"Okay, now please slowly open your eyes."
The lecturer's voice echoed once again, and Yi Heye opened his eyes. His vision returned to reality, and he felt a little disoriented.
Everyone around him opened their eyes as he instructed. Yi Heye looked around and found that apart from being a little tired, they did not seem to have any major abnormalities for the time being.
"Now, please slowly unplug the plugs," the instructor said. "Feeling slight discomfort is normal; it means your brain has been under stress. Continue participating in daily meditation sessions, and this will help you overcome this difficulty..."
Yi Heye frowned as he listened to the rambling nonsense on the podium, already cursing the idiot to death in his mind.
He reached out and touched the brain-computer interface, hearing Jian Yunxian say goodbye: "Bye-bye~"
He hesitated for a moment, but still unplugged the plug.
Having lost contact with Jian Yunxian, I felt a slight sense of loss.
The instructor said, "Now you can talk to the other students around you and discuss your feelings and opinions."
Yi Heye immediately turned to look at Xia Tian. Before he could even ask a question, the chatterbox began to share his feelings: "Waaah... I feel like my head is going to explode."
He hugged the teddy bear tightly in his arms, and as if sensing some energy, his tense expression slowly relaxed.
“But I feel that this meditation class might actually be helpful,” Xia Tian said softly. “I feel that my soul has been slightly purified.”
Yi Heye was somewhat surprised and asked, "What did you see?"
"Flowers, birds, fish, and insects—a paradise on earth." Xia Tian's expression softened as she spoke of this, then she turned to Yi Heye and asked, "Is what you see different from what I see?"
“Same as above,” Yi Heye quickly replied.
“Brother, I feel like I’m not so bad anymore,” Xia Tian said. “I feel like my anger and sadness have been washed away by a heavy rain… It’s a very strange feeling, but I think you can understand what I mean…”
Yi Heye frowned—it should be a good thing that his mood had improved, but being here made him inexplicably worried.
He worried that these people would be like frogs being slowly boiled in water, gradually losing their ability to feel anger and sadness, becoming accustomed to the place, and eventually losing all motivation to leave, ultimately choosing to stay willingly.
“I don’t know why, but I had a feeling that the place I saw was Area A,” Xia Tian said. “This was the first time I had ever seen the whole picture of Area A. It wasn’t on TV, or in an interview or documentary. It was truly and vividly imprinted in my mind.”
The man mentioned Area A, which made Yi Heye tense up again—it never seemed like things would turn out well here.
Xia Tian asked, "Brother, since I can't leave anyway, do you think I should stay and try my best to debut?"
This question spread through Yi Heye's mind, and he heard similar discussions all around him. Most of them were in a better mood and wanted to work hard to prepare for their debut.
Amidst the rising and falling sighs, a terrifying thought gradually ignited in Yi Heye—this was no meditation; it was clearly a large-scale brainwashing session.
Author's Note:
Mei Zong: Let's make some fun while my wife can't say a word!
Chapter 102, number 102
The rest of the meditation class was spent in an extremely eerie atmosphere.
The instructor first had them exchange ideas privately for 10 minutes, and then asked the participants to raise their hands and share their meditation insights with everyone.
Just as Yi Heye had expected, the first person to raise their hand was the "model student" sitting to his right, who claimed that they would "grit their teeth and persevere to stand out."
At that moment, having just finished meditating, he suddenly stood up, his eyes shining brightly, and his whole being exuding an unusual excitement.
The young man first gave a brief self-introduction—his name was Tang Ruoqi, a recent graduate of the Film Academy in Area B. He had loved acting since childhood and his lifelong dream was to become a shining actor. For him, being able to enter ISSAC was an incredible honor.
Looking at the light in his eyes, Yi Heye suddenly thought of Chen Sang—once upon a time, she had also stood atop the garbage heap, announcing her dream to the entire slum.
In comparison, at least Tang Ruoqi is not getting further and further away from his dream like Chen Sang. He entered the company he dreamed of, became a trainee, and won good results because of his excellent performance. He has become a star trainee of the company before his debut.
As he spoke with great emotion and conviction, he asked himself, "This is an opportunity given to us by fate to fulfill our dreams and change our adversity. What reason do we have not to work hard? What excuse do we have to slack off?"
It's clear that Tang Ruoqi's words were a heartfelt confession from the bottom of her heart.
Although Yi Heye, a player who was just giving up, couldn't stand his long-winded speech, it didn't stop everyone around him from being moved by his passionate speech.
He noticed that everyone around him was deeply moved, and many were even in tears. When they got to the emotional part, a loud sob even came from the other side of the classroom.
