Chapter 75: Eternal Sleep Project (End)

Just as Xia Mi’s stinginess was flaring up, a line of text appeared before her eyes.

“Shield”: [Stop fretting. Deputy Director Jiao said he’ll reimburse you.]

Xia Mi’s face instantly lit up with a broad grin. “Sister Shield, you can still see what’s happening to me?”

“Shield”: [Everything became blurry the moment you entered the elevator, but just now I suddenly saw you looking like a total miser while clutching your phone. I suspect it’s because you wanted me to see, so I could witness what’s happening here. You were reaching out for help.]

Xia Mi said, “Tell the great Deputy Director Jiao for me that I love him.”

“Shield”: [He says you should just keep calling him Old Jiao. He can’t handle your love – he’s afraid of having his car stolen by the Drone again.]

Xia Mi didn’t actually love Jiao Xingjian, of course. What she loved was the sheer aura of Old Jiao saying he would reimburse her!

With Old Jiao’s promise, Xia Mi didn’t hesitate for another second. She tossed her expensive tri-fold phone into the hexagonal crystal. Why worry? Out with the old, in with the new.

The phone vanished inside, but the crystal showed no reaction.

Xia Mi circled the crystal a few times, realizing that “The Hive” had nothing to do with the phone itself.

It made sense when she thought about it. The game had already transferred from her computer to her old phone, and then to her new phone. She could change phones as she pleased, but “The Hive” wouldn’t just follow the hardware.

“The Hive” was her ability. If “The Hive” returning to its place meant she had to lie inside the crystal herself…

She already had the “Queen Bee” inside her. If she lay down in there, both “The Hive” and the “Queen Bee” would be back where they belonged. Everything would be settled, and she would enter an eternal sleep alongside the “Queen Bee.” How “perfect” that would be!

But that wouldn’t do. She still had to go back and marry Xiao Liao, become a leader, and reach the pinnacle of her life.

Xia Mi had originally intended to reach in and grab her phone back, but after realizing this, she didn’t dare put her hand inside. What if she got trapped?

The best way was to strip both “The Hive” and the “Queen Bee” from her body and send them into the crystal together, but Xia Mi had no idea how to do that.

However, Xia Mi didn’t panic. In the game, Liao Tianhua’s perspective had shown Xia Mi successfully sealing the “Queen Bee,” which meant there had to be a way.

With her intelligence, she could definitely figure it out within the time limit.

Her powerful self-confidence kept Xia Mi calm, allowing her to steady her emotions even in this situation and maintain a firm suppression of the “Queen Bee’s” consciousness.

She stared at the “8” on the crystal. It occurred to her that she might be able to communicate with this crystal, her ability, and even the future through this mysterious symbol.

Xia Mi reached out and drew the symbol “8” in the air. Not knowing if it worked better horizontally or vertically, she drew it vertically a few times, then horizontally a few times.

As if she had entered the correct password, the scene before Xia Mi’s eyes shifted. She felt as though she had entered a profound, mysterious collective consciousness.

Countless Consciousness Threads appeared before her, some belonging to humans, others to the “Zhuo.”

These threads branched out continuously, merging and intertwining to create countless paths and infinite endings.

A road appeared beneath Xia Mi’s feet. It wasn’t straight; it had countless forks, each as wide as the main road.

Xia Mi turned around and saw the path she had already walked.

At the very end of the road was the version of herself just after high school graduation, discussing travel plans with her classmates.

Back then, her classmates had made several suggestions: Beijing, Hangzhou, Anhui, Hainan, Yunnan, Hong Kong, Macau… countless options, each corresponding to a different fork in the road.

It was Xia Mi who had made the final call to go to Thailand, because domestic travel was expensive everywhere during the summer break, while going abroad was actually a bit cheaper.

That decision brought Xia Mi one step closer to the “Queen Bee.”

Then, Xia Mi had presented facts and reasons to convince her parents to let her go abroad, which brought her another step closer to her fate.

Once in Thailand, Xia Mi initially didn’t want to go to the ladyboy show. She didn’t care for that kind of performance, so she put it off for several days.

Later, following the traditional mindset of “since we’re already here,” Xia Mi eventually went along with her friends and encountered Xiao Feng at exactly the right time.

Her encounter with the “Queen Bee” was a meeting that occurred after countless choices. Before that, any single choice could have prevented it from happening.

Xia Mi saw that on the road from the end of the college entrance exams to obtaining the “Queen Bee,” there were countless forks that had become dead ends.

