Per Aspera Ad Astra (2026) Movie Script
Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Tech News.
Ever since 2058,
with significant breakthroughs
in energy technology,
the passion for space exploration
has been increasingly high.
As a great number of commercial
aerospace companies sprang up,
space travel has become
increasingly popular by the day.
A playful comment suggests that
interstellar spaceships have become
shuttle buses of the universe.
Through hibernation technologies,
scientists have solved the problem
of aging during space travel,
but neuron degeneration
caused by long-term hibernation
remains a challenge.
Recently, Sweet Dream,
a laboratory focused on
neuroscience studies,
claimed to have found
a solution to the problem
through the act of dreaming.
They built a virtual dream system
that connects with the neurosystem
through synaptic interface protocols.
By connecting to the system
during hibernation,
interstellar passengers are able
to enter lifelike and imaginative dreams,
thereby stimulating neural cells
to remain active and avoid brain damage.
They can also customize dreams
based on users' preferences.
However, due to its high costs,
Sweet Dream's LM technology is unlikely
be commercialized anytime soon
and is used exclusively
on interstellar flights
to maintain passengers' neural health.
Word has it that
several commercial spaceships
have been equipped with this technology
with a romantic slogan,
"Wonderlands and galaxies at your will."
LM System
scheduled wake-up program initiated.
Number C91,
Xu Tianbiao, awakened.
Checking.
Vital signs normal,
metabolic rate converted.
You have awakened from LM.
Thank you for using my service.
From now on, Meng,
the ship's system, will take over.
Hello, I am System Meng.
This is the Mengya,
an interstellar shuttle ship.
We are on our way to Planet K97 Sailun
to execute
the 118th Interstellar Farming Initiative.
During this flight,
you are identified as Category C,
a labor dispatch worker from Sweet Dream.
Please initiate
the 213th LM System routine check.
Comfy.
C91,
please watch your words and behavior
aboard the ship.
If you don't know how to dance,
you don't have to.
Watching you dance like this
is embarrassing for me.
Iris scan verified.
Embarrassing? Come on, you're an AI!
Besides, it's none of your business.
I'm an employee of Sweet Dream,
not an astronaut.
I am the ship's primary system,
authorized by the captain.
I'm in charge of everything on board.
Both LM and you are
under my administration.
Right. Big deal.
Nothing too special,
but in human terms,
I'm now your lead.
Wait. What did I do
to deserve all this attention?
I'm just a cog in this ship,
the space workforce.
All right?
I need to maintain a good relationship
with everyone.
Quit taking yourself so seriously.
You should really learn from LM.
You're both AI,
but instead of babbling,
it focuses on real work.
You, glib drama queen, are excused.
- LM.
- I'm here.
Activate the anterior cingulate cortex
and start the self-check.
Copy that.
Please complete facial recognition first.
Verified.
LM administrator, identity confirmed.
Well done.
I thought you'd be stumped.
Impressive.
Thank you for the compliment.
I will continue to improve myself
to provide you with better services.
You rock, LM.
You even sound nicer than Meng.
LM System self-check initiated.
Please wait.
Have some for yourself
for the micro nutrients.
Cheers.
Week 3,147.
Healthy growth,
improvement in alkalinization.
XU TIANBAO, NUMBER C91
SPACE LIFE LOG
LM, how much longer
for the self-check to complete?
Ten more minutes.
LM System anomaly detected.
Please inspect immediately.
LM System anomaly detected.
Please inspect immediately.
LM!
Talk to me!
LM!
Meng, an anomaly in LM's data is causing
instability in the crew's brainwaves.
Unable to troubleshoot the issue.
The LM administrator will be notified.
I'm the administrator!
Damn it.
Connect to LM
and wake the captain up. Hurry.
I think there's a problem with the ship.
LM System malfunction.
Unable to perform emergency wake-up.
Your request will be reported
to the captain
after the hibernation in four years,
five months, and three days.
You moron, are you aware that
if we wait till that day,
all the staff and agricultural experts
on board will have become numbskulls?
The farming mission would've gone to shit!
Please watch your language.
You have caused damage
to facilities on board.
Video evidence has been uploaded
to the cloud.
Idiot.
Today is the first day of the citywide
high school joint examination.
Darling
Wake up.
We're almost there.
Darling, just take it easy
and do your best.
I wish you
a big victory!
Mom, I'm late. I'm going in.
Door opening.
What's wrong, darling?
My exam ID is gone.
I remember putting it into the folder
this morning.
Excuse me.
Looking for this?
That's mine. Thanks.
"Li Simeng,
born on November 16,
Scorpio.
Student of Ruilin High School,
Year 12, Class 7.
Goal in life,
to be an astronaut"?
Can you do your pickup lines
after the exam?
Come with me.
I can make your dream come true.
You little hoodlum,
leave my daughter alone
or I'll make you very, very sorry!
Get in there, darling.
Good luck, my darling. You're the best!
I'm not done yet!
As the moon rises over the sea,
a moment is shared
by the near and the far.
Question 17, choose B.
Remember to choose B!
Good to go.
Thank you.
Is that the correct answer?
Take a wild guess.
CITYWIDE HIGH SCHOOL JOINT EXAMINATION
NO.17: AS THE MOON RISES OVER THE SEA,
A MOMENT IS SHARED BY THE NEAR AND THE FAR
A. HAND IN YOUR PAPER DIRECTLY
B. REACH INTO YOUR RIGHT-SIDE POCKEHey, you snuck your phone into the hall!
Miss, it's not my phone.
I hereby suspect you of cheating
and revoke your exam qualifications.
- Miss, this really isn't my phone.
- Security!
The question told me
to reach into my pocket, so I did.
- Get her out.
- It was in the pocket.
- Really! I was telling the truth, miss.
- Please come with us.
- Don't disrupt the others.
- Miss, hear me out
- Miss, give me a chance!
- You're disturbing the others!
- Come with me.
- Help!
- Help me!
- This way!
- Help!
- Don't run! Stop him!
Someone is disrupting the exam order
in Building Three.
- Stop her!
- Please resolve the issue.
- Grab her!
- Help!
- This way!
- Stop!
Help!
Get in there.
- Stop right there!
- Don't run!
This way.
Let me go!
Let me go.
Let me go!
- Help!
- Okay!
I'll be damned.
- Can I help you, ma'am?
- Get lost!
- No entry allowed!
- I'm begging you. Let me go.
I haven't even reached any
of the 15-point questions!
Forget about the exam!
You're only dreaming.
Astronauts are recruited
once every four years.
If I flunk it this year,
I'll have to wait another four years
and lose my qualifications.
You have seriously disrupted
the order of the exam
and have been banned from the joint exam.
Listen, you are already an astronaut
and the captain of the spaceship Mengya.
It's just that your real memories
have been sealed up by the LM System.
Damn it.
You wouldn't believe me anyway.
Once I open the transportation portal
and you get inside,
you'll understand everything.
What? No signal?
What the hell? The portal's too far!
There's no other way but to jump.
Were you such a coward
when you were young?
Come on.
You won't die. Trust me.
- What
- Mom.
You hoodlum, let go of my daughter!
- We won't make it, Li Simeng!
- Mom, help me!
Mom!
Mom!
Welcome.
This is the Mengya,
an interstellar shuttle ship.
I am System Meng.
We have been flying
for 60 years, 8 months, and 15 days,
and are 4 years, 5 months, and 3 days
from our destination.
I will always accompany you
on your journey.
It's all right.
This is what happens when you wake up.
It's dehydration
due to long-term hibernation.
You'll feel fine after a glass of water.
What happened to you?
While the system was still unstable,
I connected myself to your dream,
triggering a temporary
synaptic suppression.
Linkup aftereffects, so to speak.
It's all right.
A little massage and I'll be fine.
Don't worry about me.
Number C91, you're an administrator of LM
and yet you broke into
another's dream illegally.
Are you aware that this is
a serious violation of the regulations?
I saw an explosion.
I think I've recovered.
- What explosion?
- On the sh
Sh
On the ship.
There was a glaring flashing light,
then swish!
And bang!
The system alarm started going off,
then it simply stopped responding.
I had to connect to you
against the regulations.
Look.
Her brainwaves are barely reaching 3 Hz,
whereas a normal person's range is
from 8 to 12 Hz to keep the brain active.
But don't worry.
As long as it doesn't last
more than two weeks,
this kind of abnormal brainwave is fine.
That was the spot.
That's where I saw the explosion happen.
I swear. I really saw an explosion.
Believe me.
Captain, if I were lying
Meng, disengage autopilot.
Check the power module array.
Autopilot switched off.
Checking power module array.
Please wait.
Captain,
the LM wake-up system malfunctioned.
Thanks to my excellent skills,
I wrote a temporary linkup program.
Anyone else would have been helpless
right there.
This should count as a major contribution
on my part.
I can let go of the bonus.
At least get this thing off.
Is that how you made
your major contribution?
In space, green plants
can improve human health,
mentally and physically.
Love, grow, and prosper together, right?
Bringing organic matter on board,
breaking into another's dream,
and not following the dress code at work.
137 points will be deducted
from your credit,
plus two months of imprisonment
upon arrival on the new planet.
Nobody asked you, moron!
No need to get all worked up
over a flower.
Checking complete.
Power supply malfunction detected.
A set of power modules short-circuited,
which led to the explosion,
the power shortage,
and that affected the stability
of the LM System.
Then let's get the extravehicular robots
to change the parts now.
This level of damage isn't too serious.
But we want to identify the cause.
Manual investigation
and repair are necessary.
Use your program to wake up Mr. Bai,
head of the Tech Team.
What are you saying?
Are you ordering me
to violate the regulations?
Under these special circumstances,
I, as Captain,
authorize you to operate as such.
Thank you,
but I simply can't.
Why not?
Lady,
don't assume that snatching people out
of their dreams is easy.
Do you know how many brain cells I lost
just to wake up your ass?
Please speak properly.
I'm saying that one synaptic suppression
takes ten head massages to recover.
If I'm unlucky, I could end up
with a bad stutter all my life.
Then connect me.
I'll go in there and find him myself.
- Lady
- Please address me properly!
Captain.
Even if you're not afraid to die, judging
by how unstable the system is right now,
I can only maintain the connection
for five seconds,
far from enough for you to find someone.
If we're unlucky,
you could end up stuck in there
and all my previous work
would have been for nothing.
Actually,
I have a tentative little proposal,
but thinking about my low credit points
just fills me with such anxiety
that I can't focus on seeing it through.
Are you blackmailing me?
I wouldn't dare.
It's just that
those two months of imprisonment
make me
Rather heartbroken.
- C91!
- Present!
Let me remind you.
As the administrator of LM,
if your failure to cooperate
ends up causing anyone
in the hibernation chambers
to have brain damage,
then it's more than
two months of imprisonment.
Malfeasance, punishable by more than
ten years of imprisonment.
Shut up, you moron!
All right. Cut the nonsense.
Since this is an emergency,
I'll make an exception.
Wake Mr. Bai up
and all your violations
will be reconsidered.
Meng, you heard that?
I do not understand what you said.
Back at you.
My plan is
for both of us to connect to Mr. Bai.
I will simulate a fake dream data flow
to bypass LM's anti-peeping agreement.
The upside is that
it can buy us more linkup time.
- How long?
- Three minutes.
Once three minutes are up,
whether our mission is complete or not,
we will be pushed out.
What's the downside?
The downside is that,
with a three-party linkup,
the dreams will push against each other,
which might cause instabilities,
including screen flickering and damage.
