This Game Is Too Real

Chapter 994: Superposition State



There was no doubt it was a United Human Alliance landing craft, but inside there wasn't a troop of fully armed soldiers, only an emergency sleep cabin.

The soldiers from the Space Combat Squad carried out the sleep cabin and set up a new isolation area at the accident site, before sending the cabin to the nearest medical room.

After connecting to the power source, they followed normal procedures to activate the cabin's hatch.

As the hatch opened, they saw a girl wearing a silver-gray tight suit lying inside.

Seeing the girl lying in the sleep cabin, everyone around couldn't help but hold their breath.

Her hair had almost fallen off completely, and her skin looked as if it had been burned, with large patches of tissue shedding from the dermis, making her expression of pain so distorted it was hard to discern.

Even more shocking was that she seemed to have been shot in the abdomen, and the cabin was filled with frozen blood.

Her condition could only be described as tragically unbearable, unimaginable pain she endured previously.

Wu Mengke standing in front of the holographic screen felt a tight knot in her heart and impulsively exclaimed.

"Quick, save her!"

No need for her orders, the medical personnel waiting on the side had already started moving.

They put her on a respirator, quickly connected her to life-support devices, and began the treatment.

Cryogenic sleep in the case of severe injuries is extremely dangerous, a single mistake could really turn her into a corpse.

Fortunately, people from the Wasteland probably have gotten used to chaos, their vitality is as tenacious as cockroaches.

Moreover, she had cybernetic prosthetics installed from the Academy, enabling her to miraculously be rescued from a near-death state.

"Her symptoms seem like she's been hit by a neutron torpedo..." Koala inspecting her prosthetics couldn't help but click his tongue and muttered under his breath, "This girl can actually survive."

A colleague from the fourth department said.

"Probably because of the deflection shield on the ship, remember that 'research ship' earlier? That guy didn't get much harm."

The engineer standing beside nodded, rubbing his chin with thoughtfulness said.

"A reasonable hypothesis, that guy's higher degree of cybernetic integration allowed him to pass out from EMP during the initial nuclear explosion, but he suffered less radiation damage... whereas this girl stood firm against the EMP but got affected by neutron radiation."

Koala asked puzzledly.

"But why was she on another ship? And it's a United Space Army model..."

"I don't know," the engineer shook his head, gesturing with two fingers, "I can only assume there were two ships, one their own research vessel, and another one already part of those ruins... Does that make sense? It's part of the relic."

Koala stared at him, his expression gradually becoming complicated.

Landing craft which was already in those ruins...

It's like saying their 'Dawn' plan failed...

Clearly, he wasn't the only one thinking this, many others around fell into silence.

While the fourth department's engineers were discussing the strange and peculiar prosthetics on the patient, the seventh department's doctors were focused on her condition.

"She's really tragic... this girl."

"Ah..."

"Just a few seconds later and she would've lost her life."

The duty doctors and nurses whispered among themselves, only Lin Youyou stared blankly at that face.

Noticing her expression, a colleague beside cast her a curious glance.

"...Do you know her?"

Lin Youyou's expression subtly nodded.

"Perhaps?"

"What do you mean by perhaps."

Lin Youyou paused for a moment, then spoke.

"Someone mentioned her name to me... A strong intuition tells me she is the girl that child referred to."

Originally a promise for 200 years later, unexpectedly realized so quickly.

The colleague beside her just looked puzzled, unsure what she meant.

"Who is she?"

"Jiang Xuezhou."

After thinking for a moment, Lin Youyou nodded, affirming her statement.

"She's Jiang Xuezhou, without a doubt."

He turned into her.

As for themselves, they remained stuck in this stagnant time - or rather in the gap of time-space.

It's so strange...

At that moment, someone beside the treatment bed suddenly uttered a slight exclamation.

"The patient is awake!"

"Wait, she's speaking!"

Hearing the colleague's exclamation, Lin Youyou immediately broke off her thoughts, quickly stepped up to the side of the treatment bed.

The girl's breathing was very weak, her cracked lips slightly opening and closing like a flickering candle in the wind, evoking pity...

She heard her voice, seemingly calling out someone's name.

"Night Ten..."

"Here... it's so cold..."

...

So cold—

At the moment consciousness sank into the abyss, Night Ten had only this one feeling in his heart.