At that moment, she heard a misty, ethereal voice that was neither male nor female: “Before I met you, I had already used the power of ‘The Hive’ to interfere with the choices of those around you countless times, trying to prevent this meeting. Yet you still pushed through all the interference and walked toward me.

“This is not just your destined fate, but mine as well.”

Xia Mi said, “You are the ‘Queen Bee’?”

“I am,” the “Queen Bee” replied. “You have opened a connection channel here, entering your own world of consciousness to speak with me.”

Xia Mi asked, “You just said that before we met, you used ‘The Hive’ on me. Did you treat me like a game NPC?”

The “Queen Bee” said, “To use your concepts, I treated you like a game boss that had to be cleared. The game’s mission was to prevent the boss from meeting me, but I was unable to influence your choices.”

Xia Mi scratched her head. “Then it was useless to just focus on me. You should have focused on Xiao Feng, manipulated the Immortal Foundation, and stopped them from taking you out of ‘The Hive’ in the first place!

“You can’t just use one method when playing a game. You have to try different things to figure out the right strategy.”

The “Queen Bee” spoke without any emotion. “But I also wanted to take the opportunity to wake up. I wanted to use Xiao Feng to escape the Immortal Foundation’s control. At the time, Xiao Feng was the only one who could accommodate me while briefly maintaining his sanity. I wanted to wait a bit longer, but Xiao Feng’s body could no longer withstand the next experiment. If I had waited any longer, he would have died during the testing. I would have lost my chance and been forced to endure the Immortal Foundation’s experiments, letting them drain my energy.”

Xia Mi said, “So the Immortal Foundation was performing experiments around you to drain your energy?”

The “Queen Bee” said, “Without my energy, they would have been unable to create so many fused organisms. I am the ‘Queen.’ I instinctively expand my swarm. When they performed experiments near me to cultivate new kin, I instinctively protected the lives of those clansmen. That is why their experiment success rate was so high.”

“The kin within the laboratory were born under my protection, so they worship me and are loyal to me. But if things continue like this, I will never be able to wake up. I would be drained of energy by my endlessly breeding kin, and those kin would be manipulated by the Immortal Foundation, never gaining their freedom.

“To prevent this, I had to leave the laboratory and find a suitable country to absorb enough energy before returning to save my trapped kin.

“Xiao Feng was an excellent candidate. I could temporarily suppress my instincts, allowing him to contain me and take me to a place with a high human population. Once I fed through his body and gained enough energy, I would have achieved my freedom.

“But through ‘The Hive,’ I saw you at the end of this path. You blocked all my ways. I did not want to meet you; I wanted to avoid you. Yet it seems fate cannot be changed. I interfered with the consciousness of countless people, even making your parents oppose you going abroad, but you still came before me according to your established destiny.

“Even if ‘The Hive’ can manipulate the entire world, it cannot resist fate.”

After listening, Xia Mi said something the Queen Bee completely did not expect: “Your verbal skills are incredible. Is your IQ really that high?”

The thought of a high-dimensional being with such a high IQ staying inside her body for four or five years suddenly made Xia Mi feel quite terrified.

The Queen Bee replied, “I didn’t have it at first. But after learning from you for so long, absorbing knowledge from the outside world, attending university with you, studying for the civil service exams, and even participating in group interview training with you, how could my expression be poor?

“You are a ‘Rong,’ a fusion of human and ‘Zhuo.’ Not only did you gain extraordinary abilities, but I also gained human wisdom and thought patterns.

“Before meeting you, I was the Queen Bee, possessing no independent consciousness, only instinct. If I had possessed consciousness then, I would never have been drawn to the energy within you despite sensing you were my natural enemy. At that time, I had no reason and could not suppress my instinctive impulses, which led to this tragedy. Now that I have consciousness, my race will surely be stronger in the future.”

Xia Mi remained silent.

She felt a sense of foreboding, as if she had raised a terrifying enemy.

The Queen Bee sighed. “You need not worry. Your influence on me goes far beyond this. Besides wisdom and knowledge, your desire to protect ordinary people has also affected me. I accepted your wisdom, and simultaneously, I must accept your values. Under your influence, I am unwilling to strike against humanity, which is why the ‘Eternal Sleep Project’ exists.”

Xia Mi asked, “The ‘Eternal Sleep Project’ was your idea?”

“No,” the Queen Bee said. “You manipulated me into thinking of it.”

Xia Mi did not understand what the Queen Bee meant.

The Queen Bee explained, “I once simulated ‘The Hive’ in an attempt to use it to escape your control, but the ‘Hive’ I worked so hard to create became your ability instead.

“It is as if I developed the game’s source code, but you are the lead designer. No matter how I run the calculations, I must follow your design. I cannot escape your control.

