Planetary Museum

"Is it the Qingtian Building? It's here."

Shen Changwen looked at the building outside the car window, and the four bright red characters of Qingtian Building were shining in the night.

"How much."

"72 yuan.

Shen Changwen handed over a 100 yuan bill.

"Sorry, no change, do you have WeChat and Alipay?"

Shen Changwen waved his hand.

"Then I'll go ahead and find you..."

"No, I mean no need," Shen Changwen said, "you don't need to look for it."

"That's so embarrassing." The driver looked around, as if looking for a small shop that was open.

"I have something urgent." Shen Changwen waved his hands and got out of the car after speaking.

I checked the time, it was already past one o'clock in the morning, and few pedestrians could be seen on the whole street.

The security guards of the building were also sleeping. When Shen Changwen walked in, for some reason, he deliberately slowed down his steps, as if he was afraid of waking up the security guards.

This building should have been around for some years, and the interior decoration looks a little aged and yellowed. The elevator made a discordant collision sound when it was running. When the elevator door opened in front of him, Shen Changwen suddenly felt emotional: "I'm old... ...I am getting old."

The elevator door closed in front of him, and the closed small room stopped in place. Shen Changwen looked at the buttons marking the floors, and suddenly hesitated again in his heart.

He opened the elevator door, but didn't take a step out.He is no longer a young man in his 30s or [-]s.The ancients said that when you are fifty, you know the destiny, the destiny...the destiny is that you have to do some things whether you like it or not, and once you have started to play some roles, you must continue to act until the end of the whole scene.

Shen Changwen pressed b2.

In the dark parking lot, only a few sparse lights were on. These lights pulled Shen Changwen's body into long shadows, and he walked forward step by step along the shadows.

5, 6, 7.

b1, b2.

This is a very ordinary small warehouse, both in terms of size and facilities, it is very inconspicuous.He raised his head, looked at the monitor above his head, and nodded at it.Then he heard a soft knock, and a door opened on one side of the warehouse.

Shen Changwen walked in.

In the room, a fully automatic forklift was moving supplies, full boxes of milk powder and vitamins.Shen Changwen has learned about the accounts of these supplies through Chen She, and of course he knows their purpose. The victims are generally facing the plight of malnutrition, and these are used for disaster relief.

There were several chairs beside him, and Shen Changwen watched the forklift go back and forth three times before sitting down.

The search and rescue team has been silent.

This made Shen Changwen realize a detail, that is, before that, every word the search and rescue team said seemed to be related to the rescue mission.Outside of missions, search and rescue teams never get involved in topics they don't want to talk about.

From this point of view, it is like a machine.

This is normal. When machines do things, they only talk about the process, regardless of the purpose.

But the machine of the search and rescue team is different in many ways.

In the process of discussing the plan with the search and rescue team many times, Shen Changwen has clearly understood the decision-making process of the search and rescue team.No matter what the plan is, war, slavery, deceit...all these unethical behaviors are not a problem for the search and rescue team. All its choices have a clear purpose, that is, how many people will be rescued in the end.

From this point of view, it is like a human being, and like an outstanding political leader.

Perhaps, it was "designed" to be such a leader.

"Search and rescue team... this is your profession." Shen Changwen broke the silence, "You chose it, or you were chosen."

"Professor, did you choose, or were you chosen?" The search and rescue team used Wu Xiaoqing's voice, but the tone of speech was not at all what Wu Xiaoqing could imitate.

"I can resign at any time," Shen Changwen smiled, "Can you?"

"I know what you mean, professor. But the premise of this question does not exist. If the entire earth disappears completely at this moment, then professor, would you still say that you can resign at any time? All the restrictions on you, all the generalizations of your behavior It's all gone, but you keep doing your old job—it's just a kind of inertia, or, you think, that's the only thing that makes sense, Professor, that's all."

Shen Changwen smiled stiffly: "If the earth disappears...I'm afraid I'm not as strong as you."

"It's just a difference in life form. If I too were trapped in a brain made of meat, with all thinking limited by chemical stimuli, I wouldn't be any better than you, Professor. We all have our roles and we all have roles to play." I have my own things to do, that's all, Professor. You came here today, does it mean that everything continues as before?"

Shen Changwen smiled wryly: "In your eyes, isn't my approach ridiculous?"

"Struggling for control is the instinct of life, and even wisdom, professor, throughout every civilization I know, your approach is understandable."

"Is this your consolation?"