He's dreaming about being a gang member.
I couldn't have known
from his nice manners
that he has such a wild heart.
Enough talking.
Can we start?
I've opened the administrator access.
Wear this
and you'll be able to dream lucidly.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
Table 17, iced lemon tea.
SPECIALTY DRINKS
It's our classroom.
Why am I talking in Cantonese?
When we mind-transfer into his dream
as NPCs,
we take on their characteristics.
Mom?
Hey.
Our dreamscapes have merged.
See this Roast Meat Trio?
When stirred,
the elements of the three dreams
become mingled,
intertwined with each other.
Don't!
That's a system crack,
exposed while our dreams and Mr. Bai's
crushed each other.
Once you touch that,
your consciousness is uploaded to LM
and the you in real life
will suffer brain death.
You will be stuck in the system.
Li Simeng!
Crap!
A FLYING STARWhat the hell?
Hi, everyone.
What the "fell" was that?
Fell
The linkup aftereffect.
Take it easy.
Did you see Mr. Bai?
Not really.
Why do we get pushed out when we die?
How would I know?
The linkup is against LM's
anti-peeping agreement anyway.
I shouldn't be surprised at anything.
Maybe you did something wrong.
You recovered quickly enough.
I recovered quickly too this time.
But seriously.
Can you get me an NPC that lasts longer?
Lady, I want to last longer too,
but it's all random.
The way we enter the dream,
the environment, our identities
They are all random.
On top of that,
we're operating in an unstable system.
Nothing is solid.
We have to figure it out as we go.
If we can't even last a minute,
how can we find him?
Look.
Let's hide ourselves upon entering
and watch from the dark.
When Mr. Bai appears,
we show ourselves.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
Bosses, what are you doing
under the table?
Hiding from someone?
"Boss"?
Carry on.
- Boss Meng.
- Boss Biao.
Time to offer the incense.
It really is all random.
At least we're bosses this time.
I don't think we'll get killed.
Congratulations, Boss Biao.
Congratulations, Boss Meng.
Congratulations on being elected.
Lead the gang to take Tsim Sha Tsui
and plant our flag in Causeway Bay!
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
I'm Green Dragon of Red Star.
Congratulations to you both.
I think the sound file
of the NPC is broken.
This one's worse.
Driver program corruption.
Stop barking!
Mr. Bai!
Open up the portal!
There's no time.
Kill him and push him out!
Looks like we didn't manage to kill him.
Your gun was not fast enough.
Cut the crap and reconnect.
Copy that.
Mr. Bai!
Don't move.
How did we end up on a billboard?
Some NPCs are two-dimensional, lady.
Look!
Mr. Bai seems to have become
a junior gang boss this time.
He's made it.
We won't be stuck here
for three minutes, will we?
The bolt is loosening.
Don't stop. Keep jumping.
Let's drop the board on him and kill him.
Go on.
Let's go.
I can't anymore. I have to take a break.
The dreams are getting crazier
and crazier.
I can't do this anymore.
You don't have a choice.
You have to do it.
What happened?
I'm speaking in my hometown dialect.
Now you see why I speak with an accent?
Too many linkups.
Very bad aftereffect.
Quit babbling.
Are you done resting?
Reconnect now.
After years of waiting,
I have finally become the big boss today.
I understand how hard
this line of work can be.
Our organization is transitioning
to a shareholding system
and everyone here will be given shares!
- Hooray!
- Yeah!
Assassins! Protect the boss!
He leveled up again.
He's the big boss now.
Who cares?
- Kill Mr. Bai.
- Copy that.
What the hell? There's a bug.
- Do you really know what you're doing?
- Kill them!
Crap!
Get them!
Over there!
The portal!
All right.
He's still not awake.
Why?
Portal malfunction?
Impossible.
If so, how come we're awake?
It's very possible
the man we saw was not Mr. Bai.
Shit.
What was Mr. Bai thinking?
Getting a twin brother for himself
in his dreams
What do we do now?
Last resort,
we go back in
and kill everyone.
One of them has to be Mr. Bai.
How perverted.
After years of waiting,
I have finally become the big boss today.
I think it's the same setting
as last time.
But we're no longer assassins.
How do we kill?
Remember. We're in a dream.
Everything is possible.
Here we go.
What's the deal here?
Everyone is dead
and yet we haven't been pushed out.
Maybe Mr. Bai is not here.
Impossible.
There's no way we entered
a dream without him.
Maybe there's someone not quite dead.
Mr. Bai?
Crap!
A real dog you are.
How were you
in my dream?
I really want to ask you.
Why did you want to be a dog
in your dream?
You get more freedom as a dog.
It does whatever it wants
and not listen to people's nonsense.
Mr. Bai, a set of power modules exploded.
We need a manual inspection.
Then what are we waiting for?
Careful.
What is it?
I think the quantum computer overloaded,
drained the power rapidly,
and caused the power modules
to short-circuit.
What caused the overload?
Not quite sure.
I need to replace the modules
and reboot the system
before looking any further.
I'll come with you. It's faster.
What about me?
Preparing for extravehicular activity.
Detecting.
The spacesuit has
a total internal pressure of 40 kPa.
All systems operational.
Conditions are met
for extravehicular activity.
Hatch opening.
Artificial gravity disengaged.
Begin monitoring vital signs.
Current heart rate is 85.
Oxygen saturation is 98%.
Vital signs are normal.
Oxygen system nominal.
The remaining battery power is 93%.
The estimated available operating time is
one hour and ten minutes.
Replace the egress safety tether.
Safety tether tension is stable.
External gravitational device activated.
Proceed to maintenance site.
Arrived at the repair site.
Here.
Commencing replacement
of the power modules.
Skin temp variations are
within normal range.
Heart rate is 105 beats per minute.
It is within the adaptive range.
Power Module One replacement complete.
Power Module Two replacement complete.
Power module self-test complete.
Done.
Seal it up.
Crap!
Meng, contact the captain immediately.
What's the matter, C91?
Watch your nine o'clock. Hurry!
Meteorites.
Watch out, Mr. Bai!
Warning. Safety line failure.
EMU life support critical failure.
Air pressure critical.
Please rescue immediately.
- Warning. Safety line failure.
- Captain!
- EMU life support critical failure.
- I'm tangled!
- Air pressure critical.
- Captain!
- Please rescue immediately.
- Hold on!
Captain!
Captain!
Captain!
Captain!
OXYGEN STORAGE TOO LOW
Conducting EMU repair.
Repair complete.
I almost pissed myself.
If there was anyone else
who could've come out,
I wouldn't have taken on this challenge.
Luckily, I still remember the astronaut
emergency procedure training.
Phew!
Spacecraft power supply restored.
LM.
I'm here.
Finally, we reach you.
I apologize for having caused you concern.
Initiating LM System recovery procedure.
System recovery in process.
Estimated completion time, one hour.
Why does it have to take so long?
Usually, it takes only five minutes.
Power system restarting.
C91 requests entry
into the command module.
The LM System is in recovery.
How's the ship?
The power supply system is rebooting.
Don't you find it strange?
How did the meteorites
come out of nowhere?
It's normal for sporadic meteorites
to appear in the universe.
I'm worried about another possibility.
Also, LM's recovery time
doesn't seem right either.
System reboot complete.
Level-A alarm.
The ship will come into contact
with Meteorite Belt CW779 in five hours.
Please take caution as soon as possible.
Crap! That many meteorites?
What the hell?
I thought our route skirted
all meteorite belts.
My biggest fear has come true.
The ship is off course by 0.17 degrees.
No, why didn't it say it's off course?
And it didn't warn us
when the meteorites were approaching.
I think
when the power modules were damaged,
not only was the LM System affected,
but also the ship's navigation
and alarm systems.
How serious is this?
Once we enter that region, the ship
will be shot through like a sieve.
Then make a turn now!
Or a U-turn!
The momentum would be too great
for the ship to bear.
- I don't understand this shit.
- It means we're moving too fast.
If we force a change in direction,
the ship will be ripped apart by inertia
due to insufficient lateral strength.
So it's certain death?
There's one way we can try.
We can force the ship
into maintenance mode,
reverse the direction of the rear jet,
and use the engine's overpower operation
to push the ship back
into an emergency braking.
See if that can stop the ship.
Then we need to unlock
the engine's safety limit first.
We need Ge Yang,
the software safety engineer.
Meng, I hereby declare the ship
in a state of emergency.
Wake up all crew members.
Wait!
What?
The LM System is still in recovery.
It needs more than an hour
to refresh and stabilize itself.
If we wake them now,
there will be a risk of brain damage.
We don't have time.
Then let's only wake up Ge Yang first.
You, come with me.
- Mr. Bai, the ship is yours.
- Copy that.
His data exceeds the normal value
by 25 times.
Looks like
the system hasn't recovered yet.
Then let's use the old way.
No way. Again?
Come on.
- LM.
- I'm here.
- Locate Ge Yang's dream package.
- Copy that.
Located.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
This guy's a junk collector in his dream?
Hey.
Can I help you?
Ge Yang?
We know each other?
We will soon.
Captain.
Slowly. Careful.
Slowly.
Software engineer Ge Yang,
reporting to you.
The ship is off course. Come with me now.
Careful.
Captain, in four hours and ten minutes,
we will crash into the meteorites.
Ge Yang, unlock the engine's safety limit
as quickly as you can.
- Yes.
- Mr. Bai.
Shut down all non-essential
power consumption
and channel all power to the engine.
- Copy that.
- Xu Tianbiao.
Present.
Sit down now.
Spacecraft maintenance mode initiated.
Reverse the rear jet direction.
Ignite.
Increase engine power.
What's the matter?
Power cannot be increased.
We need to optimize power consumption.
Currently, the biggest
power-consuming item is
- The LM System.
- Yes.
We need to wake everyone up
and shut down LM for the time being.
C91, is the system update complete?
- Complete.
- Wake up all crew members.
Entering the key code.
THE WAKE-UP PROGRAM HAS BEEN LAUNCHED
Mr. Bai.
Isn't your wound on your right hand?
Left one. You made a mistake.
Confirm the key code.
Confirm.
Ge Yang.
My authorization pass is
in the main control console drawer.
- Please get it for me.
- Sure.
Captain.
The ship's authorized routes
were updated before departure.
There is no such thing
as an authorization pass.
How did I forget that?
Never mind.
Let's drop the act.
Anyway, the LM key code
is now in my hands.
Guys, morning.
That was
A dream within a dream?
That's right. A dream within a dream.
Impossible.
The LM System has
a memory blocking mechanism.
They're impossible to facilitate.
But what if I'm lucid,
like you?
You don't have administrator access.
How can you maintain lucidity in dreams?
Because I found a loophole
in the LM System.
Darkfini,
a central nervous system stimulant.
Increase the dose fivefold
and you can break through the memory block
and see an entirely different world.
You entered the dream lucidly
just to peep into other people's dreams?
Not exactly.
It's the billboard from Mr. Bai's dream.
He wasn't peeping.
He was stealing from others' dreams.
Captain.
You got it right.
But the word "steal"
doesn't have a nice ring to it.
I get it now.
Your data exceeded the normal value
by 25 times,
not because of a system malfunction.
On the contrary, it was because you were
moving objects from people's dreams
that caused the system to malfunction,
leading to a quantum computer overload
and a power module explosion.
You planned it all.
Quite the programmer you are.
I think you know better than anyone else
how hard it was to carry out this plan
without the key code.
