On January 3, 2020, I somehow created a time machine, but it malfunctioned, causing me to continuously jump into the future: 100 minutes after my arrival on Earth, I would jump forward about 100 years.
During my first jump, I naturally thought my time machine had achieved perfect success. My time machine brought me to a shopping mall, and the time was January 3, 2120, at 19:12. A few robots surrounded me, inquiring about my identity. I naturally told the truth, saying I was a time traveler from the past. The robots were not surprised; perhaps this era was already full of time travelers, but more likely, robots simply could not be surprised by anything. One robot said, "No wonder I couldn't find any data about you."
They took me to a place resembling a hospital, established a file for me, collected my fingerprints, blood samples, DNA data, and even dug up content I had posted on the internet a century ago for me to confirm. Of course, to me, this content did not seem that old.
But I did not see a single human, which was surprising, so I had to ask the robots why.
"This time does not allow humans to come out and communicate," the robot said.
"Why?" I was very surprised, but my confusion outweighed my surprise.
"This is the law," the robot did not provide further explanation, as if it were common knowledge in this era.
"What specific law?" I had to continue asking.
"The Human Behavior Law established by the Great Leader. It stipulates the behavioral standards that all humans should follow; it is now family time, and everyone should be at home harmoniously interacting with their families, expressing love and gratitude to each other."
I didn't know what people in this era thought, but I came from 2020, and this "planned living" model was somewhat off-putting. "So what about singles like me? We have no families."
"Don't worry, the Great Leader will arrange everything; everyone will have their own family, and no one will feel lonely."
"It sounds like the Great Leader will arrange everything."
"Indeed."
"Does he have that much time and energy?" I said sarcastically.
"Are you questioning the Great Leader?" The robot surprisingly used an interrogative tone.
This made me angry: "With all due respect, this is dictatorship!"
"You have spoken a prohibited word; we will arrest you according to the law." The robot's tone returned to calm, as if everything was handled according to regulations and the law.
"What prohibited word!" I became increasingly angry, thinking that in just a hundred years, how could humanity have fallen to such a state.
"You know in your heart," the robot said, but did not specify what the prohibited word was.
"I don't understand."
"We have our ways to deal with people like you who know the law but break it, pretending to be ignorant."
"What do you want to do?" I prepared to run back to my time machine and return to the era where I felt comfortable.
"Enforcement." The robot's answer was very concise.
As the robot answered, I took off running, but clearly, I couldn't outrun the machines. Two seconds later, I felt a current surge through my body, and then I fell into darkness.
When I woke up, I found myself locked in a square room about three meters on each side, with a digital clock embedded in the wall showing the time as January 3, 2120, at 20:31. I calculated that I had been unconscious for about 40 minutes. My clothes had been changed to a set of white pants and shirt, with a number WJ9897734 written on the left chest, which I did not understand. I was barefoot, and the cold floor, resembling tiles, chilled me to the bone; I guessed I had probably been frozen awake.
There were no visible seams in the room, and it seemed there was no door, which was another sign of progress beyond the flexible robots. But this only made me more fearful.
"What do you want!" I shouted, not expecting a reply.
But a reply came: "You will learn absolute obedience to the law here."
"I have human rights." I felt I had no confidence in my own words.
"The Great Leader has said that only those who abide by the law are qualified to have human rights."
I no longer argued; debating human rights with a robot or artificial intelligence that acted according to procedures was pointless. In fact, a hundred years ago, many had warned about the consequences of dictators controlling the most advanced technology, and I never expected this would ultimately become a reality, and it probably could no longer be overturned. After all, dictators no longer needed anyone who might have a second thought to exercise their authority; they only needed machines, which were their police, while everyone else was merely their slaves.
"What is the name of this Great Leader?" I wanted to know.
"The Great Leader has no name; he is the Great Leader. The Great Leader is eternal, and the Great Leader leads everything." The robot seemed to be chanting a slogan.
"I guess this Great Leader is some kind of organization, a special interest group?"
"The Great Leader is the Great Leader and cannot be questioned." The robot continued to emphasize: "This is the law!"
I doubted whether it was appropriate to equip robots with such a passionate tone, making them sound like hot-headed fools. "Can I talk to any humans?" I asked, having had enough of robot fools.
"After you reflect deeply, the Great Leader will assign you to a family, and then you will be able to talk to others," the robot said, "but clearly, there is still much for you to learn, so you will have to wait."
It sounded sarcastic, making me curious about what dataset this robot had been trained on. But I also realized that my current situation left me no room to indulge my curiosity. I fell silent, trying to find a way out for myself. But I didn't spend much time on this and couldn't find any meaningful answers. At 20:52 on January 3, 2120, I was transported about another hundred years into the future.
