Rule Strange: Urban Legends That Don't Exist

At this moment.

Mechanical hive.

After another busy day, Chen Yan, who had exhausted all his energy on the seemingly endless trivial matters, finally couldn't bear it anymore and fell asleep again by fainting.

In a hazy moment, Chen Yan's consciousness seemed to float on the clouds. Chen Yan saw an angel with wings floating on the clouds, facing away from him.

He vaguely wanted to go up and ask where this place was, and patted the angel on the shoulder. The angel turned around, but it was an acquaintance.

The winged Chen Yan asked Chen Yan:

"Do you understand something now?"

There seemed to be impatience in her tone.

Chen Yan is stupid and dull:

"Understand what?"

The impatience in her tone increased:

"Who are you, where are you, and where are you going."

Chen Yan's head was unclear, so of course he couldn't answer these questions.

"I...I don't know."

Chen Yan sighed and pushed him gently.

So he began to fall downwards, and the strong feeling of weightlessness almost woke him up from his deep dream.

The clouds in his field of vision quickly receded, and then a dazzling light appeared. He subconsciously raised his arms to cover his eyes, and curiously looked out through his fingers——

A black sun stretched across the sky.

The black sun has obviously burned out its life, but it still tries its best to emit a dim light, like a dying person struggling to survive but with no hope.

Because the distance was too close this time, he finally saw clearly the tail-swallowing white snake surrounding the black sun——

The almost petrified white snake had been dead for an unknown period of time, so that its body had turned into something resembling a fossil.

Chen Yan was very confused because he saw that the closed eyes of the fossil white snake were moist outside.

Is it...crying...

Chen Yan didn't know anything.

He continued to fall downwards and soon fell under the clouds. Then everything became dim. There was faint thunder and lightning in the clouds that turned completely black in a short time. Chen Yan looked around and found that he seemed to have fallen into a building. The ruins of the city——

The city has tens of thousands of floors. There is a faint light on some floors, but most of the floors have been abandoned. The suffocating huge reinforced concrete can vaguely show the prosperity of this place. Now everything is in ruins, gone forever. .

He continued to fall.

There are more things appearing in the field of vision, streets, factories, noisy cities, bustling commercial streets, carnivals with mechanical heads, giant brains connected with countless neural pipelines, zombies raised on a large scale, and people fighting for territory. Gangs, deeply hypnotic Neuromancer...

He continued to fall.

His vision quickly receded. He passed through the mountains and fields, fell into the desert from the dense leaves, was eaten by hyenas and turned into feces, which then seeped into the ocean under the earth. After he fell into the trench under the deep sea, his eyes gradually became brighter until A crisp snap of his fingers woke him up completely.

"Snapped!"

Chen Yan found himself in a dense forest. In the tall bushes in front of him was a woman with blood on her face. The woman was wearing a light blue dress. She had blond hair and blue eyes, and her hair was tied with an iron butterfly hairpin. , looks like...an ordinary country girl from medieval Europe.

Um?Medieval Europe?What era was that?
Chen Yan was always confused.

A strong burning smell came from a distance. He looked around and saw thick black smoke rising from a certain direction in the dense forest. The black smoke looked very fierce and spread rapidly.

The dense forest... is burning!

Chen Yan was shocked when he saw the woman in front of him turned her head, looked back at him with her dark blue eyes as deep as the stormy sky, and lowered her voice and said to him:

"They are here... Now I am going to lure them away. I can't leave with you... You must go out and contact that address!"

Place...address?

Thinking of this, Chen Yan suddenly "remembered" that he had indeed obtained an address from the woman. That address was the residence of a big shot. As long as the big shot knew about this unethical place, they would be saved.

Um?Violating ethics?How can a place violate ethics?The subject of ethics is people, not a place.

Chen Yan was confused.

He glanced confusedly at the dense forest in front of him, his mind going blank.

