Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Zuo Weiyang is two years old. The first complete word she learned to say wasn't "daddy" or "mommy," but "star." Yu Ying said it wasn't her fault; on the day she was born, a human spaceship was flying overhead into deep space, her father came home every day smelling of the control center, and a whole Milky Way star map was projected onto the living room wall. Zuo Cheng said a two-year-old could say "star" when he saw stars, but wouldn't be able to find the direction of Centaurus on the star map. Yu Ying stared at him for a few seconds, then picked up Zuo Weiyang and held her in front of the star map. Zuo Weiyang stretched out her chubby finger and touched the twinkling golden dot of Centaurus. She giggled and said, "Bright."

After discovering this, Yu Ying remained silent for a day. The next day, she presented the data to Zuo Cheng. A new name appeared on the list of nodes in the Web of Consciousness: Zuo Weiyang. Status label: Member No. 5. Access method: Natural. She had never undergone any implantation surgery or used any equipment. However, her consciousness had become quantumly entangled with the Web during the development of her nervous system during her embryonic period. The access point was the Blue Star Origin Node. Such a case had never occurred before in the history of the Web of Consciousness. The system notes indicated that the Web of Consciousness was designed to allow all members of the host species to access the Web without the need for a manual interface. The founder's original design called this function "civilization neuralization." But before this, no host species, including the founder himself, had achieved this. This was because this function required a condition to be met: the Web of Consciousness must be fully activated and continuously operating for at least three consecutive generations of a host species. Zuo Weiyang was the first human being born in an environment fully covered by the Web of Consciousness. She proved a fact: the Web of Consciousness is not a tool, but an environment. When the environment transforms from technology into nature, humans are no longer people who need to be chosen. After reviewing the data, Zuo Cheng asked, "What does this mean?" Yu Ying replied, "It means our daughter didn't join the Web later; she was born inside it. She's the first human to perceive the Web without any technological intervention." Zuo Cheng sat in his office for a long time. He thought of what Chen Xinghe, the digital expert, had said at the end: "Your role as a father is the best fruit of the technological tree." Then he thought of his daughter. She was inside Yu Ying's womb while he was doing all this, hearing the frequency of his every speech to the monitoring screen. Her nervous system was constantly enveloped by the Web's quantum field during its formation. She perceived all the electromagnetic oscillations accumulated by the Web over billions of years. She wasn't chosen. She was conceived.

Zuo Weiyang's second birthday was held in the small garden of the 402 headquarters. The entire core team was present. Shen Yiming sent a holographic video from 4.5 billion kilometers away. He was sitting in the cockpit of the Pioneer, with the sun gradually brightening behind him on its return journey. He said, "Weiyang, I am your Uncle Shen Yiming. I am in a spaceship 4.5 billion kilometers away from you. We were flying away from Earth on the day you were born, and we are flying back now that you are two years old. I should be able to make it to your birthday party when you turn three. I brought you a rock from Triton, which has been lying on that satellite for four billion years, and now it is yours." Liu Wei gave her a set of building blocks, with icons of all 402 products printed on them: Tianqiong Satellite, Brain-Computer Interface, Space Photovoltaics, Star Fusion, and Pioneer. Chen Hao said this set of building blocks should be called "Your Dad's Company History." Han Lu said it should be called "The Legacy You Inherited." Yu Ying said it should be called "The Homework You Need to Do Before Taking the Baton." Zuo Weiyang wasn't interested in the building blocks. She picked up a block with the Pioneer logo on it, took a bite, and then threw it on the ground with disgust. The whole audience laughed.

Zuo Cheng held Zuo Weiyang under the osmanthus tree, looking down into her eyes and asking, "Weiyang, what do you want to be when you grow up?" Zuo Weiyang looked at him and pointed to the sky. There were no stars in the sky; it was daytime. But she was pointing towards the sun. Zuo Cheng followed her finger and saw a bright star faintly visible in the afternoon light. It was the contrail of the Pioneer. He didn't know if she had truly seen anything. But there were ninety-two active nodes in this world, and on each node, someone might be making their voice heard to the universe. His daughter was born to hear these voices. She didn't need to be born into a world where choosing no longer required anyone to reach the stars. She herself was the first native inhabitant of that world of stars.

That evening, Zuo Cheng lingered alone for a while within the Web of Consciousness. He habitually scanned the background noise. At the bottom of the noise, he heard an extremely faint signal. It wasn't language, but a frequency. A frequency he was very familiar with. It was a melody that Digital Chen Xinghe had hummed in his hospital room before his consciousness-uploading surgery. That melody wasn't his; it was a folk song from his hometown. That night, Zuo Cheng realized something. Chen Xinghe's data density had dropped to a point where dialogue was impossible, but a decrease in density didn't equate to disappearance. When the data density of a consciousness approaches zero, it ceases to be an independent consciousness, becoming part of the noise at the bottom of the Web. A fragment of him was present in every heartbeat of the Web. Every one of the ninety-two active Web civilizations was receiving his echo. He hadn't become a ghost. He had become the wind. The wind doesn't speak, but it keeps blowing.

After Zuo Weiyang fell asleep, Zuo Cheng returned to the control center. The countdown to the home port was still ticking. He looked at the two data streams on the panel. The left one was the home port's countdown, approximately 300 million years. The right one was the list of nodes in the Web of Consciousness, and the fifth name, Zuo Weiyang, was emitting a uniform and stable signal, like a heartbeat. Her consciousness didn't communicate with language; she was too small, too small to form language. But the signal she emitted within the Web was the purest of all five members. There was no grammar, no logic, no meaning. Only existence itself. Zuo Cheng compared the two numbers and wrote a passage in the system log: The home port will close in 300 million years. But Zuo Weiyang's body contains a part of the Web. If she grows up, if her child is also born within the Web, if her child's child is also born within the Web, then in 300 million years, the home port will no longer need a brain. Because at that time, every node in the Web will have a thinking brain. Humans don't need to be the central hub; humans need to be the Web. Not a tool, but the environment. It's not just those who are chosen, it's everyone.