Feng shrugged. “What’s smart is they distributed it all across a blockchain. No central servers, no central authority.” He grinned. “In the Floraverse, reality is a blockchain.”

“ ‘Reality is a blockchain.’ Sounds deep. And why are you so pumped about that?”

“It means everyone who uses it has a piece of the Floraverse on our devices. We all constantly validate the presence of others through our own presence. Basically, we all create our reality together.” Feng’s face took on the smug look of a student completely schooling his teacher. His aunt didn’t seem to mind.

Silence again, though this was more comfortable than the one they’d ridden through earlier.

“So is this why the neighborhood committee came after you? I can’t imagine the party is too thrilled that you’re consorting with a bunch of Westerners on an encrypted platform they can’t monitor.”

“Sort of.”

“I bet.” Feng could feel his aunt studying him. She spoke again. “How about this clan you’re in? You met them in the VR Spirit World?”

“Stop calling it that. Again, you sound ancient. It’s just the Spirit World.” Feng actually sank into his seat at the sound of his aunt’s un-coolness. “But yeah, I met them there. It’s a big deal. They’re famous—really good gamers.” Feng deliberately tried to cast his clanmates in the best possible light. “You have to work your way up to the Spirit World, right? When you first start, it takes forever to get there. Someone destroyed me in the ’Verse about a year ago. After that, even as a good player, I only got back to the Spirit World a few weeks ago. It took so much work.”

“I remember how frustrated I’d get when your mom would turn off my game and I’d lose my progress when I hadn’t saved my Xbox for a few hours. So frustrating,” his aunt added.

“Yeah, so imagine losing six months or a year’s progress.”

“Wow, I missed a lot while I was in med school and building a career. Here I thought AR was just for surgery assists, and you’re telling me it’s actually a path to the Spirit World. Nirvana!”

Feng couldn’t help but smirk at his aunt’s sarcasm. “Anyway, imagine all the graphics and data and history being blasted back and forth from user to user constantly chunked, processed, and added to the blockchain. It takes an awesome amount of computing power.”

“Is that why you wear that clunky thing on your wrist?” His aunt smiled.

“Shut up. You wear one too, just like everyone else.” Feng pointed to the smartwatch on her wrist for effect.

“But I don’t use it to feel better about myself,” she replied.

“That’s a lie. Everyone uses their phone to feel better about themselves.”

Feng’s aunt steered the SUV into a gravel driveway. “Alright, here we are.”