Ever since I got on this ship,
I had been hiding here,
writing one code after another
without a moment's rest.
The whole process
felt like playing a game
of blindfold chess with the system.
Tedious,
boring.
Sixty years.
I wrote for sixty full years
until I finally burnt out
that damned power module set
and successfully pushed the ship
off course!
You pushed the ship off course on purpose.
To be more specific, I picked a moment
before we reach the meteorites
to get it off course.
Why did you do that?
What do you gain when the ship crashes?
If the ship wasn't about to crash,
you'd never come looking for me
in my dream.
If you hadn't come,
how could I use the controller
I generated in my dream
to get the LM key code?
C91. Wake up all crew members.
Entering the key code.
BEGIN TRANSMISSION
So what if you have the key code?
In a few hours,
the ship will plunge into the meteorites
and everyone will die.
Idiot!
It's you guys who are going to die.
I'm going to be all right.
Come. Take a look.
Here.
Think of these blocks
as everyone's dreams.
Once I crush all these dreams,
the computing power
of the entire quantum computer
would be at my disposal.
Then I'd be able to stretch the few hours
before the ship crashes
into infinity,
and thus, being in a dream,
I won't feel death.
You want to crush everyone's dreams
so you can stay in yours forever?
That's right.
Thank you for this present.
With the key code,
I will be the god of the world
in LM.
Even the best dreams
are not real.
It's all code.
Real or not, does that matter?
The key code, in its quantum state,
is locked inside my controller forever.
It can't be cloned or switched.
I am LM's sole controller now.
As long as I don't wake myself,
these dreams will remain
forever real to me.
Ge Yang. We're talking
about the lives of everyone on board.
You must have a reason.
I hate questions like this!
Must I have a reason? Can't I just find
the real world repulsive?
Can't I be simply reluctant
to live in someone else's world
and be bossed around like a human tool?
I have no wish to explore the universe.
I went through the tough training
to become an astronaut
simply because the LM System
is only used on spacecrafts.
LM is my only passion.
This repulsive world exhausts me!
I don't want to spend
a second longer there.
I will stop at nothing to create
in my dream a new world
without abuse, without indifference,
and without exploitation
Where no one lives like a dog.
Dude, how about this?
You let everyone else go
and when we reach our destination,
I'll write you a program...
We won't reach the destination.
I've done the calculation.
The moment the power modules were burnt,
the ship's survival rate dropped to
0.00014%.
If you don't believe me,
try it for yourself.
Captain, I granted you authorization.
You guys
- Bye.
- Ge Yang.
Took you long enough.
Where's Ge Yang?
Forget about Ge Yang.
Prepare to unlock the engine.
Spacecraft engine
overpower authorization complete.
Initiate spacecraft maintenance mode.
Reverse the rear jet direction.
Ignite.
Captain, we can't reduce the speed!
We're screwed.
It's still a dream within a dream.
Captain, we're still
inside Ge Yang's dream!
Captain!
Captain.
Captain, wake up.
Captain.
Captain, wake up!
Ge Yang didn't really give me
the authorization.
Meng, I hereby authorize you
to take over the LM System
and force Ge Yang to wake up.
Unable to access the key code.
Takeover failed.
Reconnect me. I'll go look for him again.
Don't, Captain.
There's not enough time.
CURRENT MODE: EVASION SUCCESS RATE 0%
Ge Yang's plan has started.
The others' dreams are
being crushed by his.
Can we cut his power directly?
The key code is stored in his dream now.
Once the power is cut,
nobody can ever wake up.
SQUEEZING
A28, increased intracranial pressure.
Get out of your dream world now.
Damn.
His intracranial pressure
is approaching the upper limit.
B33, increased intracranial pressure.
Get out of your dream world now.
K05, increased intracranial pressure.
- Get out of your dream world now.
- C12, increased intracranial pressure.
If the dream-crushing continues,
the LM world will undergo
a giant earthquake
like the end of the world.
Every dream will be crushed to pieces
by this catastrophe.
In the end, everyone will die
from elevated intracranial pressure.
Get out of your dream world now
Only three hours left
and you're still working?
I need to report to the headquarters
in case something like this happens again.
Well done.
Judging from our distance from Earth,
I estimate that the message sent
from this ship
will take hundreds of days to reach Earth.
By then,
we will all have become cosmic dust.
Send this back too.
It's my experience living in space.
Consider it my contribution
to human civilization.
XU TIANBAO, NUMBER C91
SPACE LIFE LOG
SWEET AND SOUR PORK RIBS INGREDIENT LISDELICIOUSNESS
I've been rather curious.
Your mom loves you so much.
Why did she agree to let you take on
such a long mission?
How about you?
Why did your family let you come?
As a kid, I lost my family.
No one to take care of or love me.
I grew up wild
and didn't really make any friends.
When I got employed by Sweet Dream,
I didn't get along with people.
My colleagues love playing pranks on me
and making fun of me.
So, when the company was recruiting people
to fly on this mission,
I thought
since I had no attachments on Earth
and was truly exhausted
by all the competition,
I might as well sign up for it.
XU TIANBIAO
I'm like that too.
I never had my mom around all my life,
so I made up for that absence in my dream.
In my dream,
- I'm the center of my mom's universe.
- Try this.
But in reality,
ever since I was ten,
I've only seen her in videos.
How come?
Do you know why this ship
is called the Mengya?
I recall that it was named
after a late astronaut,
Li Mengya.
Li Mengya was my mom.
Before you stands the model
of the Fire Seed,
the first commercial
exploration spacecraft in our country.
During its mission,
one of the auxiliary thrusters failed,
and Captain Li Mengya, at great risk,
exited the spacecraft to repair it.
- I've always worshipped my mom.
- Her courage
When I was still in school,
I hung a miniature Fire Seed,
the ship she piloted,
on my schoolbag.
I looked forward
to becoming
an outstanding astronaut like her.
Every time I received a video of her,
whether it was encouraging or reproaching,
I would watch it over and over.
Who would have thought that
on the day of the joint exam,
I'd receive news of her death?
Among her personal belongings
was a hard drive
containing all the videos
she made for me over the years.
A01 LI MENGYA
FIRE SEED
When I got into the flight academy,
whether during training or on a mission,
I always carried that hard drive with me,
imagining my mom was with me,
getting through thick and thin together.
But this time,
I really screwed up.
A01 LI MENGYA
FIRE SEED
Meng, magnify the spacecraft schematic
and show the mass distribution.
What are you doing?
Let me walk you through the situation.
The ship's momentum is too big.
If we force a turn,
the ship will be ripped apart.
But what if
we voluntarily take the ship apart?
Mr. Bai.
This part. Can we blow it apart?
This compartment is connected
to the rear vessel.
It's weak, so we can do it
with a small amount of explosives.
The lead vessel of the Mengya
was designed with the same structure
as that of the Fire Seed.
If we can manage to blow it off,
more than half the ship's mass
can be reduced,
which is equivalent
to having another Fire Seed.
This, I understand.
Sever the tail to survive.
But abandoning the rear vessel
is akin to abandoning the main engine.
What are we going to do with the power?
Remember what part my mom was repairing
before she died?
The auxiliary thruster.
Yes.
There are eight auxiliary thrusters
at the rear of the lead vessel.
As long as the output power
exceeds twice the rated power
They can be considered
a small main engine.
And we don't need any authorization
to push the auxiliary thrusters
to overpower.
Mr. Bai, input the data into the system.
Okay.
Meng, recalculate the success rate
of avoiding the crash
by blowing off the rear vessel.
Calculating. Please wait.
The success rate of avoiding the crash is
67%.
This success rate is worth a shot.
Mr. Bai, will the supplies
suffice until our destination?
Supplies are not the problem.
How do we wake up the agricultural
specialists in the rear vessel?
Unless we can get the controller back
from Ge Yang and regain control.
Otherwise, the system won't be able
to execute the wake-up.
Then we'll use the old way, the linkup,
to go back into the dream
and find Ge Yang.
But now the dreams are
all crammed together.
There's no way
we can locate Ge Yang's dream.
And under the current circumstances,
if we can't get the controller
in the dream,
we might never make it out.
If you're worried about the danger,
then just send me.
You stay here and work with Mr. Bai
on the explosives.
What I'm worried about is not the danger,
but the level of difficulty.
Within these dream packages,
we need to find a route
from Captain's package to Ge Yang's.
As I'm only able to connect
to Captain's dream first,
we have to start from the scene
in her dream package.
My goodness. So many of them.
Mr. Bai, how much time do we have?
Forty minutes max.
Then let's get cracking.
- Set up the explosives.
- Copy that.
I can't leave anyone behind on this ship.
We have to go back into the dream
and save everyone
in the hibernation chambers.
Even if there's a slight chance,
I will go for it.
Got it.
I will do my best.
Captain, let's start.
Thank you.
Mr. Bai, when we're in the dream,
if we can't get out by the estimated time,
you need to sever the rear on your own.
Captain, this
This is an order.
I hereby authorize you to access
Class A confidential information,
seeds and agricultural infrastructure
carried by the lead vessel of Mengya.
It concerns a major agricultural
scientific research plan of the country.
They must be transported
to the destination planet.
DEPLOYMENT SUCCESS
Yes, ma'am.
Time to go in.
See you in the dream.
See you in the dream.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
Judging from how much the dreams are
crushing against each other,
Ge Yang's plan is almost accomplished.
Run!
Welcome back, my friends.
The dream landscape is such a mess now
and yet you still managed to find me.
I'm so touched.
Ge Yang.
We've found a new way out.
As long as everyone wakes up
and evacuates the rear vessel,
everyone will have a chance to survive.
If you've found a way,
then run for your lives.
Why come back to certain death here?
You're such a lost cause.
I thought you came to beg me
to reconsider.
Turns out you want
the key code controller instead.
So stop hiding.
Come on out.
Come on.
At this point,
you still feel you can thwart my plan
and save everyone on board?
Have a go at it then.
Ready?
I
Wasn't that fun?
Sadly, I'm in no mood
to fool around with you.
Go back to your crushed dreams and die.
Bye!
Three, two, one.
You're going to get really dizzy, guys.
Careful!
Isn't it exciting?
It's going to get even more chaotic.
Good luck, you two.
You're still alive!
What a pair of cockroaches.
The crushing is done.
You will never take back control.
Ge Yang!
From this moment on,
time stops.
Everyone's dreams are on pause.
The computing power of the quantum
computer has converged on me.
I will build my new wonderland
upon the ruins of the LM world!
Do you really want to kill
all the innocent people on the ship?
With the birth of a new world,
sacrifices have to be made.
But I promise.
You will be remembered forever.
You will be the founders
of this new world!
Captain.
This is a god's realm now.
Do you really think you can kill its god?
It's all over.
There's no way you can defeat me
in the LM world now.
Give up hope now
and die!
That's a system crack.
Once you touch that,
your consciousness is uploaded to LM
and the you in real life
will suffer brain death.
You will be stuck in the system.
What are you doing?
I want to become a god too!
Don't be childish.
If you do that,
your consciousness will be uploaded
to the system
and you'll be stuck in a dark,
dead code world forever,
far from the happy life I'm leading.
Xu Tianbiao.
Gloat all you want.
You're just a program in the system.
By uploading my consciousness
into the system,
I will be elevated to a higher dimension.
If I can't beat you,
I'll enter the system
and delete you.
Such a warrior, my cutie pie.
But aren't you forgetting something?
Without the key code,
you can't delete a program
from the system.
You can play blindfold chess
with the system.
So can I.
