AUS Chapter 77: I am the last Yang Pingsheng.

For many years after my death, the technology of the human world developed at an incredible speed.

Technologies that were like science fiction when I was alive began to be put on paper: planetary colonization, deep-sea exploration, higher-dimensional technology, quantum science, and even some technologies I couldn’t imagine began to emerge.

This gave Liu Jiang the possibility of seeing me again.

From my perspective, the Normalcy Project was just a simulation that deceived the brain and senses. But in fact, Liu Jiang didn’t find me through a simple simulation.

Due to the ethical issues and complexity of the experiment, he never received public support. In order to secure funding and technology, he spent a great deal of effort on this project.

Until one day, he looked at the world born in the electronic “petri dish” and smiled with relief.

His goal was not to create a dream world where his lover was still alive. He wanted to create a new world from scratch, a world with his lover, a world that could return to the past they had experienced.

This time, he became the God of this new world.

But stepping into the new world was not as wonderful as he had initially imagined. Although everything here was as he expected, it was precisely because it was as he expected that he couldn’t change anything.

Yang Pingsheng was still so young, hardworking, and free. And he could only spend time with his former lover in his younger form, but he couldn’t bring his lover into reality to walk through a real life with him.

So, he was also an incompetent God.

He took another step back and began to examine the passage between the two worlds.

After countless more experiments, he calculated a way to synchronize his lover into reality.

But synchronizing the content of one world into another, without even considering the possible subsequent effects, the entire process itself would consume a huge amount of energy.

The birth of the universe itself also required energy. The resources Liu Jiang had prepared for the entire experiment were being constantly consumed. He had to find a viable solution.

One day, after visiting the latest particle collider experiment, he suddenly had an inspiration.

The birth of a universe requires a huge amount of energy, and it also releases a huge amount of energy. If a brand new universe could be generated within the current universe—wouldn’t that solve the problem of energy production?

Just like the structure of the particle collider itself, creating the longest possible tunnel within a limited volume. The moment the particle leaves the machine, it possesses extremely high energy.

Locked in the lab day and night, Liu Jiang produced a brand new blueprint.

He wanted the Yang Pingsheng he created in the universe to have self-awareness, to believe that he had regrets in the past. This Yang Pingsheng would then actively create a new universe, and in this new universe, search for his Liu Jiang. The moment they fell in love, the immense energy generated could supply the servers outside the entire world, thus achieving Liu Jiang’s initial goal.

—To bring Yang Pingsheng into reality.

So he needed this Yang Pingsheng to have full self-awareness. He had to be absolutely sure that he was a real human being, and he also needed to have immense regret for Liu Jiang. At the same time, the most important point was that he had to fall in love with the Liu Jiang in his simulation.

After writing down these goals, Liu Jiang knew that his initial vision had turned into a willful and evil thought.

He had become selfish.

Or rather, the entire experiment was selfish from the very beginning.

He created one universe after another for his own selfish desires, and then destroyed them one by one because they failed to meet the standard.

In reality, his lover had died once. But from a higher-dimensional perspective, he had killed him countless times.

Now he had to stand outside the entire world and watch his former lover fall in love with another version of himself.

So, he was still an omniscient, omnipotent, but also an all-evil God.

But the experiment would eventually come to an end.

The Yang Pingsheng that Liu Jiang created according to his new idea really seemed to come to life—he didn’t follow the set route to go through the simulation properly. Instead, he questioned the rationality of the entire simulation. He had regrets for his Liu Jiang, but he spent more effort on exploring the truth.

Yang Pingsheng would never follow the path set for him by others. He had his own choices.

Coincidentally, in addition to the challenge posed by his self-aware lover, an unforeseen possibility also emerged.

Because he had been poured with the love and attention of many worlds, the “Liu Jiang” in the simulation himself began to develop self-awareness.

His development was even faster than everything else in the world. He quickly understood the fundamental reason for this world’s existence and knew what the creator wanted to do.

So “he” also made his decision. 

“He” decided to compete with the real Liu Jiang for Yang Pingsheng.

After all, “he” was born from love, and love itself is selfish. 

“He” was also selfish, and there was nothing wrong with that.

Liu Jiang also wrote a program to suppress “him,” successfully delaying the awakening of “his” self-awareness again and again.

But “he” was still constantly evolving, secretly replacing the Liu Jiang in the simulation, and hinting to Yang Pingsheng that “he” was the real one.

Misfortunes never come singly. In addition to the wicked “Liu Jiang” and Yang Pingsheng himself, who didn’t follow the instructions very well, some flaws from the initial creation of the world began to appear. The direction of the entire world became more and more unpredictable.

