Chapter 592: The Principle of Civilization

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The moment Chen Chen stepped into the black fog, he suddenly felt as if he was half-dreaming and half-awake. Although only a second or two had passed, it seemed that a long, long time had passed.

Chen Chen was very familiar with this, just like the sense of sinking in time every time he entered the Ark teleporter.

However, Chen Chen temporarily closed his eyes according to Zhao Shanhe’s instructions.

“Hum!”

At the same time, Chen Chen’s vast Field energy burst out as if he wanted to penetrate the black fog in front of him but it was blocked by multiple layers as if there were endless sponges around him that prevented the Field energy from unfurling.

On the contrary, it was the psionic energy that had mixed in with Field that could smoothly permeate the black fog, allowing Chen Chen to “perceive” the environment within 20 meters from his body.

Upon sensing this range, Chen Chen could not help frowning. In reality, his Field ability was mighty. After so many years of training, he had achieved an 80-meter range. Within this 80-meter radius, although he was not omnipotent, he still had Earth-shattering powers.

Now, his Field power was restricted again. He could only use the weaker psionic power to explore the surroundings and the radius of exploration was only 20 meters. This weak feeling reminded him of being imprisoned in the dream world by the antimeme...

After all, his psionic power was not as strong as Field energy, and could not even penetrate a thin piece of plywood.

All at once, Chen Chen’s strength was weakened by 90% and the remaining 10% was only the strength of his own body.

However, Chen Chen did not retreat. After all, he wanted to find out the mystery behind the USB flash drive. Each day that the secret of the USB flash drive could not be solved was another day that Chen Chen could not feel at ease. Besides, the body was just an avatar, so it was as if Chen Chen had two lives. If one died, he still had another. Under such favorable conditions, Chen Chen was naturally willing to fight.

These thoughts flashed through Chen Chen’s mind. He only sensed that he had arrived at an empty street. Strictly speaking, it was the same as the outside world except for the intuition he felt when he stepped into the black fog.

He could even still feel the warm sun above his head.

Still, Chen Chen understood that he had indeed stepped into the black fog because his ears could no longer hear the sounds outside and the Field energy was suppressed by some invisible power.

Not far in front of him, Zhao Shanhe and his subordinate, Jenny, were lowering their heads, gently making gestures before their eyes. Chen Chen’s psionic energy diffused forward. Only then did he see that they were sewing their eyelids with needles and threads...

They pulled the upper and lower eyelids together, and then sewed them with a needle and thread so that they could not open their eyes to see the outside world. It was not a bad plan.

However, Chen Chen knew that although they had their eyes sewn shut, they were not without the power to fight back. After all, they still had the Force from the Star Wars dimension.

Chen Chen did not know what the essence of the Force was but it was a special power just like his own Field energy and psionic powers.

The crucial point was that this kind of power could also be suppressed by the reality anchor, which was worth pondering...

Chen Chen’s psionic energy spread over and directly collided with the Force of their bodies. The two of them froze at the same time, but the woman named Jenny sneered coldly, seeming to be gloating a little.

On the other hand, Zhao Shanhe frowned but he wrapped himself with the Force to protect himself.

Chen Chen slowly withdrew his psionic energy, but he was utterly shocked because at the moment of the collision, he faintly sensed that their original Force seemed very similar to his psionic energy. It could almost be from the same source!

It was just that, unlike the full version of the psionic powers Chen Chen had, the original Force in them was like the weakened version of psionic powers that Chen Chen had bestowed on the members of the “Superpower Combative Police Force”. It was just a special kind of energy but without magical abilities such as psionic seeds, rebirth, and so on.

Psionic energy and the Force — were they the same thing?

Chen Chen’s thoughts surged. He linked all this with the movie Star Wars and a terrifying idea came to mind...

‘Unless my strength is a hundred million times stronger than what I have now, I must never step into the Star Wars dimension!’

At this moment, Chen Chen had this thought.

“Do you need my needle and thread?”

After finishing sewing his eyes, Zhao Shanhe said to Chen Chen without looking back, “If you need it, I can lend it to you.”

“It’s fine.”

