Countdown: Humanity's struggle to survive against yesterday

Chapter 88 A Different Approach

These things sound simple, but in reality, it's a very complex and tedious process.

From hundreds of millions of cloud data points, we need to select groups of samples according to different time periods, and then observe these samples. This process is time-consuming and arduous.

Deep within Jiangning lies a mysterious space, with countless clouds overhead, roughly divided into two categories: those who are awake and those who are asleep.

These cloud points are not automatically categorized, so Jiangning needs to manually filter them every so often.

A group of people who had fallen asleep at some unknown time had their beads turned gray and were moved to gray clouds; the same thing happened the other way around.

Besides the clouds overhead, there were also clusters of clouds in front of Jiang Ning, each representing a specially selected village, town, and so on.

Behind them were the names that Chang Niankong would call out from time to time. These beads were arranged like candied hawthorns, with ten beads in each group, forming a spectacular sight.

Fortunately, this mysterious space was large enough. Apart from not knowing what material was underfoot, the surroundings and the ceiling seemed infinitely large, making it impossible to estimate the exact size of the space.

Jiang Ning also tried walking around, but he found that no matter how he moved, his viewpoint seemed to be locked, and the scenery he saw was always the same.

Apart from the clouds of beads that can be enlarged and shrunk, there was nothing different about the surroundings.

This led him to give up the idea of ​​exploring.

Suddenly, Jiang Ning sensed an unusual movement.

Is another major global regression about to begin?

Jiang Ning quickly looked at the bead in his hand that represented Chang Niankong. He saw that Chang Niankong inside the bead was unaware that the world was about to begin to regress. After five or six hours of continuous memorization, he looked very tired.

"Zhao Yingying, Chen Shuangli..."

Jiang Ning only remembered these two names, and felt that these were the two people.

Upon searching, dozens of beads were immediately pulled out.

Jiang Ning knew that these were all people with the same name, but he didn't care. He simply lined them up in a row, and they were all gray and grayish-white, with no visible difference.

"Bang……"

Jiang Ning felt his consciousness explode instantly, and he lost consciousness.

……

"Team Leader Jiang..."

After an unknown amount of time, Jiang Ning opened his eyes and saw Lu Xue looking at him curiously with her clear eyes.

"Team Leader Jiang is awake!"

Seeing that Jiang Ning's eyes were starting to focus, Lu Xue quickly shouted loudly.

"Xiao Ning, are you alright?" Sun Fumin squeezed forward and helped Jiang Ning up.

Jiang Ning rubbed his neck, feeling a sore back and aching waist.

This is because he had put his backpack on before conducting the experiment.

There were about 30 kilograms of items in the bag. I slept with this heavy bag on my back, and I don't know how long I slept, so I felt very tired when I woke up.

It just exploded with a conscious sound.

It's nothing!

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened; the entire Huitian Group knew about it.

That's a scene that Jiang Ning will encounter every time he stays in the mysterious space during the world's regression.

Aside from sleeping for half a day, there are no other side effects.

"How long did I sleep?"

Jiang Ning rubbed his face vigorously, stood up with Sun Fumin's help, looked around, and found that he was still in the northeast corner of the basement level. He couldn't help but ask.

"One hour!"

Chang Niankong looked down at the sleep bracelet on her wrist. In addition to monitoring sleep, the bracelet can also be used as a watch.

"Is the data still there?" Jiang Ning asked Zhang Jimin.

"The data is out, and it's not much different from the previous days," Zhang Jimin said dejectedly. "You didn't find anything in the consciousness space."

"No!" Jiang Ning shook his head.

"Then let's do it again..." Su Mian said earnestly from the side.

Sun Fumin and Lu Xue exchanged a glance and nodded, "Again!"

……

Consciousness Day is January 1, 2047, one day away from New Year's Day 2046.

After waking up, Jiang Ning still shook his head.

Seeing his expression, everyone knew that he had failed again.

