Chapter 104: Chapter 94: The Backlash of Time and
Spacel
Translator: 549690339
Harrison Clark quickly changed his mind, went back to his room and finished organizing more than ten songs from the past, then anxiously awaited the time when the serum would lose its effect.
Three-and-a-half-hours passed.
He had personally experienced more than three hours of time, but he hadn’t fallen asleep.
Nothing had changed, as if he was supposed to be in this state.
This indicated that the serum’s effect had been solidified as a normal state for him.
After experiencing a brief period of excitement and elation, and sobering up with a cold shower, the calm and steady Harrison Clark began to give himself some intelligence tests.
About two hours later, he completed several IQ.test papers and drew a conclusion.
On some level, he had become smarter.
His high attention span and increased mental activity during active thinking improved his speed of thought, allowing him to find the answers he wanted more quickly.
Some routine calculations, such as mental and oral arithmetic, and other logical analysis skills, had also been significantly strengthened.
Of course, he hadn’t turned into a prodigy who, after reading a university physics textbook with quantum fluctuations, could rival Einstein.
He was still an ordinary person. What he didn’t know before, he still didn’t know now.
To transform from ignorance to knowledge, he still needed to learn. His ability to understand new things hadn’t been elevated, only his speed of thinking had improved.
When a math genius child learns simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, they only need to look at a problem once to quickly understand the principles behind it. Within their knowledge system, once they grasp the concept, they can apply it to other problems as well.
Ordinary children need repeated reinforcement to form a concept in their minds through one or two or even more repetitions.
This is the difference in comprehension ability.
Harrison’s intelligence still needed multiple reinforcement sessions to understand new knowledge. But with his quicker thinking, perhaps to others, it might appear as if he understood after just one look.
In reality, he still needed to go through multiple repetitions to grasp it. It was just that the speed of reinforcement was so fast that the time it took was almost the same as if he understood it in one go.
Although the result seemed similar, there was a fundamental difference.
In summary, if he were to learn a new subject now, due to increased concentration and mental acuity, he would only need to spend half or even less of the time he used to, but he would still need to learn.
What he couldn’t possibly learn before, he still couldn’t learn now.
Intelligence is a comprehensive concept, encompassing the upper limit of learning speed and comprehension ability. The serum accelerated his learning speed but didn’t raise the upper limit of his comprehension ability.
Because of the mutation delay, he changed his itinerary once again and went straight to Beiduo Music Academy after testing his intelligence.
It wouldn’t be too late to sign a contract with Ward Owen when he came back, but Carrie Thomas couldn’t be delayed.
Every night, one minute would increase the possibility of something going wrong.
What if Carrie Thomas sent him the first draft of the arrangement for “The Fire” halfway through the process and asked him to evaluate it? He would have nowhere to turn for help.
Should he admit to plagiarism or not?
This seemingly small matter, just a single song, could completely disrupt Harrison’s plans.
Through the changes “The Fire” brought to Yellowstone Research Institute, Harrison deeply understood the important role that excellent art plays in the process of human civilization.
Good art, whether it’s literature, music, or painting, can leave behind a spiritual force.
It is sustenance, a torch that can be used to light the way for civilization groping in the dark.
The current times have become impetuous, with songs becoming trivial and stars living behind fake personas. These works aren’t worthy of being called art; they’re just entertainment created to cater to other people’s needs for amusement.
Ignoring the essence of a work and its talent, and relying on hype and marketing to build up fake personas, is an entertainment phenomenon born in the early days of the information age.
This phenomenon will rise and fall with the rapid development of the Internet age. At a certain stage, it will reach its peak and make many people very wealthy.
But as times change and the information revolution deepens, this kind of useless and redundant information will be buried in the sea of information, no longer able to make any waves.
Only true good works will be remembered by people and truly demonstrate their value.
Useless entertainment is born out of the popularization of information and will die out when the information revolution reaches its peak.
Looking back at the process from the result, Harrison knows that this is a dead-end, and he can’t go any further.
He doesn’t care how others follow their chosen paths, he only wants to follow his own chosen path well.
So, the ultimate form of entertainment culture is culture, not entertainment.
Only by seeing the future could Harrison understand how precious Carrie Thomas is in the present.
She could create works of historical value.
Her songs criticize the unfair, the unreasonable, and satirize the distorted, the filthy; they inspire and promote positive aspects.
Even if she sometimes embeds her own negative emotions into her work, those negative songs can still pry open the defenses of the weak, awakening their desire to become better and improve themselves.
Her songs can teach others how to face their own weaknesses correctly, how to fight against the softness and ugliness within their own humanity, benefiting the development of civilization.
This example might be too abstruse, so let’s make it simpler.
Take Aamir Khan’s movie as an example.
The theme of “Dangal” is to shout out for the unjust treatment of women in a particular country.
If a man who originally looked down on women watches this film and decides to give his daughter an equal opportunity to learn…
And then this daughter, who could have only been a dowry, successfully completes her education, becomes a distinguished scholar, and leaves behind a piece of technology that gives birth to a new discipline in a hundred years?
