ming Dynasty, there were no suspense or mystery novels like those of later generations. Therefore, this kind of suspenseful storytelling style was very appealing to Zhu Yuanzhang and others.

At the same time, they were also secretly speculating in their hearts.

'Could it be that those three people know some of the wealthy people's dark secrets?'

Or perhaps those three people have very special identities?

'Could these three even be princes who have been living among the common people?'

Just as Zhu Xiong Ying, Lan Yu, and others were letting their imaginations run wild with speculation, the following introduction in the video made them realize that their imaginations were still too limited compared to those of later generations.

"These three people are neither disguised spies nor do they know any earth-shattering secrets; they are simply three of the poorest people at the very bottom of society."

"Although business is business, Smoothbore was very puzzled. How could these three poor people have offended this group of super-rich people to the point that they had to be killed?"

"After accepting the deposit, he walked out of the building, looked up at the sky, and saw an alien spaceship slowly moving by."

In the video, above the modern city of towering skyscrapers, a scene that seems futuristic to the Ming Dynasty, floats an even more futuristic object. It is oval-shaped, silver-gray, yet gleams with a faint glassy sheen, clearly something extraordinary.

"A week ago, the spaceship of the older brother civilization landed on Earth. Its shape resembled a capsule, with a smooth, fully reflective surface, as simple and elegant as the droplet in The Three-Body Problem, ostentatiously displaying the older brother civilization's technological strength that far surpasses that of humanity."

"The planet where the older civilization is located is similar to Earth, about 200 light-years away from the solar system. Their civilization history is twice as long as that of humans on Earth, so humans should call them older brothers."

"They've traveled a long way to Earth, and their swaggering display clearly indicates they have no good intentions..."

People like Li Wenzhong, Xu Da, Tang He, and Lan Yu found it difficult to understand the arrival of extraterrestrials on Earth and were somewhat bewildered at first.

Fortunately, the video then shifts back to a narrative style centered on the assassin, Smoothbore.

The story goes that after receiving the mission, Smoothbore did not carry it out immediately, but first went to scout out the location and observe the three people he was to kill.

The first person was a scavenger in the city, someone who rummaged through garbage cans. In the eyes of Zhu Yuanzhang and others, he was probably no different from a beggar.

The second person was a painter—but no one bought his paintings, and he was unwilling to do anything else, so he became destitute.

The third person was a little girl scavenging in a junkyard, who bore a resemblance to an old acquaintance of mine...

In this process, the video briefly recounts the growth of the assassin Smoothbore and lays the groundwork for what he will do next.

Instead of immediately killing the three men, Smoothbore went to find the 13 wealthy men and asked them why they wanted to kill the three men.

"Asia's richest man, Zhu Hanyang, said, 'You have violated the professional ethics of an assassin.' Smoothbore indicated that he must understand the reason, otherwise he would refuse to carry out the mission."

"The world's richest woman, Xu Xueping, said, 'Knowing the great significance of killing those three will give you more drive to act.'"

"Then Zhu Hanyang stood up and gestured for everyone to go outside. Smoothbore and 13 others walked out of the building, and the older brother spaceship in the sky was splitting into countless sub-spaceships." "The group drove around the city looking for homeless people, and gave each one a small suitcase full of money, a full million."

"The homeless always ask incredulously, 'What do you need me to do?' Zhu Hanyang always patiently replies, 'If aliens come and ask, just say this is your own money.' That's all you ask. Can you do that?"

"The homeless man nodded frantically, and Zhu Hanyang and Xu Xueping bowed deeply to him to express their gratitude. What shocked Hua Tang the most was that their expressions of gratitude were incredibly sincere."

"After that, they would give a small suitcase to every poor person they met. Smoothbore finally understood the truth behind the dramatic decrease in homelessness and realized that some kind of great change was about to occur in the world..."

Seeing this, the doubts that people had at the beginning of the video not only did not decrease, but actually became deeper and more numerous.

They had no idea why the wealthy people in the video were doing that. Only a few astute individuals, such as Zhu Yuanzhang, vaguely guessed that the wealthy people's unusual behavior was mostly related to the arrival of their brother's civilization.

Considering that the science fiction novel is titled "Supporting Humanity," Lao Zhu had a new guess.

