Nearly midnight in the street, there were only two men walking in the same direction, one after the other.

When passing downstairs in Unit 3, Lu Yun looked worriedly at the location of his house, where his mother was still inside, not knowing what the situation was.

"Don't worry, boy, when you said at the dial booth that there was a post-war anomaly, the Aether Corporation sent a radio to residents in several nearby neighborhoods prohibiting them from going out."

Feng Ran didn't look back, but directly guessed Lu Yun's inner thoughts.

Lu Yun secretly breathed a sigh of relief, and then asked the question that had been haunting his mind since just now:

"Is there anything odd about that George's poem? Why do you know there's something wrong with it without even looking at it? ”

Hearing this question, Feng Ran sighed: "This question is really troublesome..."

He scratched at his hair, which was already messy enough, and explained:

"In general, post-war anomalies are not completely unclassifiable, and it is impossible for the Aether Corporation to clean up so many post-war anomalies since the end of the resource war."

"Morphologically, they can be roughly divided into three categories, matter, memes, and rules, of which the rule class is the most difficult to deal with."

"And the George you encountered this time is most likely a post-war anomaly of the memetic type, which is characterized by implanting the 'seed' of pollution into the subconscious mind through some way, waiting for it to blossom and bear fruit."

Lu Yun remembered the poems of George stuffed in his pocket, and he guessed correctly, and it was precisely because the transmission route was poetry that George's seeds would spread almost the entire block.

"Are all memetic anomalies like George, making the victim think they're it? Will they be able to get back to the way they were? ”

"Nope."

Feng Ran shook his head.

"No, the characteristics of memetics are just that they need to be transmitted through a channel, and the outcome of the method and the victim is not fixed, and it is not that there is no kind of memetic anomaly that explodes like a watermelon when the time comes."

"As for whether it can be recovered, the answers to different anomalies are different, some are absolutely unrecoverable, and some can be easily awakened, which mainly depends on the characteristics and danger of the anomaly itself."

"This 'George'' seems to be the type that can be restored, because their polluted consciousness is not strong enough to override the physical body, and they should faint and faint, so boy, you and your neighbors are in good luck."

Feng Ran smiled, it sounded like he was really happy for Lu Yun.

"But... Why am I okay? And just when you asked me who I was, a lot of voices appeared in my head, saying that I was George. ”

Lu Yun thought of the neighbors who had fallen in front of the dial booth just now, and felt that he didn't seem to have any reason to be an exception.

"Oh? Did you hear the sound just now? ”

Feng Ran touched the sloppy stubble on his chin and asked with interest.

This made Lu Yun a little confused, this person didn't know?

"It's... Isn't that what you expected? ”

"Please, boy, I don't know everything, each of these post-war anomalies has a different impact on people."

Feng Ran wanted to take out another cigarette from his pocket, but hesitated and didn't take it out.

"The 'seed' of a memetic anomaly has one or more opportunities for it to break ground before it germinates naturally, and I just guessed that this time it would be 'Who am I?' It's just that I was lucky enough to guess correctly. ”

"Then why didn't I become George?"

This is Lu Yun's biggest question, judging from what he just felt, the urge to admit that he is George is not unbearable, but why is he the only one who is fine?

"Huh? Have you forgotten what I said earlier? Because your qualifications are indeed as good as the facial paralysis said, that's why you're fine. ”

But what exactly is this qualification? I don't usually feel any different from others, do I? ”

Lu Yun really doesn't understand qualifications, he doesn't know what qualifications are, and he doesn't understand where his qualifications come from.

Feng Ran, who was walking in front of Lu Yun, suddenly stopped, he turned around and grabbed his messy brown hair.

"Alas, boy, you must pass this test, or I will break the law."

As soon as Lu Yun showed a puzzled expression, Feng Ran pointed to his head.

"This is your qualification, of course, it doesn't mean that you are smart enough to have high qualifications, otherwise how can we suburbanites compare to the old men in the city, right?"

"I have long forgotten the specifics, according to Qi Jie's words of facial paralysis, people's qualifications are roughly derived from obsessions, simply put, what you desperately want to do."

Desperately trying to do something? The idea of bringing his father back from the ruins came to Lu Yun's mind, and with it came the desire to let his mother spend the rest of her life in peace.

"The deeper your obsession, the higher your qualifications." Feng Ran pointed in the direction of the dial booth, "A memetic anomaly that can affect so many people at once, its strength is not something that ordinary people can resist. ”

"So, as long as I'm firm in my thoughts, the post-war anomaly won't be able to affect me?"

Lu Yun said his speculation, and silently recited two more sentences I am looking for my father.

