Before returning to the Silence, Luo Binhan helped the old woman push the car back to the campground.
As he was pushing the cart on the road, a savage suddenly ran over, pointed to the sky with one hand, and shouted "Woo!" at him. At first, Luo Binhan almost didn't recognize him. When the other person made a gesture of scooping out water from a box, he realized that it was "Brother Xiaoxi".
"Ah, it seems that you have known each other." The old woman said, "Destiny has sprouted between you. He is Du Mu's seventh grandson."
"Du Mu? The person who escaped with you?"
"Yes. A young man, talented and learned, but also a bit rebellious. Among all the people who escaped, he was the youngest and courageous one."
The old woman coughed and laughed: "His surname was not Du Mu, but he moved in to be my assistant because he had a quarrel with his parents, and he also reversed the pronunciation of his surname. Oh, I still remember He had a great time playing with my daughter before he left. He held her in his lap and played games with her in the living room."
Luo Binhan couldn't help but look at Brother Xiaoxiang. Perhaps it was preconceived, but now he felt that this boy did look different from other savages. His facial features were more refined and distinct, and he was vaguely handsome.
"In other words, his grandfather married a local wife?"
The old woman smiled muffledly, as if she had read through Luo Binhan's inner thoughts.
"Loneliness makes people ignore appearance." She said, "If a heart can understand you, you won't care what kind of skin it is wrapped in."
Luo Binhan shrugged and said, "Then I still think it's fine to be single."
He walked out and staggered a little back to the craft. He almost screamed in pain when he pressed the start button, blowing desperately on the burn on his palm.
The fire from the scimitar burned his hand. Luo Binhan estimated that the injury would not heal for a while, so he had to randomly pull some fabric from his clothes to wrap it up. He believed that Yaleriga was at least half responsible for this matter, and decided to go back to her to find a solution.
But he didn't do it right away. A certain emotion drove him, making him not want to see Yaleriga at the moment. After returning to the Silence, he first went to the warehouse, where Li Li's image was sitting on the shelf waiting for him.
Luo Binhan wanted to know what the other party usually did in the warehouse. Will she find things to do for herself to pass the time like a real person would? Or does it just stop running like a closed program?
"You already knew." He said to Li Li, "When?"
"The moment you connected me to the Internet." Li Li replied, "You got the network information of that world department, but you didn't know how to review it from the data and the bureau. Even if their network time data was tampered with , but it is easy to see the problem from the perspective of real industries. Their industry, agriculture, energy industry, medical industry... When you find that the funeral industry has almost no real financial flows and financial statement disclosures in a hundred years, It’s not hard to figure the whole thing out.”
"Have they ever failed so badly?"
"Trying to run a false modern society without loopholes is very difficult, sir. Industry and the information society are a complex system that is interconnected, and problems with any small element will show up. In the past, I have seen smaller It’s a detailed case, but it’s also hard to avoid flaws.”
Luo Binhan shrugged nonchalantly and said, "Why didn't you tell me earlier? Yaleriga didn't let you say it?"
"No, this is my own judgment." Li Li said, "When you walked into the warehouse to find me, you asked me to help you solve a girl's mental problem. From beginning to end, I was carrying out this goal. I paid attention You are so unusually concerned about her fate that I consider it a courtesy to give you some alone time to explore. If you simply wanted to ensure your own safety, you would have known better, sir. There are a few tell-tale signs. It's so obvious that you can't ignore it."
"Tell me?"
"The first sign was her wound."
Luo Binhan made a perfunctory response: "Is there more?"
"Information." Li Li said, "In the opposite world, Drowning Leaf has existed for more than two hundred years, which means that this passage has lasted long enough. If the wild people continued to hunt them during this period, there would be no way that a large number of missing people would Will be ignored unless they are deliberately forgotten or never disappeared."
"There are many possibilities for these situations." Luo Binhan said.
"There is also video data from when the expedition team discovered Drowning Leaf. You have seen it in the museum, sir. Think about the clarity of the video from two hundred years ago. It does not match the technological development cycle they are in. And. Even if you are not clearly aware of this, you can still see the expedition team members in the video holding mobile phones - how different is the appearance of the one he holds from the model you received as a gift? Market logic dictates that such products It is absolutely impossible to keep its appearance unchanged for two hundred years. In addition, there is another important detail I want to remind you: there are no active volcanoes, but there are earthquakes and tsunamis. The geological complexity of this matter is far beyond yours Imagine.”
