When Luo Binhan returned, he was holding a children's picture book in his hand, which was a gadget found in the warehouse. Unlike the pearl jar and the extremely ugly octopus doll (no matter how many times Luo Binhan looks at it, he still thinks it is extremely ugly), it is not clearly displayed on the shelf, or even stored in a box like the mermaid photo album and paper pet toys. . When Luo Binhan followed Li Li's instructions and knelt in front of the heavy metal machine that she had used as a bench and tinkered with it for at least two hours, and after six times wanting to take out the knife and physically scrap it, he finally found one from the removed shell. A thin square object wrapped in a black waterproof plastic bag.
He threw away the screwdriver and pick he found from the back of the machine, wiped the sweat and dust from his face with his sleeves, and smelled a faint fishy odor from under the machine's shell, but it was not like fish or reptile body odor. It is the pungent smell emitted by the computer host after it fails. He couldn't help but glance at the dark space under the shell, and only caught a glimpse of countless holes as small as pinholes, but with regular hexagonal shapes like honeycombs. The structure made it impossible for him to guess what use this machine could be used for.
"What is this?" he asked Li Li directly.
"A prototype. Someone had great hopes for it, but in the end it was scrapped."
"So, what does it do exactly?"
"It's designed to make you dream, sir. Experience some very special dreams."
The corners of Luo Binhan's mouth began to turn downwards. His sleep quality in Lihai City has always been good, and he almost never relies on any sleep aid products. He had indeed heard of some so-called high-tech hypnosis, which claimed to be able to make people have beautiful dreams, even dreams with quite specific content. But he never believed in that stuff, and he didn't even think there was any point in having a dream with specific content. And after he boarded the Silence, he hated the word even more, it was like a switch rope that triggered trouble.
"So this thing is bad? It can't create dreams?"
"I don't know, sir. Its manufacturer terminated the entire project before it could be put into use."
"Then why do you let it take up space?"
"The owner of the vessel felt it necessary to recycle it."
Luo Binhan shrugged and put the removed top cover back. Li Li never asked him to completely restore the machine to its original state, so he just scrawledly twisted back the outermost screws. It was a hundred times easier than replacing the electronic screen of his mobile phone. Luo Binhan couldn't help but wonder whether this thing was real. contain any high-tech elements. A dream machine, it can't just be a thing that you can just ask people to unscrew, right?
He shook off the scrap machine and picked up the contents wrapped in a black plastic bag. When he pinched it with his fingers, he had a rough guess that it was some kind of printed matter.
"Product manual?" he guessed.
"It will be more useful to you than that, sir," Li Li said. When Luo Binhan turned his head and glanced at her, he saw her eyes falling on the black packaging of the print, with an expression that Luo Binhan had never seen on her before. At that moment she looked both smiling and about to cry. This surprised Luo Binhan, but in the end she had no reaction at all.
"I promise you that I will provide you with something that will help you understand our current situation." She said in her usual voice. "This booklet has given me a prototype - let's put it simply, it has given me a lot of inspiration. . It was the first time that it led my thoughts to the right solution, but stopped before the abyss. I hope it brings you the same help, sir. However, if you think it is necessary, I authorize you to throw it away. Burn or perform any form of detoxification."
Her words naturally made Luo Binhan nervous, and he almost wanted to pull out his gun just in case. When he peeled off the layer of black plastic while holding his breath, what was revealed stunned him. In order to avoid misunderstanding, he held the spine of the book with one hand and scanned it quickly as if playing an animation. He finished the picture book of less than a hundred pages in ten seconds, and he finally determined that it was a children's picture book.
"What's this?" he asked.
No one answered him. When Luo Binhan turned his head and looked behind him, the red figure leaning on the shelf had disappeared. In the next few minutes, Luo Binhan threatened the black box in every possible way, and once pretended to take off his pants, but received no attention at all. He had to go back and study that damn children's picture book.
