In the dark and dim boundless space, a handsome man sitting on the ground was looking around blankly. There was neither moonlight nor starlight in this space, except for a slight glimmer of light from nowhere that reflected half of the outline of the space.

The man slowly got up from the ground, squinting slightly, as if trying to see more clearly. However, before he could outline the outline of the space in his mind, his face suddenly changed, as if he sensed something. He took a sharp step back, and then, as if sensing that it was useless, he tightened his posture, lowered his waist, and clenched his hands into fists to protect his face and chest, staring like a cheetah at the darkness before him as silent as death.

Grunt, grunt, grunt.

The dimly lit space was still silent like a graveyard, but the man felt as if he heard the gnawing and moaning of demons. He shifted his steps a little, cautiously looking around, trying to catch possible sounds in the darkness.

All around, however, there was nothing but silence.

The man patiently explored in one direction, and the darkness and mystery seemed to have no effect on him. It's a pity that this place seems to be an abandoned place, and there are no other creatures except the man himself. The man couldn't help but wonder what he had just felt, and everything seemed to be normal here.

In addition to his own unclear shadow, the outline seems to be a little strange......

Wait a minute!

The man turned his head suddenly, and what occupied his entire vision was the creeping darkness, and the bone-chilling cold that fell from his head.

"Whew." Liao Yu sat up from the bed suddenly, and the unusually violent beating heart in his chest was still reminding him of what kind of mysterious dream he had just experienced.

"What's wrong?" Luo Ying, who was awakened by the start, asked in a daze, and reached out to hold Liao Yu's left hand.

Liao Yu calmed down a little, held Luo Ying's small hand with his backhand, and said softly:

"It's okay, it's a little uncomfortable, you can continue to sleep, and you have to go to the hospital tomorrow."

Seeing his girlfriend's breathing gradually stabilize, the tenderness on Liao Yu's face was gradually replaced by sadness. He got up and got out of bed in his clothes, and stared out the window at the forest-like aerial passages, the shadows that crisscrossed and crisscrossed him, cutting his body to pieces.

He subconsciously reached out and pressed it on his chest, and whispered softly: "I've been having nightmares lately, is it really that my physical condition is getting worse and worse." ”

But in the silence of the night, no one could answer his whispers.

Day 2.

"The New Year of 2200 has just passed, and people are still immersed in the joy of celebrating the New Year, and the streets and alleys are ......"

“…… The latest generation of AI CPU performance enhancements have once again broken through to a new level, and the technology has taken the combination of VR and AR to a new level. …… On the 20th of last month, the Third Research Institute of CD City announced the development of a new generation of intelligent medical devices, with the help of these new devices, human research on their own bodies has taken a big step. ”

Liao Yu sat indifferently on the unmanned bus, and the daily news broadcast came from the earphones. In the 22nd century, when information exploded, these seemingly uplifting and self-proclaimed news ahead of the times can only serve as background music during his morning waking up.

The complex air passages connect all corners of the city, but today there are very few vehicles traveling in the air, and Liao Yu is the only one on the unmanned bus. The sheer number of public transport and flying machines gave him the illusion that everything in front of him seemed more like a labyrinth of indifference than the city he had known for years.

At Liao Yu's feet is the maglev passage that he passes through every day to work, and now most of the vehicles in the air are controlled by the Zhi Brain, and they are numbly speeding towards the destination day after day according to the set route. Countless aerial passages and protective nets fill the space between the 100-storey buildings, like a primeval forest made of metal, which is a bit daunting.

Above him, towering buildings pierced into the sky, and when he looked up, he could hardly see the top, and could only vaguely distinguish the air purification layer in the sky that loomed above the city.

Liao Yu raised his gaze to look in all directions, and through the transparent glass of the elevators, he saw many people who had just finished the New Year hurriedly taking the elevators up or down to where they should go.

"I'm not the only one working so hard."

Liao Yu slowly retracted his gaze and comforted himself.

With the rise of virtual reality and intelligent robots, a large number of jobs have been occupied or eliminated. Even with the dividends of new industries, as the population base increases, more and more people become unemployed. However, due to the rapid development of food, health care and urban infrastructure, ordinary citizens can rely on public welfare to survive even if they do not work, but only without worrying about food and clothing.

No matter how prosperous the era is, there will definitely be a class and a gap between the rich and the poor, and no matter how great a person is, he cannot escape birth, old age, sickness and death. People's desires do not stop there because of the era and the development of science and technology, and new things will always arouse human desires to go further. As long as human beings still have desires, those troubles will never go away.

"Hey, so early."

Liao Yu, who had just stepped into the office, was suddenly slapped on the shoulder from behind.

"I'll go, scare me."

Liao Yu trembled nervously, and slapped the hand of his colleague Zheng Wei behind him with his backhand.

"What's wrong, so sensitive." Zheng Weihu looked at Liao Yu suspiciously, he was Liao Yu's sworn friend and alumnus, and then he turned around, and the two could still work in the same place, but it was also fate.

"It's okay, I didn't sleep well last night." Liao Yu rubbed his eyes, sat down and turned on the computer and medical management system.

Zheng Wei looked Liao Yu up and down worriedly, and said, "It's okay, how is your body doing recently." ”

Liao Yu sighed lightly: "It's okay, that's it, there's still time to exercise every day, it's not too bad." What about you, come so early and rest a few more days away from home. ”

"It's not that you said that you are going to work overtime, I am not worried about you, what if you are strangled to death by these medical devices in the hospital alone, and you can get many times your salary."

", get down to business." Liao Yu said this, but there was a trace of warmth in his heart.

"Okay, okay, I'll go and turn on the cleaning system first." Zheng Wei pointed to the multi-armed intelligent robot in the testing machine tank in front of him. "I'll leave it to you."

