Epoch of Twilight

The spring festival was approaching and factory workers had gone home for the holidays.

It was the second time people had celebrated the spring festival since the apocalypse and compared to the first year, the celebrations this year was definitely more lively. There were even giant red lanterns that symbolized the festivities that hung outside the megastructures. The streets were decorated with lights and littered with colors.

There were crowds at the department stores, supermarkets and farmers markets. People had been holding in the urge to shop for a long period of time and it had just been unleashed. There was an abundance of supplies during the spring festival this year. The shopping malls sold many of the latest household appliances and the farmers’ market even had meat in stock for the first time, attracting many people.

The meat was not naturally grown but at the same time, it was not synthesized with different elements. Instead, it was a kind of meat that was cultivated in a laboratory. There was no limit to its growth and it could grow infinitely as long as it was in the nutrient solution, similar to cancer cells. IT was a seasonal product which was accidentally discovered when they were studying the flesh of the interstellar creature. While the study was being conducted, a young intern who had just graduated accidentally found out that the flesh would snap out of its suspended state and begin multiplying at an extreme rate when it was placed in a growth medium and placed in an extreme environment. It would absorb all the nutrients available nearby and undergo cell division before growing rapidly to become resistant to the dangers in its immediate surroundings, maintaining itself.

However, even though it would multiply and grow rapidly, the flesh of this creature was comparable to metal and was completely inedible. The only way to continue the experiment was to acquire more supplies. However, even though they had acquired an astonishing reserve that managed to fill up an entire warehouse and could supply them with enough supplies to conduct experiments for the next 100 years, it was meaningless.

After finding out about this phenomenon, the laboratory did not give up but continued carrying out various experiments on the interstellar creature’s flesh that lasted for more than six months. From time to time, the researchers would try using different sampling methods and eventually, they had surprising news.

In the growth process of the flesh, the researchers found that it was gradually degrading. It was possible that the environment the experiments were conducted in could not support high-level flesh such as that from an interstellar creature. In order to adapt to its new environment, the flesh would degrade slightly with every experiment and eventually, it became soft and there were even changes in its genetic structure. After continuous growth and experiments, the flesh put on the market could no longer be labeled as the flesh of an interstellar creature but instead, a level three flesh which had adapted to its new environment.

...

"Give me some dough, there is hardly any left over here!" Zhao Yali quickly used up the dough in front of her and said.

"How did you wrap it up so quickly?" Wang Xiaguang was shocked. They were wrapping dumplings from the same pile of dough and she had not even used one-fifths of the dough but Zhao Yali had already finished.

"Here!" Huang Jiahui said.

"When I was younger, my family used to run a snack bar. Every night, I’d help in making dumplings and steamed buns. I got my skills there." Zhao Yali took the dough Huang Jiahui brought and said. Her tone remained the same. Time was the best medicine... It had been so long, the grief of the past had faded.

People began gathering at the round table in the living room at Luo Yuan’s house and started making dumplings - it was very lively. The mutated woman looked at them for a short while and after she found it to be quite interesting, she took a piece of dough to attempt making dumplings. However, it was a fact that she did not have the talent. Her sharp claws would always pierce through the dough and the dumplings she made would always come out with strange shapes, exposing the meat inside. However, she was having fun, enjoying herself.

Wang Shishi glared at the unknown object in front of her and said spitefully, "You’re so stupid! You’re going to eat the dumplings you wrapped later!"

Hearing Wang Shishi’s criticism, the mutated woman pouted, seemingly angry. She made a few more, put down the dough she was holding and placed the dumplings she made earlier in a basket angrily. She then carried the basket in one hand, dragged a chair in another and walked away from Wang Shishi. She walked to where Luo Yan and Luo Yu was at and gestured them to make space for her.

The both of them did not mind and moved the chair enthusiastically. The mutated woman then placed the chair between the both of them. Nowadays, Wang Shishi was not the only one she could play with. Compared to Wang Shishi who always spoke ill of her, Luo Yu and Luo Yuan were her true best friends. She hopped on the chair and looked at Wang Shishi with a smirk which made her scoff in return.

However, the mutated woman was inherently active and lost interest in things quickly. She lost patience after she had been making dumplings for awhile. However, in order prevent Wang Shishi from laughing at her, she continued persistently. Fortunately, the footsteps that approached from from outside saved her. Her slightly pointed ears were moving like that of a rabbit as she immediately hopped off the chair and fled like a flash of lightning.

"It’s probably Luo Yuan," Huang Jiahui said while laughing after she looked at the disappearing act the mutated woman pulled.

"Dad is back!" Luo Fan confirmed. The ears of the clones were sharper than the others. Among all the people there, only the mutated woman could compare with their abilities.

