Jiang Ye instantly felt a sense of urgency.
Tens of thousands of planets were participating in this plan, and he hadn't heard a single word about it?
"Wait a moment, I'll ask upstairs." Jiang Ye took out his phone.
"Yes, hurry up and ask," Isabel sat down beside him.
Jiang Ye thought for a moment and, without disturbing Commander Dai, called Li Nannan first.
The call connected instantly, and Li Nannan's side was quite noisy, with a string of voices speaking:
"Target 1135, long-range strike!"
"Red 22 unit, prepare to enter!"
"Commander Wu, send in your reserve troops! Speed up the progress!"
Jiang Ye was taken aback. "Commander, are you busy?"
"Not at all, not at all. Just taking down a planet. They're all primitive beings, their civilization hasn't even figured out how to boil water. It's pure weed-whacking." Li Nannan's tone was relaxed. "I'm here to observe and learn, though honestly, what's there to learn? There's nothing to learn from this kind of war."
"Is there something you need to talk about?" Li Nannan asked.
"The Virtual Planet Plan, do you know what that is?" Jiang Ye asked.
"Oh, that! I didn't tell you because you were busy with Wheeler Star during this time, and I figured you were swamped, so I didn't notify you," Li Nannan said.
"Don't say that, Commander. I heard that tens of thousands of planets are involved in the Virtual Planet Plan. How can such a big event not include me?" Jiang Ye was anxious.
"It's not too late to join now. This plan has just begun, and it's hard to say when it will end," Li Nannan chuckled. "Actually, this plan isn't very useful. It's not profitable for you. Most of the participating planets are just joining for the fun of it. The real beneficiaries are the Galactic Empire. If it were useful to you, I would have told you long ago."
Jiang Ye listened, filled with suspicion.
If it were truly unprofitable, why would tens of thousands of planets eagerly participate in this plan?
Were all the planets so idle that they enjoyed doing work without earning money?
"How much do you know about scientific frontiers?" Li Nannan asked.
"Scientific frontiers?" Jiang Ye shook his head. "I don't know. My education is low, and I can't understand anything too profound. A few equations can kill me. Force analysis is a huge problem for me."
"Then I'll try to explain it to you, and you try to understand," Li Nannan said. "This Virtual Planet Plan is actually a large-scale experiment on the current ultimate theory of the universe."
Jiang Ye was stunned.
He hadn't expected the conversation to take such a bizarre turn.
The ultimate theory of the universe?
"The ultimate theory of the universe is a vast system that has been under continuous research. As research progresses, more and more theoretical puzzle pieces are fitted into this system," Li Nannan said. "Last year, one of the puzzle pieces was the universe's high-dimensional connectivity."
It had only just begun, and Jiang Ye already felt like he couldn't understand, but he had to force himself to comprehend.
"The general idea of this theory is that the thoughts of intelligent beings can influence the real world. The observation of intelligent beings changes the outcome of real-world events. At the same time, the consensus of a large number of intelligent beings can form a collective consciousness field, which can cause certain distortions in the real world," Li Nannan said. "The laws of this collective consciousness field are somewhat similar to gravity, and even the equations for the collective consciousness field look similar to the equations for gravity."
Jiang Ye was utterly bewildered. He understood every word, but when put together, it made little sense.
What the hell was all this?
"What do you mean, 'somewhat similar to gravity'?" Jiang Ye asked with difficulty. "I... I don't understand."
"The greater the mass of an object, the greater its gravity. You are an object with mass, you are over a hundred pounds of flesh, so you have gravity, but your mass is so small that your gravity is negligible," Li Nannan explained. "You can stand on the surface of a planet because the planet is an object with immense mass, sixty quintillion tons of rock, which can generate immense gravity. You understand that, right?"
"I understand that. The law of universal gravitation, right? Ancient middle school students had to learn it," Jiang Ye nodded repeatedly.
"The thought activities of intelligent beings are the same. The thought activity of one person can generate a collective consciousness field, but the intensity of this collective consciousness field is too small to be almost negligible," Li Nannan said. "However, when a large group of people's collective consciousness fields connect and reach a certain intensity, observable phenomena can occur."
"I... I think I understand. It's just that the more there are, the stronger it gets? The more mass, the stronger the gravity. The more thought activities of intelligent beings, the stronger the collective consciousness field," Jiang Ye said with difficulty. "And then? What is this collective consciousness field? What's it for?"
"Gravity, the phenomenon observed by humans, is that it pulls surrounding objects and warps spacetime, right?" Li Nannan asked.
"Right."
"Collective consciousness field, the phenomenon observed by humans, is consciousness changing reality."
"Consciousness changing reality?" Jiang Ye blinked. "What do you mean?"
"For example, your pocket is empty, but you keep thinking in your mind, 'There's a candy in my pocket, there's a candy in my pocket.' After a while, you reach into your pocket, and a candy appears out of nowhere," Li Nannan said. "This candy isn't an illusion; it's real. You can put it in your mouth, it tastes good, and swallowing it can even replenish your blood sugar."
Jiang Ye was dumbfounded. "Are you kidding me?"
"I'm not kidding. Consciousness can change reality. This is the latest puzzle piece of the ultimate theory of the universe," Li Nannan said.
"This damn..." Jiang Ye was bewildered, his face draining of color. "How is this possible? According to you, then no one needs to work hard to earn money. They can just lie in bed and think, 'I have money in my account, I have money in my account,' and money will just appear out of thin air?"
"See, you weren't listening carefully to what I said earlier," Li Nannan said. "The thought intensity of a single person is too small to change reality in a short period. Just like your own gravity is negligible, what gravity does a hundred-plus pounds of flesh have? It can't even attract a piece of paper. It must be a large group of people, with their thoughts entering the same collective consciousness field, and reaching a certain intensity, before reality can be altered."
Jiang Ye's expression was complex, and he remained silent for a long time, holding his phone.
"You're silent. Do you think this is utterly ridiculous?" Li Nannan asked.
"It's as ridiculous as it gets. I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life."
"I'm telling you the truth, I also find it incredibly ridiculous," Li Nannan said. "However, the scientific frontiers of the Galactic Empire have always been correct. For the past two hundred years, the ultimate theory of the universe in the Galactic Empire has been advancing, and it has never been wrong."
"Perhaps this time they are wrong," Jiang Ye said, taking a deep breath. "If people's thoughts can change reality, then what the hell is the universe?"
"Most people don't believe it, just like you, and that's why the Virtual Planet Plan exists," Li Nannan said. "The Virtual Planet Plan is to verify this theory, to see if it's true or false."
"There was a lesson in elementary school called 'Two Iron Balls Falling Simultaneously.' You had that too, right?" Li Nannan asked.
"Yes." Jiang Ye nodded, thinking that Li Nannan's train of thought was truly erratic, jumping to elementary school lessons again. However, Jiang Ye was already accustomed to this jumping, waiting for her to continue.
"Ancient people thought that heavier objects fell faster. A ten-pound iron ball would fall ten times faster than a one-pound iron ball. But later, a scientist said that actually, a ten-pound iron ball and a one-pound iron ball fall at the same speed. Everyone didn't believe it, saying it was too absurd. So, this scientist took two large iron balls and went to the top of a building to conduct a public experiment. When both iron balls were released simultaneously, they indeed landed at the same time. People at that time were greatly shocked and felt like the world had changed," Li Nannan said. "The Virtual Planet Plan is an experiment like that. Scientists announced a theory, and everyone didn't believe it, so they decided to give it a try. Talking without doing is just empty talk."
"So, what is the process of this experiment?" Jiang Ye asked.