Kou Tong believed that the moment his finger pressed the button, he intended to answer the call, but by accident, he hung up.
He lowered his head and looked very serious. Anyway, Huang Jinchen had never seen him so serious before, as if he was not facing a phone call, but the end of the world.
All three men's eyes were fixed on the slider phone, which seemed to have just turned into a midnight bell. Half a minute later, it rang again, and the words "Mom is calling" were still beating cheerfully on it.
This time Kou Tong carefully distinguished left and right, and pressed the answer: "Hello."
A woman's voice came from inside, her voice was soft. Some women's voices can only make people recognize her gender, but it is difficult to arouse other people's beautiful fantasies. Some women can make the listeners dazed the moment they speak. The woman on the phone is like this.
Kou Tong's mobile phone was set to hands-free and placed on the table, and the woman said softly, "Why did you hang up my mother's phone?"
Kou Tong, who was eloquent and pulled nonsense into the car, was dumbfounded at this moment, speechless, like a child who was suddenly carried to the podium by the teacher after slipping out of class, unable to say a word.
There probably wasn't a reply, and after a while, the woman asked suspiciously, "Hello? Tongtong, can you hear me?"
Huang Jinchen was frightened by Tongtong, so he stomped on Kou Tong under the table.
Kou Tong said, "Ouch! Ah? Ah... I'm driving, will I call you back later?"
He said this nonsense without changing his face and heart, almost at his fingertips, obviously a skilled worker, and then stomped hard under the table to the place where Huang Jinchen put his feet, the latter swiftly avoided, because the coffee shop The ground inside was not jelly, so Kou Tong grinned again.
The woman was a little disappointed: "Oh... Then be careful, my mother just wanted to ask, will you go home for dinner on weekends?"
"I don't..." Kou Tong's words came to his lips, he stopped suddenly, frowned for a while, and then said, "Okay, I'll go back at night, so... can I bring two friends with me?"
"Okay, great, so crowded. I'll add a few more dishes!"
Huang Jinchen noticed that Kou Tong seemed to have avoided the place called "Mom" on purpose. After hanging up the phone, Yao Shuo frowned and looked at him: "How is it?"
Huang Jinchen said sincerely: "Don't worry, don't be afraid, let's talk slowly when your hands stop shaking."
"I probably know what the situation is now." Kou Tong decided to follow Lao Yao and take a serious route, ignoring Huang Jinchen decisively, "In the early stage of the design of this projector, I once had an idea, that is to develop a therapeutic function. The procedure of the project - you said that you have checked some information, then you should know that whether it is shielded or the subject of consciousness in the projection space, there is no role in the projection space, that is to say, there are other creatures in the space, but no Those of us who intersect with outsiders—I envision this program can be automatically generated by the system, and then the projection system will set a role for the outsiders, so that the conscious subject can live in it.”
"So amazing?" Huang Jinchen exclaimed, "Isn't it possible to have friends with friends, and girls to have girls!"
Kou Tong shook his head: "It's just an assumption, people's psychology is too complicated, even if you know what the other party's problem is, you have to set the treatment process according to a person's specific situation, not to mention the need for related drugs in many cases. This assumption is now looking at Come on, it’s impossible to achieve. The only part that I can solve through the program is that the system randomly assigns characters to the conscious subject. I’ve done this before, and it’s an incomplete program. I don’t know why, but it was suddenly activated.”
"So you have an extra mother." Huang Jinchen concluded.
At that moment, Kou Tong's expression went blank, and after a while, he whispered: "When I designed it, I never thought that it would work one day, so the ethical issues inside..."
But no one paid any attention to his words, and it was obvious that everyone did not want to discuss social and ethical issues. Huang Jinchen was already eager to ask the waiter to pay, as if going to see Kou Tong's dead ghost mother would be a very exciting adventure.
Yao Shuo took out his mobile phone and stared at it blankly for a while. When Kou Tong and Huang Jinchen both stood up and were about to leave, he came back to his senses and hurriedly followed them up.
Huang Jinchen asked, "Boss Kou, do you know how to get home?"
"The back door." Kou Tong said concisely - as if the back door of the cafe had become an arbitrary door, and when you opened it, you could scramble through the Ice Age and the M78 nebula.
This time, the back door is no longer a mountain that is prone to geological disasters. It has become a not-so-wide hutong. It may be a little wider than an ordinary hutong, but it is not as large as a "street". A tin sheet was pasted on it, and many of the handwriting on it were blurred, and the information such as "XX Family Building" could barely be seen.
This is not a community, let alone a property. There are some small stalls in the hutong—should be illegal, and many people rented the first floor of the house and turned it into various small shops, with bicycles and pedestrians coming in and out, and various bells and whistles, which seemed to be very life-like.
This was more than ten years ago... From the back door of the cafe, the three men standing at the entrance of the alley had such thoughts at the same time. As early as six or seven years ago, with the planning of the city, it was almost impossible to see such freedom. Scattered, not a residential settlement.
Obviously, based on Dr. Kou's coffin-like facial expression and complicated eyes, Huang Jinchen judged that this should be his way home...or the way he used to go home.
The old hedgehog Yao Shuo suddenly stopped, and followed the two people absentmindedly.
I don't know if it was because it took too long, or because Dr. Kou's memory was not very good. The intricate alleys seemed to cause him a little obstacle to his recognition of the road.
Huang Jinchen bought a handful of kebabs from the roadside, and ate them while walking. He watched Yao Shuo take out his phone and put it back in. After repeating it five or six times, he finally summoned up the courage to dial a number. Passed, he hung up again.
Huang Jinchen caught a very good glimpse that his dialer was "Lian Qing".