Luo Binhan shook his head. It's not that he doesn't believe Li Li's words, he just feels a little tired and doesn't want to think about it anymore for the time being.
"What on earth is that?" he asked laboriously. "Some kind of parasite?"
"More like a collective." Li Li replied, "When we describe it as parasitism, it describes a situation in which a certain organism exists in the host's body to live symbiotically with it, but I don't think so, sir. They copy And replaced everything in the prototype, even the most critical brain organs were replaced by a large number of neurotic insects. They are a swarm of insects whose mission is to act as individuals."
"What's their purpose? Is it to reproduce?"
"No... I don't think so. Even in the most united community, there are differences in goals between individuals and groups. I am not willing to use a single goal to explain this matter."
Luo Binhan looked at her a little surprised.
Li Li pondered for a while, and then said: "I want to know your point of view first, sir. Since you came to me, I assume that the girl has left. How do you explain everything you have experienced during this time?"
At that moment, Luo Binhan repeated what he said in the mountain. Li Li crossed his arms across his chest and lightly hit his arms with his fingers.
"This is also a possibility." She commented.
"Is there anything else?"
"I have another explanation for this. But without further evidence, we can't know who is right and who is wrong."
Luo Binhan motioned for her to come and listen. So Li Li stated: "The essence of some things does not lie in its materials and shapes, but in its structure. You can make a triangle from almost any material."
"Does this have anything to do with what's happening now?"
"That's the same thing, sir. When a collective completely imitates a human brain, I guess they may not think of themselves as bugs, but actually think of themselves as this human being."
"But those people attacked me." Luo Binhan reminded.
"We might as well assume that there are some safety thresholds here. When you destroy certain conditions that ensure they continue to play, those neurotic structures responsible for 'protecting secrets' will be activated, and then try to eliminate the source of danger. This alarm mechanism is obviously It can span individual units, and we don’t yet know its ultimate range.”
Luo Binhan was silent. It was difficult for him to judge how likely Li Li's hypothesis was to be true. Finally he spoke with difficulty: "Then why would she want to come here? If not to invade?"
Li Li tilted his head slightly. The way she looked at Luo Binhan looked a little like Yaleriga.
"The regular composition of the mud leaves will make living things see some kind of 'reality', sir." She said softly, "We assume that it has the same effect on the aggregate, then when the aggregate inhales the mud leaves, what will it know? What? Maybe it finally realized that it is not an independent living unit - but sir, there is a functional difference between the Mud Leaf and the Drowning Leaf. The latter has obviously experienced deterioration and degradation, and you have personally experienced the difference. . If this difference also exists in the collective body, then absorbing the drowned leaves may not be able to achieve the complete effect."
"So……"
"They are just drunk." Li Li said, "Those neuroworms responsible for concealing key information temporarily lost their normal functions, causing the entire assembly to obtain information they should not have obtained - the true appearance of the world. However, the contradiction The problem is that they are not drunk enough to recognize what they are, so they are always in a state of longing to escape from the terror of alien species... The above is my overall theory, and there are some details worth mentioning when applying it to that girl. Discuss: First of all, her age. She has grown up a bit after her mother left. Is this because she was still in the process of being replaced? Or was this the group that replaced her in response to her last wish? Did the close contact with Drowning Ye in her early childhood give her characteristics that are different from the standard collective, for example, better able to remember some 'illegal information'? Based on these circumstances, sir, I can tell you a completely different story. "
"Tell me about it."
"The ghost of a little girl lingers in the edge of hell. She has been dead for so long that she does not remember that she is dead. The only remaining wish is to see her mother and say the final farewell to her as promised. But she cannot see the passage. The gate to the upper world was driven away again and again by the guards of the upper world. She always failed, was exiled to the deepest part of hell, and then came back to continue searching. She searched like this for a hundred years, and finally heaven and earth were moved by her and sent a A knight from a foreign land led her into the underworld. She finally saw the mother she had longed for, and she asked for nothing more. The girl's soul gave the knight a kiss in return, and then ascended to heaven in bright flames."
Luo Binhan raised his head, stared at the ceiling for a long time, and then asked in a hoarse voice: "Is this a fairy tale you made up? Or is it what you think is the truth?"
"This is my personal interpretation - strictly speaking, all we can confirm is the fact that it happened. The truth is another matter, sir."
Luo Binhan nodded. He felt that it was enough to talk about it now, so he stood up and said goodbye to Li Li, left the Silence calmly, and wandered into the depths of the wilderness. At this time, the sky was as gloomy as a crying child's face, and rain fell from the clouds.
