As evening came, Wencheng was finally freed from the heavy work and returned to his residence.
It was a room in the military headquarters. Although the layout was quite good, it could not be compared with the configuration of the parliamentarians.
Wencheng is not married, has no family, and basically no friends. There are only two things in his life: work and rest.
For him, only this room is absolutely safe.
After locking the door, Wencheng found an old-fashioned machine that was not connected to the Internet. This was the type produced by the Hope City factory decades ago. The production line had long been dismantled and the accessories were no longer available for sale except on the black market.
After skillfully installing the memory card and battery, Wencheng began to play the only video.
He has made full mental preparations.
“Sizzle~”
The signal was connected, a man adjusted the angle of the camera with his hand, then sat back in the single chair and began to speak while looking into the camera.
It's him.
“Hello, Mr. Wencheng.
“Don’t be surprised by my appearance, I am you in the past and you are me now.
"Let's make a long story short. Since you can see this video, it means that unreliable guy Brando finally abided by the unbinding agreement between us.
"He will fake his own death in an accident some time later and become a truly free man. That's what I promised him. And you will eventually remember that string of numbers, just like now."
Wencheng in the camera looked unusually calm, but his slightly trembling hands and bloodshot eyes revealed his worries.
"I don't know in what form Brando will deliver this video to you, but I guess you have remembered that number, which means that your blocked memory has begun to loosen.
“I don’t know how long it will take, maybe ten years, or maybe twenty years, or even longer, but you already have a longer lifespan, which is determined by the transformation you’ve gone through, so don’t worry too much about it.
“If you want to avoid deep memory clearing, you need to bury important information in the deepest part of your mind.
"They are about to come to my door. What I am going to say next is very important."
Wencheng once again adjusted the camera so that it was facing his face.
After a brief thought, the face that looked much younger than it is now began to reveal information that was considered heavyweight to Wencheng now:
“The memories of almost everyone in Hope City have been tampered with. That machine is one of our trump cards. Every time it is activated, it must be voted on by all current authorized persons, and those with authority will not be affected in any way.
"If you have no recollection of all this, it means that your memory has been completely cleared. Please remember that you were once a member of parliament, although I am now ashamed of this identity.
"No matter who you are now, your memories are all false. They were forcibly given to you by that machine. Please don't believe a single bit of them.
"You, or I, discovered the truth about the rebellion not long ago. The situation was extremely urgent at the time. I was blinded by the partial information and participated in the rebellion under their coercion. Of course, I thought it was a counter-insurgency operation at the time...
"Vladimir has already declared the failure of the rebellion at the cost of his life, but you still have a chance. Your mind is more precious than strength.
“Perhaps it will be a long, long time before you remember everything again, but time is never a reason to forget.
"I have no obligation to give you any advice. Your reason can make the right choice. I only have one thing to tell you -
"All wrongs must be corrected, and all traitors must die."
The video froze at the last frame, with Wen Cheng's eyes bloodshot and his facial expression ferocious like a beast.
It is hard to imagine that he said these words while looking at a camera. Even across the long river of time and space, Wen Cheng can now feel a deep hatred.
Only then did he realize that he had been breathing heavily without realizing it, and his cheeks were slightly flushed, as if he was resonating with himself from long ago.
They are actually the same person. Relying on that mysterious and unspeakable connection, Wen Cheng has begun to believe three-quarters of what his former self said.
The feeling of biting my teeth seemed to be filled with overwhelming hatred, but even though the past contained such strong emotions, I couldn't remember a single detail at this moment.
If what my past self said was true, what about my present self?
In fact, Wencheng had already given the answer just now, or he had anticipated what would happen to him next.
He was collectively captured by other congressmen, then had all his memories erased by the machine, and finally was implanted into a non-existent past, becoming a puppet in their hands.
Is this really the case? Wencheng fell into thought.
Were his decades of past, his education and training, his loyalty and diligence all just a bubble created by a machine, a bubble used to fill an empty shell?
So who am I now?
A puppet? Or a android?
Wencheng has entered middle age. His passionate blood did not boil for too long. Calm thinking quickly occupied the high ground of rationality, and he fell into real contemplation.
But the fragments of past memories were too chaotic, and Wencheng had no way to sort out his brain.
Rather, after watching the video recordings of himself in the past, Wencheng's mind was on the verge of complete collapse.
His past, those things he called false, became more and more unreal the more he thought about it, as if they had slowly dissipated since the moment they were discovered.
But subjectively, he did not want these memories to disappear. His false past was fading away, and his real past had been shattered.
Personality is made up of everything in the past. Whether true or false, he needs a past.
But now, both memories seemed to have abandoned him.
A feeling of powerlessness enveloped Wencheng, as if he was no longer able to resist and was about to fall into the abyss.
He felt a little sleepy, a terrifying kind of sleepiness, like the bad omen a person feels before death, and he didn't want to indulge in it at all.
Wencheng had a premonition that if he fell into a deep sleep now, he would no longer be himself when he woke up the next day.
With all his memories shattered, he is left with only a shell.
In great physical and mental pain, Wen Cheng moved his body to his private desk and sent a text message to a communicator number:
"I invite you to come for a home consultation on a personal basis.
"Wencheng."
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