“I tried to manipulate ‘The Hive’ countless times, but every attempt ended in failure. Those diverging paths behind you were moments where I wanted to kill you, only to be discovered by you and ‘The Hive,’ who stopped my actions in time.

“After many failures, I realized that ‘The Hive’ would only be willing to push a plan forward if I came up with one that benefited both you and me. That is how the ‘Eternal Sleep Project’ came to be.

“I will take your wisdom and my kin into a long sleep, using that vast stretch of time to escape the control of your consciousness. This happens to help you crush the Immortal Foundation’s plans, complete a major mission, and rid yourself of the Queen Bee’s influence, allowing the organization to trust and rely on you completely.

“This is the only way for a win-win outcome.

“Once I deduced this plan, ‘The Hive’ began to assist me, pushing the surrounding events to develop rapidly in this direction.”

So that was the true origin of the “Eternal Sleep Project.”

Xia Mi said, “How long do you plan to sleep? A few decades doesn’t count as a long sleep.”

The Queen Bee replied, “As long as it takes for me to rid myself of your consciousness’s influence.”

Xia Mi said, “You’ve only been with me for four and a half years. It shouldn’t take more than a few years to shake off that influence and make a comeback, right? Won’t humanity face a catastrophe again then?”

The Queen Bee said, “You underestimate the influence of your consciousness. You are essentially my parent, the one who taught me to have consciousness. You humans struggle your entire lives to escape the influence of your original families. Do you think I can escape you so quickly? Are you overestimating me, or underestimating yourself?”

Xia Mi replied, “…Thank you for such high praise.”

The Queen Bee said, “I am not praising you. I find you quite loathsome, like a ubiquitous cockroach – invasive, shameless, resilient, and unyielding. I will need a very, very long time to escape your influence. It might take hundreds of years, or perhaps thousands. Fortunately, our lives are long enough. We can wait for another era. When even your ashes have decomposed, we will finally return.

“By then, the enemies we face will be the people of the next era, and it will have nothing to do with you. You are trading time for the long sleep of artificial beings and the destruction of the Immortal Foundation’s ambitions. It is a very good deal.”

Xia Mi felt that the Queen Bee’s way of thinking was remarkably similar to her own.

She truly was a child raised by her; every thought aligned perfectly.

Jiao Xingjian had once said that the human heart contains “Zhuo.” As long as humans exist, the companion “Zhuo” will never disappear. The battle between humans and the “Zhuo” of the heart will continue forever.

Humans will never completely defeat “Zhuo,” and “Zhuo” will never be able to fully eliminate humanity.

Because the “Zhuo” within the heart is eternal.

All they could do was give their all to secure peace for a single era.

The people of the present solve the problems of the present, while the crises of the next era are left for the people of the next era to resolve.

Xia Mi said, “I accept your idea, and I am willing to hand over ‘The Hive’ and you. Not only that, but I will also thank you.”

“It is nothing more than mutual benefit, and a solution you forced out of me at that. What is there to be thankful for? Gaining your wisdom does not mean I agree with your way of thinking,” the Queen Bee said.

Xia Mi said, “I am thanking you for saving Xiao Liao. I would have successfully executed the Eternal Sleep Project even without the game’s help, but Xiao Liao would have slept forever alongside you. That would have been too pitiful for him.”

Xia Mi was sincerely grateful, but the Queen Bee gave a cold snort and said, “Pitiful my ass!”

Xia Mi: “?”

The Queen Bee said, “I didn’t do it for him, and I didn’t do it for you. I did it for our species. I can vaguely see the distant future through the Consciousness Threads. If we took him into slumber with us, he would constantly bring you up after we woke in the future. He would miss you and repeat the ideals you shared, reviving the mental influence I’ve finally managed to shake off. He is just like you – a cockroach, a piece of scum. Our eternal sleep won’t include him!”

Xia Mi: “…”

So she refused to take him because she found Xiao Liao repulsive. Xia Mi had actually thought the Queen Bee was being gentle; she had definitely overthought it.

These words made Xia Mi truly realize that those of a different species can never be of one mind¹. The Queen Bee had been forced into cooperation not for the sake of humanity, but for the sake of the Zhuo.

This was a “peace” born from Xia Mi’s oppression.

“What should I do?” Xia Mi asked. “I don’t know how to release you and The Hive.”

The Queen Bee said, “The path ahead has already been laid. Just walk forward.”

Xia Mi looked at the path before her and took a step.

With that step, countless images surfaced in her mind – a future simulated by The Hive.

