Rule Strange: Urban Legends That Don't Exist

When Ah Wei heard this voice, he was shocked. He pushed open the door and put the noodles on the table at the door. Without explaining anything to Tang Ya, who was standing with her child in the dark room due to the power outage, he turned around and flew out. Go to the door.

As soon as he went out, he bumped into his neighbor Brother Wang. The two usually had a good relationship and helped each other with anything. He hurriedly helped the other person steady and asked subconsciously and at a loss:

"Brother, what's going on outside?"

Brother Wang is a businessman who does all kinds of business. He was once a member of society with a big green tiger tattooed on his forehead. He is usually well-informed and did not lose his temper at this juncture. He grabbed Ah Wei's shoulder and said:

"Good brother, don't ask anything. Just get the chicken legs later. Come back and eat after you get it. Don't ask anything. Don't listen to what others say. Don't follow others' shouts."

With anxiety and many questions in his heart, Ah Wei followed Brother Wang downstairs and saw long lines of people coming out of various residential buildings in the neighborhood.

Brother Wang pulled him and pushed him into the team. The people behind him yelled and cursed. Brother Wang suddenly turned his head and glared. The big green tiger tattooed on his forehead suddenly became fierce, and the people behind him didn't dare to say anything.

Due to the delay, it was Ah Wei's turn soon, and he had the opportunity to see clearly that the staff distributing chicken drumsticks were wearing the work clothes of the logistics center and looked very formal.

There is also a loudspeaker placed on the desk of the distribution director, and the words coming from the loudspeaker cannot be heard clearly until closer:

"The new Governor of the Logistics Center, Victor Corleone, was sent by the Empire to the Mechanical Hive. He will provide everyone with enough food to avoid the recurrence of hunger. He will lead all victims of the Mechanical Hive to repair the lunar orbital matrix. , go to Starlink, become an interstellar immigrant, and leave this completely hopeless planet! 》

Ah Wei felt very awkward no matter what after hearing this.

But people other than him liked this idea very much. The news quickly spread among the crowd. There were smiles on people's faces again. Everyone cheered up and spread the news after everyone received three chicken drumsticks. Got out.

Along with the excitement came the scorn and even abuse of the previous "two meals a day" rule. The two meals a day for nearly half a month caused these people who used to have enough to eat every meal to fall into great panic and anger. Their dissatisfaction As time went by, more and more accumulated, until today it was finally detonated by chicken legs.

They took photos of the chicken legs and uploaded them to the Internet, and the screenshots of the chicken legs were quickly forwarded and reposted, and soon spread to every corner of the Mechanical Hive LAN...

Ah Wei took the chicken legs and walked home with Brother Wang. He asked Brother Wang in a low voice what was going on. Brother Wang had a complicated expression and just told him to save some food.

After returning home, Ah Wei closed the door, not feeling relaxed.

Ah Wei already knew what kind of business Wang Ge had done before, so he always tried his best to get along with him on the surface. Privately, he had no awe at all and looked down on him in his heart.

A bastard who made a fortune by doing dirty work, no matter how many good things he does now, he can't cover up the fact that he once caused harm.

But now they are neighbors, and as neighbors they should help each other, and make things easier for each other when they are in trouble. No matter what Brother Wang did before, fortunately, he has washed his hands in a golden basin now, and there is no problem in daily communication and helping each other.

Being cautious and not acting based on inner morality is the way for ordinary citizens like Ah Wei to survive.

Ah Wei turned his eyes to the chicken legs, feeling a little more relaxed. He looked at Tang Ya who was holding the child to greet him, and couldn't help but grin:
"I'll make chicken soup for you!"

Since the tsunami came, Tang Ya has not had a few serious meals. The Z Group only rations two meals a day for everyone, and it takes three days to have one meal of meat. This is okay for a young and strong young man. , it is really life-threatening for the mother. Tang Ya has lost a lot of weight visibly in the past few days. Ah Wei can only pray in his heart that the root cause of the disease will not be caused by lack of nutrition...

Ah Wei once questioned why Chen Yan did not give preferential treatment to vulnerable groups such as the elderly, children and pregnant women, but now he has no chance to see Chen Yan, let alone question Chen Yan's qualifications.

People like Ah Wei and Tang Ya who do not have any food reserves account for the majority of the mechanical hive, and they are also the majority who do not have any voice channels.

