Chapter 52: So the World Could Be Like This

by cnwebnovels

As the Shadow Pavilion patrol team bore down on us, Uncle’s expression tightened.

“Their shuttle boots are faster than ours,” he said, “but we’re almost at the Canyon Research Base.”

I looked back. The shuttle boots on the patrol team’s feet were indeed spraying pale-cyan particle streams, and wherever their soles swept through, the air twisted into shimmering ripples—the signature of anti-gravity propulsion.

Uncle drove the light membrane forward with grim determination. The cloud and mist dissolved into streaking afterimages as we plunged toward the edge of the continent.

The patrol team kept closing in. Sharp whistles cut through the air, joined by the grating lock-on tones of quantum weapons. Pulse guns pulsed with deep-blue light, and targeting signals wove around us in tightening spirals.

Mother drew me close protectively and pinned a silver badge to my collar. “Emergency pass—it interferes with detection systems. Once we reach the base, no matter what you hear, stay put and follow your uncle.”

Seeing the patrol team nearly upon us, I pulled out two green jade tokens, thinking I might as well freeze time and be done with it. But Mother spotted them and pressed down on my hand, her voice low and urgent. “Don’t join the tokens to freeze time in the Elite World—not lightly. It disrupts the stability of quantum oscillators, and the supercomputer will lock on to you directly. You could lose the jade tokens entirely.”

I looked at Uncle. He wore the same expression of helpless resignation. I put the tokens away.

By now, a series of deep, elongated fjords had appeared along the continental edge—canyon seas carved where mountain ranges plunged into the ocean. Was this where the Canyon Research Base was? Submerged, or built into the cliff face?

I swept my gaze over the scene but saw no trace of any structure. I activated my penetrating-wave ability instead, and deep in the fjord, near the rock surface wedged between the waterline and the cliff wall, I could faintly make out a pale-violet protective shield.

The patrol team still had not fired. They had probably not yet decided whether to kill or capture. They were already at our backs, bellowing at us to stop, and I could see they were on the verge of launching a capture net. I had been on the wrong end of Lu Qingyue’s capture net once before—nearly impossible to break free from, and nearly impossible to cut. A patrol team’s net would almost certainly be worse.

Then a laser wave lanced out from behind a massive boulder on the wasteland above the canyon. Every member of the patrol team froze solid in an instant, each one encased as if in a layer of jelly, and they all began dropping toward the sea below.

“We’re here,” Uncle said quietly.

He pressed the device on his wrist, and inside the ion membrane, he drove us straight at the fjord’s cliff wall.

The boulders rushed up to meet us. On reflex I threw my arm up to shield my face, bracing for the impact—even though I knew Uncle would not be foolish enough to steer us into solid rock, my body reacted before my mind could catch up.

Uncle’s light membrane passed through the cliff face as if the stone had never existed. Silently, smoothly, in a single instant, we were inside the rock.

It was nothing like the opening of a hidden mechanism. It was not a mechanical structure. A mechanical structure takes time to open. This simply ignored physical obstacles entirely.

The words quantum phase displacement rose in my mind.

I knew what they meant.

Quantum phase displacement: a condition in which the vibrational wave functions of two types of matter barely overlap, such that neither reacts to the other at all.

It was extraordinary.

It brought back the time at Tansong Temple when I had fired iron nails at a group of elite people and hit none of them. I hadn’t understood it then. Later, after reading widely on the subject, I had begun to suspect quantum phase displacement—because the elite people I had seen were invisible, and they had denied being in a soul state. After Uncle later explained the rainbow-body theory to me, I became increasingly convinced the two were connected.

I had always assumed quantum phase displacement was a phenomenon of the microscopic scale. The thought that the Elite World—that Uncle’s research base—had already applied it at a macroscopic level was staggering.

No wonder the Soul Hunters and the patrol teams could never easily pinpoint the base. It was concealed inside solid rock. Entry and exit both required a specific quantum phase displacement key.

