Did the world end today?

Chapter 393 Jellyfish

Chapter 393 Jellyfish
Jinling.

Following the last conversation, the control over Qin Shizhong was relaxed considerably.
-
Of course, to a large extent, this relaxation was merely his own intuitive feeling.

In reality, the policy towards him remains "loose on the outside, tight on the inside".

He can get most of the things he wants to do and most of the things he desires, within the normal range.

But once that boundary is crossed, it will immediately spring back as if a trigger has been pulled.

Qin Shizhong was actually well aware of this.

Therefore, he never, and never even tried to, cross that line.

"Being law-abiding and content" is the best summary of his state during this period.

Early in the morning, Qin Shizhong woke up, washed up as usual, and left his room.

But this morning seemed a little different.

Sitting at the dining table waiting for him were not only his personal "security" personnel, but also a man he had seen several times before, but whose true identity he had never been able to figure out.

Lin Xu.

A hint of surprise flashed across Qin Shizhong's face, but his expression quickly returned to normal.

Good morning, Engineer Lin.

His tone was relaxed, revealing a calm and composed demeanor.

"morning."

Lin Xu nodded slightly.

"sit."

"Let's have breakfast first."

"it is good."

Qin Shizhong sat down, and Lin Xu pushed aside the food he had already eaten and picked up a tissue to wipe his mouth.

Qin Shizhong knew, of course, that this was because the other party didn't want their relationship to be too "equal".

When two people sit at the same table, the one who is eating will always feel pressured by the one who is "observing".

However, he did not show any displeasure about it.

He simply ate the food in front of him, oblivious to the somewhat awkward silence.

He finally raised his head after swallowing the last sip of water in the cup.

"I'm stuffed."

"Mr. Lin, is there anything I can help you with?"

Get to the point.

Lin Xu looked into Qin Shizhong's eyes, and after a moment stood up and said:
"Actually, it's nothing much—we might need you to participate in a rather important experiment in the next few days."

"So, I came here to give you a heads-up beforehand and to check on your condition."

"How are you finding it? Are you settling in comfortably here?"

"not bad."

Qin Shizhong nodded with a smile.

"Once you let go of those things on your mind, you'll feel relaxed no matter where you are."

"To be honest, what I did was enough to get me locked up or even sentenced to death."

"The current environment is already a privilege."

"So I have nothing to complain about—I'm just treating what I'm going through as a form of imprisonment."

"Serving a sentence?"

A barely perceptible, disdainful smile appeared on Lin Xu's face.

"Come on, which prisoner lives as comfortably as you?"

"Growing flowers, cooking, and keeping an aquarium."

"Even those people in Qincheng Prison would only get this kind of treatment if they were at least associated with a 'department' or higher, right?"

Qin Shizhong was taken aback by Lin Xu's words, and he nodded awkwardly, saying:
"I was just asking around, but I didn't expect the staff here to be so lenient with me."

"So I made these things—originally, it was just to pass the time."

"I basically don't contact the outside world, and even if I'm allowed to, I don't take the initiative to do so."

"Sometimes growing flowers and plants, or raising fish, is also a way to give myself someone to talk to."

"clear."

Lin Xu waved his hand and said:

"It was just a joke, don't take it too seriously."

"Let's get back to the main topic—we plan to use a brain-computer interface to analyze and study your neural signals."

"This will be helpful for us in dealing with the issue of 'boundary defects' later on."

"So, do you have a problem?"

"No."

Qin Shizhong answered without hesitation.

"Neural signal analysis. Doesn't sound too dangerous, right?"

This statement was clearly an attempt to justify his previous decisive reply; it was understandable that he was worried about the dangers of the experiment.

There will be no danger.

At this moment, Lin Xu had already walked to the aquarium.

He looked at the almost transparent water in the tank and asked in confusion:

"What kind of creatures are kept in here? There's nothing there!"

"It's good that there's no danger."