They won't tell their happiness when they receive preferential treatment, and they can only tolerate it when they suffer. When their tolerance reaches the limit, they can only explode like destruction.

Fortunately, there were some dry onions and ginger slices at home. Ah Wei carefully cut half of a dry onion, used a kitchen knife to carefully scrape the green onion shavings on the chopping board into a bowl, shredded a thumb-sized piece of ginger slices, and mixed with green onion foam. Put them into the pot together, turn on low heat and start frying slowly.

He looked at the chicken legs and sighed in his heart: 'Now that the power is limited, the refrigerator cannot operate and cannot be kept fresh. It is a pity that it is broken, so I can only cook all the chicken legs...'

He sliced ​​the meat from the chicken legs with a knife, leaving the chicken leg bones to make soup. He put the sliced ​​chicken into the pot and turned up the heat slightly. Once the fried onion, ginger and chicken came into contact, it only took a few seconds. , the fragrance emanating from it made him swallow hard.

He resisted the urge to take out a piece of chicken and eat it. He took a deep breath of the aroma, stir-fried for a while, and then used a large spoon to scoop out the water that had been received during the water supply time this morning from the temporary bucket. He scooped a few spoonfuls at a time. After the chicken legs were completely submerged, I hesitated, added a few more spoons of water, covered the pot, and waited until the chicken soup boiled, then turned down the heat.

Tang Ya was taking care of the child to sleep, so she didn't come over. Ah Wei stood alone in front of the small boiling pot, smelling the smell of stewed chicken, and had a lot of thoughts in his heart.

He had committed a crime and done something sorry for Chen Yan. He had no face to go back to Z Group anyway, not because of his high personal moral level, but because he knew that Chen Yan would not use another traitor.

It doesn’t matter if we can’t go back. Now Z Group has aroused public anger due to various restrictive measures. It is not an exaggeration to say that the people are “unspeakably miserable”. Yesterday, Ah Wei saw that a certain city management team of Z Group was blocked by a large group of people. At the street corner, if the mobile unit hadn't arrived in time, the group of people would have been eaten alive by the angry people.

Two meals a day does not sound difficult to accept, but there will always be people who are not satisfied - most people are not satisfied, and it is difficult to transition from luxury to frugality. From an era when the island chain was extremely rich in supplies, it suddenly became a day where they could only eat Two meals is more than most people can bear.

This is just food, other problems are more serious. Before the LAN of the mechanical hive was restored, there were already cults distributing food along the street, spreading ridiculous remarks such as "Believe in XX and you will get eternal life" and "Believe in XX and you can ascend to heaven."

Ah Wei knows that although these remarks are ridiculous, they can deceive many people at this juncture. Many people are very stupid. Getting paid for their hard work is the only achievement they can get after their hard work in this life. It is too difficult not to be deceived. Already...

At that time, Ah Wei was always on tenterhooks every day. Whenever there was movement outside the door, he would stand at the door with a kitchen knife and look out through the peephole.

Fortunately nothing happened.

This first wave of chaos lasted until the Mechanical Hive's LAN was restored - within a few hours, information in the unrestricted LAN was completely circulated, and everyone knew what was going on:

Posts criticizing those cults appeared in the forum, and posts providing an objective analysis of the situation were viewed tens of thousands of times. More importantly, the Z Group’s official website was launched, announcing the details of each subsequent administrative rule, as well as the details of these Detailed reporting of the rule execution process.

——These things can be verified, so the crowd finally gained temporary calm.

Ah Wei knew that this was not the end. The electric blanket at his home was broken that day and he didn’t have any tools, so he went to Brother Wang’s house next door to borrow tools. Who knew that as soon as he entered the door, he saw a bunch of splits on Brother Wang’s desk? Open gun parts and a box of freshly opened bullets.Brother Wang patted his stiff shoulder and said it was okay. He only took these things for self-defense.

Ah Wei successfully borrowed the tools to repair the electric blanket. At ten o'clock that night, he suddenly heard movement outside the door. He looked out through the peephole and saw Brother Wang and a stranger carrying a baby with something on his chest. The bloody man entered the house. His face was pale, his eyelids had no blood at all, and he looked like he would not survive.

Ah Wei was very nervous. He stood guard at the door with a kitchen knife for most of the night. It was not until five o'clock in the morning that he heard the sound of the door.

