Zhongjing Shangcheng District, West-4 Subtropical Ring.
In the middle of the dark bedroom, inside a transparent sphere, Li Liang was suspended in the light blue liquid without a strand of hair on his body. His whole body was relaxed, like a fetus sleeping in the womb.
drop.
With a slight beep, more than a dozen slender mechanical arms stretched out from the inner wall of the sphere, slowly opening a soft membrane to support his body.
The robotic arm constantly adjusts its angle to ensure that the film perfectly fits the lines of his body and bears the weight evenly.
Subsequently, the liquid in the sphere slowly decreased until it completely disappeared. The shell of the sphere opened, folded and retracted to the ground.
The soft sound of the cello sounded, and the melody was gentle.
Li Liang opened his eyes and sat up.
The walls of the room were dimly lit, and some oxygen and moisture were mixed into the air.
Li Liang took a breath of cool air.
"Good morning, Li Liang," a female voice with a slightly robotic voice sounded, and it sounded like a comfortable smile.
"morning."
Thanks to the pressure-free sleeping cabin, Li Liang felt relaxed all over, but he still stretched.
A mechanical arm rose from the ground and lifted a cup in front of him.
He picked up the cup and took a sip of the slightly sweet warm water.
The brightness of the room gradually increased, and then, one side of the wall lowered, and the morning breeze blew in, carrying a faint smell of grass.
There was a lawn outside, and in the house across the lawn, a woman was running on a treadmill and waved to him.
Li Liang waved in response and turned back.
Having lived in Uptown for a month, he still couldn't get used to being naked and greeting his neighbors.
"How are you feeling?" the female voice asked in a friendly tone.
Li Liang walked to the bathroom and said casually: "It's okay."
"Do you need to adjust your emotions? I see that you have a very full schedule today, and maybe you need a more open and positive attitude."
"No need," Li Liang walked to the bathroom door and thought for a while, "Let's adjust it."
"OK."
Another mechanical arm rose from the ground, holding a translucent sphere.
Li Liang placed his hands on both sides of the sphere and stared at the light curtain that popped up from the sphere.
The light screen displays an array of inverted cones, each representing an emotion and can be adjusted in four dimensions.
The sphere vibrated slightly, and the values of all the inverted cones changed simultaneously.
An inexplicable smile appeared on Li Liang's face. He suddenly felt that the air was particularly fresh. Thinking of the plan he planned to complete today, he was eager to try it out.
"Thank you," he put down his hand and walked into the bathroom lightly.
The mist-like liquid rose from the ground, flooding his body, cleaning his skin, and then quickly dissipated.
After coming out of the bathroom and putting on a clean T-shirt and jeans, he put a ball of gelatin into his mouth and chewed it before sitting down at the dining table.
Breakfast was already set on the table, including milk cereal and eggs according to his preset recipe.
After spitting out the oral hygiene gel, he took a sip of milk and said, "Well, let's talk about today's itinerary."
"Okay, but before starting today's plan, I still recommend that you go to the nearest clinic first. The system has detected that your corpus callosum is damaged and requires treatment."
Li Liang chewed the egg and said vaguely: "Ignore it."
"Okay, it is 8:15 in the morning on November 1, 3027, the temperature is 24.9 degrees Celsius, and the humidity is 55%. Today's itinerary is as follows, arriving at 9:30..."
Along with the system announcement, a light screen appeared on the dining table, displaying a timetable.
9:30-11:30, Room 305, Building 4, Area B-4557, West 4th Ring Road, philosophy course "Kitchen: Aesthetic or Ethical?"
11:30-13:30, West-4 Ring B-4557, "Ring" restaurant, lunch.
13:40-15:15, Block 1, Area D-35, West 3rd Ring Road, movie "Memories of Murder".
16:00-? ? Location TBD, Neuromansion - "Middle-earth", "Prison" copy.
19:35-? ? No. BJ-327, West-4th Ring Road, Tubo Birthday Party.
"Um."
Li Liang scanned the schedule and nodded.
After breakfast, he took a book from the bookshelf and walked through the bedroom to the lawn.
The neighbor next door happened to come out of the house and waved to him: "Good morning, Li Liang."
"Morning..." Li Liang noticed that the name of the girl in front of him was displayed on the retinal projection, "...well, January."