When our feet finally touched cold metal flooring, Uncle let out a long breath. He looked back at me—still visibly shaken—and asked, “Did you work out the principle?”

“Quantum phase displacement, I think.”

Uncle smiled. “Not bad. Looks like Xuanhong’s years at university weren’t wasted. The reason we’ve been able to exist and hide in the Elite World this long is this layer of quantum phase displacement equipment. The supercomputer understands the science perfectly well, but it still hasn’t cracked us. The system operates on frequency bands, and they are dynamic—same physical space, but different frequency layers: surrounding matter held in a ground-state phase, while we occupy a high-frequency excited phase. The two wave functions barely overlap. No collision, no contact, no radar, no infrared.”

“But if even I can understand the principle,” I said, “why can’t the supercomputer crack it?”

“It isn’t that it can’t,” Uncle said. “The problem is finding each other’s frequency band, and those bands are dynamic. Hit the wrong frequency and you’d end up entombed in rock—or smash yourself to pieces on the cliff face. And building the system in the first place is enormously difficult. The supercomputer is ultimately a brain, not a person. Bridging the gap between laboratory science and real-world application demands a long chain of practical work, and every link in that chain has to be forged by a human being. Bionic humans won’t do either. They can substitute for people in daily tasks and even in thought, but they cannot advance human wisdom. Remember this: real human beings are irreplaceable. And that is precisely why the Shadow Pavilion of the Elite World has never completely eradicated the Mundane World.”

Mother relaxed then too. “Your uncle is right. Human value lies not only in intelligence, but in complex emotions, artistry, aesthetic sensibility—philosophical dimensions that AI entirely lacks. Elite people are human too, which means they understand this better than anyone. When the massacres began, the first force to resist was religion. But in the face of AI, religion’s power was nowhere near enough. Only after the world’s population had been cut in half did reason reassert itself—and one of the reasons was exactly what your uncle described: human value cannot be replaced.”

“Mother,” I said, “I just thought of a technical question. Using this kind of phase difference—could it actually realize the earth-escape from Chinese myths and legends?”

Mother laughed and picked up the thread. “You guessed it. Your uncle began his research with earth-escape. Earth-escape technology was the first thing invented during the Great Chaos, and from there it expanded into something the scale of a Phase Research Institute. When the Elite World was first established, elite people with a conscience became members of the resistance and were hunted down by the Shadow Pavilion and the organizations it led. We had no choice but to hide wherever we could. Earth-escape was the earliest method we devised—something like the Tunnel Warfare film we watched as children. But a tunnel is ultimately just a place to hide. For a real living space, something far more ambitious was needed. Your uncle’s research institute is the equivalent of an oversized earth-escape fortress—except that, in any physical sense, it no longer occupies the same layer of space.”

Several people in white lab coats walked over. Seeing Uncle and Mother in conversation, they stood respectfully to one side and waited.

Mother took my hand and walked me over to a middle-aged man wearing glasses.

“Engineer Lin,” she said, “please make Beichen an avatar first and let him use it to get acquainted with the Elite World. Also, use the phase-displacement method to integrate these three jade tokens into Beichen’s body—carrying them openly isn’t safe. Beichen shares a same-origin basis with the green jade tokens, so he should have a natural affinity for them. That way, the Shadow Pavilion won’t easily find them.”

The researcher nodded, took the tokens from my hand, and said, “Understood, Mentor. I’ll get right to it. I’ve already backed up the Shadow Pavilion’s recent materials—would you like to review it first, in case recent developments affect your decisions? As for the avatar: producing and growing one takes at least three months, since cell division can’t be rushed. If Beichen needs something sooner, I could put together a simple parasitic pigeon in the meantime. He could use it to go out and explore, and it would give him something to do while he waits.”

I understood the words, more or less, but struggled to grasp the reality behind them—Xuanhong had studied technical engineering, not biology. “Does Engineer Lin mean,” I asked, “that you’ll first make me a biological drone so I can go see the world?”

