Countdown: Humanity's struggle to survive against yesterday

Chapter 19 Test

Upon seeing this, Jiang Ning felt a chill run down his spine. He suppressed the urge to escape, staring blankly at his other self, as if holding a mirror, his mind racing.

"This mysterious space looks so much like..."

Jiang Ning thought for a long time before finding a word to describe it.

"It's like a sleep monitoring device for all of humanity!"

"What's its purpose?" Jiang Ning couldn't help but ponder again. "Is it to let me be a voyeur, observing who in the world is sleeping and who is awake?"

"This is ridiculous!"

Jiang Ning quickly shook his head, denying the conjecture.

For some reason, a strange thought popped into his head: "If it were before, when I was working at the Sleep Research Institute, having this would have made it so much easier for me to collect data on citizens' sleep. But now..."

"wrong?"

Jiang Ning paused, a bolder guess forming in his mind: "Could this be a surveillance space that I'm using to collect data on global sleep patterns?"

"If we follow this line of thought... surveillance... surveillance of sleep."

"Sleep, sleep..."

As Jiang Ning muttered to himself, he subconsciously scratched his head. His buzz cut, which looked like it had been chewed by a dog, felt slightly tingly and itchy to the touch.

"Sleep Annihilation".

Jiang Ning inexplicably uttered those two words naturally. After he finished speaking, the face of a short-haired girl flashed through his mind, and he quickly thought of the "China Sleep Report 2046" that he had edited last year.

"Could it be?"

Jiang Ning's heart skipped a beat, and he subconsciously clenched his fists. His whole body swayed slightly, and he only managed to regain his footing just before he was about to fall.

"Could the global regression phenomenon be related to sleep?"

The idea had a strong sense of absurdity from the moment it came out, even more absurd than the first time I heard on TV that the world was regressing.

"How is this possible? How is this possible?"

Jiang Ning quickly denied it to himself, his hands still clenched tightly, unaware that his palms were starting to hurt slightly. It wasn't until he denied it several times in a row that he regained a little composure.

But this thought just wouldn't leave my mind.

The next moment, Jiang Ning felt a slight coolness in his palm. Looking down, he saw thin red light flowing between his right fingers.

"It's over..."

Jiang Ning's face paled as he realized that he had forgotten he had something in his hand when he clenched his fist so tightly. He quickly opened his right hand, and the red bead was gone, turning into a thin light that was spreading outwards.

"I hope I don't accidentally kill myself!"

Jiang Ning looked worried and anxiously at the thin red light that was struggling to drift overhead.

Yes!

What one sees is not slowness, but difficulty.

Jiang Ning stared blankly at the scene, feeling an inexplicable psychological connection. He felt as if he had crushed himself, and now the red bead representing him was very injured, struggling to climb towards the "Cloud River" above his head to try to heal.

"As long as I can go back..."

Jiang Ning watched for a while longer and found that the thin red light was indeed slowly drifting towards the top of his head. He felt much more at ease, which meant that he hadn't killed himself.

"But what does that mean?"

Jiang Ning stopped and stared at the thin red light, unable to stop thinking.

But suddenly, he felt very tired, as if he hadn't slept for three days and three nights. All he could think about was closing his eyes and going to sleep.

Jiang Ning shook his head vigorously; he didn't want to go to sleep right now.

With a scientific and rigorous attitude, and unsure whether he would ever enter this "mysterious space" again in the future, he wanted to observe it for a while longer.

But my eyelids felt as heavy as if they were weighed down with damp cotton wool; they were stiff and sluggish when I tried to lift them. Even though my eyes were open, my vision was always blurry and unfocused...

Jiang Ning shook his head again, stretched out his hand, and sluggishly called out a name, "Zhang Jimin..."

He wanted to verify another question: whether this mysterious space had any subjective consciousness and whether it could be communicated with.

A grayish-white bead slowly fell into Jiang Ning's hand.

Jiang Ning looked down and saw a familiar face wearing gold-rimmed glasses appear inside the bead...

It was Zhang Jimin.

......

"I am here!"

Zhang Jimin stared at the chat window on his phone in disbelief, quickly took off his glasses and put them back on, then excitedly typed: "Holy crap, Ningzi, you're really still in Shanghai!"

After sending the message, he immediately pressed the video call button. The ringtone lasted only one second before the video was connected.

Immediately, a man with a buzz cut and a pale face appeared in the scene. He was taking a selfie with one hand while shaking his collar up and down with the other, looking very cold.

"Holy crap, you're Jiang Ning..."

When Zhang Jimin saw the man in front of him, his mouth gaped so wide it could fit an egg.

"What's wrong with you? Where's that hair that captivated countless young girls?"

Jiang Ning looked embarrassed. He never expected that Old Zhang, who hadn't seen him for a year, would first care about his hair.

However, he was still very happy to hear the familiar voice of his old friend again.

"I...you..."

Jiang Ning opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but when the words reached his lips, his throat suddenly felt like it was blocked by something, and he couldn't say a complete sentence. He could only give an unnatural smile, his eyes wandering.

"Hey, I'm fine!"

Seeing that Jiang Ning wouldn't look him in the eye, Zhang Jimin burst into hearty laughter, "Hey Jiang, this isn't like you at all! When did you become so fussy and indecisive!"

"All right!"

Jiang Ning looked at the screen and then at Zhang Jimin: "Old Zhang, I apologize for not letting you in before..."

"Stop, stop!" Zhang Jimin quickly waved his hand. "Brothers shouldn't talk like that. Just don't mind that your sister-in-law and I didn't come to see you again later."

"It's me..."

"Alright!" Zhang Jimin waved his hand again, looking disgusted. "Why have you become so fussy after all this time? Tell me, what's wrong with you now?"

"I'm fine!"

Jiang Ning glanced around. The morning light was just beginning to appear, the lake was shimmering, and even the air was filled with the fragrance of fresh grass.

If we disregard the fact that we are currently in the midst of a major global catastrophe, the environment here is indeed very nice and would be perfect for camping.

After saying that, he held up his phone so that Zhang Jimin could see the surrounding scenery.

"Hey, I wasn't asking where you are right now, I was asking if you're okay?"

Zhang Jimin was speechless when he saw Jiang Ning telling him to look at the scenery around him, and asked again.

Jiang Ning chuckled, as if his little scheme had succeeded, then shrugged, closed his eyes, took a deep breath of the fresh air from the wetlands, and calmly said, "I'm fine. I'm sorry I worried you all before!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Jimin's eyes inexplicably reddened, and he nodded repeatedly, saying, "That's good, that's good..."

Then, as if remembering something, she hurriedly brought her mouth to the phone with a nervous expression and said quickly, "Jiang Ning, don't go out. You absolutely must not go out recently. Things might get chaotic."

A loud "bang" resounded.

"Oh no, someone's dead!"

"Someone jumped off a building!"

A sudden burst of panic and screams reached Jiang Ning's ears. Jiang Ning instinctively moved her phone away, and when she looked at the screen again...

Zhang Jimin looked as if he had lost his soul, his eyes unfocused and his face full of terror.

Seven or eight drops of red water splashed onto his face, and the water droplets quickly slid down, leaving streaks of blood.

"Old Zhang, Old Zhang..."

The next second, Jiang Ning saw the camera shake, a crisp "smack" sound, and all she could see on her phone was a pale sky. Then, screams continued, and a foot quickly stepped on the camera lens and disappeared just as fast.