Genius Club.

Chapter 358 The Abandoned Earth
Wei Shengjin?
Hearing this well-known name, Lin Xian's memories suddenly came to mind.

He dares to say...

He is sure that he will never forget such an amazing name in his life.

The first time I saw this name was in my first dream, the first time I met a big-faced cat, the first time I was forcibly dragged to rob a bank, and the beginning of everything...

When he used Big Face Cat's C4 bomb and the ancient method to crack the password door, he came to a warehouse with safes embedded in the walls.

Lin Xian remembered very clearly that to the right of the safe with his name engraved on it was the safe with Wei Shengjin's name engraved on it.

This name is so memorable that you will never forget it once you see it.

Now, nearly two years have passed.

Lin Xian had long forgotten what name was engraved on the cabinet to the left of his safe.

But the one on the right, Wei Shengjin, is still fresh in my memory.

At the end of the first dream.

Lin Xian, Big Face Cat, and CC decided to use an industrial tool, an acetylene gas cutting gun, to violently cut open the safe. At that time, CC was afraid that the high temperature flame would destroy the contents of the safe... so he suggested not to cut Lin Xian's safe directly, but to try the safe next to it first, and then slowly cut over.

Although this plan ultimately failed due to the space-time butterfly effect of hafnium alloy.

But at that time, Big Face Cat was holding a roaring acetylene cutting gun and it did burn Wei Shengjin's safe.

In the second dream, Tam Bank went bankrupt, and those safes were transported to the garbage disposal plant as garbage... Wei Shengjin's hafnium alloy safe was in the first batch of garbage trucks that arrived at the garbage station, and Lin Xian saw it at first sight.

I really didn't expect it...

Such a legendary figure that Lin Xian had been thinking about for a long time, he actually met him today, in the fifth dream, in the primeval forest 600 years later!

Lin Xianqing couldn't help but step forward and hold the old man's right hand:
"I have long admired your great name!"

?

The white-haired old man tilted his head and looked at Lin Xian, examining him carefully:
"Young...young man, do we know each other? Have we met before?"

Lin Xian nodded:
"To be honest, Master Wei, I also have a hafnium safe in the Thame Bank. Our safes are next to each other. We have been neighbors for hundreds of years."

Wei Shengjin frowned:
"Shouldn't it be? What's your name, young man?"

"Lin Xian."

Lin Xian explained to Wei Shengjin:
"Lin for forest, Xian for string, do you remember, sir? My safe should be much older than yours. My name was engraved on my safe when Taim Bank was just established, or even before it was established."

"Lin...Xian..."

Uncle Wei Shengjin shook his head:

"Impossible, impossible. Although I have lost my memory and can no longer remember the matter of storing the hafnium alloy safe, when I went to Taimu Bank to set the password, I had already considered the consequences of hibernation and amnesia."

"So I took a photo of the combination wheel early in the morning and put it in my memory diary to remind me to go to the Taimu Bank to open the safe after waking up from hibernation... The photo clearly shows that the safes on both sides of my safe are engraved with foreign names. The left one is English, and the right one looks like Russian... Anyway, I am very sure that the safes on my left and right sides cannot be yours."

……

This time, it was Lin Xian's turn to be stunned.

He was sure.

In the first dream, the two people’s safes were definitely next to each other.

As for the second dream, it was hard to say. Because when Lin Xian entered the warehouse of Tam Bank, all the safes had been removed from the cement wall, and the original arrangement was unknown.

As for the third and fourth dreams, he had never been to Tam Bank and had no idea what was going on inside.

Could it be that a subtle butterfly effect in time and space caused his and Wei Shengjin's safes to be separated?
If you think about it carefully, it is possible.

He recalled a detail...

There are no numbers on the safes in either the first dream or the second dream.

Each safe has only a name on its nameplate, no number.

However, for some unknown reason, a digital number was engraved on the safe in the warehouse of Tam Bank, which was reopened in 2024 with Wang Ge's own investment.

On the first day when the hafnium alloy safes were delivered, Brother Wang very loyally gave himself safe No. 66, intending for good luck and success.

Lin Xian held his chin and thought.

Could it be that……

The reason why the safes in the first and second dreams were not engraved with numbers was because there were so few of them?

Brother Wang said that when he first founded Tam Bank, he didn't think too much about it. It was purely an interest and a childhood dream, and he didn't intend to make it big and strong.

His original plan was just to get a few dozen or a hundred safes; he didn't want to get too many, so naturally there was no need to number them.

However, after receiving strong investment and support from himself and expanding a series of financial businesses, Brother Wang customized more than 200 hafnium alloy safes in the first batch.

