The Bard at the End of the Universe

In 2100, controlled nuclear fusion and hibernation technology have granted humanity immortality, and virtual reality has become a paradise for all. While billions of souls lose themselves in digital bliss, only one human, Xingye, rejects the virtual world. He steals an abandoned spaceship, awakens the AI Wei, whom he programmed himself, and ventures into the real universe that humanity has forgotten, with nothing but his own body. This is a pilgrimage destined to be lonely. They cross a decaying lunar base and a Venus terraforming project abandoned in the VR era... Drifting at one-tenth the speed of light, they witness stellar corpses, dancing black holes, and roaring magnetars, searching for a glimmer of life amid the silence of millions of light-years. The greatest enemy is the laws of physics. His only companion is an AI who calls him “teacher.” From the desolate despair of Proxima Centauri to the thousand-year fireworks of the Crab Nebula, from the Orion Nebula’s violent nursery to the dark lord at the heart of the Milky Way, they use their infinite lifespans to measure the infinite void. This is a cosmic road movie for those who love hard science and romance, an ultimate expedition about truth, loneliness, and resisting oblivion. “In the end, I’ll leave you with only one cosmic epitaph: Life is so precious because it can always find the most unexpected ways to die, whether through stupidity or wisdom, misfortune or sheer luck. May fortune be with you.”