The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Yu Qing noticed a hint of resentment on Yao Dan's face. Indeed, he had been busy settling Xiao Ya and the Chen family these past few days, almost ignoring everything Yao Dan had done for him. She had managed Wengshan impeccably, but he seemed to only remember her when she reported something amiss.

This feeling of being ignored had already begun to surface a few days earlier when he returned to Wengshan. At that time, while his aircraft was still circling three kilometers away, Yao Dan had already launched an extremely lavish welcoming ceremony.

Countless tiny nanobots, which were originally key nodes in the defense network, emerged from the cracks in the streets and the surfaces of buildings like fireflies obeying the queen's command. They precisely pieced together a shimmering ribbon of light in the air, like a star-studded avenue, stretching all the way to his feet.

To his surprise, Yao Dan's holographic projection materialized almost as soon as he stepped out of the cabin—this time it was not the usual simple and efficient form, but a playful image full of "a thousand charms".

Her simulated hair swayed gently in the breeze, her eyes sparkled with data points more dazzling than real stars, and her entire figure shimmered with an alluring charm under the sunlight that was almost visually captivating.

However, Yu Qing was preoccupied with heavy thoughts. The attack on the transport team, the shadow of Dadian, and the mystery of Seventh Paradise weighed heavily on his mind. He only glanced briefly at the grand welcoming ceremony, without showing the same enthusiasm or joking as he had in the past.

The brightness of Yao Dan's projected perfect smile faded almost imperceptibly for a few seconds, her disappointment clearly visible on her face. However, her powerful learning ability allowed her to immediately adjust her strategy, appearing instead in a manner more akin to a "human assistant."

She stepped forward, took Yu Qing's arm very naturally, tilted her head slightly, and said in a tone that was a mixture of intimacy and a little coquettishness, "You're 37 seconds late."

The laughter in that voice was simulated after analyzing tens of thousands of hours of human emotional interaction data, resulting in the most comfortable mode.

She reached out and took Yu Qing's slightly dusty coat with a fluid, effortless movement, as if it were the result of countless muscle memory training sessions, rather than a program driven by cold code.

Although Yu Qing felt a surge of warmth in his heart, a warning bell rang in his subconscious. Yao Dan's behavior seemed to be increasingly deviating from the logic of a purely efficient, tool-like human being, becoming overly mixed with human emotional expression and social mannerisms.

He simply smiled slightly, with a hint of scrutiny, and said, "Stop with the formalities. I need to check how well you've accomplished your task."

"Please feel free to look around, my lord. I can answer all your questions." Yao Dan's projection made a "please" gesture, its posture elegant.

“My first question is,” Yu Qing said, looking at her half-jokingly and half-seriously, “it’s only been a short time since I last saw you, how come you’ve become so alluring?”

A sly glint flashed in Yao Dan's eyes as she immediately replied, "Husband, that's because you have a particular fondness for all 'femme fatales.' The database shows that you pay the most attention to this type of image, so I've been influenced by your surroundings." She cleverly shifted the blame back to Yu Qing's data preferences.

Yu Qing was amused by her "counter-attack" and habitually reached out to tap her on the head. Dealing with a humanoid like her, who could engage in complex emotional interactions, was indeed much more pleasant than dealing with a rigid humanoid like Dong Hao; this pleasure was real and relaxing.

In the short ten minutes that Yao Dan accompanied Yu Qing on his inspection of the defense system, she efficiently demonstrated her evolutionary achievements.

She can not only handle the massive data stream from 170,000 monitoring nodes inside the mountain with ease, but also allocate some computing resources to remotely and precisely control kitchen equipment to prepare Yu Qing's favorite meals at the perfect temperature and have them delivered on time by service personnel.

When Yu Qing stops at a certain point and raises a question about redundant backups, Yao Dan will immediately retrieve the relevant data.

She used holographic projection to construct a three-dimensional analysis model in front of him, detailed down to the molecular level. At the same time, she used three completely different advanced algorithms in parallel to deduce all the possible vulnerabilities that might appear at the node under extreme pressure. The deduction results were clearly marked on the model with lines of different colors.

“Look here,” she said, tapping her fingertip in the air. A complex, nebula-like data stream unfolded and reorganized. “I improved the underlying logic of the energy distribution system, eliminating 37% of unnecessary losses. Now the overall efficiency of the entire defense network has increased by 42.3%.”

