176 Another Self (Part 7)

Her own tombstone

Don't talk to another self.

Xiaoyuan was hiding in the closet at the time. That was her last hope. She called the helpline of a famous paranormal program, hoping that someone could tell her what to do.

Another self was already waiting at the closet door. Xiaoyuan looked out through the gap, not even daring to breathe. Someone opened the closet door from the outside.

The exact same person was standing at the door, and she gently hung up the call.

Xiaoyuan finally couldn't bear it anymore, she asked loudly what you were doing. She said the word "you" and immediately shut up. She felt a chill on her back, knowing how stupid she had done. She broke the taboo and actually spoke to the other person.

It was too late. Another self walked into the closet, her face getting closer and closer to Xiaoyuan, until the two identical faces were completely stuck together.

The real small garden is hidden inside the wall and has formed a human cocoon.

At this time, Zhu Ning was huddled under the bed. While she was stunned, a black ant crawled across the surface of her helmet.

The surface of the helmet is arc-shaped, and if ants climb on it, the helmet will be deformed exaggeratedly.

Those were the ants brought out from Li Xin's body. They couldn't be shaken off at all, and they multiplied more and more on Zhu Ning's body.

Zhu Ning had never looked at ants carefully before. They were so small and it was easy to lose his spirit value if he looked at them so densely packed together.

People instinctively ignore things that make them uncomfortable.

Now that they were crawling across the surface of the helmet in large numbers and were captured by the camera, she could see clearly that they were not ants at all, but spiders disguised as ants.

Spiders have eight legs, while ants only have six. Spiders raise their two front legs to disguise themselves as ant antennae.

Spiders have ant-like behavior, which means they imitate ants, blending in with ant colonies and catching prey when they are least prepared.

The pollutant in the red house is spiders, and the ant-like behavior itself is the logic of pollution.

A person who looks exactly like you suddenly appears in your home. He deceives your kind and is completely undetectable.

In the end it eats you, and then replaces you, but the ghost has already sneaked into the crowd, just like an ant spider has sneaked into the ant colony, spreading through the crowd like an infectious disease, silently eating the next prey.

The entire red house should have been replaced by human cocoons. What Zhu Ning found was not silk at all, but spider silk.

There was once an "epidemic" that broke out in the Red House.

But what is the cause? Who started it?

There was a sentence written in the confinement room: She is broken. Is the mechanical mother broken?

The underlying logic of the mechanical mother is to raise the child and let the child grow up healthily, but these are all defective products. Her underlying logic is completely in conflict with reality. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot make the child grow up healthily, and it has nothing to do with her efforts.

The harder she tried, the more useless it was. The children running around on the ground would not live long. The innocent actions of children were very irritating to adults who were having a difficult life.

Did the program crash cause her to have a complete mental breakdown?

So she would fantasize about a perfect child. Xiaoyuan can't swim, but another Xiaoyuan signed up for a swimming competition, and she is a more perfect person than Xiaoyuan.

As long as you meet another self, the defective product will feel inferior in front of the perfect one. She appears in your life and fills your gap.

While you're sleeping, she can blend in perfectly, mingling with your siblings and everyone prefers her to you.

When the night is quiet, another self will stick to you and hug you tightly to fall asleep.

Even if you want to ignore it, you can't. Living in this kind of environment for a long time will drive you crazy.

Slowly, the defective product will have a mental breakdown, and the other self is waiting for this moment. As long as you seize this opportunity, speaking is the opportunity.

When the spirit completely collapses, it will turn into a human cocoon and hide in the back of the room, so that it can live forever in another form.

The mechanical mother completed her mission and took care of her children in another way, "extending" their lives before the defective products died.

These are all Zhu Ning's guesses, there is no substantial evidence. If this is the case, then the mechanical mother is the source of pollution?

Eeyore——

The human cocoon was shaking slightly. Zhu Ning saw that the human cocoon was too fascinated and only then did he realize that the footsteps outside the door had disappeared.

Zhu Ning was being chased by the mechanical mother and the others. The contaminated area entered hunting mode, so there should be very hurried footsteps outside.