Chen Chen shook his head. “I think I should be able to stop myself, but I’m rather curious about what will happen when I open my eyes.”

“Open your eyes and you die.”

Zhao Shanhe said coldly, “Since you don’t need it, I won’t force you.”

With that, he walked straight ahead into this deep road.

Seeing this, Chen Chen directly trailed behind them. His psionic power and their original Force incidentally clashed at times. Gradually, Chen Chen also estimated that Zhao Shanhe’s original Force could expand by about ten meters and that Jenny’s was even feebler, with only a range of five meters.

This range was no different from being blind.

Everyone was aware that while Chen Chen was estimating, Zhao Shanhe and Jenny also felt a jolt of shock in their hearts. In their perception, Chen Chen’s mysterious power was stronger than their own and his range of perception had surpassed theirs too. This induced rather complicated feelings in their hearts and they were more guarded against Chen Chen.

Chen Chen followed them all the way. He found that the other party seemed to have been walking along the road. After about a kilometer or two, the buildings on both sides of the street and the street itself began to show signs of damage. From time to time, there were pieces of steel fragments blocking them on the road and the three of them had to go around to move on.

Zhao Shanhe seemed to be heading to the location where the Air Force One had crashed.

They followed the increasingly frequent traces until the three of them had walked for about three hours. When Chen Chen sensed that there were destroyed buildings all around him, he suddenly perceived a behemoth structure had appeared in front of him.

It seemed to be the nose of an airplane, but it had been damaged a long time ago, and even its shape was shriveled.

After coming here, Zhao Shanhe and Jenny could not help but stop.

Seeing this, Chen Chen also stopped. He extended his psionic energy forward, but suddenly raised his eyebrows because through his psionic observation, he discovered that there was no corpse in the plane.

It was not until now that Chen Chen realized something. He did not see any corpses along the way. It stood to reason that after the Air Force One crashed, there must be quite a few residents in this neighborhood. Even if some of them had escaped before the black fog had spread, at least some residents should be trapped here, unable to escape.

Even so, he had not met anyone, not even any living persons nor dead bodies.

Still, Zhao Shanhe was not surprised about this at all. He knew a lot of secrets but he just did not want to tell Chen Chen.

“This is it.”

Zhao Shanhe nodded, then turned and walked toward a nearby building that had not been completely destroyed. “Jenny has exhausted a great deal of her Force. We need to rest for a night before moving on.”

Chen Chen frowned. He knew that this was said for his benefit. Although his psionic energy could support him for a long time, the Force of that woman was much weaker and it seemed that she could no longer hold on.

Thinking of this, Chen Chen still followed behind them and at the same time asked, “You seem to have come here for this plane. What are you going to do next?”

“After Jenny has recovered, we’ll enter the cabin then find the source of the black fog and enter the real subspace from there.”

Zhao Shanhe replied, “That’s our goal.”

“Subspace?”

Chen Chen’s heart fluttered. Finally, the other party had begun to reveal new information to him.

“A subspace is the shadow cast by the universe.”

Zhao Shanhe walked into a low-rise shopping mall and said, “Everything has a projection. The universe has a projection and the subspace is the shadow of the entire universe.

“Therefore, the subspace doesn’t belong to reality. It’s a place where time, space, and matter are all meaningless. Naturally, there’s no life but it’s full of indescribable things or perhaps I should call them rules. The ‘memes’ that turn us pale are the simplest representation of that kind of rule.”

Chen Chen listened silently without speaking.

“And this black fog is the air current after the barrier between reality and the subspace is broken.”

Zhao Shanhe came to the mall and picked out food that had not rotted. He said while selecting, “This black fog, called the subspace countercurrent, was originally a product of the subspace eroding reality. Once erosion begins, it can’t be dispelled at all unless the power of the Civilization Monolith is used.”

Chen Chen’s heart suddenly leaped and he immediately recalled that Zhao Shanhe had indeed unexpectedly used the black slab to break through a small patch of black fog.

“After the subspace erodes reality, countless unpredictable changes will occur and various weird memetic effects will also begin to emerge. Do you know why?”

Zhao Shanhe asked suddenly.

“Why?”