It is not the kind of alliance standardized information paper that Luo Binhan has read since boarding the ship, but an original reading composed only of paper and ink. When Luo Binhan first saw it, he thought that the childish paintings and calligraphy were painted by someone. It wasn't until he took a closer look that he discovered that the entire book was a printed product, as if someone had specially copied a child's painting album. Carefully compiled and published into a book. That was completely incompatible with the truth Li Li had promised, and the dust raised by the dismantling machine made him sneeze.
He decided to change to a place where he could concentrate more, so he returned to the bridge room with the album under his arm, feeling like he was reincarnated. To his delight, the bridge room had returned to its original state during his stay in the warehouse. It's not really exactly the same, because the rudder stubbornly retains some detailed decorations symbolizing hanging baskets and traps, but in general, ∈ is obviously sanctioned by Yaleriga or Jinghuang.
He originally wanted to ask Momoluo to accompany him to look at the things in his hands, but maybe the Yongguang tribe was busy settling his brothers, so he failed to appear in the bridge room, and only ∈ caught him and his loot. Luo Binhan showed a little bit of concealment and immediately swam sideways in the air, letting his nose and eyes follow the album closely, just like a shark chasing the smell of blood.
"What?" he said excitedly, "What is this? It was taken out of the warehouse? It's not under my jurisdiction anyway! Let me see!"
Luo Binhan sat in the chair and glanced around furtively. He didn't see Yaleriga, maybe she was combing Jing Huang's hair, and he didn't see Zhou Ba, maybe she was causing trouble elsewhere. He wasn't a person who particularly liked to be alone, but he couldn't help but feel relieved at this moment.
"You look like you are reading something suspicious." ∈'s body hung upside down, his head floating above his shoulders, "I have the right to confiscate the dangerous goods you hold!"
"Go away." Luo Binhan said.
"Don't be like this." ∈ begged, "Let me see. I will definitely not tell anyone! Aren't we the best of friends? Are there any secrets that we can't share!"
Luo Binhan didn't believe his guarantee, but he couldn't resist the other party announcing in a hundred voices that they were friends, brothers, father and son, mother and daughter, or lovers in previous lives, so there should never be any secrets between them. In the end Luo Binhan was willing to pay any price to break up with him. When Luo Binhan put his hand on the cover of the album, ∈ suddenly appeared next to his legs, resting his head on his lap like a loyal pet dog, panting wildly and urging him to flip through the book quickly.
"Don't waste time!" ∈ shouted nervously, "That woman will come back at any time! She will confiscate anything she doesn't like!"
Luo Binhan resisted the urge to kick him away (of course, because it was not practical), and tried his best to ignore the head that had no actual weight. At this point he began to regret why he didn't stay in the warehouse or find a pair of insulated gloves to go to the toilet. But now he was too tired to resist, and could only desperately endure the vicious dog lying on his lap, desperately looking through the children's picture book. He found that the content above was roughly a story, mainly presented in the form of pictures, but also accompanied by one or two sentences of childish text. Although the handwriting is clear and neat, it looks unfamiliar and deliberate, without any continuous strokes or changes in thickness, making people feel that this is a naive attempt by a beginner to write. Another thing Luo Binhan had already realized in the warehouse was that these writings, like the dates engraved on the surface of the abandoned dream machine, were all the words used in his hometown.
He flipped through page after page, trying to understand the contents of the album. That wasn't as difficult as he feared because the drawings and words on the paper were coherent. He can even read the story directly:
Three fishermen rowed out to sea. They want to catch sea snakes. The first fisherman made the fish smart. The second fisherman asked the fish to become obedient. The third fisherman told the fish to dream of a sea serpent. The sea serpent swam out of the fish's dream. The sea serpent drove away the fisherman. The sea animals sang happily.
"Wow," ∈ commented while lying on his lap, "This is a very educational story! We will never eat fish again, do you agree, dear?"
"Get lost." Luo Binhan replied.
