"Wanliu has six planets, much more capable than her brother. She was trained along this path from a young age. We take turns guiding her, and she practically grew up in conference rooms. While other children clamored for toys, Wanliu spent her days poring over planetary maps and interstellar route charts." Cen Yemeng said.
"What's the third child's name?" Jiang Ye asked. "Jiang Gaoyuan?"
"Close, Jiang Gaoxia," Cen Yemeng replied. "Jiang Wanliu's name comes from 'Sandy shores melt snow, spring streams warm, a bay of flowing water carries fallen plum blossoms.' Jiang Gaoxia's name comes from 'Wushan mountains reflect Wuxia gorge, soaring high, endlessly.' Both poems have good meanings, and the names aren't obscure; they sound like ordinary names. That's how we decided."
"Is Jiang Gaoxia still young?" Jiang Ye asked.
"Just started primary school," Cen Yemeng said. "He's also very smart and has strong athletic talent. Before I came, he won first place in the hundred-meter dash at the school sports meet."
Jiang Ye smiled with satisfaction. "All three of our children are doing well. Our success rate in having children is very high."
"Your mention of the success rate makes me laugh," Cen Yemeng chuckled. "Xu Yan has four children, and so far, none of them have amounted to anything. Their grades are poor, their health is weak, and they all have terrible personalities. Xu Yan often sighs to me, saying she's given birth to a pile of rejects and is too afraid to have more."
Jiang Ye burst into laughter. "Xu Yan's way of speaking is so amusing. They're her own children, how can she call them rejects? Who is Xu Yan's husband?"
"A garbage merchant," Cen Yemeng said. "She'll probably meet him in about ten years."
"Garbage merchant?" Jiang Ye asked. "Is 'garbage' an adjective or a noun here?"
"I don't mean the person is garbage; his business is garbage recycling," Cen Yemeng explained. "It's quite large-scale. He monopolizes the main garbage processing markets on over twenty planets."
"What major events have happened in these forty years?" Jiang Ye asked.
Cen Yemeng tilted her head, thinking. "Quite a few."
"Tell me about them," Jiang Ye said. "We have plenty of time."
"The biggest event, probably, is the Virtual Planet Project. It's been successfully verified." Cen Yemeng said.
Jiang Ye gasped. "A planet appeared out of nowhere in the void at a target location?"
"No."
"Then how can it be considered verified?"
"Because the virtual has begun to invade reality," Cen Yemeng said. "Major planets in the Milky Way are participating in the Virtual Planet Project, but each planet has a different idea, so the resulting collective consciousness field is very diffuse and cannot form a single planet. However, some details have begun to appear out of nowhere on various planets."
"For example?" Jiang Ye asked.
"Initially, it was very fragmented small news. Farmers dug up strange man-made objects from the ground. After reporting it thoroughly, it was discovered to be something fictional from a star system ten light-years away that had materialized in the farmer's field. Zoologists observed vast flocks of unfamiliar birds. They caught a few and found they were birds widely imagined in another part of the Milky Way. These birds had no genetic material; they appeared entirely out of thin air."
"Then people started experiencing memory confusion. We have that on our planet too," Cen Yemeng said. "On Birong Star, there was a six-year-old girl who suddenly learned the Moren language one day and forgot Mandarin. She communicated with everyone in Moren and could write ten thousand-word essays in Moren. The Moren language is fictional, from a novel in a certain section of Qianniao Star, a hundred light-years away. That novel was also part of the Virtual Planet Project."
"Holy cow," Jiang Ye exclaimed, shocked.
"On some planets, fictional characters have appeared out of nowhere. Some just pop up from some obscure corner, while others appear suddenly in plain sight. Some people are normal, while others die quickly after appearing. Autopsies revealed their skeletal structures were deformed, with ribs piercing their hearts and lungs," Cen Yemeng said. "There are also mothers in highland regions who suddenly claim they woke up to find an extra child. Such incidents are also occasionally reported."
"Good heavens," Jiang Ye said, astonished. "Originally, these fictional things were supposed to appear on designated virtual planets, but the collective consciousness field became chaotic, scattering them throughout the universe?"
"Exactly," Cen Yemeng nodded. "At first, it was small objects, then gradually larger things appeared. Some planets unearthed ruins of ancient great cities, while others observed underwater cities. The characteristics of these city ruins were identical to the Virtual Planet Project in a certain region of the Milky Way."
"Then the Virtual Planet Project should have been halted, right?" Jiang Ye asked.
"It was halted," Cen Yemeng nodded. "For example, the virtual planet games developed by us, the Intellectual Bacteria, are required by the Galactic Empire to display a sentence at certain key points in the game: 'This scene is purely fictional.' With such a sentence, it's very difficult for a collective consciousness field to form."
"The Virtual Planet Project is quite shocking," Jiang Ye said. "It feels like ancient people witnessing the double-slit experiment—it shatters one's worldview, is mind-boggling, and defies intuition."
"Never mind ancient people; even elementary school students today feel a jolt when they learn about the double-slit experiment. I remember the first time I saw it as a child, I even doubted if this world was real," Cen Yemeng said. "At that time, I guessed the world was a giant game, appearing very realistic on the surface, but once you dug deep into the game's core, you'd find crude, flawed man-made objects. It was only after I read the final explanation of the double-slit experiment that I dispelled that sense of dread."
"So what does the Virtual Planet Project signify?" Jiang Ye asked. "Why can vast amounts of imagination condense into real matter and energy?"
"The ultimate theory of the universe has an explanation for this, but the formulas and concepts are too complex, so I haven't studied it thoroughly," Cen Yemeng paused, seemingly organizing her thoughts. "In layman's terms, human or other creatures' imagination is not generated out of thin air in the brain. It's a projection produced after a fragment of the universe passes through the brain. The raw materials that constitute us creatures are the same as the raw materials that constitute planets and stars. We are inherently products of the universe, so we have an intricate connection with the matter and energy in the universe, which can be altered under certain conditions."
Jiang Ye furrowed his brow, trying to comprehend. "Are you saying that although we feel like independent organisms, we are actually just cells within this giant cosmic organism?"
"You can understand it that way. Although it's not exactly the same, your abstract interpretation is acceptable," Cen Yemeng nodded.
"Quite interesting," Jiang Ye murmured. "And what is the universe's purpose?"
"We don't know yet. It's said that the ultimate theory of the universe has entered its final sprint phase, expected to be completed within two thousand years," Cen Yemeng said. "In our lifetime, we will surely know."
Jiang Ye put down his chopsticks, took his wife's delicate hand, and remained silent for a long time.
"When I was very young, I contracted an incurable disease, so I was frozen, hoping to find a cure in the future," Jiang Ye said. "I never imagined back then that my life would involve experiencing all of this."
Cen Yemeng froze for a moment, then suddenly smiled and squeezed her husband's hand.
"This is just the beginning. The truly spectacular experiences in your life are still ahead."
Jiang Ye nodded and looked out the window, seeing the endless expanse of stars.