Netherworld Investigator

At the party, in the theater.

A fire was lit for no reason in the middle of the stage, and the smell of burning wood wafted from the tip of the flame, expressing a nondescript imitation of ancient atmosphere.The auditorium was pitch black, and there was no light on the curtain, like some kind of deliberate vacancy, waiting for something to come.Only the central stage looks like a floating luminous island, and it also looks like a bright map of a bustling city under the night sky.

The cabaret show was going on, with endless arias, drowsy capers, and almost noisy celebration.The singer conveys piety and joy with the corners of his brows and mouth to the maximum, every word of praise is bitten very clearly, avoiding all homonyms and metaphors, the straightforward lyrics are unobstructed, and almost lose any artistry.

The audience on the left, right, front and back all showed mesmerized expressions, and Joker looked a little out of place sitting in the audience.Seeing him fidgeting, a person next to him reminded him kindly: "The button is under the armrest of the seat."

button?

Joker followed the man's instructions and found a round button.

He pressed it as he said, and in an instant, an indescribably wonderful experience enveloped his central nervous system.

His heartbeat suddenly accelerated, his adrenaline soared, his blood gushed to his fingertips like a cheerful river, and bursts of alternating strong and weak currents pierced through his mind, making one feel ecstatic.

The audience was filled with betas, but the performers on the stage seemed to be performing to an empty auditorium, because the audience's happiness did not come from the show itself, but relied on the secret carnival in the dark.The experienced actors are not affected in the slightest. After all, the success or failure of their performances does not depend on the ability to form an emotional connection with the viewer.

At this moment, amidst the prosperous scenes of singing and dancing, the uniform singing voices on the stage seemed to be mixed with noise.

At the beginning, this strange shift was overwhelmed by the sound waves, and no one heard it clearly. Most of the audience were still immersed in the numbness and excitement.Gradually, people noticed that the corners of the mouths of the actors standing on the stage raised precisely, showing uncontrollable panic, as if an invisible monster suddenly appeared on the stage.

— Someone sang the wrong note.

They tried their best to keep calm, but their feet slowly retreated, and they spread out around the source of the chaos, as if it was some deadly virus that could not be infected.

Xiao Ba stood at the very edge of the stage and sang with his eyes closed. His singing voice was like a whimpering river, trembling with the waves of sound.At the same time, he felt that the voices around him were receding, just like the sea water at low tide - he had experienced the tide scene in the illusion.

But Xiao Ba didn't have time to take care of all this. He was immersed in the melody in his heart, and the chords that burst out were endowed with strong emotions. Soar up into the sky, toward the sun.

The scale gradually climbed higher, and the moment it reached the top, it was crushed into powder and fell with a rustle.

The bullet hole slid through the air soundlessly, pierced through Xiao Ba's chest that was throbbing, and fell in a soft arc, making a soft sound on the ground.

A long scarlet snake crawled out of Xiaoba's immature chest, slowly elongated its sticky body on the floor, slithered to the edge of the stage, and formed a pool of black blood under the dark abyss.

The accident happened in an instant, and Joker was bound by the strange electric current like a rope, unable to move.

The singing on the stage remained the same, not even a beat slowing down.

The actors sang and danced amidst the smell of blood. Although this sudden change made their well-rehearsed show a little flawed, no one showed any complaints because of it—their faces even showed more eagerness. smile.The audience in the audience was still immersed in wonderful hallucinations, unaware of what was happening. Two servants cleaned up the fresh corpse and blood, and threw it into the fire in the center of the stage expressionlessly.

The burned body turned into brilliant ashes, rose from above the flames, and flew towards the roof of the theater above the curtain like stars.There, the runes of Sauros suddenly lit up, and the scales all over his body glowed in the darkness.

Joker hurriedly left the theater as if fleeing from a fire, and followed his memory to the mural gallery on the seventh floor.

The light here went out for some reason, joker took out the torch-shaped flashlight, and the arc-shaped fan-shaped light opened a brightly extinguished passage in the dark corridor.

