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Chapter 6 - Chapter 2: I Traveled Through Myself_2

Man: "This kind of psychological profiling can't be entirely accurate, it's just an approximation of characteristics..."

The young woman and the man chatted softly for a while longer, finally paying the bill and leaving.

Not long after they left, a young guy rushed into the coffee shop. The barista behind the counter, who was fiddling with a laptop, looked up and said, "Why are you here again? Aren't you supposed to be at work this afternoon?"

The young guy replied while walking, "I lost my phone, looked for it for ages but couldn't find it. The last time I used it was right here."

Barista: "No one's been sitting at that spot, have a good look... Did you find it?" As she spoke, she closed the laptop preparing to come over to help.

The young guy struggled to retrieve a phone from the gap between the booth and the wall, waving his hand, "Found it! It slipped from my hand when I was stuffing it in my pocket, and of course it fell here... I'm off to work, see you!"

The young guy's name was He Kao, and the seat where he found his phone was next to where the man and young woman had been sitting, located directly behind the man.

He Kao, twenty-five years old this year, graduated with a master's degree not long ago. He works at Tengxin Group's Qi Yuan Branch under the Cloud Living project team, at P2 level, having joined just six months ago.

This morning, he was awoken by his phone alarm, yawning as he sat up. For a moment, he was in a daze, almost not recognizing the world in front of him. Everything felt so unfamiliar, like seeing it for the first time.

He felt an inexplicable absurdity, a layer of invisible separation between himself and the world.

In fact, everything in front of him was no different from when he fell asleep yesterday. This was the Sesame Street single-room apartment he had rented last month, abbreviated to Sesame Apartment.

Sesame Street was a small community composed of five high-rise apartment buildings, most of the tenants were like He Kao, working in major companies.

He Kao's apartment had a building area of twenty-seven square meters and a usable area of about sixteen square meters, with a monthly rent of two thousand five hundred, utilities at his own expense.

Upon entering, there was a two-meter-long, one-meter-wide entrance hallway. On the right side of the hallway against the wall was a small stove, equipped with a range hood and vegetable wash sink, no gas connection, but an induction cooker for simple meals like boiling noodles.

On the left of the entrance hallway was the bathroom, which contained a toilet, basin, shower room, and surprisingly, a washing machine, utilizing the space very efficiently.

Walking through the hallway, you enter the bedroom, which doubles as a living room, guest room, study, and workroom... with an area of about ten square meters.

In the room, there was a bed, a table, a chair, a cupboard, a square stool, and a corner had an old refrigerator, with wall-mounted air conditioning. The single bed was 1.2 meters wide and could accommodate two people if cuddling.

Though the apartment was a bit small, He Kao felt it was quite satisfactory. This was the city center of Qi Yuan, most importantly, it's not far from work.

He didn't have to squeeze on public transport, a fifteen-minute walk would get him to the company downstairs, saving on commuting costs and time, and time is life!

He Kao sat on the edge of the bed, looking at the arrangement in the room. His mind seemed to reboot from a crash, gradually waking up and confirming this was where he lived, and he was himself.

The table and chair, the wardrobe, along with the scenery outside the window, seemed to speak silently, sending him strings of code, not only telling him information about the world but also reminding him — his name is He Kao; it's time for work.

How to describe this feeling, like crossing over — yes, crossing over, that damned sensation of crossing over!

Due to the prevalence of online literature, the concept of crossing over had long become widespread, leading to self-mockery: Every day upon waking, there's always a feeling of having crossed over, crossed over to another world.

But the appearance of this world didn't differ from the original world. The person one crossed into continued to do the same things with the same identity. This quip was called "I crossed over myself."

This psychological phenomenon of "I crossed over myself" has a more precise term — worker syndrome. Many workers like He Kao wake up one day with this kind of bewilderment.

He stared blankly at the stool, as if it was a connection point between him and the world, accelerating the process of his brain rebooting from a crash.

All the other items in the room were provided by the landlord, except for this square stool which he ordered online himself, arriving just yesterday. A few degrees more awake, He Kao felt puzzled again, why did he spend six hundred on such a stool?

Originally there was only a simple computer chair in the room. If there were visitors, the extra person besides the bed would have nowhere to sit. A stool was necessary but didn't have to be so expensive, weren't fifteen-dollar plastic stools in the supermarket appealing?

The stool was made of pure cherry wood with an elegantly beautiful orange-red grain, crafted exquisitely, contrasting sharply with the particle board wardrobe and computer desk, seeming to upset a certain uniformity and certainty.

Well, it's bought, could move with him when he relocates, might even be passed down to future generations. He Kao glanced at the stool once more before getting up to wash up...

In one seemingly blank moment, he felt as if, on one second, he was washing up in the apartment, and in the next, he crossed over, sitting at the office desk, turning on the computer.

But He Kao knew it wasn't a blank period. According to the phone's time, twenty minutes had passed. He still remembered and knew how he got downstairs, the route he took to the company, and how he took the elevator to the office.

But all these processes were completed subconsciously. Without deliberate recollection, it felt as if they were erased.

Looking at the work content on the computer, He Kao instinctively felt that today's abnormal state might be related to this, as he kept thinking about creating a virtual world that felt real.

His workplace, registered externally as Tengxin Group's Qi Yuan Branch, oversees basic business areas not only within Qi Yuan located in Jianghai Province but also the two adjacent provinces.

Basic business involves client development, maintenance, and technical services, whereas internally there's a core business known as the Cloud Services Division. He Kao works under the Cloud Living project team within this division.

The Cloud Living project team, somewhat unclear in meaning, was actually formerly the Metaverse Division.

A few years ago, the concept of the Metaverse was hot, seemingly representing the new direction of development in the information era, leading major internet companies to invest, recruit staff, and form teams.

But the trend faded quickly, and for various reasons, Tengxin Group's Metaverse Division soon began to scale back its size and investments, leading many "excellent talents" to be internally absorbed or else transferred to society.

The division was downgraded to a project team, placed under the Cloud Services Division, becoming a very marginal department with its name changed to Cloud Living, sounding far less impressive than the Metaverse.

In the short span of a few years, it fell from grace, leaving one feeling wistful.

Yet this marginal department started recruiting this year due to a new project assigned to them for trial — the project named "Ideal City."

The universe was too vast then let's settle for creating a city. Surely that's feasible?

Tengxin Group, valued at several trillion, with annual sales revenue in the hundreds of billion, diversified business coverage. A few years back, due to economic conditions, the group engaged in strategic contraction but had recently begun exploring new breakthrough directions, one being electronic shopping.

Online shopping mall business based on electronic shopping had long been dominated by other internet giants; Tengxin Group's progress in this area had always been limited, hence considering upgrading the business model to find another path.

The so-called business model upgrade is built upon the growing maturity of AI artificial intelligence and VR virtual reality technology, creating a digital virtual city using AI technology, then guiding users into this virtual city through VR technology.

Virtual school, virtual cinema, virtual park, even virtual residences, most importantly virtual malls. These concepts aren't new, but successfully integrating and presenting them embodies a business model upgrade.

Tengxin Group's executives might not believe this project would succeed; whether there's fruit or not, they decided to try with a stick, thus handing the trial task over to the legacy team from the Metaverse — the Cloud Living project team where He Kao joined.

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