Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 944 The Unbounded Cage (Part )

It is not accurate to say that the memory since then has been lost. It is better to say that it is "looking at other people's stories." My body took action involuntarily, but there was another person in my head who was watching indifferently. What's going on here? The self trapped in the small inner sanctum of the mind asks: What happened to the contract and the woman I just saw? Is this some kind of prank similar to a network show, or are you still living in a nightmare?

While he was thinking, he ran towards the busier main street - not with any clear plan, but just instinctively wanted to go to a safe area where the crowd gathered - on the road sign that stood in front of him, there were silver symbols like bird paw prints. It's shining brightly. Looking up, not only the street signs, but also the signboards on the shops, the missing person notices and advertisements posted on the telephone poles, from his eyes at this moment, were all filled with strange words like bird marks on the sand. "Character painting". Obviously all the scenery is familiar in daily life, but it seems that I have suddenly traveled to a foreign country.

After seeing this, the self trapped in the mind stopped chattering. The possibility of it being a spoof show can be ruled out. He turned around and looked around. From the telephone pole right next to his arm to the billboards on high-rise buildings with a straight line distance of more than a kilometer, this strange "talisman painting" was everywhere. In other words, at least half of the city's objects with normal text must be replaced with this. Even the most popular prank show would not be able to spend such a large sum of money.

He fumbled in his pockets. Because the rented apartment is on a very low floor and the door locks are not very secure, he would never put his phone on the bedside even when sleeping. Instead, he would hide it in his closest pocket and go to the store to charge it during the day. In this case, it is almost impossible to take away his phone without anyone noticing.

Sure enough, the phone was still in his pocket and had not been dropped due to his earlier panicked escape. He turned on the screen, glanced up quickly, and immediately flipped the screen over. His face was illuminated by the dark rear camera, and he immediately stuffed the phone back into his pocket, as if he was afraid that this palm-sized second-hand machine would peek at him.

No need to unlock your phone to confirm. When the screen turned on, the date and time that should have been displayed in huge white fonts were now only white patterns like bird tracks. If Chinese characters were displayed like this, it might be explained that a certain calligraphy font was accidentally replaced, but what was replaced were numbers - those advertisements on telephone poles should normally have mobile phone numbers, right? Is there any modern country in the world that does not use Arabic numerals?

He stood there numbly, imagining a black bird leaping over the city, like dancing on piles of lotus leaves, leaving a string of white paw prints wherever it passed - if this was really the case, I must not have woken up at this moment, but was trapped in a nightmare.

Pedestrians passed by him. They all looked normal and didn't seem to be bothered by the strange words that surrounded them. However, there was also a strange feeling in the expressions on their faces. The more he stared at these pedestrians, the more false his facial features seemed. They are clearly on the face, and the positions of each other are correct, but what is finally formed is not a "face" in the true sense, just like a bunch of lines undulating and bending randomly. How did that happen? Every one of them was a perfectly normal face, but he couldn't read any expressions.

Even the made-out clay figures and cut-out paper figures still have expressions that can be interpreted. Whether it is a permeating smile or an empty expression, since it can make people feel scared, it proves that it has formed a form that can be recognized as a "face". However, what kept passing by him seemed to be just some plastic bags blown by the wind, or moving machines that were running on their own, with neither the ability to express themselves nor the need to receive external information.

They are alive. The reason why Cai Ji knows this is because whenever Cai Ji stares at someone, the other person will quickly turn their head to him. The two glowing orbs with a moist luster were facing him, and the surrounding skin was wrinkled or shrunk in disorder. Such expressionless twitching reminded him of earthworms rolling around in the soil.

This is how insects feel when they see human expressions, he thought to himself, and a string of sharp laughter burst out of his throat involuntarily. All the heads on the street turned to him in an instant, and the flesh on each head was wrinkled to varying degrees. One of them opened his mouth, and a harsh metal pipe-like sound came out from the black hole, and then he took a step towards him. What are they trying to do? Have you discovered that you are an alien in this world? If that's the case, maybe I should immediately pretend to be twitching my facial features and let out a few weird whining sounds. But he didn't do it in the end because it was too ridiculous. Instead of doing weird things like a clown, it would be better to be killed by this crazy world.

