Countdown: Humanity's struggle to survive against yesterday

The "Global Memory Bank for the Future" project first appeared on "Alarm Clock Network".

The plan was first proposed by Amy Chen, a philosophy professor at Yale University, and subsequently became a trending topic among American netizens. It was eventually compiled and published by the US federal authorities on the "Yesterday Survival Forum".

This plan can be summarized in two parts:

The first part involves collecting all individuals' memories of historical events daily and integrating them into a global early warning daily report. This eliminates information asymmetry, transforms "prediction" into collective risk avoidance capabilities, and significantly reduces the mortality rate.

This measure instantly plunged the Japanese people into a sea of ​​joy.

They desperately need this system of daily early warning reports, as ordinary people believe that this would allow them to predict all earthquake-related issues.

The second part involves recruiting memory geniuses from around the world to form "Spark Classes" in various locations. These individuals would memorize research findings or historical data every day and then repeat them the next day, in order to combat the problem of research findings not being preserved.

To make the project more impactful, the UN Security Council spearheaded a massive, simultaneous event in 195 countries around the world, the largest of its kind in history.

The competition process is divided into grassroots preliminary rounds, city-level qualifying rounds, national selection rounds, and finally the continental semi-finals and the grand final.

The referees for the competition come from professional judging groups of various Olympic events around the world.

Consciousness Day, February 20, 2047, is the first day of the competition.

The amateur altitude race is held over a total of seven days.

The rules for the competition are very simple. Anyone who wants to participate can enter a live broadcast room marked with the Olympic Committee logo. Each live broadcast room is limited to 10,000 viewers, and the final 100 winners will advance.

On that day, a total of 4200 live broadcast rooms appeared on the Chinese Internet, with an average of at least three live broadcast rooms in every major city (including county-level cities).

To ensure fairness, the super AI Luoshu personally took charge of supervision and question setting, and required each participant to keep their camera on and not look away from the screen for more than one second.

……

Near Longhu Mountain, there is a small Taoist temple with green tiles, wooden structure, and mottled white walls, consisting of only two courtyards.

This Taoist temple has no name. In the past, it did not seek to be popular with worshippers, but only to maintain a quiet and peaceful practice. The temple enshrines the Three Pure Ones and has only allowed two or three Taoist priests to practice there for generations.

No one expected that before the great setback, this Taoist temple was facing a closure crisis, and an old Taoist priest and two middle-aged Taoist priests vowed never to leave the mountain.

However, after the great setback, the three Taoist priests frequently left the Taoist temple.

On this day, the middle-aged Taoist priest Chang Niankong, dressed in a neatly pressed gray-blue Taoist robe, with his hair neatly tied up, a string of small peach wood pendants tied around his waist, and a mobile phone in his hand, leisurely descended the mountain.

"Master Taoist, may I ask what brings you here?"

"Excuse me, boss, is this internet cafe still open?"

Yang Hongliang looked the middle-aged Taoist up and down with curiosity and surprise that a Taoist would come to use the internet today.

Since the world went backwards, the once stagnant internet cafe business has unexpectedly started to thrive again.

But this doesn't bring about any change.

Now, this internet cafe is more of a free playground for a group of young people in the neighborhood.

However, even though this internet cafe is located at the foot of Longhu Mountain, we have never seen Taoist priests come to use the internet before. It is really strange today.

"You can still access the internet, but there probably aren't many computer slots left!"

Despite his surprise, living at the foot of Longhu Mountain, Yang Hongliang naturally held a sense of respect for Taoists and said apologetically.

After saying that, he pointed to the bustling hall where a group of young people were excitedly watching the screen.

"Master, you can see for yourself, all the seats are taken!"

"I see!"

Chang Niankong looked up and scanned the hall, finding that there were indeed no seats available, and his face was full of regret.

Just as he was about to turn and leave, he heard the shopkeeper say, "Master, wait a moment. May I ask what brings you online?"

"This humble Taoist priest wishes to participate in the memory competition!"

