1.
One of Yakovsky's planners ran over screaming with joy and showed him Xia Tian's interview.
Since Xia Tian, who was halfway through the treatment, was inhumanely woken up, these people certainly couldn't just ask about social hotspots, and the "survivors of the massacre in District N" was the highlight. This is the trump card topic in the entertainment industry in Uptown, and Xia Tian is a survivor of the massacre. What a heavyweight identity, the entire massacre entertainment industry and its fans have gathered around him, waiting for this hero who returned from hell Speak up.
In the video, Xia Tian is sitting in a wheelchair.
Although it is much more comfortable to find a sofa, this debilitating effect is what they want to ensure clues and connections.
The light is not bright but very pure, outlining the lines of his facial features, like the steep shadows cast by snow-covered peaks all year round.
He watched the video of the massacre in Area N with a blank face. Yakovsky rarely saw him like this, and he completely hid himself. To a certain extent, he has the same ability as Bai Jingan.
His old pain was displayed in a holographic way without blind spots, and a group of people stared at him, asking him to speak.
Finally Xia Tian said: "It's me."
"You killed her by yourself?" the host said.
"She won't like herself to become like that." Xia Tian said.
"It's hard to imagine how you felt at that time..." said the other party, who is the host of the official "High-End Vision" of the memorial show.
Xia Tian didn't speak, and looked at him coldly.
The host's eyes wandered, even if he was not a newcomer, he would still be nervous under the brilliance of such a star. He added: "Now, many people are very curious, how did you leave the Holocaust Encapsulation Network at that time?"
"I hacked into a high-privilege terminal of the local administrator."
"You hacked the encapsulation network?"
"If I don't get black, I'll die there."
"I mean, with all the local administrators evacuated, how are you going to find..."
"He didn't make it." Xia Tian said, showing him a smile.
The other party stopped breathing, it was really a handsome smile that made the heart beat faster, like flirting at a banquet.
But Jakovsky didn't feel that way at all, he moved the chair back half an inch unconsciously. He sometimes feels pitiful for Xia Tian, but sometimes he's really... very scary.
At this time, he is very happy that he is not a reporter, and he does not have to face the terrifying stars in the world.
On the main screen, the host actually blushed. He whispered, "You hacked the encapsulation network, but you, you didn't serve as network logistics in registration."
"I'm not a qualified network logistics," Xia Tian said, "I can't bear to wait. I have to insert the knife into those guys' heads myself."
While the video was playing, the recent hotspot statistics were floating on the auxiliary screen next to Yakovsky. Fans in Uptown began to frantically discuss whether Summer was the Rebels, and what exactly happened in the encapsulation area of the N-block massacre.
Although... Seriously, he is only thirteen years old, what can he do, and he was repairing cars in the N19 area at the time.
But it's hard to say, that's Xia Tian, God knows how much he can toss.
The following is a short interview tidbit, which the planner thinks is very interesting and is going to be released.
After the interview, Xia Tian and Bai Jing'an stood in the corner talking. Xia Tian reached out to touch her hair, and hooked off a small pink leather ring.
Bai Jing'an said with a little embarrassment: "I borrowed it temporarily from the assistant of the makeup artist."
Xia Tian said: "I think it's pink."
He went to tie his hair again, but his hands and feet were clumsy, Bai Jing'an took a leather ring to help him do it, and the assistant thoughtfully handed him a black one.
The editor amusingly matched a shot of Xia Tian helping Didi tie his hair, which is exactly the same.
It's really cute, Jakovsky thought, they put these professional killers in uniforms, teach them how to be polite, play cute and joke, adjust the atmosphere of the interview, and even make people feel like a spring breeze. They love the tenderness and good looks of these people, bringing out the human part in them, and Jakovsky knew this well.
But occasionally, a certain look or movement of theirs will make you feel trembling like a blade passing across your neck.
That, is the truth.
As far as Yakovsky is concerned, he is very happy that the brain-dead ex-planner failed.
The God of War successor he created with great difficulty was to stand on the throne of the pinnacle of the reality show, and he used it to play this set for a pervert...
He sighed. Forget it, that's how it is in Shangcheng. Everyone only thinks about short-term benefits, and doesn't care about long-term development at all. When they see something good, they must quickly squeeze out the benefits.
He is also used to it. In their work, there are countless fresh death processes every day. This kind of experience will always distort your temperament in some way.
He turned his head to look at a video edited by a fan next to him. He has played this video twenty times in a loop and is still playing it. Really helps to regulate the mood.
It was a private clip of Xia Tian and Bai Jing'an's fans, and at the beginning, the boss of the execution room egg—he couldn't remember his name—said to Xia Tian: "I always want to see you lose control."