He stood still in anger, waiting for those things that were not yet human beings to reveal their true intentions - let's draw a line! A little person in his head shouted inexplicably. The voice was not even his own, but the voice of a mature man who was so righteous and awe-inspiring to the point of being comical. He used all kinds of tricks, even if Cai frowned——

This was so stupid that he couldn't help but want to laugh out loud, so he quickly pushed this damn irrelevant sound out of his mind. In this situation, instead of thinking of countermeasures, my brain is still imagining such a shameful heroic plot. I am simply a complete clown. Just as he was thinking this, the "person" who made the weird noise stopped approaching him, turned around and walked away. The pedestrians who were staring at him turned their heads away one by one and continued walking their respective ways. The whole world suddenly forgot his existence and continued to operate according to the original order, leaving him standing there dumbfounded.

Look, this is the clown! The hateful rich male voice in his head suddenly came out. With just three punches and two kicks, I can dispatch all these rats——

Maybe it's because he admitted that he is a clown. Maybe, he thought, he was the buffoon in a book based on a character the author particularly disliked. This whole world was created to torture oneself. Only by constantly showing one's ugly appearance and being laughed at can one satisfy the boring desires of those readers and then barely survive until the next page.

So why don't you try doing something ridiculous? A weak voice suggested tentatively, sounding exactly like Xiao Chu before he disappeared. If it would be fine if I made a little fool of myself...

How could such a thing happen! another voice roared. I did nothing wrong, nothing wrong! Why do I have to go through this shit? This is all your fault!

He felt that a certain tendon in his body had snapped, and the voice that sounded like a small cud suddenly disappeared. is this real? Has he been blaming all the recent strange things on Xiao Chu? Or is this just meaningless babble?

Isn’t the babble also true? another voice asked. Just because it was said without thinking, it is the truest thought... Stop talking about these useless things! The most manic and most like his own voice shouted, nothing matters now! What to do! Can I still go to work? Can you still live normally? If everything cannot be restored to normal, all the past efforts will be in vain! It's like wasted time in the car shop!

The murmurs in his head finally stopped, as if he was frightened by his crazy self and dared not speak out. However, in this silent inner world, a louder but hollower voice said: Nothing matters anymore.

Work doesn't matter anymore. The future doesn't matter anymore. Everything that was conceived and pursued in the past no longer matters because the end of the world has arrived. It may not be the end of the real world, but it must be the end of the self. Can you understand? There's no way the world of common sense would be like this, so either this is a realistic dream, or it's your own problem.

Those passers-by didn't hurt you, did they? Whether it's the neighbor next door or the stranger passing by, making incomprehensible expressions and making incomprehensible sounds, if that's not their problem, then there's something wrong with your own mind. Just as it has been foreshadowed before, the hidden disease in your mind that has been worrying you has finally exploded. Last time it was about forgetting the road, this time it was about losing understanding of language and human expression. This city has not changed, it’s just that you have lost your qualifications as an ordinary person.

Is that so? Everything that has gone wrong during this period is a precursor to some kind of mental illness. Thinking like this, he felt surprised besides fear - it turns out that madness is such a simple thing. It's not that he has really become a demented child who doesn't understand anything. His thinking is even much more active than before. It’s not an exaggeration to say that you are calm now, right? But that is of no use. Since the brain's function is faulty, it is like a computer hardware problem that cannot be cured by the efforts of subjective will. No matter whether he cried or racked his brains to explain the whole thing, in the end he couldn't change the current situation. This was a helpless family inheritance, a nightmare that lingered in his ears during his childhood.

(Madman. The madman who was locked in the cellar and died. He and I are blood relatives...)

Now he finally fell into this nightmare that he had imagined countless times. In his childhood fantasy, once he fell into such a situation, he would face it very calmly: first, he would have to overcome the crazy mental impulse with his tenacious willpower, and then go to the hospital for treatment. When it cannot be cured, it must be ended happily. He comforted himself with this, as long as his will was strong enough, he would not fall into the worst situation.