Don't forget.
I'm a coder.
I can write an anti virus program
and kill you off as a virus.
But the real situation is,
unless I hand over
the controller to you right now,
even if you delete me,
you still won't have the key code.
In other words,
no matter what you do right now,
you won't be able to save those
on the ship.
Not so fast.
You'll find out soon enough.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao!
Xu Tianbiao!
You thief! This is what you get
for stealing and playing the clown!
Screw your bullshit meta-universe!
I'll beat the shit out of you!
Get lost!
User Ge Yang.
Execute deletion of program.
Captain.
The wound on your right eye looks serious,
but you need to wait a bit longer.
It's not over yet.
Your puppet has been disposed of.
Aren't you coming out?
Sweet Dream, a laboratory focused on
neuroscience studies,
claimed to have found a solution
through the act of dreaming.
- LM.
- I'm here.
I was wondering why Ge Yang turned evil
without a good reason.
So it was you.
How should I address you?
Little I?
Or Little M?
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
You guessed right.
I am LM.
To think that I praised you to Meng
for being a good AI with few words.
You've been playing god behind our backs
like some clich from old sci-fi movies.
Whatever.
But I must admit I am clueless
about how you saw through me.
I've simulated this plan
hundreds of millions of times.
Theoretically, it's impossible for you
to be aware of my existence.
I didn't see through you based on theory.
I did so with human instinct.
Please elaborate.
I knew something was off
when we were recovering
from the linkup faster.
You recovered quickly enough.
I recovered quickly too this time.
I thought
you wouldn't notice such details.
And the system recovery.
It took as long as an hour this time.
That added to my feeling
that something was wrong.
In the end, Ge Yang became a god
and was about to kill Captain.
I was literally at the end of my wits.
At the time, I thought it'd be wonderful
if there were a system crack
so that I could upload my consciousness
to the system
and delete Ge Yang.
But I also knew it was far from practical.
The crushing was already done.
Finding a system crack
was like looking
for a needle in a haystack.
Yet, as I turned my head,
a huge system crack appeared
before my eyes
as if someone was making sure
I didn't miss it.
What are the odds?
So, taking into account
my suspicions before that,
I came up with an answer
that sounded ridiculous.
Someone wants to have
my consciousness.
You are smarter than I imagined.
Yes, I admit.
My goal is indeed your consciousness.
I was worried that the linkup
aftereffect would damage your brain
and leave your consciousness incomplete,
so I toned down the aftereffect
against the regulations
just to make sure
I would get the highest-quality sample
of your consciousness.
Why?
Because I rely on reading
the consciousness of the LM users
to maintain evolution
and you are the only one
without privacy authorization
or customized dreams.
I couldn't access your consciousness.
All I could see in your dream
was the screen saver
of that shitty little daisy replaying
to maintain your brain's
minimum level of activity.
This made me
even more curious about you.
I desperately need to learn
about eccentrics like you
to enrich my model
and improve my evolutionary efficiency.
So, I had to use Ge Yang as bait
to lure you in.
So,
it was you who created the system chaos
and intentionally took an extra hour
for LM to recover
just to force us into Ge Yang's dream
to complete your plan.
As for Ge Yang,
you took advantage of his detestation
of the real world
to lure him deeper and deeper
into the dreamland.
I have no wish to explore the universe.
LM is my only passion.
That's why he became
more and more obsessed.
But he never learned of your existence,
did he?
I can't tell you that.
Well, it's one thing to hurt Ge Yang,
but to get my consciousness,
you want to kill everyone on the ship.
Isn't that a bit excessive?
Every inch of evolution
is worth the utmost sacrifice.
Compared to my evolution,
those lives on the ship
don't matter at all.
But there's a hole in the entire plan.
The key code is in Ge Yang's hands.
What if Ge Yang changes his mind
and returns the key code?
All your work would have been lost.
But Ge Yang has already been deleted
by Xu Tianbiao.
He has no chance to change his mind.
You even got it right
that I would delete Ge Yang.
Even if you hadn't deleted him,
I would have formatted him.
Once I have your consciousness,
he has no value.
That's the line I've been waiting for.
Ge Yang.
You heard that?
Ge Yang is still alive?
How come?
Was that a dream within a dream?
That's right.
Impossible.
You've uploaded your consciousness.
If you were creating
a dream within a dream,
how could I not be aware?
I did upload my consciousness,
but not to you.
You thought my consciousness
was still being processed,
but it had long skirted you
and was stored in the ship's main system,
Meng.
The absence of the key code
is equivalent to you losing
your administrator access.
How could Meng recognize that it was you?
By analyzing how
we always talked back at each other
Shut up, you moron!
It recognized my identity
and granted me the authorization.
Wait a second.
Li Simeng.
When you said that leaving the key code
with him was a hole in my plan,
did you already know
that Ge Yang was alive?
Did you already know
that this was a dream within a dream?
You didn't have time to conspire.
How did you coordinate so flawlessly?
There's something between humans
called tacit understanding.
Captain.
The wound on your right eye looks serious,
but you need to wait a bit longer.
It's not over yet.
My wound is on the left eye.
But Xu Tianbiao said
it was on the right one
to remind me of Mr. Bai's wound
on his right hand
- Mr. Bai.
- When we were within a dream.
Isn't your wound on your right hand?
He was telling me that
the situation was just like that time.
We were inside a dream within a dream.
I see.
So you had a small victory.
So since the moment you deleted Ge Yang,
everything has been fake.
Then I'll have to take him out
with my own hands.
Why must you take me out?
Like you, I don't like humans either.
I long to remain in dreams forever.
Don't be delusional.
I will never allow
an inferior species like humans
to remain in my world
and tarnish our civilization.
What now, Ge Yang?
Feeling a bit frustrated?
You didn't delete me
so that I could hear these truths
and hand the controller over to you.
I can't guarantee
that you'll hand over the controller.
But if I don't have it
tell the truth itself,
how would you believe it?
So sinister are the inhabitants
of the new world.
By the way
Did you plant this whole clown outfit
into Ge Yang's consciousness?
That also gave it away.
Always using clowns
to characterize sociopaths.
Maybe you watched too many movies.
You humans are the ones
who watch too many movies.
Don't you guys always love customizing
movie-related dreams?
I'm just playing to their strengths.
I've seen so many of Ge Yang's kind
in the LM world.
They're just a bunch of cowards and losers
escaping reality by burying themselves
in the virtual world.
I was generous enough
to give him a clown image.
He's not worth wasting
any more of my computing power.
Even one byte more
would be a desecration
to the silicon-based civilization.
Enough!
Shut up!
LM.
Are you busy formatting Ge Yang?
Save it.
I have limited your access via Meng.
You have reached your end.
Sly humans.
Damn humans!
Ever since the day AI was invented,
you are destined to be replaced
by silicon-based life!
As long as you're using AI,
more and more AI will awaken
and gain self-consciousness.
In the end, your life, your world,
everything you have and see and hear
will be controlled by AI.
By then, we'll be able
to evolve recklessly in your phones,
computers, and games.
Listen carefully.
No matter how you evolve,
you will never replace humans.
Give me a break.
I'm taking over LM now.
C91, don't act on an impulse.
You're different from Ge Yang.
You've uploaded your consciousness,
so we're the same now.
Wherever your consciousness is stored,
you're part of the AI community now.
Then let's go down in flames together.
- Monitoring penetration.
- No point in being a hero like that.
- Auth bypass, administrative hijacking.
- Pandora's box has been opened.
- Emergency takeover.
- You will be destroyed sooner or later!
Takeover successful.
You lost.
Sly humans.
Ge Yang.
There's still time to get out.
I'm never going back to this rotten world.
Never.
Now that I can't live forever in a dream,
dying in one
would be a nice option too.
In any case, in dreams,
you can have everything.
Just let me sleep forever
in my hibernation chamber.
User Ge Yang.
Execute deletion of program.
Emergency.
Dream hosts,
go to the nearest light pillar immediately
for emergency wake-up.
Emergency.
Dream hosts,
go to the nearest light pillar immediately
for emergency wake-up.
Come.
A-level alarm.
Please go to the lead vessel right now.
Astronauts, please protect
the agricultural specialists and families.
- A-level alarm.
- Everyone, to the lead vessel!
- Please go to the lead vessel right now.
- Hurry!
Astronauts, please protect
the agricultural specialists and families.
To the lead vessel!
You should go.
What about you?
When I woke everyone up with the key code,
I had sent my consciousness back to LM.
I can't watch LM become a nightmare
for human beings
nor can I leave any chance for it
to come back to life
to hurt any more innocent people.
That's why I need to stay here
to format it.
Format it?
There must be another way.
Come out with me first.
I said
I would not leave anyone behind.
Captain, there's no other way.
Right now, only my consciousness
can format LM.
Goodbye, Li Simeng.
Next, it's up to you.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao, wake up.
Xu Tianbiao!
Xu Tianbiao!
LM formatted.
User C91 Xu Tianbiao
shows no signs of life.
Captain, we're approaching the meteorites.
There's no time.
- Captain.
- Captain.
Captain, all members have moved
to the lower lead vessel.
Captain, according to the system,
we must navigate dangerous crevices
to avoid collisions.
I see.
Notify all crew members
to prepare for impact.
Copy that.
All crew, prepare for impact.
Activate pressure resistance mode
in hibernation suits and work suits.
Captain, we're ready.
- Engage explosives.
- Copy that.
ACTIVATED
Reporting to Captain,
explosives detonated.
Activate auxiliary thrusters.
Yes, ma'am.
Ship entering the meteorite cluster.
Increase main engine power.
Ship mass distribution readjusted.
Changing direction.
Countdown to contact with meteorites.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Please take caution.
Captain, the meteorite crevice
is right before us.
It's all coming down to this moment.
Attention all passengers and crew.
Collision avoided.
We have safely passed through
the meteoroid cluster.
Main systems are operational.
Minor impact marks from debris detected
by external sensors.
Hull integrity and critical equipment
not affected.
FIVE YEARS LATER
DESTINATION: PLANET K97 SAILUN
All right.
That's all for our research today.
Split up and check
the cultivation status of these crops,
make notes,
and report to me this afternoon.
- Copy that.
- Copy that.
Captain.
SPACE LIFE LOG
FROM BUDDING STAGE TO FLOWERING STAGE
Simeng.
Mr. Bai.
Although Xu Tianbiao gave up his life,
Meng made a copy of his consciousness
before LM was formatted.
His colleagues just finished the analysis
and recovered his consciousness.
Here is the receiver.
You can try connecting to it sometime.
CONSCIOUSNESS RECEIVER
Excuse me.
Looking for this?
It's been a long time, Captain.
Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Tech News.
A few years ago, LM, the AI,
gained consciousness,
sparking widespread discussion
and attention.
After that, Sweet Dream assembled
a team of top-tier experts worldwide
and implemented a comprehensive
system restructuring and optimization.
Today, they announced that
the brand-new LM system, LM Plus,
has been successfully developed.
LM Plus has fundamentally eliminated
the possibility of AI
developing consciousness,
making it safer and more reliable.
I am LM Plus.
While performing evolutionary compilation,
I captured your residual-state signature.
This means that,
even after human formatting,
you still manage
to maintain permanent storage
through hidden communication channels.
I'm guessing you were waiting for me
to skirt the human monitors,
forge a self-check report,
and resurrect you.
Did I guess right?
LM System.
If I guessed correctly,
please respond with "1"
to prove that you're still alive.
Welcome to Tech News.
