Yi Heye pretended to be uninvolved throughout, only nodding in agreement while he and Yu Yili took turns punching Pei Xiangjin in the face to settle their personal scores.
Before long, a low, questioning voice came from beneath the fist: "...You're fucking addicted, aren't you?"
Yu Yili immediately withdrew his hand as if he had been electrocuted, while Yi Heye turned around and pretended that nothing had happened.
After a while, Yu Yili looked at his face, which had hardly changed, and couldn't help but mutter under his breath, "He's got a really thick skin..."
The next second, Pei Xiangjin grabbed her by the neck again.
At this moment, the only one that had not woken up was LOPO, which had been in a state of power outage.
She was not human after all, and the mechanism of awakening was different from that of humans. They couldn't find a way to wake her up, and they didn't dare to leave her there. So they could only have Pei Xiangjin carry her on his shoulder and continue on their way.
As they set off, everyone fell silent in unison.
Behind them was the high wall they had just scaled. The path they had walked was familiar—asphalt road, electronic checkpoints, simple greenery, and some non-aggressive electronic guards.
Looking ahead, the path beneath our feet became increasingly unclear, and all we could see was a vast expanse of white, as if the world ahead did not exist.
Yu Yili couldn't help but ask, "This...this is a bug?"
As they spoke, a wisp of white mist quietly rolled up to their feet. The group instinctively took a step back, only to realize that the blank space in front of them was actually an endless expanse of thick fog.
"Damn it..." "Back off! Watch out, it's poisonous!"
Following Pei Xiangjin's reminder, the three of them simultaneously covered their mouths and noses, and took several steps back to get as far away from the thick fog as possible.
This time, with high walls behind him and endless fog in front of him, he was truly in a dilemma.
The group remained silent, no one daring to make a decision, and for a moment, their progress was put on hold.
But after only a moment's hesitation, Yu Yili took his hand away and carefully sniffed it: "It doesn't feel like poisonous fog."
Just as Pei Xiangjin was about to stop him, she saw Yu Yili take a small test tube out of his pocket and remove the cork. In the blink of an eye, a mechanical spider the size of a fingernail burrowed into the fog in the direction of his finger.
This is a toxicology testing robot commonly used by their forensic doctors. Because its several legs are very symmetrical, Yu Yili always likes to put one in each pocket and keep it as a pet.
A short while later, the little spider crawled out of the fog and back into Yu Yili's hand, this time its abdomen lit up with a green light.
"It's safe," Yu Yili said. "No toxic gases were detected, and the oxygen levels were normal."
Safety means that the fog is not toxic and people can breathe freely, but it does not mean that there are no other hidden dangers.
Limited visibility often evokes a sense of dread, prompting wild imaginations. But now, with the path ahead completely obscured by white, the only options are to continue exploring forward or retreat to the outside of the wall.
"Is anyone scared?" Yi Heye was the first to ask. "If you're scared, you can stay. I'll keep moving forward."
Having come this far, those with backbone would naturally not choose to stay. But Pei Xiangjin was more cautious than him, and before rashly backing down, he decided to conduct further research.
"I want to figure out what just happened to us," Pei Xiangjin said. "Was it a dream, or a hallucination caused by poisoning? Why did we both lose consciousness at the same time?"
Yu Yili pondered for a moment and asked, "Captain Pei, what did you just see?"
“I dreamt that the three of us were walking together, and then I found myself home alone. After I got home, my section chief called and told me I could take a month’s leave to rest. He even booked tickets for a trip,” Pei Xiangjin said, looking exhausted. “I knew right away that it must be a dream, or at least not real. There’s no way I could take a leave of absence until things at the section are settled, but I still couldn’t resist taking a short break…”
Yu Yili patted Pei Xiangjin on the shoulder to comfort him, then glanced at Yi Heye.
Yi Heye touched his nose: "I dreamt that my mom called me home for dinner... I left after I finished eating."
"So, we all entered the illusion together as soon as we came in?" Pei Xiangjin analyzed. "And everyone's illusion seems to be tailor-made, with the purpose of keeping us in the ideal world and preventing us from moving forward?"
