Chapter 144 Rebooter Base - 1 When Tang Bufan woke up, he...
When Tang Bufan woke up, he was lying on a cold and hard wooden bed. It was a dusty cement cell with one side of a rough, unplastered wall and the other side of a huge glass panel. The air was damp and had a faint fishy smell.
He groaned softly, feeling a headache coming on. When he moved his body, he found a dull, uncomfortable pain in his abdomen.
Tang Bufan groggily reached out and touched his stomach, then suddenly remembered something and sat up abruptly from the cold wooden bed.
"woke up?"
Tang Bufan turned his head and saw Anderson, covered in wounds, sitting at the foot of the bed. He was still wearing his white suit, but it was torn to shreds and covered with dark brown bloodstains.
Anderson had washed his face. The corner of the cell was a toilet that was only one square meter in size, but he only washed his face. From the still hideous wounds on his face, it was clear that he had not received any treatment. The flesh that Zero had cut open was still horribly torn there, and you could see the scarlet cut surface.
Tang Bufan, pale-faced, was somewhat dazed. It took him a while to react before he asked in a slightly hoarse voice, "Why...why are you here?"
Tang Bufan had no memory of being injected with a sedative. He only remembered that he had just finished begging Zero when everything suddenly went black. When he opened his eyes, he was here. He wasn't stupid. When he saw the concrete cell, he knew that he had been captured by Zero. However, he never expected that Anderson would also be taken away by Zero.
“It’s Hans.” Anderson’s face was somber, but he remained relatively calm. “He told Zero that you would behave yourself with me around, but I think… he probably wanted me to stay by your side and take care of you.”
Hans may be heartless to outsiders, but he's good to his family. Tang Bufan is Lu Yi's lover, which is why he took special care of him.
Of course, this came at the cost of Anderson's life. Anderson was furious about this, realizing that he had Hans in control. Hans had let Anderson escape from the mental hospital because he knew that Anderson was still reluctant to really hurt Lu Yi.
"..." Tang Bufan gradually calmed down. He touched his aching stomach again, but did not ask Anderson. He already knew the answer in his heart.
His child is gone.
Come to think of it, Zero brought him back to continue his experiments; how could he possibly let him keep the child?
Tang Bufan felt a chill in his heart. The hatred he felt for Zero because of Chen Fei expanded like ink, but also spread throughout his body like energy, restoring a lot of his strength.
Without asking anything about the child, Tang Bufan got up, moved to the foot of the bed, took off his tuxedo jacket, and then took off his still-clean white shirt, carefully tearing it into strips three or four centimeters wide.
"I don't have a needle, let's bandage it first." Tang Bufan, shirtless, wrapped the prepared bandage around Anderson's lacerated face. He wasn't sure if this would gather the flesh together, but it was better than leaving it untreated.
Anderson did not refuse, but Tang Bufan had only torn a few bandages from his shirt, which were not enough to just bandage his face, and Anderson had many cuts with the skin turned outwards all over his body.
"...I'll go out and get you the stitches and medicine." Tang Bufan felt this wouldn't do, so he hastily put on his tuxedo coat and got out of bed, enduring his headache and stomach pain.
"Don't waste your energy if you can't get it." Anderson didn't think the humans at this base would give him medical supplies.
Although he didn't know the actual situation of the base—after he boarded the spacecraft, the wretched android covered his head with a garment—Anderson could see the interior of the research institute. Like the prison cell, it was made of concrete, and even the paint on the walls was faded and hadn't been repainted in a long time, clearly indicating extreme poverty.
Tang Bufan ignored him and walked to the large glass window. With a sullen face, he tapped on it with the back of his hand.
The glass suddenly turned from a mirror to transparent, revealing a soldier in a dark green uniform eating a lunchbox in his hand, his eyes bright and clear as he looked up at Tang Bufan.
Tang Bufan guessed that there was someone behind the glass, but he didn't expect it to be such a young soldier. He looked to be only about twenty years old, and his features and temperament exuded an unpolished innocence.
The soldier put down the worn-out metal lunchbox, wiped his mouth with his arm, and stood up from beside the old, worn-out table.
"Are you looking for a PhD?" he asked Tang Bufan through the glass.
Tang Bufan nodded, his dark eyes continuing to scrutinize the soldier's uniform without showing any emotion. The table and chairs were made of wood, with an old-fashioned ceramic water cup on them. The overall style resembled the harsh conditions of China in the 1960s and 70s.