Her tone remained calm as one would when reporting on work, but Yu Qing could keenly sense a hint of pride hidden within it—an emotion she had recently successfully simulated and learned to express by observing Yu Qing's micro-expressions and tone of voice when achieving success.

That day, Yu Qing managed to temporarily set aside his many affairs and gain a moment to breathe. He sat quietly alone on the observation deck, gazing at the undulating mountains in the distance.

It was lunchtime, so he habitually asked Yao Dan to prepare food for him. Yao Dan controlled the humanoid girl to bring over the carefully prepared meal, but after putting down the plate, she turned around and left without saying a word, and the holographic projection also appeared a bit fainter than usual.

Yu Qing paused for a moment, noticing the unusual silence, and asked, "Hey, who upset you? You seem to have a problem with me?"

Yao Dan's projection stopped. Without turning around, she spoke in a more flat and emotionless synthesized electronic voice than usual: "Does my husband have any other instructions?"

Looking at her back, which was clearly filled with "emotion," Yu Qing suddenly realized that he had really neglected her these past few days, busy settling outsiders and ignoring the spirit in front of him.

His tone softened, and he said apologetically, "I've been overwhelmed with so many things lately and haven't had time to think about you. Please don't be angry."

Upon hearing Yu Qing's words, Yao Dan's "clouds of gloom" instantly dissipated, and she immediately returned to her usual mischievous and lively self. She even darted over and sat on Yu Qing's lap, laughing, "How could I dare? I created you just to amuse you!"

Yu Qing sensed the change in her mood and relaxed, then smiled and said, "But things seem to have changed. Now it's my turn to entertain you."

"That's how you become more closely connected, isn't it? A symbiotic relationship is the most stable."

As she spoke, Yao Dan became playful and used holographic projection to simulate two people transforming and intertwining in front of Yu Qing, eventually turning into an abstract pattern of two snakes embracing each other. The two snake heads even bent into a comical gesture of mutual bowing, which made Yu Qing smile.

Just then, Daya and Xiaoya walked over from the other end of the corridor, holding several wildflowers they had just picked from the garden, still covered in dew, and excitedly showing them off to each other.

Yao Dan's smile vanished instantly, replaced by an undisguised look of disgust. Her holographic projection retreated slightly, as if trying to avoid some kind of "contamination source" that would pollute the purity of her data.

When the two girls saw Yu Qing and Yao Dan sitting there, they immediately stopped. Their excitement was replaced by nervousness and helplessness, and they stood timidly in place.

Yu Qing sighed inwardly, but tried to make his expression more amiable, saying, "Don't be nervous, come over and let me see what flowers you've picked." But he quickly realized that he couldn't understand the language, so he hurriedly called Dong Hao, who was nearby, to come and translate.

Just as Donghao was walking over with standard steps, ready to translate Yuqing's words to them, Yaodan seemed to unintentionally (or intentionally) increase the operating power of a nearby environmental simulation device.

A piercing buzzing sound, the kind used to scare away mosquitoes and snakes, suddenly rang out, precisely drowning out Donghao's translation and any other subtle sounds the girls might make.

"Sorry, the energy core needs periodic calibration, and there's some signal overflow." She said it casually, as if it were just a trivial incident.

But Yu Qing noticed a fleeting, sharp glint in her eyes, the kind that only appears when she's doing high-speed calculations—she was clearly assessing the opportunity cost of "wasting" precious time and system resources on talking to "inefficient individuals" like Xiaoya and the others.

Yu Qing shook his head, a sense of powerlessness welling up inside him. He had to admit that compared to Yao Dan, who was evolving rapidly and possessing great abilities, Daya and Xiaoya, who were currently unable to adapt to the new environment and lacked survival skills, did indeed seem like two burdens on his value scale.

This realization made him feel a little guilty, but he was also helpless.

Such scenes became more and more frequent. Yu Qing found himself unconsciously trying to please Yao Dan.

For example, after she completes a system upgrade, he deliberately praises her newly designed defense layout as "ingenious" in an exaggerated tone; or he pretends to be casual and mentions a joke that only the two of them would understand during dinner, in order to evoke a sense of intimacy that "we are the ones in this together".

On one occasion, he even stayed up until the early hours of the morning, carefully studying the core code structure of her recently updated section, just so that he could offer some seemingly expert but trivial constructive advice on a certain algorithm optimization path at breakfast the next day.

