Forking Path

Soft Whisperer:

[Mingmu is fake, don't believe her and don't try to find out why she is fake, that's not important.

Thanks to the Memory Master, I successfully hypnotized Shou Lao twice, but unfortunately he found out that I hypnotized him twice in a row, and now he refuses to talk to me.

The first time, he asked me if Ah Ku had died. I told him the truth and told him that the captain didn't know whether he was alive or dead.

I asked him if he had super powers, and he actually answered yes, without telling any more nonsense.

I used my super powers, performed hypnosis for the first time, and asked him who he really was.

He said: "I am Hong Jinsheng, the Holy Spirit of the Self-Religion."

I guess he must have been a very famous person, but unfortunately I have lost all my memory.

The second time, he asked me the same question he had asked Morning Star: "If I gave you my blood, would you drink it?"

Of course not, I'm not a vampire.

Just then, I asked: "You mean, the door is not locked, you can open the door at any time and give me blood"

Shou Lao admitted it, I hypnotized him for the second time: What is your superpower?

His answer surprised me.

"If you drop my blood on a pregnant woman's belly, you can tell whether the baby has superpowers. Ordinary people who drink my blood may awaken superpowers. The younger they are, the greater the chance of awakening."

When he woke up from the second hypnosis, I couldn't wait to ask the third question, but he noticed something was wrong.

He refused to answer me and would not talk to me, but he did not cut off the communication.

After a long while, he said the blood was at the door and asked me to get it.

I won’t take it. I have to leave the factory after taking it. The question and answer session between Shou Lao and me has just begun.

But I felt that Shou Lao found that the situation was beyond his control, and the next step he would definitely distribute a large amount of blood to get us out of the factory.

I suggest that you all stay and give me a chance, let me use your identities in turn, and I will ask out all the secrets.

Can I use the identity of a memory master in the next round?]

Neither the Captain nor Two-Face left any notes, so Two-Face probably took the blood and left.

The illusionist knew why Shou Lao used blood to improve his eyesight in the first round.

The "rules" had already told Shou Lao that handing over blood would allow A Ku to leave.

The owner of the factory imprisoned Shou Lao with two sets of unrelated but mutually restrictive rules and forced him to donate blood willingly.

The Memory Master walked into the isolation chamber.

Without waiting for her to speak, Shou Lao took the initiative to say: "The blood is outside the door, you can go."

The Memory Master was confused as to why he was so persistent.

"Hong Jinsheng, you have not ascended. We are all normal humans, not gods. The owner of the old factory has been deceiving you in order to get your blood."

After a moment of silence, the captain's voice came from the receiver.

"Shou Lao, I'm the captain, I'm at your door."

The illusionist moved closer to the observation window, but there was no sign of the captain in front of the wooden door.

"Captain, I'm a memory master. I didn't see you at the door."

The captain explained: "There is another door behind the wooden door. I crawled through the ventilation duct. I have read all the new notes and found the unconscious A Ku."

He then said to Shou Lao: "I know the door is not locked, I will not open it, the choice is all yours."

The Memory Master sighed: "Hong Jinsheng, isn't there a rule posted in your room telling you that this is the upper realm after ascension, and we are all gods with bad intentions."

"The rules also say that you must mislead us into thinking that you are Aku's split personality."

Observe the withered flowers and plants outside the window swaying slightly.

"We also have similar rules. The rules tell us that you are a low-dimensional visitor carrying a virus. There are no ordinary people in the world. They are all people with super powers."

"However, this is not the case. There is no dimension. There are both ordinary people and people with super powers in the world."

"You and we are all being used by the rule makers, and the ultimate goal is your blood. The old factory is indeed a factory, and its product is your blood."

Hong Jinsheng finally spoke: "How do I know you are not lying to me? Gods are all crazy, twisted, cruel, weird, and cannot be understood by logic."

The illusionist laughed angrily: "You should be thankful that the person standing in front of your door is the captain. If it were me, I would have broken in long ago."

Hong Jinsheng was also laughing: "Then come in and kill me?"

"Ahem..." His voice lowered, "I'm just an old man looking for a place to end the rest of my life. You guys should leave now."

"No." The captain said stubbornly, "I don't care if you are Shou Lao or Hong Jinsheng. I don't remember who Hong Jinsheng is."

"I just firmly believe that people should not be trapped in a small cage with numerous lies and used as tools to produce blood."

"You are a human being, and so am I. Even if you have done something wrong and committed a heinous crime, you should be punished by law as a human being, not kept in a farm like a cow."

It was so quiet in the isolation chamber that one could hear the faint sound of electricity. The Memory Master had never thought of persuading Hong Jinsheng from this angle. The basket of lies she had prepared were overturned by the captain's frank words.

She said: "Hong Jinsheng, open the door."

"I'm a liar. I've hardly ever told you the truth. The other Aku are liars too. We followed the rules and approached you with a purpose."

"But the captain really wants to rescue you. Don't let him down. Open the door and leave with us."

Hong Jinsheng let out a long sigh: "I'm old."

"Memory Master, you asked me why I was in pain."

The memory artist's heart seemed to be grabbed by something sticky. She looked out the window at the garden and felt that Hong Jinsheng was like a withered weed.

"My pain comes not only from my gods, but also from my powerlessness. I have done so many wrong things that my heart has long been numb, but I cannot control my life."

"I look at those people praying devoutly day after day, and I am powerless to lead them, let alone change them."

"I really am like a cow on a farm."

The illusionist asked solemnly: "Who is the god who can descend from the sky? Is he the owner of the old factory?"

“Hahahahahahaha—”

Hong Jinsheng laughed with all his might.

"God is just God!"

The Memory Master was puzzled: "Your god caused you to fall to this point, and you even disobeyed Him and tried to ascend to heaven. Why do you still insist that there is a god in the world?"