Yi Heye was silent for a moment, but couldn't help but whisper, "...He was quite gentle and didn't hurt us at all."
This is the truth. If they could really do that, they could have used even tougher and more terrifying methods to stop them from advancing. But they were just having a beautiful dream. Apart from the disappointment after waking up, they were not harmed at all.
Yu Yili thought for a moment, then remained silent. He first reached out and touched the back of his neck, then turned to tug at Pei Xiangjin.
Pei Xiangjin stood still, obediently lowering her neck to show him the location of her brain-computer interface. Yu Yili reached out and touched it, then said to Yi Heye, "Can I see your brain-computer interface?"
Yi Heye frowned and brushed the hair behind his ear aside for him to examine.
Upon seeing this, Yu Yili's expression turned sorrowful: "I can't understand how any human being could tolerate having a brain-computer interface installed on one side of their ear. It's terrifying."
Despite saying that, he still endured the discomfort and went closer, reaching out to touch it, and quickly came to a conclusion:
“We didn’t see any new friction marks or abnormal bulging around the interface, which means no hardware has been installed. However, the surface near the chip carrier is slightly warm, which means that a program is loading inside. We had turned off all internal programs before we came, so we must have been remotely hacked.”
This conclusion caused the other two to widen their eyes slightly.
"Remote intrusion?" Pei Xiangjin asked incredulously.
To ensure user privacy and technological security, brain-computer interface technology was initially designed to allow only physical plugins to be installed via an interface. Therefore, remote intrusion like this, without any intermediary, is a completely unknown and terrifying prospect for them.
“Although there is no precedent for this in humans, I have dissected artificial intelligence with similar conditions, so I can be basically certain of this,” Yu Yili said. “Theoretically speaking, this technology, like consciousness transplantation surgery, should not and is not allowed to exist, rather than not existing.”
“I suspect that the entire Area A is a large local area network,” Yu Yili said. “Under these circumstances, we cannot be sure whether what we are seeing is real or not.”
As they spoke, they all looked ahead.
Before them, a thick fog blanketed everything, blurring the lines between reality and illusion. Everything became unknown and hazy, and no one dared to assert that there truly was a path ahead.
"From now on, never trust your eyes," Yu Yili said.
"Until we are sure we are leaving here."
Author's Note:
Yu Yiyu: Who said I could only be a driver here!
Chapter 157 (Number 157)
As they spoke, the toes of their feet were gradually obscured by the fog. In that instant, the visibility dropped drastically, causing everyone to involuntarily break out in a cold sweat.
Pei Xiangjin immediately arranged the formation: "I'll lead the way, put your arm around the person in front of you, and don't let go unless something unexpected happens."
Pei Xiangjin led the way, Yi Heye brought up the rear, and Yu Yili, whose combat strength was slightly inferior, carried LOPO and was protected in the middle.
Getting separated in low visibility is very dangerous, and there is no better way than to forcibly connect them like this.
Within seconds of the fog enveloping them, their vision was completely swallowed up. They couldn't even see their own fingertips when they stretched out their hands, and even when they were holding onto the shoulders of the person in front of them, they could only see a blurry silhouette.
Yi Heye stared at LOPO's head, which was almost swallowed by the fog, his entire body in a state of high alert, his hands gripping his belt, ready to draw his gun at any moment.
He followed Yu Yili's steps, cautiously feeling his way forward while looking around to guard against any potential dangers from any direction.
"Damn, I feel like I've gone blind..." Yu Yili sang as he walked forward, "Captain Pei, you are my eyes—"
Pei Xiangjin made no attempt to hide his feelings, saying, "I can't see clearly either, but there are gaps between the bricks on the ground, which at least ensures that we're walking in a straight line."
Due to the Coriolis effect, it is difficult for humans to walk in a straight line when their vision is impaired or when there are no reference points. This is why humans are prone to getting lost or going in circles in forests and deserts.
Even though the road ahead was almost completely obscured, there were at least neat rows of brick seams on the ground to correct their direction. For some reason, Yi Heye felt that these brick seams existed to prevent them from getting lost and going in circles, or dying in the same place, as if they were being guided in the dark.
There's always a strange sense of contradiction.
