"Police ID?!"

Song Yecheng and Ling An were shocked.

Tang Yao poked the edge with her thumb and lifted it up, and the cover of the ID card was immediately opened. On the top of the inside was a police badge, and on the bottom was Jiang Que's name, police number and his one-inch photo!

"Oh my god," Ling An was shocked and confused. "He's a policeman?!"

Song Yecheng was equally shocked, but at the same time, he also sorted out some clues in an instant. He quickly lowered his head and opened the notebook in his hand, quickly scanning the words that he had not been able to understand before. In an instant, he was enlightened: "-So that's it."

He passed the notebook between the three of them and said, "Look."

Ling An and the others came forward and saw the flowing handwriting on the paper clearly recording Jiang Que's unknown police experience before he came to the base:

[March 22, 2020.

Today, we received another surrender.

Like those strange people who surrendered themselves before, he insisted that he was the murderer and could provide relevant evidence, but he could not explain the details of his crime at all.

I've always found this very strange—why have so many people suddenly turned themselves in to unsolved cases in recent years, yet none of them can explain the specific details of their crimes?]

[March 24, 2020.

During today's interrogation, he unexpectedly mentioned that he had lost his memory. Under my questioning, he reluctantly confessed to an experimental base that was said to be able to partially erase the memories of volunteers.

I find it incredible—erasing memories? Is such a thing really possible?]

[March 28, 2020.

Out of some intuition, I interrogated several other people who had surrendered themselves before. To my surprise, they all admitted that they had participated in the project of that experimental base as volunteers, and that their criminal memories had been erased there. However, they regained their memories and surrendered themselves the following year.

What kind of base is this? Why is there such a coincidence?]

[April 6, 2020.

After I reported this discovery to my superiors, they personally interrogated several people who surrendered themselves over the past few days, and finally agreed that there were major doubts about this base.

Therefore, the bureau decided to set up a special investigation team targeting this base and appointed me to conceal my identity and infiltrate the base to conduct a secret investigation.

The last few words caught his eye, and Ling An raised his head in sudden realization: "So he's an undercover agent sent by the police?!"

Song Yecheng nodded, analyzing thoughtfully, "No wonder he helped us behind the base's back—if we surrendered under pressure, we'd end up like those 'strange surrenderers,' and the police currently believe this surrender is highly suspicious."

While the two were talking, Tang Yao had already turned to the next page in her notebook. There were also records on that page, but the time span was already a month long:

[May 6, 2020.

After the special investigation team was established, after half a month of investigation, we finally found the application channel for this base.

After going through several rounds of selection and screening, I successfully passed the application assessment under the new identity "Bai Ye Ling" created for lurking, and received the employment notice from the base.

[May 8, 2020.

Today, I finally arrived at this base. Coincidentally, the position assigned to me by the base is the experimental instructor of the "Memory Burial" project.

The base didn't explain the specific responsibilities of this position in detail, only that they would provide me with two months of on-the-job training, and that this would be a good opportunity for me to conduct an in-depth investigation.

The paper was turned again, and on the next page, only the top half contained a record:

[June 8, 2020.

The so-called "training" has been going on for a month, but strangely, the content of the training has nothing to do with the experiment at all, and is more like a performance training -

The trainer gave me a memory card with a video recording and asked me to watch it repeatedly and imitate the person's movements, expressions, words, tone and even catchphrases in the video, as if... he was trying to make me play him.

According to what I heard, several other instructors who joined the company at the same time as me were also undergoing similar training, but the videos and imitation goals each person received were different.

This is very strange to me - who are those people in the video? What is the purpose of this "training"?]

After this record, the entire lower half of the page was empty of text, with only a black MiniSD card the size of a fingernail stuck to the paper with transparent tape.

"Is this the memory card he was talking about?" Ling An tore off the tape, took out the card and turned it over in his palm.

This kind of compact and handy memory card was mostly used in mobile phones or cameras during the 2G era, but it has become less common in recent years. Fortunately, the three of them are not young anymore and are quite familiar with this kind of card. They all know that the video Jiang Que mentioned must be in this card, but -

Tang Yao asked, "But there's no mobile phone or computer here. How are we supposed to access it?"

Song Yecheng took the card from Ling An, thought for a moment, then turned and walked out of the bedroom and came to the TV in the living room. He leaned over and looked around the back cover, then reached out and "clicked" to pull out a long, strip-shaped protrusion.

Seeing that the thing looked like a USB flash drive, Tang Yao immediately reacted: "Card reader?"

Song Yecheng nodded and pried it open. He saw that there was indeed a square card slot inside, which was exactly the same size as the SD card.

He inserted the SD card into the card slot, closed the case again, and plugged it back into the USB port. At this time, Ling An had also cooperated by turning on the TV and took the remote control from the side. The three of them immediately took two steps back and stared at the TV screen.

After the boot screen ended, a memory card icon immediately appeared in the upper left corner of the screen. Ling An selected it with the remote control and opened it, and saw a video file marked "01" inside.

Ling An immediately pressed play, and within a moment, the video screen jumped out -

The video appears to be shot from a wall-mounted surveillance camera, and the scene appears to be an office with two desks put together and several filing cabinets.

As soon as she saw what was on the desk, Tang Yao blurted out, "Hospital?"

——On the wall next to the desk, there are two viewing lights with white lights and X-ray films hanging on them. This extremely special instrument easily shows the nature of this office.

Before Song Yecheng and Ling An could answer, the office door in the upper right corner of the screen was suddenly pushed open, and a figure in a white coat walked in.

Due to the shooting angle, the camera can only capture the person below the neck. Judging from his body shape, he should be a man, but his appearance is completely invisible.

