2: Chapter 2 Building the Platform of Cause and Effect

It wasn't a matter of money; it was a matter of life.

He stood in the center of the houseboat, eyes narrowed, his gaze piercing through the wooden walls as if staring into that void sea of Karma. Countless transparent threads flickered in and out of his consciousness—the unspeakable connections between people: blood ties, geographical ties, academic ties, professional ties, and even just a chance encounter passing in the street.

In theory, it was completely feasible.

The Six Degrees of Separation theory states that any two people in the world can be connected through at most six intermediaries. But that was in the real world, requiring a concrete social chain. But now?

Now, he had the Power of Causality.

What did this era leave behind? Light and shadow, traces, the reflections cast upon the world by every person who had ever lived. The street corner where you paused, the shop name you mentioned, the path you walked repeatedly, the moon you looked up at—these were all Karma, thin as gossamer, yet truly existing.

The karmic threads of billions of people had long since woven into a dense, airtight web over the years.

He didn't need to go through six people at all.

He only needed to find any single node, and he could follow this web to pull everyone out.

What he wanted to create wasn't a simple chat group. Those Family groups with dozens of people were noisy and chaotic, yet would turn lifeless if no one snatched a red envelope for three days. What he wanted to build was a massive network based on Karma, one that belonged to all Yanhuang Civilization people—

A local area network.

No, that term wasn't accurate enough. It should be called...

Yang Hang stood in the center of the houseboat, countless names flashing through his mind before finally settling on four words.

Cause and Effect Fate Platform.

A platform to carry Karma and fate.

Good, he had the name. But the problem was, what about the energy?

Yang Hang calmed down and began to deduce this project using the logic he’d learned during his few months as a product manager before his Transmigration. The implementation of any product required resources: server computing resources, bandwidth transmission resources, and power maintenance resources. What did the Cause and Effect Fate Platform need? It needed his Mental Energy, or rather, the Power of Causality.

Just now, simply peeking into the Karma of his grandmother and grandfather and tracing those few lines of marriage had left him with a sense of exhaustion, like having a vial of blood drawn. If he were to connect hundreds of millions of people and maintain an information-sharing platform at the same time—

What would become of him?

An image surfaced in Yang Hang's mind: himself like a punctured balloon, slumped shriveled on the houseboat floor, his last sliver of Mental Energy drifting away along the karmic threads to become the nourishment for this platform.

No. Absolutely not.

He had to find a sustainable model.

He sat down again, cross-legged, eyes closed, his consciousness sinking into the Karmic Void Realm. This time, it wasn't to connect with anyone, but to test.

He randomly locked onto a direction where there was a faint glow, representing a strange life aura. Yang Hang extended a wisp of the Power of Causality and gently touched it.

[Connection Successful]

[Maintaining connection consumes 0.0001% Mental Energy per second]

He maintained it for five seconds, then disconnected.

The consumption was extremely low, almost negligible. This was a one-on-one connection with no data exchange, just establishing a channel. If it were just this, connecting to a hundred million people would consume ten thousand times 0.0001% per second, which was 1% of his Mental Energy. In other words, even if he did nothing and just maintained a hundred million empty connections, he would be drained dry in a hundred seconds.

Furthermore, he still had to support information interaction.

Yang Hang opened his eyes, his brow furrowed.

In the internet of his previous life, server power consumption was the biggest expense, and users paid their own electricity bills to go online. But with the Cause and Effect Fate Platform, he was the server, and he was the energy source. If users went online, would it consume his Mental Energy?

This business deal was a total loss.

Unless...

A thought flashed through his mind like lightning.

Let the users pay the internet fees themselves.

Yang Hang froze, then slowly his mouth curled into a silent smile.

Right, why should I provide the energy? I'm using the Power of Causality to build the platform and provide the service; if you want to use it, you have to pay. This fee, of course, isn't RMB—in this world, RMB most likely can only be used as kindling—but rather their most precious possession.

Essence, Qi, and Spirit.

Physical strength, energy, Mental Energy, or whatever you want to call it—the capital that sustains a person's life. Everyone has this, and it can be recovered after being used, as long as it's not over-consumed.

He would create a virtual currency called "karma points." Users would top up karma points by consuming their own Essence, Qi, and Spirit. As the platform provider, he would take a cut as a service and server maintenance fee.