Then it was fun.
This is a fast killing scene, extremely violent and exciting, like an unstoppable god of war, constantly destroying everything in front of him.
But in the second half, the rhythm becomes sad. The endless battle ended, Xia Tian and Bai Jingan hid in the temporary prison, Xia Tian was exhausted, and slowly fell asleep leaning on Bai Jingan's shoulder. The picture is warm and sad.
As soon as this video appeared, it went viral among fans, and it was also broadcast several times on the official channel of Fujin Killing Show, and it also began to appear derivative variants, which can be said to be popular all over Floating Void City.
The TV station wanted to find an editor and offer him a job, and he was definitely a talent.
And Yakovsky knew who made it the first time he saw the clip. Personal traits are too obvious even if she tries to hide them. They are all too familiar.
Relying on this, she can get a big red envelope, but she didn't mention a word, probably she doesn't want others to know. So Jakovsky never talked about it. Those people couldn't find her.
She probably just wants to be a fan again, to get back some of the fun she used to do. She used to do this kind of thing just because she loved it, but now it's become her nightmare.
Perhaps she wanted to thank the pair for allowing her to end the Holocaust memorial show this way.
Yakovsky himself wanted to do something to thank them.
He liked the reckless violence and murderousness of the last scene, it really pierced the darkness like a strong light.
Tian Xiaoluo was humming, and was editing a video not far away. Yakovsky couldn't remember when she hummed last time.
The previous commemorative show had a lot of spectacles, and she also pulled over to help, and she felt like she had nothing to love all day long. The day before, Jakovsky saw her sitting alone in a corner crying, but he pretended not to see her because he didn't know what to say.
She called Wei Su — her dead boyfriend — endlessly that night, and Yakovsky looked at her terminal usage, the numbers kept jumping, and she made a total of two hundred and thirty calls that night. Seven impossible calls.
Since she was a child, she has been stubborn and unrealistic, and she doesn't get along well with reality.
As a child she once had a clip birthday party. She was full of ambition and publicized everywhere, but the video was ruined by the viral epidemic at the time.
Jakovsky clearly remembers one day when she dragged him to sit in front of the terminal, pointed at the blank screen, and asked him to watch a clip of her birthday party. She said how she made the transitions, how she rendered them, and her tone was firm and familiar, as if there was something on the screen. So he tried his best to act as if he had seen it.
For a long time after that, whenever she mentioned the editing, she would act as if the editing was perfect and everything was happy. In this way she keeps failure out of her life.
As an adult, she sometimes joked about it, as if she had matured over time to handle failure.
But now, her communication monitoring interface is full of missed calls. Distributed every day, every night, or sporadic breaks at work, like a crazy ritual.
She couldn't mature anymore, couldn't take it anymore, and she was that kid again, trying to do the same thing with her life.
Paranoid, miserable, unrealistic. There was nothing he could do to help.
So Yakovsky didn't say anything, went back to the office and drank wine for half the night until he fell asleep, which made it much easier to solve the problem.
In this world, all you can do is to find ways to pass the day, drink a glass of wine when you are miserable, and add some ingredients to the wine when you are miserable. Yakovsky... and all the decent planners are ready to welcome the end, and have already drawn up the next publicity plan.
—It’s about sadness, hopelessness, and healing each other in a dark world.
At that time, none of them knew that the memorial show would end in this way.
At the end of the commemorative show, the planning team was in a mess. Everyone didn't know how to react, and Yakovsky's communicator was blown up.
He didn't have time to answer, just stared at the screen. When Xia Tian fired that bullet, he stood up from the chair, he knew how to do it, knew what he really wanted to see.
He hastily drafted a new propaganda direction, and everything before had to be scrapped and restarted, but in the character setting, in the principle of following the basic setting, it has never been broken or established.
Tossing until midnight, Yakovsky met Tian Xiaoluo while smoking in the corridor, and was swiping his phone.
Seeing him, she smiled at him like a ray of sunshine piercing a gloomy cloud. For the first time in a long time, she took the initiative to speak to him, and she said: "This scene is screwed."
Now, Yakovsky is sitting on the messy throne at the pinnacle of his planning world, and the auxiliary screen on one side is the hotspot monitoring of the entertainment industry.
All are constantly talking about the "principle of vengeance," the Memorial Show effect, and the latest two Kill Show stars who have been in the limelight.
The name of Xia Tian appeared repeatedly, the peak was steep and sharp, like a god statue embedded on the top, unquestionable, clear and unusual, playing a major role of command and guidance.