The three of them saw him turn around and close the door, then go to the water dispenser in the upper right corner to get a glass of water, then turn around and walk to the desk, pull out a chair and sit down.

Just as he changed from standing to sitting, and his neck and above were included in the camera, his entire face was finally fully revealed, Song Yecheng's eyes widened immediately——

"Zuo Jianqing?!"

Chi Jinan's motto of "unexpected" was indeed true. The appearance of this face caught Song Yecheng off guard.

Of course, this video couldn't have come from surveillance footage; it must have been filmed in advance with Zuo Jianqing's cooperation. But when was it filmed? Why hadn't Zuo Jianqing mentioned this to him at all?

"Do you know him?" Ling An asked in surprise.

He had never met Zuo Jianqing, but Tang Yao had, and they had even had dinner together two days ago.

At this moment, she was no less surprised than Song Yecheng, but due to the setting of the program, her and Song Yecheng's characters did not know each other, and naturally there was no reason for them to know each other's friends, so she had to turn around and look at Song Yecheng with Ling An.

Song Yecheng was still stunned, but he answered truthfully: "He... is my childhood friend."

Ling An was stunned at first, but then, combined with Jiang Que's notes, he suddenly came to his senses and clapped his hands together, "No wonder we felt like the instructor looked familiar! Teacher Bai was imitating your childhood friend, so the videos the other instructors had must have been of people we all knew, so that's why we felt familiar with them, right?"

Song Yecheng temporarily cleared his mind of the off-site information that had nothing to do with the plot and nodded in agreement.

It is precisely because of the sense of familiarity created by this imitation that they have the illusion that "this is my instructor last year". In addition, the dormitories designed after their own bedrooms mislead them in two ways, making them firmly believe that they "came to the base last year".

Thinking about it, Song Yecheng speculated: "So the significance of this video is not the specific content, but the identity of the characters. So it seems that there should be no more information in it."

This is indeed the case. All of Zuo Jianqing's actions in the video are part of his daily work routine. He seems to be just a tool providing a model for imitation, and his actions themselves do not have much meaning.

The three of them watched patiently for a moment, and after confirming that there were no other clues, they no longer wanted to continue watching closely. They simply let the TV turn on by itself, retracted their gaze, and once again leaned over the notebook.

[June 16, 2020.

Today I went to the fourth-floor archives and, as expected, found the experimental records of those who surrendered themselves in the files from the past two years. The records show that they all had their memories erased in the first year, regained their memories in the second year, and chose to surrender themselves.

However, apart from the files of these individuals, the records in the rest of the files are more than two years old, and some are even as long as ten years old. I have never heard of those cases, and I have no recollection of the names of those volunteers.

[June 20, 2020.

I took photos of those unfamiliar files and sent them back to the bureau. After verification by the bureau, I received feedback today - they did not find any corresponding cases in the database, and those so-called "volunteers who had surrendered" did not even have names and ID numbers, let alone criminal records.

This means that, apart from the few cases where we actually received confessions, all other files in the archives are forged.

So why did Al Qaeda falsify these files? What is their purpose?]

At that time, Jiang Que had not yet clarified this doubt, but in the eyes of Song Yecheng and others today, the answer is already on the verge of coming out -

Those who surrendered themselves must have been guided by the base, just like them, to start the repentance process and obtain "their own memories". The significance of those forged files was to provide them with a "caution", making them think that even if their memories were erased, the final result would be the same, thus forcing them to give up their luck and choose to surrender immediately.

The three of them pondered in their minds, but remained silent. They continued to read as the pages turned:

[June 26, 2020.

This afternoon, Dr. King asked me to come to his office for a private talk and asked me how I was adjusting to the base.

During a break in the conversation, he went out to answer a phone call, and I took the opportunity to look through his filing cabinet and accidentally found a blueprint for the construction of the base's main building.

I brought it back to the dormitory and after careful study, I discovered that there seemed to be two unknown secret passages hidden in the main building.

[July 4, 2020.

The two-month "training" came to an end today. Dr. Jin took me and two other instructors from the same period to the experimental area on the third floor of the main building and asked us to choose an office each.

With a tentative attitude, I chose the room that was shown on the map as connecting to the secret passage. Unexpectedly, Dr. Jin agreed to my choice without any hindrance and handed me the key.

After the office was assigned, he gave each of us the information of a volunteer and told us that these volunteers would arrive at the base in the middle of this month to participate in the experiment, so that we could familiarize ourselves with the information of the volunteers we would be responsible for in advance.

[July 7, 2020.

For the past two months, all employees have been living in the dormitory building on the west side of the campus. However, to welcome the new volunteers, the second floor of the main building has been opened as a temporary dormitory area, and we have been notified to gather there early tomorrow morning.

[July 8, 2020.

Dr. Jin took us to visit the new dormitory prepared for the volunteers and asked us to choose a room on the other side of the same floor to stay temporarily so that we could take close care of the volunteers.

What’s strange is that there were only three instructors who came to receive the materials that day and today, but there are four volunteer dormitories.

Dr. Jin explained that there were indeed four volunteers, but one of the instructors had recently taken sick leave and would not be back for a few days.

I noticed that the extra volunteer's dormitory happened to be the one with the secret passage in the blueprint, so out of suspicion, I also chose the other room with the secret passage, and Dr. Jin still didn't show any surprise at my choice.

Seeing this, Song Yecheng and the other two stopped at the same time and looked at each other.

Judging from Jiang Que's description, the extra volunteer should be Duan Jingming.

But why is he treated differently from other volunteers?

Is this a coincidence or intentional?