How much of a cut?

Yang Hang thought for a moment, held out one hand, and spread his five fingers.

Half.

A fifty percent cut.

Was it unscrupulous? A bit. But was it reasonable? It was incredibly reasonable.

He built the server, he wrote the code, he did the maintenance, and the customer service... well, there was no customer service for now, but there might be later. He was putting in so much effort; what was wrong with taking a little transaction fee? Moreover, as long as the user base was large enough, he could not only maintain the platform at zero cost but also gain a massive amount of energy from it to strengthen himself.

The Essence, Qi, and Spirit topped up by users would be converted by the Power of Causality, with half serving as platform fuel and the other half—

Going to him.

This was a perpetual motion machine.

This was a money-printing machine.

This was the Foundation for Yang Hang to establish himself in this Magic Sea world.

The more Yang Hang thought about it, the more excited he became. He paced back and forth in the houseboat, his mind already starting to construct the specific functions of this platform. Having been a product manager for so many years in his previous life, he finally had the chance to design a product that truly belonged to him from scratch.

The top-up interface had to have style.

It couldn't be a simple "Yes/No" pop-up; that was too low-class. He would use the scene he saw during his Awakening—that illusory Grandmist woven from countless karmic threads, deep, vast, and mysterious. Letting users complete their top-up through visualization would not only create a full sense of ritual but also instill a sense of awe toward this power.

The platform functions should draw from mature internet products.

A public forum was a must, allowing everyone to post information, seek help, trade, and share intelligence. What do people in desperate situations need most? Hope. And hope often comes from knowing that others are also alive and doing relatively well.

There also had to be a private messaging function to facilitate contact between relatives and friends. For example, some middle-aged women care most about their families. Letting her contact her husband and children—even if her husband calls her a "stupid idiot"—is better than hearing nothing at all.

A search engine... might not be needed for now, but it would definitely be necessary once there was more data. Users would need to find the content they need within a massive amount of information; they couldn't rely on flipping through it one by one.

A super platform that integrated the likes of Tieba, WeChat, and Baidu.

No, even more powerful than that.

Because this was a platform based on Karma.

Yang Hang stopped in his tracks, his eyes burning bright.

Private messages wouldn't just be private messages, but information transmitted directly through karmic threads. Forums wouldn't just be forums, but the intersection of countless people's conscious projections. He could set a "Follow" function, allowing users to follow those with whom they have deep Karma; he could set a "Recommendation" function, pushing information related to a user's potential Karma; he could even set a "Karmic Map," allowing everyone to see their own connection to this world.

Of course, those were matters for later.

Launch first, iterate later.

With the plan decided, Yang Hang no longer hesitated. He sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and his intent instantly sank into that invisible Karmic Void Realm.

This was the second time he had actively entered this state, and he was much more proficient than the first. He could feel his consciousness detaching from the shackles of his Physical Body, "seeing" everything around him from a more transcendent perspective.

In an instant, he felt as if he had become an Incarnation of God.

Thousands of karmic threads of varying thickness and light emerged before his "eyes," chaotic and intertwined, yet following some hidden order. Some threads were as thick as a thumb and glowed brilliantly—those were parents and close relatives; some threads were as thin as a hair and flickered uncertainly—those were old acquaintances long out of touch; and some threads were in between, bright or dim, winding and extending toward the unknown distance.

Yang Hang was in no hurry to touch these threads, instead observing quietly.

He discovered a pattern.

Those brighter threads often connected to people he had interacted with deeply—parents, grandmother, a few childhood friends, an ex-girlfriend. Those dimmer threads connected to colleagues he only nodded to, classmates he hadn't seen in years, and neighbors he greeted in the residential area.

The thinnest ones were even ephemeral—salespeople whose WeChat he’d added via QR code on the subway, delivery riders who had brought him food, or customer service agents he’d dealt with once while shopping online.

In the internet age, a person's Karma was infinitely magnified.

Even a single QR code payment left a karmic trace.

Yang Hang took a deep breath—though he had no physical form in this void realm—and then, using those thicker karmic threads as bridges, he extended his perception outward.

Buzz—!

In an instant, the scene in his mind exploded.