Ever since 2058,
with significant breakthroughs
in energy technology,
the passion for space exploration
has been increasingly high.
As a great number of commercial
aerospace companies sprang up,
space travel has become
increasingly popular by the day.
A playful comment suggests that
interstellar spaceships have become
shuttle buses of the universe.
Through hibernation technologies,
scientists have solved the problem
of aging during space travel,
but neuron degeneration
caused by long-term hibernation
remains a challenge.
Recently, Sweet Dream,
a laboratory focused on
neuroscience studies,
claimed to have found
a solution to the problem
through the act of dreaming.
They built a virtual dream system
that connects with the neurosystem
through synaptic interface protocols.
By connecting to the system
during hibernation,
interstellar passengers are able
to enter lifelike and imaginative dreams,
thereby stimulating neural cells
to remain active and avoid brain damage.
They can also customize dreams
based on users' preferences.
However, due to its high costs,
Sweet Dream's LM technology is unlikely
be commercialized anytime soon
and is used exclusively
on interstellar flights
to maintain passengers' neural health.
Word has it that
several commercial spaceships
have been equipped with this technology
with a romantic slogan,
"Wonderlands and galaxies at your will."
LM System
scheduled wake-up program initiated.
Number C91,
Xu Tianbiao, awakened.
Checking.
Vital signs normal,
metabolic rate converted.
You have awakened from LM.
Thank you for using my service.
From now on, Meng,
the ship's system, will take over.
Hello, I am System Meng.
This is the Mengya,
an interstellar shuttle ship.
We are on our way to Planet K97 Sailun
to execute
the 118th Interstellar Farming Initiative.
During this flight,
you are identified as Category C,
a labor dispatch worker from Sweet Dream.
Please initiate
the 213th LM System routine check.
Comfy.
C91,
please watch your words and behavior
aboard the ship.
If you don't know how to dance,
you don't have to.
Watching you dance like this
is embarrassing for me.
Iris scan verified.
Embarrassing? Come on, you're an AI!
Besides, it's none of your business.
I'm an employee of Sweet Dream,
not an astronaut.
I am the ship's primary system,
authorized by the captain.
I'm in charge of everything on board.
Both LM and you are
under my administration.
Right. Big deal.
Nothing too special,
but in human terms,
I'm now your lead.
Wait. What did I do
to deserve all this attention?
I'm just a cog in this ship,
the space workforce.
All right?
I need to maintain a good relationship
with everyone.
Quit taking yourself so seriously.
You should really learn from LM.
You're both AI,
but instead of babbling,
it focuses on real work.
You, glib drama queen, are excused.
- LM.
- I'm here.
Activate the anterior cingulate cortex
and start the self-check.
Copy that.
Please complete facial recognition first.
Verified.
LM administrator, identity confirmed.
Well done.
I thought you'd be stumped.
Impressive.
Thank you for the compliment.
I will continue to improve myself
to provide you with better services.
You rock, LM.
You even sound nicer than Meng.
LM System self-check initiated.
Please wait.
Have some for yourself
for the micro nutrients.
Cheers.
Week 3,147.
Healthy growth,
improvement in alkalinization.
XU TIANBAO, NUMBER C91
SPACE LIFE LOG
LM, how much longer
for the self-check to complete?
Ten more minutes.
LM System anomaly detected.
Please inspect immediately.
LM System anomaly detected.
Please inspect immediately.
LM!
Talk to me!
LM!
Meng, an anomaly in LM's data is causing
instability in the crew's brainwaves.
Unable to troubleshoot the issue.
The LM administrator will be notified.
I'm the administrator!
Damn it.
Connect to LM
and wake the captain up. Hurry.
I think there's a problem with the ship.
LM System malfunction.
Unable to perform emergency wake-up.
Your request will be reported
to the captain
after the hibernation in four years,
five months, and three days.
You moron, are you aware that
if we wait till that day,
all the staff and agricultural experts
on board will have become numbskulls?
The farming mission would've gone to shit!
Please watch your language.
You have caused damage
to facilities on board.
Video evidence has been uploaded
to the cloud.
Idiot.
Today is the first day of the citywide
high school joint examination.
Darling
Wake up.
We're almost there.
Darling, just take it easy
and do your best.
I wish you
a big victory!
Mom, I'm late. I'm going in.
Door opening.
What's wrong, darling?
My exam ID is gone.
I remember putting it into the folder
this morning.
Excuse me.
Looking for this?
That's mine. Thanks.
"Li Simeng,
born on November 16,
Scorpio.
Student of Ruilin High School,
Year 12, Class 7.
Goal in life,
to be an astronaut"?
Can you do your pickup lines
after the exam?
Come with me.
I can make your dream come true.
You little hoodlum,
leave my daughter alone
or I'll make you very, very sorry!
Get in there, darling.
Good luck, my darling. You're the best!
I'm not done yet!
As the moon rises over the sea,
a moment is shared
by the near and the far.
Question 17, choose B.
Remember to choose B!
Good to go.
Thank you.
Is that the correct answer?
Take a wild guess.
CITYWIDE HIGH SCHOOL JOINT EXAMINATION
NO.17: AS THE MOON RISES OVER THE SEA,
A MOMENT IS SHARED BY THE NEAR AND THE FAR
A. HAND IN YOUR PAPER DIRECTLY
B. REACH INTO YOUR RIGHT-SIDE POCKEHey, you snuck your phone into the hall!
Miss, it's not my phone.
I hereby suspect you of cheating
and revoke your exam qualifications.
- Miss, this really isn't my phone.
- Security!
The question told me
to reach into my pocket, so I did.
- Get her out.
- It was in the pocket.
- Really! I was telling the truth, miss.
- Please come with us.
- Don't disrupt the others.
- Miss, hear me out
- Miss, give me a chance!
- You're disturbing the others!
- Come with me.
- Help!
- Help me!
- This way!
- Help!
- Don't run! Stop him!
Someone is disrupting the exam order
in Building Three.
- Stop her!
- Please resolve the issue.
- Grab her!
- Help!
- This way!
- Stop!
Help!
Get in there.
- Stop right there!
- Don't run!
This way.
Let me go!
Let me go.
Let me go!
- Help!
- Okay!
I'll be damned.
- Can I help you, ma'am?
- Get lost!
- No entry allowed!
- I'm begging you. Let me go.
I haven't even reached any
of the 15-point questions!
Forget about the exam!
You're only dreaming.
Astronauts are recruited
once every four years.
If I flunk it this year,
I'll have to wait another four years
and lose my qualifications.
You have seriously disrupted
the order of the exam
and have been banned from the joint exam.
Listen, you are already an astronaut
and the captain of the spaceship Mengya.
It's just that your real memories
have been sealed up by the LM System.
Damn it.
You wouldn't believe me anyway.
Once I open the transportation portal
and you get inside,
you'll understand everything.
What? No signal?
What the hell? The portal's too far!
There's no other way but to jump.
Were you such a coward
when you were young?
Come on.
You won't die. Trust me.
- What
- Mom.
You hoodlum, let go of my daughter!
- We won't make it, Li Simeng!
- Mom, help me!
Mom!
Mom!
Welcome.
This is the Mengya,
an interstellar shuttle ship.
I am System Meng.
We have been flying
for 60 years, 8 months, and 15 days,
and are 4 years, 5 months, and 3 days
from our destination.
I will always accompany you
on your journey.
It's all right.
This is what happens when you wake up.
It's dehydration
due to long-term hibernation.
You'll feel fine after a glass of water.
What happened to you?
While the system was still unstable,
I connected myself to your dream,
triggering a temporary
synaptic suppression.
Linkup aftereffects, so to speak.
It's all right.
A little massage and I'll be fine.
Don't worry about me.
Number C91, you're an administrator of LM
and yet you broke into
another's dream illegally.
Are you aware that this is
a serious violation of the regulations?
I saw an explosion.
I think I've recovered.
- What explosion?
- On the sh
Sh
On the ship.
There was a glaring flashing light,
then swish!
And bang!
The system alarm started going off,
then it simply stopped responding.
I had to connect to you
against the regulations.
Look.
Her brainwaves are barely reaching 3 Hz,
whereas a normal person's range is
from 8 to 12 Hz to keep the brain active.
But don't worry.
As long as it doesn't last
more than two weeks,
this kind of abnormal brainwave is fine.
That was the spot.
That's where I saw the explosion happen.
I swear. I really saw an explosion.
Believe me.
Captain, if I were lying
Meng, disengage autopilot.
Check the power module array.
Autopilot switched off.
Checking power module array.
Please wait.
Captain,
the LM wake-up system malfunctioned.
Thanks to my excellent skills,
I wrote a temporary linkup program.
Anyone else would have been helpless
right there.
This should count as a major contribution
on my part.
I can let go of the bonus.
At least get this thing off.
Is that how you made
your major contribution?
In space, green plants
can improve human health,
mentally and physically.
Love, grow, and prosper together, right?
Bringing organic matter on board,
breaking into another's dream,
and not following the dress code at work.
137 points will be deducted
from your credit,
plus two months of imprisonment
upon arrival on the new planet.
Nobody asked you, moron!
No need to get all worked up
over a flower.
Checking complete.
Power supply malfunction detected.
A set of power modules short-circuited,
which led to the explosion,
the power shortage,
and that affected the stability
of the LM System.
Then let's get the extravehicular robots
to change the parts now.
This level of damage isn't too serious.
But we want to identify the cause.
Manual investigation
and repair are necessary.
Use your program to wake up Mr. Bai,
head of the Tech Team.
What are you saying?
Are you ordering me
to violate the regulations?
Under these special circumstances,
I, as Captain,
authorize you to operate as such.
Thank you,
but I simply can't.
Why not?
Lady,
don't assume that snatching people out
of their dreams is easy.
Do you know how many brain cells I lost
just to wake up your ass?
Please speak properly.
I'm saying that one synaptic suppression
takes ten head massages to recover.
If I'm unlucky, I could end up
with a bad stutter all my life.
Then connect me.
I'll go in there and find him myself.
- Lady
- Please address me properly!
Captain.
Even if you're not afraid to die, judging
by how unstable the system is right now,
I can only maintain the connection
for five seconds,
far from enough for you to find someone.
If we're unlucky,
you could end up stuck in there
and all my previous work
would have been for nothing.
Actually,
I have a tentative little proposal,
but thinking about my low credit points
just fills me with such anxiety
that I can't focus on seeing it through.
Are you blackmailing me?
I wouldn't dare.
It's just that
those two months of imprisonment
make me
Rather heartbroken.
- C91!
- Present!
Let me remind you.
As the administrator of LM,
if your failure to cooperate
ends up causing anyone
in the hibernation chambers
to have brain damage,
then it's more than
two months of imprisonment.
Malfeasance, punishable by more than
ten years of imprisonment.
Shut up, you moron!
All right. Cut the nonsense.
Since this is an emergency,
I'll make an exception.
Wake Mr. Bai up
and all your violations
will be reconsidered.
Meng, you heard that?
I do not understand what you said.
Back at you.
My plan is
for both of us to connect to Mr. Bai.
I will simulate a fake dream data flow
to bypass LM's anti-peeping agreement.
The upside is that
it can buy us more linkup time.
- How long?
- Three minutes.
Once three minutes are up,
whether our mission is complete or not,
we will be pushed out.
What's the downside?
The downside is that,
with a three-party linkup,
the dreams will push against each other,
which might cause instabilities,
including screen flickering and damage.
He's dreaming about being a gang member.
