Chapter 53: The Sky Is High, But Birds Cannot Fly Freely

by cnwebnovels

Looking at the floating city on the screen, I couldn’t help asking, “Uncle, why do these cities have to float? Wouldn’t it be better on the ground? Floating in midair looks very sci-fi, and the view is great—sure—but life would have to be inconvenient. And unsafe.”

Uncle said, “Elite people know how to enjoy life far better than ordinary people. First, the air near the ground is affected by all kinds of natural and industrial factors and isn’t nearly as fresh as the air higher up. Floating promotes circulation and keeps the air clean. Second, there are four seasons in a year, and summers get hot. One family can run the air conditioning to cool itself down, but that doesn’t work outdoors—let alone for an entire city of a million people to stay cool all at once. Floating is the best solution. Think of it as building a resort city on a mountaintop a thousand meters above sea level in the Mundane World. And the height here can be adjusted. Each city doesn’t sit at a fixed altitude—it rises and lowers automatically with the temperature.”

I asked, “Then what if someone wants to come down?”

Uncle said, “Elite people rarely walk when they go out. Long-distance travel is all done by flight. You’ve seen shuttle boots, haven’t you? There are also plenty of other spatial vehicles—flying cars, flying motorcycles, and so on. The vehicles you see on the streets now are used only by people who are nostalgic for them. Transportation has never been a problem. Besides, most elite people only live on the continent during vacations. The rest of the time, they spend mainly in virtual space.”

I marveled, “A city this size must have an enormous volume and weight. How do they make it float? What’s the source of its anti-gravity?”

Uncle said, “You should know that the things taught in the Mundane World—magnetic levitation, aerodynamic lift—aren’t actually anti-gravity. Gravity on Earth refers to gravitation, which isn’t a force in itself. Experiments have never found a graviton. Einstein already gave the answer in relativity: gravity is simply the curvature of spacetime. So the effective approach to anti-gravity is to shield or cancel it out. In other words, you don’t fight gravity with force—you use exotic matter and negative energy to produce reverse curvature and alter the spacetime curvature around the floating object. After the Elite World was established, the supercomputer used AI to present scientists with a Casimir-effect amplification plan, and that solved the anti-gravity problem once and for all.”

I was taken aback. “Technology this remarkable—why not share it with all of humanity?”

Uncle sighed. “You see? The question has come right back to where it started. I think Gu Qiutang must have told you something of this history. From the day AI grew powerful enough to solve every human problem, the struggle between human and human—between saint and demon—has never stopped. Communism could have been realized, but forces opposed to human nature would not allow it. That is the crux. If the first people to master the highest technology are saints, they spread it to all humanity. But if they are demons, they turn it into a tool of exploitation and control over the entire world. AI is only a means. The core supercomputer is not a judge or a savior. At present, it doesn’t appear to possess the attributes of saint or demon. But humans do. Among normal people, there aren’t many true demons—and there aren’t many true saints either. Everyone is a mixture. A contradiction. It comes down to which side holds sway in your own heart. The world as it stands today is the product of that struggle between saint and demon within the human heart. Whether a person becomes a saint or a demon is the greatest test any person will ever face.”

I said, “Don’t worry, Uncle. I won’t become a demon. I may never become a saint, but as a human being—emotionally and morally both—I could never allow myself to become that kind of person. Controlling others, extracting profit, standing above everyone else—I wouldn’t feel happiness or joy from that. I would feel shame. That’s my simplest, most basic conviction.”

Uncle said, “We believe you. Your mother snatched you away from your father and risked her life to bring you to the Mundane World and raise you to adulthood. Her hope was that you would become a kind person—a guardian of all humanity’s future. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

By then, Mother had already arranged my living quarters and sent someone to call me over. I was feeling a little tired, so I followed them to the residential area to rest.

Resting inside the base felt sweet. My heart had finally unclenched completely—no more worrying about detection or harassment from the Sweepers and Soul Hunters.

And so I rested peacefully in the base’s residential quarter for three days.

On the fourth day, Engineer Lin sent someone to fetch me, asking me to come and try out the parasitic pigeon.

When I arrived at Engineer Lin’s laboratory, I saw the bird. It looked like an utterly ordinary gray-white dove, cooing softly to itself.

Engineer Lin said, “I deliberately made it look as plain as possible. That way it won’t draw attention. While you’re using it, do your best to keep your consciousness body shielded. In the Elite World, the Shadow Pavilion’s reconnaissance methods are far more powerful than the Sweepers’ in the Mundane World. I’m sure you can appreciate that.”

I nodded, and began copying the markers Engineer Lin gave me into my mind. Then, following the same method I had used before to parasitize Shiqing, I activated the chakra controller inside my consciousness composite.

I reclined on the sofa and closed my eyes.