With those thousands of threads as a Foundation, billions upon trillions of silk threads erupted from the void like a volcanic eruption, like the Big Bang. Every single thread represented a Yanhuang Civilization person, and they were linked, intertwined, and tangled with each other, forming a dense, airtight web that covered the entire globe!

Yang Hang saw his parents; their threads were bright and warm, extending into the distance. Following his parents' threads, he saw even more—maternal grandparents, paternal grandparents, uncles, aunts, and those distant relatives he had never met but shared blood ties with.

He saw his childhood friend again, the one he’d played with since they were in diapers. Following his friend's threads, he saw his friend's parents, his friend's wife, his friend's primary school classmates, and his friend's company colleagues. Those colleagues in turn connected to even more colleagues, Family, and friends.

Layer upon layer, infinite and endless.

This was the legacy left by the internet age.

It allowed every person's fate to be tightly interwoven with countless others; even if you didn't leave your house for a lifetime, as long as you went online, you would be drawn into this giant web.

Yang Hang felt a surge of violent dizziness.

Nearly ten million!

With just a preliminary expansion, he had connected to nearly ten million points of light representing human consciousness. These points of light were densely packed like stars on a summer night, flickering in his awareness. Behind every point of light was a living person—the elderly, children, men, women, those crying, those afraid, and those swearing.

This number was already close to the limit of what his current Mortal body could carry.

He couldn't take any more.

Yang Hang endured the splitting pain in his head and began to execute the final step of his plan—sending out the invitation.

Maintaining the existence of this Karmic Void Realm was already causing his physical strength to drain rapidly. He could feel his Physical Body, sitting cross-legged in the houseboat, sweating profusely, his heart racing, and his blood pressure rising. This was his body warning him: Stop now, you can't hold on.

But he didn't stop.

If he stopped now, all his previous efforts would be in vain.

He was going to send a mental invitation to the owners of these nearly ten million karmic threads simultaneously.

If maintaining the void realm was like running a server, then sending invitations was like pushing messages to nearly ten million users at once. The consumption wasn't additive; it was multiplicative.

Sweat seeped from Yang Hang's forehead, trickling down his brow and stinging his eyes. He didn't open his eyes or raise a hand to wipe it. The sweat quickly soaked his collar and flowed down his neck; the T-shirt on his back was already drenched, clinging tightly to his skin.

His body began to tremble slightly, his teeth clenched, and his temples throbbed.

This was the precursor to overdrawing his Mental Energy.

But he couldn't stop.

"Connect... for me!"

He gave a low roar and fiercely injected a surge of intent into the core of the Cause and Effect Fate Platform.

In that instant, he seemed to hear the voices of ten million people—no, not hear, but perceive. Countless emotions of shock, fear, doubt, and expectation fed back along the karmic threads, surging into his consciousness like a tide.

Then, he used his intent to condense a sentence and sent it out along those karmic threads simultaneously.

["Cause and Effect Fate Platform" has sent you a formal invitation. Do you accept?]

[To accept the invitation, you must visualize the Karmic Void Realm and sacrifice one-fifth of your own physical strength, spirit, or blood Qi to exchange for 1 initial karmic point.]

[1 karmic point can maintain your access to the Fate Platform for 24 hours.]

The moment the information was successfully transmitted, Yang Hang's vision went black, and he nearly fainted.

He was too tired.

That kind of fatigue wasn't the physical exhaustion after a day's work, but a sense of emptiness from having a part of his Soul drawn out. He felt his consciousness dissipating, drifting away, and slowly detaching from the Karmic Void Realm.

Just as he was about to lose his grip—

A weak but pure energy slowly flowed back into his body along one of the karmic threads.

It was from that direction... he sensed it; it was a middle-aged woman named Zhang Xiaoqin. She had accepted the invitation and sacrificed one-fifth of her physical strength in exchange for 1 karmic point. According to the rules, half of this—the energy equivalent to 0.5 karma points—flowed to Yang Hang as a service fee.

Immediately after, there was a second stream.

A third stream.

A fourth stream.

Hundreds and thousands of streams of energy converged from all directions. Each stream was insignificant, like a drop of water. But when these drops gathered together, they became a gurgling brook, a rolling river, the first spring rain for a parched land.

Yang Hang's nearly depleted body received timely replenishment.

That sense of emptiness was filled bit by bit.

That dissipating consciousness reconsolidated.

Someone topped up!

This model was feasible!