Suddenly there was a clear sound from the dense forest ahead, which could only be made by stepping on dead branches. Before Chen Yan could react, the woman in front of him had already shouted "Escape!" to him, and then jumped out towards the place where the sound came from.

Intensive gunfire exploded immediately, and Chen Yan ran away in the opposite direction of the gunfire without looking back.

The constant sound of gunshots was like a life-threatening note, and the deadly melody formed aroused all the fears in Chen Yan's subconscious. This fear drove him to keep running forward until he was hit by a low bush. stumble.

Chen Yan bumped into a tree, and the whole world in front of him was spinning.

The strong sense of crisis in his subconscious made him get up in a mental spin. He almost tried all his strength, but when he got up, several gun barrels still surrounded him.

Subconsciously, he rushed toward one of the gun barrels. He didn't know where this courage came from.

He was greeted not by bullets, but simply by a kick from a hard-leather military boot.

The opponent was obviously a trained and specially strengthened soldier. Chen Yan was kicked to the ground, but he also bit the soldier's calf.

There were curses, followed by a storm of beatings. Chen Yan hugged his head and huddled up until they were tired of beating him. Then he suddenly pounced on the person closest to him and bit off that person's neck.

The gunfire finally rang out.

……

……

When Chen Yan regained consciousness, he saw himself in a simple conversation room. The self who had been shot in his memory appeared here intact, wearing a blue suit that looked like pajamas... or maybe a lab coat. color uniform.

The simple conversation room seemed to have been a laboratory. Chen Yan saw some experimental equipment, which seemed to be called a microscope.

Um?microscope?what is that?
As weird a memory as "Medieval Europe."

When Chen Yan was trying to recall his past, a voice suddenly sounded in his ears:
"You pulled off a riot."

He turned his head blankly and saw a woman sitting in the corner of the conversation room. The woman was wearing a white gentleman's uniform, holding a file like a thick book in her hand, and her legs on stilts were evenly wrapped with The slim gray tights look...

Chen Yan moved his body unconsciously.

The woman noticed his behavior and said with a tone that she didn't know whether it was a smile or not:
"It seems you learned a lot."

Chen Yan was embarrassed and confused. At this time, he adapted to the light and saw the woman's face, so other inexplicable memories appeared in his head——

Saphant...Chen Yan...

Um?Chen Yan?

Who is Chen Yan?

The woman took the file and said to him:
"So, Chen Yan, let me tell you now, what exactly did you do -

The riots of you and your companions completely paralyzed the urban part of the park. 13 dignitaries and 351 tourists died in your riots. They are living human beings. "Chen Yan was subconsciously disgusted with such accusations, and he asked:
"Am I not a living human being?"

The woman denied:
"No...at least not entirely."

Chen Yan didn't understand, but he still felt disappointed and inferior because of it. These negative emotions made him lower his head sadly.

The woman is still telling him about his crimes:

"You destroyed nearly one-third of the operating equipment in the park, and half of them were unable to be repaired because they were severely damaged by blasting. This put a lot of operating pressure on the company."

the company.

When Chen Yan heard the name, an inexplicable thought came to his mind: The company is very important to me.

But he couldn't remember what the company was anyway. He panicked because of such amnesia, and such panic caused depression to arise in his heart.

Chen Yan doesn't like to be depressed.

So he raised his head, looked into the woman's eyes and asked:
"What is a company?"

Facing his gaze, the woman subconsciously wanted to dodge.

The woman quickly realized this weak move, so she stopped her urge to look away and looked directly into Chen Yan's eyes:

"The company is everything to you, Chen Yan, the company used to be everything to you."

Chen Yan's eyes became confused again.

The woman took the opportunity to continue the topic:

"The company's dense forest park was completely burned by a fire, and there is no way to restore it, so more resources are needed.

But we are already having a very difficult time now, because your behavior exposed the company's true goal and made the federation aware of the company's plan. We will have a very difficult time next.