Judging from the soldier's white teeth and the metal lunchbox full of food, his basic living conditions were still guaranteed.
"Yes." Tang Bufan was angry, but he didn't vent it on the soldier. He spoke to him politely, "Please inform the doctor."
"Okay, I'll ask for you." The soldier smiled at Tang Bufan, his attitude friendly.
The communicator was on the wall next to him. The soldier stood up and walked behind the wall. Tang Bufan saw him press the buttons a few times from an angle.
Noticing Tang Bufan's gaze, Xiaobing thought for a moment, then pressed his finger again, and the glass separating the two rooms turned back into a mirror.
And then the voice from the other side disappeared.
Tang Bufan remained standing in front of the mirror, but after three to five minutes, the mirror no longer became transparent, so he slowly retreated to the bedside and sat down.
The bed is a standard bunk bed with metal frame, human size, 90 centimeters wide and 200 centimeters long. Tang Bufan is now 1.93 meters tall, and he is already prone to hitting his head when he sleeps, while Anderson, who is over 2.2 meters tall, cannot lie straight at all.
He looked at the floor again and saw that although it hadn't been mopped, the cement floor had damp marks and was severely damp.
"How long have we been here?" Tang Bufan asked Anderson, who was sitting at the foot of the bed.
“One day,” Anderson said, his voice weaker than usual due to blood loss.
"Are you asleep?" Tang Bufan asked again.
Anderson didn't answer, only gave a cold laugh. Tang Bufan then knew the answer and picked up the dark green military blanket next to him, intending to spread it on the ground.
Before he could bend over completely, the sound of a lock being opened came from outside the cell. Tang Bufan paused, his dark eyes glancing over, and saw a man in a white coat walk in.
The person who arrived was Zero, but he was no longer the two-meter-tall orc, but had become 1.8 meters tall. His medium-length hair slightly covered his face, and he wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his nose. He looked very different from when he attended the banquet.
Zero didn't come empty-handed; he was holding a thick, heavy pair of shackles, which he threw at Anderson's feet with a "bang," saying, "Put them on yourself."
Anderson was a high-ranking orc, with ankles much thicker than humans. He couldn't fit into the shackles used for humans in the base, so Zero had someone pick out a suitable one from the animal shackles and modify it slightly.
Anderson glanced down at the shackles on the ground and raised an eyebrow slightly. This wasn't the first time he'd worn them, but expecting him to put them on willingly was underestimating him.
Therefore, he slowly stood up from the iron bunk bed. His tall body swayed slightly due to excessive blood loss, but his slow and heavy steps still made him very imposing.
"Anderson, go back." Tang Bufan frowned and grabbed Anderson's arm, knowing Anderson's bad temper and afraid that he would anger Zero again.
Ignoring Tang Bufan's attempts to drag him, Anderson walked straight to the "short" Zero, bent down, and brought his face close to Zero for a closer look.
Zero remained indifferent, showing no fear of Anderson's approach, and simply warned, "Behave yourself."
“…That’s strange.” Anderson raised his hand to touch his chin, staring into Zero’s dark eyes: “Your eyes are real, but your hands… are fake.”
He suddenly reached out and grabbed Zero's right hand, but Zero's right arm instantly transformed into a knife connected by a metal tube, held in front of Anderson's neck.
Tang Bufan, terrified, pulled Anderson back forcefully and stood in front of him, using his own body to block the knife.
"You modified your body?" Anderson asked with a sneer. Because he was a head taller than Tang Bufan, Tang Bufan's cover was actually useless, and he could still see Zero easily. "I've heard that some humans mechanically modify their bodies. The advantage is that it increases combat power, but the disadvantage is also obvious: losing that part of the senses and becoming disabled. You're quite ruthless to yourself."
Tang Bufan glanced silently at Zero's right hand, which was deformed like a metal tube, and agreed with Anderson's statement. Even if he wanted to become stronger, it would be difficult for him to have the courage to cut off his own arm and replace it with a mechanical one.
Touch is a wonderful thing; what you touch and feel is what is real.
"...It's just an arm, but it makes things much easier for me," Zero said casually. Although he acted indifferent, Tang Bufan, who was nervously standing in front of Anderson, noticed that his expression dimmed slightly.
