I created the myth of the Great Old Ones.

"You can go back to sleep."

Lu Ban said something, then glanced at his WeChat. There were tons of messages, and the company group chat was already buzzing with discussion about the new movie.

He reassured everyone in the group chat, mainly by mentioning that salaries, bonuses, and holidays would remain the same, and everyone flooded the chat with compliments like "Boss is awesome!"

Other acquaintances also inquired, and he replied to each one, recommending that everyone watch it on TV or computer tonight.

I did a search and found that some people want to organize offline movie screenings, but I guess most cinemas won't accept them. In this snowy weather, I guess only rich people would entertain their friends in their own living rooms.

Lu Ban also saw people saying that because of the heavy snow, they didn't have to visit relatives, and they could have a quiet New Year.

In the face of disaster, many people have many facets.

"I'm not going to sleep anymore, I'm hungry, is there anything to eat?"

Qin Tiantian ran to the kitchen to rummage through the refrigerator, but unfortunately, apart from yesterday's leftovers, there was nothing in the refrigerator that could be eaten directly. Lu Ban didn't usually eat snacks, so there were no snacks stored in the refrigerator.

"Let's heat it up on the Weibo stove and eat it."

She picked up a plate of food, wrapped it in plastic wrap, and put it in the microwave. While waiting for the food to heat up, she picked up her phone.

"...Holy crap???"

Qin Tiantian ran to the living room.

"Is the snow disaster really that severe?"

She waved her phone; it displayed news reports about snow and ice disasters.

"Yes."

Lu Ban nodded.

"So how are you going to get to the premiere today?"

Qin Tiantian asked again.

"?"

Lu Ban was stunned.

There is no premiere today.

"Oh, there's none left? That's perfect. Let's have hot pot at home. I remember buying some hot pot ingredients before. I really want to eat spicy hot pot."

Qin Tiantian swayed back to the kitchen.

When the microwave beeped, she took out the steaming hot food, ate a couple of bites, and then belatedly realized what had happened.

"Holy crap???"

She went to the living room.

"There's no premiere today?"

"Let's have hot pot instead."

Lu Ban finished replying to the WeChat message and looked up.

……

night.

In a small village in the north.

Yang Yiwu, a rural teacher, is feeling anxious.

He lived in a small town, located on the edge of a vast forest, where the junior high school had only fifteen students.

He did not go home for the Spring Festival this year because the parents of five students were unable to return in time due to snow and other reasons. Therefore, these children had to stay at school and be looked after by Yang Yiwu.

Since they usually stay at the boarding school, these children are quite well-behaved. They get up early during the day to study and do exercises, help cook lunch together, take a nap, play in the afternoon, and watch movies on the computer with Yang Yiwu in the evening.

Yang Yiwu comes from a small town in the south. He grew up running barefoot in the fields. He knows very well that knowledge can change destiny. Therefore, after graduating from teachers' college, he came here to become a rural teacher, hoping to change the fate of some children as well.

Although the world is much more open now and most parents are willing to send their children to school, unfortunately, education in remote and underdeveloped areas is still not advanced enough. Many children are always thinking about starting work as soon as possible to earn money for their families, and the level of education is still insufficient.

Originally, it was just an ordinary New Year. On New Year's Eve, Yang Yiwu even had a video call with his parents at home.

But the next morning, he discovered that something was wrong.

The heavy snow here has already covered the roads, cutting off transportation, but luckily there is still food in the refrigerator.

However, it was likely a line fault caused by the university, because Yang Yiwu discovered in the morning that there was a power outage.

Along with the power outage came a heating failure.

In the north, power outages are not so bad; the real problem is the lack of heating.

It's below -20 degrees Celsius outside, and there's no heating. These children and Yang Yiwu will freeze to death in no time.

Fortunately, communication is still relatively good.

Yang Yiwu immediately called to inquire about the situation and learned that it was caused by a blizzard. He learned that the power and heating personnel were working to repair it and would send someone over to inspect it, which put his mind at ease.

However, traffic problems slowed down the repair work, and no one was able to come even after dinner.

To conserve battery power, Yang Yiwu only used WeChat to communicate. With the howling wind and snow outside, the water temperature in the heating system cooled down after a day of losses, and the surroundings became exceptionally cold.

He gathered the students in his room, lit a charcoal brazier, and had them wrap themselves in blankets and sit together.

Taking out his laptop, Yang Yiwu wanted to play something to distract everyone.

He saw that his classmates were discussing a movie in their group chat. It seemed to be some really great blockbuster that was originally going to be shown in theaters, but because of the heavy snow, it was being shown for free. They said it would be a shame not to see it.

Thinking of broadening the students' horizons, Yang Yiwu opened a video website.

"The End of the World... seems a bit ominous."

Yang Yiwu hesitated whether to play the video, but seeing how expectant the students were, he clicked play anyway.

Chapter 540 Choosing to Believe in Hope

"I regret it."

Looking at the screen on his laptop, Yang Yiwu regretted showing the students this movie.