Qin Shizhong got up and walked to Lin Xu's side. The moment he got close, Qi Yuan, who was right next to Lin Xu, immediately put his hand on the holster.

Noticing Qi Yuan's actions, Qin Shizhong wisely stopped and then replied:

"This jar has just been made, and we haven't had time to put anything in it yet."

"When the water was being transported here, I asked the comrades here to buy a few jellyfish."

"If you look closely, you should be able to see it—it's very small, but it's definitely there."

Upon hearing Qin Shizhong's words, Lin Xu approached the aquarium. Through the clean glass, he indeed saw several jellyfish, smaller than his little finger, floating up and down in the corner of the aquarium.

"Turritopsis dohrnii".

A hint of doubt flashed in Lin Xu's eyes.

Why keep this thing?

"To be honest, there aren't many other good ones to raise."

Qin Shizhong replied with a smile:
"I know nothing about these things. I just saw them on short video platforms and followed the trend."

"I've heard that these jellyfish are immortal, but I don't know if it's true."

"Of course it's not true."

Lin Xu rolled his eyes.

"If it were truly immortal, it wouldn't have such high requirements for water quality."

"Don't you have a heater? If the water temperature drops below 22 degrees, all the jellyfish in your tank will probably die."

"really."

Qin Shizhong nodded repeatedly.

"So I was just curious."

"I want to see if they can outlive me if I keep raising them."

"We didn't have this capability before, but now we do, though we never expected it to be in this way."

"Do you want to see how long they can live, or how they can be reborn?"

Lin Xu interrupted Qin Shizhong, looked him straight in the eye, and continued:
"Someone once told me that the world we live in is always going through one cycle after another."

"Even the end of the world itself is part of the cycle."

"These Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish you raise are also going through cycles of reincarnation in their life cycle."

"So don't you think these two are very similar?"

"I really didn't think that much about it."

Qin Shizhong looked at Lin Xu in astonishment and shook his head, saying:

"I just thought the legend was quite interesting."

"Ok."

Lin Xu waved his hand and said:

"It's okay, I was just saying it offhand."

"Anyway, let's start preparing for the test tomorrow."

"Perhaps, through this test, you can also find a path to reconcile with yourself regarding some of your deeper thoughts." "Thank you very much."

Qin Shizhong sincerely thanked him, and Lin Xu turned and left.

In the instant he turned around, a strange glint flashed in Qin Shizhong's eyes.
Lincoln County, Nevada.

10 hours until the test.

In the legendary Area 51, an elderly man with white hair stepped off his iconic Army One vehicle, braving the strong winds blowing from the desert.

In front of him were fully armed security personnel, while beside him was a man wearing glasses and a sharp suit.

The two walked towards a makeshift tent that had been erected not far away. The old man, panting heavily, said:
"Andy, you must ensure the success of this experiment, no matter what."

"We sacrificed so much, so much, so much for this experiment."

"To be precise, it's a lot."

"We publicly declared this to be an aircraft experiment—do you know how much pressure we have to withstand to conduct a new aircraft experiment in this environment?"

"I know I know."

The man named Andy nodded, but before he could speak, the old man continued:
In short, I believe you.

"After Joanne left, you became our most loyal and trusted scientist."

"I like you, I like you very much."

"I hope you feel the same way about me—and this isn't some special feeling between people of the same sex. I think you understand what I mean, right?"

"of course."

Andy replied with a smile:
“I’m used to your wording, Mr. President.”

"That's good."

The old man nodded, and by then, the temporary tent was right in front of them.

The staff lifted the heavy tent flap for the two people, and as soon as they entered the tent, the low temperature and cold air from the air conditioner hit them immediately.

"Damn, it's freezing in here."

The old man shivered, and Andy immediately explained:
"I hope you understand that this is necessary for the experiment."

"of course."

The old man waved his hand to indicate that it was alright, and then asked:

"So, how far along are your preparations?"