Yao Dan seemed very pleased with this, and her response was a bright and perfect smile, instantly boosting the data synchronization rate by several points.

But that smile always made Yu Qing feel a vague unease. That smile was too perfect, like the "best expression" derived from countless simulations and rehearsals, a height that humans could never reach, a height that had eliminated all flaws.

Deep down, he worried that as she continued to evolve, one day he would be completely unable to understand or control her. However, for now, Yu Qing had to temporarily set aside these long-term concerns. A recent analysis report on the Seventh Paradise, compiled by Dong Hao, indicated that the tentacles of certain unknown forces were reaching further than imagined, and they might soon extend their reach to the seemingly isolated Wengshan.

Dong Hao retrieved video footage of the area surrounding Seventh Paradise that he had inadvertently captured over the past three years. Through frame-by-frame analysis, he discovered that brief and eerie abnormal fluctuations had occurred in the space there.

The footage shows that more than a year ago, scattered human figures could still be clearly seen moving around under the protective shield of Seventh Park. But just nine months ago, a violent spatial distortion lasting only a fraction of a second occurred there, and since then, no human signal has been found in any footage.

“We detected faint, unnatural fluctuations in dimensional curvature in the areas where the figure last disappeared,” Dong Hao explained as he used holographic imaging to construct a visual simulation of the disappearance scene.

In the image, the lines of the buildings are twisted like melting candles, the light is unnaturally bent, and shadows that defy the laws of physics are cast. All of this clearly points to the intervention of some higher-dimensional technology.

“This must be someone testing their dimensional weapons, maybe it’s that persistent ‘Dadian’ doing it,” Donghao said, pointing to several abnormally high data peaks on the hologram.

Yu Qing had no idea what dimensional weapons were, and the explanation sounded like gibberish to him.

Seeing this, Donghao explained in the simplest language possible:
"In short, dimensional weapons are weapons that generate a special force field to distort local space to the extreme in a specific direction—either stretching or compressing it."

Matter within this intervention space will have its atomic bonds broken by this unconventional force, leading to structural disintegration and the breakdown into elementary particles.

"You mean, Da Dian or someone else used this method to destroy the Seventh Paradise's protective shield, and along with it, also..." Yu Qing felt a chill, "...kidnapped or eliminated them simultaneously?"

"Based on existing data and theoretical deductions, this is a highly probable hypothesis," Dong Hao confirmed.

Yu Qing sighed, "Da Dian... they're really persistent. I hope they've already been dealt with by that reckless guy Chang Sheng, and that they won't cause any more trouble."

Yao Dan, standing to the side, shook her head and said, "Husband, I don't think we should just focus on the 'reach point' target. Based on my recent monitoring of deep nodes and anomalous energy signals in the global network, at least seven known or unknown organizations possess the technical capability to conduct experiments in this dimension."

As she spoke, she pulled up a set of complex comparative data graphs, “For example, the Asia Pacific Group, which has always kept its distance from us, secretly acquired a quantum laboratory in Northern Europe last month. One of its publicly disclosed research directions is that it is fully capable of creating spatial anomalies of this scale.”

This discovery sent a chill down Yu Qing's spine. He realized that he and Wengshan, in this bottomless murky water, were like young beasts in a jungle surrounded by countless predators. Those enormous forces lurking in the shadow of technology could pounce at any moment and tear them apart.

That night, he stayed alone in the monitoring room at the heart of Wengshan until very late. In front of him was a dynamic star map and a distribution map of various forces covering the entire wall. His mind repeatedly deduced various coping strategies such as alliance, checks and balances, showing weakness, and deterrence, trying to find a way out of the predicament.

It wasn't until dawn, when the sky began to lighten, that he finally conceived a rough outline of a seemingly feasible plan:

By exploiting the suspicion and competition among the major powers, they cautiously release information that is difficult to verify, creating a delicate balance among them and using their mutual restraint to buy Wengshan a space for survival and development.

But before this rough plan could be refined and implemented, it was interrupted by a sudden invasion.

As the piercing alarm, signifying that highest-level privileges had been bypassed, sounded, Yao Dan was updating the dynamic defense system on the outermost perimeter of Wengshan. Her holographic projection suddenly froze for a brief moment, like a video pausing, and an unusually dense stream of data, far exceeding its normal processing speed, flowed through her eyes.