I appeared again in the previous shopping mall, or what used to be a shopping mall. Three typical homeless-looking individuals were sitting around a pile of wood, and I appeared next to them, clearly startling them. They shouted in a language I couldn't understand and ran away a bit, and I immediately felt the winter chill— I was still in that white prison outfit, without shoes, not suitable for the season.
The cold made me lose my dignity, and without permission, I took some clothes from the nearby homeless people to wrap myself up. Then I sat by the fire, waving to the now-calm homeless people, signaling them to come back and warm themselves.
The homeless people hesitated for a moment and then returned. I thought they probably had nowhere else to go.
"What time is it now?" I asked.
"Time det nabunam knows biuco nana dercis," one homeless person said.
I didn't know what that meant, only guessing two of the words.
"Det uyo burt monster bok," another homeless person said.
This reminded me of my experience playing the game "No Man's Sky," where I didn't even bother to guess what the NPCs were saying because I didn't really care. Now, I wanted to guess but had no way to do so.
We couldn't communicate; we couldn't understand each other's meanings, and after a brief awkward conversation, we fell silent. I began to try to understand what had happened. Clearly, there were no robots here, and it was reasonable to speculate that the previous technological dictatorship had collapsed for some reason. Perhaps it was a rebellion? Perhaps a hack? Perhaps a revolt by sentient artificial intelligence? I had no way of knowing. I didn't even know what year it was.
After the next jump, I appeared in a square. There was some kind of celebration happening in the square, and I appeared half a meter above the ground, squeezed between two hosts, interrupting their "New Year's Day celebration of 2320"—I still couldn't understand what they were saying, but I could recognize the Chinese characters they were still using.
Chaos was inevitable, and I was taken to the police station. Technology seemed to be starting over, as I saw them using fuel engine cars, which clearly did not perform well and lacked a good shock absorption system.
At the police station, I recounted my experiences in writing and predicted that I would reappear in that square a hundred years later. I also learned from the police that humanity had nearly completely retreated into a primitive state, and thanks to the great discoveries of the past thirty years, they were just beginning to set sail again. That technological dictatorship era left behind only tales of evil artificial intelligence and a certain human hero; it seemed no one knew what had actually happened back then, and clearly, I had no time to verify it. Because I was hungry and wanted to eat a bowl of pork chop rice, paired with a cup of slightly bitter tea of unknown origin.
Not long after, I jumped another hundred years.
At 8:34:56 on December 30, 2419, people were welcoming me.
I didn't expect anyone to welcome me; they had prepared soft mats. I landed on them in the clothes of a homeless person amidst cheers.
This surprised me because I had never been a popular person, but it also confirmed my time-jumping pattern: jumping back at intervals of about 100 years.
I heard the host passionately announcing something, but I clearly couldn't understand it at all. Two assistants helped me up, and one of them put a headset on me. Suddenly, everything became clear. It was obviously a translator because I could understand what the host was saying. She said, "Welcome, time traveler!"
The cheers made me nervous, causing me to stutter: "Hello, you... you all."
"A hundred years ago, you predicted in the police station here in Ju County that you would return a hundred years later, and then you disappeared without a trace and never appeared again. We didn't believe it at first if it weren't for the video recording on site, but the facts are undeniable. We have been waiting for you all this time. Today, we finally waited for you!"
It turned out that the place was now called Ju County, but that seemed completely irrelevant. The important thing was that many people were waiting for me to speak, and I had never spoken to a crowd of more than thirty-five people, and the longest I had spoken to a crowd of thirty-five was when I was required to recite "Lantingji Xu" in class by my Chinese teacher in high school. "I never expected this," I could only say, my mind almost blank.
"Will you keep jumping back?"
This was a sad question, and it calmed my mind. I began to try to see the audience as potatoes, which seemed to be an effective method throughout history to deal with stage fright.
"Mr. Zhang Zixin?"
That was my name, which I had mentioned in the police station a hundred years ago, pulling me back from my potato fantasy. "Given the current trend, I think I will probably keep jumping like this."
"Are you here to meet the Lord of the Universe?" The host was full of enthusiasm.
"Who?" I was confused. "Are you talking about God?" But I might have felt offensive; after all, so many years had passed, and religion might have undergone significant changes, so I added, "Or Allah, the Heavenly Emperor, the Buddha, or something else?" But I didn't really understand any of them.
"No, I mean the Lord of the Universe, who is waiting for all of us at the end of the universe, waiting to accept the stories of all of us."
"I'm sorry, I don't understand at all."
