In May, the weather gets muggy. In the evening, Zhong Yue wore a vest and shorts, carried a few bags, and walked into the staircase sweatingly, while greeting the uncle who went downstairs.

"Xiao Zhong, go grocery shopping alone, where's your girlfriend?" asked the old man with a smile.

"Went on a business trip. Uncle is going to take a bend. ”

After a few casual greetings, Zhong Yue went upstairs.

The place he rented was on the third floor, with two bedrooms and one living room, and the decoration was very new. It's not far from his company, which is very convenient. Of course, the rent is not cheap, and with his salary, it is a bit difficult to pay.

After entering the house, he changed his slippers, walked to the kitchen with the vegetables he bought, and began to get busy.

An hour later, it was completely dark.

Inside the house, a table of steaming dishes has been set up, four dishes and one soup.

Zhong Yue turned down the air conditioner twice, took off his apron, and then sat down at the table. Instead of rushing to move the chopsticks, he first took out a small cake that he had bought in advance, and the two numbers 26 were written on the cake with black chocolate sauce.

He took out a small candle, stuck it in the center of the cake, and lit it.

Looking at the light of the fire, his eyes were a little stunned.

Today is his twenty-sixth birthday.

Two years after graduation, he works in a small company, earning a salary of several thousand yuan, no car, and no house in sight.

And the girlfriend broke up a long time ago.

The ambition when I just graduated has long been wiped out by reality little by little in the past few years of hard work.

When he went home for the Chinese New Year last year, his father said that he would go to work and get a salary of several thousand yuan, so it was better to go back and inherit the family's stationery store.

Thinking about the future prospects, he was a little dazed, and after a while, he collected his mood. At the very least, celebrate your birthday first.

"Happy birthday. ”

He whispered to himself, blew out the candles, and began to eat......

Late at night, Zhong Yue lay on the recliner on the balcony, looking at the night sky that seemed to be covered with a layer of haze, and sipped a beer. He drank very lightly, and he couldn't drink half of it, and he was already a little drunk.

Recalling the bits and pieces of the past few years, he felt gloomy in his heart, "I don't want to be rich and rich, I just want to gain a foothold in this city, is it so difficult?"

There is something in my heart, and I don't have any moderation when I drink, and when I listen to it for the third time, I touch my hand, but I feel empty. He muttered a word, staggered to his feet in his chair, and went back to get his wine.

As he passed through the room, he tripped over something under his feet, stumbled, slammed his shoulder into the bookshelf beside him, and with a bang, something fell to the ground.

"Shhhh

The shoulder hurt hotly, and he rubbed it for a while before it eased up. Looking down, the culprit who tripped over himself was a hair dryer, and he couldn't get angry. A kick hit the wall, a snap, and it crashed apart.

When I turned around, I saw a square mooncake box on the ground, and the contents were scattered all over the ground. He couldn't help but be stunned, slowly squatted down, felt his feet a little soft, and simply sat on the ground.

There is a thick layer of dust on the mooncake box, and I don't know how long it has been on the bookshelf.

A couple of white envelopes containing letters written to him by his girlfriend when he was in high school.

A stack of one-inch black and white photos was given to each other by classmates before graduating from the sixth grade.

Several address books, elementary school graduation photos, high school graduation photos, high school graduation photos......

The box was full of memories of his student days.

After a few moments, he carefully packed the items and put them back in the box. Unconsciously, his mood calmed down. The wine also sobered up a little.

"Huh?"

Suddenly, he saw a black piece of metal, which suddenly brought back memories from a long time ago.

This piece of metal is a cube and is five centimeters long. When he was five or six years old, he picked it up by a stream in his hometown, thinking it was a natural stone, and he had always regarded it as a treasure.

It wasn't until he was in junior high school, when he studied physics, that he discovered the strangeness of metal blocks. Once he took it out and weighed it, and found that it was very dense, not at all like metal, and judged that it should be hollow.

However, its surface is very smooth and there are no gaps.

Later, he used violent means, smashed with a hammer, welded with acetylene, and drilled with an electric drill. Not to mention smashing it open, not even a trace can be left.

Since then, he has realized that this piece of metal is not a mortal thing. No matter how hard the metal is, it can't be as hard as it.

He had countless fantasies about the things in the metal block. Could it be a treasure map in it, or, like Aladdin's magic lamp, there is a deity in it who can grant all wishes? Or, is it a secret book that can be practiced to become a peerless miracle......

It can be said that this piece of metal entrusts many of his beautiful childhood fantasies.

As I get older, there are fewer such thoughts. It's just that sometimes I think that if I take it to the science and technology research institute and sell it, maybe I can sell it for some money. Just thinking about it, of course.

Later, after a long time, I forgot about it and kept it here.

He had long forgotten about the wine, so he reached out and took the piece of metal in his hand, and squeezed it hard, and there was a soft click, which was very clear in the room in the middle of the night.

"Uh......"

He looked at the open slit, his head a little wooden, and wondered if he had drunk too much and was hallucinating. The metal box that couldn't be opened after countless methods were exhausted. Now it's open with a single snap?

"What's in it?"

This thought made his heart pound. This question has puzzled him for more than 20 years, and now, the mystery is about to be revealed.

He subconsciously held his breath and slowly opened the lid.

The inside of the box was empty, there was nothing.

He opened his mouth, a little disappointed in his heart. Soon, he smiled bitterly and said self-deprecatingly, "It's really ...... that I still have such unrealistic fantasies."

At this moment, a blue light lit up in the metal box, forming a square blue light curtain. A voice rang in his ear, "The Universal Child Development Support System is at your service, and this system has top education experts to provide one-on-one guidance to develop the most suitable learning plan for your child......"

What's the situation?

Zhong Yue's mouth opened slightly, and his eyes were a little dazed.

"Di-" Suddenly, a sharp alarm sounded, "Warning, there is an unknown error in the system, start self-testing......"

"Self-test failed, system data loss ......"

"Factory reset failed ......"

"Failed to connect to the server for unknown reasons......

A series of hurried warnings gave him no time to react, and he watched the blue screen in front of him flicker rapidly, as if it would collapse at any moment. The heart suddenly rose to his throat.

"Tick - the system will restart in 3 seconds......"

"Reboot complete, scanning ......"

"Due to the loss of system data, most of the functional modules are damaged and cannot be used normally. ”