Unwilling to hurt Tang Bufan, Zero retracted his mechanical arm and turned to signal Tang Bufan to come with him: "I think you've had enough sleep. Come with me to the lab."
Tang Bufan watched as Zero's arm returned to human form and was put into his pocket before he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to Anderson and whispered, "Wait here for me to come back. Don't get into any conflicts."
Anderson rolled his eyes, but obediently retreated, knowing that he and Tang Bufan had no choice but to behave themselves given the current situation.
He kicked the heavy shackles on the ground aside.
Tang Bufan followed Zero out of the cell. Zero pulled out the heavy iron door embedded in the wall with a little force and closed it. He then took out a key from his white coat pocket and locked it.
Tang Bufan stood to the side, looking at the door's structure, somewhat concerned: "This door used to be automatic, right? Is it broken?"
“It’s not broken.” Zero put the key in his pocket and led Tang Bufan along the long passage: “There was a period of time when resources were scarce on the island, and the research institute also experienced several power outages. If the doors could not be opened, it would be fatal to the safety of the researchers and the rescue of the experimental subjects. In addition, there was not enough energy to maintain it, so the electric door system was abandoned on some floors.”
Tang Bufan understood and began to look around the research institute. He found that the space was very large and the ceiling was very high, but it was dark and damp, like an old mountain tunnel, heavy and dark.
The spacious corridor was lined with doors on both sides, but it was very quiet; you could hardly hear a sound...
With a loud "thud!", a green-skinned and ferocious-looking face lunged at the small metal window next to Tang Bufan. Tang Bufan was startled and instinctively moved closer to Zero.
He then realized that it was a poisonous person, but it was similar to a blue-faced, fanged demon.
“These are all poison people locked up here,” Zero calmly explained to him. “We have been studying the evolution and development of poison people for over a thousand years.”
Tang Bufan gradually calmed down and thought to himself, no wonder that although it was a research institute, it had cells with toilets and observation windows.
A door opened, and a researcher walked out, with a virtual screen floating in front of him displaying a large amount of data and information.
He was looking at the screen, but after glancing up at them, his eyes lit up. He immediately turned off the virtual screen in front of him and followed the two of them.
The three of them entered the spacious elevator located in the middle of the corridor.
"Doctor, have you eaten?" the researcher greeted Zero, but his eyes were fixed on the tall Tang Bufan.
"I ate it," Zero said calmly.
"Take him to the quantum time travel research lab?" the researcher asked curiously.
“No,” Zero said, “the cloning lab.”
The researcher exclaimed "Oh!", and Tang Bufan's heart skipped a beat upon hearing this.
The elevator ride was short, and the doors opened quickly. Tang Bufan followed Zero out of the elevator. The floor they arrived at was still dark and gloomy, with no windows in sight.
"Has my student... already started cloning?" Tang Bufan asked Zero in a low voice, his fingers clenching into a fist with unease.
"Mm," Zero simply replied.
This floor was clearly filled with various laboratories, and there were many researchers in the corridors. They would turn around and look at the two of them as they came and went.
Tang Bufan quickly spotted the cloning lab. The metal door was automatic, and the smart AI camera on the door opened automatically after seeing Zero.
Tang Bufan paused briefly at the door for a few seconds before mustering the courage to go inside.
The next second, he wanted to back out because he saw his "student," a human body made up of numerous blood vessels.
"Afraid?" Zero asked him, sitting down in a swivel chair.
Tang Bufan breathed with his mouth slightly open and his head down, his eyes fixed on the ground. However, out of the corner of his eye, he could still see the round glass containers around him, each containing a naked, skinless human.
“I thought… it started growing from an embryo,” Tang Bufan said with difficulty. This was how Dolly the cloned sheep he had seen in his textbooks when he was in school was.
“There is another cloning method, but it’s too slow,” Zero said, turning to look at the naked humanoid figure that already had a humanoid form. “We don’t have the time to let him grow up slowly to seven years old. This method of using AI calculations and then printing on a human body is much faster.”
After he finished speaking, he suddenly smiled and pushed up his glasses: "Look up to your right and guess who that is?"
Tang Bufan didn't understand, but he still looked over in the direction the man was pointing. There was a person with blood vessels in the glass container. Judging from the sparse blood vessels, it was obviously a clone that had only been made recently.
Strangely enough, even though the person had no skin and no facial features, Tang Bufan felt a subtle sense of familiarity from him. He was initially puzzled, but after estimating the person's height to be about 1.7 meters but less than 1.8 meters, a chill ran down his spine.
