After leaving Huashan Mountain, the two Taoist priests, young and old, will be separated from us. Guo Shanlin looked at me and said, "The matter will not end so easily, and we will not see each other for the last time. Actually, I came this time mainly to show my attitude. If Ning Hanqing wants to restart the longevity plan, our Taoist surname Guo is willing to participate."
I said: "For what? Is it to enter the center of the vortex?"
The old Taoist laughed loudly: "I said that there are two kinds of people around Ning Hanqing, one is the careerist, the other is the escape group, I am the first."
I continued: "Then I am the second one."
"No." The old Taoist shook his head, "You are still young, the careerist may also be the escape group, and the escape group may be the biggest careerist." He said in a low voice: "The dust has not yet settled, the curtain has just begun, who Who is it, who is who, maybe."
Guo Huihuang interrupted and said, "Master, you pretend to be deep again."
Guo Shanlin slapped him on the back of his head: "Go!"
The two drove away from Xuanhuitang.
After I came back, my eyes were almost better, and watching people no longer looked like watching horror movies. It may be a fungal infection as presumed, or it may be due to some other cause. The three of them rested for several days, and finally I said: "It's boring to stay any longer, let's go back to Chongqing."
Bai Ye said: "Go."
When sending us out, Bai Ye grabbed me and said, "Little Master Ning, no matter what happens in the end, I will always be on your side."
I said: "This line is quite vulgar."
He watched us cross the road. I took Chongyang all the way back to Chongqing, and later sorted out the things I experienced.
There are two biggest doubts.
One is what exactly did Ning Hanqing do on me, so that I can avoid the abyssal radiation and receive the memories transmitted from the mother's body.
The other is Zhang Tongmeng. Is he the Zhang Tongmeng in my dream? Why are the nail shapes different. When we finally left the cave of the mother body, what method did Zhang Tongmeng use to disintegrate the mother body? Did his hand reach into the mother body to take out something? What is he doing all this for, is he still alive
I spent the most energy on this problem. Later, I thought of a good breakthrough point. I asked Chongyang: "You don’t remember anything about the past. If you are dreaming now, let you receive the memories from the past every day. Indoctrination, repeated indoctrination every day, brainwashing over and over again, then can you return to the way you were before?"
Chongyang thought for a while, "It should be possible."
I said: "Can you recover even your emotions and thinking?"
"What do you mean?"
I said, "Let me give you an example. If you used to live in Huashan, you were interesting to Qin Wanling..."
"I'm not interested in her."
"I'll just give an example for what I mean."
"You are boring."
"Okay, okay, okay." I said to my heart that you were quite rebellious, "If you used to like a small animal on the mountain when you were in Huashan, and your emotion for it was'love', then now you accept the memory instillation In the future, by watching the details of your previous relationship with that little animal through the dream scene scene by scene, you can restore all the memories related to him, right."
Chongyang nodded.
I went on to say: "But you have other things besides the memory of that little animal, such as the emotion of'loving' that I call. Can you still regain this emotion through the instillation of dreams?"
Chongyang showed a thoughtful look, and finally said: "It's impossible."
"Yes." I nodded: "The picture can be copied, but the emotion is a very mysterious thing. The same scene and the same dialogue, changing a time period and another mood will produce different emotions. Through dreams Instilling memory can copy the images of the year in memory, but it is difficult and difficult to reshape the emotions of the year.
The first stage of group assimilation is the maternal duplication of memory fragments and the obliteration of the self. In this process, all the joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys that originally belonged to the individual disappear, and only the pictures are conveyed. The second stage is to receive memory fragments of others. At this time, there are only pictures and no emotions. Therefore, the entire underground nation should be a group without personality, numb and mechanical. "
Chongyang nodded: "Yes."
I said again: "Then back to Zhang Tongmeng, for decades, he was the only transmitter and receiver of memory fragments underground. He passed his own memories and received his own memories. But in the process, Did he really lose nothing?"
Chongyang's face also changed: "He is very wrong."
"That's right." I nodded: "Although he is still Zhang Tongmeng himself, he should no longer identify with the previous Zhang Tongmeng. He will gradually lose his past character and emotions, and in the end he will be like a bystander. Also watch the memory of Zhang Tongmeng.
But what he showed was really like a young man 40 years ago, warm and steady, radical and persistent. In fact, that kind of family and country feeling should no longer appear in a Zhang Tongmeng who has been obliterated by the self, even if he has received all his memories. "
"He's acting?" Chongyang said: "He is acting out what Zhang Tongmeng should be based on the memory in his mind, so that you can believe that he is Zhang Tongmeng."
"So he is not Zhang Tongmeng at all." I said, "If it is really Zhang Tongmeng himself, he may be puzzled by the loss of his ardent beliefs and emotions in the past, but he will not try to show me a Zhang Tongmeng. Look. And if this person is pretending to be Zhang Tongmeng, in order to make me believe that he is Zhang Tongmeng, he will perform according to the way Zhang Tongmeng should be in his mind."
"Then who is he?" Chongyang said.
I shook my head. This fact is a headache. Ning Hanqing returned to Changning in 1973 and called Zhang Tongmeng. At that time, the nails on Zhang Tongmeng's hands were still triangular. This memory fragment of answering the phone also entered my mind in the form of a dream. At that time, Zhang Tongmeng should still be really Zhang Tongmeng.
Later it became Zhang Tongmeng with square nails. He should have occupied the magpie's nest after 1973.
Finally, I looked at Chongyang. He was looking out the window in a trance, not knowing what he was thinking. He has fallen asleep at least twice, the first time in Guangxi, he was found by the corpse-shoveler, and finally he woke up. The second time was in the underground garage of Yuanshan Garden. He woke up twice and lost his previous memories. Will there be more times in between? I don't know how many people he has met and how many people he has forgotten. I don't know.
I won't be the last person Chongyang meets to take him in. Even if he wakes up again many years later and re-instills our current experience into his mind, he will not be him anymore.
Chongyang is a traveler who stands in the middle of time, or in other words, he is the outcast of time. (End of this chapter)