Chapter 11 Wei Shengjin?

Hearing this earth-shattering name, memories flooded Lin Xian's mind.

He dared to say, he would never forget such an impressive name in his life.

The first time he saw this name was in the first dream, the first time he encountered Big Face Cat, the first time he was forcibly dragged to rob a bank—the beginning of everything.

When he used Big Face Cat's C4 explosives to crack the password door using an ancient method, he arrived at a warehouse with walls lined with safes.

Lin Xian remembered clearly that the safe engraved with his name was to the left of the safe engraved with Wei Shengjin's name.

That name was truly unforgettable at first sight.

Now, nearly two years have passed.

Lin Xian had long forgotten what name was engraved on the safe to the left of his.

But Wei Shengjin on the right was still fresh in his memory.

At the end of the first dream.

Lin Xian, Big Face Cat, and CC decided to use an industrial-grade acetylene cutting torch to violently cut open the safe. At the time, CC was afraid that the high-temperature flames would destroy the contents of the safe, so he suggested not directly cutting Lin Xian's safe, but trying the safe next to it first, and then slowly cutting over.

Although this plan ultimately failed due to the hafnium alloy's butterfly effect of time and space.

But at the time, Big Face Cat, holding the roaring acetylene cutting torch, did scorch Wei Shengjin's safe until it was burning hot.

In the second dream, Tamm Bank went bankrupt, and those safes were transported to a garbage disposal plant as waste. Wei Shengjin's hafnium alloy safe was in the first batch of garbage trucks to arrive at the landfill, and Lin Xian saw it at first glance at the time.

Never would he have imagined, such a legendary figure, whom Lin Xian had long remembered, would actually be encountered today, in the fifth dream, in this primeval forest 600 years later!

Lin Xian couldn't help but step forward and grasp the old man's right hand:

"I've admired you for a long time!"?

The white-haired old man tilted his head, looked at Lin Xian, and carefully scrutinized him:

"Young man, do we know each other? Have we met before?"

Lin Xian nodded:

"To tell you the truth, Grandpa Wei. I also have a hafnium alloy safe at Tamm Bank, and our two safes are next to each other. We've been neighbors for hundreds of years."

Wei Shengjin frowned:

"That shouldn't be possible, young man. What's your name?"

"Lin Xian."

Lin Xian explained to Wei Shengjin:

"The Lin of forest, the Xian of zither string, do you have any impression, Grandpa? My safe should have been deposited much earlier than yours. My safe was engraved with my name when Tamm Bank had just been established, or even before it was established."

"Lin Xian?"

Grandpa Wei Shengjin shook his head:

"Impossible, impossible. Although I have amnesia, and I can't remember clearly the matter of depositing the hafnium alloy safe. But when I went to Tamm Bank to set the password, I had already considered the possibility of hibernation amnesia."

"So, I took a photo of the password dials early on, and clipped it in my memory diary to remind me to go to Tamm Bank to open the safe after waking up from hibernation. The photo clearly shows that the safes on both sides of mine are engraved with the names of foreigners. The one on the left is in English, and the one on the right looks like Russian. Anyway, I'm very certain that the safes on either side of mine couldn't possibly be yours."

This time, it was Lin Xian's turn to be stunned.

He was very certain.

In the first dream, the two people's safes were absolutely right next to each other.

In the second dream, it was hard to say. Because by the time Lin Xian entered the Tamm Bank warehouse, all the safes had been removed from the cement wall, and their original arrangement was unknown.

As for the third and fourth dreams, he hadn't entered Tamm Bank at all, and didn't know what the situation was inside.

Could it be that a subtle butterfly effect of time and space caused his and Wei Shengjin's safes to be separated?

Thinking carefully, it was also possible.

He recalled a detail.

Whether it was in the first dream or the second dream, the safes didn't have numbers on them.

Each safe's nameplate only had the name, no numerical number.

But on the Tamm Bank warehouse safes that Brother Wang reopened in 2024 with his investment, for some reason, they were engraved with number numbers.

On the first day of delivery of the hafnium alloy safes, Brother Wang very generously gave him safe number 66, intending it to be auspicious and smooth sailing.

Lin Xian thought with his chin in his hand.

Could it be that

The reason why the safes in the first and second dreams didn't have numbers engraved on them was because there were few of them?

Brother Wang had said that his original purpose in founding Tamm Bank was not to think so much, it was purely an interest, a childhood dream, and he didn't want to make it big.

His initial plan was just to get a few dozen or a hundred safes, not too many, so naturally there was no need for numbers.

But after receiving his strong investment and strong support, and also expanding a series of financial businesses, Brother Wang customized more than 200 hafnium alloy safes in the first batch alone.

