novelsite Chapter 1 Rebirth in Berlin
Chapter 1 Rebirth in Berlin
04:17, apartment in Charlottenburg district, Berlin, Germany.
Absolute silence.
Wang Zhengyang awoke in silence, his consciousness rising from the chaotic depths of the ocean, yet without bringing any haziness. His senses extended outwards like a precision probe, capturing not a sight, not a sound, but touch—or more precisely, a direct "understanding" of the intrinsic structure of matter that transcended touch.
The memory foam mattress beneath him materialized into a three-dimensional stress model in his perception. He could clearly "see" every spiral of the internal spring array and feel the subtle deformation of the seventh spring in the third row due to long-term pressure, its resilience reduced by about seven percent. This detail, which he had spent three weeks repeatedly exploring and figuring out in his previous life, was now directly presented in his consciousness like a brand.
He opened his eyes and slowly sat up. The apartment room emerged in the deepest pre-dawn blue: drawings scattered on the desk, a suitcase standing in the corner, and the sleeping Berlin skyline outside the window. Everything matched his memory perfectly.
Except for that thing inside his head that's awakening.
A deep, almost silent hum resonated not through the eardrums, but directly deep within the brain. It was a frequency, a fundamental frequency that deeply resonated with the vibrations of metallic lattices, the directional flow of electric current, and all matter with a stable structure. It was cold, orderly, and possessed an inhuman precision.
Caldova Gene Engine.
In its previous life, it was passively activated at the moment of the apocalypse, accompanied by the crimson aurora of global electron annihilation and excruciating intracranial pain. Now, merely the impact of rebirth across twenty-seven years of death and time has prematurely triggered its initialization process.
[An anomaly detected in the spatiotemporal anchor point... Calibration in progress...]
[Host biomarker matching...deep gene sequence confirmation...]
[The Caldova Civilization Heritage System Launched...]
[Gene engine initializing... Current activation level: 0.1%...]
[Main functional module loading: Mechatronics (passive perception/understanding)...]
Information flow is not sound or text, but a direct infusion of knowledge, cold and absolutely rational, imprinted on the very core of thought. There is no interface, no special effects, just like suddenly understanding a physical law that you already knew.
A ripple of emotion quickly subsided in Wang Zhengyang's chest. There was no elation, no fear, only a cold confirmation: he had succeeded. That mad gamble—dragging his half-crippled mechanical body into the core of the beast tide amidst the ruins of fallen Wuhan, reversing his last bit of mental energy to bombard the gene engine in an attempt to trigger its "Emergency Protocol for the Spark of Civilization"—had actually sent him back to square one.
Thirty days before the end of the world. Seven hundred and nineteen hours and thirty-seven minutes.
He stepped out of bed barefoot, his soles touching the wooden floor. His senses instantly penetrated the surface, and a structural diagram of the underlying keel automatically formed in his mind—a tiny crack inside the third keel closest to the porch reduced its load-bearing capacity by about fifteen percent. This was the most basic manifestation of his mechanical affinity; the precision he had achieved in his previous life, taking him weeks, he now possessed instantly upon waking.
There's no time to waste on sentimentality. Every second is a bargaining chip for future survival.
He walked to the desk, without turning on the light. His fingers traced the casing of the old laptop, quickly analyzing the tactile sensation: the thickness distribution of the ABS plastic, the wear angle of the hinge, the slight looseness of a screw securing the motherboard inside. Good, stable performance, and adapting well.
I turned on my computer, entered a 24-digit complex password, and logged into a completely offline virtual machine environment. The only icon on the desktop was a Bitcoin wallet—a remnant of my casual mining spree during my university days. In my previous life, it wasn't until the day before the apocalypse, when chaos first began to emerge, that I suddenly remembered that my hasty cash-out had yielded a paltry 80,000 euros, missing the most precious initial preparation window.
This time, it won't happen again.
