Zhou Lin

November 22, morning.

Zi Lin's life in the Internet Ring Center has officially begun.

His roommate woke up on time at six o'clock according to his biological clock. He had no intention of staying in bed. He got up as soon as he woke up and immediately came to his bedside to "wake him up".

Although Zi Lin was awake, he still pretended that he hadn't slept enough, yawned and got up lazily.

Later, while dressing and washing, the two started talking.

Zi Lin's roommate was named Wang Yong; yes, this name, which is similar in nature to John Smith, was still used by people in the 23rd century, and it was still one of the names with the highest rate of duplication.

Wang Yong is seventeen years old, a sophomore in high school, and he is thin and frail. Because he loves to play games and has poor grades, his parents chose an auspicious day to "cheat" him into this center for "correction." At school, naturally, he was temporarily suspended until he was "reformed." "Only before I can go back to study.

Wang Yong actually didn't mention much of the above basic information during the conversation, but it didn't matter, because Zi Lin had already read his information, and even if he didn't say a word, Zi Lin knew everything about him.

More than his own situation, Wang Yong was telling Zi Lin some things to pay attention to when staying in this center: for example, don’t resist the warden, and you can’t talk back. Just do whatever the warden tells you to do; don’t do anything. Do something conspicuous, don't do anything against the rules, don't show any strong emotions, etc.

The person in charge here is Tang Jiucheng, who was born and raised locally in June 2162.

Before the age of forty, his resume was nothing outstanding: he graduated from a public school, entered a local specialized hospital as a resident physician, and then spent about twenty years reaching the level of department director... In Zi Lin's words Say, a typical mediocre person.

It stands to reason that given his academic level and social class, if he persists for another twenty years, he should be able to retire as deputy dean or even dean.

However, he was clearly uneasy about this.

In early 2006, Professor Tang suddenly resigned from the hospital where he worked. It is unknown where he obtained a sum of funds to establish the Sunshine Youth Behavior Correction Center.

In the next two to three years, he became a local celebrity; Professor Tang's center was also in full swing.

To be fair, his so-called "academic views" are not very clever and are even stupid, but as a service provided to fools at the bottom of the IQ chain, such a set of things is enough.

Tang Jiucheng's "treatment and correction" can be summarized simply as religious brainwashing combined with animal-taming operations.

First, he identified "Internet addiction", a term that has no generally accepted medical definition, as a disease; then he used electrotherapy to force all the teenagers sent to his center to admit that they were suffering from Internet addiction; Electrotherapy is a threat to force the "patient" to abide by his rules and agree with his views...

This set of stuff is similar to the routine played in the Crusades back then, which is a form of "I have decided that I am the only god, and you will die if you believe in others, so I will kill you for the sake of justice."

He doesn’t believe in that set of things in his heart, but you have to approve it, because if you don’t approve it, he won’t be able to operate it.

So how does it work? It's just electricity.

Electrotherapy is a typical method of "negative reinforcement (that is, negative reinforcement, which is to punish those behaviors that are not in line with organizational goals, so that these behaviors can be weakened or even eliminated, thereby ensuring that the achievement of goals is not interfered with)".

It is actually inappropriate to say that this is "animal training", because generally speaking, training animals uses more "positive reinforcement" or a "combination of positive and negative"; to explain with a simple example... do If you do the right thing, you will be given food, if you do the wrong thing, you will be whipped to form a conditioned reflex.

But Professor Tang doesn't seem to be good at using positive reinforcement. He only knows how to use electrotherapy. After all... that works.

If you let him lie there and be electrocuted without admitting that he is addicted to the Internet, then he will also admit that he is addicted to the Internet. As long as the electricity is in place, let alone being addicted to the Internet, let him admit that he is a dog. Okay, it’s been a day since I decided to lose.

Of course, relying on this kind of operation alone, his center, or the "youth behavior modification" industry, cannot continue to operate for a long time; after all, electric shock is just a method, and the method is variable. You can do electrotherapy today, but you can do it tomorrow. Let's play waterboarding... Anyway, as long as the government doesn't control it, it can be done in any way.

However, if an industry wants to survive and continue, it cannot just rely on means. The most important thing is to look at market demand.

