Only then did everyone notice Song Cheng, who’d remained silent throughout. They saw him quietly stir, his eyes alight. He looked like a felled warrior rising to stand once more, taking up his weapon astride a fresh warhorse.

SEARCHING THE PRESENT

“Then you came to Universe No. 1207’s present day, am I correct?” asked the Senior Official.

“That’s right, I set the digital mirror to our time.” As he spoke, Bai Bing moved the time slider to the far end. The point of view once again returned to space. The blue Earth below didn’t look particularly different from how it had appeared in ancient times.

“This is our present day shown through the mirror of Universe No. 1207: after decades of continuous exporting of natural resources and energy, our hinterland province still doesn’t have a presentable industry to its name aside from mining and power generation. All we have is pollution, most of the rural areas still below the poverty line, severe unemployment in the cities, deteriorating law and order … naturally, I wanted to see how our leaders and planners did their jobs. What I saw, well, I don’t need to tell you that.”

“What were you after?” asked the Senior Official.

Bai Bing smiled bitterly, shaking his head. “Don’t think I had some lofty goal like him,” he said, pointing at Song Cheng. “I was just an ordinary person, happy to mind my own business and live out my days in peace. What do your antics have to do with me? I wasn’t planning to mess with you, but … I put so much work into this supersimulation software, and naturally I wanted to get some material benefits out of it. So I called a couple of your people, hoping they’d give me a bit of cash for keeping quiet….” He abruptly swelled with indignation.

“Why did you have to overreact? Why did I have to be eliminated? If you’d just given me the money, we’d all be done here! … Anyway, I’ve finished explaining everything.”

The five people sank into a long silence, all of them watching the image of Earth on the screen. This was the digital mirror of the current Earth. They were in there, too.

“Can you really use this computer to observe everything in the world that’s ever happened?” Chen Xufeng said, breaking the silence.

“Yes, every detail of history and the present day is data in the computer, and that data can be freely analyzed. Anything, no matter how secret, can be observed by extracting the corresponding information from the database and processing it. The database holds an atomic-level digital replica of the entire world, and any part of it can be extracted at will.”

“Can you prove it?”

“That’s easy. You leave the room, go anywhere you want, do anything you want, and come back.”

Chen Xufeng looked at the Senior Official and Lu Wenming in turn, then left the room. He returned two minutes later and looked at Bai Bing wordlessly.