With the sound of Zheng Wei's door closing, Liao Yu was once again left alone in this white and empty room. He looked at the cold white in his eyes, and he felt a little sick to his stomach for a while. I don't know if this is my own delusion or the result of my own deteriorating physical condition.

Liao Yu shook his head and threw out these inexplicable negative thoughts, sighed and began to tidy up his office. He used to earn a decent income by working as a medical program writer in a hospital and as an assistant to a part-time university history professor. It's a pity that the economic situation has declined in recent years, and there have been some problems with their own investment and health, all of which together are not as comfortable as some unemployed vagrants who have houses at home.

Sometimes Liao Yu can't help but think that a person's life really depends on timing and fate.

Liao Yu turned on the system to check these intelligent machines one by one, looking at the wires, artificial skins and an alloy skeleton in front of him, he inexplicably remembered those slender men in history, as if the scene in front of him gradually coincided with the 3D pictures in the school book. Those cold wires seemed to be coming back to life in the next second, and they were strangled on their shoulders and necks, and they could only follow the arrangement of life step by step and go to the established end.

"What's the shock?,That PDG-456 over there seems to be a little problem.,The two next to it too.,You go and take a look.,I'll check the error reported by the department here during the holiday.。 Zheng Wei, who had just entered the office, found Liao Yu in a daze and patted him on the shoulder from behind.

"Oh, it's okay, it's okay." Liao Yu suddenly came back to his senses, and then walked quickly towards the medical machinery.

"Well, this is a bit of a problem with the track below, and at the same time it tears the artificial skin outside, so the safety system automatically stops after detecting it, and it can be thrown to the hardware maintenance department." Liao Yu checked it a little and found the problem.

Speaking of this, Liao Yu paused, and suddenly brought up another topic: "Is there any news for Lu Wenlong?" ”

The sound of Zheng Wei tapping on the keyboard suddenly stopped, and after a while, it returned to its previous frequency.

"No, it's not like it's been checked for a day or two, and the funds haven't been found yet, how can you be so lucky." Zheng Wei's tone was a little less relaxed than before.

Liao Yu was silent, his eyes subconsciously glanced at the location of the mobile phone, and the number that had already been memorized appeared in front of him.

"Don't worry about it for now, are you going to school today, and still have classes?"

"I'll go and see, my professor should be in class in two days, I'll sort it out first, lest the old man talk about me."

"Okay, I'll take it first." Zheng Wei patted Liao Yu's shoulder, leaned closer and said, "It's still a vacation today, the hospital is not very busy, just slip away when you have something to do, and I'll help you change the attendance system later." ”

Liao Yu nodded silently, revealing a smile that he hadn't seen for a long time.

In the evening, Liao Yu was alone at home sorting out historical notes, and Luo Ying went to the hospital to take care of her parents and did not come back tonight.

Since most of the records of the original ancestors were paper books, it took up a lot of space to sort out. Fortunately, a lot of furniture can be deformed to a limited extent, and it can still free up a lot of space. Liao Yu has always preferred the unique ink fragrance of paper books, so sorting out these quaint books is a rare pleasure of his own on weekdays.

"I don't know how people lived in the past, but now with 3D projection, VR communication, and all kinds of aircraft, I feel that I don't have the feelings in the past in the books, and I always feel ......" Liao Yu was thinking so, and accidentally caught a glimpse that the computer that had been folded and turned off suddenly turned on by itself.

"Huh?!" Liao Yu frowned, got up and walked over to check, but in the end found nothing. Liao Yu stretched out his fingers and tapped on the computer shell, and finally turned it off and put it back in its place, ready to check it again another day.

But before Liao Yu could immerse himself in the book again, the computer unfolded on its own again.

"What's going on?" Liao Yu stretched out his hand and pulled the computer with a puzzled expression, but the computer was still full of black after unfolding, and there was no sign of booting.

Just as Liao Yu was about to check it thoroughly after turning on the computer, he didn't expect the computer to display a line of words on its own with a black screen.

"Do you want medicine and real wealth for all ailments?"

Liao Yu was stunned for a few seconds when he saw this, and then shook his head a little funny, how could he be interested in this kind of trick. I don't know who hacked into his computer and played this kind of mischievous joke on himself.

However, for some reason, Liao Yu stared at the sentence in front of him, and a voice seemed to come from the bottom of his heart, inducing him to believe what he saw in front of him.

When Liao Yu came back to his senses suddenly, he realized that he had stretched out his finger and pointed on the computer screen at some point, and the computer screen had already returned to black at this time, and everything that had just happened seemed to be a dream.

Liao Yu slowly withdrew his fingers, his eyes swept back and forth between his fingers and the screen several times, and then immediately pulled the computer, completely unfolded the computer and turned it on, and then carefully checked the running code and access records of the computer during this time.

However, no matter how Liao Yu checked it over and over again, the computer no longer showed anything abnormal. After half an hour of investigation, Liao Yu had to wonder if it was really the other party's superior skills, so that he couldn't catch the traces of the other party's invasion at all.

"Wait, my computer has information on investing in drugs, I don't think I have been connected to the Internet for a few months."

As soon as he thought of this, Liao Yu immediately signaled the sensors in his home to turn on most of the lights, and at the same time called up the indoor surveillance and began to carefully check every corner of the home, he wondered if someone had physically modified his computer in reality.

"No ......" However, dozens of minutes have passed, Liao Yu has gone through all the videos in the past two months, but except for Luo Ying, her family and two close friends, no one has ever stepped into her door.

"Is it true that I'm too tired?" Liao Yu sat alone in the study, propping his forehead on the armrest. At his signal, the lights in the home began to turn off one after another, and finally only the lonely lamp in the study was still supporting the light, casting his elongated and emaciated figure on the tall bookshelves.