Hongjing Municipal Bureau, Command Center.
Intensive phone calls rang everywhere, and nearly 30 police officers sat in rows to answer the latest news from all quarters.
"Understood, the main road in Plum Village is right?"
"I'll connect you to the special line three."
"Sorry, this part of the information is kept secret for the time being, and you will be notified of the latest developments in time."
They are like weavers sitting on a dense web of information, summarizing, distilling, and condensing countless information into the most useful short report, and submitting it again.
The hall was full of people, and the police officers were weaving in and out. So much so that no one paid too much attention to the arrival of the provincial director.
The visitor wears the simplest iron-grey overalls, with washed white cuffs and necklines, with gray hair and the most common gold-rimmed reading glasses, and looks no different from the old man on the street who raises children and raises grandsons.
The only difference is that the old man is in the dust, and his eyes and brows are full of tiredness in addition to wrinkles, but despite this, you can still see the unique majesty of the superior in his eyes hidden behind reading glasses.
In fact, if there is no special accident, the police officers present can only see leaders of this level on TV throughout their lives.
Behind the old man were the police experts, emergency department handling experts, medical department professors who accompanied him, and even Mr. Zhang's coveted mentor, Academician Zhang.
In the entire hall, Comrade Zhang Xiaolong, who was the first to find out about the situation, was the second seat of the court.
The policewoman stood up from her seat and saluted. She was just about to tip off the boss, but the old man had already waved to them and said, "Sit down, what should you do?" and led the mighty team behind her. Passing through the entire hall, I came to the door of the innermost command room.
A piece of floor-to-ceiling glass separates the hall from the conductor, like two separate worlds.
There was a stark contrast between the noise outside and the quietness inside. There was only Xing Conglian in the huge room. The air was stagnant. He was not busy, but sat quietly in front of the TV to smoke and watch the news broadcast. Plum Village is about to attack news.
The provincial director wanted to raise his hand to knock on the door, but was stopped by the old man.
A group of people stared at the screen through the glass, as if watching a silent film.
The tragic scene of the clothing market in Plum Village flashed through the TV screen.
At the time of the incident, it was the peak shipment period of the clothing market in the afternoon, and the escalators were crowded with porters carrying large and small bags. There are too many dead spots in the monitoring, and it is impossible to verify where the specific incident happened. Some people rushed to the escalator entrance and rushed down like crazy. Immediately, the crowd pushed each other and fell from the elevator, trampling and crushing. The crowd who didn't know the truth frantically tried to escape, and then never escaped again.
The camera scans a brown blood stain from top to bottom, and the child's small sandals are left on the edge of the railing.
There are no injured people in the picture, the scene has been emptied, and under the dusty incandescent light, there are only large and messy colorful clothes, like shells that have lost their souls, floating one by one.
When the news screen ended, the old man pushed the door and went in.
On the LCD screen, the TV picture has been transferred to the hospital, and the host is broadcasting the list of the dead, injured and missing, and every name sounds heavy.
Xing Conglian asked, and when he turned around to see the old man, there was not much surprise or shock in his eyes, he frowned, his eyes were as deep as a pool of water.
"Minister Shen." He saluted the old man calmly, and then put down his hands, but this attitude shocked many people around him.
"Don't waste time, we have seen the latest briefings on the way here, can the criminals be caught within 24 hours?"
Mr. Minister was unexpectedly straightforward. He led a mighty team of experts to sit down at the ring table in the command room and said this to Xing Conglian.
"It's difficult." Xing Conglian only said two words.
"What do you mean?" The old man raised his eyes abruptly, his eyes were sharp, "In the face of so many dead people, tell me it's difficult? I can't let Lao Tzu get off this seat, and Lao Tzu will take someone else's place!" The old man slammed on the table and scolded road.
Xing Conglian stood in front of the glass curtain wall filled with dense strategies, and did not shrink from the old man's anger.
The news was interviewing witnesses at the time of the clothing market incident. The middle-aged woman had blood all over her head, and her voice sounded terrified: "I told them not to squeeze or squeeze. No one listened, and they went crazy."
Xing Conglian lifted the remote and turned the volume down.
"This is not a simple attack." Xing Conglian said.
The old man was impatient and asked, "I don't need to listen to the difficulty. When can I get Shen Lian's confession?"
"Shen Lian's confession is probably no easier than catching the criminal." In front of so many people, Xing Conglian still didn't give the big leader face.
"Xing Conglian!" Minister Shen didn't raise his voice, but real anger finally appeared in his eyes.
The chief secretary hurriedly winked at the police captain in front of the glass plate.