He connected to his mobile hotspot (ensuring a clean path and leaving no trace) and logged into Europe's largest cryptocurrency exchange. Trading was thin in the early morning hours; Bitcoin was priced at $98,150, approximately €89,200.
Without the slightest hesitation, all 3.52 bitcoins in his wallet were divided into three batches and listed at slightly below market price to ensure quick execution. The cold light from the screen illuminated his expressionless face, his pupils reflecting the fluctuating candlestick charts—merely digital channels to achieve the necessary objectives.
04:51，最后一单成交。平台帐户余额：314，328美元。约285，700欧元。
The withdrawal was initiated immediately and transferred to a pre-prepared anonymous savings account at Deutsche Bank. After deducting fees, approximately €285,000 was received. Combined with the existing small deposits in the account, the available liquid cash amounted to nearly €300,000.
The amount wasn't large, but it was enough to pry open the first gear of the plan.
He changed into a dark gray tracksuit and left the apartment silently.
The purpose of the morning run was not for exercise, but to fully test the changes in this young body under the initial influence of the gene engine, and to observe this dying city one last time with all new senses.
The air in Tiergarten Park carried the crisp crispness of late autumn. Wang Zhengyang ran at a steady pace, his focus completely absorbed. His cardiopulmonary function had improved by about twenty percent, and his oxygen utilization efficiency had significantly increased. Muscle fiber recruitment was more efficient and coordinated; with each push-off and landing, he could feel the nerves' millimeter-level precision in controlling his muscle groups. More importantly, his perception of his own movement had reached unprecedented precision—he could clearly "sense" the transmission path of pressure from the calcaneus to the metatarsals and then to the phalanges with each foot contact with the ground, and could fine-tune the angle of his ankle joint to evenly distribute the impact force and minimize joint wear.
This is not merely an improvement in physical fitness, but also a preliminary manifestation of the extension of mechanical affinity into the living organism itself. In his previous life, he only vaguely sensed this possibility after his superpower advanced to the second level and he underwent multiple severe injuries and repairs.
As he passed a public repair station on the edge of the park, a city sanitation truck with its hood open caught his eye. It wasn't intentional observation, but in that instant his gaze swept over it, a clear stream of information automatically flooded his consciousness:
- The atomization cone angle of the diesel injector in the second cylinder has a deviation of about 3 degrees, resulting in uneven mixing of fuel and air.
- The feedback signal from the common rail oil pressure sensor has a slight drift, with a value fluctuation of approximately ±0.5 bar.
- There is a tiny, barely perceptible corrosion on the edge of the turbocharger impeller, causing an imbalance in the rotational mass.
The repair technician was checking the circuit with a multimeter, completely unaware of these problems.
Wang Zhengyang didn't stop walking, his breathing remained steady, as if he were just passing by. But his right hand subtly flexed and extended at his side, as if he had grasped an invisible wrench from afar, precisely "tightening" a non-existent bolt. The sharpness and directness of his ability exceeded expectations.
Sweat soaked his workout clothes, but his breathing returned to normal within minutes. After a short, cold shower, he changed into his everyday clothes and retrieved two items from deep within his tool cabinet: a brand-new set of German Wiha precision screwdrivers and an old door panel he'd found at a flea market, originally intended to be converted into a workbench back panel. The door panel was fitted with an old-fashioned European standard cylinder lock.
Superpowers require systematic testing, calibration, and control.
He closed his eyes and gently placed his right index finger on the cold lock cylinder.
The moment you touch it, the world seems to change. Sight is blocked, but another, more direct and essential channel of perception is opened. What you feel at your fingertips is no longer a simple "cool" and "hard" sensation, but a precise three-dimensional diagram of the lock cylinder's internal structure: the precise spatial coordinates of the seven brass pins, the compression and stiffness coefficient of the springs beneath them, the coefficient of friction between the pins and the lock cylinder wall, and even the extremely fine annular tool marks left during the internal machining of the lock cylinder.
The data is not presented in numerical form, but rather as a "clear understanding." He could "feel" that the wear on the top third pin was significantly higher than the other six, about 15 percent more severe, which was caused by the frequent contact between the key teeth and that point during long-term use.