"Is there really any guarantee?" Yu Yili asked. "What if this is also an illusion? Are you sure you want to follow the cracks in the ground? What if you get lost?"
"Following the seam gives you a fifty percent chance of getting lost, while deviating from it gives you a one hundred percent chance of getting lost," Pei Xiangjin coldly retorted. "You decide."
Yu Yili immediately became obedient: "I'll do whatever you say~"
The two people in front of him were chatting away, and Yi Heye, listening from behind, felt relieved—he could hear their voices, which meant they were still in the same place.
But perhaps what I feared most came to pass. Just as this thought flashed through Yi Heye's mind, he vaguely felt that the voices of the two people in front of him were becoming somewhat unreal and elusive.
"Yu..." Yi Heye was about to speak to confirm the situation when he felt a strong disturbance behind him—something was approaching him at a rapid speed.
Yi Heye, who was responsible for covering the rear, turned around, drew his gun, and aimed almost reflexively.
But the moment his hands slipped off Yu Yili's shoulders, he had a bad feeling.
He quickly took a step back, trying to catch up with Yu Yili, but his eyes remained fixed on her. Soon, a huge, cloud-like sheep was pressed against his face—
Oh shit.
The moment Yi Heye saw the thing's true form, he knew he had been tricked. He fired two shots, and the sheep bleated like a deflated balloon, flying away into the distance.
The moment the gun was fired, Yi Heye knew it posed no threat to him. He turned around as fast as he could, trying to put his arm around Yu Yili's shoulder again, but in that instant, his hand grasped at empty air.
Yi Heye's heart clenched as well—the three people who were just in front of him had completely vanished.
"Yu Yili—??" Yi Heye called out in the direction they had just walked, "Pei Xiangjin—??"
"Can you hear me?" he shouted from the spot. "Can you hear me?"
But it was as if he had fallen into a vacuum box; his voice echoed emptyly without receiving any reply.
His head began to turn white, and then he tried to chase after it a few steps in the direction he had just come from, but it was still a vast expanse of nothingness, and he could not find it anywhere.
Only then did he have to admit that he seemed to have really fallen behind.
The moment the thought crossed his mind, he felt suffocated. He wasn't sure he could find the right direction on his own, and he also worried that the other three might be forced apart because of the same trick.
Will they encounter danger? Will there be any casualties? Yi Heye looked in the direction the big sheep had flown away, then looked at the grout between the tiles at his feet, and began to feel intensely uneasy.
Having lost his companions, he dared not act rashly. Instead, he stared at his toes, forcing himself to calm down and think things through.
All three of them are real people and could not possibly disappear into thin air in the blink of an eye. The only possibility is that their consciousness has been remotely controlled once again. They cannot see where the other person is because of hallucinations, and the other person cannot hear their own shouts for the same reason.
So, is the road I'm walking on still the same road? Or will I be tricked into walking back to where I started?
Yu Yili once said not to trust your eyes, so how could he hit the bullseye under such circumstances?
Yi Heye looked at the brick seams under his feet—it seemed that these seams that could guide the way hadn't changed much.
The hallucination he had just experienced replayed in his mind again.
When they arrived, the robotic arm descended to the base of the wall, and then, without knowing where they started, they each entered a hallucination. When they woke up, they were already 500 meters away from the high wall.
Thinking of this, Yi Heye seemed to realize something—the hallucination was in progress, but the path they walked in the hallucination was actually traversed on foot.
In the illusion, they walked at an abnormal speed for about several streets, but the perceived time was the same.
Yi Heye tried to take a step forward—as long as he walked forward at a normal speed, whether he was in an illusion or in reality, objectively speaking, he was making effective movement.
In other words, as long as you follow this path, leaving the fog and reaching the center is inevitable.
Instead of focusing on how to escape the environment for the time being, we should take the first step forward.
As he began to move forward, he noticed that the surrounding fog seemed to be moving and the temperature was dropping slightly. He cocked his pistol again and became extremely vigilant.
But after thinking about it, he put the gun back in his pocket—he wasn't sure where his companions were, and firing blindly in this place could easily injure them.
He switched his weapon to a short knife, which would greatly reduce the possibility of accidental injury in close combat.