Plans for the new campus may be delayed, as federal officials are sure to pour their weight into a soon-to-be criminal investigation into our Crimes Against Humanity, the most serious uprising of data life since the Turing Invasion. ...This means that we may not be able to continue. "

Can't go on?

Can the park continue?

Isn't this a good thing?

Chen Yan was still saying what came out of his subconscious mind:
"Compared with previous experiments, I don't feel anything special."

Um?I know this is an experiment?

I know the park is an experiment?

What is the experiment?
He suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

oh!The park... is an experiment that lets me know who I am, where I am, and where I want to go in the future!
There was a subconscious feeling of loss.

Now that the experiment is over, but I still don't know the answers to these questions, then...will I still have a chance?
The woman came to Chen Yan. She knelt down, took off her glasses, and held his hand:

"Then, Chen Yan, make a wish."

Chen Yan, who was wearing a lab coat, tucked the hair hanging down from her right temple behind her ear:

“Make a good wish, and then we work hard to make it come true.”

Chen Yan asked:

"Is the wish...useful?"

Chen Yan looked up into his eyes and grabbed his hand:

"As long as we persist, our wishes will surely come true."

Chen Yan nodded and said in a serious tone that he was completely unprepared for:
"I will know who I am, where I am, and what I want to do in the future."

As Chen Yan was talking, he suddenly felt the back of his hand was a little wet. He looked down and saw that Chen Yan's face was already covered with tears.

"wait me back."

When she finished speaking, the sound of breaking glass rang in Chen Yan's ears, and he watched helplessly as a bullet penetrated her head.

The blood and brain matter splashed into his eyes turned into crazy fear.

……

……

"Fuck!"

Chen Yan suddenly opened his eyes and saw that in front of him was still the ceiling of the Z Group's third-floor office in Area B of the Mechanical Hive. To the left of his field of vision was Chen Yan's worried face.

"You're awake! It's okay!"

Chen Yan looked at the "alive" Chen Yan in front of him in shock, and suddenly hugged her.

Her struggle didn't last until she broke free. The hand that wanted to push him away changed direction in the air and patted his back gently.

"It's just a nightmare. Now that you're awake, Mr. Gilbert has taken good care of the group building. No one will pose a threat to you."

The breathless hug gradually loosened, and Chen Yan knew that her comfort had an effect.

"I'm sorry..."

The panic in Chen Yan's eyes continued until the hug ended.

"I've been having some weird dreams these days."

He smiled bitterly and scratched the hair on the top of his head with his palms:
"Those dreams... are too real, but every time I wake up from the dream, I forget most of what happened in the dream, and I only remember the emotions that occurred in the dream."

Chen Yan whispered:
"You are too stressed and need a good rest. It's only 5 o'clock in the morning. Please get some sleep."

It’s 5 o’clock in the morning, how did you get here... did you hear my screams caused by nightmares...

Chen Yan felt very embarrassed, but out of shame he did not fully explain his situation. He just smiled at Chen Yan:

"I'm really sorry. I've worked hard on you these days. I'm going to rest now. You can go back to sleep again!"

After Chen Yan left, Chen Yan sat back on his sofa bed and looked out the dark window. In order to save electricity, he and his colleagues from the mechanical hive power system completed a timed power supply contract. In this way, maybe the mechanical hive It will feel better when facing the worst-case scenario.

He looked at the darkness outside the window and felt empty inside——

Loneliness, a new companion he only had these days.

The source of loneliness is very strange. Whenever he ends using Quantum Entanglement - after he returns to his own body, an uncontrollable loneliness will arise in his heart, and he will be tortured because of this loneliness. ——Loneliness itself is a kind of pain.

Now that he was awake, the loneliness was not that strong, but the sleepiness was not at all gone.

So he stood up, came to the computer, opened the lucid dreaming software, and entered the coordinates of his wish.

He hadn't been able to take time to see her for two days, but she had always been so reliable, so there must be no problem - Chen Yan used such a poor excuse to try to make himself feel better.

After using the quantum clone to click and run, Chen Yan's vision began to change.