Chen Chen asked stoically.

“Because memes are the principle of civilization.”

Zhao Shanhe replied indifferently, “Strictly speaking, memes are fragments of the principle of civilization. Subspace erodes reality and will inevitably lead to the fragmentation of the principle of civilization and the shattered principle of civilization becomes memes.”

Chen Chen’s feet paused. He felt as if he had been shocked by a thunderbolt and a feeling of enlightenment washed over him, but at this moment, he still gritted his teeth and asked, “Then, you should talk about what the principle of civilization is.”

However, Zhao Shanhe just smiled mysteriously. “As the name suggests, the principle of civilization is the principle of civilization. You should already know what it is.”

Chen Chen only felt his thoughts scattering wildly. He took a deep breath and began to silently digest everything he had just heard.

The three of them selected some packaged food from the supermarket in the mall, and then Zhao Shanhe took the initiative to find a well-enclosed double-staff dormitory and let Jenny and Chen Chen stay there.

“We’ll spend the night here.”

Zhao Shanhe’s expression was rather serious. He fumbled his way to the window, drew the curtains close, and then took the initiative to lock the front door, making the entire room airtight.

After that, he lay a little tiredly on the bunk beside him and exhaled silently.

Jenny took the initiative to occupy another bed.

Chen Chen observed Zhao Shanhe’s actions. When the other party was done with everything, he asked, “What are you guarding against?”

“I don’t know.”

Zhao Shanhe chuckled. “I don’t know what will happen next, but don’t you think that we can be careless just because we haven’t encountered any danger along the way. Haven’t you noticed that there are no dead bodies here? But Jenny and I still remember that when we first broke out of here, there were corpses everywhere in the black fog.”

Chen Chen also sat in a side chair and asked, a little puzzled, “Then, what did you encounter when you left the subspace countercurrent back then?”

“...”

Zhao Shanhe fell silent at this and said after a long pause, “We were hunted down by a dark shadow then. That dark shadow looked like a human but I knew it wasn’t a human being. It killed three of my subordinates. Only Jenny and I escaped.”

After saying this, Zhao Shanhe fell silent again.

This time, no matter how Chen Chen asked, Zhao Shanhe would not say any more.

Seeing this, Chen Chen had to sit at one side, silently building up his spirits.

Nonetheless, by now Chen Chen felt a faint pang of restlessness deep in his heart. After all, people were most used to observing everything with their eyes. Although Chen Chen could still observe his surroundings with psionic energy after losing his vision, it was like an ultrasound. His psionic powers detected shapes and textures at most, allowing him to distinguish different matters.

It was like black and white vision, limited to a range of 30 meters. It was a very dull perception.

Still, this jittery feeling would not affect Chen Chen much as he still had it under control.

What Zhao Shanhe said before, such as the fact that one must close their eyes to enter the subspace countercurrent, Chen Chen could still somewhat agree with this because he had experimented with this before. The instant someone glanced at the unknown image sent back by the Event Horizon, it would immediately erupt in the billowing black fog. The subspace was closely related to eyes or vision. It was no wonder that Zhao Shanhe warned him not to open his eyes here.

Moreover, the premise of closing one’s eyes, taking into account the movie’s plot, could also verify some clues. In the movie, Dr. Weir, who drove the main storyline, had frequently seen his dead wife on the Event Horizon and his wife also kept bewitching him. Every time she appeared, her eyes were two hollows.

In the latter part of the movie, Dr. Weir even gouged out his eyes, claiming that only in this way could he see “reality” clearly.

As for everything that Zhao Shanhe said later, Chen Chen was even more stirred up. According to Zhao Shanhe, a memetic effect was a fragment of the principle of civilization, which was a bit scary when he thought about it more deeply.

This was because Chen Chen had already made a profound speculation before that the so-called principle of civilization was probably the “path” of a civilization. This was an abstract concept. For instance, the world where Chen Chen lived and the world of Event Horizon were both ordinary in terms of technology. If something that transcended technology started to show up in such a world, would it not mean that the principle of civilization was starting to be broken?

After the principle of civilization was broken, fragments of the principle of civilization would gradually appear.