The piercing cold seemed to penetrate his five senses, seeping through his skin and hair into his soul.

He instinctively wanted to curl up, but found himself unable to move.

This feeling was as if he had plunged headfirst into the Arctic Ocean, then held by an invisible hand that grabbed his throat, pulling him straight down to the deepest part of the sea.

But just as he was about to touch the seabed, the world seemed to turn upside down.

His nose tip did not touch the seabed, but emerged from another sea surface on the other side of the planet.

"Buzz—"

Accompanied by a tidal-like noise, his lost senses returned in an instant.

Did it succeed...?

Night Ten almost reflexively sat up, only to have his forehead hit the hatch of the Sleep Cabin.

This action triggered the Sleep Cabin's safety mechanism, or perhaps the safety mechanism had passively activated long before.

The yellow signal light flashed with something akin to an alarm sign, accompanied by a hiss as the tightly closed metal hatch slowly opened.

"Cough—"

Night Ten felt unprecedented weakness, feeling dizzy and his back resting in the ice cave.

Yet he gathered all his strength to grab the edge of the hatch, flipping out from the pile of ice blocks.

Yes, he floated out.

There was no gravity here.

And beyond that, the outside space was even colder than inside the Sleep Cabin, though perhaps due to the thin air, the body temperature did not feel as low.

Night Ten's heart was delighted.

The absence of gravity at least indicated he had already detached from the timeline two hundred years ago.

But soon his expression changed, as the thin air gradually made him feel suffocated.

"Damn—"

Night Ten cursed, and in a moment of panic, had a sudden idea. Moving his index finger to the back of his neck, he tapped twice, activating the internal circulation mode of the artificial lung.

He rarely used this mode while on the surface, almost forgetting that he had this function.

Once this mode was activated, the lungs would close the air outlet and help other digestive and metabolic organs, using electrical energy, catalysts, and respiration-produced water to achieve a photosynthesis-like process, generating glucose and oxygen.

Although theoretically, this cycle could continue indefinitely as long as there was electrical energy input, in practice, there was actually a loss in substance.

Bionic prosthetics were not truly biohumans; he could not really survive detached from Earth's ecological environment.

This function would be enough to keep him in outer space for twenty-four hours, maybe even less.

However—

This time should be enough.

According to the agreement, the Orion crew would soon come here to meet him.

Calm now, Night Ten surveyed the surroundings, the twisted steel and deformed cockpit unmistakably belonged to Jiang Xuezhou's Research Ship.

Yet what unconsciously tightened his nerves was the absence of Xiao Jiang anywhere.

"Strange..."

Where were they?

He had surely heard her voice!

And just a second before waking!

Not only heard, the frost on the glass was clearly her breath!

A sense of foreboding gradually crawled through Night Ten's entire body, he searched through the wreckage for a good while, even tearing down the twisted alloy door and crawling into the passenger cabin behind the cockpit, but did not see a single person.

She seemed to have vanished into thin air.

As time passed, that foreboding gradually turned to creepiness.

A possibility abruptly appeared in his mind—

She was still inside!

Inside the "time rift"!

But how was this possible?!

Weren't they the only ones who went in?!

Night Ten's face shifted between shock and disbelief, and even held a tinge of anger.

Just a few minutes ago, someone promised him they would certainly come to rescue him, yet nothing came of it.

Either they failed.

Or they completely forgot about him.

Or perhaps their impulsive attempt to interfere with the universe within the event horizon resulted in them being submerged in the river of time.

In any case, the plan hit a snag...

The reinforcements did not arrive!

Or perhaps they were already in completely different parallel worlds, and the encounter in the hyperspace passage was just a chance crossing.

He neither changed his own future nor theirs.

On the contrary, because of some people's cleverness, they created a monster called "celestial beings" in a certain parallel world.

"Damn it..."

Night Ten slammed his fist against the wall, but the counterforce almost knocked him towards the other side, nearly unable to stop in this not-so-spacious cockpit.

However, it was precisely this collision that made Night Ten realize he needed to calm down.

At this moment, he absolutely could not panic.

The more he is in a dilemma, the more he should remain calm.

Holding the wall to steady himself, he first adjusted his heart rate, trying hard to stay calm.

