Chapter 322: Rice Bug

"fukervsbin, fuker in the post-match interview, the outcome is undecided and we are all dark horses."

"Chubby baby hajimi hajimi, your little white gloves, eiyo eiyo eiyo wei."

"You came from Dandong, leaving me covered in snow-white, I want to eat Cantonese food."

Short-video audio echoed through the living room. Hui Yu sprawled lazily on the sofa, scrolling through short videos on her phone while a variety show played on her tablet as background noise.

When hungry, she grabbed a handful of snacks from the side table; when thirsty, she took a sip of milk tea.

Li Cheng, who had just finished tightening screws on the chariot, stepped out of the dimensional warehouse. The moment he saw the trash and snack crumbs scattered on the floor, he felt his blood pressure spike.

"You're done? I was just about to do housework."

Hui Yu lazily scratched her right foot with the sole of her left foot and pulled her hood up.

The red-and-black hoodie she was currently wearing had been sewn by Li Cheng himself.

It used several kinds of polyester fiber, aramid fiber, polyethylene fiber, and non-woven fabric technology.

Not only was it flame-retardant, insulating, anti-static, waterproof, dustproof, wear-resistant, and stain-resistant, it was also soft and comfortable.

Various electronic devices were sewn into the soft inner lining of the garment, so whether the wearer stood, sat, lay down, or crouched, nothing would press into them.

As the hood went on and the wireless network card connected, the robot vacuum in the corner of the living room received Hui Yu's remote command, started up on its own, and began cleaning up the trash.

The dishwasher and washing machine also kicked in automatically, helping with the dishes and laundry.

Li Cheng rubbed his temple with a headache. "You've been lying on the sofa all day? Did you ever get up? You're about to fuse with the sofa."

"I won't."

Before the words faded, Hui Yu lifted her arm—only to find that, because she had been too comfortable and idle, the arm had slightly melted, and a small amount of liquid metal had seeped into the sofa.

With a ripping sound, she nearly tore the sofa.

Hui Yu coughed awkwardly. "You know, I was taken away from my mom and dad when I was little, so I never learned any life skills."

"Are you a cat? Taken away since childhood?"

Li Cheng helplessly pulled off his gloves, stained with machine oil, tossed them into his backpack slot, walked into the study, turned on the computer, and began browsing the player forum.

The arrival of the Otherworld Gao Ta was still casting its effects over the real world.

First, international shipping: all shipping routes near Colonia Island were cancelled, and international tourism to the Federated States of Micronesia was also terminated.

Then, all websites offering satellite map services could only see old images of Colonia Island, with no real-time photos available.

Once preliminary preparations were complete, the island's residents had their memories wiped and were collectively relocated to other islands in the Federated States of Micronesia.

According to some exposé posts on the player forum, the area was now under full GOC control. After more than a dozen rounds of urgent consultations and negotiations, a few state-backed official agencies—including the Special Affairs Bureau—were ultimately permitted to co-develop it with the GOC.

Presumably, before long, the world would see a wave of technological explosion.

"Mm."

Li Cheng leaned back into his chair. He wasn't particularly interested in how the GOC and the other organizations would carve up the technological wealth inside Gao Ta—he had a complete backup himself. What concerned him more was that the GOC was theoretically supposed to uphold the United Nations' purpose and provide all-system humanitarian aid for natural and man-made disasters as much as possible.

But when a heavyweight event like Gao Ta's arrival occurred, the GOC could still ignore the national sovereignty of the Federated States of Micronesia, carrying out large-scale memory wipes, land expropriation, and forced relocation.

Too cold and rational—but not impossible to understand.

Organizations including Prometheus and Gen-Sys had already unveiled artificial womb technology.

Now, combined with Dr. Noah's cloned embryo and accelerated development technology, it was theoretically possible to mass-produce clones like baking bread.

One could even use gene splicing and gene editing to manufacture new humans with superior brains and bodies.

This brought up a new ethical question—was the concept of a global village or a collective humanity still necessary?

And when gene factories could mass-produce new humans, were concepts like nation, ethnicity, marriage, reproduction, family, and even "the people" still necessary?

Could a situation arise where "gene-adjusted persons have no political rights, don't count as the people but only as citizens—or not even citizens, only assets"?

As the maintainer of the basic international order, the GOC did not want to, and could not, allow these technologies to spread unchecked. Otherwise, it would inevitably bring about the total collapse of human civilization and the international order.

"A blessing in disguise—even if gene editing and similar technologies will bring upheaval, it won't be that fast. It'll take at least four or five years before we see any impact."

Li Cheng muttered as he scrolled with his mouse, browsing the player forum, and then came across a comment that he could barely hold it together at.

N-o m-i-s-t-a-k-e-s, e-v-e-r-y l-i-n-e, e-v-e-r-y c-h-a-p-t-e-r, a-l-l h-e-r-e, a-l-l f-o-r y-o-u!

【The average lifespan of all players is only a year and a half, two years—they may not live to see the social changes brought by new technology. So no need to worry.】

Uh. Not wrong, actually. Even novice players who had received training from major guilds had a 50%–70% mortality rate on their first mission.

Only afterward, as experience accumulated and resources grew, would the mortality rate gradually drop.

Even so, there were occasional wipeouts, with players dying horribly in scripted missions.

"At this point, players' life expectancy is really worse than residents of Haiti, Syria, Afghanistan, drug-using women, transgender people, and cancer patients—only outliving internet-famous restaurant owners. What a hell of a joke."

Li Cheng closed the webpage, opened his phone, and checked WeChat.

The cross-planar technology used by Gao Ta was quite complex. From the real world's perspective, the teenagers—including Xue Luomeng and Xue Lingyu—had remained in a comatose state the whole time.

Until the instant Gao Ta appeared, all the rescued teenagers teleported from around the world to Colonia Island at once.

Those who hadn't been rescued remained in their original hospital beds as vegetables.

These poor souls were purely victims of bad luck. According to Dr. Noah, their consciousness had already died in the other world, with no possibility of rescue.

As compensation, Noah could offer cloning services to these families who had lost their children, and based on the real world's digital footprints and the parents' memories, implant memories into the clones so their words and deeds would be as close to the original as possible.

As for whether the GOC would agree to this "energy-saving, trade-in-the-old-for-the-new" approach, and whether the bereaved families would accept it—that was another matter.

In any case, Xue Luomeng and Xue Lingyu quickly returned to society after completing their memory wipe.

Whether it was a glitch in the brainwashing process or some other reason, Xue Luomeng seemed to have developed a much better attitude toward Li Cheng.

But this time it wasn't Xue Luomeng looking for him—it was Yuan Zhixia: "You there? Come out to eat."

(End of chapter)