What is the difference between a dream and reality?

Dreams can feel real, but that's just because long-term dreams have become part of the memory, and you think it's real.

However, the shape of the vine was so familiar, she leaned down and carefully studied the small vine, the curved shape so similar to what she had seen in her dreams, she stretched out her finger and touched it lightly, and it suddenly tightened and retracted into the grass beside her.

"Cao Xi!" Shi Wei called her, and she turned around, and accidentally touched the plant next to her with her fingers.

"Ahh Cao Xi only felt that his fingers were sore, and when he raised his hand, he didn't find any obvious scars, but he should have scratched on some leaf.

"What's wrong?" Shi Wei limped over, looked at her hand, and a red cut gradually appeared on her ring finger, and with a little force, red blood was pressed out.

"What did you scratch?" Shi Wei asked.

Cao Xi looked at those plants, not sure which one it was, but it was covered with a lot of weeds, various varieties, messy and noisy.

"I don't know, it's supposed to be a leaf."

Shi Wei pressed her fingers hard a few times, allowing more blood to flow out.

"The wound is not deep, it will heal soon."

"Hmm." Cao Xi shook his fingers, spilled the spilled blood on the ground, then took out the medicine bottle from his bag and sprayed it clean, and put a band-aid on himself.

"Let's go." Shi Wei beckoned to her, "There is a door ahead." ”

Cao Xi put his bag on his back and prepared to enter the building with them.

Walking into this building, the oncoming damp smell, the dark corridor, nothing can be seen clearly, except for the faint light on the stairs, the rest is already dark.

"Do you still have a flashlight?" Shi Wei asked.

"I still have it." Cao Xi remembered that Xiao Jing had given her one before, and quickly took it out.

Xiao Jing took the flashlight, turned it on and tried it. He looked around, as if he were making a round, and then made sure that the lights were still in good condition.

"There should be backup equipment here that can be powered on." After speaking, Xiao Jing looked around. Shi Wei also searched for it together.

Cao Xi froze in place, not knowing how to help: "How to find it?" ”

"It's like an electrical box." Shi Wei replied, "You can find the switch." ”

"Oh." Cao Xi also didn't have the brains to find it.

The first floor is not very large, but there are several rooms, which are so neat that there is not even a table or chair. All the rooms have almost no windows except for a small square glass window above the door. Above the thick wall, there is a long opening, and iron railings are placed evenly on it.

Cao Xi walked into a dark room, and a musty smell came.

"The electrical box won't be in the house." Shi Wei reminded her.

"Oh......" Cao Xi agreed, just glanced at the room, and turned to leave.

She walked to the front, and there was the same room, but the door was closed, and the rusty doorknob was wrapped in a circle of iron chains, and several locks were added. Cao Xi pushed the door, the chain moved, making a friction sound, and a small gap leaked between the door and the house, and in the dark, nothing could be seen.

"Found it!"

Just when she wanted to get closer to see what was inside, Xiao Jing interrupted her and found the electrical box.

Before Cao Xi walked over, Xiao Jing had already pushed the switch, and the dark corridor lit up with fluorescent lamps, which flickered several times because of poor contact. She had just walked forward when suddenly there was a "bang" sound behind her, and when she turned around, it was the door she had just pushed open and closed by herself.

Is it the wind? Or is it an illusion?

Cao Xi only felt a chill on her back, but Shi Wei was already calling her over, so she immediately ran back to them.

"Why?" Shi Wei asked.

"You say...... This is a laboratory, so what are these rooms for? Cao Xi asked.

"Room?" Shi Wei took a look at the room next to the corridor, and it didn't light up together because the backup power was turned on, which was indeed a little weird.

Shi Wei was a little inconvenient to move, but she was still willing to accompany Cao Xi to take a look, there were a total of four rooms in front and back, left and right, and locked a room with several locks, but the other doors were also closed, and there was only one room, that is, the room where Cao Xi had stopped just now, and the door was open.

"What do you want to see?" Xiao Jing came over and helped them turn on the lights.

Because there were no windows, it was pitch black in the room, and their long shadows were reflected in the doorway, all the way up to the wall.