The murals on the promenade are a long scroll of history bounded by 300 years. From then on, he is running towards the beginning of time, step by step back from a new world crushed and reorganized by technology to the original unknown era, countless engraved and depicted time and He passed by, and the sound of footsteps gradually faded away in the empty corridor.

On the screen, a huge arrow is placed at the end of the narrative of Genesis, symbolizing the arrow of destruction shot by the sun god. Joker slowed down, but kept on walking, as if holding out his arms to take the fatal imaginary thrust.

A long time ago, the terrible sun spread like a plague in the city-state, causing the death of thousands of sheep.In order to prevent the spread of the virus, the king ordered that all the infected land and sheep be burned.But it's a pity that the weak fire cannot compete with the vicious sun after all.

So the god came in the form of a foreigner named J. Holding the holy fire in his hand, he walked slowly towards the ordinary fire, and dedicated himself to saving the city-state that was about to be destroyed.

In the picture, on the scorched earth, the figure depicted as a saint sits in the flames. He is so scorching and dazzling, as if the sun in the sky has also become a subordinate light.Outside the screen, the flashlight accidentally slipped from Joker's hand, and the shell shattered all over the place. The first light bulb was like a huge fireball. Joker stood alone in the light, forming a distant and mysterious echo with the scene in the painting .

The memory was like an arrow shot at his skull, Joker felt a sharp headache, and with a muffled sound, he fell unsteadily to the wall behind him.

Through a mirror mounted on the wall, he accidentally saw a string of strange yet familiar serial numbers on the back of his neck.

J-07.

In the illusion, the god who manages the Book of Fate once told Joker that he is not a native of this world.

What these words imply is not Joker’s identity as a player, but in this world view, Joker is actually a replica of Saint J, the resurrection of the ancient savior in another form.

At this moment, he was planning to destroy this absurd world with a special ritual.

Joker has come to the highest point of this pyramid-shaped world.The sun seeped down from the edge of the barrier, making it unbearably hot.Enduring the severe pain, he dug open the dome, the exposed skin was scorched and dehydrated, the facial muscles convulsed due to the pain, and tears mixed with blood poured down from the half-blind eyes.

There was a loud crash of some kind of metal bending in the sky, and he heard the sound of blood flowing in his body.

Destroy it, and you will be liberated.

However, in the next second, the corrosive strong light falling on him disappeared, like a stage where the spotlights were suddenly turned off at the end of the show.Just when Joker thought he was ending the world with death again, a beeping alarm sounded with an unknown frequency.

An overwhelming number of servants rushed from behind him like a tide, and they circled around his body in an orderly manner.Like a group of efficient and diligent worker ants, they densely covered the pervasive poison gas injection device on the "dome", and repaired it in a short time.

It turned out that the sunshine that made people talk about it was just another man-made deception.

Is there any truth in this world?

While these words came to mind, Joker closed his eyes completely.

The weather of the blizzard is difficult to distinguish between day and night.

A train is speeding on the iron bridge across the river, the body seems to be submerged in a long tunnel composed of misty light and shadow, without the smell of coal or the sound of sparks, just like a ghost walking through the world.

The endlessly running hub was finally led by rails to a concentration camp surrounded by barbed wire.

A doctor in a white coat stood upright on a high platform built at the crossroads. Hundreds of children were driven off the train in panic, and walked past the doctor one by one, following his gestures to the left or to the left. go right.

Pinned to his chest is a matte iron medal, on which the totem of Sauros is branded, but the lines have become blurred due to years of rubbing.The white mask covered most of the doctor's face, only revealing a pair of chilling eyes, the cold eyes are only possessed by those who have witnessed many deaths.

His eyes stayed on an extremely handsome child for a long time.

The boy's skin was as white as milk, and the sun fell on the tips of his hair like icing on soft and delicious bread.He covered his mouth and sneezed lightly, which made his heart soften suddenly.

"Take him to laboratory No. [-]." The doctor ordered the assistant behind him.