Now the sound of chasing suddenly disappeared, as if someone had suddenly strangled the throat, and the entire red house became abnormally quiet.

Why? Because Zhu Ning found the key clue?

Zhu Ning continued hiding under the bed. She turned on the God's perspective, thinking that she would see the mechanical mother and Li Xin, but she saw nothing.

The dark corridor of the red house was empty, and the other self had disappeared.

Not only that, even the lights were turned off, plunging the place into darkness.

Did they disappear? Or did they leave Zhu Ning's sight? After all, her God's perspective was limited to a distance of thirty meters.

The corridor was empty and silent. Because it was so quiet, the sound of breathing and wind was particularly obvious, and any slight sound seemed to be suddenly amplified.

Zhu Ning crawled out from under the bed. He used to see from a God's perspective, but now he saw with his naked eyes.

There was really no one at the door, and there was no trace of the mysterious pollutants. Did he realize that that method could not harm Zhu Ning, so he changed his tactics?

Zhu Ning was about to go out to take a look, but when she reached the door, she froze.

trap.

There was a transparent spider silk in front of her, as hard as steel wire. Her helmet had been cut open in an instant, and the spider silk was embedded in it, only half an inch away from Zhu Ning's nose tip. She could even feel the sharpness of the spider silk.

The helmet was damaged and the system panel went out in an instant.

If it weren't for this flash of light that alerted her, and thanks to her quick reaction, her head might have been cut off by the spider silk.

This polluted area actually hunts people, deliberately turning off the lights to make the pursuers suddenly disappear.

A normal person would be a little curious, or think they could take the opportunity to escape, but if they run too fast they will be cut into pieces.

After the helmet was turned off, the night mode became ineffective. Zhu Ning had originally seen everything covered with a green light, but now everything suddenly turned black in front of him. His eyes were not able to adapt for a moment, as if he had been blinded in an instant.

Zhu Ning blinked her eyes before she adjusted to the current situation. She reached for the flashlight, turned it on, and revealed the current situation.

The flashlight shone a circular beam of light inside the red house, revealing countless spider webs on the corridor, which flickered eerily under the flashlight.

Fortunately, he didn't rush out immediately on impulse. It would be as difficult for Zhu Ning to pass through these spider webs as walking through a minefield.

The hardening of her skin will probably drain all her health. This road is blocked. Will they force her to take that road?

She moved Xiaoyuan's bed away, revealing the complete hole behind her.

A breeze blew out from the cave entrance, echoing inside the narrow walls, sounding like the howling of ghosts and wolves in the middle of the night.

Is she really going to go down the hole?

Zhu Ning hesitated for a second and then took action immediately, planning to walk along the path paved for her in the polluted area.

If you want to know the truth, you have to walk into the trap. If you blow her up directly, she won't know anything.

Zhu Ning kicked the hole, barely enough for one person to pass through.

Fortunately, she is now the size of a child. If she were an adult, she probably wouldn't be able to get down.

The protective suit has been modified and has a backup light source on the shoulder, which is relatively weak.

Zhu Ning put a patch on the surface of his helmet. Although it blocked his vision a little, it would be even more dangerous if ants or spiders crawled into his protective suit if he took off the helmet.

Zhu Ning slowly went down the cave with her back to the cave entrance. The God's perspective was completely different from the rearview mirror of the helmet. She could not see clearly behind her and always felt insecure.

Especially since she knew clearly that there was a corpse below, she still wanted to rush in.

There are raised wooden nails on both sides of the wall, covered with sticky mucus. I don’t know what kind of creature’s secretion it is, but it feels sticky when you step on it.

At this time, the resistance is actually increased, making it at least more difficult to slide.

Zhu Ning held on to the wall and groped like a gecko. Fortunately, she had played rock climbing before and knew roughly how to land.

The dark cracks in the walls were filled with corpses. The spider silk was swaying and creaking, sharper than a knife. If you were caught in it, you might be cut in half on the spot.

Xiaoyuan's human cocoon was hanging under his body, like a dried corpse.