Xing Conglian didn't accept it: "It doesn't make any sense for you to be angry with me here." He paused and said very clearly, "The criminals are just playing a time lag with us. The time lag between the drug's massive and nefarious social impact."
"The current social influence is not bad enough?" Minister Shen said coldly.
"Compared with the effect the other party wants to achieve, now, it's just an appetizer."
Xing Conglian's voice had a metallic deep texture, he did not deliberately make the sentence gloomy, but this sentence still caused many people present to shudder secretly.
"What are the demands of the criminals? So far, no organization or individual has claimed responsibility for this matter?" The provincial director came out to smooth things out, fearing that the old man would be sentenced to even the anger that he was not afraid of death to suffer a heart attack.
"Appeal?" Xing Conglian's eyes were gloomy. He turned around and wiped off a large piece of useless water-based handwriting on the glass plate behind him, and wrote three words with a red pen.
The edges of the writing were blurred, and the old man narrowed his eyes.
Xing Conglian stopped, turned to look down at the experts in the entire office, and said in an unprecedentedly cold tone, "Killing people, what's so great about killing people? His purpose is to punish the heart."
Many experts with sufficient subject knowledge preparation were shocked, but they also reacted quickly.
"The blind arbiter is talking about the aimlessness of natural selection..." Academician Zhang said, staring at the glass plate, "and... human evolution... morality, and genes?"
"Yes, genes."
Xing Conglian calmly told Lin Chen's point of view, he said: "More and more studies have proved that anti-social personalities, or some criminals, may be born with criminal genes, such as soldiers code-named MAOA. Genes affect neurotransmitters in people's brains, making people feel abnormal, irritable, irritable, and difficult to control; or the mutant gene that produces a large number of 5-H2TA receptors will weaken the function of the frontal frame cortex, causing people to have emotional disorders, impulsive behavior, etc. ”
Xing Conglian was interrupted before he finished speaking.
"Genetic determinism is the strongest argument for justifying criminal behavior, how can you, a police officer, endorse this view!" said the grumpy medical expert.
"I don't endorse it, but of course, this is a view endorsed by criminals. Therefore, we believe that the person behind all events must convey two views on behalf of the criminal community. First, all human behaviors that are defined as crimes are With the influence of the brain, criminals are not responsible for their actions. That is why he developed and proliferated this dehumanizing drug.”
It was as if to agree with what Lin Chen should have explained, but Xing Conglian said instead of him.
Emergency room footage appeared on TV.
Even though the TV volume has been turned off to the lowest level, the dehumanizing roar still seems to be able to go beyond the screen through the curtain.
"If TERN isomers affect the human brain and cause people to commit crimes, can people not be held responsible for their own crimes?" Xing Conglian asked, but did not give anyone time to answer, "The answer is yes, because we now put All persons affected by the drug are considered victims.
He asked again: "In that case, if a criminal takes the TERN isomer and re-offends, will he be exempted from punishment?" the ins and outs.”
“And if you think that’s nefarious, then the hidden problem of the criminal is really deadly. In a mass panic, a third scenario is inevitable: a lot of people who aren’t under the influence of any drugs just do it for themselves. Bao also produces aggression against others in the general sense, are they responsible for this?” Xing Cong pointed to the TV screen and asked the most deafening question: “If our answer is that we cannot judge or convict, then he will Ask the world - why should criminals be held responsible for their crimes?"
Xing Conglian was awe-inspiring, with a cold and cruel look in his eyes.
Someone immediately retorted: "There is a problem with the premise. The TERN isomer causes a special situation, and people under normal circumstances can control their own behavior."
"They think they can't, they are born perverts."
"This is a sophistry. The law restricts human behavior and does not depend on personal will. Whether you can control yourself has nothing to do with whether the law can restrict you!"
"Why does the law restrict me?" Xing Conglian asked.
"Natural jurisprudence, social contract..."
"Society is none of my business, I am an independent entity!"
"The essence of human beings lies in sociality!" the expert who quarreled with Xing Conglian shouted loudly.
At this moment, Xing Conglian suddenly stopped.
He retracted his aggressive momentum, he put down his raised fingers, his eyes were distant, as if looking through a long history, he asked calmly: "So what if social morality itself...is wrong?"
No one answered this question.
The room fell into night-like silence, just like his mood when Lin Chen asked him this question.
Xing Conglian knew that he thought of Lin Chen out of time, but it was right.
At that time, Lin Chen sat in the library with peaceful eyes, and explained to him the terrifying thoughts after all these series of events.
Lin Chen asked him, since people always like to ask questions to the end, what is the ultimate answer to the question "Why does a person become a criminal?"
Xing Conglian couldn't answer, he didn't even want to hear Lin Chen answer this question.