Seeing Tang Bufan's suddenly pale face, Zero said "kindly," "Say hello to yourself."
Tang Bufan looked directly at him: "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean?" Zero asked him back.
"Why clone me?" Tang Bufan's mind inevitably went blank.
“This body can turn you back into a human.” Zero leaned back in his chair, turning it to face “Tang Bufan”: “Although you have mutated into a sub-beastman, your brain has not changed much. We can transplant a human body back to you, and then… you can go back.”
"..." Tang Bufan fell silent. After mutating into a sub-beastman, he gave up the idea of going back. His appearance was no longer the same as his former self, and so was his blood, which had been mixed with beastman genes. This meant that even if he returned to the 21st century, he would never be able to go to the hospital for the rest of his life.
So he settled down, began to acknowledge Lu Yi's feelings for him, married him, and even planned to have a child together. But now... but now... he's being told that everything can start over?
"It's too late..." Tang Bufan said, his eyes slightly red. "Even if I can turn back into a human... it's really too late."
"That's that again." Zero said with slight annoyance, staring at Tang Bufan. "Just treat it as a terrible past. So many people can move on, why can't you?"
"Do they also owe emotional debts?" Tang Bufan asked in return.
"Ha, emotional debts." Zero sneered. "How funny."
Tang Bufan's face was ashen; he didn't find his relationship with Lu Yi funny at all.
Seeing Tang Bufan's stubborn expression, Zero stopped arguing with him and instead turned his chair to look at the row of virtual screens: "Anyway, there are still two months before the second time travel experiment, so you can take your time to consider it."
After he finished speaking, he pointed to the child who was still covered in blood vessels: "But if we clone him, it will only take about twenty days. Whether you go back or not, you will have to help me teach this child."
Tang Bufan tilted his head slightly to look at "Chen Fei" in the glass container, and nodded gently with mixed thoughts.
He brought the innocent Chen Fei into this world; it is his responsibility.
Thinking of Zero's insistence on sending him back, Tang Bufan remained silent for a while before walking to Zero's side.
"What exactly is this time-travel experiment?" Tang Bufan asked him seriously. "And what do you need me to do?"
Zero picked up an electronic pen from the table, twirled it, and asked Tang Bufan, "Do you know what the four most important things to ensure when traveling through time are?"
Tang Bufan was not a physics major. In fact, he was not a very smart person. He studied day and night and barely made it into the first-tier university admission line.
So he shook his head.
Zero didn't expect him to say it, so he told him: "First: Ensure the direction is correct, whether you're going to the future or going back to the past. Second: Ensure the time span of the journey is correct; the longer the span, the more energy is required and the lower the accuracy. Third: Ensure the safety of the journey location, avoiding things like getting stuck in a wall or falling from a great height. Fourth: Ensure the object being traveled through is not torn apart by the energy; only then can the journey be considered truly successful."
Tang Bufan frowned and listened intently: "You chose me because my appearance confirms the above four points?"
“Yes, apart from the wormhole exit going wrong and causing you to fall into Europe, all other data is within our calculations,” Zero said.
If they send a researcher to the future, they won't get any experimental results, whether the researcher succeeds or fails. If they send a researcher to the past, even if the researcher succeeds and leaves evidence, the evidence may be erased by time. So the result of their laboratory research is to bring an ancient person over, and the results and data can be understood at a glance.
"I wasn't torn apart by the wormhole, nor did I melt into the wall. Thank you so much," Tang Bufan said sarcastically.
“…This experiment is indeed very dangerous.” Zero accepted Tang Bufan’s sarcasm and spoke up for their lab: “Therefore, when selecting experimental subjects, we prioritize those who are alone and have no relatives, in order to reduce the impact of their disappearance on the surrounding area.”
Tang Bufan never expected that being alone would be one of the reasons for his selection, and he immediately wanted to curse.
However, considering his current situation and Anderson's continued imprisonment, Tang Bufan restrained his temper and continued to ask, "What other reasons are there for choosing me? I am definitely not the only one in China without relatives."
Zero didn't answer him directly, but instead pointed his finger into the air, placing a virtual screen in front of Tang Bufan.
That was a webpage that Tang Bufan was very familiar with—his Weibo.
Tang Bufan was stunned.