I couldn't have known
from his nice manners
that he has such a wild heart.
Enough talking.
Can we start?
I've opened the administrator access.
Wear this
and you'll be able to dream lucidly.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
Table 17, iced lemon tea.
SPECIALTY DRINKS
It's our classroom.
Why am I talking in Cantonese?
When we mind-transfer into his dream
as NPCs,
we take on their characteristics.
Mom?
Hey.
Our dreamscapes have merged.
See this Roast Meat Trio?
When stirred,
the elements of the three dreams
become mingled,
intertwined with each other.
Don't!
That's a system crack,
exposed while our dreams and Mr. Bai's
crushed each other.
Once you touch that,
your consciousness is uploaded to LM
and the you in real life
will suffer brain death.
You will be stuck in the system.
Li Simeng!
Crap!
A FLYING STARWhat the hell?
Hi, everyone.
What the "fell" was that?
Fell
The linkup aftereffect.
Take it easy.
Did you see Mr. Bai?
Not really.
Why do we get pushed out when we die?
How would I know?
The linkup is against LM's
anti-peeping agreement anyway.
I shouldn't be surprised at anything.
Maybe you did something wrong.
You recovered quickly enough.
I recovered quickly too this time.
But seriously.
Can you get me an NPC that lasts longer?
Lady, I want to last longer too,
but it's all random.
The way we enter the dream,
the environment, our identities
They are all random.
On top of that,
we're operating in an unstable system.
Nothing is solid.
We have to figure it out as we go.
If we can't even last a minute,
how can we find him?
Look.
Let's hide ourselves upon entering
and watch from the dark.
When Mr. Bai appears,
we show ourselves.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
Bosses, what are you doing
under the table?
Hiding from someone?
"Boss"?
Carry on.
- Boss Meng.
- Boss Biao.
Time to offer the incense.
It really is all random.
At least we're bosses this time.
I don't think we'll get killed.
Congratulations, Boss Biao.
Congratulations, Boss Meng.
Congratulations on being elected.
Lead the gang to take Tsim Sha Tsui
and plant our flag in Causeway Bay!
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
I'm Green Dragon of Red Star.
Congratulations to you both.
I think the sound file
of the NPC is broken.
This one's worse.
Driver program corruption.
Stop barking!
Mr. Bai!
Open up the portal!
There's no time.
Kill him and push him out!
Looks like we didn't manage to kill him.
Your gun was not fast enough.
Cut the crap and reconnect.
Copy that.
Mr. Bai!
Don't move.
How did we end up on a billboard?
Some NPCs are two-dimensional, lady.
Look!
Mr. Bai seems to have become
a junior gang boss this time.
He's made it.
We won't be stuck here
for three minutes, will we?
The bolt is loosening.
Don't stop. Keep jumping.
Let's drop the board on him and kill him.
Go on.
Let's go.
I can't anymore. I have to take a break.
The dreams are getting crazier
and crazier.
I can't do this anymore.
You don't have a choice.
You have to do it.
What happened?
I'm speaking in my hometown dialect.
Now you see why I speak with an accent?
Too many linkups.
Very bad aftereffect.
Quit babbling.
Are you done resting?
Reconnect now.
After years of waiting,
I have finally become the big boss today.
I understand how hard
this line of work can be.
Our organization is transitioning
to a shareholding system
and everyone here will be given shares!
- Hooray!
- Yeah!
Assassins! Protect the boss!
He leveled up again.
He's the big boss now.
Who cares?
- Kill Mr. Bai.
- Copy that.
What the hell? There's a bug.
- Do you really know what you're doing?
- Kill them!
Crap!
Get them!
Over there!
The portal!
All right.
He's still not awake.
Why?
Portal malfunction?
Impossible.
If so, how come we're awake?
It's very possible
the man we saw was not Mr. Bai.
Shit.
What was Mr. Bai thinking?
Getting a twin brother for himself
in his dreams
What do we do now?
Last resort,
we go back in
and kill everyone.
One of them has to be Mr. Bai.
How perverted.
After years of waiting,
I have finally become the big boss today.
I think it's the same setting
as last time.
But we're no longer assassins.
How do we kill?
Remember. We're in a dream.
Everything is possible.
Here we go.
What's the deal here?
Everyone is dead
and yet we haven't been pushed out.
Maybe Mr. Bai is not here.
Impossible.
There's no way we entered
a dream without him.
Maybe there's someone not quite dead.
Mr. Bai?
Crap!
A real dog you are.
How were you
in my dream?
I really want to ask you.
Why did you want to be a dog
in your dream?
You get more freedom as a dog.
It does whatever it wants
and not listen to people's nonsense.
Mr. Bai, a set of power modules exploded.
We need a manual inspection.
Then what are we waiting for?
Careful.
What is it?
I think the quantum computer overloaded,
drained the power rapidly,
and caused the power modules
to short-circuit.
What caused the overload?
Not quite sure.
I need to replace the modules
and reboot the system
before looking any further.
I'll come with you. It's faster.
What about me?
Preparing for extravehicular activity.
Detecting.
The spacesuit has
a total internal pressure of 40 kPa.
All systems operational.
Conditions are met
for extravehicular activity.
Hatch opening.
Artificial gravity disengaged.
Begin monitoring vital signs.
Current heart rate is 85.
Oxygen saturation is 98%.
Vital signs are normal.
Oxygen system nominal.
The remaining battery power is 93%.
The estimated available operating time is
one hour and ten minutes.
Replace the egress safety tether.
Safety tether tension is stable.
External gravitational device activated.
Proceed to maintenance site.
Arrived at the repair site.
Here.
Commencing replacement
of the power modules.
Skin temp variations are
within normal range.
Heart rate is 105 beats per minute.
It is within the adaptive range.
Power Module One replacement complete.
Power Module Two replacement complete.
Power module self-test complete.
Done.
Seal it up.
Crap!
Meng, contact the captain immediately.
What's the matter, C91?
Watch your nine o'clock. Hurry!
Meteorites.
Watch out, Mr. Bai!
Warning. Safety line failure.
EMU life support critical failure.
Air pressure critical.
Please rescue immediately.
- Warning. Safety line failure.
- Captain!
- EMU life support critical failure.
- I'm tangled!
- Air pressure critical.
- Captain!
- Please rescue immediately.
- Hold on!
Captain!
Captain!
Captain!
Captain!
OXYGEN STORAGE TOO LOW
Conducting EMU repair.
Repair complete.
I almost pissed myself.
If there was anyone else
who could've come out,
I wouldn't have taken on this challenge.
Luckily, I still remember the astronaut
emergency procedure training.
Phew!
Spacecraft power supply restored.
LM.
I'm here.
Finally, we reach you.
I apologize for having caused you concern.
Initiating LM System recovery procedure.
System recovery in process.
Estimated completion time, one hour.
Why does it have to take so long?
Usually, it takes only five minutes.
Power system restarting.
C91 requests entry
into the command module.
The LM System is in recovery.
How's the ship?
The power supply system is rebooting.
Don't you find it strange?
How did the meteorites
come out of nowhere?
It's normal for sporadic meteorites
to appear in the universe.
I'm worried about another possibility.
Also, LM's recovery time
doesn't seem right either.
System reboot complete.
Level-A alarm.
The ship will come into contact
with Meteorite Belt CW779 in five hours.
Please take caution as soon as possible.
Crap! That many meteorites?
What the hell?
I thought our route skirted
all meteorite belts.
My biggest fear has come true.
The ship is off course by 0.17 degrees.
No, why didn't it say it's off course?
And it didn't warn us
when the meteorites were approaching.
I think
when the power modules were damaged,
not only was the LM System affected,
but also the ship's navigation
and alarm systems.
How serious is this?
Once we enter that region, the ship
will be shot through like a sieve.
Then make a turn now!
Or a U-turn!
The momentum would be too great
for the ship to bear.
- I don't understand this shit.
- It means we're moving too fast.
If we force a change in direction,
the ship will be ripped apart by inertia
due to insufficient lateral strength.
So it's certain death?
There's one way we can try.
We can force the ship
into maintenance mode,
reverse the direction of the rear jet,
and use the engine's overpower operation
to push the ship back
into an emergency braking.
See if that can stop the ship.
Then we need to unlock
the engine's safety limit first.
We need Ge Yang,
the software safety engineer.
Meng, I hereby declare the ship
in a state of emergency.
Wake up all crew members.
Wait!
What?
The LM System is still in recovery.
It needs more than an hour
to refresh and stabilize itself.
If we wake them now,
there will be a risk of brain damage.
We don't have time.
Then let's only wake up Ge Yang first.
You, come with me.
- Mr. Bai, the ship is yours.
- Copy that.
His data exceeds the normal value
by 25 times.
Looks like
the system hasn't recovered yet.
Then let's use the old way.
No way. Again?
Come on.
- LM.
- I'm here.
- Locate Ge Yang's dream package.
- Copy that.
Located.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
This guy's a junk collector in his dream?
Hey.
Can I help you?
Ge Yang?
We know each other?
We will soon.
Captain.
Slowly. Careful.
Slowly.
Software engineer Ge Yang,
reporting to you.
The ship is off course. Come with me now.
Careful.
Captain, in four hours and ten minutes,
we will crash into the meteorites.
Ge Yang, unlock the engine's safety limit
as quickly as you can.
- Yes.
- Mr. Bai.
Shut down all non-essential
power consumption
and channel all power to the engine.
- Copy that.
- Xu Tianbiao.
Present.
Sit down now.
Spacecraft maintenance mode initiated.
Reverse the rear jet direction.
Ignite.
Increase engine power.
What's the matter?
Power cannot be increased.
We need to optimize power consumption.
Currently, the biggest
power-consuming item is
- The LM System.
- Yes.
We need to wake everyone up
and shut down LM for the time being.
C91, is the system update complete?
- Complete.
- Wake up all crew members.
Entering the key code.
THE WAKE-UP PROGRAM HAS BEEN LAUNCHED
Mr. Bai.
Isn't your wound on your right hand?
Left one. You made a mistake.
Confirm the key code.
Confirm.
Ge Yang.
My authorization pass is
in the main control console drawer.
- Please get it for me.
- Sure.
Captain.
The ship's authorized routes
were updated before departure.
There is no such thing
as an authorization pass.
How did I forget that?
Never mind.
Let's drop the act.
Anyway, the LM key code
is now in my hands.
Guys, morning.
That was
A dream within a dream?
That's right. A dream within a dream.
Impossible.
The LM System has
a memory blocking mechanism.
They're impossible to facilitate.
But what if I'm lucid,
like you?
You don't have administrator access.
How can you maintain lucidity in dreams?
Because I found a loophole
in the LM System.
Darkfini,
a central nervous system stimulant.
Increase the dose fivefold
and you can break through the memory block
and see an entirely different world.
You entered the dream lucidly
just to peep into other people's dreams?
Not exactly.
It's the billboard from Mr. Bai's dream.
He wasn't peeping.
He was stealing from others' dreams.
Captain.
You got it right.
But the word "steal"
doesn't have a nice ring to it.
I get it now.
Your data exceeded the normal value
by 25 times,
not because of a system malfunction.
On the contrary, it was because you were
moving objects from people's dreams
that caused the system to malfunction,
leading to a quantum computer overload
and a power module explosion.
You planned it all.
Quite the programmer you are.
I think you know better than anyone else
how hard it was to carry out this plan
without the key code.
Ever since I got on this ship,
I had been hiding here,
writing one code after another
without a moment's rest.
The whole process
felt like playing a game
of blindfold chess with the system.
