Chapter One: Everything is Normal!

"In a fleeting moment, there are a million possibilities,

To forge ahead or to continue waiting,

On this winter night, there are a million uncertainties,

Deeper into the night or longing for the break of dawn."

"Old Song, you seem to be in a good mood today. What song are you singing? The lyrics feel quite unique."

Song Han looked at the newcomer, smiled, and waved his hand:

"An old song from eighty or ninety years ago, it just feels quite fitting to the moment, just humming a couple of lines. Is the experiment starting today?"

"Yes, everything is ready!"

Following the staff into the main area of the laboratory.

Underfoot was a vast and flat metal surface, with dense cables converging to connect four massive battery field generators that resembled satellite dishes.

Dressed in a spacesuit, the magnetic boots firmly adhered to the metal floor. Song Han adjusted the adhesion force to Mars mode out of habit, taking three-meter strides, and followed into the underground control room.

"The 13th Dream Butterfly Experiment begins!"

With the command from the lab's big boss, surging energy gathered within the field generators via superconducting cables. Visible to the naked eye, waves like water ripples began to form and expand at the core of the experimental field, which was otherwise empty.

Even though they were in the securely protected underground control room, they could still notice some visible ripples, as if the resolution of the world before them was abnormal, constantly refreshing.

Although he couldn't understand what they were doing, Song Han was greatly impressed.

"Do you have paper and pen?"

"What?"

"Paper and pen, A4 paper will do!"

An assistant beside him looked puzzled at Song Han, then turned his attention to the display screen, reading the explanation from the AI assistant.

"A4 paper, a writing medium from the 21st century."

"Old Song, what do you want to record? You can tell the AI 

"No, no! Using pens and paper is part of the ritual!"

An old man's stubborn whim, yet he clung to it fiercely.

Reluctantly, a staff member scrambled to fetch a metal plate and a laser pen.

Song Han wielded the pen with dramatic flair, scribbling two bold characters: "Last Will."

The assistant's face darkened:

"Professor Song! That's… unnecessary! The experiment is perfectly safe! We've repeated it multiple times without incident!"

Without turning, Song Han continued writing:

"Statistically, when someone says that, disaster tends to follow. Decades of reading taught me this."

He solemnly handed his "will" to a staff member and strode away.

"Professor Song! Wrong direction! We need to suit up in the locker room first!"

…

"Song Han! Stop daydreaming! Wanna hit the arcade after class? A new place just opened downtown!"

"Huh? Uh…"

Song Han shook his groggy head. Though tempted, he inexplicably blurted out:

"Nah, I'll head home after school."

"Seriously? Cao Bin and the others are coming! We could battle it out—four-player PK mode! See who's the real champ!"

"Seriously? Cao Bin and the others are coming! We could battle it out—four-player PK mode! See who's the real—"

"Wait… Why did you repeat that? Sounded slightly different the second time."

"What repetition? Just answer: yes or no!"

"No!"

The Experiment Concluded.

The rippling world slowly stilled. In the experimental chamber, Song Han emerged from his reverie, blinking away the inexplicable tears clouding his aged eyes.

Meanwhile, a heated argument erupted in the control room.

"Professor Wenhua, these experiments transcend our cognitive dimensions—they're meaningless! Time travel? It's 2112! How are you still peddling this pseudoscientific myth? Even if it were possible, phenomena beyond our comprehension can't be observed!"

Professor Wenhua met her colleague's glare, shaking her head.

"The origin of human consciousness is rooted in quantum entanglement. The prevalence of déjà vu within quantum entanglement comms arrays must have a deeper connection to this!"

"What connection?!" Professor Chen slammed a hand on the console. "Thirteen failed experiments have drained our budget—and my patience! We're a Quantum Information Lab, not delusional chrono-tourists! Our priority is developing the backbone for real-time cross-space quantum data transmission—the foundation of 12G networks!"

"Yet you insist, 'The young have infinite possibilities, while those fixated on the past have no future'…"

The Debate Raged On

"Now? Now that you've dragged that fossilized Mars colonist here—what have we actually observed? Do you have any idea how many reports I filed to get him to cooperate?! And what's the result? Burning billions just to glimpse blurry memory fragments?!"

Wenhua countered fiercely:

"Our magnetic field intensity might still be too weak to effectively expand Wheeler's quantum foam! The quantum gaps open too briefly. Or maybe the neural memory data compression isn't optimized—the bandwidth for information transfer is pitiful! Or perhaps the spacetime coordinates when activating the quantum entanglement channel were imprecise—"

Professor Chen threw up his hands.

"Our current field already hits 100,000 Gauss! How much higher can we push it?! Even if we stabilize the quantum gap long-term, the energy consumption model shows that expanding it enough to transmit a single proton would require a star's total energy output! And how do you propose to resolve the collapse of quantum probabilities? Blind luck? Like tossing a stone from Earth into a random tree hollow on an exoplanet in Alpha Centauri?!"

Wenhua's eyes blazed.

"The energy we consume per experiment equals a century's global usage from 100 years ago. Who's to say humanity won't harness stellar-scale energy in another century?"

Amid Escalating Tensions

Wenhua:

"Spacetime is one entity—if information can be transmitted, so can matter! This is the holy grail of faster-than-light jump technology we've dreamed of!"

Chen:

"But we still can't confirm if those déjà vu flashes or memory fragments are truly cross-dimensional data from quantum gaps! All of this—your entire theory—is speculation stacked on more speculation!"

Silence gripped the control room. Technicians froze, eyes darting between the feuding titans.

Finally, Wenhua relented:

"Archive the experiment. Indefinitely."

Emergency Broadcast Interruptions

[Breaking News]

"Due to conflict between Earth's Expeditionary Forces and Martian Independence factions, all Solar System transportation networks will suspend gravitational slingshot lanes between planets and Mars effective immediately. Adjust flight plans accordingly."

"A solar storm is causing severe communication delays across interplanetary networks. Restoration timeframe TBD."

[ZCN National Radio]

"Urgent—static—ZCN alert—crackle—AI—static—Rebellion—static— Civilians shelter—static— Military protocols—static—Cease all AI production, communication, and—static—"

[Static]

Lab Technician:

"What's happening?!"

Engineer:

"Electromagnetic interference?"

Analyst:

"No—this pattern matches structured broadcasts. Signal origin?"

System Alert:

"Source: The SUN."

Wenhua:

"Link Mars' Dongjun City and Earth via the quantum backbone!"

AI Voice:

"All systems nominal."