For a moment, everyone in the Huitian Group except Chang Niankong looked grim, their eyes filled with resentment and helplessness.

"May the Heavenly Venerable bestow boundless blessings!"

After a long while, Chang Niankong broke the silence and uttered a Taoist chant.

Upon hearing this, the group all looked at Chang Niankong.

Jiang Ning hesitated for a second before saying, "Master Chang, I'm sorry! It seems I didn't fully utilize your memory master abilities; I've held you back."

"Team Leader Jiang, you're being too polite!"

Chang Niankong's expression was calm, and apart from a slight weariness in his eyes, he showed no signs of disappointment.

"I am also a member of the Resurrection Group, so how can you say I'm delaying anything?"

Jiang Ning nodded, said nothing more, turned away in silence, and continued to ponder where things had gone wrong.

Upon seeing this, Chang Niankong said loudly, "Team Leader Jiang, as the saying goes, the greatest truths are the simplest. Why don't we try a different approach to solve this problem?"

"Old Chang, just say what you have to say, stop beating around the bush!" Sun Fumin said, puffing on a cigarette as he stepped forward and grabbed Chang Niankong's shoulder. "Hurry up and say it, or I'll rip your dick off..."

"Ahem!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Jimin glanced at the two women, coughed twice, as if reminding Sun Fumin to watch his words, since there were female colleagues present!

Su Mian's expression remained unchanged, neither warm nor cold, her face calm. Lu Xue, however, covered her mouth and smiled.

However, Sun Fumin knew his limits and only said it casually. He put his arm around Chang Niankong's shoulder and shook him before letting go.

Jiang Ning: "Master Chang, please speak your mind. I'm not someone who can't listen to advice..."

Chang Niankong nodded, but instead of speaking directly, he asked in return, "Team Leader Jiang wants to prove that the world's regression is related to human sleep, is that right or wrong?"

"Yes!" Jiang Ning nodded.

"We've been conducting this experiment simply to verify whether sleeping or not truly affects global change, right?"

"yes!"

Chang Niankong gently placed one hand on his stomach and the other hand on the peach wood pendant at his waist. After receiving confirmation, he nodded with a smile.

"Actually, I think we've overcomplicated it!"

"How so?" Zhang Jimin couldn't help but ask.

"Look..." Chang Niankong turned around, raised his hand, and pointed to the scene on the surrounding curtains that was still rolling.

"The method we used was actually exhaustive, utilizing the extraordinary power of the Luoshu to try to observe the state of all humans at the same time."

But how difficult is this?

Even if the technology could achieve that, Team Leader Jiang's mysterious space contains 75 billion cloud points. These beads, representing each person, are constantly changing. No matter how meticulously we sample them, I don't think Team Leader Jiang could possibly compare them all.

"That's absolutely right!"

Jiang Ning made no attempt to hide anything and directly admitted, "Now that you mention it, I realize I was being naive. This method is indeed not good enough."

"Taoists often talk about governing by non-action, but non-action does not mean doing nothing. Rather, it means doing things without doing them and teaching without speaking."

"Old Chang, speak like a human being!" Sun Fumin said with a wicked grin as he reached out and grabbed at the air.

"It's really just about putting it aside, stepping back, giving way, and going around in circles."

Chang Niankong was truly helpless against Sun Fumin. Seeing his wicked smile, he quickly offered a suggestion.

"Team Leader Jiang, the simplest truths are the best. Since you believe this disaster is related to human sleep, why not just test one person..."

Upon hearing this, Jiang Ning's expression immediately changed, his face flushed, as if he had been enlightened, and he couldn't help but mutter to himself:

"yes!"

"Why not test just one person?"

"No one on Earth can escape this disaster, which means that by carefully observing the changes in a person, one can see the big picture from small details. I was so stupid to overcomplicate things."

When Su Mian, Lu Xue, and Zhang Jimin heard Jiang Ning talking to himself, they immediately realized what was going on.