Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Zuo Cheng had been sitting on the port's porch for some time now. Today, as usual, he sat at the entrance to the core consciousness space of the port. All sorts of people walked past him. Most came to see the central hub. A few came to "see the person sitting at the door asking questions." He recorded a few of the most memorable people in his porch log.

The first was a repairman who had rushed over from the edge of some lost connection point, carrying a broken quantum clock. He stood outside the porch for a long time, waiting for the crowd to disperse before approaching. Zuo Cheng asked, "What's the matter?" The repairman said, "I didn't come to enter. I heard there's someone at this door. I wanted you to see this clock; it's stopped working. I've spent my whole life trying to fix it and I still haven't succeeded. I'm not here to fix it; I want someone by my side during this last attempt at repairing it. Not to help fix it, just to have someone there."

Zuo Cheng didn't ask any further questions. He moved aside a little, making room on the porch floor. The repairman sat down, placed the quantum clock on his lap, and disassembled the casing, revealing a dense network of quantum tubes. His fingers were steady; after taking it apart, he stared at the internal structure for a long time without moving. Zuo Cheng remained silent. About half an hour later, the repairman finally began to work. He replaced a section of extremely thin quantum fiber, pressed his fingertip against the connector, and waited a few breaths to stabilize it before recalibrating the resonant cavity inside the clock. After an unknown amount of time, a very faint blue light appeared at the bottom of the quantum clock. The repairman turned it over and stared at the light for a long time. He said, "It's not that the clock is fixed; it's just that someone is next to me. Thank you."

He stood up, picked up the bell, and left. He glanced back at the porch exit but said nothing more. Zuo Cheng wrote in his porch log, "First person today." He told me he came so that someone would be there when he fixed something for the last time. He fixed it. Not the bell, but someone was there with him.

The second to arrive was an extremely young, web-weaving consciousness. It was unknown at what point or when she took shape; she grew up wandering within the web, learning her own form by listening to the voices of various civilizations. She stopped outside the porch, sat on the steps for a moment, and did not approach. The light from outside the porch reflected on her, like a semi-transparent veil.

Zuo Cheng said, "You can come in."

She said, "I know. I wasn't waiting for the door to open; I was looking at you."

Zuo Cheng didn't reply. She knew he was waiting for her to finish. She said, "You're Zuo Weiyang's father. I've heard of you. I heard you used to fly a ship. Then you stopped. Not because you couldn't fly anymore, but because you felt you'd flown enough. You're sitting on the porch now, do you know who you are?"

Zuo Cheng didn't answer immediately. He leaned against the doorframe and thought for a while. Outside the porch, there was the sound of quantum light flowing from the mother port, like rain falling in a distant place. He finally said, "I know. I'm the one sitting next to the door. Before, I stood in front of the door and pushed it open; now I sit beside it, waiting for the next person to pass by."

The young consciousness didn't comment on those words. She simply stood up from the steps, stood outside the porch for a moment, looking at Zuo Cheng. She said, "I'm leaving. I didn't come to see the Central Government; I just wanted to confirm if you knew who you were. You know. Then I'm leaving."

She turned and disappeared into the stream of light. Zuo Cheng wrote in his diary, "The second person today. She asked me if I knew who I was. I said I knew. She said, 'You know.' Then she left."

The third to arrive was a completely silent being. It entered the porch and stood there for a while. It didn't ask any questions, didn't do anything, just stood there. Zuo Cheng waited a moment, and seeing that it didn't intend to speak, he said, "What are you doing here?"

The porch remained quiet for a long time. The light stream from the home port slowly rotated at the edge of the consciousness space. Finally, that being emitted a very slow, very faint fluctuation of consciousness. "I'm not here to answer questions. I'm here to hear someone else answer yours. The person just said that having someone nearby was enough. My answer is also 'having someone.' I've never been asked what you're doing here before. Today someone asked. I stood there for a few minutes. That's enough."

It didn't say its name, where it came from, or where it was going. It simply stood in the porch for a while, then turned and left. Zuo Cheng didn't press the matter. He wrote in his diary, "The third person today." He didn't say where it came from. He said being asked once was enough.

As evening fell, Zuo Cheng closed the porch log, but didn't leave immediately. He sat on the porch for a while, watching the light stream of the home port slowly flow along the edge of his consciousness. Three people had come today, each with a different purpose. But they had all walked from outside the porch to here. Some had walked quite far.

Zuo Weiyang forwarded a note about the porch in her central log. She wrote: "Today, Dad wrote in the porch log about a person who stood for a long time before saying, 'Let me think about it.' This person walked from the outermost spiral arm to the home port, thinking about it many times along the way. But he said he could only truly give an answer when someone seriously asked him."

This is what Dad does now. Not a hero, not a captain, not a sower. He's a questioner. Years ago in the library, he asked Mom, "This hypothesis is interesting, can it be explained?" That was a question too. Now he asks everyone who walks in on the porch a simpler question. Countless years have passed between the two questions. He's still the same.

Zuo Cheng didn't look at Zuo Weiyang's central diary. He sat on the edge of the porch, light flowing past his feet. There were no signs, no lights, no directions at the porch entrance. But three people had come here today. The first carried a repaired clock. The second confirmed he knew where he was. The third stood for a while and then left. Three small things. None of them required him to get up and do anything. He only needed to sit here. Ask the same question.

He didn't stand up today. A breeze blew in from the porch, carrying the lingering warmth of the quantum light stream from the home port. He flipped back a few pages of the porch log and saw a line he'd written before: Nameless. From the wind. He added a stroke below that line: Another gust of wind came today. The wind asked. The wind went.

He closed the journal and placed it beside him. The porch light neither turned on nor off. It remained on. Outside the porch, the quantum light stream of the home port continued to flow at its own rhythm. Zuo Cheng leaned against the doorframe, watching the light stream circle aimlessly. He wasn't sure how many people would come tomorrow, whether they would bring repaired items, confirmed questions, or simply want to be asked a question and then leave. But he knew one thing. If someone came, he would be there. The porch light neither turned on nor off. It was on when someone was there. It was also on when no one was there. Because it had never truly gone out.