Then he attempted to log off.

The result of this attempt was the same as before.

The log-off function was like being removed from the remote control, and it couldn't work no matter what.

In this case, he's still in the "instance"...

Realizing this, Night Ten instead felt relieved.

He had discovered it.

While in the instance, the flow of time in the real world is slowed, or in other words, his time is sped up.

A very simple logic can prove this.

He spent a full two weeks on the Orion Missile Cruiser; if the flow of time between the game and the real world were 1:1, even if Jiujiu really didn't care about her brother, he'd be dead cold in reality.

There is only one explanation.

The time flow in the instance and the real world is different!

Not only that.

This difference in time flow is not just a matter of speed, but there's a segment inserted on his timeline that "doesn't exist on this timeline."

Thus, even though several days have passed in the instance, not much time has passed in reality, possibly only one or two hours.

Only this much time has passed in the real world, so the game world outside the instance is naturally the same.

He doesn't know how this is achieved technically.

Perhaps through some kind of psychological suggestion, perhaps by computational simulation...

All things considered, this explains why he repeatedly hears the same four sentences.

As for why Jiang Xuezhou isn't here, the explanation is simple—

She also entered the instance!

But why, even though she entered the instance, he and the crew couldn't observe her presence—

No, not necessarily unobservable!

It's just a time discrepancy!

Moreover, the time she arrives is likely the time he leaves.

And this is why they can't observe each other.

A flicker of enlightenment gradually welled up in Night Ten's mind.

What was originally unclear gradually became clear as he pieced together the puzzles in his mind.

The starship hovering in synchronous orbit launched neutron torpedoes at their research ship.

Although the research ship's deflection shield absorbed part of the damage, he didn't pass out due to neutron radiation but due to the electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear explosion causing an overload of the bionic devices.

The smaller the devices, the more susceptible they are to disruption, especially since from head to toe, even his skin is made of this stuff.

Memories began to fragment.

While he was unconscious, relatively unaffected by the electromagnetic pulse, Jiang Xuezhou dragged him into the sleep cabin.

The main harm she suffered should have been from neutron radiation.

However, due to the deflection shield, she likely didn't suffer fatal injuries.

Of course, there is more than one sleep cabin on the research ship, but she didn't lie in one herself.

After all, their enemies hadn't gone offline, and having no reinforcements, if both entered one it would mean death!

She had only one option—

To continue fighting!

While she was still awake.

Night Ten empathized, placing himself in her shoes, lying in front of him was a comatose Xiao Jiang.

"...If it were me, I definitely wouldn't stay and wait for death, I would find every possible way to save her."

But how to save her?

His brain worked rapidly, like an overclocked computer, simulating countless possibilities in an instant.

Though his Intelligence attribute has never been low, having played the game for so long, it's the first time he wholeheartedly called upon all his brain cells to think about things Perception-type players never think about...

"My advantage is Perception, I'd probably consider setting an ambush... Her advantage is programming and understanding of mechanics and relics... I can only try to use the environment itself."

She is an expert in artificial intelligence.

She possesses near-genius level programming skills and has served in the Beacon team, having substantial experience in exploring relics from the Human Alliance Era.

So...

She can only do one thing.

That is to defend by attacking and compete with the celestial beings who have already boarded this starship for control of the ship!

In this way, the fake "Luo Yi" on the spaceship at the moment won't be able to deal with her side.

That guy can only desperately chase her!

Thinking about how the girl who's afraid of the dark and cold has done so much for him, Night Ten suddenly felt a lump in his throat and involuntarily clenched his fist resting on the wall.

"Damn it, if I can't get through this level... I'll just delete my account and start over..."

Everything became clear.

And the clues that haven't been revealed yet have only a few pieces of the puzzle left.

Including why he still can't log off, and why the reinforcements that should have arrived the moment he woke up unexpectedly missed the appointment, etc...

Although the whole process may be much more strange and bizarre than he imagined, overall it wasn't difficult to guess.

During his slumber, she should have gained control over the starship or at least control of certain regions and devices.

Like the core warp engine...

In the worst and most extreme case, the last resort she can use is nothing but one—

That is to exhaust the last bit of energy for jumps in the starship, open a hyperspace passage, jump to another star system, and completely banish this world-destroying starship beyond the solar system.