At this moment, Yi Heye's numbness stood out starkly from the crowd.
This scene reminded him of his school days, when so-called "masters" would come to the school to sell books and courses, and hold so-called parent-child lectures. They would also call some students up on stage, accompanied by mournful background music, and make the audience cry with great emotion, leaving Yi Heye alone in the corner looking completely bewildered.
Just like now, he couldn't understand what moved people back then.
Under Tang Ruoqi's effective guidance, the atmosphere at the scene reached an unprecedented climax. The usually shy and timid young people took the initiative to raise their hands and stand up to share their life experiences.
They encouraged each other with sincere gazes, showing no signs of the tension between competitors, but rather as if they were seeing compatriots who had gone through thick and thin together, genuinely wanting to pull their companions out of the chaotic quagmire.
Yi Heye sat soberly in the crowd, silent amidst the deafening shouts of slogans—he just wanted to remain invisible until the class ended.
But things don't always go as planned. Just when he was trying his best to make himself less noticeable, the lecturer's gaze was fixed on him.
He walked up to Yi Heye with a chilling smile, and Yi Heye's throat tightened instantly, and he broke out in a cold sweat.
"This student, please stand up and share your feelings."
When Yi Heye was in school, he was an expert at shirking his responsibilities and never felt guilty or nervous when the teacher called on him in class. Now, he has finally paid off all the debts he owed during his student days.
He glanced at his classmates who were crying their eyes out, and could only lower his head, take a deep breath, and quietly reach out and twist the mechanical arm.
Since that big show with Jian Yunxian last time, Yi Heye's left hand has developed a new function: a tear gland switch. Whenever he wants, he can make his tear glands collapse from the pain anytime, anywhere.
The moment he stood up, tears streamed down Yi Heye's face, incited by the artificial pain. His mind was blank, and he felt nothing at all. He could only pretend to be too emotional to speak, using stammering sobs to give an answer:
"I...I want to debut..."
To Yi Heye's surprise, the simple four words, coupled with his emotionless yet skillful tears, landed in the classroom and unexpectedly sparked a burst of cheers and applause.
The lecturer smiled with satisfaction, praising him repeatedly for using words he couldn't understand.
Yi Heye sat back down in this magical atmosphere, as if it were a dream that was related to him yet unrelated to him. The waves around him rose for him, but excluded him from them.
Yi Heye felt dizzy and disoriented during the class. He hated being the only one sober when everyone else was drunk—he was never confident in such matters and always couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with him.
After class, top student Tang Ruoqi rushed to the podium to share his thoughts with the lecturer. A group of people surrounded him, and even Xia Tian, the little prince of the water tap, had his eyes shining, as if he had forgotten yesterday's nightmare.
Yi Heye couldn't take it anymore. He didn't care about his own feelings anymore and irritably pulled Xia Tian aside: "What the hell are you so happy about? Don't you remember what happened yesterday?"
At this point, Xia Tian's expression froze instantly, and her cheerful aura dimmed: "...I remember."
Do you remember?
Yi Heye breathed a sigh of relief—at least the brainwashing hadn't completely bleached his brain, but the fact that he still remembered this appearance made Yi Heye even more disappointed.
"But the past can't be changed, can it?" Xia Tian said, head down. "I can't escape it. Now, isn't all I can do to try my best to change my future?"
These words left Yi Heye speechless—although he didn't think being entangled in negative emotions was a good thing, he also felt that easily forgetting hatred was an even more terrifying thing.
"...Aren't you angry or sad?" Yi Heye asked incredulously.
"It doesn't feel as bad as yesterday," Xia Tian said. "I think I've accepted it... Now, when I think back to yesterday, it feels like I'm watching someone else's story."
Then he laughed again, his whole body flushed an unusually high: "I don't know why, but I'm still quite excited right now. Maybe I'm just caught up in the atmosphere—you were too, weren't you, bro? What you said just now was really good."
Yi Heye was speechless, feeling incredibly irritated by everything around him.
At this moment, Pei Xiangjin, who had been pushed offline by Jian Yunxian, finally regained the initiative. He first whispered some veiled insults in Yi Heye's ear for a while, until Yi Heye impatiently tried to shut down his phone again. Damn it, he quickly got to the point:
"Don't panic, the problem isn't with you—Yu Yili just analyzed that the so-called meditation training, on the one hand, provides positive psychological suggestions to the trainees by playing videos and music, which has a pie-in-the-sky effect."
The gentle music and beautiful visuals brought them a strong sensory impact, and the lecturer's suggestive words gave them a glimpse of so-called "hope." However, Yi Heye did not believe that mere visual and auditory stimulation could make people who had suffered great trauma instantly forget their hatred and pain.