The information revealed that the girl was only twelve years old and had lived next door for two weeks, but this was the first time they had met.
January wore two ponytails and a yellow skirt. She held a book in her arms and walked closer and shook her fingers.
Ding bell~~~
In the retinal projection, four cartoon-style chestnuts bounced into Li Liang's body.
Li Liang is now used to "likes" and replied four likes with a smile, but he didn't load the appearance plan, and his "likes" still looked like hearts.
"What are you reading?" January asked.
Li Liang raised the book in his hand: "Kundera."
"The Unbearable Lightness of Being," January read out the title of the book thoughtfully, "Existentialism."
"And you?"
"Oh, this one," January shook the book in her hand and smiled shyly.
Li Liang noticed the title on the cover: "Critique of Pure Reason."
Reading paper books is a fashion, and Kant's works are enlightenment books for children in the uptown area. January should be well past the age of reading Kant. Her shyness is similar to that of adults a thousand years ago who were caught reading children's picture books. .
Kundera's works are also very basic, but Li Liang has no such trouble at all and has no problem exposing his ignorance of philosophy.
A hemispherical one-man spacecraft landed slowly.
"Let's go now," January tilted her head and got into the spacecraft.
"See you."
Li Liang watched the spacecraft fly away.
In Uptown, many people are born in foster care centers without parents or have never met their parents. They start living alone at a very young age and change their residences at any time according to their interests and social needs. Like migratory birds, they spend their entire lives in the five Uptowns. Wandering between, Zhongjing Uptown, Xinao Uptown, Rocky Mountain Uptown, Denali Uptown and Moon Uptown.
January is obviously this kind of person. After living in one area for a period of time, he will move to another place. After all, the total population of Uptown is not enough to fill any residential area in Uptown. There are countless vacant houses. , Moreover, she can also apply to build a new house at any time according to her own preferences.
At this time.
Another one-man spaceship landed, and Li Liang walked in.
The spacecraft took off and flew towards Area B-4557.
Shangcheng District is a huge wheel-shaped satellite, especially Zhongjing Shangcheng District. There are five rings from the outside to the inside, and the outermost ring has a diameter of nearly more than 1,700 kilometers.
People live on the inner wall of each ring without feeling that they are rotating in the horizontal direction. At this moment, Li Liang is in the airspace between the 4th ring and the 3rd ring, overlooking the "ground" of the 4th ring. Countless settlements are scattered in the carefully designed In the garden, each garden has a unique style, forming a continuous scroll of colorful scrolls, and he is flying above this scroll, and the ground and "sky" in the distance present the same gentle arc.
Skimming a body of water, the spacecraft landed.
Area B-4557 can be regarded as the philosophical center of the entire Area B. There are different courses offered by androids every day. These courses can all be studied remotely in retinal projection at any time, but most people are still willing to come to the classroom for class, in order to communicate with other people. comminicate.
Communication is one of the most important parts of people's lives in Shangcheng.
Li Liang walked on the tree-lined walkway and passed by all kinds of people. In the retinal projection, about four out of ten people had "S" signs on their heads, which meant that they came here through neurotravel.
In the forest in the distance, a building with a strong sense of line appears like a shadow. As it gets closer, retinal projections constantly pop up information about course introductions and various activities.
Anyone can participate in these activities, and everyone can initiate new activities at any time. The system will push information to people who may be interested based on the activity theme.
For example, at this moment, a large number of literary research topics about Kundera, philosophical parties, sit-down meetings, etc. appeared in Li Liang's retinal projection, which was simply dazzling.
He blinked a few times, turned off the retinal projection, and his vision suddenly became clear. The people who connected through Neuromansion also disappeared, and there were far fewer pedestrians on the trail.
Even if there is no retinal projection navigation, there will be holographic indicator arrows under everyone's feet to guide them to the correct location. Moreover, he is already familiar with this road. After more than ten minutes, he arrived at Block 4, Area B-4557.
This is a six-story building that retains the style of the modular era. It is built like building blocks and has many hollow areas.
Buildings in the modular era often don't have elevators. Li Liang took the stairs to the third floor, walked through the high and low corridors, and found Room 305.
Pushing the door open, someone had already arrived in the classroom.
A circle of chairs is placed around the open space in the middle. Seven or eight children sit on the chairs and talk to each other.
One of the little girls turned back and smiled at him.