Perhaps... as the number of customers of Tam Bank increases in the future, they will order the second and third batches of hafnium alloy safes?
"What's the number of your hafnium safe, young man?"

Uncle Wei Shengjin asked directly:
"My number is 724, what's yours?"

No wonder……

Lin Xian thought to himself that he had guessed correctly, and answered:
"Mine is No. 66."

"Oh~~~"

Uncle Wei Shengjin suddenly realized:
"Then our safes can't be next to each other... Your number is so early, you must have lived in the era when Taim Bank was first established. You look so young... I guess you hibernated not long after buying the safe, right?"

"In fact, judging from your birth year, I should be the one calling you uncle. You are at least several hundred years older than me... But the Hibernation Act has regulations. The time spent in hibernation is not counted towards your actual age. Your age is calculated based on your actual activity time."

It turned out to be the case.

Lin Xian took note of this knowledge point.

It seems that in this era, there is no correspondence between date of birth and actual age, and each has its own opinion.

and so……

Even though Uncle Wei Shengjin was born hundreds of years later than himself, he is still his uncle.

Lin Xian had long realized that Uncle Wei Shengjin must have a gun hidden behind his waist.

I almost pulled a gun on myself just now.

But after a few simple chats, Uncle Wei Shengjin obviously trusted me and his expression became relaxed.

Now that I have gained his trust, I can find out...what happened in this future world, the fifth dream.

"Master Wei, I have something to ask you."

Lin Xian pointed to the dense primeval forest around him:
"Since you are here to look for the hafnium alloy safe of Taimu Bank, you must know that this place is the original Donghai City of Dragon Country, right? It is a prosperous international metropolis...but why has it become like this now? Where are the buildings in the city? Where are the people living there?"

Uncle Wei Shengjin laughed, not surprised by Lin Xian's question:

"From your looks, you didn't receive any [historical education] after waking up, right? Or did you receive it but didn't believe it? Usually after we wake up from hibernation, we will get our memory notebooks and memory videos... and then we have to receive official [historical education] to understand the development history of these years."

"Then I'll tell you again..."

"It all started with the catastrophe that swept the world in 2400. Before that, the Earth had been developing well. Although many technological fields had reached bottlenecks and developed slowly, they were enough for ordinary people's lives."

"I was born in 2373. I contracted an incurable brain disease when I was a teenager, so I went into hibernation. When I woke up, it was already 2574... I will continue to talk about what happened in 2400."

"There are many theories about the disaster. Some say it was caused by the solar periodic electromagnetic storms, some say it was caused by humans' overexploitation of mantle minerals that destroyed the stability of the earth, and some say it was caused by the failure of research on some kind of super weapon..."

"In the end, in the year 2400, a super natural disaster broke out. There were gushing magma and flames everywhere. The sky was dark for a long time. Earthquakes and tsunamis occurred frequently. Human civilization was almost destroyed. It is said that less than 5% of the total population survived... But even with such a small number of humans left, they still fought non-stop because of resource and survival issues. Wars and famines continued. The whole world was in chaos."

"There were already hundreds of millions of people left, and the war lasted for decades. It's really unclear how many people are left in the end. Some say there are only tens of millions left in the world, while others say there are less than 10 million."

……

Uncle Wei Shengjin was talking about the [historical education] he had received, but Lin Xian heard something wrong:

"Wait a minute, Master Wei, I feel like something here doesn't make sense."

He wondered:

"Let's not talk about the cause of the natural disaster for now. This is difficult to verify. The key question is... you said that you entered the hibernation chamber when you were a teenager, which is before 2400, and when you woke up it was already 2574."

"I'm not doubting what you said. I just wonder how you managed to survive 2400 years of natural disasters in the hibernation chamber, the near destruction of human civilization, and the decades of war that followed?"

"According to my understanding, after a natural disaster sweeping the globe, the world would certainly be in chaos, with wars constantly going on for survival and the few resources available. But something like a hibernation chamber should require very professional maintenance and power supply, right?"

"With the outside world in constant war, can your hibernation chamber still operate safely for hundreds of years and wait until you wake up?"

"Ha ha……"

Hearing Lin Xian's question, Uncle Wei Shengjin smiled as expected:

"It seems that you really haven't received [history education]. Then you should remember where you came from on Earth, right? You're right. It's difficult to survive such a horrific natural disaster or war... They can't even take care of the living, so how can anyone care about the hibernating people?"

"After the great disaster in 2400, those who hibernated on Earth were either forced to wake up to survive or died in hibernation. But I was lucky... I don't know if my parents had foresight or something else happened in between, anyway, when I slept in the hibernation capsule, I was on Earth, but when I woke up... I was already on Mars."

"Mars?"