As expected, Luo Yuan entered the door a while later with the mutated woman following suit behind him.

"Dad!"

"Dad!"

The kids stood up and greeted Luo Yuan immediately. They were obedient.

Luo Yuan nodded and smiled. He placed a paper box in his hand on the ground and took off his coat. Luo Yu picked it up eagerly, put it on the hanger, and then asked expectantly, "Dad, what is this?"

"Here, your new year presents!" Luo Yuan smiled and said.

"What present?" Luo Yu hugged Luo Yuan’s arm.

Luo Yuan released his arm from Luo Yu’s grasp. During the past two years, the kids grew rapidly and they were now young men and young ladies. Especially his two daughters, they had their first periods half a year ago. It was inappropriate for them to be so close to him.

He took out a gift from the paper box, it was wrapped to the festival’s theme. He passed it to Luo Yu and said, "Open it and you’ll know!"

"Dad, I want one too!" Luo Yan said.

"Yes, everyone’s got one!"

Seeing that she was ignored, the mutated woman made a noise.

Luo Yuan laughed and patted her head, "I wouldn’t forget yours."

Luo Yuan then gave everyone a present, including Ye Qiuyu.

After Luo Yu opened her present, she saw what seemed like a pair of contact lenses. There was a bottle with a liquid in it, but she knew that these were not contact lenses as she asked, "Dad, what are these?"

"This is the latest miniature quantum computer. Put this on your glasses and switch it on using your Will." Luo Yuan explained, "It can be used to connect to the internet, make long distance calls and also conduct environmental tests. Its computing power is nothing less than the previous generations of was nothing less than the previous generation. There are other functions as well, take a look for yourself in the manuals!"

"There’s nothing fun about the internet." Wang Shishi mumbled to herself.

As part of the military in a totalitarian society, Luo Yuan and his family were naturally the first people served by the staff. Every other day, there would be new, high-tech products sent to his house which included things like quantum computers. Wang Shishi had the first generation up to the third generation quantum computer in her bedroom so she was quite familiar with the internet. Speaking of the current internet, Wang Shishi was utterly disappointed as the current internet was crude and could not compare to the internet prior to the apocalypse, which was full of colorful images. There were limited websites, only about 100 of them. More than 10 of them were related to academic journals while the rest were news or educational websites. To ordinary people, most of them would not even use it if gaming or video related websites were nowhere to be found. Entertainment was close to zero on the internet.

Even the communication software needed to be improved. Aside from the basic communication functions, business and entertainment programmes were non-existent. The interface was so simple that people just wanted to slap the developers. However, Wang Shishi could not wait to put on the miniature quantum computer that looked like contact lenses. She was a fan of electrical products and even though there was no entertainment, she spent most of her time on the internet and surfed for the latest news or some interesting e-books. As she put the computer on, she blinked a few times and felt like nothing changed.

"Eh? How do I turn this on?"

Just when she was thinking, a screen appeared before her eyes.

"Oh! Its controlled by brainwaves!" Wang Shishi thought about what Luo Yuan said earlier and found out how to use them. The brightness was spot on, the mini calculator appeared in the blink of an eye and soon, the image of a classic blue sky and clouds on the desktop that we knew so well appeared, seemingly so real. She felt like she was in it, back to the time on earth before all this happened.

Fortunately, she was not an emotional person. Soon, she started exploring and realized that the images she saw could be adjusted to be more transparent. Once the transparency was adjusted to about 50%, it would not affect her when she was walking at all.

The operation was simple if you had clear thoughts, its speed was blindingly fast and accurate. Irrelevant thoughts would affect its operations but since humans would always have complicated thoughts throughout the day, the only way it could be operated was if everyone used Will.

Wang Shishi even found some of the movies she had watched before on the computer. She selected one of them to check out how immersive the experience would be if she watched a movie on the miniature computer. Since there were realistic special effects on the desktop, the effects on the miniature computer should be even stronger.

Almost immediately, she felt an intense impact from the images that appeared before her eyes, like she had entered into the virtual world of the movie. Compared to that, a three-dimensional screen was nothing at all. Wang Shishi thought to herself, "Too bad there are no games, it’s such a waste for such a high-tech product."

...

This portable computer was the first of its kind to test run the Glassian portable technology to end users by the computer research department. They utilized groundbreaking technology that were not even present in Glassian technology such as brainwave-based controls which was thanks to human research. Perhaps to the Glassians, such a technology had long become obsolete. The Glassians have been using a technology that would connect to the brain of the end user directly, creating something like a brain-in-a-jar where the virtual web was difficult to distinguish from reality. The technology gap between both civilizations were far apart but it was the first time that humans managed not to rely on Glassian technology as a benchmark but instead, created something for themselves. It was something meaningful that was worth celebrating.