Because Lin Chen's thinking on this issue obviously ran through the long and dark three years after Huang Weiwei's death. This was a question raised by the mastermind behind the scenes and tortured his soul day and night.
What is morality
How did the law based on morality come into being
Why do people become criminals for breaking the rules of the law
"If this is just an ordinary criminal, when he proves that we lack objective standards for the definition of criminal behavior, he has achieved his goal." Xing Conglian said, "But it is clear that the criminal ambitions we are facing this time Bo Bo, he is anti-social, but what he is fighting against is not the social system, what he is fighting against is the moral code on which each of us lives."
Since the torture started, Minister Shen remained silent until now, the old man raised his head and said slowly: "If... the social moral code... unreliable?"
"Yes, since everything is the result of random selection, there is actually no morality, no justice, no goodness, and no moral standards that we have made up. Human nature is selfish, and we can do whatever we can for our own survival, so Things that are in line with nature cannot be miscalculated and should not be punished.”
While the idea is terribly grand, it is also ludicrous for its grandeur.
When the expert who sat down to do strategy research heard this, he couldn't help but sneer and said, "A fool is talking about a dream, a mayfly shakes a tree, how can he prove that people are inherently selfish by fanning the flames and poisoning them?" The middle-aged man pouted and pointed to the TV. , "The more he does, the more people come forward to prove him wrong."
The news has moved to the next stage, and instead of reporting the riots at the Meicun clothing market, it began to tell the story of the bravery incident at the Meicun Railway Station.
A young train station employee named Lu Xiaotian prevented the poisoning at the train station. However, due to excessive drug intake, Lu Xiaotian suffered from acute brain failure and was dying.
The words used in the news are very touching. In the aisle in front of the ward, the reporter almost applied all the words of honor and justice to the 22-year-old young man.
And there are many people in the commanding eyes with sympathy, but Xing Conglian did not look back, he interrupted the moment coldly: "You are too stupid." He said.
The strategist clapped the table and stood up, his level was much higher than Xing Conglian, so he scolded with confidence: "Xing Conglian, right, what are you? There is no point in talking nonsense, no wonder criminals can’t be caught and they can’t ask for a confession!”
Xing Conglian put one hand in his pocket and looked down at the strategist who questioned him not far away.
In fact, how can the murderer say that there is no reason? Obviously, a little bit of verbal abuse can break up people who should be united. When it comes to the interests of life and death, who can guarantee that the moral concepts upheld by this society will not be shaken.
Xing Conglian said: "I say you are stupid because, since you have read the briefing, you should know about the voting incident on the dark network. Then you think that the murderer is fanning the flames everywhere just to satisfy some Internet perverts who want to watch violence and bloodshed. The desire for the event?"
"You!" The strategist was speechless when asked, and turned to say, "Didn't you say that he is not responsible for his own criminal behavior in order to prove that people are not responsible for his criminal behavior, but this kind of proof is meaningless, and the legal force is not his After all, he has to accept his fate no matter how dissatisfied he is!"
"I said, this is just an appetizer." Xing Conglian turned around and drew a map of the three provinces with a bright red water-based pen on the glass plate. "The appetizer proves that he has the ability to threaten our social security. It is widely used in the news media. After the broadcast, after all the masses feel insecure, he can move on to the second phase."
Xing Conglian threw away the pen, pointed to the map on the glass plate and asked, "Assuming this vote did not take place in the dark network, what if everyone in the real society has the right to vote?"
Like a storm or thunder.
This is Xing Conglian's mood after hearing about Lin Chen's question, and now, in this simple command room, in front of the rolling TV news, everyone in front of him finally understands his mood at that time. .
Shocked, then overwhelmed.
But Lin Chen's questions to him didn't stop there, Lin Chen asked him: "Xing Conglian, have you ever thought that the problem I faced back then was just a small human experiment, and it had no great social significance. But what if today, he wants everyone to face the same experiment in human nature? If every resident of the three provinces has the right to choose the location of the next attack on a city basis, do you think this really cannot shake our society? To maintain the moral code?"
Lin Chen's voice was very calm and slow, and now he is also relaying Lin Chen's words to the people at the highest level of the country with the same calm and slow voice.
However, just as he was at a loss at that time, the weather-beaten old man in front of him also began to panic.
Xing Conglian thought, yes, every one of them keeps saying that they believe in human nature, but in fact, there is an unspeakable place in their hearts - they don't believe that justice can overcome evil, and they don't believe that goodness can defeat ugliness. I don't believe some people can win over others in the end...
Even, they don't believe in human nature at all.
"This is a balance game on a tightrope." Lin Chen said.