Lin Xian listened to this familiar yet unfamiliar word:

"You mean, before 2400, some humans had already migrated to Mars."

"Yes." Uncle Wei Shengjin nodded:

"Thanks to that man, human civilization has been able to continue normally. Before 2400, people had never thought about developing into outer space. Everyone thought that living on Earth was the best... Of course, at that time, cold fusion technology was stuck at a bottleneck and could not be broken through. Even if humans wanted to start interstellar travel, they did not have the strength to do so."

"For so many years, there has been only one person who has been quietly working hard to build a Mars base and consider the Mars immigration plan. It is said that many people did not trust him and thought he was a liar... But he did use those technologies that were close to bottlenecks to build a Mars base and Mars immigration."

"At the same time as immigration, we also started the hibernation capsule transfer business, which means that the hibernation capsules can also be stuffed into spacecraft for transportation to the Mars base to continue hibernation. It's a bit ridiculous to say that at that time, there were more hibernation capsules going to Mars than living people going to Mars... Many people still prefer to live on Earth and are unwilling to leave."

"Then in 2400, a super disaster occurred. After the war, the humans on Mars developed very well and were willing to accept refugees from Earth. They sent spacecraft back and forth many times to pick up the remaining humans on Earth... The last immigration plan was stopped in 2500. The vast majority of Earthlings left, with only a few million people who did not leave Earth for various reasons."

"Since then, the Earth and Mars have been completely isolated. Apart from the Earth-Mars bus that runs every two years... there is no communication between the two planets."

……

Lin Xian listened to Wei Shengjin's story about the past of the solar system.

When he was halfway through listening, he thought of the world's richest man, from whom he had just separated less than 24 hours in real life.

"The person you mentioned who was persistent in working on the immigration to Mars..."

Lin Xian looked at Mr. Wei Shengjin:
“Could it be [Eron Jask]?”

"Yeah."

When Mr. Wei Shengjin heard this name, his eyes were full of admiration:
"Look, you remember it now, right? It was this savior of human civilization... If it weren't for his Mars immigration plan, he would have saved the fire of human civilization during the 2400 disaster. It's hard to imagine what human civilization would have become after the disaster."

"Will they continue to reproduce and reproduce the history of human development? Or will they repeat the same mistakes and go down the road of extinction again? No one knows. Anyway, Mars is developing very well now. Although technology has reached a bottleneck and energy and resource issues have yet to be resolved... at least there is no problem with normal life. The transformation of the atmosphere has begun to show results, and everything is steadily improving."

really.

It's Jask.

Lin Xian was right.

The only person who could stick to the plan of emigrating to Mars for so many years was Jask. However... it seemed that this plan was not as simple as Jask thought now. There must have been various bottlenecks, obstacles, and resistances during these hundreds of years.

Jask once revealed in an interview that the Mars immigration plan might be realized by 2060.

But the facts proved that it was far less optimistic than he thought.

It was not until several hundred years later that he achieved this goal.

"But, Master Wei..."

Lin Xian pointed to the dense primeval forest around him:
"Look, no matter how great the impact of the super disaster in 2400 was, more than 200 years have passed. Now it is 2624, and the natural environment of the earth has completely recovered, right? Then why don't Jask and his people immigrate back from Mars?"

"From what you said, the technical problems of controlled nuclear fusion or cold fusion may still not be solved on Mars. And Mars is so small, only one eighth the size of the Earth, so energy, resources, and even the intensity of sunlight are all problems... How can it be better than the existing Earth?"

"And I just heard you say that Mars still needs to transform its atmosphere, but Earth has a natural atmosphere. All conditions here are much better than on Mars. Why don't the humans living on Mars move back?"

Uncle Wei Shengjin shook his head and smiled:

"This is... a sociological question."

"For humans like us living on Mars, we don't actually have any feelings for Earth. We feel that Mars is our 'mother' and our homeland."

"There are only two kinds of people living on Mars today. One is the Martian humans who were born and raised on Mars; the other is the old Earth humans who hibernated hundreds of years ago, just like you and me."

"But... when we wake up from hibernation, we forget all our previous memories. Our brains are blank. Do you think we still have any feelings for the Earth? Other than knowing that we were born here, there is no sense of reality at all."

"Take me for example. After I woke up from my hibernation capsule on Mars and received [history education], I have been living on Mars ever since. My wife, children, and grandchildren are also on Mars."

"After so many years, this is my first time back to Earth... Actually, even I find it a little strange to say I'm back, because I have no memory of living on Earth, no feelings for it, and I feel very unfamiliar with this place."

