The year is 2800.
The world is no longer noisy with sound pollution or industrial plumes. The advancement of civilization has sculpted the Earth into a silent masterpiece of efficiency. In Akar Rambutan Village, technology no longer manifests as cold, rigid metal; instead, it has fused organically with nature. Cars glide noiselessly over transparent magnetic induction tracks, appearing like beads of light traversing the forest. The trees lining the paths are no longer mere vegetation; they are products of high-level genetic engineering whose leaves emit a golden bioluminescent glow at dusk, replacing streetlights with a radiance that soothes the nerves.
However, amidst this harmony of technology and nature, Xu Zhaotian Lubis stood as a contrasting anomaly.
While children his age including his dozen cousins from the great Xu clan were immersed in neural-link synchronization to play virtual reality simulations or busy modifying their racing drones with voice commands, Zhaotian was often found in forgotten corners. His favorite spot was the corner of the clan's old library, a dusty room rarely visited because all its data had been digitized thousands of years ago. Or, he would sit under the furthest rambutan tree at the village boundary, where transmission signals began to flicker and fade.
In his hand was not a holographic tablet, but a physical book.
To the outside world, books were impractical antiques, residues of a "dark" age before direct data transmission to the brain was discovered. But for Zhaotian, there was something sacred about his fingertips touching the rough, yellowing surface of the paper. The musty scent of old paper and the crinkle of turning pages provided a sensory experience far more real than an instant data injection into his cerebral cortex.
"Zhaotian! Still tinkering with that pile of trash?"
An arrogant voice broke the silence. A teenage boy in a shimmering carbon-fiber school uniform approached him. It was Xu Feng, his cousin known as a mechanical genius. On Feng's wrist, a holographic projector emitted the schematics of a quantum engine he was working on.
Zhaotian only looked up briefly. His sharp, calm eyes met Feng's, then returned to the rows of ancient text before him. "There are many things not stored in the school database, Feng. There are frequencies that our digital sensors cannot catch."
Xu Feng laughed dismissively, his voice echoing among the golden trees. "Of course they aren't recorded, because it's just expired ancient superstition! Just like that name of yours... Lubis. It sounds truly harsh, sharp, like the sound of rusted metal grinding together. Why don't you beg Grandfather to erase that stain and use the Xu name entirely? You have a smart brain, but that surname ruins the aesthetics of our great family lineage."
Zhaotian fell silent. His fingers stopped over a sentence about the "flow of breath." The insult was nothing new; it was the background music that accompanied his upbringing.
In Akar Rambutan Village, the name Xu was a symbol of supremacy grandeur, sophistication, and genetic purity. Meanwhile, Lubis? The name sounded foreign, disturbingly exotic, and had no pedigree in the clan's grand data archives. The name was the only legacy from his father a nomadic man who appeared out of nowhere, won the heart of a Xu clan daughter with a strange charisma, and then vanished like smoke before Zhaotian could even remember his face.
To the Xu clan, the name Lubis was a black ink stain on a vast expanse of expensive white silk.
"This name was given by my father," Zhaotian replied flatly. His voice did not tremble with anger; instead, it sounded as deep as a calm, ancient well. "And I don't feel there is anything wrong with it. A name isn't just a label, Feng. Perhaps it is a code you don't yet understand."
"Whatever, you weird bookworm!" Feng snorted, deactivated his hologram, and strode away with his signature arrogant gait.
Zhaotian was not angry. His intelligence, which was above average even by the standards of the year 2800 allowed him to see beyond a teenager's ego. He recognized patterns in this world that were not taught in the standard curriculum. He read about ancient philosophies from lands now submerged, about how ancient humans regulated their breath to trigger adrenaline, and about theories of internal energy that were now considered a joke by modern science.
That evening, inside a wooden stilt house maintained as a form of respect for tradition, Zhaotian sat at his desk. Instead of activating his neural-link to indulge his brain with digital game dopamine, he opened a small notebook he had written by hand a skill that was nearly extinct.
The door slid open slowly. His mother, Xu Meiling, entered carrying a glass of nutritional milk that emitted thin wisps of steam. She looked at the pile of physical books on her son's desk with a complex gaze; there was a hidden sense of pride, but also a deep anxiety.
"Your grandfather said you broke the galactic history score record again today," Meiling said softly, placing the glass next to Zhaotian's notes.
"It's just a matter of memorizing data patterns, Mother. As long as we know the algorithm of history, the answers appear on their own," Zhaotian answered while slowly closing his book. He looked intently at his mother. "Mother... did Father like to read too?"
The question instantly froze the atmosphere. Meiling took a long breath, then stroked Zhaotian's jet-black hair. "Your father didn't read books as much as you do. But he could 'read' the world in a different way. He always said that people whose entire lives depend on technology are people building a golden prison for themselves. They have everything, but they lose control over their most essential selves."
Zhaotian absorbed those words down to his bones.
After his mother left, he did not rest immediately. He turned off the lights in his room. Under the dim light from the rambutan tree outside the window piercing through the ventilation slats, Zhaotian did not sleep. Instead, he climbed down from his chair and sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, forming the lotus position he had learned from a sketch in an ancient book hidden behind his pillow.
He wasn't looking for supernatural powers. He was driven by pure curiosity. His genius brain was trying to dissect a great mystery: Why were ancient people, with all their limitations, so sure there was energy flowing within the body, even when the most advanced nano-particle medical sensors of 2800 could not find it?
Zhaotian closed his eyes. He let his mind, filled with physics formulas, historical data, and his cousin's taunts, slowly settle. He tried to become "empty," a concept that, according to his book, was the gateway to something greater.
In that room, there was no light of miracles yet. No explosion of power. There was only a 12-year-old boy mocked for his surname, trying to prove in the silence of the night that this world was far vaster, deeper, and more mysterious than just a string of digital numbers on his wrist screen.