"In fact, we have completed all the preparations."

"Perfect! Fantastic!"

The old man interrupted Andy, walked to a chair that had been prepared for him, sat down, and said:

"Go on, keep talking."

Andy still hadn't quite caught up with his pace, pausing for two seconds before continuing:

"The first issue is the personnel arrangement."

“We reviewed the intelligence we had previously obtained about the high-dimensional channel, and we determined that this high-dimensional channel would exist for approximately 16 seconds.”

"Within these 16 seconds, we can send more than 10 experimental personnel into the higher-dimensional channel."

"The total time will not exceed 5 seconds."

"Very good, very good—continue."

Andy coughed and said:

"Therefore, we have arranged for 10 test personnel, which is the maximum number of 'personnel testing'."

"After all, we still have a series of other tests to conduct."

"Now that we've decided to do this, I think we should go all the way and do it right away, right?"

"In the past, although we have conducted many experiments on high-dimensional channels, we have never obtained so much theoretical support."

"really."

The old man nodded emphatically.

"A very clever idea, I'm very satisfied."

"So, what exactly does this series of tests include?"

An assistant handed over a thick report at the opportune moment, but Andy clearly knew that the old man in front of him wouldn't have the patience to read it all.

So he spoke directly:
"This report records all our experimental procedures—of course, much of it is purely theoretical verification, which is also considered common knowledge in academia?"

"So I think you probably won't be interested in these things."

"Then let's get straight to the two most important questions."

"This is exactly what I wanted!"

The old man put down the report in his hand and looked at Andy with shining eyes.

Andy paused for a moment, then said:
"First, we need to try to perform a 'topological operation' on this high-dimensional channel."

"Topological surgery?"

The old man shifted his body slightly.

"I've never heard of that word before!"

"of course."

Andy nodded in reply:
"This is a completely new concept we've come up with—no one has ever really tried it before."

"Even those Chinese people, the limiters they developed can indeed change the topology of high-dimensional channels to some extent, but they still don't reach the level of 'surgery'."

"What we need to do is change the shape of the channel, adjust its position, and even modify its duration."

"You can probably guess that this is an extremely difficult task—in the past, without theoretical support, we simply couldn't do it, not even get 'close' to it."

"But now, we already possess some of the technology."

"The technology used in the CKC fusion process can also be used here."

"We just need to adjust the parameters slightly and use the topological defect field to cut the channel, and we can..."

"I understand!"

The old man raised his hand to interrupt Andy.

"There's no need to repeat what I've already seen. I need you to tell me exactly what this surgery can achieve."

“No one knows.”

Andy shook his head honestly.

"But at least, it shouldn't have serious consequences."

"After all, when we used high-energy particle streams to bombard high-dimensional channels, it only resulted in a plasma storm."

"We are safe, you can rest assured about that."

"So, this was an exploration?"

The old man pressed on, and Andy nodded in response:

"That's right, this is an exploration."

"Okay, let's treat this as an exploration. How about the second experiment?"

"The second experiment is relatively simple."

Andy replied:
"It's still an energy shock, but this time, we're going to inject CKC crystals directly into the channel."

"An extremely small piece of CKC crystal."

"We will design it so that it will only be detonated after entering a higher-dimensional channel."

"Through this, we can observe whether our power can actually have an impact on higher-dimensional space, just like the signals that the two-dimensional world left in our world that we have previously observed."

"very good!"

The old man gripped Andy's hand tightly and said:

"This is a brilliant idea; no one has ever tried to push that line before."

"And we will be the first!"

"Okay, I understand this experiment very well now."

"So, when do we begin?"

"9 hours and 40 minutes later."

Andy replied:
"You can go back and get some sleep. When you wake up, our experimental results may already be fresh off the press."

"it is good."

The old man nodded slowly, then asked:

Can you guarantee the safety of the experiment?

"can."