"Even if you say the air here is good, the natural environment is good, etc., but in my opinion, this is not my home. I will take the Earth-Mars Space Bus in two years to return to Mars to live. By the way... you should have also woken up from hibernation on Mars and then took the Earth-Mars Space Bus to Earth, right? That's strange, I haven't seen you on the bus spaceship at all. Did you come here on the bus two years ago?"

……

Lin Xian did not answer Mr. Wei Shengjin's question.

He is thinking.

He understood very well why the underground and train buses only ran once every two years.

Because the Earth and Mars have different orbital periods, although both are revolving around the Sun, their relative positions are constantly changing.

When the Earth is farthest from Mars, the distance is 4 million kilometers; and when the Earth and Mars are closest, the distance is only 5500 million kilometers; a difference of 8 times.

The time when the Earth and Mars are closest only occurs once every two years, which is why the "Earth-Mars Space Bus" only runs every two years.

It is not difficult to see from such a "tight" departure record that the level of technology on Mars, especially the level of aerospace technology, is not very high. It is likely that it is still at the primitive power stage, and no new technology has been produced.

This means that humans have not yet stepped out of the solar system, but compared to the previous dreams, they have made some progress, at least they have set foot on Mars.

Lin Xian can understand what Uncle Wei Shengjin said, that the Martians are unwilling to return to Earth to live.

Just like in 2024, if you ask who wants to live on Mars... I guess few people would be willing to go. Everyone still regards Earth as their home and subconsciously likes Earth more.

The same is true.

Martian humans would definitely prefer Mars. Even if Earth is a little better, it is still primitive and backward, with no electricity, no internet, no advanced transportation... How can it be as comfortable as living on Mars?
"Jask, are you still alive now?" Lin Xian asked the question that concerned him.

Uncle Wei Shengjin shook his head:

"He's long gone. He died decades ago. He went into hibernation chambers so many times, but he lived for quite a long time. He was actually over a hundred years old. This was all mentioned in the History Education course... I noticed that you didn't listen to a word of it."

"But his Space-T company is still there, and it is also the core organization that controls all operations on Mars. We Martians have great respect and recognition for Jask and Space-T."

"so……"

Lin Xian spread his hands and took a deep breath of the fresh and natural air. He really felt that he would not leave the earth even if he was given 500 billion.

"So there are no humans living on Earth now?"

“There are still quite a few.”

Uncle Wei Shengjin replied:
"Because the Earth and Mars have been isolated for a long time, there is no exact number of how many people live on Earth... But according to experts' estimates, it should be no more than 2000 million people at most, and these people are too scattered on the Earth, and they can't unite together, so their productivity is low."

"It is described that the living standard of humans on Earth today is similar to that of the Middle Ages, which is the period from the 5th to the 15th century AD. I have no idea about this. We are completely unfamiliar with such a long history. The more detailed historical records start from 2400 AD."

……

History.

Lin Xian heard another key word.

Whether it is the first dream, the second dream, or the third dream, the history is very vague; and it is basically impossible to find detailed historical records before 2300 years ago.

This is one of the few common points among several future worlds.

How did history get interrupted?
Lin Xian still couldn’t understand the previous few dreams.

But Uncle Wei Shengjin explained very clearly that the fifth dream was caused by two reasons:

1. The super disaster that swept the world almost destroyed human civilization.

2. Hibernation causes amnesia, which makes people who travel back from the old times have a blank brain and forget everything.

Suddenly, Lin Xian thought of something that was extremely terrifying when he thought about it carefully.

[Is the history told by Mr. Wei Shengjin really true? ]

According to him, there are two kinds of humans living on Mars now.

One type is the Martian humans who were born and raised on Mars, and they will naturally receive education on the history of Mars.

The other type is like Grandpa Wei Shengjin, the old Earth humans whose brains are blank after waking up from hibernation. They also need to receive historical education... It's like a blank piece of paper, they will believe whatever is written on it.

and so……

"Master Wei."

Lin Xian looked into Wei Shengjin's eyes:

"Do you believe...that the history you have been taught is true?"

"Of course I believe it!"

Wei Shengjin answered as a matter of course:

"How else could I have survived these hundreds of years of hibernation?"

Lin Xian said nothing.

He discovered that Uncle Wei Shengjin was still stuck in the vortex of true and false logic. His cognition had been covered and surrounded by the so-called "historical education", making it impossible for his thoughts to jump out of this circle.

But Lin Xian always felt that what had happened in the past few hundred years was far from as simple as Grandpa Wei Shengjin described.

There must be something hidden!

He raised his head and looked at the scorching sun in the sky through the holes in the lush branches.

What secrets does the fifth dream hide?

"It seems..."

"I can only find a local on Earth and ask him!"

(End of this chapter)