In the images, she saw the Queen Bee sleeping in a different location. She saw them interrogating the researchers to get the list of the people behind the Immortal Foundation. She saw herself following a secret team abroad on missions, covertly hunting down those responsible for the foundation.

She took another step and saw herself promoted to Deputy Director, then Director. Even past the age of thirty, her physical condition remained robust. Liao Tianhua, however, was unable to continue frontline work as he grew older due to injuries sustained in his youth. He had transferred to the Logistics Group, working a nine-to-five job every day with time to care for his family.

Xia Mi found time to have a child, and Liao Tianhua was responsible for the child’s education.

It was truly perfect.

However, Xia Mi stopped looking. She closed off her consciousness and walked forward with determination.

The Queen Bee asked, “Why have you stopped looking at your future?”

Xia Mi said, “If I see the future now, I’ll be limited by it. What if the future tells me I can’t rise another rank once I become Deputy Director? Am I supposed to let that trap me?

“If you hadn’t used The Hive to interfere with fate back then, perhaps we never would have met at all.

“Fate is something you walk out for yourself. It shouldn’t be fixed.”

Xia Mi already knew that she could seal the Queen Bee by reaching the end of the path. She stopped checking her future, closed her mind, and took several quick steps until she reached the end.

Upon arriving, the energy on Xia Mi’s body transformed into countless Silkworm threads, wrapping the hexagonal crystal into a massive cocoon.

By the time she reached the end of the path, Xia Mi had already withdrawn from the consciousness space. She took off her goggles, looked at the massive cocoon before her, and spoke the line from the game’s ending: “Sleep now. This era does not belong to you. Please do not wake up at this moment.”

The cocoon released countless Consciousness Threads, controlling the Zhuo-mutated monsters throughout the laboratory. They would fall into slumber along with the cocoon.

Xia Mi said, “When the next era arrives, there will be countless people like me to fight you. Humanity still won’t lose.”

The cocoon vibrated violently a few times, as if roaring at Xia Mi in rage.

Xia Mi didn’t care. She left the room and climbed up the elevator’s steel cable.

With her superhuman physical attributes, she reached the top quickly.

She leaped out of the elevator shaft and saw Liao Tianhua waiting for her outside the doors. His body was normal, as young and handsome as ever, and he hadn’t turned into a slime monster.

Xia Mi said happily to Liao Tianhua, “I saw your future! Your hair stays thick forever, no balding at all. I’m so happy!”

Infected by her smile, Liao Tianhua asked, “I thought you liked balding?”

“That’s because most leaders have thinning hair. I just like being a leader; I don’t actually like balding,” Xia Mi said.

Liao Tianhua said, “My abilities have vanished. The Hive has been unraveled. I’ve already notified the team to come down and make arrests. With professionals to unlock the doors, the researchers in the secret rooms won’t be able to hide for long.”

Xia Mi said, “Tell Old Jiao to prepare submarines and underwater equipment. This island is disintegrating. The Queen Bee intends to take the Zhuo-mutated monsters into the deep sea, beyond human reach, for their eternal sleep. The island will sink in a little while.”

Liao Tianhua glanced down and said, “That’s for the best. I was actually a bit worried our people would occupy this lab and continue researching the Zhuo-mutated monsters. It’s better for everyone if they sink completely and stay far away from humanity.”

“Exactly,” Xia Mi said, taking Liao Tianhua’s hand. “Xiao Liao, as soon as we get back, we’ll…”

Liao Tianhua knew Xia Mi wanted to say they would get married when they returned. He looked at her with some anticipation, waiting for her to say the words.

At that moment, Xia Mi slapped her forehead and said excitedly, “My phone! I forgot to take my phone out of the crystal before I sealed the Queen Bee! My new phone wasn’t even a month old! When I get back, I’m going to find Old Jiao…”

Just then, Jiao Xingjian arrived with his men. Hearing Xia Mi mention him, his voice arrived before he did. He said at the doorway, “What do you want with me when we get back?”

Xia Mi immediately ditched Liao Tianhua and rushed over to Jiao Xingjian. “Reimburse my phone and apply for a First-Class Merit for me!”

Jiao Xingjian said with exasperation, “Look at you, where is your ambition? You’ll get what’s yours, can’t you be a little more modest and subtle about it?”

Xia Mi said bluntly, “I’d be modest with other leaders, but you’re Old Jiao. We’re so close, I won’t bother pretending.”

Liao Tianhua couldn’t help but smile as he listened to Xia Mi bargaining with Deputy Director Jiao.

Putting her career first no matter what – that was the real Xia Mi!

• End –

Translator’s Notes