If "prostitution" is a service industry based on human instinctive needs, then the "Internet Quit Center" is a harbor for "education losers".

The real brilliance of Professor Tang is not in his methods, but here - at the psychological level, he transferred the responsibility that should have been borne by his parents to a fictional disease, to the Internet, game companies, and even the entire society; physiological On the other hand, he used negative reinforcement to transform the "patient".

In other words, consumers can get rid of their responsibilities by sending their children to the center. When they take their children out of the center, they can get the "results" they want; in the end, they will feel at ease and satisfied, and tell themselves: "I Yes, my child is right, it is the fault of various objective factors, and the situation caused by these objective factors has been 'corrected' by Professor Tang."

Consumers are naturally satisfied with such "service". Since the customers are satisfied, then this business can naturally continue.

As a result, Professor Tang's center has been open for more than ten years, and the professor himself has been regarded as "the savior of degenerate teenagers who have been poisoned by the Internet and society." It can be said that he has gained both fame and fortune.

Especially inside the center, Tang Jiucheng is like a god. The staff basically nod and bow when they see him, while the patients are "required" to bow ninety degrees when they see him; if it weren't for fear of attracting the attention of the government, , he might have asked the patient to kneel down and worship him.

"It's time to assemble, all allies please gather in the corridor... It's time to assemble, all allies..."

While chatting with Wang Yong, it was already half past six before I knew it.

At that moment, a rigid-toned recorded broadcast sounded on time, and the loudspeaker was also mixed with a strange "buzzing" sound that could be heard in every dormitory.

Upon hearing the assembly announcement, Zi Lin and Wang Yong immediately stopped talking, both went out and hurried to the corridor.

Because there is only a washbasin in the dormitory but no toilet, and you have to go to the public toilet in the corridor for convenience, the electronic door of the dormitory can be opened freely with the fingerprint of the dormitory resident. Last night, the dormitory leader took his son to open the door, but because of the The patient had just entered the center, and the process of room assignment and fingerprint registration had not yet been completed; but now that Wang Yong was awake, he was responsible for opening the door.

Two minutes after they arrived in the corridor, a warden walked through the corridor in a hurry, inspecting the "patients" who had been lined up according to their room numbers.

"Hold your ally's hand, start...go!" When the warden reached the door of the last room, he gave the order loudly.

In this center, "patients" are called "allies", a title invented by Professor Tang. In addition, he also requires all patients and their parents to call themselves "Uncle Tang."

"Pay attention to order! Don't whisper to each other!" When the queue started to move, the dormitory leader followed at the end of the queue and shouted sternly as he walked.

Zi Lin investigated these daily processes very clearly.

Gathered at 6:30, and at 6:45, allies from all levels gathered in the "activity room" on their own floor to do "knock exercises", or "kneeling exercises"; it is said that when this center first opened, they went to the playground. I did this, but because there were always people waiting for an opportunity to escape after getting outdoors, it was later changed to what it is now.

At seven o'clock, all the allies gathered in the cafeteria for breakfast. At 7:30, they returned to the classrooms on their own floor for classes; it was said to be "class", but in fact there was no teacher teaching, it was just self-study. The content of the study... is mainly the teaching materials written by Uncle Tang, various internal rules and regulations of the center, and the content of previous "review courses".

After three classes, it is lunch time at 12 noon, which lasts forty-five minutes. After that, there is only one hour of free time in the day. Of course...it is said to be free time, but in fact it can only be in a limited area. action.

We regrouped at 1:45 and went to the computer room to "get online" at 2 o'clock - go to the website designated by Uncle Tang, read the designated content, and strengthen our studies. This was also three classes.

Dinner is eaten at five o'clock, and must be finished before six o'clock, and then returned to the dormitory. After six o'clock, you are not allowed to go out or visit the dormitory except to use the toilet. Lights out at 8:30 p.m.

This is the basic flow of a day in the correction center. Except for a "commentary class" hosted by Uncle Tang himself on Sunday morning, it is like this six days a week.

Of course, the most critical point is: at any time and in any place, as long as some of your behaviors make you meet the conditions that "must receive treatment", you must receive "treatment" immediately.