"what……"

Yang Hongliang gasped in disbelief, scanning the middle-aged man before him once more. The man's expression was calm, his demeanor serene, and he was indeed dressed as a Taoist priest, making it even harder for Yang Hongliang to believe.

"Master, are you sure?"

"Sure……"

Five minutes later, in a corner, behind computer station A31 in the internet cafe, seven or eight young people were whispering to each other.

"Holy crap, is this Taoist priest really going to participate in the memory competition? Taoists have this kind of ability?"

"Don't talk nonsense. These days, you can't become a Taoist priest without a university degree!"

"But this person looks to be 40 years old! At that age, how can they possibly beat younger competitors..."

"Just for the fun of it. My grandpa's 60 years old, and he signed up at home too!"

"Then why didn't you participate?"

"Hehehe, I haven't even passed the first hurdle..."

"..."

The World Memory Championships open preliminary rounds are open to everyone, but there is actually a small threshold.

That is, there will be five mini-tests when you enter the live broadcast room.

Within half a second, the screen will flash an eight-digit code consisting of numbers and letters. Only by entering the code correctly three times will you be eligible to enter the live broadcast room.

"Quiet down, everyone. The test is about to begin. Don't disturb Master Chang."

Yang Hongliang stood behind Chang Niankong and saw Chang Niankong put on noise-canceling headphones and hover the mouse over the start button. He quickly turned around and waved.

Seeing this, although everyone still had doubts, they all widened their curious eyes and shut their mouths.

After Chang Niankong clicked "start," a five-second countdown appeared on the screen.

As soon as the number ended, a set of numbers flashed on the screen.

It was said to be half a second, but Yang Hongliang felt it was less than half a second. It was very similar to an online reaction test software. He could only see three numbers clearly. Although he saw the rest, he couldn't remember them. He only felt dizzy.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, Master Chang calmly and slowly typed "D75F14U0" into the answer box.

"correct!"

"Wow, that's impressive!" a young man exclaimed in surprise. "I only remembered the first three."

"Heh, this is only the first time, maybe he just got lucky!" another young man said skeptically.

Chang Niankong was wearing noise-canceling headphones and couldn't hear what the person behind him was saying. He didn't stop and immediately chose to take the next test.

Another set of numbers flashed quickly across the center of the screen.

Keep your mind focused and quickly type "J351HN67".

"correct"

"correct"

"correct……"

In just half a minute, five correct answers appeared on the screen.

"Congratulations! You have passed all the tests. Please do not exit the page. You will be automatically entered into a full live stream room in ten seconds."

As the ten-second countdown began, the group of people behind Chang Niankong started discussing again.

"Impressive! This middle-aged Taoist priest is quite something..."

"Yes, I didn't expect him to get them all right. His memory and reaction speed are nothing like those of a 40-year-old."

"What are you saying? He's a Taoist priest from Longhu Mountain. Show some respect with your words." Yang Hongliang turned around and glanced at the rude young man, his gaze warning him.

"That's right, that's right. This is a legitimate Taoist priest. He might actually have some skill. Be careful, if the Taoist priest hears you, he might just give you a palm strike." Another young man quickly chimed in with a joke.

"Hahaha……"

The commotion and discussion quickly attracted the attention of about a dozen players nearby.

Upon hearing that a Taoist priest from Longhu Mountain was going to participate in a memory competition, everyone, who had previously been uninterested in the competition, now gathered around out of curiosity.

Seeing that more and more onlookers were gathering in the aisle, Yang Hongliang, the owner of the internet cafe, simply went back to the front desk and used the back-end management system to project the screen of machine A31 onto the large screen in the internet cafe's rest area.

"Let's go, let's go to the rest room! Don't crowd together anymore, so as not to disturb Master Chang."

Some people were initially reluctant to admit it, but Chang Niankong answered all five introductory test questions correctly, which impressed five or six people on the spot.

Seeing Boss Yang's arrangement, these people all supported it and spontaneously maintained order.

Soon, the lounge was filled with about 20 spectators, just as the preliminary rounds were about to officially begin.