She tried not to make any noise. It was like she had stepped into a spider's nest. These things were alive.

Once the human cocoon was awakened, in such a narrow wall gap, Zhu Ning, as a human, was no more agile than the spider.

The entire red house is not very high, and the inside of the wall is like an abyss with no bottom at all.

She was taking action. The first level was the most difficult, and it was difficult to avoid touching the human cocoon at all.

Zhu Ning moved down carefully and reached Xiaoyuan's head. If she wanted to continue going down, she had to "pass by" Xiaoyuan.

Not knowing what would trigger the other party, Zhu Ning pressed his chest as close to the wall as possible and walked while clinging to the wall.

But she still touched the human cocoon. When she first touched it, Zhu Ning felt uncomfortable, as if a ghost had suddenly touched her calf.

The protective suit's sensor device transmits the sense of touch and amplifies the strange feeling. The surface of the human cocoon is very similar to a bandage, and there is a slight sense of resistance when rubbed.

There was a patch on Zhu Ning's helmet, which reduced his field of vision, and from a wide angle he could only see a bunch of human cocoons.

At this time, the imagination will begin to scare oneself. This is the human instinct for survival. Zhu Ning took a deep breath and continued to move his body.

As she moved, the area of ​​contact between her and Xiaoyuan's cocoon became larger. At first, it was just their calves, but now she had to expose her entire back to the other person.

It will be here soon.

She only needed another thirty seconds to crawl out from under Xiaoyuan's body. She slowly felt the wall.

Eeyore——

The human cocoon in the small garden moved, and Zhu Ning froze, with the hairs on his back standing up uncontrollably.

In the extremely narrow inner wall and dark cave, there was no living person except Zhu Ning. Xiao Yuan clung tightly to Zhu Ning, just like... just like lying on her back.

breathe.

Zhu Ning took a deep breath and tried to rationalize it all, but he couldn't do it at all.

If it was a real corpse, it would be fine, at least you would know it was a dead object, but it was a pollutant, and you didn't know when a living thing would hatch from the human cocoon.

Zhu Ning carefully moved her feet away. The soles of her feet felt very sticky, as if they were stuck to her body, adding a lot of weight.

Zhu Ning groped the wall and suddenly frowned, feeling a strange sensation under his palm.

Because of the momentary stiffness, Zhu Ning was in contact with the wall for a longer time, allowing her to feel the things on the wall more clearly.

There was a slight bump under her fingertips, as if someone had carved something on it?

The light on his shoulder was too dim, so Zhu Ning used a flashlight to illuminate it instantly.

The light source cast a huge shadow on the person behind him, but Zhu Ning had no time to look at it. He looked more carefully at the front of him, which was a row of neatly carved words.

Name: Jiang Yue

Citizen level: Fifth

Estimated age at death: 12

Age at death: 9

Source: Batch 1098 of defective androids

Provider: Honglin Simulation Company

Reason: Failed quality inspection

Jiang Yue is Xiaoyuan's real name. Is this her information card or tombstone?

So the three-year countdown on her desk is really a lifespan countdown? Defectives are completely different from other classes of citizens; they know their birth and death dates.

They are more like objects, and objects have a shelf life.

They will die once the shelf life expires. All defective products have known this since they became conscious. This is their right to know about death.

Are people with shorter lifespans more likely to be captured by another self?

But who put it here? And even carved a tombstone, such a sense of ceremony.

Mechanical mother?

If it was her, then Zhu Ning's speculation just now was 80% true. Class B pollution area is not difficult, but what on earth did Prometheus want to do by arranging it here?

It was too late for her to influence the mechanical mother, and why was all the information in the red house erased?

Zhu Ning's helmet was broken, so he could only use his secondary brain to take a picture of the tombstone and then continue moving downwards.

Her movements were slow. Xiaoyuan's feet slid over her shoulders and gently swayed above her head. Finally, Zhu Ning safely passed through the human cocoon.

The first experience can be replicated, Zhu Ning's speed is getting faster and faster, and he sees more "tombstones".

