At the same time when the movie "Myth" was about to be completed and preparations for "Hurricane Rescue" began, the editors of the Science Fiction World Magazine, who had been reviewing the manuscript for a long time, stood up and moved their bodies.

"How is it, have you reviewed a good manuscript today?"

"Not yet, the quality of this issue is too poor."

"Do you feel that the sci-fi environment is not getting better in recent years, but is getting worse and worse?"

"I feel it, let's take my son as an example, he used to be able to read every issue of the magazine with relish, and now this kid would rather read online novels than magazines, it seems that there is a website called the starting point, my son is now soaking in this website every day, and shouting all day long that the novels on the starting point are much more interesting than "Science Fiction World".

"Don't talk about anyone else, just take myself, I must be a real sci-fi fan, right? But these current science fiction novels, except for the works of a few old authors such as Wang Jinkang and Liu Cixin, I can't read the new works. ”

"I feel the same way, the most uncomfortable thing is that I know it's a bad work, but I still have to pinch my nose and recommend it for the Galaxy Award essay, otherwise what should I do? If you don't recommend a worse one, do you want to recommend a worse one? ”

"The work is almost forgotten.,The most disappointing thing is that many of them aren't science fiction works at all.,Take an article I recommended in the previous issues.,What kind of story is it about? A woman came to the Warring States Period on a time machine.,And then fell in love with the Warring States kings.,The novel is quite interesting.,But except for the first chapter of a time machine noun.,What does this novel have to do with science fiction? But I still recommend going to Galaxy Essay, because this is already a good work during that time. ”

"I have recommended a story where the protagonist travels to an alien civilization, except for the first chapter mentioning that humans can marry with extraterrestrial life, it is basically a story of a person coming to a strange city."

"If this is also called science fiction, if Mr. Jin Yong sets the protagonist to be a modern person, and travels through time to become Guo Jing and Ling Hu Chong, then "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "Smiling Proud Jianghu" are not science fiction works?"

"It makes sense, listening to you say this, the best science fiction novel in China should be "The Legend of Qin"."

……

Yang Feng did not participate in the discussion, but looked at the backlog of manuscripts seriously. She was personally transferred to the editorial department by President Alai last year, in order to inject fresh blood into the editorial department.

Like other editors, she wasn't very happy with the sci-fi manuscripts she received recently, but unlike other editors, she was still passionate about domestic sci-fi.

Maybe other editors don't want to read the manuscript because they think it's not good, but she always maintains a strong patience for domestic science fiction works.

After reading more than a dozen works of unsatisfactory quality in succession, she still opened another manuscript unaffected.

The title of the new manuscript: "The Moon".

Write about the moon?

There are so many sci-fi angles to write about, but this author chose one of the most difficult directions to start.

If you write about distant stars, then the author can set it casually, and you can set it up that there are people, civilizations, and all kinds of new and strange things on the alien planet.

If you write about the earth, then the author can also have a myriad of places where the imagination can be used.

Only the moon, the only natural satellite of the earth, is no longer mysterious in the eyes of human beings, and it cannot be set by the author. At the same time, this planet is also a forbidden area for life, and the kind of writing that casually changes the background of the story on the earth becomes a science fiction novel.

Because he couldn't guess the direction the author was going to write, Yang Feng became more curious.

This story is not complicated, it tells the story of an earthling mining on the moon.

The protagonist signs a three-year contract with the Yueneng Group, and the remuneration is extremely generous. His wife was pregnant, and he hoped to provide a better living environment for his wife and unborn child, so he resolutely signed the contract.

He is the only living person on the entire moon, and there is an intelligent robot that assists him, and the real-time communication system of the moon base is broken, and he can only receive regular videos from his wife, in which her daughter has grown from a baby to a cute little girl of three years old.

But just two weeks before the expiration of his contract, he had an accident while driving a lunar rover to mine, and when he woke up again, he was already in the medical room inside the base.

At the same time, he lost his memory of the time when the accident occurred, and then overheard the intelligent robot talking to the headquarters in real time, and mentioned the loss of a lunar rover, a mining vehicle, and an employee.

This makes the protagonist suspicious.

An order from the headquarters told him to stay at the base and wait for the maintenance personnel to arrive, and the intelligent robot forbade him to go out of the base. But the protagonist, who already has suspicions, gets permission to go out by deliberately destroying the base.

And the protagonist drove the lunar rover directly to the accident site after leaving the base.

Then he saw the rover, which had been damaged by an accident, and he wiped the dust off the rover's glass, and saw that there was a man in a spacesuit in the rover.

He cautiously entered the rover and wiped the dust off the mask of his spacesuit, revealing a man who looked exactly like him.

People are still alive.

He takes the injured man back to the medical room, and now there are two identical protagonists in the base. So does this mean that one of the two of them is actually a clone made by the company?

An inexpensive, mass-produced, mine-ready clone?

The rescued man thinks that he is the original self, because he has been working in the base for three full years, because he communicates with his family regularly, because he watches his daughter grow from birth to three years old day by day, so the person who rescues him is his own clone.