He looked out of the peephole and saw the stranger who came in with Brother Wang carrying an inflated black plastic bag half a man's height. He waved to Brother Wang to signal not to send it off, and then went downstairs alone.

When Ah Wei came back to his senses, he realized that he was almost suffocating because he was so nervous.

There is a lot of chaos on the streets these days. The mobile unit was not on duty 24 hours a day at first, so if a person disappeared, no one would know.

The neighborhood around Ah Wei's neighborhood is populated by slightly higher-grade migrant workers. Most of them are young people who have received some education and have held decent jobs, so they are relatively stable. However, other neighborhoods are different.

Ah Wei once saw someone posting on the Internet, which contained some photos. The photos showed a sewer entrance in Area A, with a group of people surrounding a burned person.

That photo shocked Ah Wei so much that even now he can't help but tremble with fear when he thinks about it.

Those people died, but no one knew their death, and no one knew what impact their death had on the world - on the mechanical hive. Their lives were mutilated, their property was plundered, and the perpetrators would not accept anything. Sanctions will only make the victims more satisfied by plundering their property.

The post was quickly deleted.

There was one afternoon during the unlimited power limit period - within three hours, Ah Wei stared at the computer screen and refreshed the forum repeatedly, and he frequently saw posts about people being killed - maybe it was a robbery, maybe it was A murder, or maybe something worse.

In the apocalypse, people become ghosts.

——All this chaos has been reduced a lot since the mobile unit began to be on duty 24 hours a day. A Wei has calculated that after the mobile unit resumed duty, the number and frequency of extremely bad posts in the forum have greatly reduced, and to this day it is almost I can't find posts like that anymore.

He knew that those things must still happen in some unknown corners of the mechanical hive. The mechanical hive was so big that it was like a huge maze. There were a large number of covered dead corners in the maze. Those dead corners were The birthplace of sin.

Fortunately, fortunately - there is no danger in a place with light.

——This transformation of the mechanical hive gave Ah Wei a little bit of hope, and it also became one of the things he relied on to fight against fear.

What will happen next...what will happen in the future?

Will the apocalypse continue?If the apocalypse continues, will we always have to eat two meals a day?

The organization that handed out chicken legs downstairs today, do they really want to help people immigrate to Starlink?If they could really do it, even if the new governor was a fake, he would admit it.

If... if the apocalypse really continues, will my child be able to grow up?When she grows up, will she go to a new school in the Mechanical Hive?I heard on the forum that a new school will open today, and all school-age students will receive subsidies. Not only will they be able to eat three meals a day, but they will also receive subsidies for cold-proof clothing and other biological supplies.

If our children can really go to school and have enough to eat, we can still persevere even if we have two meals a day...

A hint of burning smell interrupted Ah Wei's thinking like thunder. He lowered his head as if he was electrocuted. He saw that the burning smell was coming from a green onion peel falling from the heating part of the induction cooker, not the chicken soup.

He was so happy that an exaggerated smile appeared on his face.

Chicken soup is okay, so good!
He filled a small bowl of chicken soup and brought it to Tang Ya. The moment he saw her eyes light up, happiness filled his heart.

"I really got chicken legs..."

Tang Ya stared straight at the chicken soup, then raised her eyes to look at Ah Wei, speaking firmly:

"Let's drink together!"

Ah Wei smiled and put the bowl in her hand and said:

"Definitely! There are three chicken drumsticks!"

Tang Ya took two sips of chicken soup and whispered:

"Such a waste……"

Ah Wei sat next to her:
"I thought the refrigerator couldn't be used and was afraid it would break, so I did everything."

After hearing this, Tang Ya took a deep breath, as if she had made some great decision, drank the chicken soup in one breath, and said:
"Fortunately, I'm so dry now that I don't have to worry about milk blockage. I just don't know how long it will take for the baby to have normal milk next time..."

Ah Wei's eyes turned to the sleeping baby next to Tang Ya, and a thought arose in his mind: If the baby could get normal milk, I might as well do those dirty things...

He trembled hard because of such thoughts, and then immediately erased such thoughts from his heart: the child must not only be alive, but also have a normal father... Unless it is absolutely necessary, you must not do those things... …

The thoughts and contradictions that arose in his mind made his brain chaotic for a moment. He could not resist these complicated thoughts and could only let his subconscious let him say to Tang Ya:

"Drink soup, eat meat... there will always be another meal."