Perhaps in the future, as the number of Tamm Bank customers increases, he will order a second or third batch of hafnium alloy safes?

"Young man, what's the number of your hafnium alloy safe?"

Grandpa Wei Shengjin asked directly:

"My number is 724, what's yours?"

No wonder.

Lin Xian thought to himself, he guessed right, and opened his mouth to answer:

"Mine is 66."

"Oh."

Grandpa Wei Shengjin suddenly realized:

"Then our two safes couldn't possibly be next to each other. Your number is so far ahead, you must have lived in the era when Tamm Bank was first established. Looking at how young you are, you must have gone into hibernation not long after buying the safe, right?"

"Actually, in terms of year of birth, I should be calling you grandpa. You're at least several hundred years older than me. However, the Hibernation Act stipulates that the time spent in hibernation does not count towards actual age. Age is calculated based on actual active time."

So that's how it is.

Lin Xian noted this point of knowledge.

It seems that in this era, the year of birth and actual age have no corresponding relationship, each is considered separately.

Therefore, even if Grandpa Wei Shengjin was born several hundred years later than him, he is still his grandpa.

Lin Xian had long realized that Grandpa Wei Shengjin probably had a gun hidden behind his waist.

He had almost drawn his gun on him just now.

But after a few simple chats, Grandpa Wei Shengjin obviously trusted him, and his expression became relaxed.

Now that he had gained his trust, it would be good to inquire about what happened in this future world, in the fifth dream.

"Grandpa Wei, I have some things I want to ask you."

Lin Xian pointed to the dense primeval forest around them:

"Since you came here to find Tamm Bank's hafnium alloy safe, then you must know that this location is the original Donghai City of Dragon Country, right? It was a very prosperous international metropolis. But why has it become like this now? What about the buildings in the city? What about the people living there?"

Grandpa Wei Shengjin chuckled, not surprised by Lin Xian's question:

"Looking at you, you didn't receive historical education after waking up, did you? Or did you receive it but you didn't believe it? Generally, after we wake up from hibernation, we will receive the memory notebooks and memory videos we left behind, and then we have to receive historical education from official organizations to understand the history of development over the years."

"Then I'll tell you again."

"Everything has to start from the global disaster in 2400. Before that, the earth was developing well. Although many technological fields had reached bottlenecks and were developing slowly, it was enough for the lives of ordinary people."

"I was born in 2373. Because I contracted an incurable brain disease in my teens, I went to sleep in a hibernation pod. When I woke up, it was already 2574. I'll continue to talk about the events of 2400."

"There are many theories about that disaster. Some say it was the impact of periodic solar electromagnetic storms, others say that excessive exploitation of minerals in the earth's mantle by humans damaged the stability of the earth, and some say that it was the result of a failed research on a super weapon."

"In short, in the year 2400, a super natural disaster broke out. There was erupting lava and flames everywhere, the sky was dark for a long time, and earthquakes and tsunamis occurred frequently. Human civilization was almost destroyed. It is said that the surviving population was less than 5% of the total population. But even with so few humans left, because of resource and survival problems, they were still fighting non-stop, and there was constant war and famine. The whole world was in chaos."

"There were already only a few hundred million people left. After decades of war and turmoil, it's really unclear how many people were left in the end. Some say there were only a few tens of millions of people left in the world, and some say there weren't even ten million."

Grandpa Wei Shengjin narrated the historical education he had received, but Lin Xian heard a hint of something wrong:

"Wait a minute, Grandpa Wei, I feel like some things don't make sense."

He asked doubtfully:

"Let's not talk about what caused the natural disaster, that's very difficult to verify in itself. The key issue is that you said you entered the hibernation pod in your teens, that is, before 2400, and when you woke up it was already 2574."

"I'm not doubting what you're saying, I just feel like how did you survive the natural disaster of 2400, the near destruction of human civilization, and the subsequent decades of war in the hibernation pod?"

"According to my understanding, after a global natural disaster, the world would definitely be in chaos, and there would be constant war to seize survival and the limited resources. But hibernation pods should require very professional maintenance and power supply, right?"

"In a situation where the outside world is constantly at war, can your hibernation pod still operate stably for hundreds of years until you wake up?"

"Hehe."

Hearing Lin Xian's question, Grandpa Wei Shengjin smiled as expected:

"It seems you really didn't receive historical education. But you should remember where you came to Earth from, right? You're right, it's very difficult to survive in that kind of overwhelming natural disaster and war. It's hard enough to take care of the living, let alone care about the people in hibernation, right?"

"After the super disaster of 2400, the people hibernating on Earth either woke up forcibly to survive, or died in their sleep. But I was lucky. I don't know if my parents were prescient, or if something happened in between. In short, when I went to sleep in the hibernation pod, I was on Earth, but when I woke up, I was already on Mars."