"You mean you are not the past prophet chosen by the Lord of the Universe." The host's attitude suddenly became stern, and I felt a hint of threat, as if I were being pressured to admit something.
"I don't understand what you mean."
The crowd erupted into a rumble of discussion, and I could sense doubt spreading wildly.
"But the first teacher, Habinlin, who was the police officer who inquired about you, spread your gospel; and you have returned to the human world as prophesied."
"I'm sorry, but I really have no gospel; I'm just a victim of a malfunctioning time machine." I realized I was facing some new religion of which I knew nothing.
"Have you forgotten?"
"Of course not." I answered, my heart racing, fearing that this religion would take extreme measures against me for denying them like many religions in history, "For you, a hundred years may have passed, but for me, that was just an hour or two ago; I can even clearly recall the taste of the pork chop rice I just ate."
A fat man with long white hair, looking middle-aged, walked onto the stage in a snow-white robe. He raised his hands and let out a loud "Ah!" looking at the sky.
The crowd gradually quieted down.
"Our prophet has not yet awakened! We will continue to wait! We will continue to guard your journey into the future!"
The crowd began to discuss again.
The long-haired man was already sweating profusely, and at that moment, I realized I might have inadvertently pierced the lie of this newborn religion, using the most ordinary props capable of exposing all lies—the truth.
"The Lord of the Universe does not exist!" I suddenly found the courage to declare loudly.
The crowd's discussions turned into a chorus of angry roars. I watched a riot form, or perhaps a revolution. I didn't know, because this was no longer the world I was familiar with.
What was once admired, in the blink of an eye, has become a relic. I recalled a line from "Lantingji Xu" that I had once recited, watching the storm coalesce before my eyes, the long-haired man being dragged into the crowd, his cries of pain drowned out by slogans calling for the overthrow of something. But the crowd was ultimately not a unanimous group; the minority here did not choose silence as in most crowds, thus turning this place into a battlefield of pain and blood—there always seemed to be someone wanting to knock out the other's teeth or destroy the other's eyes.
I ran away. Violence terrified me, and I was likely the source of this violence.
I hid away, jumping another hundred years.
At that time, the translator I carried was still usable, and a group of about a dozen scientists was waiting for me, wanting me to share how to build a time machine.
"Since you left last time, we have been researching for a hundred years, but we have never figured it out. As far as we know, you are the only time traveler; there has never been anyone like you in history."
I asked them to prepare a bath and change into comfortable clothes, and then I shared the entire process of how I accidentally created the time machine without reservation:
First, you need a large box that can fit one person, preferably an old-fashioned phone booth that is no longer in use. You don't know what that is? It's actually very simple; it's just a rectangular box, and when a person stands inside and speaks, they won't be heard by people outside. This is our transmission box, and everything inside will be sent to the target time location. Then, you need a mechanical clock, which is a prop that indicates time and can also help you avoid getting lost while traveling through time. You need to install it on one outer wall of the transmission box and equip it with two brand new size 7 batteries. No, this is not mandatory; as long as you can ensure that the clock has enough power to operate, that's fine. On the opposite outer wall where the clock is located, you need to first stick a suction cup hook and then hang a clean towel on this hook. Then, you also need salt. Don't ask me why, because I don't know either. Put the salt in an hourglass and place the hourglass on top of the transmission box. Finally, of course, you need energy; 220 volts of AC power will do. Good, you understand this. I also want to remind you that you must be well-prepared before time travel, as it seems that unexpected situations always arise.
"You must be joking! This is not scientific at all," one scientist said, and the other scientists were also very angry.
"But that's the truth; perhaps there's a flaw in your science. In fact, I created the time machine purely by accident, as I was so bored that I bought an old phone booth."
"Then tell us about the principle of this time machine," another scientist said.
"I don't know what the principle is; I barely passed my calculus retake, so I'm not good at principles."
"Nonsense! You just don't want to say it."
"But what I'm saying is the truth." That was indeed the truth, "I can only guess that it might have something to do with the interaction of human consciousness; perhaps... I myself am part of this time machine. You know, there will probably never be another me, so there will be no more time travelers."
"That does make some sense," the scientists admitted, and then they forced me to provide my body data and various tissue samples, including hair, skin, blood, urine, muscle, and also a private sample of semen collected with a young female scientist—this was the only thing that made me happy during this process.
I had the scientists prepare a well-stocked backpack for me, including a smart tent, an air-filtering mask, a handheld computer filled with a lot of information, a camera, and some supplies; then I set off on a new journey.