The other one who rescued him said that since the clones were cheaper, the headquarters wouldn't just make him one.

Later, the injured protagonist, with the help of an intelligent robot, unlocks some video material that he has not seen before.

In the video, every self who completes a three-year contract will wade into a so-called dormancy chamber, they think they are going back to Earth, but when they enter dormancy, these dormant chambers will directly turn into a refining furnace.

Underneath the dormant chamber is the hidden clone base, where the two protagonists also find countless versions of themselves waiting to be activated.

The two fix the real-time messaging system, and the injured protagonist makes a video call home, but the phone is answered by an adult girl who happens to have the same name as his daughter, who is only three years old.

The injured protagonist asks how the girl's mother is doing, and the girl says that her mother had died of cancer a few years ago, when a man's voice comes from the other end of the phone, and the girl calls the man Daddy.

With a bang, the injured protagonist all understood.

It turns out that the real protagonist has returned to Earth after the expiration of his contract in 15 years, and he is only the 5th clone of the body.

It turned out that all the videos he had watched in the past three years had been recorded in advance by the company, and I don't know how many clones had watched the videos.

Cloning is illegal, and the purpose of the maintenance personnel sent by Headquarters must be to destroy the evidence, and whether it is Clone 5 or Clone 6, it will be evidence that needs to be destroyed in the eyes of Headquarters.

Clone 6 convinces the intelligent robot that he activates Clone 7 with the help of the robot, and if the maintenance ship arrives at the base and does not find the body in the damaged lunar rover, they will kill all life in the base.

Clone 6 plans to return Clone 7 to the damaged rover, and then allow Clone 5 to escape back to Earth in the only return capsule, while Clone 6 himself remains at the base to deal with maintenance crews.

At this point, Clone 5 was seriously injured, and he knew that he would not live for a few days, so he was willing to give up his chance of life to Clone 6.

He himself returned to the destroyed rover to confuse the maintenance crew, allowing Clone 6 to return to Earth in the re-entry capsule, leaving Clone 7 inside the base as a newly activated clone.

Finally, on the 6th, the moon successfully returned to Earth, and the secret of the moon energy group's illegal use of clone mining was exposed, and the stock price of the moon energy group fell sharply.

This is the end of the story.

Yang Feng took a deep breath.

This is a work that makes people's backs chill after watching it, why is the contract period of Yueneng Group three years?

It is not stated in the novel, but Clone 5, which first appears, begins to vomit blood, lose hair, and lose teeth near the end of the three-year period.

The same is true when 5 watches the video of the first four clones being incinerated.

Which plot is the most creepy in the novel?

Is it that every clone that has expired in three years will smirk and look at the picture of his three-year-old daughter, and innocently say to the computer, see? I'm going back to see them!

Then waded into a dormant chamber and then burned down with a thud?

But is that the saddest thing to be? Yang Feng felt that it was not, because at least they were still happy in their hearts before they died.

The saddest thing is clone 5, because he knows everything.

He knew that his life had come to an end, that he was a clone, that the wife and daughter he had in mind did not belong to him at all. He knew that there were already four clones like himself that had been burned to ashes by the dormancy chamber before him, and he knew that there were thousands of himself in the basement waiting to be activated and continue to repeat this sad fate, but there was nothing he could do.

The most touching details in the novel are when Number 5 is finally able to talk to his home in real time, and when Clone 6 is unprepared to watch the call log.

The video call went through, and when Clone 5 heard the girl on the phone tell him about his wife's death, his initial reaction was to think about it for a moment and then ask, "Are you sure?" ”

But then he realized that it was his daughter who answered the phone, and then all his attention shifted to her.

Clone 6 couldn't help but shake twice when he heard the news of his wife's death, and he almost couldn't stand.

This nuance is the most moving.

Because for Clone 5, he and his wife haven't seen each other for three years, so their relationship is naturally weak. As for Clone 6, he had only been separated from his wife for a week in his memory, and when he learned that his wife, who had been glued like a week ago, had suddenly become a person who had been dead for many years, it was obviously a stronger blow to him than to come to Clone 5.

So what's the most shocking thing about this novel?

Did you find out that there was a person in the damaged lunar rover who looked exactly like you?

Or did you find out that both of them were actually clones, and there were countless clones in the basement?

Or are clones that have expired their contracts go into hibernation and are suddenly incinerated?

Yang Feng didn't think so.

Rather, clone 5 finally fixed the instant communication system and then made a phone call to Earth's home.

When I saw Clone 5 making a video call home, but it was my grown daughter who answered the phone, it was when I learned that my wife had been dead for many years, and when I learned that my daughter did not lack father's love, and my memories were all fake.

When he saw this, Yang Feng's heart stabbed fiercely.

When you think that you are inextricably linked with another person, when you think that your wife needs you, and your daughter and your blood are thicker than water, then you suddenly realize that no one needs you at all, you are just a clone of another person, and the person you cherish doesn't even know that you exist.

The only thing you have is this memory, and this memory doesn't belong to you, so what else do you have?

Yang Feng glanced at the contributor: Li Mu.