Countdown: Humanity's struggle to survive against yesterday

On March 18, Zhang Jimin discussed with Sun Fumin, Su Mian, and Lu Xue that they would no longer choose to go to the Beijing Aerospace City.

Instead, they wanted to "exile" them on the spot—a term they came up with themselves.

It means they no longer want Jiangning to locate them; they want to experience what it feels like to go back in time after the world has regressed.

The feeling was mysterious. When Jiang Ning told them that there were 15 seconds left before they had to go back in time, sure enough, 15 seconds later, they disappeared from Mount Awa in an instant. When they opened their eyes again, they had arrived at March 17th in history.

After regaining consciousness, Zhang Jimin felt an unbearable headache and was overwhelmed by a flood of confused memories, unable to distinguish where he was.

It felt like another consciousness had entered my mind, or like the sense of fusion after being transported through time, often described in novels.

This feeling lasted for two or three hours before it subsided and people gradually regained consciousness.

After regaining consciousness, Zhang Jimin immediately reported the situation to Jiang Ning, who then immediately sought help from Taiqing Mountain.

After working on this for so long, the logistics and research team finally managed to come up with a conclusion: that the confusion in thinking was caused by the consciousness and body being separated from time and space for too long.

Then, what are consciousness and the physical body? What is spacetime?

It was another bunch of technical jargon that sounded impressive but was actually incomprehensible to the listeners. In the end, after going around in circles, they still couldn't explain it clearly. They just said that they had remembered this new discovery and would arrange for someone to test it later.

During the video conference, Sun Fumin concluded by saying, "Don't bother having someone specifically test him. He can be tested after this break. As for the others, they can have a break every two weeks..."

Despite Sun Fumin's insistence and a few words of persuasion, the group stopped trying to persuade him when they saw his firm attitude.

However, this incident made the five members of the Huitian Group, excluding Jiang Ning, realize that Jiang Ning's "anchoring" ability was definitely not omnipotent and must have significant side effects, which they just hadn't discovered yet.

Jiang Ning didn't say much about it, offering neither an apology nor any consolation.

However, everyone saw the suppressed emotions hidden beneath his calm face through the video footage.

At the end of the meeting, Jiang Ning said, "Everyone, get some rest. We'll be conducting a sleep monitoring survey when we get back to Taiqing Mountain. If we don't find anything, the Huitian Group will be disbanded!"

What others thought? Zhang Jimin didn't know; all he knew was that hearing those last words cut him to the bone.

The two hadn't known each other for very long; they had only been colleagues for a few years.

The two were generally similar in temperament and interests. From the moment they met, they were partners, working together seamlessly and getting along very well. They would do their best to help each other when one of them was in trouble, which was a rare case of true friendship that had developed over time.

At first glance, the two didn't seem to have the closest relationship, but Zhang Jimin knew that in this materialistic metropolis where sincerity was cheap, this friendship was exceptionally precious to the two men.

He didn't know what would happen if he continued to follow Jiang Ning and didn't come back.

But he really didn't want to go back to the disbanded Tianzu.

To be selfish, Jiang Ning initially invited him out of friendship, but during the time they spent together, the Huitian Group gave him a great sense of security.

This sense of security made him no longer panicked during major disasters, and his wife no longer felt anxious or insecure.

More accurately, it freed him from his sense of confusion.

Even if you're researching a project that most people don't look at, at least it's a goal, an anchor point to help you stop following the crowd.

If the "Global Sleep Monitoring" truly yields no new discoveries, the Huitian Group will be disbanded, and Zhang Jimin's future will be uncertain.

Reporting Unit: Huitian Group Global Sleep Research Center

Research period: January 2005 – January 2047

"Study scope: 195 sovereign countries and regions worldwide, covering all age groups (0-80 years old), with a total sample size of 1423.6 million, 1407.9 million valid samples, and an effective response rate of 98.9%..."

Unable to rest peacefully, Zhang Jimin directly contacted Taiqingshan and requested access to the data collected during this period.