"Mars?"

Lin Xian heard this familiar yet unfamiliar word:

"You mean that before 2400, some humans had already moved to Mars."

"Yes."

Grandpa Wei Shengjin nodded:

"Thanks to that person, human civilization was able to continue normally. Before 2400, people never thought about developing into outer space. Everyone thought that living on Earth was the best. Of course, at that time, cold fusion technology was also stuck at a bottleneck and could not be broken through. Even if humans wanted to start interstellar travel, they didn't have the strength."

"Over the years, there was only one person who had been silently working hard to build a Mars base and consider a Mars immigration plan. It is said that many people didn't trust him back then, and thought he was a liar. But he did use those near-bottleneck technologies to build the Mars base and Mars immigration."

"Along with the immigration, there was also a hibernation pod transfer business, which meant that hibernation pods could also be stuffed into spacecraft and transported to Mars bases for continued hibernation. It's a little ridiculous to say, but at that time there were more hibernation pods going to Mars than living people going to Mars. Many people still preferred to stay on Earth and didn't want to leave Earth."

"Then the super disaster of 2400 happened. After the war, the humans on Mars developed very well, and were willing to accept refugees from Earth. Multiple round-trip ships took away the remaining humans on Earth. The last immigration plan was stopped in 2500. The vast majority of Earthlings left, and only a very, very small number of millions did not leave Earth for various reasons."

"Since then, Earth and Mars have been completely separated. Except for the bi-annual Earth-Mars bus, there has been no communication between the two planets."

Lin Xian listened to Wei Shengjin telling the story of this solar system.

Halfway through, he thought of the world's richest man, whom he had just separated from less than 24 hours ago in reality.

"The person you said who persevered in building a Mars immigration"

Lin Xian looked at Grandpa Wei Shengjin:

"Wouldn't it be Elon Musk?"

"Yes, yes, yes."

Grandpa Wei Shengjin's eyes were full of admiration when he heard the name:

"See, you remember now, right? It's this savior of human civilization. Without his Mars immigration plan, which preserved the spark of civilization for humanity during the 2400 disaster, it's hard to imagine what human civilization would have become on Earth after the disaster."

"Continue to multiply and reproduce, recreate the history of human development? Or repeat the same mistakes and head towards extinction again? No one knows. Anyway, things are developing well on Mars now. Although technology has also touched a bottleneck, and energy and resource problems need to be solved, at least there are no problems with normal life. Atmospheric transformation is showing initial results, and everything is progressing steadily."

Sure enough.

It was Musk.

Lin Xian was right.

The only person who could stick to the Mars immigration plan for so many years was Musk. But it seems that this plan is not as simple as the current Musk thinks. He must have encountered various bottlenecks, obstacles, and resistance over the past few hundred years.

Musk once revealed in an interview that the Mars immigration plan might be realized in 2060.

But the facts prove that it is far less optimistic than he thought.

It was not until hundreds of years later that he achieved this goal.

"But, Grandpa Wei."

Lin Xian pointed to the dense primeval forest around them:

"Look, no matter how big the impact of the super disaster in 2400 was, but 200 years have passed. Now it's 2624. The natural environment on Earth has completely recovered, right? So why don't Musk and the others immigrate back from Mars?"

"According to you, Mars may still not have solved the technological problems of controllable nuclear fusion or cold fusion. And Mars is so small, only one-eighth the size of Earth. Energy, resources, and even the intensity of sunlight are all problems. Why isn't the current Earth better?"

"And just now you said that Mars still needs to transform its atmosphere, but Earth has a natural atmosphere. All the conditions here are much better than Mars. Why don't the humans living on Mars move back?"

Grandpa Wei Shengjin shook his head and smiled:

"This is a sociological problem."

"For us humans living on Mars, we don't really have any feelings for Earth. We think Mars is our mother, our home."

"There are only two types of people living on Mars now. One is the Mars humans who were born and raised on Mars. The other is like you and me, the old-era Earth humans who hibernated hundreds of years ago."

"But when we wake up from hibernation, we forget all our previous memories, and our brains are blank. So what feelings do we have for Earth? Apart from knowing that we were born here, there is no sense of reality at all."

"Take myself as an example. After I woke up from the hibernation pod on Mars, I received historical education and have been living on Mars ever since. My wife, children, and grandchildren are all on Mars."

"So many years have passed, and this is the first time I've returned to Earth. Actually, I feel a little strange even saying 'return' because I don't have any memories of living on Earth, no feelings, and I'm very unfamiliar with this place."