Li Liang nodded in greeting.
This group of children, all around ten years old and already very familiar with philosophical theories, were discussing the polyphonic narrative structure in Kundera's works.
“This is Dostoevsky’s characteristic of a multitude of independent and unintegrated voices and consciousnesses, a true polyphony of different voices of full value,” said a little boy.
The little girl next to her shook her head, held up the chair with both hands, and retorted in a childish voice: "Bakhtin's study of Dostedt's works is more formalistic than formalistic. He called Dostedt's works 'polyphonic,' and he called Dostedt's works 'polyphonic.' Called 'independence' without polyphony, while for Kundera, the old Tolstoy's works reveal 'irrational, illogical intrusions', while Tolstoy merely 'seizes determination' The madness of reason that tenaciously carries logic through to the end', so..."
Li Liang listened to the children's discussion attentively and understood, but not completely.
He did know about Dostoyevsky. When he was a child, the school encouraged him to read classics, so his father bought a whole set of them. Among them was "Crime and Punishment" written by Mr. Dostoyevsky. Unfortunately, until this set of books was sold for scrap, he I have only read one copy of "Robinson Crusoe".
The little girl who said hello suddenly turned around and asked, "What do you think?"
Li Liang was stunned for a moment, cleared his throat and said, "Uh..."
He actually wanted to say, first tell me what polyphony means...
At this time, someone helped him out. A fat female android walked into the classroom and said with a smile: "What are you talking about? Children."
"Polyphony~" the little girl shrugged.
"What a great topic!" The android put his arm around the little girl's shoulders, "Can I join?"
"Okay," the little boy from before nodded.
The android smiled at Li Liang and sat down.
Li Liang breathed a sigh of relief.
Next, the android listened most of the time, occasionally adding some theoretical knowledge to the children, and did not start today's lesson until all the children had finished expressing their opinions.
"Very good. Kundera's polyphony theory is a subject worthy of in-depth study. Perhaps you can try to create a polyphony to verify your ideas. Next, I will lead you to understand 'Kitchi'."
The android waved his hand, and shapes and images began to appear in the center of the circle formed by the chairs.
"Kitchen is an aesthetic word, which means to regard a certain false sensory world as aesthetics. From an aesthetic perspective, using empirical rationality and multiple values as standards, Kundera believes that kitsch reflects the excessive pursuit of ethical values. Kitsch is an inevitable part of the human condition, and whether kitsch is regarded as the vulgarity of popular culture, the aesthetics of modern art, or the absoluteness of ethical values, the concept of kitsch undoubtedly reflects the profoundness of literature, art and the false world. relation……"
Li Liang turned on the retinal projection, and the text flowed along with the voice of the android. He shook his fingers from time to time to capture and save certain passages that he thought were good.
Throughout the class, the android quoted from many sources, covering many philosophers' views on kitsch. He spoke at a leisurely pace and would stop at any time to listen to the children's discussions.
However, Li Liang found that most of the philosophical theories after the nuclear war seemed to be a continuation of earlier theories, and did not have too subversive views.
Two hours is extremely short, and this course is expected to be divided into thirty sessions. Students can then make reservations in the retinal projection.
The children were still unfinished and continued to sit around and discuss. No one noticed Li Liang leaving.
After walking out of Seat 4, Li Liang walked towards the "Huan" restaurant.
When arranging his schedule yesterday, he chose a restaurant that was relatively close to the classroom, making it easier to walk there.
Previously, Zero One thought that human love and empathy were a kind of "kitsch" and a kind of self-fooling. He wanted to know the true meaning of this word, so he made an appointment for this course.
In fact, Zero One was right. Human beings are prone to being "criticized". He remembered that when he was in elementary school, once in class, the teacher talked about the hard work of his parents and the greatness of his parents. Afterwards, all the children in the class were howling. He cried loudly, as if everyone was deeply moved. He felt a little baffled at the time. He lowered his head and glanced at his deskmate. The fat man was trying hard to squeeze out tears and howl at the top of his lungs. It seemed that... not crying seemed very inhumane. , so he also covered his face and hummed a few times.
Just like the bionic man said before get out of class, learn to distinguish between what is "empathy" and what is "criticism", and you will be able to think rationally and independently in many cases.
While thinking, the "Huan" restaurant appeared in front of me.