Bai Qin, Lu Shi, Wei Yanglan...

Zhu Ning looked all the way and had a strange feeling when she saw these names, which felt both familiar and unfamiliar.

It's a lot like looking at an elementary school yearbook. Because it's been a long time, I can hardly remember the names of these people, but as I read on, they seem very familiar and I can vaguely remember something.

I can’t say what it is specifically, I just have an indescribable feeling.

Zhu Ning looked at them one by one and took photos of each one carefully.

She dived down again. There were no hanging human cocoons here. It was the only empty space among the densely packed walls.

Walking through the human cocoon, the sudden emptiness made her feel very uncomfortable, as if she was lying in an empty grave.

Zhu Ning hesitated for a moment, then reached for the wall again and found a new tombstone.

Even if you have made some mental preparation and have a rough guess in your mind, it is still difficult to understand when you actually see it.

This turned out to be her own tombstone.

The flashlight illuminated the wall, making it appear snow-white. Every word written on it was so cold.

Name: Zhu Ning

Citizen level: Fifth

Estimated age at death: 20

Age at death:

Source: Area F, Garbage Dump, Area 103

Contributors: Yang Shuhua, Liu Sheng

Reason: The provider is unable to support

Zhu Ning's head buzzed and her pupils suddenly contracted. If the traces of her previous life still made her doubt, she would wonder if it was some kind of pollution trying to make her mentally collapse.

But seeing this, she was completely certain that she had really lived and here was her accurate personal information.

Because even in her own memory, she only knew that Lao Yang and Liu Sheng dug her out of the garbage dump, and she had no idea what Lao Yang's real name was.

So her name is Yang Shuhua?

All the traces left by Zhu Ning are real, and Zhu Ning really lived in the red house.

She... is the only survivor of the infection that year?

At the same time, the "tombstones" under Zhu Ning began to change.

The age of death was originally blank, but now it suddenly shows the number 19.

Zhu Ninghui died at the age of 19, which is today, and she walked into her own grave.

The author has something to say:

"Myrmecophobia" simply means imitating ants. Spiders also have this behavior. They raise their two small claws to pretend to be ants' antennae, then join the ant colony and eat the ants. There is a type of spider called the ant spider, which naturally looks very similar to ants. If you see a particularly large "ant" on the road, it may not be an ant, but an ant spider.

If you are interested, you can search it, it really looks similar.

Here are some official explanations I found on the web:

Ant-like behavior: The "spider-ant" in nature

The behavior of spiders mimicking the appearance of ants is called myrmorphy, and more than 300 species of spiders are known to imitate the appearance of ants.

After extensive observations, scientists have summarized the ant-hunting behavior of ant-like spiders: They typically leap onto an unsuspecting lone ant and kill it with venom. Then, to avoid detection by other ants, the spiders hold their prey in front of them as a shield, deceiving their fellow ants. This tricks the ants into believing the spiders are one of their own kind, allowing them to take the prey away.

Ant Spider

Ant spiders, which feed on ants and other small insects, have taken ant mimicry to an extreme: Ant spiders themselves are not insects and lack the three-part structure of a head, thorax, and abdomen, but rather only the cephalothorax and abdomen. Therefore, they create a deep groove in their cephalothorax, creating a fake head and thorax. Furthermore, they have one more pair of legs than ants, so they use the first pair to mimic ant antennae. Although they have excellent eyesight, their front legs fumble and move as they walk, mimicking the movements of ant antennae. This meticulous approach is well-founded, as ant spiders primarily feed on ants. Some ant spiders even use their front legs to engage in brief "antennary-to-antennae conversations" with ants to dissuade them.

While hiking in the wild or strolling through the woods, if you have a keen eye, you might notice a strange "ant." These creatures are typically black and several times larger than ordinary ants. They scurry about swiftly, approaching and greeting their "companions" as soon as they encounter them. The moment their antennae touch those of their ant, the creature scurries away as if struck by lightning. The "ant" then reveals its true nature and swoops forward to capture the ant. This is the ant-spider—the epitome of mimicry.

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