The main screen stopped on an official holographic picture of Xia Tian in the later stage. The man stood on the battlefield full of gunpowder smoke, equipped with a murderous Doomsday God of War gun, and his face was stained with blood and smoke. He smiled towards the camera, bright and hostile, suppressing the aura of the gun and the battlefield, making the gloomy Shura field reveal a cold brightness.
Yakovsky admired it for a while, poured himself another glass of wine, unfolded the screen, and began to monitor the details of popular trends.
He was quick to notice this trend—when people talked about this revenge, it seemed that it was no longer just a revenge, an accident of oppression and explosion. It is a bloody sacrifice made by a fanatical believer to the idol.
2.
Bai Jing'an had a dream.
He was lying on the dirty floor, a huge mutant creature biting his ankle and dragging it into the darkness.
He often had this dream, in which he was badly injured, bleeding profusely, and extremely helpless. In reality, he is an adult who knows how to protect himself, but in this world, he is always extremely vulnerable.
The dog as huge as a cow dragged him out of the room and dragged him for more than ten meters. He looked at the city from the perspective of a dead man. It was a scene from the deepest nightmare...
Too many people died. So much carnage, struggle, despair, dead friends, dead children and all those innocent people...
Cameras are suspended in the air, these precise little balls are all over the city, in places they don't know...the huge chaotic land that their brains can't understand, countless people are watching this scene.
In that deadly perspective in the dream, he saw a child, hidden in the darkness of construction waste, like a dying mouse, dirty all over, with blood on his face.
He groped and grabbed an iron rod, purely out of instinct, and wanted to fight in the end, although in fact he was holding it weakly... One end of the rod was sharpened, and it was full of blood. I don't know who used it as a weapon, But now that person is dead too.
He took a deep breath, and hit the dog hard on the nose, but it didn't take a step back, and the other head turned wildly and bit his neck.
He dodged it as hard as he could, and it only bit him in the shoulder, and the bone shattered, but he drove the stick in hard enough, severed the spine.
Whoever sharpened the stick in the first place was indeed a good one, and the monster lost its momentum in an instant and fell on top of him, terribly heavy, still gnawing at his flesh.
He pushed the corpse away vigorously, turned to look at the boy, who was only six or seven years old, and wanted to call him over, the chances of the two of them surviving might be a little higher... But then he found that the boy was already dead.
His lower body was covered in blood, and his internal organs were hollowed out, but he still maintained a posture of resistance.
He stared blankly, and staggered back a step. He pressed the wall to try to stand still, but his legs gave way and he still fell to the ground.
He could no longer get up.
This world has no future, everyone of them is the same.
At this moment, he saw that thing coming, it was... He didn't know, was it a mutant weasel? The hair is all gone, standing there looking at him, it is two meters high. Its claws... were in the shape of a human hand, perhaps once a human being. A monstrous human-beast hybrid ghost.
He couldn't stand up, he wanted to give up.
He sat against the wall and waited for the monster to come and kill him like everyone else, eat him, and their flesh and blood mingled together, and that was the world.
With the omnipresent camera still hovering there, presenting everything in the rapacious chaos above, he closed his eyes and buried his head in his knees.
His dreams always ended like this.
But this time the monster didn't come over, he heard footsteps approaching, it was human footsteps.
A voice said, "Xiaobai?"
He looked up, and there the man stood, in his dirty boots from downtown, stained with gunpowder and blood and bits of flesh, looking down at him.
Behind the man lay the corpse of the monster, its head exploded, and the gun was fired very neatly.
He looked at the face, trying to make out who it was. A comrade in arms, with a familiar face, always full of life, paranoid just refuses to give up hope.
"Summer?" he said.
The man showed him a bright smile and held out his hand.
"Get up, we have to get out," he said.
He looked at him for a while, then carefully stretched out his hand to hold it, Xia Tian's hand was warm and strong. It makes no sense, but the future seems to be counting on again.
It was like seeing light.
Bai Jing'an woke up, the night was getting dark outside, and there was silence.
He felt dazed, not sure where he was, as if he was still stuck in that place and never got out. Everything after that was just a dream, a mask.
The brain slowly realized that he is indeed in the world now, at home...but it feels very far away, as if the real him has never been here. He doesn't know where, probably never existed, or is long dead.
He turned on the light, thought about it and turned it off again, and it was still more comfortable in the dark.
He got out of bed, knowing that he would not be able to sleep when he woke up at this time, why not drink a cup of herbal tea, or review the upgrade program of the training room. The reporter uptown must be trying to find a way to install spyware in his house right now.