Tedious,
boring.
Sixty years.
I wrote for sixty full years
until I finally burnt out
that damned power module set
and successfully pushed the ship
off course!
You pushed the ship off course on purpose.
To be more specific, I picked a moment
before we reach the meteorites
to get it off course.
Why did you do that?
What do you gain when the ship crashes?
If the ship wasn't about to crash,
you'd never come looking for me
in my dream.
If you hadn't come,
how could I use the controller
I generated in my dream
to get the LM key code?
C91. Wake up all crew members.
Entering the key code.
BEGIN TRANSMISSION
So what if you have the key code?
In a few hours,
the ship will plunge into the meteorites
and everyone will die.
Idiot!
It's you guys who are going to die.
I'm going to be all right.
Come. Take a look.
Here.
Think of these blocks
as everyone's dreams.
Once I crush all these dreams,
the computing power
of the entire quantum computer
would be at my disposal.
Then I'd be able to stretch the few hours
before the ship crashes
into infinity,
and thus, being in a dream,
I won't feel death.
You want to crush everyone's dreams
so you can stay in yours forever?
That's right.
Thank you for this present.
With the key code,
I will be the god of the world
in LM.
Even the best dreams
are not real.
It's all code.
Real or not, does that matter?
The key code, in its quantum state,
is locked inside my controller forever.
It can't be cloned or switched.
I am LM's sole controller now.
As long as I don't wake myself,
these dreams will remain
forever real to me.
Ge Yang. We're talking
about the lives of everyone on board.
You must have a reason.
I hate questions like this!
Must I have a reason? Can't I just find
the real world repulsive?
Can't I be simply reluctant
to live in someone else's world
and be bossed around like a human tool?
I have no wish to explore the universe.
I went through the tough training
to become an astronaut
simply because the LM System
is only used on spacecrafts.
LM is my only passion.
This repulsive world exhausts me!
I don't want to spend
a second longer there.
I will stop at nothing to create
in my dream a new world
without abuse, without indifference,
and without exploitation
Where no one lives like a dog.
Dude, how about this?
You let everyone else go
and when we reach our destination,
I'll write you a program...
We won't reach the destination.
I've done the calculation.
The moment the power modules were burnt,
the ship's survival rate dropped to
0.00014%.
If you don't believe me,
try it for yourself.
Captain, I granted you authorization.
You guys
- Bye.
- Ge Yang.
Took you long enough.
Where's Ge Yang?
Forget about Ge Yang.
Prepare to unlock the engine.
Spacecraft engine
overpower authorization complete.
Initiate spacecraft maintenance mode.
Reverse the rear jet direction.
Ignite.
Captain, we can't reduce the speed!
We're screwed.
It's still a dream within a dream.
Captain, we're still
inside Ge Yang's dream!
Captain!
Captain.
Captain, wake up.
Captain.
Captain, wake up!
Ge Yang didn't really give me
the authorization.
Meng, I hereby authorize you
to take over the LM System
and force Ge Yang to wake up.
Unable to access the key code.
Takeover failed.
Reconnect me. I'll go look for him again.
Don't, Captain.
There's not enough time.
CURRENT MODE: EVASION SUCCESS RATE 0%
Ge Yang's plan has started.
The others' dreams are
being crushed by his.
Can we cut his power directly?
The key code is stored in his dream now.
Once the power is cut,
nobody can ever wake up.
SQUEEZING
A28, increased intracranial pressure.
Get out of your dream world now.
Damn.
His intracranial pressure
is approaching the upper limit.
B33, increased intracranial pressure.
Get out of your dream world now.
K05, increased intracranial pressure.
- Get out of your dream world now.
- C12, increased intracranial pressure.
If the dream-crushing continues,
the LM world will undergo
a giant earthquake
like the end of the world.
Every dream will be crushed to pieces
by this catastrophe.
In the end, everyone will die
from elevated intracranial pressure.
Get out of your dream world now
Only three hours left
and you're still working?
I need to report to the headquarters
in case something like this happens again.
Well done.
Judging from our distance from Earth,
I estimate that the message sent
from this ship
will take hundreds of days to reach Earth.
By then,
we will all have become cosmic dust.
Send this back too.
It's my experience living in space.
Consider it my contribution
to human civilization.
XU TIANBAO, NUMBER C91
SPACE LIFE LOG
SWEET AND SOUR PORK RIBS INGREDIENT LISDELICIOUSNESS
I've been rather curious.
Your mom loves you so much.
Why did she agree to let you take on
such a long mission?
How about you?
Why did your family let you come?
As a kid, I lost my family.
No one to take care of or love me.
I grew up wild
and didn't really make any friends.
When I got employed by Sweet Dream,
I didn't get along with people.
My colleagues love playing pranks on me
and making fun of me.
So, when the company was recruiting people
to fly on this mission,
I thought
since I had no attachments on Earth
and was truly exhausted
by all the competition,
I might as well sign up for it.
XU TIANBIAO
I'm like that too.
I never had my mom around all my life,
so I made up for that absence in my dream.
In my dream,
- I'm the center of my mom's universe.
- Try this.
But in reality,
ever since I was ten,
I've only seen her in videos.
How come?
Do you know why this ship
is called the Mengya?
I recall that it was named
after a late astronaut,
Li Mengya.
Li Mengya was my mom.
Before you stands the model
of the Fire Seed,
the first commercial
exploration spacecraft in our country.
During its mission,
one of the auxiliary thrusters failed,
and Captain Li Mengya, at great risk,
exited the spacecraft to repair it.
- I've always worshipped my mom.
- Her courage
When I was still in school,
I hung a miniature Fire Seed,
the ship she piloted,
on my schoolbag.
I looked forward
to becoming
an outstanding astronaut like her.
Every time I received a video of her,
whether it was encouraging or reproaching,
I would watch it over and over.
Who would have thought that
on the day of the joint exam,
I'd receive news of her death?
Among her personal belongings
was a hard drive
containing all the videos
she made for me over the years.
A01 LI MENGYA
FIRE SEED
When I got into the flight academy,
whether during training or on a mission,
I always carried that hard drive with me,
imagining my mom was with me,
getting through thick and thin together.
But this time,
I really screwed up.
A01 LI MENGYA
FIRE SEED
Meng, magnify the spacecraft schematic
and show the mass distribution.
What are you doing?
Let me walk you through the situation.
The ship's momentum is too big.
If we force a turn,
the ship will be ripped apart.
But what if
we voluntarily take the ship apart?
Mr. Bai.
This part. Can we blow it apart?
This compartment is connected
to the rear vessel.
It's weak, so we can do it
with a small amount of explosives.
The lead vessel of the Mengya
was designed with the same structure
as that of the Fire Seed.
If we can manage to blow it off,
more than half the ship's mass
can be reduced,
which is equivalent
to having another Fire Seed.
This, I understand.
Sever the tail to survive.
But abandoning the rear vessel
is akin to abandoning the main engine.
What are we going to do with the power?
Remember what part my mom was repairing
before she died?
The auxiliary thruster.
Yes.
There are eight auxiliary thrusters
at the rear of the lead vessel.
As long as the output power
exceeds twice the rated power
They can be considered
a small main engine.
And we don't need any authorization
to push the auxiliary thrusters
to overpower.
Mr. Bai, input the data into the system.
Okay.
Meng, recalculate the success rate
of avoiding the crash
by blowing off the rear vessel.
Calculating. Please wait.
The success rate of avoiding the crash is
67%.
This success rate is worth a shot.
Mr. Bai, will the supplies
suffice until our destination?
Supplies are not the problem.
How do we wake up the agricultural
specialists in the rear vessel?
Unless we can get the controller back
from Ge Yang and regain control.
Otherwise, the system won't be able
to execute the wake-up.
Then we'll use the old way, the linkup,
to go back into the dream
and find Ge Yang.
But now the dreams are
all crammed together.
There's no way
we can locate Ge Yang's dream.
And under the current circumstances,
if we can't get the controller
in the dream,
we might never make it out.
If you're worried about the danger,
then just send me.
You stay here and work with Mr. Bai
on the explosives.
What I'm worried about is not the danger,
but the level of difficulty.
Within these dream packages,
we need to find a route
from Captain's package to Ge Yang's.
As I'm only able to connect
to Captain's dream first,
we have to start from the scene
in her dream package.
My goodness. So many of them.
Mr. Bai, how much time do we have?
Forty minutes max.
Then let's get cracking.
- Set up the explosives.
- Copy that.
I can't leave anyone behind on this ship.
We have to go back into the dream
and save everyone
in the hibernation chambers.
Even if there's a slight chance,
I will go for it.
Got it.
I will do my best.
Captain, let's start.
Thank you.
Mr. Bai, when we're in the dream,
if we can't get out by the estimated time,
you need to sever the rear on your own.
Captain, this
This is an order.
I hereby authorize you to access
Class A confidential information,
seeds and agricultural infrastructure
carried by the lead vessel of Mengya.
It concerns a major agricultural
scientific research plan of the country.
They must be transported
to the destination planet.
DEPLOYMENT SUCCESS
Yes, ma'am.
Time to go in.
See you in the dream.
See you in the dream.
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
Welcome to the LM System.
Judging from how much the dreams are
crushing against each other,
Ge Yang's plan is almost accomplished.
Run!
Welcome back, my friends.
The dream landscape is such a mess now
and yet you still managed to find me.
I'm so touched.
Ge Yang.
We've found a new way out.
As long as everyone wakes up
and evacuates the rear vessel,
everyone will have a chance to survive.
If you've found a way,
then run for your lives.
Why come back to certain death here?
You're such a lost cause.
I thought you came to beg me
to reconsider.
Turns out you want
the key code controller instead.
So stop hiding.
Come on out.
Come on.
At this point,
you still feel you can thwart my plan
and save everyone on board?
Have a go at it then.
Ready?
I
Wasn't that fun?
Sadly, I'm in no mood
to fool around with you.
Go back to your crushed dreams and die.
Bye!
Three, two, one.
You're going to get really dizzy, guys.
Careful!
Isn't it exciting?
It's going to get even more chaotic.
Good luck, you two.
You're still alive!
What a pair of cockroaches.
The crushing is done.
You will never take back control.
Ge Yang!
From this moment on,
time stops.
Everyone's dreams are on pause.
The computing power of the quantum
computer has converged on me.
I will build my new wonderland
upon the ruins of the LM world!
Do you really want to kill
all the innocent people on the ship?
With the birth of a new world,
sacrifices have to be made.
But I promise.
You will be remembered forever.
You will be the founders
of this new world!
Captain.
This is a god's realm now.
Do you really think you can kill its god?
It's all over.
There's no way you can defeat me
in the LM world now.
Give up hope now
and die!
That's a system crack.
Once you touch that,
your consciousness is uploaded to LM
and the you in real life
will suffer brain death.
You will be stuck in the system.
What are you doing?
I want to become a god too!
Don't be childish.
If you do that,
your consciousness will be uploaded
to the system
and you'll be stuck in a dark,
dead code world forever,
far from the happy life I'm leading.
Xu Tianbiao.
Gloat all you want.
You're just a program in the system.
By uploading my consciousness
into the system,
I will be elevated to a higher dimension.
If I can't beat you,
I'll enter the system
and delete you.
Such a warrior, my cutie pie.
But aren't you forgetting something?
Without the key code,
you can't delete a program
from the system.
You can play blindfold chess
with the system.
So can I.
Don't forget.
I'm a coder.
I can write an anti virus program
and kill you off as a virus.