The airtight iron house is like a numbered tomb, surrounded by walls, and there is no one around, but the young man can hear whispers pouring into his ears, rustling sounds dragging chaotic shadows before his eyes.

In the blinding darkness, he keenly caught such a whisper: "The doctor has finally found the best experimental carrier."

At the same time, the doctor was sitting in his office, and a human experiment plan was placed in front of him.

The wording on the paper was mechanical and cold, like a product manual without emotion, but the content of each process was creepy upon closer inspection.

This is a secret experiment on how to transform a mediocre neonate into some kind of divine spiritual resurrection carrier:

The first is the transformation of the body. They believe that an invincible soul must have a strong and incomparable body.They plan to peel off the subject's skin inch by inch, extract his bones one by one, and re-weave and fill them with new materials.

Followed by spiritual cleansing.The first is to disinfect, drill a hole in the skull at the front of the frontal lobe, inject alcohol into it, and destroy all the original brain tissue.Then there is surgery, using a two-pointed miniature sickle to accurately penetrate into the brain, and finely carve the shape of a great soul.

The doctor's index finger tapped the table rhythmically, and the place where the fingertip landed was the words "THESEUS" - the code name of this experimental plan.

The Ship of Theseus is an old metaphor for a ship that can sail forever at sea by replacing parts until all functional parts are replaced, and so on.

Is the end of endless self-renewal the victory or destruction of eternal life?

The doctor thought for a moment, then stood up.

He walked through the long corridor and walked to the door of the No. [-] laboratory.Without a single glance, the assistant guarding the door respectfully opened the door for him.

The child was bound and curled up on the cold operating table, like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

He saw the doctor pick up a syringe from the tray and draw an injection from another container, which was labeled with a black skull.

The child opened his eyes wide in despair, filled with tears.

The doctor turned around, approached him without saying a word, and slowly injected the medicine into his body.

As he was dying, the child stared at the only chandelier in the room. The lamp was hanging from the ceiling, and only one candle was lit on it. The flickering candle seemed to be about to go out.

While he was taking his last breath, the doctor slowly took off his mask, revealing a face neither sad nor happy.

If human existence is divided into the smallest particles, then, in every second, every instant, every smallest unit of time, we are reorganizing ourselves and resurrecting.Every thought will split into a brand new individual, every moment of change will lead to a different world, and each person may carry thousands of new births. .

In the previous world, J-07 was the Nth-generation replica of Saint J, and the child in front of him who had lost his vital signs could have been the ancestor of J-07, the first-generation replica.From then on, every update iteration of the replicator is based on the replacement and coverage of the previous generation.

Ethan tells him that the world and everything he experiences is a projection of his ego.

Aladdin once said that the only way to break the illusion is to kill the person who created the illusion.

He is the one who created the illusion.

So let it be over, before it's about to begin.

Qiao Kejun woke up suddenly and sat up sweating profusely.

There was a rustling sound from the side, and the bedside lamp was turned on, reflecting a face he was all too familiar with.

Wen Baifan sighed, "Are you having a nightmare again?"

Qiao Kejun closed his eyes and lightly pressed his fingertips on the eyelids, the fragment of the horrible dream was still retained in his cerebral cortex.He dreamed of Wen Baifan's death again, dreaming that he was burned to ashes and used to smear the ugly monster with its long tail.

"The aftereffects of this game are too serious." Wen Baifan stretched out his hand to run along his back, his heart was throbbing restlessly under the palm of his hand, "It's been a week, and you haven't recovered yet."

Yes, it has been so long, Qiao Kejun closed his eyes hard.

He felt as if he was facing an abyss all the time, as if he would fall back into that endless illusion in a short time.Everything around him can make him fall into a daze at any time, the seasons, the weather, the streets, the flow of people, the various perceptions make him exhausted physically and mentally.

The stroking on the back paused for a moment, Wen Baifan switched his hands to his face, pressed it against his back, and arched like a small animal.This was a small gesture they used to do. The shadows of the two were cast on the wall by the bedside lamp, blending into one.