He went downstairs barefoot in the moonlight, and found that the small light in the living room was on. Xia Tian was sitting cross-legged on the sofa, with a half bottle of wine in front of him. He had taken a shower, his hair was still wet, and he was playing games.
After Bai Jingan went downstairs, he found that the pajamas were crumpled due to the nightmare, and three buttons were unbuttoned. He could faintly see a hideous scar extending from his shoulder. One could imagine the cruelty of the past, as if this body had been beaten by sharp claws. torn.
He subconsciously wanted to reach out to grab it, but after thinking about it, forget it.
When Xia Tian came out of the medical cabin, he was still in a hurry, and he received some follow-up treatment. He returned home this afternoon, and received a grand welcome from the media in the upper city when he came back.
When they got to the medical department lobby, they saw Dee Dee in the crowd.
She wore a pair of braids, and her small face was tense. Haitian let her go, she walked up to Xia Tian, didn't hold back, and burst into tears with a "wow".
She grabbed his hand and cried and said if they go back to downtown, she doesn't like this place, she hates it.
Bai Jing'an realized that she had seen everything in the commemorative show.
Xia Tian looked up at Haitian, and the image planner sighed helplessly. In such a large-scale show with frequent interactions, she had tried her best to make Didi appear in front of Xia Tian in a good manner.
Xia Tian put his arms around Didi's shoulders, kept telling her that he was fine, that he didn't hurt at all, and helped her wipe away her tears. The more he talked, the more she cried out of breath.
They finally got rid of the media and took her home. Along the way, she clings to Xia Tian and doesn't let go. After finally sending him to bed, she still grabs his sleeve and doesn't let go.
Looks like it finally put her to sleep.
Xia Tian raised his chin to say hello, Bai Jingan also nodded, and walked over to make himself a cup of herbal tea.
——The medical department opened it for him. It is very popular in the upper city recently. It is said that they can feel the energy of the earth, regardless of whether they are actually floating in the sky and have any relatives with the earth.
He took hot tea and sat down next to Xia Tian. There was a half bottle of wine on the table next to Xia Tian, and there was no cup, so he seemed too lazy to use it.
Xia Tian glanced at him, must have seen the wound, but said nothing.
The game that person was playing was the new "Confinement 7", the background of the massacre in Area N, which Haida put here, saying that the sponsor wanted them to play it and talk about their impressions.
At the moment, the protagonist is staying in a small house, a bit like a residential building near Xining Street. There are some locomotives and gun parts scattered around, and most of the people living there are repairmen.
Bai Jing'an remembered that two days ago, those people showed him the video of Xia Tian's massacre in District N... Xia Tian was also there at that time, he was still a child, but he survived. actually survived...
He stretched out his hand, directly picked up the half bottle of wine in front of Xia Tian's table, took a sip, and ignored the herbal tea.
Although he has no memory, it is definitely not the first time he has drunk alcohol. The spicy taste rushes down his throat and into his stomach, and the taste is quite strong.
Xia Tian glanced at him again, without speaking.
Both of them were silent, sitting on the sofa, staring at the big screen in front of them. Inside was a vivid model of the downtown, dark and broken, Bai Jing'an felt as if he was still shrouded in the dream just now.
After a while, he said, "I was there."
Xia Tian pressed the pause button and turned to look at him.
Bai Jing'an sat in the shadow of the sofa, the twilight of the moonlight fell on his face, and something dark leaked from his gestures. People who come back from the Shura field will have this feeling.
Staring at the blank wall, he continued, "I was in N7 during the massacre in N, and I have always been there."
Xia Tian didn't speak, waiting for him to continue.
"I participated in everything." Bai Jing'an said.
He picked up the half bottle of wine again and took a sip, looking very skilled.
"When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I felt like I was getting closer and closer to the kill show, and I thought I kind of broke down... So I went downtown." He continued, "My father came from the N7 area. His dad lived there too, that's all I can think about."
Xia Tian nodded. When he couldn't bear it, he returned to his hometown.
"I've been there for about four years, but it feels like I've been there my whole life." Bai Jing'an said, "Now that I think about it, I'm probably destined to only belong there."
"You are in the 'core group' of the N7 riot." Xia Tian said.
Bai Jing'an nodded. "Caucus" was the name given to those who led the rebels, and in Uptown, the word smacked of legend.
The two were silent for a while, and Bai Jing'an continued.
"I must have known those people, as if I knew I must have been involved in this, but can't remember a bit. Astral 17-3 virus is a subcategory of 17, targeting all mammalian gene strands .Just like they can create a poison gas that kills everyone instantly, they can create a virus that mutates everyone and kills each other. But they don't do that, the mutated effect of the 17-3 type is random.
