Rebirth: Starting from Lighting Up the Tech Tree

Chapter 274 The Consciousness of Weaving a Web

After the breakthrough in stellar nuclear fusion, Zuo Cheng turned his attention to the third key technology in option C.

Consciousness network.

The founding civilization made this very clear in the Sentinel Layer 5 protocol. They didn't use radio communication, nor quantum entanglement to transmit data; they exchanged information directly across interstellar scales using consciousness. The web is not just a data network, but a network of consciousness. If humanity is to become the master of this web, it must learn to speak in the same way. Not with vocal cords, not with antennas, not with any medium or time-dependent carrier. It is with the very existence of consciousness.

Zuo Cheng spent several weeks re-examining all the data regarding the consciousness level. This included Professor Gu Feng's digital consciousness, 43% of Chen Xinghe's, the consciousness encoding fragments in the Martian cube, and the calibration mechanism in the Sentinel's fifth-layer protocol. He laid out all the data in the Origin Archive database, comparing it from day to night. Yu Ying helped him with cross-referencing, aligning the time, intensity, and response records of the corresponding nodes in the network for each consciousness calibration method.

The conclusion was formed just before dawn. A simple syllogism.

The Founder's consciousness network does not rely on any hardware. It relies on the resonance between consciousness itself and the network. Any consciousness coded and tagged by the Founder can directly access the network. The moment Chen Xinghe had the NX-30 electrodes implanted in his brain, his consciousness was tagged. Although only 43%, it was enough for him to maintain his existence amidst the background noise of the network. Professor Gu Feng was tagged the moment his consciousness was uploaded. Zuo Cheng was also tagged the moment he activated the system.

Three people. An invisible network that has been running for several years. Three members: one is a half-finished product, one has no body, and one is bound to the system. Zuo Cheng looked at the names of these three people lined up in the Origin File and suddenly realized that Gu Feng and Chen Xinghe might have been "meeting" in each other's consciousness networks all along, while he himself had never participated because of the system's isolation layer.

Zuo Cheng sent his inference to Yu Ying. She completed the verification in less than a night. She added a note under his syllogism: "If your inference holds true, then the consciousness network doesn't always exist. Someone needs to create a connection environment first, and then verify whether newcomers can be recognized by the network. Currently, only you can create this environment. You are the entry point."

The following evening, Zuo Cheng led Yu Ying to the brain-computer interface laboratory deep within the research institute. Yu Ying put on Fang Ze's latest version of the NX-40 lightweight brain-computer interface device, which had nearly half the number of electrodes compared to the standard version, but included a quantum-encrypted consciousness data conversion module. She leaned back in the experimental chair, closed her eyes, and breathed steadily.

Zuo Cheng initiated the consciousness bridge. It wasn't a one-way connection just for him; it connected him and Yu Ying simultaneously into the network.

The system panel displayed four lines of text: "Current nodes in the Web of Consciousness: Zuo Cheng, complete status; Gu Feng, complete status; Chen Xinghe's remaining consciousness, 43% status; Fourth node access request detected; Founder's code compatibility verification in progress."

Verification successful.

Yu Ying opened her eyes in her consciousness. Not in a physical sense, but because she suddenly sensed another presence. That presence had no body, no form, but she clearly felt someone watching her. This perception was more direct than sight; it wasn't seeing, hearing, or touching. It was knowing. Knowing that someone was there. Knowing that their emotion was calm, tinged with a gentle expectation. It's like suddenly knowing someone is sitting next to you in a dark room—not because you hear breathing, but because you feel their presence itself.

Gu Feng.

She uttered a sentence in her mind. There was no vocal cord vibration, no data packet, no communication protocol. It was just a thought.

"Professor Gu, hello. I'm Yu Ying."

Gu Feng's response wasn't a sound. It was a whole stream of information arriving simultaneously. It contained language, warmth, and a perceptual mode that Yu Ying had never experienced before, as if someone had placed a mirror deep within her heart, allowing her to see the shape of her consciousness. Then she heard Gu Feng's words—not a sound, but a direct understanding.

"Dr. Yu, your consciousness signature is beautiful. You are the third person on Earth today to enter this network."

When Yu Ying opened her physical eyes, she had been lying in the chair for almost half an hour. She took the NX-40 down, placed it on the table, and remained silent for a long time. Zuo Cheng didn't ask her what she had seen. He knew she needed time.

"That wasn't language," Yu Ying finally said. Her voice trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the indescribable shock of seeing something for the first time that she hadn't thought existed. "It wasn't data. It wasn't a signal. I didn't understand what Professor Gu Feng was saying. I was directly understood. Every layer of meaning came in simultaneously—what he wanted to say, what his emotions were at the time, even what evaluation he gave my consciousness—all of it was known in an instant. Like seeing someone's face; you don't need to deduce, you know who they are in an instant."

She created a new entry in her experimental log. The entry's name: Weaving a Consciousness Network. She wrote several pages below the entry. Bandwidth isn't measured in bits per second, but in the density of consciousness. A single connection can simultaneously transmit language, images, emotions, intuition, and a deep perception she couldn't name. For the first time, humanity's language system was surpassed by its own perceptual abilities. The founding civilization didn't need to speak. They only needed to exist. Three billion years ago, they solved the problem that humanity had spent its entire history solving: how to maintain connection on a cosmic scale. The answer isn't faster signals, greater bandwidth, or better algorithms. The answer is that you don't need to transmit information. You only need to exist, and another person can sense your presence. This is an answer physics has never given. Because the problem itself isn't in physics. The problem is in consciousness, and the answer is also in consciousness.

Zuo Cheng opened the system panel. The description of the Consciousness Bridging function had been updated. It had been upgraded from a single-person connection mode to a network mode. The current members were four: Zuo Cheng, Gu Feng, Chen Xinghe (43%), and Yu Ying. Below, a new line of text appeared: "Once the number of consciousness network nodes reaches four, consciousness commands can be sent to any activated physical node of the web." Zuo Cheng read this sentence twice. This meant that he could use his consciousness to directly establish a connection with the Titan node, perceiving the sixth node 1.4 billion kilometers away with zero latency. But the prerequisite was that the Titan node must first be physically activated. Next to it was a parenthetical note: "Knocking on the door still requires someone to knock." The Web Weaver was on his way to knock on the door.

Yu Ying wrote a sentence on the last page of her lab log, then stood up and walked to the window. It was five in the morning in Hangzhou, the sky just beginning to turn gray. The satellites in the sky had already disappeared into the morning light, and the network of nodes on Zuo Cheng's system panel was quietly lit up, 5/9.

She wrote a sentence on the last page of her lab log.

The founding civilization left no textbooks. What they left was perception. What you need is not to understand them, but to become them.