The servers rumbled, and the indicators reported errors every day. The overwhelmed Liu Jiang stayed in the lab, with increasingly slim hopes, hoping that the experiment would succeed before the entire world completely collapsed.

However, one day, when he went online again, he found that an unexpected situation had occurred in this world.

The energy was exhausted—it was the end of the world.

This was his last chance. The remaining energy was only enough for the creation of one final world. If this time failed, he could only accept reality.

Accept the fact that he could never see his lover again.

In fact, he should have accepted it long ago.

He decided that in this last created world, he would do everything he could to make them fall in love. If it failed—he didn’t want it to fail.

At first, things went exactly according to his plan.

In his own apocalypse, Yang Pingsheng decided to set out to find Liu Jiang. He tried to continue the simulation program in his office. Outside the world, Liu Jiang pointed a finger, and the Normalcy Project began to run.

But just like the hundreds of worlds that had been annihilated before, this Yang Pingsheng also saw through the facade. He realized that such a simulation was meaningless. He began to deviate from the planned development and explore the truth of everything.

But before he realized the truth of everything, he first encountered the “Liu Jiang” whose sole purpose was “love.”

He then jumped out of the time trap and obtained the original code of the Normalcy Project, modularizing the entire program. Only then did he see the miniature garden structure of the entire simulation.

This is the story of everything that happened before.

I am the last Yang Pingsheng.

And the Yang Pingsheng who, in a project that had already stalled, made Liu Jiang retreat again and again.

Should I say I am special, or the culmination of everything?

“I give up.” Liu Jiang stood opposite me, speaking frankly. 

“If this is our final result, I give up.”

After saying that, he returned to the dining table and sat down quietly.

The arrival of the truth was not as overwhelming as I had expected. I was surprisingly calm, as if I had just listened to a story that had nothing to do with me.

In fact, all of this really had nothing to do with me.

My memory is thin, only the present and the beginning of everything. The countless times I had been reincarnated before were like puddles on a playground after the rain, quickly disappearing with time, leaving no trace in my mind.

I don’t know what I did in those countless times.

I asked him, “Is there—not a single me who could successfully fall in love with the Liu Jiang in the simulation?”

He shook his head and suddenly smiled. 

“You really underestimate your own intelligence.”

Then he raised his eyes. 

“Every single one of you would discover the clues of the simulation and then try to resist. But almost a hundred percent of you would calm down after meeting that perfect ‘Liu Jiang,’ because he is truly perfect, just what you expected in the past.”

“Isn’t that considered falling in love?” I hesitated.

“No,” Liu Jiang lowered his gaze. 

“You would realize that this is just a simulation for you, so you would look for a way to synchronize him into your world, but the result would only be failure.”

I suddenly knew what he was going to say next.

I asked, “Would the other me’s try to stay in the simulation?”

Liu Jiang’s eyes gave me an affirmative answer.

He said, “Almost a hundred percent of Yang Pingshengs would guess the purpose of the simulation and would smoothly pass all the way to the final level. Then, ninety-nine percent of Yang Pingshengs would choose to automatically upload their consciousness into the game and be with that perfect Liu Jiang.”

I narrowed my eyes and asked, “What about the one percent?”

He replied, “That one percent is you.”

I didn’t know how to respond to this feeling. Many emotions were racing through my mind, but I couldn’t grasp any of them, nor could I use any of them to describe my current confusion.

In the end, I chose an irrelevant question.

“You must have seen me die many times,” I said.

After all, he destroyed every world.

“It’s alright.” His tone was surprisingly relaxed.

“Every time was not as bad as the time I truly lost you.”

The fire flickered, and a trace of pain appeared on his usually calm face.

“They said your injuries were fatal. Theoretically, you should have lost vital signs on the spot. But you maintained a weak pulse until I arrived.”

He took a deep breath. 

“I told you I still had things to say to you. Your heartbeat became weaker and weaker, and finally stopped.”

I couldn’t comfort him.

I was the one who completely ruined his plan, and also the one who gave him hope. I could only stand here, trying to find a trace of meaning in his face that I could empathize with.

I asked, “How old are you now?”

What I didn’t know was that, in a place far beyond my sight, in a city of ice and snow, in a small room at the top of a high tower, in front of a blue computer screen, a mechanical arm slowly lifted, and the instruments beside it beeped.

The owner of the mechanical arm lowered his hand again, and the needle on the instrument panel was still trembling slightly.

Then Liu Jiang answered me, “I am an age you can’t imagine.”