Because this was Zi Lin's first day officially moving into the center, he was taken away alone by the dormitory supervisor after doing exercises and eating breakfast.

As expected, he arrived on the fifth floor and was brought to "Uncle Tang".

"Sit." After Zi Lin entered the room, Professor Tang, who was sitting behind his desk, glanced at him casually and then said this.

Upon hearing this, Zi Lin silently walked to the opposite side of the other party's desk and sat down; and the dormitory supervisor who was responsible for bringing him, the "doctor" who was responsible for electrocuting him yesterday, was standing behind him, closely Staring at the back of his head.

"Zhou Ming...right?" Professor Tang asked absently, looking at the information displayed on the I-PEN virtual screen in his hand.

Zi Lin came here naturally using a false name and identity.

"Yes." He replied.

"Do you know your situation?" Professor Tang asked again.

"I know... Internet addiction." Zi Lin responded.

"Well..." Professor Tang pondered and moved his eyes to his face, "Why didn't you admit it when you first came in yesterday?"

"I..." Zi Lin thought for a while, what kind of answer would be reasonable and satisfactory to the other party, "... I am taking a chance and don't want to receive treatment."

"Yeah." Professor Tang nodded, "Very good. Being able to admit that you have a problem shows that you also have the idea of ​​​​correcting it, but you don't know the method." He paused, "Listen up, as long as you strictly abide by this According to the regulations, go through our procedures and I guarantee that you can recover."

"Okay." Zi Lin replied, "I'll try my best..."

"What do you mean by 'trying your best'?" The next second, Uncle Tang suddenly turned his back, "Don't you understand what I said? I said strictly abide by it, that is, you must do it. What is the attitude of trying your best? In the center, we To ensure that 'orders must be followed and prohibitions must be prohibited', things must be done in accordance with rules and a high degree of execution, and there should be no such thing as 'trying your best' to get by."

"Understood..." Zi Lin immediately pretended to be scared and answered eagerly, "I...I will definitely do it and implement it resolutely."

Professor Tang stared at him for a few more seconds, thought for a while, and then said: "Okay, originally your attitude was to go to 'treatment', but I thought you had just come in, and you were with the other newcomers. Comparatively speaking, the allies are relatively enlightened. Today, you should go back to the dormitory and memorize all the rules and regulations here, and then start activities with other allies tomorrow."

"Yes..." Zi Lin looked relieved again, "Thank you, Professor Tang."

"Hey~" Professor Tang waved his hand, "Don't call me that. I'm very approachable. All my allies here call me Uncle Tang. You can call me that too."

He used words like "can," but really... if you didn't say that, he would find a reason to shock you.

Zi Lin was also very sensible, so he quickly called Uncle Tang, and then left with the warden.

The entire journey was silent.

Back in the dormitory, Zi Lin found that his fingerprints could already open and close the door to his dormitory, so he closed the door, put the stack of paper documents he had received from the office on the table, and started page by page. The ground turned.

He turned over and over again, but he did not "read" it, because he had already understood and memorized all the contents on the paper before entering this center; turning over... was just to create traces of "turning over and reading" , what if someone discovers that the pile of information he got back is "new", but he knows all the terms clearly, wouldn't that arouse suspicion?

Therefore, Zi Lin was turning over the paper while thinking about other things.

"During exercise, you can only see the patients on this floor, but when you have breakfast, everyone except Professor Tang should be here...the number of housemasters and patients is correct as recorded in the data. .

"Because we must abide by the order and cannot move around at will, I couldn't see everyone's appearance clearly... but those who did see nothing unusual.

"The 'dessert' who came to visit me last night...well...let's call her 'dessert lady'...only the sound and smell are left, but not the appearance and figure that I can see, in the environment of the cafeteria I'm afraid it would be difficult to identify her.

"Of course, there is no need to rush to find her, anyway, as long as I stay here, she will take the initiative to find me.

"Faceless... As expected, we still can't find any clues at this stage. We have to wait a few more days for 'that thing' to take effect before we can make any progress.

"So, what I gained this morning is... I accidentally discovered an ability user...

“Although it’s not a great ability in my opinion, she seems to be quite troubled.

"Haha... I guess the 'dessert lady' is also here for him."