Since Jiang Ning was going to conduct the experiment, even though the data might no longer be useful, he wanted to look at it more, flip through it more, and try to find as many new discoveries as possible.

Meanwhile, on the other side of Shanghai, Su Mian was also carefully reading the report.

Jiang Ning initially assigned her the task of exploring the trends of human consciousness changes from the perspective of cutting-edge scientific technology, but this research direction had not made any progress.

Aside from compiling data, she spends most of her time relearning neurology.

Since Jiang Ning was eager to return to the team from the Beijing Aerospace City and start the "Global Sleep Monitoring" experiment, she felt that she also had to do her part.

At the very least, we need to clearly understand the research direction of this test experiment conducted by Huitian.

Luo Shu had already provided a data table analysis, and Su Mian still found the table jarring when she saw it again.

其中0-3月大的婴儿睡眠平均时长是11.5小时，远低于健康标準时长13-18小时；19岁-60岁成年人，在2046年平均睡眠时长是5.8小时；61岁-80岁老年人，平均睡眠时长4.8小时；全年龄段平均时长是5.1小时；这个数据比华夏2046年全民睡眠报告还要低。

According to the level of economic development and population density, global sleep duration shows the characteristic that "sleep duration is lower in developed countries than in developing countries, and lower in densely populated areas than in sparsely populated areas".

High-income countries (Europe, America, Japan, South Korea, etc.): average sleep duration is 4.5-5 hours, with a high-risk rate of 67.8%. Japan, the United States, and Germany rank in the top three, with average sleep durations of 4.5 hours, 4.7 hours, and 4.8 hours, respectively.

As a high-income developing country, China has an average sleep duration of 5.1 hours, with a high-risk rate of 59.2%. 49% of Chinese respondents believe that sleep is the most important behavior for a healthy and long life, yet they struggle to put it into practice…

Upon seeing this, Su Mian felt extremely suppressed.

Let's set aside the possibility that major disasters might be caused by sleep deprivation.

The physiological, psychological, cognitive, behavioral, and social harms caused by sleep deprivation alone have already made all of humanity like a patient.

In the long run, as human cognitive, learning, and innovative abilities continue to decline, and technological development stagnates or even regresses, human civilization will face serious challenges, even if a "great regression" does not occur.

It sounds ridiculous, but based on data collected by sleep research experts worldwide and analysis of the Luoshu (Lo Shu) system...

Of the reasons for all of this, technological factors accounted for 37.2%.

The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, the Internet, and mobile devices has changed the way people live and work, becoming the primary reason for the decline in sleep duration.

Social factors accounted for 32.7%.

With increasing social competition, 78.3% of working professionals said they "actively reduce their sleep time to improve their competitiveness," and 67.2% of teenagers said they "sleep less than 5 hours a day due to academic pressure."

There's also the rising cost of living and the faster pace of society. Staying up late is now seen as an act of "effort" and as a form of "psychological compensation."

Upon seeing "self-psychological compensation," Su Mian couldn't help but chuckle.

This sentence seems to be describing myself. Although I come from a well-off family and have a father who is a university president, I don't have to worry too much about the pressure of life. But the pressure is like drinking water; only I know whether it's hot or cold. I'm busy and unsuccessful during the day, and I always stay up late at night to watch TV series. Isn't this my way of compensating for my own psychological state?

Even someone as well-off as myself is like this, so to be honest, if we compare myself to the general public, aren't others the same?

"Could major disasters really be caused by insufficient sleep among humans?"

For the first time, Su Mian began to believe this claim. A sudden thought flashed through her mind, and she suddenly thought of the locust effect.

Individual locusts are nothing special, docile and harmless, but once they appear in swarms, their temperament changes drastically, becoming ferocious and extremely aggressive.

"What's the mutation trigger mechanism for locusts again?"

While frantically researching information, Su Mian continued to ponder, "Is it possible that when human sleep levels drop to a certain threshold, they might be triggered to mutate, just like locusts...?"