"Boy, you think it's quite beautiful, not to mention that a memetic anomaly of a certain strength can ignore your qualifications and pollute you, and even the lowest kind of material and rule classes can directly kill you, and the qualifications themselves can't be improved so easily."

Feng Ran pointed to Lu Yun's heart again.

"You know the weight of your obsession best, you can deceive others and can't deceive yourself, and people who keep talking about what they want to do, do you think their qualifications will be high?"

Lu Yun's face turned a little red, and he stopped his silent thoughts.

"Besides, boy, if you really join the Aether Company, it's best not to tell anyone about your obsession."

Feng Ran said and turned around again.

"Why?"

Lu Yun was very curious, could it be that it would have a bad effect if he talked about what he was going to do?

"Why you have to wait until you join yourself to know, I can only tell you now that it is very dangerous to reveal your obsession at will."

may feel that what he said was too abstract, Feng Ran lowered his head and thought for a long time, then raised his head and added:

"You can understand that this is as dangerous as running naked in the South End."

"Streak?"

Thinking about the way he stripped naked and ran in the southern district, Lu Yun felt that he might crack directly, and a chill rushed directly from the tail vertebrae to the top of his head.

However, when it came to the Southern District, Lu Yun remembered that the Feng Ran of the Ether Company in front of him originally came from there.

"Speaking of Feng Ran, were you born in the Southern District?"

"The facial paralysis told you? Did he advertise to you that I was born in the suburbs again? ”

Lu Yun smiled awkwardly, he didn't know whether the relationship between Feng Ran and Qi Jie was good or bad.

"But he was really right, I had been working in the W area before joining the Aether Company, and later joined the mutual aid association with my friends, but it didn't take long for the Aether Company to poach me, haha, I really miss it."

Feng Ran walked with Lu Yun again, as if because he talked about the past, there was a slight smile in Feng Ran's tired tone.

And Lu Yun's surprise at Feng Ran's birth was even deeper.

More than 100 million people living in the residential area are spread across a total of 26 areas, from Zone A, which is close to the Ether Company, to Zone Z, which is next to the rubble.

Among them, A-M (1-13) is the urban area, N-Z (14-26) is the suburbs, and the suburbs are divided into the northern district close to the urban area and the southern district near the ruins with the T(20) district as the dividing line.

Zones W (23), where Feng Ran grew up, are theoretically the worst areas that normal residents can live in, and Zones X, Y, and Z (24, 25, and 26) are used by Ether companies and certain organizations in need of incarceration.

As for the mutual aid association, because Lu Yun lives too close to the city, he has only heard of it, and in some plots that are not organized and managed, some residents have spontaneously formed an organization called "suburban mutual aid association".

It is said that as long as the money is available, the mutual aid association will do everything, including "accountants" who are responsible for signing and supervising contracts, and "cleaners" who are responsible for making people or things that are not pleasing to the employer disappear.

Lu Yun had even heard the news that they had occupied the management territory of certain organizations, and it was hard for him to imagine that Feng Ran actually came from such an organization.

However, Lu Yun did not think about joining the mutual aid association, because this could save enough money to enter the city as quickly as possible, and some of his friends joined the association after coming out of school.

But he didn't do it because the high-paying job was also likely to expose him to the streets the next day, and he didn't want his mother to worry about him.

"That's... What kind of job do you work in a mutual aid association? ”

Lu Yun was a little curious, after all, in addition to joining to make money, as a young man, he also had an instinctive yearning for this kind of mysterious organization.

"Me? I was a 'cleaner' at the time. ”

Compared with other types of work in the mutual aid association, the cleaner is more special, and its requirements are only two words:

I can hit it.

According to Feng Ran's statement that he was poached by the Ether Company, Lu Yun speculated that Feng Ran must belong to the category that is particularly capable of fighting.

Without waiting for Lu Yun to ask again, Feng Ran stopped.

"It's time for the kid, get ready for the quiz."

Only then did Lu Yun realize that he and Feng Ran had unconsciously walked to the end of the street, and the No. 10 building, which was as slender as chopsticks, stood there straight as when he left.

Looking up at the 10th floor, I don't know if it was an illusion, Lu Yun felt a gloomy and heavy aura.

I don't know if it's because of nervousness, even though he hasn't been in contact with anyone, the base of his tongue has a hint of bitterness.

"Hmm."

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Lu Yun and Feng Ran walked into the vertical elevator together.

More than ten seconds later, Lu Yun returned to the place where he got George's poem, in front of the dark red door.

Under the gesture of Feng Ran's eyes, Lu Yun took a deep breath and slowly spit it out.

Then, he rang the doorbell next to him.

Drip ——————