"The infected object of this type of virus is also random, it may be a mouse, or it may be a certain person. The mutated creatures will not kill each other, but only want to eat people. In addition, depending on your genetic condition, Others develop partial limb mutations, a decline in brain function, or, in my case, severe brain damage and loss of all long-term memory."
He stopped, took a sip of the wine bottle in Xia Tian, and handed it back to him.
Bai Jing'an went on to say: "They first infected a mouse, followed it from the sewer all the way into the town, and infected various creatures on the way. The filming was superb and exciting, but when you are in that town yourself, it doesn't feel so good Interesting."
"I've also seen that video." Xia Tian said, "Sometimes... I just feel curious, when they ruin your life, how do they do it."
"Yeah, I'm just curious." Bai Jing'an said, "I... couldn't find their faces in the video, they were all wearing camera jammers. I can only imagine myself at that time, young and angry, wanting to change anything.
"But I can't remember my own face...the same young faces, so angry, full of pain..."
Xia Tian suddenly stretched out his hand and rubbed his hair, Bai Jing'an laughed.
"My mind is a post-disaster scene that I can't recover from," he said, "but I can think of fragments sometimes, and I remember the attack on the sheriff's house, it was chaotic, and I told someone to keep my voice down... I Remember, someone in that group did call me 'Xiaobai'."
Xia Tian gave him a weird look, and finally said: "Don't be too sad. When I was young, someone called me Xiao Xia, but I didn't call him Xiao Xia in the end."
Bai Jing'an laughed and choked on the wine.
He paused for a while, and then said: "Actually, Xiaobai is not bad."
"I've seen your medical report before, so your memory of everything before the attack just disappeared?" Xia Tian said.
"Basically." Bai Jing'an said, took another sip of wine, although he should not have had a drink since he returned to Shangcheng, but now he looks very skilled.
"So I don't remember much about this house," he said, looking around. "My parents and my childhood, that was too long for me. All I can remember clearly is about the Holocaust, In addition, there are some fragmentary details of life in the lower city."
He sighed: "I seem to be born in the lower city, and no matter how hard I try, I can't get out of there."
"What happened later?" Xia Tian said.
"I have the identity and authority of the upper city, so I escaped from the encapsulation network." Bai Jing'an continued, "The Fujin TV station was in charge of the massacre. It only cared about the good-looking killings, and didn't pay much attention to the strictness of the encapsulation area. I was wandering in the lower city For a while, it never once occurred to me to return to Uptown.
"One day... I went to a place, I don't know where it is, maybe it's the M district. I ran into a mugger, but I couldn't bring myself to resist... Then someone came over, chased the guy away, and asked me Need help, he looks fine. I looked at his face and it occurred to me that I must have met some other nice people somewhere. I thought, I have to get out of here.
"Otherwise I'd stay and try to settle down again. And then... the same thing would happen, and there would be torture and killing and rage, great pain... You always lose people that are important, and there's nothing you can do to save them. I'm going to fail again, I'm going to... I have to get out of there, at all costs, to stay away from the carnage."
He spoke very slowly, and it was the first time he said this.
"I'm back uptown, back to this house..." he gestured, "uptown is pretty lax about solitary care, before it was about robots and once-a-week visits from social workers. When I was twelve, I filled out A living alone application, no social worker visits. But I've been falsifying records to keep people from taking the house... I'm good at hacking, enough to modify whereabouts, add purchase records, and pretend I'm just staying behind closed doors...
"For the record, I thought about giving up my uptown life and forgetting about it, I couldn't bear to come back...but in the end I came back and pretended to be the same person and live the same life as before..."
Bai Jing'an never thought that one day he would say so many words, he didn't even realize that these thoughts were always in his heart, they were all dark, distant and meaningless things, and no one could say them.
"It's just... everything here has become very strange, I try to understand, pretend to be myself. But here, I will only be myself, and there will be no one else." He continued, "But I still I feel like, I'm always in that darkness, it's... so powerful, it swallows up all the past and turns me into someone else."
"I always dream about it too." Xia Tian said, "After you go through that kind of thing, you will be different from before."
Bai Jing'an didn't speak any more, the night gently enveloped his surroundings, as if things were getting better and there would be no more nightmares. But that's just an illusion.
Xia Tian looked at him for a while, then suddenly reached out to wrap his arms around his shoulders, Bai Jingan froze for a moment, but then relaxed, this feeling was very warm.
The screen in front was still in the dark freeze frame of the N7 area game, Xia Tian smoothed his hair and said: "We will be fine."
Bai Jing'an didn't think so at all.
But he nodded anyway.