Now he knew how naive his assumption was. He didn't do anything that could be called damaging his body, but he still fell into the imaginings and hallucinations unknowingly, knowing that it was his own problem and there was nothing he could do to fix it. Go to the hospital? Then who can pay for his long-term treatment? In the end, he will just be locked up at home like his uncle and grandfather - if he still has a home by then.

With that, the remaining choices are clear. You won't be a drag on your family, and you won't have to endure the ridicule and contempt of others. You might even get a few sighs of sympathy. (You have contributed to society! A falsely enthusiastic voice said in his head.) Despite this, his feet were firmly planted on the ground.

He was afraid of this. When it came to the end, he realized that he was so afraid of this matter that he didn't even have the courage to imagine how to implement it. This is not like the beautifully designed shots on the movie screen, or the angry words that come out of your mouth without thinking. If it is really implemented, it means that the entire life from the past to the present, and from now on, will have no meaning, no possibility, and even the least and least things will no longer be available. Lose everything. There was no sense of reality in this concept - he was not mentally prepared to die at all.

Is it really necessary to die? He considered hesitantly. Even people who have lost some organ functions can still survive in today's society. Maybe it’s possible to climb to a higher level, but is life really that bad now? Being able to do a job that is not too annoying, have enough food and sleep every day, have a house to sleep in, and watch your favorite movies in your free time. These are all the hard-earned lives we had after leaving our hometown. Isn’t it a pity to end them so easily?

Maybe there is another way. Perhaps a person can still survive in the world even if he cannot read or even communicate with others. Or - maybe the condition wasn't permanent, and as long as he stayed patient and calm and rested for a few days, everything would go back to normal. This idea is not without purpose. Last time he suddenly forgot the way, didn't he recover while walking? After all, the wonders of the human body are not comparable to those of cars. Physical wounds can heal on their own, but what about mental illnesses? Maybe it will improve with self-discipline in life?

As he thought about it, heat gradually came out of his chest, and the joints of his limbs were no longer stiff from the cold. The top priority is not to be caught as a dangerous lunatic and then slowly look for a chance to return to normal. Thinking of his experience of suddenly getting lost last time, he quickly turned around and walked towards the rental house. It was the time when most people went out to work, and he met several acquaintances who lived nearby on the way. Although their faces were extremely difficult to distinguish in his eyes, their figures and clothes were the same as before. When the men stopped and screamed at him, he smiled as calmly as he could until they all moved away. Returning home in fear like this, he was convinced that these people did not suddenly turn into monsters, and that the problem was indeed with him.

After locking all the doors and windows at home, he sat alone by the bed and began to think about the next countermeasures. If you don't know the specific cause of the disease, you can't take medicine randomly. With the current situation, it is difficult to register with the hospital. Can you write a note explaining your situation in advance and then ask your neighbor to take you to the hospital?

Assuming that what he says and writes at this time can be understood by others, at least he can explain his condition clearly. It is said that when encountering certain rare diseases, the hospital is even willing to treat them for free. Will I also encounter such luck? However, the trouble is that there are no pens and paper specially prepared in this room. If you don't want to write in blood, you can only find it in the nearby supermarket. If you look around in the corners of the room later, you'll probably be able to find enough change to buy pen and paper.

As he was thinking about it, he heard the patter of rain outside the window. The sound made him want to go out. Walk into the rain, follow the voice to the depths of the mist, to the place that truly belongs to him. In order to resist this strange thought, he simply grabbed the quilt and covered himself from head to toe.

The dull darkness really calmed him down, and he remembered that he had forgotten his umbrella in the store. It's better to wait until the rain stops before going out. He closed his eyes in the warm, dry darkness and slowly slipped into sleep. In his hazy consciousness, he remembered what the black bird had said to him - he would see that annoying thing again soon, right? His hands slipped from his knees, and his thoughts drifted back to the dream of dusk by the lake.

(End of this chapter)