Then the influence of this film may extend well beyond a thousand years.
Perhaps no one will know the connection between this rigorous discipline and a movie, but the Butterfly Effect-like chain of events objectively exists.
So although Harrison Clark has already developed a desire for future technology, he is still unwilling to give up the path of plagiarism, which he initially thought was a shortcut to wealth but later found to be a shortcut to changing history.
Transplanting technology directly would cause a tangible change to the future.But the transportation of art works and exploiting Carrie’s potential would bring about broader and more profound changes to the future.
These were two complementary paths, and Harrison had to grasp both firmly.
Plagiarizing songs was just the beginning; there was still much to do.
Although the road ahead might be long and invisible, he decided to persevere until the end of his life, just like Lion once told him, just like he once said in one of the timelines.
The plane arrived in Beiduo, and as Harrison stepped into the terminal, he received a call from Carrie.
Before boarding the plane, he had already contacted Carrie and told her that he had prepared a “surprise” for her today.
“Have you gotten off the plane?”
Over the phone, Carrie’s voice sounded a bit tired. She had been working non-stop lately with no chance to catch her breath.
But in her fatigue, she was also excited and passionate about making music, enjoying it even if it exhausted her.
Harrison replied, “Yes, I’ll take a taxi over right now. You should take a break too; don’t get too tired.”
Carrie yawned, “I’m taking a nap in the car. You don’t need a taxi; I’m hitching a ride with my little junior sister to the airport. Her brother is flying back from abroad today, and his flight time is around the same as yours. We’ll pick you up together. There’s a bit of traffic in the city, but we’ll be on the highway soon. At most half an hour, no, twenty minutes.”
Harrison was stunned, and suddenly his heart raced.
It wasn’t that he was moved by Carrie coming to pick him up, but something else.
He nervously asked, “The little junior sister you mentioned, is she Susan Lambert, your assistant at the recording studio here?”
Carrie was surprised, “Huh, how did you know?”
Harrison tried to calm himself and spoke faster, defending himself, “I saw the name on the list of producers for Boring.”
At the same time, he took big strides and sprinted towards the terminal entrance.
“Oh, right. You know I don’t have many friends. Susan is one of the few friends I have at school, and I could only produce songs here in Beiduo with her help.”
A cheerful voice came through the phone.
“Hey! Carrie, are we just friends? I’m so sad to hear you say that!”
Carrie: “Stop kidding, you are driving now.”
“I’m fine, my driving skills are great. Hi, Harrison! I’m Susan Lambert, you can call me Susan! I’m a die-hard fan of Carrie, and I’ve never admired anyone like her in my life! Carrie is your die-hard fan, too, so Harrison, you’re my
su…superstar idol! I adore you!”
Carrie: “Alright, enough, we’ll be there soon to pick you up.”
The call ended with a click on the other side.
Harrison immediately called back while sprinting wildly through the crowd, causing chaos and curses along the way.
But he couldn’t care less now.
The large beads of sweat fell from his temples, and the thicker-than-normal concentration of blood in his veins began to boil due to his intense running.
The laughter of Susan echoed repeatedly in his mind, leaving him feeling icy.
It was the laughter of the deceased.
Last time, Susan died in a car accident.
It happened today, on the highway to the airport when she was driving to pick up her brother!
In the previous timeline, Carrie was in the recording studio working on compositions today.
Susan had been working non-stop with Carrie for nearly ten days, driving her BMW X3 to the airport to pick up someone.
The vehicle lost control and plunged off the airport highway overpass, caught fire upon landing, and Susan was killed instantly.
The incident was a devastating blow to Carrie and deeply affected her.
Twenty years later, she released an extremely sorrowful song in memory of her best friend.
Starting the day after Susan’s death, Carrie had been brewing the song in her heart. It took her twenty years to finish it.
The song’s significance in Carrie’s artistic career was comparable to The Fire, and for the following millennia, it was often played as a funeral song in tribute.
When Harrison read about this in Carrie’s updated biography, he felt sad and seriously considered whether or not to intervene and change the outcome after going back in time.
He made the ruthless decision not to interfere back then.
However, he didn’t expect that due to his sudden change of plans and delay in the morning, Carrie would also be involved.
If he had set off earlier, his arrival time in Beiduo would be different from Susan’s brother by at least a few hours, and Carrie wouldn’t ask for a ride to the airport.
If he hadn’t come to Beiduo today and chose another day, Carrie would have no reason to ride in Susan’s car either.
If he hadn’t worried about being too deliberate and arousing suspicion, and instead called her to plagiarise while playing the guitar, this wouldn’t have happened.
But the situation had already happened, and there were no “ifs.”
People came and went in the airport terminal, and as Harrison weaved through the crowd, he faintly smelled a cold, malevolent intent in the air.
Was this the backlash from the space-time continuum due to his arbitrary changes to the future?
He didn’t even have time to regret it, and regret wouldn’t help anyway.
In just thirteen seconds, he covered nearly a hundred meters and burst out of the terminal.
The phone was still on the dialing screen.
He was frantic.
Pick up the phone!
Please, pick up the phone!