Engineer Lin’s image wavered in front of me—distorted, probably because a pigeon’s eyes protrude slightly. Fortunately, my vision didn’t rely entirely on my eyes. I also had my penetrating waves, and to my surprise, I could use them through the pigeon’s eyes as well.

I genuinely felt as though I were that pigeon.

From somewhere deep inside, I even had the urge to coo.

What the hell.

I watched Engineer Lin open a wormhole for me. Then I launched myself into the sky as if shot from a bow.

There was wind. There was the sea.

The sea breeze wasn’t too strong—strong enough wind would have made flying a real effort.

Exhilarated, I beat my wings and skimmed fast across the surface of the water.

Then I felt it—a pair of sharp talons closing in from above.

I looked up. A bald eagle was diving straight at me.

Hell. I’d actually forgotten I was a pigeon. To a bald eagle, I was nothing but a meal.

I veered immediately toward the rocks above the fjord.

Sure enough, Engineer Lin had been watching me closely the whole time.

A laser streaked toward the eagle and roasted it into a flaming eagle with almost no effort. I shuddered at the same moment. If that beam had hit the pigeon instead, it would have made roast squab of me.

I beat my wings hard and set course for Hua City, a hundred and fifty kilometers away.

Fortunately, my powers worked through the pigeon’s body. The hundred and fifty kilometers didn’t take long at all.

From the pigeon’s vantage point, I gazed up at the immense city hanging overhead and felt a sudden, heavy sense of oppression. The closer I flew, the stronger it became.

As I approached, the anti-gravity effect was unmistakable. The pigeon seemed to rise of its own accord—as though it could drift smoothly above the city without any effort at all.

“Hm? A new pigeon. Don’t think I’ve seen that one before. Log it.”

I looked down. A cat on a balcony was speaking to a dog. I couldn’t tell if it was the talking cat I’d glimpsed before.

That cat had detected me as a newcomer—and logged me. It was no ordinary modified animal. It almost certainly had a specific assignment. A sentry cat, perhaps—one tasked with keeping watch over the city.

I paid it no mind and flew on, all the way to the city’s central square. Plenty of people were there, feeding pigeons.

Instinctively, I wanted to fly down into the crowd. Then I caught myself. I was a pigeon. I had no choice but to wheel over to the flock and compete for food.

Ugh. It was awful.

What was that taste? The raw grain was hard as pebbles, and some of the bread crumbs had already gone sour.

I gave up and flew to a nearby roof corner, perched there, and looked down at the crowd below.

Every single person in that crowd was undoubtedly an elite person. This was my first time observing elite people in their daily lives at close range. The Soul Hunters and Uncle’s group were elite people too, but they had gone into hiding in the Mundane World and presented themselves as ordinary people—nothing on the surface to distinguish them.

This was the Elite World. This was where elite people truly lived.

I noticed that everyone here was impeccably dressed—sharp and luminous. Their clothes clearly never got dirty or wet; nanomaterials, in all likelihood. Then, using same-frequency sensing, I noticed that people here barely spoke aloud. They communicated through a certain quality of glance—an exchange of consciousness. And they all knew same-frequency sensing, of course, though they seemed to avoid using it directly on each other in person. Doing so uninvited would be rude. Third, everyone looked young. The women were beautiful; the men were handsome and well-built. They had all clearly mastered some form of biological modification. I remembered Shiqing once telling me that elite people could use AI to alter the biological composition of their bodies, reshaping their faces and physiques.

That made me think of Mother’s changed appearance.

I remembered Grandma, back in Liutan Town, telling me never to judge people by their looks. Now I understood what she’d meant: faces and bodies could be changed.

As I sat quietly observing the elite people and the foot traffic moving through the streets below, a faint hum drifted down from the sky. I looked up. A pitch-black mechanical disk was circling overhead, a faint glow on its underside. It was scanning for movement in the city.

With my penetrating-wave ability, I could clearly make out the infrared rays and electromagnetic signals it was emitting.

I had my mind shielded. The device shouldn’t be able to detect me—every time I’d evaded Soul Hunters, they’d been unable to pick up my brainwaves once I shielded them.

“That is a Sky-Eye system.”

I turned toward the voice. Another pigeon—and rather handsome for one, with smooth feathers and a solid build.

I cooed nervously a couple of times, broadcasting that I was nothing but an ordinary pigeon.

The pigeon said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m not one of the bad ones in the Elite World. I’m also a parasitic pigeon, but my true body is someone with integrity. And I don’t belong to any organization.”

I still didn’t dare speak to him. I cooed a few more times, glanced away, afraid he might be an undercover agent. This stranger’s background was unknown—the odds were good this was a trap. But how had he spotted me?

My movements hadn’t been that obvious, had they?