Xiao Jing glanced at the flashlight into the room, and a figure suddenly appeared in front of them!

"Ahh Cao Xi was startled, and desperately grabbed Shi Wei's arm, which made Shi Wei's arm hurt.

"What's that?" Shi Wei asked Xiao Jing to make sure again, Xiao Jing shone the flashlight back to the past again, it was indeed a figure, a figure glued to the wall.

"It's fine." Shi Wei comforted her, "It's just a shadow." ”

"Shadows?" Cao Xi's closed eyes slowly opened, still a little worried, wanting to know but not daring to look, "What shadow?" ”

Shi Wei didn't know how to explain it properly, so she could only take a few steps forward to make the light more obvious.

Cao Xi slowly opened his eyes, only to see clearly, on this mottled wall, a black figure was clearly printed on it, it seemed to lean on this front, the figure was already covered with black fluff, and from the wall where it was squatting, but began to spread patches of white, pink, green, yellow, large and small circles, in a radial hairy circular pattern, they were like jellyfish, floating on the wall, because of the loss of moisture, rotting and dying.

"What are these things?" Cao Xi asked, but he didn't dare to get close and take a closer look.

"I don't know." Shi Wei shook her head, "It feels like moldy mold, it's so damp here, it's very likely that something is rotten and moldy like this." ”

Cao Xi took Shi Wei's hand: "Let's go, the smell here is a little disgusting." ”

"Okay."

Just as they were leaving the room, they suddenly heard a "bang". The voice was the same as what Cao Xi had just heard, and when he turned around, the door of the room just now quietly moved again, revealing a black gap, which had stopped moving because of the chains that had been hung up.

Cao Xi's hand grabbed Shi Wei again.

"Don't be afraid." Shi Wei comforted her, "Even if there is anything, it is locked inside." ”

"Do you want to check it out?" Xiao Jing pretended to move forward.

Frightened, Cao Xi hurriedly shook his head: "Don't want it, don't want it." ”

Xiao Jing laughed: "It's all because you are curious, so I accompanied you to watch." ”

"I'm not curious now." Cao Xi swallowed, "Let's accompany you to find a laboratory." ”

Shi Wei looked at the stairs in front of her: "Let's go up and look for it." ”

So the three of them walked up the stairs together.

The second floor also has several rooms, but unlike the downstairs, they are surrounded by glass, making the room transparent on all sides, and there is a simple bed in it, the white sheets are a little messy, and the glass on the other side faces the mountain, and you can only see the black mountain and black mud......

Cao Xi stood in front of the glass and watched it for a long, long time, because this scene was too familiar to her.

"Cao Xi, why are you in a daze again?" Xiao Jing said jokingly.

Cao Xi didn't answer immediately, but looked at the big floor-to-ceiling window, the mountains outside the window were black, and her appearance was reflected.

"Shi Wei, remember when I told you that I always have strange dreams?" She faced the glass and said to Shi Wei.

"Dreams?" Shi Wei was stunned for a moment, "You said you were the one in the rock?" ”

Cao Xi glanced back at her: "It's not a rock...... Is this it? She didn't quite believe it, but it was very similar to the one in the dream, "Outside this window, I can only see the mud and stones on the mountain, so I would think it is underground, but in fact, it is a ...... leaning against the mountain."

Shi Wei took a few steps closer, and could feel the oppression brought by the black, if she could really feel it, then would she have lived here?

Impossible.

"Don't think about it." Shi Wei smiled and said, "There is still a difference between dreams and reality, how could you have been here?" Right? ”

Cao Xi listened to what she said, although she was skeptical, she still felt that it was possible, how could she have been here?

"Come on." Shi Wei asked her to help herself and walk out of the house together.

Next to this glass room, there were several other compartments, all like this, separated by glass, and a white bed was placed inside, as if it was for someone to live in, so that it was easy to observe.

"Who are the people who live here?" Cao Xi asked, "Are they all experimental subjects?" ”

Shi Wei nodded uncertainly: "Maybe." ”

Xiao Jing had long legs, he had already walked to the front, his eyes swept away, and he soon came back, and then stopped them and said, "There's nothing ahead, let's go upstairs." ”

Shi Wei seemed to understand something, stopped, hooked Cao Xi's hand and motioned her to turn back.

