129: Chapter 129 The Grand Plan of the Sub-Space, The Birth of the Illusionary City

Los Angeles, Hollywood Hills, a detached villa.

Zhang Yi stood on the balcony, reviewing the Zhang Long card that had just been retrieved into the system inventory, confirming the android was intact, before closing the inventory interface and turning his gaze back to the burning city skyline in the distance.

Hollywood Hills was an upscale neighborhood, currently surrounded by police guards, with the red and blue flashing lights of police cars blinking densely at every street corner.

But his gaze passed over the neatly trimmed palm trees at the edge of the community and the police cars still patrolling diligently, landing further away.

That was the direction of downtown Los Angeles, where the entire sky was illuminated a murky dark orange by dozens of soaring flames.

Although the formula π = 3 had disappeared from the firmament, its impact continued to spread across the entire city, the entire country, and the entire continent.

The inference that the Solar System was a flawed spacetime, and the desperate logic that humanity was destined for destruction, had swept through social media, news platforms, and personal communication channels like a tsunami, engulfing everyone who could see a screen.

Under the impact of this wave of despair, the already fractured social structure of the Lighthouse Country completely lost its last veneer of decent order.

In the downtown area in the distance,

people were smashing shop windows and hauling out televisions and sneakers,

some were pushing burning trash cans into gas station convenience stores,

some were squatting on the hoods of overturned police cars, waving alcohol bottles and screaming at the sky,

and others were stacking filing cabinets and desks into a mound right in the middle of an intersection, then dousing them with gasoline and setting them ablaze, the firelight casting the glass curtain walls of the entire building into a flickering, dark orange glow.

As an old-school elite who had come through the Cold War, President Biden had, for once, issued no orders.

It was not because he could not control it, but because he knew too well the underlying truth of such matters:

Public opinion could be controlled through violent suppression, but against the collective despair generated simultaneously by everyone from the lowest individual to the highest elite in society, any violent suppression would be like punching a cloud of smoke.

Sending in the army would be equivalent to pushing the army itself into that vast ocean of despair, forcing soldiers to face their own compatriots with guns in their hands while bearing the exact same despair,

that would not be suppression; that would be pouring another barrel of gasoline into an already burning oil well.

Therefore, Biden chose to let it be, choosing to let this wave of despair burn itself out before making further plans.

And the only way to truly extinguish this collective despair had never been through blockades and suppression;

it was hope.

As long as people could see even a glimmer of hope again, all the chaos would subside on its own overnight.

This was also the fundamental reason why he was currently rushing to Arizona to seek answers from the Deep State agents.

Zhang Yi rested his hands on the balcony railing, watching the firelight and smoke columns in the distance that continued to expand, his brow furrowing slightly.

It was not sympathy, not pity, and not any moral judgment of these strangers who were burning, killing, and looting.

He was a behind-the-scenes manipulator who lived on emotion points.

The initial wave of emotional fluctuation brought about by the collective despair of all humanity was indeed a huge harvest, netting him over ten million emotion points in one go.

But if this despair continued day after day, it would eventually turn into numbness.

And numbness would not generate any emotion points.

For the system, a group of numb humans whose neural synapses had been exhausted by despair was just a saline-alkali land of emotions, like the flawed spacetime he had just complained about, where nothing could grow.

He pulled his gaze back from the distance, turned, walked into the living room, and curled up in the sofa again.

"I am the one who brings despair, and I am the one who gives hope."

"The Lighthouse Country sells wars globally and then sits at the negotiating table to collect the bill as a peace mediator; they have been playing this game for decades, far more skillfully than I am."

"But in this casino of emotion points, only the house always wins."

"And right now, I am the biggest house behind the scenes."

He opened the system store and scrolled down through the item categories.

After scrolling for a while, his finger suddenly stopped on an entry:

[Subspace Gate]

It was a gate connecting to a subspace, priced at ten million.

The internal area of the subspace was approximately the size of Los Angeles, and all internal physical parameters, including spacetime curvature, microscopic particle motion laws, and the value of pi, could all be edited and set by the purchaser.

Subsequently, if specific buildings, aircraft, weapons, equipment, or other physical entities needed to be added, additional emotion points would be required.

Zhang Yi stared at this item for a long time.

A city hidden in another cosmic space,

an enclave completely free from the constraints of twisted spacetime laws,

just after humanity had been pinned to the ground and crushed into despair by π = 3, suddenly discovering that the Deep State had already held the key to the correct spacetime,

this kind of shock fit the Deep State's vibe of "Everything you see is merely the tip of the iceberg."

"System, can this be set to the correct cosmic spacetime of π = 3?" He enlarged the Subspace Gate entry to full screen.

[It is absolutely possible.]

[All physical parameters and spacetime rules within the subspace are edited by the purchaser and are independent of the external cosmic environment.]

"Then I'll buy the gate first."

"Install a floating city inside for me!"

"That kind of true advanced civilization atmosphere, huge floating platforms, all kinds of large aerodynamic aircraft silently taking off and landing in mid-air, suspension tracks circling the entire city, energy cores embedded under every base layer of the city emitting a cold light..."

He poured out all the imagery of advanced civilizations he could piece together from science fiction movies and conspiracy theories in his mind, then asked the system how much extra this would cost.

The system was silent for a moment, then popped up a quote on the interface:

[To fully materialize according to the standards described by the host, based on the current floating city scale and advanced civilization equipment categories, a total additional cost of approximately 500 million emotion points is required.]

[The host's current balance is insufficient to purchase.]

Zhang Yi replied almost instantly, his speaking speed so fast it was as if he had anticipated this number long ago.

"500 million? Why don't you just go rob someone?"

"For 500 million, I could buy a real alien floating city; are you trying to make me save up until the day humanity rushes out of the Solar System?"

[This quote already includes multiple discounts.]

[And it only covers the buildings and basic infrastructure, not the various high-tech equipment, advanced civilization aircraft, or fleet-standard weapons within the city.]

[If further materialization is required, additional costs will be added.]

"Then let's do textures first, no, holographic projections."

"Use holographic projections and textures for everything inside; it should look just like the real thing. It will be empty to the touch, but radar, infrared, and all electronic sensors will be able to perceive it."