This is a perfect match, both inside and outside the movie. The people in the movie are suffering, and the people outside the movie are also suffering, which is doubled.

Volcanic eruption, tsunami, typhoon – looking at the opening scenes, Yang Yiwu thought the special effects were indeed amazing, but wasn't the plot a bit too tragic?

During his university years, Yang Yiwu watched some disaster movies, including shipwrecks, the Statue of Liberty freezing over, and Yellowstone eruptions, but he never saw them all happening at once.

He was somewhat worried that these images might affect the students' mental health.

But when Yang Yiwu turned around, he found that the children were watching the movie with wide eyes, even more attentively than in class.

He had nothing to say.

In the movie, after several disasters, people begin to pool global resources to study the causes. However, there is no detailed research process, because geological changes are very complex, and the only conclusion is that there may be even greater disasters in the future.

Then, the perspective shifts to a cluttered office filled with documents and materials. A man is startled awake by the ringing of a phone. He answers the phone and immediately begins to refuse the sales pitch, but soon, the voice on the other end of the line makes his sleepy eyes widen.

"What? Now? Teacher, you're not kidding?"

The man glanced out the window and saw a black luxury car parked there.

After packing his things, the man got into the car. His teacher was sitting in the passenger seat. Along the way, Yang Yiwu learned the man's name and his research topic: the connection between human consciousness and the consciousness of robots.

"Didn't you say that what I was researching had no practical value? What, you've remembered me now?"

The man still had that frivolous look on his face.

“If you just want to use a machine to resurrect your daughter, then of course it’s worthless. We want you to do something much deeper.”

The teacher murmured.

The man's expression froze as his memories unfolded: a flashback of him holding his daughter, who had died in an accident, and of using his daughter's brain as a foundation to build artificial intelligence.

Yang Yiwu, who had not seen the trailer before, was unaware that the daughter appearing in the man's memory at this moment was Lin, who was in the ecological park.

Upon arriving at his destination deep in the mountains, the man boarded a plane again.

The students looked at the airplane with envious eyes. Yang Yiwu smiled slightly at this. What boy hadn't longed for an airplane when he was a child?

Along the way, various explanations helped Yang Yiwu understand that this man had been recruited to deal with the previous disasters. They would be a group of the most elite scientists and scholars, conducting research to save the world.

The plane landed in a city with rooftops covered in solar panels and streets cleaned by robots, exuding a cutting-edge technological vibe. It was supposedly once a model building for a certain company, but has now been accepted by a joint committee of various countries and has become a place for these researchers and engineers to live.

The man was given accommodation, and he followed the others to a nearby industrial park, where several more characters made their appearances.

As the research footage switched, Yang Yiwu roughly learned that some of these people were astronomers studying impulses appearing in the desert, some were biologists and medical scientists studying biological diseases, and others were scholars like himself who studied robotics and artificial intelligence.

It seems that humanity has begun preparing to combat disaster.

The wind and snow outside seemed to be getting heavier. Yang Yiwu glanced at the window that was being pounded on and checked it for any damage. He looked into the distance and saw that even the streetlights were gone, and it was pitch black with only the wind and snow falling all around. He felt as if he were in a post-apocalyptic world.

After sitting back down, the man had finished his first day of meetings and work assignments. He returned to his lodgings and then went out to get something to eat.

It was a bustling commercial street where robots were playing the piano, and people from all over the world had gathered there, facing a global catastrophe.

On the television in the noodle shop, the disaster continued: an earthquake swept across a small island nation, and the entire island sank into the ocean amidst the tremors, a chilling sight.

The researcher next to the man complimented the noodles, saying they tasted just like the ones he'd had at home. The man, curious, asked the researcher how he could be so relaxed in such a desperate situation.

"We have gathered the strength of the world here. We are the hope of the whole world. If we do not choose to believe in hope, then the world is doomed."

The other person replied, then finished the noodle soup, paid, and left.

The man was walking down the street when he saw a botanical garden. He went inside and found it filled with robotic animals, all cutting-edge achievements in artificial intelligence technology.

The man suddenly wondered if his daughter could stay there. He found the head of the committee, who, despite thinking it wouldn't help save the world, couldn't persuade the man otherwise and brought his "daughter," the robot, to the botanical garden.

The man programmed some data into his "daughter," making her a guide in the ecological park. In his eyes, the scene of the robot playing with the animals was like his daughter coming to life.

However, the man knew very well that this was just a machine, a machine that mimicked his daughter's every move to the greatest extent possible.

However, everyone likes the girl very much. Relaxing at the ecological park has become a daily routine for many researchers, and the study of men continues.

Seeing this, Yang Yiwu felt a little emotional. When he was in college, he also liked to go to the school square in the evening, listen to the songs playing on the radio, sit on the bench, and watch people come and go.

That's how he rests his brain.

Everyone gets tired sometimes, and being able to relax during those times is more refreshing than anything else.

The weather seemed to get colder, and the students huddled together, snuggling up to keep warm, just like people in a movie.