Sure enough, Pei Xiangjin's next words confirmed his conjecture: "On the other hand, Yu Yili believes that the brain-computer interface you are connected to may directly affect the mesolimbic reward circuit. By electrically stimulating the temporal lobe of the brain, it stimulates the substantia nigra in the basal ganglia to secrete a large amount of dopamine, thereby forcing them to produce euphoria and some paranoid radical thoughts."
The temporal lobe of the brain is mainly responsible for controlling memory, language, recognition, and emotions. Abnormalities in the left temporal lobe may cause irritability and depression, while abnormalities in the right temporal lobe may lead to extreme paranoia. The secretion of dopamine may cause emotional excitement and facial flushing, which clearly correspond to the situations of the students in front of us.
Yi Heye fell silent. Although he didn't know much about medicine, he was told directly that the matter was more serious than he had imagined.
“Short-term stimulation can cause this situation—excitement, emotionality, and susceptibility to ‘brainwashing’,” Pei Xiangjin said. “In the long run, they may become dependent on electrical stimulation, leading to anxiety, addiction, and depression. We checked the usage of the meditation classroom yesterday and found that even without scheduled classes, a large number of students went there on their own.”
Yi Heye remembered his roommates who hadn't returned home all night and suddenly realized where they had gone in the middle of the night.
"What's more noteworthy is that there haven't been any cases of directly stimulating the human brain using brain-computer interfaces yet." Pei Xiangjin became serious. "If such technology were to spread, it would have a huge social impact."
Yi Heye held his breath—the last time he heard something like this was when they discovered that Lost Lamb could be directly absorbed through a brain-computer interface.
In comparison, Yi Heye found that the two cases seemed to have subtle similarities in various aspects.
“Yi Heye, this case is of utmost importance,” Pei Xiangjin said. “We really can’t afford to make any mistakes.”
Pei Xiangjin's words made Yi Heye feel preoccupied again. He lowered his head and followed the excited Xia Tian out of the classroom, and unknowingly walked to the corridor where the new students came and went.
He passed by that corridor again, reaching the spot where the young man had climbed down not long ago. His breath caught in his throat, and the fleeting touch of his fingertips on the hem of his clothes made him break out in a cold sweat once more.
Xia Tian keenly sensed that something was wrong with him, and quickly stepped in front of him to prevent him from seeing where the young man had fallen.
Yi Heye sighed, his fingertips still trembling uncontrollably—he had never felt such a profound sense of powerlessness.
He quickened his pace, wanting to leave this suffocating "path to new life," but just then, the door to the room next to him opened again.
Yi Heye subconsciously looked back—he was afraid that the new students coming out would repeat the tragedy again. All his muscles were tense, ready to rush out at any time and pull back the person who was thinking of doing something drastic.
But unexpectedly, the boy who came out of there did not stand there blankly or cry, but instead looked just as bewildered and helpless as he had been back then.
Summer was also a little surprised and subconsciously turned around to ask, "What's wrong? Did they do anything to you?"
The boy shook his head and said, "No... I'm not really sure either. I heard that something happened to one of the leaders, and the project was canceled... so we just voted..."
The fact that the entire project was completely cancelled means that this so-called "leader" has gotten into serious trouble.
Yi Heye frowned, just about to ask someone to find out more, when Pei Xiangjin brought him the first-hand gossip.
"Damn, bad guys will always have bad guys to deal with them." Pei Xiangjin couldn't help but laugh as he spoke.
According to reliable sources, the person involved was Old Qin, who had bullied Yi Heye.
Yesterday, after being personally tortured and hospitalized by "Liu Cheng," Lao Qin experienced a terrifying time that he will never forget.
First, a Mr. Yang, who wished to remain anonymous, compiled his "great achievements" and sent them to his poor wife. He also carefully blurred the faces of each victim, leaving only a huge close-up of him riding wildly.
Following a major family upheaval, Mr. Qin channeled his grief and anger into lust, hiring a well-known AI male escort from the neighborhood to "relieve his pent-up desires."
"It seems that he went too far with the game. The male prostitute suddenly malfunctioned, made a strange bleating like a sheep, and then bit his 'x' and wouldn't let go no matter what he said."
After being bitten, Lao Qin immediately lost consciousness and had a nightmare that he would never forget for the rest of his life.
He dreamed that a sheep slowly rose from the bottom of the river, holding three cucumbers in its hand, and floated towards him.
In a golden light, he heard the little lamb ask him, "Hello, may I ask if you lost this golden cucumber, this silver cucumber, or this rotten cucumber..."