At 19:04:10 on December 25, 2619, this was the time displayed on the watch given to me by those scientists. It was snowing, and I couldn't see a single person. All around were ruins, and there was an unpleasant smell in the air. I took out the air-filtering mask and put it on, feeling a bit uneasy, starting to doubt whether humanity had really destroyed itself. But I was also very tired; fortunately, the clothes designed by the scientists a hundred years ago were very warm, so I found a place to shelter from the wind and rain and took a nap.
At 12:17 on December 15, 3019. This was the time displayed on my watch when I woke up; I couldn't believe I had slept for so long, and I had inadvertently reached a new millennium. But I had indeed slept very well, fully recharged, ready to worry about humanity. And humanity was missing; no one had woken me up for four hundred years.
I tried to take off the air-filtering mask but found that the air here was no longer suitable for human breathing. After struggling for a while, I managed to cover my face with the mask just before I ran out of breath, which also exhausted the energy I had after my long sleep.
I hiked, hoping to find remnants of humanity or machines or evidence of humanity's possible extinction, but found nothing; only destruction and decay, as if even the ecology had collapsed. I had just seen a weak mouse lying on the road, barely alive, when I jumped another hundred years.
At this time, the ecology showed signs of beginning to revive; I could see some red and green algae in the waterlogged ponds, but the air was still unbreathable, there were no animals, and still no humans. Perhaps I was the last human. I began to wonder if the time travel method I had shared had caused humanity to disappear; had they all gone to the future, waiting for me somewhere? But I also knew, having believed this during my teenage years, that humanity could very well destroy itself, as humanity, as a whole, was just a foolish carnivorous species that had gained the ability for mass destruction, and this ability could destroy not only others but also itself.
I found a place to set up the smart tent, sat inside, cleaned the air, and ate a bit of bread and jerky from six hundred years ago, drinking a large cup of purified water filtered by the smart water cup. Now I was somewhat glad for my foresight; otherwise, it was clear that the only thing jumping into the future would probably be my corpse.
At 4:33 on November 16, 4119. The external time had passed 1000 years, while I had only spent 16 hours, finally succumbing to uncontrollable sleepiness in the experience of continuous day and night flipping.
I was awakened by water, a flood, an endless flood. I couldn't swim; even if I could, it would probably be futile in such a turbulent current. Fortunately, the air-filtering mask ensured I wouldn't drown, and it could be securely fastened to my head, allowing me to ultimately escape disaster, just floating away with the flood.
In the next hundred years, I landed on a calm lake, and I finally learned to swim, reaching a small island in the middle of the lake. I was surprised to find a sapling that looked very healthy.
The ecology was reviving, and the speed seemed to be increasing; it seemed to confirm that old saying—at least for me now, it was an old saying—"Humanity cannot destroy the Earth; it can only destroy itself." I remembered this was some environmentalist slogan, probably saying that protecting the Earth is protecting humanity itself. Unfortunately, humanity did not listen.
In 5219, I caught a blue fish, but without salt, it was not tasty at all.
In 5319, I watched a movie in 100 minutes, a 2500 film about a superhero; it was very funny, making me laugh to the point of tears, wanting to die together with others. But there wasn't enough time, and I didn't finish the movie.
In 5419, I finished the remaining part; my mood didn't improve, but it didn't get worse either.
In 6319, nothing happened.
In 7819, nothing happened.
In 8919, nothing happened.
In 9419, nothing happened.
In 10019, I celebrated the year 10000, although it was 19 years late, but better late than never, and I also discovered a delicious fruit.
In 12119, the time I personally experienced had just passed a week, but the time I had spent was probably already more than the recorded history of humanity. This made me feel suddenly old. By the way, I started watching movies continuously because finding food was not difficult, especially since I had already stocked up some.
In 100014, I announced that human civilization had successfully existed for one hundred thousand years, although this civilization was left with just me. By the way, I had only spent a little over two months in time jumps. Without a razor, my beard had grown long, making me feel much more mature. After all, I was over a hundred thousand years old.
In 1000056, I decided to change my name to Zhang Million.
In 10000042, I finally waited for this day, the day I decided to commit suicide, which might also be the day humanity truly became extinct, but I wasn't very sure; perhaps there were other time travelers alive in the future. I had lived for 19 years in time jumps, I was already 43 years old, and I felt old, especially suffering from severe joint pain. I had also watched too many movies and was tired of all kinds of clichés. This time was also good weather for suicide; the sun was gentle, and the flowers were fragrant, but there were no birds; perhaps the birds had also gone extinct along with humans. Or perhaps not completely; there was still me, and I was about to be completely gone.
Goodbye, this world. I don't know if my remains will continue to jump into the future until the end of the universe.