He put down his fingers and picked up the thinnest flathead screwdriver.
He closed his eyes again and inserted the screwdriver tip into the keyhole. The metal rod became a perfect extension of his senses. Without visual guidance, the movement of the screwdriver tip inside the lock cylinder was like the touch of his own fingertips. He "felt" the resistance of the pins and gently turned them. Click—a soft sound, the first pin was in place. Then the second, the third…
The entire process was so smooth it was almost instinctive. After seven soft clicks, the lock cylinder core emitted a steady "click" and then smoothly rotated forty-five degrees.
The door lock is open.
The entire process took eight seconds.
Wang Zhengyang opened his eyes and looked at the old door that had been unlocked. In his previous life, he had mastered the same technique of unlocking doors with his eyes closed nearly a month after his supernatural abilities awakened and reached an activation level of 0.8%. But now, on the first morning of his rebirth, with an activation level of 0.1%, he could already do it.
Is it the soul information brought about by rebirth that generated a higher initial synchronization rate with the gene engine? Or is it the profound memory of struggling to survive in the apocalypse for twenty-seven years, accompanied by machines, that itself became the best "pre-training" data for the engine?
He put down the screwdriver and began the second test. He laid out twenty-five screwdrivers of different sizes and types on the table, then closed his eyes and randomly picked one up.
The instant his fingertips touched the handle, information flooded in: the coarseness and distribution of the anti-slip texture, the precise diameter of the shank (estimated to 0.1 mm), and the type of the screwdriver tip (flathead, Phillips head, PH2 Phillips head, star-shaped T10, hexagonal, etc.). Moreover, he could even "sense" that the screwdriver tip's hardness was slightly lower than Wiehan's standard value—likely due to a minor temperature deviation during heat treatment of a particular batch.
Twenty consecutive random samplings were conducted, and the specifications could be determined instantly each time with an error of only plus or minus one millimeter. It was also able to point out that three of the samples had minor flaws such as insufficient hardness.
This is neither magic nor a vague "intuition." It is a kind of instrument-level material perception and understanding ability formed by amplifying, quantifying, and enhancing his almost instinctive "feel" accumulated over many years as a mechanical engineer through the Caldova Gene Engine, a creation of an advanced civilization.
It is rational, stable, repeatable, and fully conforms to the laws of the physical world.
A faint, almost cold, satisfaction finally appeared on Wang Zhengyang's face. This meant that all his preparations for survival could be based on a more sophisticated and reliable technological foundation than in his previous life.
Next, he needs to build an impeccable "shell" for all the abnormal actions he is about to take in this still "normal" world.
He opened the laptop he used for daily communications and began forging documents. He was already a visiting scholar in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Technical University of Berlin, possessing perfectly legitimate academic status. Now, he needed to cloak that status in a more substantial and less questionable guise.
He used open-source software to generate a meticulously formatted and highly realistic electronic version of the official letterhead from the "China National Equipment Industry Research Institute," including fictitious but compliant Chinese and English department numbers, confidentiality levels (for internal use only), contact information, and a seemingly authoritative logo. The core content was the formal appointment of Dr. Wang Zhengyang as the European technical coordination consultant for the "Sino-German Joint Heavy Equipment Testing Project," with full authority to conduct preliminary adaptability testing and evaluation of a "polar environment heavy transport platform" within Germany.
Next, he began writing the project's "background story"—a fifteen-page "Project Risk Assessment and Technical Contingency Plan Report." The report was written in highly technical language, filled with jargon, data citations, and charts.
- Citing recent abnormal microseismic data monitored in the Baltic region and disturbance signs shown by the North Atlantic circulation model, combined with historical geological records, we extrapolate the possibility of a "low-probability but potentially highly destructive regional geological/climate-combined disaster".