Even Engineer Lin laughed at that. “Beichen has a way with words. But while a parasitic pigeon is controllable in the way a drone is, the emphasis is on the parasitism. When your consciousness transfers into the pigeon’s brain, your mind stays unchanged, but your physical sensations become entirely those of a pigeon. It is biomatter—no different from an ordinary pigeon, which means it needs to eat.”

“Wait,” I said. “You’re not going to make me eat pigeon feed, are you?”

“A pigeon eats pigeon feed,” Uncle said. “If you want it eating hot pot, it’ll end up as the main ingredient. Don’t worry—pigeon feed is still easier to stomach than worms.”

He should not have said that. The moment he mentioned worms, I nearly reconsidered the whole arrangement.

“Minor details,” Uncle went on. “Parasitizing a pigeon body and going outside for a look around actually gives you advantages a human body can’t match. First, pigeons attract no attention—the Elite World keeps many artificially intelligent animals, and you’ll blend right in. Second, a pigeon’s vantage point is excellent; it moves freely through sky and across ground. A cat or dog would keep you too low, limiting both observation and movement. Third, when you disengage from the parasitic state, the pigeon remains alive—it can forage on its own. Xiao Zhang, go check the protective shield’s energy levels. Sniping that patrol team will have cost us something. Keep monitoring locked on the Soul Hunter patrol team’s movements and report anything immediately.”

When Uncle finished, I followed Engineer Lin and Xiao Zhang to the research base’s laboratory to have blood drawn. Engineer Lin needed my DNA to produce both the avatar and the parasitic host.

After leaving the laboratory, I wandered deeper into the base. The corridors branched in every direction, room after room—a little like the Sweepers’ underground base—and I badly wanted to explore. But metal walls and unfamiliar instruments lined every passage, and I thought better of wandering freely. This wasn’t the Sweepers’ base, and I had no wish to blunder into something critical. There would be time for all of it later.

The Elite World was clearly in a different league from the Mundane World entirely. Advanced technologies I couldn’t name were everywhere I looked. How many more astonishing secrets was it still keeping? The thought made me restless with curiosity.

Mother walked over and put a hand on my shoulder. “Beichen, the Elite World is vast. Elite resistance members are few, but they are not so easily crushed. The rebel organizations maintain ties with one another. Your uncle and I operate in the western region of the continent—closest to the Gate of the Hidden World, which means the supercomputer pays more attention to this area.”

Uncle came over too and clapped me on the back. “From today, you’re a member of the Elite World. This is where you’ll grow stronger and find your footing. There are more opportunities here than you can imagine. Once things settle, I’ll take you out to different parts of this world and show you what it can do.”

I nodded and stood staring blankly at a large screen mounted on the wall.

The projection showed the outside—the strait, the sweep of the continent’s landscape—no different from anything you might see in the Mundane World.

Uncle seemed to read my thoughts. He lifted his wrist ring and aimed it at the screen.

The image that appeared stopped me cold.

An immense floating city hung in the air, thin veils of cloud drifting around its base. Through the haze, tall buildings rose in uneven layers.

Uncle adjusted the controls, zooming in step by step, drawing the image steadily closer. Gradually, streets came into focus—vehicles, pedestrians.

Then something stranger still: along those streets, plants were moving. Tea trees, flowering shrubs, tufts of grass, walking as if they had somewhere to be. And animals too—a small cat and a large dog lying together on a balcony, apparently deep in conversation.

I pointed at the screen. “Is this—is all of this real?”

Uncle smiled and came to stand beside me. “Everything you’re seeing is a live feed of the Elite World. That city is Hua City—one of the first to rise into the sky. It’s roughly a hundred and fifty kilometers from here. Other cities have since lifted off across the continent: Yaxi City, Ouluo City, Feijia City, Yamei City, and more. They’re newer and more fashionable than Hua City, but for cultural architecture, nothing compares.”

My eyes were wide. I could barely take it in.

So the world could be like this.