"Even if you say the air is good here, and the natural environment is good, in my mind, this is not my home. I will take the Earth-Mars cosmic bus back to Mars to live in two years. Speaking of which, you should have also woken up from hibernation on Mars and then taken the Earth-Mars cosmic bus to Earth, right? That's strange, I didn't see you on the bus at all. Could it be that you came on the bus two years ago?"

Lin Xian did not answer Grandpa Wei Shengjin's question.

He was thinking.

He understood why the Earth-Mars bus only runs every two years.

Because the orbital periods of Earth and Mars are different, so although both revolve around the sun, their relative positions are constantly changing.

When Earth is farthest from Mars, they are 400 million kilometers apart. And when Earth and Mars are closest, they are only 55 million kilometers apart, a difference of eight times.

And this time when Earth and Mars are closest occurs only once every two years. This is the reason why the "Earth-Mars cosmic bus" only runs every two years.

From such a "frugal" departure record, it is not difficult to see that the technological level on Mars, especially the aerospace technology level, is not very high. It is likely still stuck at the primitive power stage, with no new technologies being produced.

That means that humanity's footsteps have still not stepped out of the solar system, but there has been some progress compared to the previous dreams. At least they have stepped onto Mars.

Lin Xian could understand what Grandpa Wei Shengjin said, that the Mars humans were unwilling to return to live on Earth.

Just like in 2024, if you ask who wants to go to live on Mars, probably very few people would want to go. Everyone still considers Earth as their home and subconsciously prefers Earth.

The same principle applies.

Mars humans must also prefer Mars. Even if Earth is a little better, it is still primitive and backward, without electricity, without internet, without advanced transportation. How can it be as comfortable as living on Mars?

"Is Musk still alive?" Lin Xian asked the question he cared about.

Grandpa Wei Shengjin shook his head:

"He passed away a long time ago, decades ago. He took so many hibernation pods, but he lived for a long time, over a hundred years in actual age. This is all talked about in historical education. I've noticed that you haven't listened to a single thing."

"But his SpaceT company is still around, and it is also the core institution that controls all operations on Mars. We Mars humans have great respect and recognition for Musk and SpaceT."

"So."

Lin Xian spread his hands, took a deep breath of fresh and natural air, and really felt that even if he was given 500 billion, he would not leave Earth:

"Then there are no humans living on Earth now?"

"There are still quite a few."

Grandpa Wei Shengjin replied:

"Because Earth and Mars have been separated for a long time, there are no specific numbers for how many people live on Earth. But according to experts' estimates, it should be no more than 20 million at most. And these populations are too scattered on Earth, they can't unite together, and their productivity is low."

"Some descriptions say that the living standards of Earth humans are similar to those of the medieval period, that is, the period from the 5th century AD to the 15th century AD. I don't have much of a concept of that. We are completely unfamiliar with such a distant history. More detailed historical records start from 2400."

Historical records.

Lin Xian heard another keyword.

Whether it was the first dream, the second dream, or the third dream, history was very vague, and it was basically impossible to find detailed historical records before 2300.

This can be considered one of the few commonalities in the several future worlds.

How did history become fragmented?

Lin Xian was still unclear in the previous dreams.

But in the fifth dream, Grandpa Wei Shengjin explained it very clearly. There were two reasons:

1. A global super disaster that almost destroyed human civilization.

2. Hibernation amnesia, which made people from the old era who traveled through time forget everything with a blank brain.

Suddenly, Lin Xian thought of a chilling thing.

Is the history that Grandpa Wei Shengjin tells really true?

According to him, there are two types of humans living on Mars now.

One type is the Mars humans who were born and raised on Mars. They will naturally receive Mars' local historical education.

The other type is like Grandpa Wei Shengjin, the old Earth humans who woke up from hibernation with blank brains. They also have to receive historical education. It's like a blank sheet of paper, you believe whatever you write on it.

So,

"Grandpa Wei."

Lin Xian looked into Wei Shengjin's eyes:

"Do you believe that the historical education you received is all true?"

"Of course I believe it!"

Wei Shengjin replied as a matter of course:

"Otherwise, how could I have survived these hundreds of years of hibernation?"

Lin Xian did not say anything.

He realized that Grandpa Wei Shengjin was still trapped in the vortex of true and false logic. His cognition had been covered and surrounded by so-called historical education, making it impossible for his thoughts to jump out of this circle.

But Lin Xian always felt that the things that had happened over the past few hundred years were far from as simple as Grandpa Wei Shengjin described.

There must be a hidden story!

He raised his head and looked at the scorching sun in the sky through the holes in the dense branches.

What kind of secrets are hidden in the fifth dream?

"It seems."

"I can only find a local Earthling and ask!"