The feeling of congealing fire in the spine has long since disappeared, and now only the warm breath of the lover remains.

"Tomorrow is a public holiday, why don't we go to Nancheng to relax together." Wen Baifan suggested while lying on his back, half asleep and half awake, "It can be regarded as revisiting the old place."

"I remembered this place." Wen Baifan smiled, stretched out his hand and gestured ahead, "It's a big house with a pointed roof."

It was almost night, and the surrounding area was very quiet, as if I could hear the rustling sound of the distant sea breeze across the top of the waves.Qiao Kejun pushed open the familiar door, and finally let go of his guard against the world around him, relaxing physically and mentally after a long absence.

Wen Baifan walked into the yard quickly, and stopped under a cloud-covered tree, "I also thought of this tree, this is the place where we first met."

"You still remember." Qiao Kejun smiled.

"That must be." Wen Baifan was in a good mood, looking around, looking around, looking left, looking right, humming a nursery rhyme briskly, even though it was still at the level of a barbaric accent, "The bridge in front of the door Down, swim past a flock of ducks..."

Under the bridge in front of the door, a flock of ducks swam by, come and count them... The last sentence should have been "two four six seven eight", but no matter how others corrected it, Wen Baifan would always stubbornly read this string of numbers as "Three six eighteen".

"Come and count..."

Suddenly, a kind of lingering anxiety wrapped around Qiao Kejun's heart again, and his muscles froze suddenly, like Laocoon whose chest was strangled by a giant python.

Is everything in front of me real?

He suspects that the current happiness is false, but also worries that this suspicion will destroy the current happiness, and he is confused in the contradiction.

"...Come and count, three six and eighteen." Wen Baifan read out the nursery rhyme that was wrong since childhood.

Qiao Kejun's heart relaxed, and his whole body was filled with heavy joy and satisfaction.He looked at the back of the person who kept wandering around, and a snowflake-like note fell lightly in his heart, and his thoughts were pulled back to a long time ago.

From a very young age, Qiao Kejun knew that he could peek into other people's hearts through physical touch, but even though he kept a distance from others as much as possible, when he was alone, he could still hear a low-frequency noise, which seemed to be The whisper of the world is also like some kind of hidden oracle.

At that time, Wen Baifan was the only person other than his father who couldn't eavesdrop on his heart.In this child, Qiao Kejun experienced the unknown confusion and surprise for the first time.He learned to listen to the child's expressions organized by language, and clumsily established connections between people in the limited communication. This process is like the little prince concentrating on planting his roses, and the loneliness brought about by the growth period gradually gradually Get digested.

When the child left, Qiao Kejun can't remember clearly, and the farewell in life often does not follow the program of the drama.Maybe it was an ordinary afternoon, when he woke up, everything around him was the same as usual, except for one person missing.

At the beginning, he might still feel frustrated and uneasy, but time is like sea water smoothing the sand, and he gradually has doubts about the real existence of this period of time. In the end, he bid farewell to that period of memory unconsciously.

When she grew up, Qiao Kejun learned to block her hearing and coexist peacefully with the world.He left the empty home and broke into the world empty-handed, and later, he was betrayed, lost his career, and returned to this deserted house again empty-handed.On that occasional evening, in the narrow and low attic, the setting sun slanted in, illuminated the dust, and broke the silence of the room.Among the piles of old things, he found a stack of rolled up sketches and put them together with the burnt small milk pot.

At the moment when the portrait was unfolded, he heard the persistent and strange humming again.

Until this time, Qiao Kejun suddenly remembered that after the separation, he had also sketched the departed boy with his brushstrokes, and used a creative fiction to eliminate his sense of loss.

He decided to go to Chaocheng, he wanted to find him.

At the moment of reunion, Wen Baifan's existence is not only himself, but also the proof of something created in Qiao Kejun's mind.

If the gods want to find a face to present to the world, it must be the appearance of everyone's love.