Genius Playground

Chapter 311: Chapter 4: A New Future

It had been a long time since he’d been to 2045, and Jiang Ran couldn’t help but feel a little excited.

He still climbed out the window, went over to the transformer box, and picked up his phone.

Chi Xiaoguo placed her left hand on the Positron Cannon’s activation button, dialed Jiang Ran’s number with her right, and shouted out the window:

“Okay, I’m starting the countdown! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! 0!”

The roar of the Positron Cannon and a flash of blue light arrived simultaneously as Jiang Ran pressed the answer key—

WHIR!

WHIR!

WHIR!

The familiar dizziness, the nostalgic spinning of the world. Jiang Ran’s five senses vanished as he plunged into a temporal vortex, drifting with the current…

Two seconds later, all discomfort vanished, replaced by the feeling of solid ground beneath his feet.

Huh?

Instead of the familiar damp smell that usually greeted him, the air was filled with the delicious aroma of food. His ears were also filled with a cacophony of various city noises, rising and falling one after another.

Jiang Ran realized at once!

‘This isn’t the prison!’

Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes…

“Sir, would you like to try our new orange juice? It’s free!”

To his right, a waitress in a cute maid outfit approached him with a smile.

However, Jiang Ran’s gaze didn’t linger on her. Instead, it was involuntarily drawn upward to the sky by the flying cars—

Before him,

Cars of all shapes and sizes zipped through the sky. Some were as large as trucks, while others were as narrow as electric scooters. But they all moved like a school of fish, weaving through the air horizontally and vertically in perfect order, never once colliding.

This mode of transport, something you’d only see in a sci-fi movie, left Jiang Ran breathless. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.

In the distance, skyscrapers disappeared into the clouds. Sunlight struck their glass walls that stretched from earth to sky, refracting into a rainbow that seemed to stroll along the skyline.

A closer look revealed all kinds of robots scattered across every corner of the city. They moved with agility and clear purpose, each performing its designated role in managing the city’s affairs—repairs, cleaning, transportation, surveillance, and more.

Faced with such an advanced, science-fiction scene, Jiang Ran gaped in astonishment. He felt as if his eyes couldn’t take it all in.

‘What’s going on?’

He could completely understand the Future World changing because of Wu Yuanzheng’s death and the disbandment of the Regrets Mutual Aid Association.

Because that was how the Butterfly Effect worked: actions in the past could influence the present. By the same token, a change in the present would naturally affect the future.

Just like that Time SMS Qin Feng had sent ten years into the past, which had thrown the timeline a decade later into a complete mess…

By the same logic, the fall of the Regrets Mutual Aid Association in 2025 was bound to trigger an equally powerful Butterfly Effect, rewriting the future of 2045.

It was just that…

Jiang Ran could never have imagined it.

‘Could the Future World really have changed this drastically?’

Even if Wu Yuanzheng was no longer hunting scholars and scientists, could human society really leap forward into such an advanced, sci-fi metropolis in a mere twenty years?

It felt too unreal. This simply didn’t align with the normal pace of technological development… He remembered the EU passing a law to completely phase out gasoline-powered cars by 2035, only to repeal it later, probably because they realized the decision was too impractical.

But now look at this.

In 2045, humanity wasn’t even bothering with the debate between new-energy and gasoline-powered vehicles. They’d had a technological explosion and jumped straight to enjoying flying cars!

And those cars didn’t emit any exhaust. He had no idea what kind of energy source they used.

‘It’s too much…’

‘Too advanced…’

Jiang Ran felt like he hadn’t just traveled twenty years into the future. It was as if time had fast-forwarded, and he’d arrived two hundred years later!

“Sir?”

Nearby, the waitress in the maid outfit tilted her head, watching Jiang Ran stand there dumbfounded.

“Sir, would you like to try our shop’s new orange juice?”

“Oh, no, no thank you.”

Jiang Ran politely declined, then asked:

“Excuse me, what’s today’s date?”

“September 17th,” the waitress answered casually.

“What year?” Jiang Ran asked again.

?

The waitress narrowed her eyes in confusion, looking Jiang Ran up and down before taking a small step back.

“2… 2045. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Just a little dizzy.”

Jiang Ran feigned dizziness, rubbing his temples, and asked one last question:

“Sorry to bother you again, but could you tell me what time it is?”

The waitress didn’t look at a watch or make any other movement. She simply blinked her eyes.

“10:01.”

Jiang Ran was a little confused.

“Where are you seeing the time?”

“My cosmetic contacts~”

The waitress pointed to her eyes.

“I’m wearing smart cosmetic contacts. They work on the same principle as smart glasses. Don’t tell me you’ve never even heard of them?”

With that, she stopped paying attention to Jiang Ran and walked toward the other side of the sidewalk.

“Sir, would you like to try our new orange juice? It’s free!”

Jiang Ran watched the girl’s retreating back and silently calculated…

‘September 17th, 2045, 10:00 AM.’

‘It’s this time again.’

‘Sure enough, even though the Butterfly Effect changed the Future World, the Positron Cannon still threw me to this exact point in time.’

‘Or perhaps, this is a limitation of the Positron Cannon.’

‘Because its Beam Converger is damaged and can’t be replaced or repaired… it can only send me to this specific point in time. There’s no other option.’

But the question returned to his initial confusion—

‘Could technology really advance this much in just twenty years?’

He tilted his head up, looking at the distant, densely packed skyscrapers that soared into the heavens.

In East Sea City, the tallest building was supposed to be the Central Building, part of Lujiazui’s “three-piece suite,” standing at over 600 meters tall.

But compared to the ubiquitous skyscrapers before him now, the Central Building seemed as laughable as a child’s building blocks… It was no exaggeration to say that the buildings in his line of sight were definitely over a thousand, or even two thousand, meters high!