“This is legacy data we found in a data warehouse in Shenzhen. It contains information on over 40 million accounts. After excluding zombie accounts and purely anime/manga accounts, only 2 million users recorded real-life information were left. After further excluding the elderly, children, pregnant women, the homeless, those with distorted values, the sick and weak, and those with low levels of education… that leaves only you and 17 other people,” Zero said. “Of those 17 people, 16 simply had distant relationships with their parents, and they were also included in our shortlist. After filtering through layers of conditions, it’s very difficult to find someone who absolutely fits the criteria.”
Tang Bufan stared blankly at his Weibo page, never expecting that he would come into the sight of these researchers from a thousand years in the future in such a way.
Zero reached out and swiped the virtual screen, where many photos taken by Tang Bufan and his daily musings flashed by.
“Actually, we initially chose a soldier, whose education level was similar to yours and whose physical fitness was better than yours. But the reason we finally chose you was because he had a girlfriend he was about to marry, and his behavioral data was not as detailed as yours.” Zero continued, “You just became a teacher, and we could feel your excitement and enthusiasm from your Weibo posts. You posted 87 times more Weibo posts than that soldier. By studying your Weibo posts, we analyzed your lifestyle and learned that you get up at 6:30 every morning, go to school at 7:00, and after school ends at 4:30 in the afternoon, you stay in the office for an hour and a half before heading to the electric vehicle shed at 6:00.”
Tang Bufan was shocked to hear this, while Zero, who was sitting in the swivel chair, looked up at him: "So we were sure that as long as we opened a wormhole on your way to the bike shed at 6:05, you would fall in. We just didn't expect... that you would be holding a child that day."
Tang Bufan felt a chill run through him as he listened, and finally lowered his eyes in anguish. Only at this moment did he truly believe that it was his fault that Chen Fei had also come here.
If it weren't for his meddling and offering to take him home... Tang Bufan clutched his hair in regret: "He was clearly waiting for Grandma in the lobby... Why did I have to call Grandma and tell her to go home..."
Zero listened to his whispers and lowered his eyes slightly, comforting him, "It's too late to think about it now. Just clone the child and send him back."
"But he's not the real Chen Fei!" Tang Bufan couldn't help but shout, unable to control his emotions: "So what if they have the same genes! Without those memories and the past! How can they be considered the same person!"
Zero calmly faced his roar and said indifferently, "Whether he has his original memories or not is not important. What is important is that to his parents, he is their own flesh and blood, and..."
Zero turned to look at the child still growing blood vessels in the glass container. "Many parents have children simply for the sake of having children, to conform and for old age. As for the child himself, they don't really care that much."
Tang Bufan did not accept such remarks, and he remained angry: "But I care!"
Zero looked at him helplessly again and sighed: "If you're going to do this, I really regret not taking the risk of choosing that soldier back then."
"He has a girlfriend he's getting married to!" Tang Bufan said through gritted teeth.
“For the sake of humanity, I believe he will understand,” Zero said quite seriously. “I believe he has a greater sense of justice than you do.”
Tang Bufan was so angry he almost sneered.
Zero then closed Tang Bufan's Weibo post and returned to the topic of the experiment: "The time travel has now been successfully verified, but there are still many questions about time and space, as well as the law of causality. If parallel worlds are involved, the situation will become even more complicated..."
Zero frowned slightly as he said this: "I hope this world is unique, otherwise... otherwise... we can't change this terrible future by changing the past."
Tang Bufan looked at him, who was focused on the experiment, and suddenly felt a sense of helplessness, as if he had nowhere to vent his anger.
He calmed down a bit, then sneered at Zero, "You still want to change the future?"
“Of course.” Zero looked up, his glasses reflecting a clear light, his eyes surprisingly innocent: “Because orcs are too difficult to deal with. Actually, I don’t want to fight at all, but there’s no other way. Their genes are polluting the entire biosphere, constantly interbreeding and hybridizing with humans, and even with wild beasts… giving birth to a bunch of monsters that I don’t know how to classify.”
Tang Bufan finally understood the purpose behind his obsession with this experiment: "You want to go back and stop the orcs' research?"
Zero shook his head: "No, the world is so corrupt and impure because of them, and also because of humanity..."
He said earnestly, "If I could really change the timeline, I would want to go back to an earlier time, before the outbreak of World War III, and use the internet and weapons to rationally govern humanity."
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