Not everyone likes to study philosophy. Everyone can do what they like, such as cooking and serving it to others. "Huan" restaurant is just such a private chef.
There are not many decorations inside the restaurant, which is pure white and minimalist style. The diners sit around the central island, and the chef prepares the food on the island.
Li Liang sat down at the island and said hello to the chef.
"What do you want to eat?" The chef is a fat man, and his eyes almost disappear when he smiles.
Li Liang smiled and said: "Anyone is fine, let's try your craftsmanship."
"okay."
The chef turned to work, and there were four or five androids around him helping him.
Judging from the expression, cooking is the happiest thing in life for this chef, and a round body is the most beautiful figure.
Soon, the chef brought out a bowl of lobster noodles.
Li Liang waved and sent five "likes".
"Enjoy your meal," the chef laughed, turning back to serving the new diners.
The lobster noodles taste good, mainly because the lobster is very fresh and sweet.
After lunch, Li Liang rushed to the West-3rd Ring Road without stopping.
It's easy to feel sleepy after eating too much, so he decided to make sure to leave time for a nap when arranging tomorrow's itinerary.
Ring 3 is a tropical ring with large areas of crops, and no building complexes appear until Zone D.
More than ten minutes later, the spacecraft landed in Area 35.
Time was tight, Li Liang walked into Building 1 quickly.
Having watched the movie many times before, I was quite familiar with it, so I trotted all the way and finally entered the reserved screening room before the show started.
When he watched a movie in Shangcheng District for the first time, he realized that Yuan Quan was indeed an outlier. In fact, there were no traditional stepped cinemas in Shangcheng District. Most of the screening halls were just an empty room with circles of seats. Form a circle.
At this moment, the chairs are almost full.
Li Liang followed the instructions in the retinal projection and sat down on the reserved chair.
Then a small box appeared in front of him.
He opened the box, took out the round patch inside, and stuck it on his temple.
The retinal projection shows: Deep immersion has been connected, and the movie "Memories of Murder" will start in five minutes.
Li Liang relaxed and leaned back on the chair.
The room became very quiet, everyone was waiting quietly for the movie to start.
five minutes later.
Li Liang felt his eyes darken.
The room disappeared, and a line of words appeared in the darkness: Works of Fanzhi.
The sound appeared before the picture, it was a rapid gasp. At the same time, Li Liang felt a deep despair, as if living was a huge pain, and only death could truly relieve him.
His eyes lit up and he saw a mirror.
The man in the mirror was wearing a spacesuit inside the cabin, holding a gun in his hand and pressing it against his forehead. His chest was rising and falling violently, and tears were flowing down his cheeks.
Bang.
The gun fell and the man in the mirror sat down slumped.
Li Liang clearly felt the man's complex emotions at this moment, despair mixed with cowardice, cowardice, unwillingness and a faint hint of luck.
The scene turned, and another golden wheat field appeared in front of me.
The wind blows the wheat waves, and a girl stands in the distance smiling and waving.
Li Liang smiled, and a sweet love welled up in his heart.
In this way, for more than an hour in the movie, Li Liang experienced a desperate story through the perspective of the protagonist.
The protagonist is employed by deep space mining, and is ordered to go to Proxima Centauri to perform a rescue mission. Then the spacecraft loses control and crashes on a planet very close to the black hole's event horizon. Due to the change in the curvature of space and time caused by the gravity of the black hole, the ten years on that planet have... Equivalent to one hour of Earth time.
Originally, the deep space mining spacecraft had equipment to control the curvature of space and time, but this equipment was damaged during the crash landing. As a result, the protagonist and more than a dozen crew members were trapped on this barren planet.
With limited resources, the desperate crew began killing each other.
The protagonist survives to the end, but what awaits him next is a ten-year struggle to survive alone.
The film uses a montage technique to alternately intersperse the killing with the protagonist's life before the mission and the life after the killing.
Throughout the process, Li Liang constantly experienced the protagonist's emotions, including panic, hesitation, anger, viciousness, confusion, despair, and numbness.
Finally, when Xi'an's rescue ship fell from the sky, the protagonist happened to pull the trigger.
Tears overflowed uncontrollably, and Li Liang clearly felt the hot impact hitting his forehead.
The movie ends.
A line of text was displayed on the retinal projection: "Memories of Killing" has finished playing, and the residual negative emotions are being eliminated. Please wait.
moment.