But Cao Xi was a little curious, she could understand what Xiao Jing was saying, but it drove her to want to see what it was.

"Anything?"

"Nothing." Xiao Jing said perfunctorily, "Anyway, don't look at it." ”

"You're so timid, forget it." Shi Wei added.

Cao Xi was of course timid, but she still had curiosity, anyway, she had seen strange things here, and she didn't care about such a little bit, so she leaned out and looked inside, only to see that there was a hand lying on the ground in the room inside.

The skin on his hands had shriveled and turned brown, as if he had been dead for a long time.

Cao Xi didn't look any further, but obediently followed them and continued upstairs. She knew in her heart that there might only be so many points she could bear, and she might not be able to accept it after looking at it more.

The staircase goes up to the third floor, and there are no extra floors.

The third floor is noticeably brighter than the previous floor, probably because of their neat white walls.

"This is the lab?" Cao Xi looked at the white laboratory, the glass partition of the room, still brand new, various colors of solutions and all kinds of test tubes, containers, neatly arranged on the table.

Shi Wei took out a test tube containing the blue solution, glanced at it, and put it back again.

And in the few thermostats behind her, it seems that something has been cultivated, but it has lost its vitality because of the long-term power outage.

On one side of the room was a large whiteboard with various data written on it, but some of it had been erased. Shi Wei opened her backpack, took out her notebook, and checked the data written on it, which was indeed from here.

Xiao Jing came to her side and looked at the data on it: "Did these data be erased before?" ”

Shi Wei checked carefully: "Maybe I wiped it after copying it, or maybe I wiped it off a long time ago, my grandfather guessed something." ”

"So, not exactly?" Xiao Jingwen.

"Yes." Shi Wei nodded and walked to the whiteboard, wanting to find some clues, but because it had been too long, she couldn't see clearly.

"What's in there?"

Shi Wei turned around, and Cao Xi was looking at the things in the cabinet.

She walked to Cao Xi's side and opened the cabinet, there was no temperature inside: "This turned out to be a thermostat, which was used for cultivation." Shi Wei explained, and she gently took out a glassware from it, which was soaked in a flesh-colored fluffy sphere, like human skin.

Cao Xi leaned over to see what it was, but when he looked closely, he clearly found a familiar symbol engraved on the glass container containing the sphere - "S".

"This?" Cao Xi remembered that they all had the same mark on them.

"Yes." Shi Wei opened the opening above the vessel, "This is another embryo that has not yet been cultivated." ”

Cao Xi suddenly felt very nauseous, and had an indescribable strange feeling: "This thing...... Is it an embryo? ”

"Yes." Shi Wei asked Xiao Jing to take the knife he was carrying, cut through the viscous solution, and stabbed a hole on the top of the fluff ball, revealing the dark red liquid that had solidified inside, and slowly spread along the wound into the transparent solution.

"There is no life left." Shi Wei replied, "I can't cultivate it anymore." ”

Cao Xi looked at the thermostat, there were several similar containers in the incubator, it seemed that there was once a certain scale to cultivate a large number of such people.

"Why?" Cao Xi didn't understand, "What is their purpose?" ”

Shi Wei put down the container in her hand and took a deep breath.

"What are the laws of nature? Isn't it just birth, old age, sickness and death? She looked at Cao Xi with a heavy face, "But there are always people who are not satisfied, and want to completely immune to disease, defeat aging, or obtain eternal life." ”

Cao Xi listened, and even his heartbeat slowed.

"We are all kinds of experiments born in these bottles and jars, which seem to be perfect, and we have achieved self-evolution in the true sense of the word, survival of the fittest. But we also don't have human rights. ”

Shi Wei glanced to the side in disappointment: "We can't choose life or death, and we can't even appreciate the continuation of life." We are just a group of cells that are constantly dividing and recombining, and we are not human at all. ”

Compared with Shi Wei's disheartenedness, Xiao Jing on the other side had already clenched his fists and gritted his teeth silently.

"Am I the same?" Cao Xi had to doubt herself, but such a question would only make her fall deeper into confusion.

The mystery they want to find may not be hers.