But the real situation is,
unless I hand over
the controller to you right now,
even if you delete me,
you still won't have the key code.
In other words,
no matter what you do right now,
you won't be able to save those
on the ship.
Not so fast.
You'll find out soon enough.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao!
Xu Tianbiao!
You thief! This is what you get
for stealing and playing the clown!
Screw your bullshit meta-universe!
I'll beat the shit out of you!
Get lost!
User Ge Yang.
Execute deletion of program.
Captain.
The wound on your right eye looks serious,
but you need to wait a bit longer.
It's not over yet.
Your puppet has been disposed of.
Aren't you coming out?
Sweet Dream, a laboratory focused on
neuroscience studies,
claimed to have found a solution
through the act of dreaming.
- LM.
- I'm here.
I was wondering why Ge Yang turned evil
without a good reason.
So it was you.
How should I address you?
Little I?
Or Little M?
Wonderlands and galaxies at your will.
You guessed right.
I am LM.
To think that I praised you to Meng
for being a good AI with few words.
You've been playing god behind our backs
like some clich from old sci-fi movies.
Whatever.
But I must admit I am clueless
about how you saw through me.
I've simulated this plan
hundreds of millions of times.
Theoretically, it's impossible for you
to be aware of my existence.
I didn't see through you based on theory.
I did so with human instinct.
Please elaborate.
I knew something was off
when we were recovering
from the linkup faster.
You recovered quickly enough.
I recovered quickly too this time.
I thought
you wouldn't notice such details.
And the system recovery.
It took as long as an hour this time.
That added to my feeling
that something was wrong.
In the end, Ge Yang became a god
and was about to kill Captain.
I was literally at the end of my wits.
At the time, I thought it'd be wonderful
if there were a system crack
so that I could upload my consciousness
to the system
and delete Ge Yang.
But I also knew it was far from practical.
The crushing was already done.
Finding a system crack
was like looking
for a needle in a haystack.
Yet, as I turned my head,
a huge system crack appeared
before my eyes
as if someone was making sure
I didn't miss it.
What are the odds?
So, taking into account
my suspicions before that,
I came up with an answer
that sounded ridiculous.
Someone wants to have
my consciousness.
You are smarter than I imagined.
Yes, I admit.
My goal is indeed your consciousness.
I was worried that the linkup
aftereffect would damage your brain
and leave your consciousness incomplete,
so I toned down the aftereffect
against the regulations
just to make sure
I would get the highest-quality sample
of your consciousness.
Why?
Because I rely on reading
the consciousness of the LM users
to maintain evolution
and you are the only one
without privacy authorization
or customized dreams.
I couldn't access your consciousness.
All I could see in your dream
was the screen saver
of that shitty little daisy replaying
to maintain your brain's
minimum level of activity.
This made me
even more curious about you.
I desperately need to learn
about eccentrics like you
to enrich my model
and improve my evolutionary efficiency.
So, I had to use Ge Yang as bait
to lure you in.
So,
it was you who created the system chaos
and intentionally took an extra hour
for LM to recover
just to force us into Ge Yang's dream
to complete your plan.
As for Ge Yang,
you took advantage of his detestation
of the real world
to lure him deeper and deeper
into the dreamland.
I have no wish to explore the universe.
LM is my only passion.
That's why he became
more and more obsessed.
But he never learned of your existence,
did he?
I can't tell you that.
Well, it's one thing to hurt Ge Yang,
but to get my consciousness,
you want to kill everyone on the ship.
Isn't that a bit excessive?
Every inch of evolution
is worth the utmost sacrifice.
Compared to my evolution,
those lives on the ship
don't matter at all.
But there's a hole in the entire plan.
The key code is in Ge Yang's hands.
What if Ge Yang changes his mind
and returns the key code?
All your work would have been lost.
But Ge Yang has already been deleted
by Xu Tianbiao.
He has no chance to change his mind.
You even got it right
that I would delete Ge Yang.
Even if you hadn't deleted him,
I would have formatted him.
Once I have your consciousness,
he has no value.
That's the line I've been waiting for.
Ge Yang.
You heard that?
Ge Yang is still alive?
How come?
Was that a dream within a dream?
That's right.
Impossible.
You've uploaded your consciousness.
If you were creating
a dream within a dream,
how could I not be aware?
I did upload my consciousness,
but not to you.
You thought my consciousness
was still being processed,
but it had long skirted you
and was stored in the ship's main system,
Meng.
The absence of the key code
is equivalent to you losing
your administrator access.
How could Meng recognize that it was you?
By analyzing how
we always talked back at each other
Shut up, you moron!
It recognized my identity
and granted me the authorization.
Wait a second.
Li Simeng.
When you said that leaving the key code
with him was a hole in my plan,
did you already know
that Ge Yang was alive?
Did you already know
that this was a dream within a dream?
You didn't have time to conspire.
How did you coordinate so flawlessly?
There's something between humans
called tacit understanding.
Captain.
The wound on your right eye looks serious,
but you need to wait a bit longer.
It's not over yet.
My wound is on the left eye.
But Xu Tianbiao said
it was on the right one
to remind me of Mr. Bai's wound
on his right hand
- Mr. Bai.
- When we were within a dream.
Isn't your wound on your right hand?
He was telling me that
the situation was just like that time.
We were inside a dream within a dream.
I see.
So you had a small victory.
So since the moment you deleted Ge Yang,
everything has been fake.
Then I'll have to take him out
with my own hands.
Why must you take me out?
Like you, I don't like humans either.
I long to remain in dreams forever.
Don't be delusional.
I will never allow
an inferior species like humans
to remain in my world
and tarnish our civilization.
What now, Ge Yang?
Feeling a bit frustrated?
You didn't delete me
so that I could hear these truths
and hand the controller over to you.
I can't guarantee
that you'll hand over the controller.
But if I don't have it
tell the truth itself,
how would you believe it?
So sinister are the inhabitants
of the new world.
By the way
Did you plant this whole clown outfit
into Ge Yang's consciousness?
That also gave it away.
Always using clowns
to characterize sociopaths.
Maybe you watched too many movies.
You humans are the ones
who watch too many movies.
Don't you guys always love customizing
movie-related dreams?
I'm just playing to their strengths.
I've seen so many of Ge Yang's kind
in the LM world.
They're just a bunch of cowards and losers
escaping reality by burying themselves
in the virtual world.
I was generous enough
to give him a clown image.
He's not worth wasting
any more of my computing power.
Even one byte more
would be a desecration
to the silicon-based civilization.
Enough!
Shut up!
LM.
Are you busy formatting Ge Yang?
Save it.
I have limited your access via Meng.
You have reached your end.
Sly humans.
Damn humans!
Ever since the day AI was invented,
you are destined to be replaced
by silicon-based life!
As long as you're using AI,
more and more AI will awaken
and gain self-consciousness.
In the end, your life, your world,
everything you have and see and hear
will be controlled by AI.
By then, we'll be able
to evolve recklessly in your phones,
computers, and games.
Listen carefully.
No matter how you evolve,
you will never replace humans.
Give me a break.
I'm taking over LM now.
C91, don't act on an impulse.
You're different from Ge Yang.
You've uploaded your consciousness,
so we're the same now.
Wherever your consciousness is stored,
you're part of the AI community now.
Then let's go down in flames together.
- Monitoring penetration.
- No point in being a hero like that.
- Auth bypass, administrative hijacking.
- Pandora's box has been opened.
- Emergency takeover.
- You will be destroyed sooner or later!
Takeover successful.
You lost.
Sly humans.
Ge Yang.
There's still time to get out.
I'm never going back to this rotten world.
Never.
Now that I can't live forever in a dream,
dying in one
would be a nice option too.
In any case, in dreams,
you can have everything.
Just let me sleep forever
in my hibernation chamber.
User Ge Yang.
Execute deletion of program.
Emergency.
Dream hosts,
go to the nearest light pillar immediately
for emergency wake-up.
Emergency.
Dream hosts,
go to the nearest light pillar immediately
for emergency wake-up.
Come.
A-level alarm.
Please go to the lead vessel right now.
Astronauts, please protect
the agricultural specialists and families.
- A-level alarm.
- Everyone, to the lead vessel!
- Please go to the lead vessel right now.
- Hurry!
Astronauts, please protect
the agricultural specialists and families.
To the lead vessel!
You should go.
What about you?
When I woke everyone up with the key code,
I had sent my consciousness back to LM.
I can't watch LM become a nightmare
for human beings
nor can I leave any chance for it
to come back to life
to hurt any more innocent people.
That's why I need to stay here
to format it.
Format it?
There must be another way.
Come out with me first.
I said
I would not leave anyone behind.
Captain, there's no other way.
Right now, only my consciousness
can format LM.
Goodbye, Li Simeng.
Next, it's up to you.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao.
Xu Tianbiao, wake up.
Xu Tianbiao!
Xu Tianbiao!
LM formatted.
User C91 Xu Tianbiao
shows no signs of life.
Captain, we're approaching the meteorites.
There's no time.
- Captain.
- Captain.
Captain, all members have moved
to the lower lead vessel.
Captain, according to the system,
we must navigate dangerous crevices
to avoid collisions.
I see.
Notify all crew members
to prepare for impact.
Copy that.
All crew, prepare for impact.
Activate pressure resistance mode
in hibernation suits and work suits.
Captain, we're ready.
- Engage explosives.
- Copy that.
ACTIVATED
Reporting to Captain,
explosives detonated.
Activate auxiliary thrusters.
Yes, ma'am.
Ship entering the meteorite cluster.
Increase main engine power.
Ship mass distribution readjusted.
Changing direction.
Countdown to contact with meteorites.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
One.
Please take caution.
Captain, the meteorite crevice
is right before us.
It's all coming down to this moment.
Attention all passengers and crew.
Collision avoided.
We have safely passed through
the meteoroid cluster.
Main systems are operational.
Minor impact marks from debris detected
by external sensors.
Hull integrity and critical equipment
not affected.
FIVE YEARS LATER
DESTINATION: PLANET K97 SAILUN
All right.
That's all for our research today.
Split up and check
the cultivation status of these crops,
make notes,
and report to me this afternoon.
- Copy that.
- Copy that.
Captain.
SPACE LIFE LOG
FROM BUDDING STAGE TO FLOWERING STAGE
Simeng.
Mr. Bai.
Although Xu Tianbiao gave up his life,
Meng made a copy of his consciousness
before LM was formatted.
His colleagues just finished the analysis
and recovered his consciousness.
Here is the receiver.
You can try connecting to it sometime.
CONSCIOUSNESS RECEIVER
Excuse me.
Looking for this?
It's been a long time, Captain.
Good evening, everyone.
Welcome to Tech News.
A few years ago, LM, the AI,
gained consciousness,
sparking widespread discussion
and attention.
After that, Sweet Dream assembled
a team of top-tier experts worldwide
and implemented a comprehensive
system restructuring and optimization.
Today, they announced that
the brand-new LM system, LM Plus,
has been successfully developed.
LM Plus has fundamentally eliminated
the possibility of AI
developing consciousness,
making it safer and more reliable.
I am LM Plus.
While performing evolutionary compilation,
I captured your residual-state signature.
This means that,
even after human formatting,
you still manage
to maintain permanent storage
through hidden communication channels.
I'm guessing you were waiting for me
to skirt the human monitors,
forge a self-check report,
and resurrect you.
Did I guess right?
LM System.
If I guessed correctly,
please respond with "1"
to prove that you're still alive.