And to prevent her from opening the hyperspace passage, "Luo Yi" is likely to once again launch and detonate a neutron torpedo at close range, or simply detonate it directly on the launcher.

This is the most likely thing to happen.

The guy is probably a replicant, and very likely a replicant made by the Gemini ship.

It is precisely because of this that the guy can recklessly use such strategic weapons.

But that's not the point.

The point is that the neutron torpedo detonated in hyperspace transformed this abandoned Orion cruiser into a new "black box," belonging to the timeline of Wasteland Era 215—this line where the Wasteland Era is about to end and enter a new era.

The explosion of the neutron bomb and hyperspace jump cannot occur simultaneously because there is no concept of time in hyperspace pathways, and the former would prevent the latter from occurring.

Therefore, their occurrence must have a sequence, even if the detonation of the neutron bomb is certain.

For this reason, the explosion of the neutron bomb at the entrance of the hyperspace passage and at the exit forms a superposition state in quantum mechanics.

And it's not just the Orion crew members over two hundred years ago that are in the superposition state, but also himself, Jiang Xuezhou, and a replicant named the same as Luo Yi.

The intersection of the two timelines didn't happen when the research ship collided with the Orion, nor when the first neutron torpedo exploded, but at the moment he was dormant—the moment the starship entered the hyperspace passage beyond the horizon!

At this instant, Jiang Xuezhou for some reason fell into an indefinite superposition state between life and death.

While he, because the sleep cabin formed a "Faraday cage," not only luckily avoided the impact of the second "strategic EMP" strike but even awoke unexpectedly due to EMP influence on the circuitry outside the sleep cabin.

The moment he woke up and the moment she closed her eyes together constituted the starting point of their intersection with another timeline, and the moment she awakens or dies is the endpoint of the timeline intersection!

Night Ten's understanding of physics is actually just at an undergraduate level, and his understanding of high-energy physics is limited to Young's double-slit interference experiment.

Maybe Professor Wild Wind could give a more scientific explanation, but right now, none of these things matter!

In this second black box, he is no longer an observer but is the cat itself in a superposition state.

Whether or not allies from two hundred years ago still remember that distant promise, or perhaps from the beginning, they were doomed to not be able to keep the appointment, the so-called deception of the observer was just their one-sided wish... he must do the things that only he can do right now.

There's no concept of time here, and no one can save her!

Except him!

Grabbing the edge of the cabin door, Night Eleven kicked open the twisted and misshapen cockpit door, drifting into the pitch-black room with the flipping door panel.

He no longer needs to hide his existence.

In fact, letting the impostor who claims to be "Luo Yi" come find him might be even better!

The fractured steel made a creaking sound that transmitted along his right hand gripping the door frame.

At the same time, he turned on the flashlight and quickly confirmed the situation around himself.

This is the cafeteria on the lower deck.

He remembers very clearly, even remembers his last meal here with potato beef... though that potato beef is not currently in his stomach but was left in the "space-time crack" that doesn't exist in the main timeline.

But the miracle is that these memories have been retained, even the taste buds on his tongue still have a lingering faint aftertaste.

The familiar utensils and furniture are floating in a corner of the room, there's no flickering light here, only pitch-black darkness, the scene chaotic like a car accident site.

All familiar people are gone, whether it's the crew dining or the replicant chef, and... that's only natural.

Looking at the corridor outside the cafeteria like a black well, Night Ten clenched his teeth, took a deep breath, closed his eyes, letting his five senses immerse into the deep darkness, recklessly extending beyond the hand gripping the door frame.

The outward-spreading senses, like a dense web, capture any slight movements, escaping his neural synapses.

Whether it's the slight collision between garbage and the wall, the faint rustling, or the thin wind almost undetectable...

That is definitely not a naturally occurring sound.

Night Ten's eyes abruptly snapped open.

Though his sight couldn't penetrate the heavy wreckage to see the person's face, he could clearly perceive the corridor the person was walking down.

That familiar yet foreign feeling, without a doubt—

It is precisely the "accident site" he was never permitted to enter!

The man carrying the jetpack was pressing the jetpack button two short and one long, drifting like a ghost in the gravity-less corridor, slowly approaching the gym isolated by a barrier in a parallel world.

"...I see you!"


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