-Analyze the vulnerable nodes of the supply chain in the context of globalization, and demonstrate that if major European ports or key land transport hubs are disrupted by disasters, heavy rail transport systems with strong off-road and self-sufficiency capabilities may be the only reliable artery for maintaining the movement of materials and personnel.
- Combining certain tense signals in the international political and economic sphere (vague wording, citing several publicly available think tank reports), it proposes a defensive design requirement that "the testing platform must have the ability to quickly activate, autonomously evacuate, and maintain basic operation for a long period of time in the event of sudden social unrest or security incidents."
The report's conclusions, however, deliberately remain cautious and vague: "Based on the analysis of existing information models, it is recommended to conduct preventative platform technology testing and on-site verification of emergency evacuation plans under extreme circumstances, in order to systematically improve the adaptability of our country's relevant high-value equipment to complex environments, mission flexibility, and the level of safety protection for accompanying personnel."
This report will serve as a "scientific safeguard" for all his subsequent procurement, modifications, personnel mobilization, and even unconventional operations. A scientist who is meticulous to the point of being conservative, based on completely public data and rigorous model analysis, and out of a sense of responsibility and awareness of protecting national assets, has developed a comprehensive emergency plan—this logic is not only reasonable in the normal world, but even commendable.
At 08:45, he picked up his phone and dialed the publicly available contact number for the freight department of Deutsche Bahn (DB).
"Hello, this is the European office of the 'Sino-German Joint Heavy Equipment Testing Project.' We are looking for a suitable heavy-duty rail transport platform to conduct a closed-loop technical test. This is not regular freight transport; we need the train itself as a mobile testing base. Which department should we contact?"
The customer service representative seemed confused, but under Wang Zhengyang's calm, clear tone, which carried the unique detachment of an academic yet left no room for doubt, the call was transferred to a business manager.
Wang Zhengyang succinctly put forward the core requirements:
1. Vehicle type: Heavy-duty multimodal transport train, with at least 32 axles and an effective load capacity of not less than 800 tons.
2. Power: It must be equipped with an independent high-power diesel generator set to ensure that the train can operate autonomously for a long time without relying on the external power grid.
3. Condition: The vehicle must be in excellent condition, preferably a model that has recently undergone a systematic overhaul or technical upgrade.
4. Permissions: The lease agreement must explicitly permit temporary additions and modifications that do not involve the main load-bearing structure of the car body and do not affect the basic safety of train operation during the period of parking at the designated marshalling yard, and must provide necessary site isolation and basic water and electricity interfaces.
The business manager initially stated that this type of leasing was unconventional and that the company had strict restrictions on vehicle modifications. Wang Zhengyang did not dwell on it, but calmly presented a few key points: "long-term leasing intention," "project funding is guaranteed by a Chinese national-level research institute," and "test data may be valuable for DB's future vehicle design improvements in extreme environments."
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone. Fifteen minutes later, the manager provided three vehicle registration numbers to choose from.
Among them, train EIS-7 caught Wang Zhengyang's attention: a 32-axle design with a nominal load capacity of 850 tons, equipped with two original MAN 800 kW diesel generator sets, data showed that it had just completed its scheduled periodic overhaul last year and was currently vacant, parked at the Berlin Oberhausen marshalling yard. Monthly rental price: 9 euros.
"We need to inspect the vehicle on-site to assess whether it meets our testing environment simulation requirements." Wang Zhengyang's voice was devoid of emotion. "Can we arrange this afternoon at 2 PM at the Oberhausen marshalling yard?"
"Of course, Mr. Wang. I will inform Mr. Schmidt, the duty supervisor at the marshalling yard, to receive you."
After hanging up the phone, Wang Zhengyang stood silently for a moment. The financial pressure, like an invisible rope, began to tighten quietly. 30 euros sounded like a lot, but it was impossible for him to spend it all on rent. He needed the money to renovate the train, purchase and stockpile key supplies, and pay necessary staff salaries.
The rent must be lowered. His bottom line is €7.5 per month. The deposit payment method must also be negotiated to the greatest extent possible.