Li Liang wiped his eyes and took off the patch on his temple.
Once the residual negative emotions were eliminated, his heart instantly calmed down, and he recalled the outline of the plot with some sadness and emotion.
At this time.
A young man appeared in the middle area surrounded by seats, which was a holographic projection.
"Hello everyone, I am director Fan Zhi," the young man said with a smile, "I am very happy to be here to communicate with you."
"Director Fanzhi," someone raised his hand and said, "I think some scenes in the movie are similar to 'Deus Ex Machina', such as..."
This man spoke fiercely, but Fanzhi didn't take it seriously and always kept a smile on his face.
Li Liang quietly stood up and left the theater.
In the past few times, he had sat in his seat and listened to the exchanges between the audience and the director. Some people spoke very professionally, some discussed subjective feelings, and some discussed ideologies. The scene was lively.
But to be honest, he has never liked "movie reviews". Watching a movie is actually a very personal matter. Whether you like it or not is entirely based on subjective feelings, and there is really no need to discuss it.
And as Yuan Quan said, he always feels that emotions should be conveyed to the audience through the lens and lines, arousing the audience's resonance, and forcing it into the audience's mind like this. Immersion is indeed immersive, but I always feel that this method cannot be helped. Truly touching.
After walking out of Seat 1, Li Liang took a few deep breaths.
Yuan Quan said that people in Shangcheng District look for suffering in movies. Indeed, although the residual negative emotions have been eliminated, it is still a bit bad when thinking about the plot of the movie.
He decided not to go to "Middle-earth" to clear the dungeon today, but to go directly to the Tubo birthday party to drink.
"Middle-earth" is a game in Neuromansion. It is very similar to the online game a thousand years ago, except that it is fully immersive. Today, I originally agreed to play a game called "Prison" with a few new friends I met in the game. It's a low-level copy, but he's not in the mood right now.
As for who Tubo is, he has no idea.
Parties are another most important part of life in Uptown. The system encourages residents to attend parties every night and randomly pushes party information.
16:00.
Li Liang arrived at No. 327 BJ-327, West 4th Ring Road, more than three hours in advance. He thought the party hadn't started yet, but found that... the carnival was already in full swing.
In a building as huge as a workshop, deafening electronic music and psychedelic neon lights make hormones diffuse from everyone's pores.
There was something mixed in the mist. As soon as Li Liang squeezed to the bar, before he could take the glass, he felt his whole body float up, and some kind of primitive impulse emerged uncontrollably.
Mistake.
This guy named Tubo actually organized a party like this.
Li Liang lowered his head and clicked the bracelet.
In an instant, Li Shuang sent some kind of vibration to his bracelet, which acted like a mood regulator, quickly lowering the levels of several of his hormones.
Phew~
Li Liang breathed a sigh of relief and sat at the bar, drinking wine slowly and methodically.
After drinking until he was tipsy, he swayed towards the door. Along the way, arms kept reaching out, or the whole cold and smooth body bumped into his arms. When he found that he didn't respond, he left as soon as he touched them.
Smoke, hallucinogens, electronic music, hormones.
When he squeezed out of the crowd, everything faded away and became dull and hazy.
The "sky" turned out to be dark.
He casually walked into a one-man spacecraft and returned to his residence.
"Welcome home," the female voice in the system said in a friendly tone, "Would you like to take a shower first?"
"Yeah," Li Liang nodded vaguely, took off his clothes and walked into the bathroom.
The misty liquid filled the air again.
"Water, wash with water," Li Liang waved his hand.
"OK."
Slightly hot water sprayed out from the top of the bathroom. He raised his head and let the hot water pour on his face to wash away the heat caused by the alcohol.
Sudden.
The mechanical female voice with a smile sounded again: "The sex partner that matches you is waiting for you in the bedroom."
"What?"
Li Liang wiped his face and was stunned.
At this time.
A lazy voice sounded at the bathroom door: "Tsk, you have a good figure, Li Liang."
Li Liang turned around and saw a girl leaning against the doorframe. Her hair was dyed blue, with a malicious smile on her face and a small mole in the corner of her eye.
In her arms was a furry creature wearing a pointed hat.
The creature flapped its short limbs and said dullly: "I am Oumuamua, not a pet."
