Zhou Lin

At one o'clock in the afternoon, Lance returned to his apartment.

While using the key to open the door, he didn't even raise his eyelids and said straight into the room: "When did you learn to sneak in and pick the lock?"

"I'm a reporter, remember?" The man in the room stood by the window sill and looked at the street outside through the blinds without looking back.

"I remember, but I thought you were only good in this business, but I didn't expect... you are also good at illegal intrusion." Lance said as he closed the door.

"Don't be poor..." the reporter brother said, turning around, "I saw that the appointed time has passed and you haven't shown up yet, so I guessed that you might have encountered some emergency, so I sneaked into your house to take a look. .”

"What do I see here?" Lance put the paper bag on the table, took off his sunglasses and said, "Do you think I would store anything 'valuable' in a house like this?"

"What I think...isn't important. What's important is what your 'enemies' think." The reporter brother continued, "Looking at it from the perspective of those who are trying to do you harm, it's important to look at it from the perspective of those who are trying to do you harm. After launching an ambush or pursuit, no matter whether it is successful or not... you should send some people to your residence to search and set up an ambush."

"So... you came in specifically to see if you could catch someone alive and get some clues?" Lance asked.

The reporter didn't answer this question, because with the appearance of Lance, this kind of thing no longer mattered.

He shrugged and changed the subject: "Now that you are back, let's talk about where have you been these past few hours?"

"I was invited to have a cup of coffee by Chief Moreno." Lance replied without thinking, and before finishing this sentence, he quickly walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

"You..." The reporter brother originally wanted to ask if Lance was arrested, but when the words came to his lips, he decided to ask a more critical question, "...Are you sure you haven't been tapped or anything?"

"Uh eh...ah uh...gu..." Unexpectedly, the next second, a continuous and very disgusting sound of vomiting suddenly came from the bathroom.

"Hey..." The reporter took a few steps closer to the bathroom door, "Are you okay?"

Ten seconds later, accompanied by the sound of the toilet flushing, Lance opened the door and walked out: "It's okay, I drank some SLJ (a toilet cleaner of their time), and then took the other things in my stomach with it." Vomited together."

"I said...did you drink coffee or industrial alcohol before?" The reporter brother squinted at him and complained.

"What do you know?" Lance replied in a matter-of-fact tone, "I am guarding against nanobots."

"By... drinking toilet cleaner?" asked the reporter.

"The ingredients of the SLJ brand of toilet cleaner are not only very irritating to the gastric mucosa... uh..." Lance couldn't help but retched again in the middle of the sentence, "... the effect... is also very harmful to the 'not yet assembled'" The nano-creations have a significant corrosive effect; as long as you take a few sips of this within four hours of eating food containing nanobots... you can cause those substances to detach from the stomach wall and quickly decompose."

"At the same time, it can also make you suffer from gastric ulcer quickly, right?" The reporter brother complained again.

"Don't worry about these details." Lance continued, "Let's talk about the question you just asked..." He paused for half a second, and then said, "I thought about the 'bug' thing over and over again on the way back. After checking it, if she really wants to put a listening device on me without me noticing, the only way is to use nanobots..."

"Did you drink toilet cleaner just to be safe?" The reporter seemed to be very keen on complaining about this, so he said it again.

"The 'in case' you talk about... is a hypothesis that seems to have a very low probability and is somewhat unbelievable to ordinary people. For Carmen, it may be a one-hundredth or one-tenth situation..." Lance replied, "Considering that she took the initiative to come to me today, and she also chose the place to drink coffee... With her authority and ability, she could directly ask the people in the store to cooperate, let the detective pretend to be a clerk, or wait until the coffee was delivered. No matter what tricks you use on the way...there are countless ways to easily make me drink the nanobots, so...what reason do I have to not be careful?"

"What about the excuse 'Toilet cleaner tastes bad'?" The reporter brother was endless.

"Ha!" Lance laughed, "If someone asked you to choose between eating shit or dying, which one would you choose?"

"I choose to put shit in that person's face before I die," the reporter brother replied.

"That's a good point." Lance continued, "As for me...I would rather commit suicide by swallowing feces than 'lose'."

"Heh..." The reporter brother chuckled softly after hearing this, "OK, you_make_your_point."

Although this reporter has a European and American face, the strange thing is... he speaks very bad English but very good Chinese; Chinese-English bilingualism has long been popular in the world, and anyone can be fluent in it. In a world where these two languages ​​are spoken, this brother who is highly educated and has worked as a journalist...can't speak English at all.

His Chinese proficiency is at the native level, while his English proficiency is like using an unfamiliar dialect - he can understand all the sentences you write on paper, but as soon as he speaks, he will have inaccurate pronunciation and grammatical errors. , accent and other issues.

For example, the sentence he is saying right now is a very simple sentence. When he reads it, it sounds weird. Even a primary school student can speak it better than him. Even so... this guy still likes to chat with people. I don’t know how I got into the habit of jumping around in English.