'Could it be that this "civilized" brother is demanding that the rich on Earth support the poor?'

'Or perhaps, that money didn't originally belong to the wealthy, but was given to us by my brother Wenming, and that he was the one who demanded this?'

As the video continued, recounting the rest of the novel, Zhu Yuanzhang realized that he had been too simplistic in his thinking, or rather, his understanding of the darker aspects of the story was not dark enough.

The most shocking part of the entire video is when the assassin, Smoothbore, ruthlessly kills the little girl who resembles his deceased friend, and then an alien from a civilized society appears and tells Smoothbore why they came to Earth.

"Smoothbore asked, 'Do you have poor people where you are?' The alien replied, 'Of course I am. I am a poor person, penniless.' He pointed to the spaceship in the sky and continued, 'We are all.'"

"Smoothbore was a little confused for a moment and subconsciously asked: How many people have come? The alien replied: There are currently 500,000 people. In a few years, another 10,000 spaceships will arrive, bringing 10 people, all of whom are poor people who cannot survive."

How can there be so many poor people in the world? Won't society descend into chaos? Won't the poor rebel against the rich?

"Society is very stable, and the poor can't rebel." The older brother from the planet thought for a moment and said, "Let me tell you the story of the poor and the rich on our planet."

Seeing this, Lao Zhu and the others naturally had new doubts.

They couldn't understand how there could be so many poor people struggling to survive in a civilization that was clearly far more technologically advanced than Earth.

Moreover, if there are too many poor people, society will indeed become chaotic, and the lower classes will rise up in rebellion. So how come this brother's civilization results in social stability?

The video then explains the reason.

"Initially, the brother civilization was very similar to Earth's civilization. Although there was a gap between the rich and the poor, there were very few extremely wealthy or destitute people, and the middle class made up the majority. People generally believed that with social progress and technological development, the gap between the rich and the poor would further narrow, and the planet would enter an era of great prosperity for everyone."

"But soon, this situation was shattered by one thing—an educational revolution!"

"With breakthroughs in brain-computer interface research, we have mastered the technology to directly implant knowledge into the brain. A supercomputer can be implanted in the brain, capable of storing massive amounts of knowledge. This knowledge can be directly transformed into clear memories, belonging to the recipient."

"From then on, knowledge, intelligence, thought, and ability all became commodities, available for purchase, but extremely expensive. The cost of one person receiving superior education was roughly equivalent to one hundred million yuan on Earth..."

This technological idea of ​​directly implanting knowledge into the human brain completely baffled everyone, including Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Biao, because Liu Kuan had never mentioned anything like this before.

This was the first time they had ever learned that such technology might still exist in later generations.

Even if it only exists in the fantasy of science fiction, it is amazing and terrifying enough.

The video then recounts the development trajectory of Planet Brother after the advent of this technology, showing how humanity, due to this technology, not only experienced a widening gap between the rich and the poor but also gradually split into two different "species".

Those who have received advanced education possess knowledge, wisdom, and abilities far exceeding those of ordinary people, to the point that they lose interest in communicating with ordinary people and consider themselves a new species, extraordinary individuals.

But this is not the end of the social changes on Brother Planet—due to the existence of certain technologies and institutional problems, wealth has continued to concentrate in the hands of a few, and eventually, "final producers" emerged on Brother Planet.

That is, one person owns the wealth of the entire planet, while everyone else becomes poor.

"And technological advancements have led to another thing: the rich no longer need the poor, as highly efficient robots can do everything. Factories no longer need workers, and the rich no longer need drivers, cooks, or nannies, because robots can do all of that."

"The poor no longer even have the opportunity to sell their labor. Even the most beautiful poor girls can't sell their bodies anymore, because AI robot girlfriends are attractive, have high emotional intelligence, are safe and convenient, and perform much better than real people. The poor have completely lost their value..."

"In my great-great-grandfather's time, 60% of the wealth on my brother's planet was in the hands of 1000 million people; in my grandfather's time, 80% of the wealth was in the hands of 1 people."

“In my father’s time, 90% of the wealth was in the hands of 42 people; but after I was born, 99% of the wealth on my brother’s planet is in the hands of one person, who is called the ultimate producer!”

"Planet Brother has become a world comprised of one rich man and two billion poor men!" (End of Chapter)