"You don't understand." Hong Jinsheng said briefly, "It is people who need God, not God who needs people."

"I don't need God," the captain said. "No one needs God."

The illusionist didn't want to talk to a pile of dead weeds, so she made a suggestion:

"I know you can detect whether a baby in the womb has superpowers. The pregnant Aku is right outside the door, you open the door and use your superpowers. If her child does not have superpowers, it is enough to prove that there is no ascension at all, and you are trapped in a scam."

“Humans may deceive you, gods may deceive you, but your superpowers will not deceive you.”

Silence fell over the factory.

The sound of a wooden door creaking was heard through the intercom. It was Hong Jinsheng who opened the door.

At the same time, the airtight door in front of the illusionist opened.

The Memory Master steps into the Garden of Forking Paths.

She pushed the door open and what she saw was a crawling dried corpse.

The mummy used its neck, which was connected by a tendon, to slightly support its head and look at the illusionist.

Weak death flowed in its sunken eyes, and it slowly and laboriously stretched out its curled nails, dipped them in blood, and touched A Ku's abdomen.

The flowing death suddenly became quiet.

The captain couldn't help but drag the unconscious A Ku away.

It's Hong Jinsheng's mummy. How could it be bleeding? The amnesiac stared at the corpse in astonishment.

The corpse spoke: "It turns out... it was myself who trapped me."

The mummy fell to the ground like a fallen straw, covering its sunken cheeks.

The Memory Master walked past the corpse and entered the room, and saw the rules on the wall:

1. There are 6 Outer Gods wandering around in the old factory. Don't open the door to them.

2. The outer gods are influenced by the chaotic order and think that they are different personalities of the same person. They call themselves Aku. Tell them that the main personality Aku really exists and don't let them find out that they are independent individuals.

3. If a god discovers that you are an independent individual, give him your blood immediately to escape danger.

These are three words that can drain blood.

The mummy asked: "What is her child's name?"

The captain replied: "Aku didn't say so. We can't decide the name of the child for her."

"You're right...it'll be a beautiful child. She won't have super powers, but she's not a drug scum, nor a believer, and she doesn't need to ascend."

"She will have an ordinary but happy life."

Something like tears flowed out of Hong Jinsheng's shriveled body.

His voice was full of peace: "And I deserve this."

The illusionist squatted down and looked at him: "Who is God?"

"She is the world's first superpower."

The last tear flashed in the mummy's eyes.

That teardrop was infinitely magnified in front of the illusionist's eyes, and the turbid teardrop occupied his entire field of vision.

Light passes through the curved surface of water droplets, refracting a distorted world.

Doors flashed before the illusionist's eyes, the high-strength alloy door in the operating room, the airtight door of the isolation chamber, the wooden door in the withered flowerbed...

The picture stayed on Aku's face.

The last door that imprisoned Shou Lao slowly woke up. The young mother blinked her eyes and touched her belly carefully.

A Ku walked out of the old factory holding a tube of blood, and the person who greeted her outside the door was the interviewer Luo Chunxi.

"Luo Chunxi!" Ah Ku shouted in surprise. She seemed to have a lot to say, but was interrupted by Luo Chunxi's action.

Luo Chunxi snatched the test tube from her hand, opened it and drank it.

Ah Ku was stunned.

In the security room, the worn-out three-blade fan was working faithfully, making the unique creaking sound of an old machine.

Above my head, the half-broken light bulb flickered regularly and rhythmically like a heart controlled by the devil.

In the flickering incandescent light, Luo Chunxi raised his head in enjoyment.

A Ku took a step back. Just as she was about to scream, she caught a glimpse of blood on the floor of the security room and a security helmet lying quietly beside her.

A Ku stopped moving.

"You hid your pregnancy before joining the company." Luo Chunxi said in Xiangbang dialect. She still had her eyes closed, as if she was savoring the taste of blood.

“I-I’m sorry, I-I-I-I—”

Ah Ku was incoherent and had no idea what to say.

Luo Chunxi opened his eyes.

Instantly, Ah Ku blurted out: "Can you let the child live?"

As soon as she said this, she regretted it. There was no way a two-month-old fetus could survive.

She was unwilling to give up and continued to beg: "My child, she is a flower, I want to be a big tree, I——"

"Sure." Luo Chunxi interrupted her, "Take it."

A Ku took it with trembling hands. She looked carefully and found that Luo Chunxi had actually given her his ID card.

"Run." Luo Chunxi smiled, "If you survive, you can be a big tree."

"The old man who died in the factory..."

"It's dead, it's just a cow."

"Your child." Luo Chunxi's eyes moved to A Ku's abdomen, "Let's call her Lolina."

Luo Chunxi resolutely turned around and left his last words: "Run north, the further north the better."

"And you"

Luo Chunxi disappeared instantly, and A Ku was so scared that he dropped his ID card.

The surrounding scenery became blurry and changed rapidly as if in rewind. A Ku's belly bulged and then deflated, and her face became older and older.

The picture is frozen on the face of middle-aged Ah Ku, who is sitting in a dark room holding a laptop computer and concentrating on playing the pseudo-human test.

A Ku held the mouse awkwardly, and the photo of the fake girl on the screen suddenly enlarged infinitely. A Ku screamed and clicked the mouse.

A soft mechanical female voice sounded: "Congratulations on successfully passing this exam. It, no, now it's her. She will bring you the person you miss..."

A pair of feet wearing black round-toed leather shoes stood on A Ku's computer keyboard. She looked up stiffly and saw Luo Chunxi looking down at her.

Luo Chunxi slowly raised a smile that was exactly the same as the fake girl's.

The next second, the brilliant colors of the kaleidoscope engulfed the illusionist along with a handful of fallen leaves in her hand.