"Speaking of which... you just called her Carmen?" After a few seconds of pause, the reporter brother added, "And you seem to know her quite well..." He paused again and showed a meaningful smile, "Brother Judge...is there any story between you and 'Chief Moreno'?"

"Yes." Unexpectedly, Lance admitted it without hesitation. He sat on a sofa, crossed his legs, shook his head and said, "That year... I was also seventeen, and she was also ten. Seven years old~"

"Okay... stop it." The reporter brother interrupted before he could say the second sentence, "I just asked casually, you don't need to elaborate with me."

"What's wrong? You asked yourself, and I'm going to tell you that you won't listen again." Lance continued.

"Because you are a liar. I only dare to believe 50% of every word that comes out of your mouth..." The reporter brother laughed, "And when you talk about your 'past' and 'private affairs', this The ratio needs to be reduced—to less than 20%.”

"Hehehe..." Lance suddenly let out a sick laugh, "You know... what I appreciate most about you is this - you are not easy to lie to."

"That's why I'm called the 'sacrifice'." The journalist brother, or... the "sacrifice" immediately replied, "If even I have been deceived, then who else can spread the 'truth'? ?”

"Huh... if you see too much 'truth', it will make it harder and harder for you to trust others." Lance, or... "Judge", also smiled and continued.

He is right, most of the time, "lies" are easier to accept; imagine if there is such a world... All the information circulated there has not been distorted, whitewashed, taken out of context, or It's secretive and devoid of any guidance or entertainment... The media just shows the bloody truth objectively and impartially. That... would be such a terrible place.

Knowing too much can lead to fear, and understanding too much can lead to despair.

Those who control public opinion and power, and the very few who know the truth, need the public to live in lies.

The public themselves... also need to live a lie themselves.

Of course, this unequal relationship is not "absolute". It is just a balance. The "sacrifice" is a person who maintains this balance, and he himself... As the judge said, it is very likely that The most frightened and desperate one.

"I also want to live as free and easy as you, but it's a pity that I can't..." After a few seconds, the sacrificer smiled bitterly and continued, "After all... I still have a conscience." With that, he walked towards the table and said Pointing to the paper bag placed on the table when Lance came in, "Is this the video taken by Hull?"

"Yes, I took it to an Internet cafe to check it out before I came back. It's no problem." Lance replied.

"Oh?" The sacrificer started teasing maliciously again, "When you were watching this, did you go to the closed single cubicle that provides free tissues?"

"Aren't you talking nonsense? Can't I still play this kind of stuff in the lobby of an Internet cafe?" Lance continued.

"Haha... Chief Moreno, are you so agitated? Can't even wait to see you again when I get back to the apartment?" The priest continued to spread malice.

"Yeah, I'm so excited when I think that Chief Moreno might have swapped the contents of the locker before I got there... I'm so excited." Lance is obviously a good trash talker. He immediately replied in a sarcastic tone, "Next time I have a chance, I will bring this hard drive that may have a bug in front of you, fix it on your face with tape, and then chat with you for half an hour. After talking about the crime plan, I posted a photo of Carmen on the hard drive, then I unbuttoned my pants and took out..."

"OK OK...I was wrong! It's okay, okay!" The priest was a little overwhelmed by Lance's three-way counterattack. He quickly gave in and changed the topic, "No more talking. Since you have nothing to do, It’s time for me to withdraw.”

After that, he picked up the paper bag and walked towards the door.

Today, the priest had made an agreement with the judge to get the video: according to the original plan, after taking the video, the judge would first identify the content and check whether any tracking devices had been implanted on the hard drive, and then meet with the priest. , the sacrificer will take the video to a "safe place" for storage.

In addition to the "cooperative" relationship between the priest and the judge, everyone who joins "Fengdu Luoshan" and becomes the judge's "subordinate" will have a piece of fatal "criminal evidence" left with the judge, which will affect Hull Schneider. As far as...it's this video.

"Oh... that's right." When he was about to reach out to open the door, the priest seemed to have thought of something again, and turned around and said, "I went to check in detail about the 'Friedrich William Graf' you are going to judge this time. …I discovered something a little bit concerning.”

"Say." Lance slumped on the sofa and responded disapprovingly.

"In addition to the protection from the federation on the surface, secretly... Graf bought himself a 'killer insurance' many years ago." The priest continued, "The meaning of this insurance is..."

"...It means that if something unexpected happens to him, a high-value 'Revenge Reward Order' will be immediately issued to the 'Killer Agents' around the world. At that time...I will become the eyes of all the killers around the world. A fat sheep." Before the priest could finish speaking, Lance took up the part himself.

"Oh, you really know that." The sacrificer laughed, and then said, "Then... Judging from your fearless attitude, you must have already had a countermeasure for this?"

"There is no need for any special countermeasures." The judge said here, leaning on the back of the sofa, raising his head and looking at the priest, "On this planet, there is only one killer who can kill me, but where is he?" I washed my hands in a golden basin years ago, so..." He spread his hands and made a noncommittal expression.

"Okay, then let's..." After hearing this, the sacrificer didn't care much - he and the judge were not friends to begin with, "...see you later."