"You are the one who needs comfort the least among the four Earthlings who participated in the rescue, Professor. To some extent, the common language between you and me far exceeds the sum of the three of them."

"But you still chose Wu Xiaoqing because he is easy to control?"

"This is the thinking of you people on Earth. In my opinion, any one of you is very easy to control."

I have to say that this was a bit of a blow to Shen Changwen, but Shen Changwen had to admit that this was the truth.The so-called unpredictability of people on earth may not be considered a problem for the search and rescue team.Unpredictable?Will it be harder than predicting the volatility of the entire futures market?

"Wu Xiaoqing was chosen because he is younger and has a more suitable personality."

"Just young?" This is not moving bricks at a construction site, or recruiting workers in a factory, let alone a boss recruiting a secretary.

"Youth means a lot, professor. No, youth means everything. For example, Wu Xiaoqing won't do the game between us. Doesn't he want to? It's because he doesn't understand at all."

"That's because he is easy to control. It may be completely different if you change to a smarter young man."

"With your so-called smartness, there is no such thing as my so-called youth, Professor. The kind of person you mentioned should be called premature aging... In my opinion, one of the greatest advantages of being young is sincerity. Sincerity can make a person People really see the problem and give everything to solve it. None of us have this quality.”

"Including you?"

"Of course, comparatively speaking, I am older than you. Aging makes people hopeless, Professor."

"But from my point of view, you directed the entire rescue operation, Wu Xiaoqing...he is just an execution machine."

"Then who is not, Professor. By your definition, I am a machine, a machine designed to save civilization. Just because I am better at thinking, does it appear that I am a bit more 'advanced'? Your intelligence is just It is an accidental product of evolution, but it does not mean that all civilizations are like this. First-rate civilizations design civilizations, and second-rate civilizations optimize civilizations... Even for the real top-level civilization designers, the process of thinking is definitely not independent—this world There are no individuals who truly think for themselves, and we are all but reflections of the universe."

Even for Shen Changwen, it took some energy to understand the content of this paragraph. He chewed every word of the search and rescue team carefully, but he no longer had any thoughts in his mind.

In the final analysis, he is just an ordinary human in this small world. Human beings have never even come into contact with any extraterrestrial civilization, and the search and rescue team in front of them, just listening to his words, knows that its previous experience is definitely not his. can imagine.He is looking forward to the real universe described by the search and rescue team-on earth, even if he waits another 1000 years, he may not have the opportunity to contact other civilizations.

What shame is there in admitting defeat to an alien?It would be really strange if he could win.

"If intelligence like yours is designed by people, it's hard for me to imagine what the civilization of this designer is like now. How big is their territory? Master an entire galaxy?"

The search and rescue team didn't speak, but stopped what they were doing, and shook their heads with their robot heads.

"Maybe it's bigger than I thought... The problem of faster-than-light travel has also been solved... Even if you tell me that the entire universe is ruled by them, I won't be surprised."

The search and rescue team did not answer Shen Changwen's questions, but told him: "When I was in Elis, I heard Xu Yan talk about Bill Gates, the richest man in the world. He told Wang Youquan that Bill Gates is so rich that every meal must be delicious. Eat the biggest lobster, let a dozen Miss World serve him for dinner, and buy the whole bathhouse when he goes out to take a bath."

Shen Changwen blushed a little, he understood what the search and rescue team meant.

"Using the words of your earthlings, no matter how wise you are, how powerful you are, or how rich you are in life, the final outcome is just a coffin or an urn. This sentence is also true for civilization. Of course there are technologies far beyond your imagination, and so do difficulties far beyond your imagination. The more civilization develops, the more mature it becomes, just like the human body, aging is always inevitable, and death is also inevitable. No matter how great a civilization is , the last thing you have may be nothing more than a planet, a tomb."

Shen Changwen couldn't understand the civilization that the search and rescue team said, and he couldn't imagine what a civilization would look like when it got old.But he understands aging itself - because he is stepping into it.

"So, what we saved before can only be regarded as civilized babies?"

"That's what it means, aging civilizations... We don't have the cost or technology to save them... But, if possible, we should choose those that are more mature."

"That's why, if it's all inevitable, as you say."

"Because we are life..." The search and rescue team's tone was calm, but Shen Changwen was shocked when he heard it, "A truly free life cannot accept fate. All inevitable things are experience and history. Eternity is the last eternity of life." The pursuit of immortality is not only the dream of you humans."