Dou Lianqing - Yao Shuo's wife.
Huang Jinchen ate a mouthful of oil and silently came to the conclusion that Yao Shuo was afraid of seeing his rabbit wife.
Finally, after Kou Tong took them around countless roads, the three stopped at the bottom of an old tube building, followed the poorly lit and very dark stairs to the third floor, and when they arrived at a house, they posted a sticker on the door. Big down "Fu" at the door.
The anti-theft door of this house is still a very, very old door with a metal fence inside. There are Spring Festival couplets that are not opposite to each other on both sides, and half of them have fallen off horizontally.
Kou Tong stood at the door for a long time, then gently stretched out his hand, touched the expired Spring Festival couplet with his finger, and released it with one touch.
On the wall next to the Spring Festival couplets, there were children who were less virtuous and wrote "Kou Tong's Home" on it. The word "Kou" was also spelled wrong, and "Yuan" was missing a line, which was crooked.
Kou Tong lowered his head slightly, and for a moment, Huang Jinchen, who was standing on the stairs, felt a gleam of water in his long and narrow eyes.
But in just a moment, it disappeared.
The voice-activated light was very dim, and the man's profile was slightly more delicate and softer than usual under such light, which looked very different from the things he did that violated the law and discipline. For a man, Kou Tong's eyebrows seemed to be unusually neat, as if they had been repaired, and they were very long. The tips of the brows were pressed a little by the hair, and they had some kind of indescribable romantic taste that seemed to linger.
For a moment, Huang Jinchen suddenly felt a throbbing in his heart, so he followed his heart and thought, this guy is really a leader, and it makes people feel itchy.
Finally, Kou Tong took a deep breath and stretched out his hand to unscrew the unlocked security door. Before he could knock, the door opened from the inside. A woman with a spatula in her hand greeted her with a look of surprise on her face. Expression: "Tongtong is back! Come on, come in, my mother was cooking when I heard the door rang."
This woman looks very young - given that the one in the real space had died fifteen years ago, so her time seems to be frozen at that time, looking like Kou Tong's sister, Kou Tong's elder sister Followed her more.
Kou Tong pretended to be looking for slippers, but lowered his head and didn't dare to look at her. He just said softly, "...Don't call me that in front of others."
He still couldn't call out that "mom".
Kou Tong's mother warmly welcomed Yao Shuo and Huang Jinchen in, gave Kou Tong a clear look, and said with kindness: "No problem, Kou expert, please take your seat, we'll have dinner right away."
Then she waved the spatula vigorously and returned to the kitchen, and after a while, another head appeared: "Expert Kou, take your friend to sit in the hall, oh, don't forget to wash your hands before eating!"
Huang Jinchen said, "Pfft..."
Kou Tong pressed his forehead and was a little embarrassed.
The three of them walked into the living room. Suddenly, Kou Tong stopped and looked up at a picture frame hanging on the wall. Inside was a group photo of a younger Kou's mother and a two- or three-year-old boy. Judging from the facial features, the little boy should be Kou Tong's childhood, the mother and son are very harmonious, but... the composition of the photo is very strange.
At a glance, it seems like something is missing.
Kou Tong narrowed his eyes: "Strange."
"What's wrong?"
"This photo turned out to be a family portrait." Kou Tong stretched out his hand and drew on the unnaturally large blank space on the upper right of the little boy, "It turned out to be my... father."
Huang Jinchen thought, Huh? The terms "mother" and "father" don't go together.
Yao Shuo, who had been wandering all over the world, suddenly turned around and asked Kou Tong in a low voice: "In this space, does your father not exist at all?"
"It's possible." Kou Tong paused, "My program settings are not complete, and logically speaking, there is no unified standard for this part of the program - what kind of identity should be given to the subject of consciousness, and The intersection of people and people around them should be randomly generated, a person who originally exists may not exist, or a person who does not exist may appear."
Yao Shuo took out his cell phone again, and Huang Jinchen finally couldn't help but say, "If you want to call your wife, just call her, it's not ashamed, I'm tired of looking at it when I go in and out, there's no end to it?"
As soon as he finished speaking, Kou Tong's mother came out of the kitchen with two dishes: "Calling? Let's make a call from our home phone. Anyway, it's a fixed rate, so you can leave it alone."
Huang Jinchen hurried up to meet her, and said flatly, "Sister, I'll help you."
Kou Tong's expression distorted: "What are you talking about?"
Huang Jinchen threw his little whip and flattered: "Well, sister, you look so young and beautiful, I can't say anything else, it's against my heart!"
Kou Tong's mother asked excitedly, "Xiao Huang, do you like bamboo shoots?"
"Fried bacon with bamboo shoots." Huang Jinchen brazenly ordered.
Kou Tong's mother slapped her hand: "It just so happens that there is a piece of bacon in the refrigerator, my sister will fry it for you, wait!"
Huang Jinchen laughed "hehehehe". From Kou Tong's point of view, he felt that he was really wretched.
Yao Shuo looked at this, looked at that, and finally called Dou Lianqing. He almost held his breath, as if he was thinking about what to say to her, but there was a cold machine inside. Voice: The number you dialed is empty...
Yao Shuo's expression suddenly became very complicated, and the blood on his face faded in an instant, but he showed a little uncontrollable relaxation.
Then he remembered something, and dialed another number, but it still showed an empty number.
Yao Shuo hesitated for a while, then staggered to the sofa and sat down, as if he had spit out from his body, and then he looked at Kou with a calm and objective expression that he had made very hard. Tong: "My wife and son's phone numbers are empty, doesn't it mean that they don't exist in this space?"