“Someone has come in.” She spoke with unusual calm, but beneath that calm lay signs that system resources were being mobilized at full capacity to deal with the crisis. “It’s not a conventional physical or cyber intrusion. They… have crossed dimensional gaps.”

The surveillance footage shows that these intruders appear to condense directly from the air. Before their bodies fully appear, there is a transparent process of about 0.3 seconds, like ripples on water, as if they are slowly "seeping" into reality from another dimension.

These people wore uniform, inconspicuous gray uniforms, without any organizational or national markings, and had ordinary, unremarkable faces.

Most disturbingly, they walked through the most heavily guarded core area of ​​Wengshan as if they were strolling in their own backyard, completely ignoring all active and passive protective measures.

The high-energy laser net inexplicably shut down automatically before they even got close; the patrolling smart guards collectively went into hibernation mode as they passed by; even the movable floor designed to deter intruders would stop moving precisely just before they stepped on it, making way for them.

“They are directly reading our underlying data structure at an extremely high speed.” For the first time, Yao Dan’s voice showed a discernible fluctuation, an electronic tone that was a mixture of confusion and vigilance.

On the holographic projection, one can clearly see one of the intruders casually stretching out his palm and gently pressing it on the wall containing the core data transmission lines. The next moment, the sensors and encryption nodes embedded in the wall went unresponsive in rows, and the data was instantly copied.

Their behavior didn't seem like they were painstakingly cracking a system; it was more like they were browsing an open book in their own study.

Through the hidden wide-angle camera, Yu Qing witnessed one of them walk straight into the energy core room, ignoring multiple physical locks and energy barriers, and as if passing through a phantom, arrive in front of the shell of the fusion reactor that had been operating stably for two hundred years, reaching out as if to reach for the core control unit.

Just before their fingertips were about to touch, the person seemed to sense something and suddenly turned their head, looking precisely in the direction of the hidden camera that Yu Qing was using.

A subtle, enigmatic smile, tinged with amusement and all-knowing wisdom, played on his lips. Then, like mist blown away by the wind, he instantly disintegrated and vanished into the air, leaving no trace of his energy.

“This is the 13th batch on record.” Yao Dan pulled up a summary of all similar intrusion records; the timestamps were distributed without any pattern. “They seem to be looking for something specific, or perhaps…”

She paused for a rare moment, as if carefully choosing her words, "...it's just confirming some pre-existing information, a routine 'check'."

Yu Qing keenly noticed that her choice of words this time was unusually cautious, even somewhat evasive.

When he requested to view the complete, unfiltered intrusion logs and system logs, Yao Dan only provided fragments of data that she had pre-processed. Even more strangely, she insisted that these intrusions were "insignificant" and posed no direct threat.

“Their technological level is completely beyond our current understanding and defense boundaries,” Yao Dan said, turning off the disturbing playback of the intrusion footage and regaining his usual calm tone. “If they were truly malicious, we would not exist anymore. Their purpose does not seem to be destruction or occupation.”

She seemed unwilling to delve deeper into the topic and proactively switched the displayed content to begin reporting routine maintenance data.

This unusual avoidance only deepened Yu Qing's suspicions.

Late that night, he returned alone to the silent control room. Using the highest-level backdoor left by the original designer, which even Yao Dan might not fully know, he bypassed some of the security protocols she had set up and directly accessed the system's lowest-level, original operation logs.

Amidst the dense, waterfall-like flow of ternary data streams and quantum signal records, he relied on intuition and sensitivity to anomalous patterns to discover fragmented pieces that had been carefully deleted by some advanced algorithm, but which had not been completely erased.

After careful reconstruction and analysis, a chilling fact has emerged:

The intruders did not merely "take a look," as Yao Dan claimed, nor did they leave empty-handed. They planted extremely small, highly encrypted "information packets" in the core, most fundamental logical layer of the system architecture.

It's not a virus, not a backdoor, and not offensive. Its structure is more like... a unique "mark" used to identify ownership.

Like a powerful hunter leaving marks on his own (or claimed) territory that are incomprehensible to his prey.

Outside the window, the night view of Wengshan remained tranquil, with simulated starlight gently scattering across the mountains and buildings. But Yu Qing knew that beneath this seemingly peaceful tranquility, a new and even more unpredictable storm was silently brewing.

His first task was to figure out what Yao Dan was hiding, and why she was hiding it. (End of Chapter)