173 Another Self (Part 4)
◎Zhu Ning was caught off guard and saw her eyes◎
You can't go out after lights out. This should be the rule in polluted areas. Li Xin is the pollutant. Is she trying to trick Zhu Ning into going out?
Zhu Ning looked carefully at Li Xin behind the wall. She had short hair and cute baby fat, and she had freckles on her face.
The God's perspective sees the whole picture. Zhu Ning didn't notice it at first glance, but after looking carefully, he realized that Li Xin's face was covered with ants instead of freckles.
Tiny ants crawled along the muscles, from the bridge of the nose to the cheeks, and then along the temples into the hair. The child's hair was so dense and voluminous that it looked like an ant's nest.
As Li Xin spoke, some ants fell off, and the empty skin was filled by new ants.
It's a bit of spiritual pollution, making people instinctively want to scratch their backs, as if these ants are not on Li Xin, but crawling on you, making it itchy wherever they pass.
Zhu Ning retracted his gaze and said, "Rest today and go again tomorrow."
Li Xin scratched her face, and a large number of ants fell to the ground. She asked innocently, "Why?"
Li Xin's movements were extremely natural, as if she didn't feel that there was anything wrong with the ants growing on her face.
Wouldn't she accidentally swallow a few ants? But would it be okay to eat them? Would her body be filled with ants?
Zhu Ning stopped imagining, "I'm afraid of being punished again."
The mechanical mother had obviously stayed at the door for a long time just now. Zhu Ning must have been punished for running around before.
Li Xin groaned, feeling that what Zhu Ning said made a lot of sense. "Then we'll discuss it tomorrow."
Li Xin smiled, her eyes curved when she smiled, but because of the muscle contraction, the ants on her cheeks were squeezed down.
Zhu Ning gritted his teeth and agreed, "Definitely tomorrow."
Li Xin said good night to Zhu Ning and climbed onto the bed. Zhu Ning turned off the God's perspective. For the first time, she didn't want to increase her field of vision.
The itch was still there, Zhu Ning touched his neck, resisting the urge to scratch.
She searched the room again to make sure she couldn't find any clues.
The hallway was quiet, the robot mother had finished all her patrols, and the children were almost asleep.
In a polluted area, you have to do normal things, and now the normal thing is to sleep.
Zhu Ning lifted the moldy quilt. The bed was narrow and she had to curl up her knees to lie down.
This was her second time sleeping in a contaminated area, and it felt very different. She looked at the wardrobe opposite and felt a strange sense of familiarity. She could even count the spots and cracks on the wall, as if she had seen them every night before going to bed.
It was like a person who had worked hard outside for many years finally returned home during the holidays and walked into the small room where he lived as a child.
Mom has kept your room well-maintained, and it still retains traces of your childhood.
Ding-ling-ling——
Zhu Ning was distracted when the alarm clock rang. She heard the noise outside and all the children in the red house were woken up.
Zhu Ning got out of bed and looked at his legs hanging over the edge of the bed, only then did he realize that his body had become shorter.
Her hands had become the size of a child's. How old was she now? Seven or eight?
It was the first time that Zhu Ning encountered a polluted area that would change her body shape. Her first reaction was to check the system to make sure that there was nothing wrong with the system and that only Zhu Ning's appearance had changed.
"Zhu Ning!" Li Xin next door shouted, "Get up!"
The noise outside the door was getting louder and louder. Zhu Ning adapted to his new body, got out of bed and opened the door. Dozens of children appeared in the corridor. They were going to the public bathroom to wash up.
Li Xin was waiting for her at the door. Most of the children were wearing normal clothes, only Zhu Ning was wearing a full set of black protective clothing.
Li Xin seemed not to notice Zhu Ning's abnormality and yawned, "You are so late today."
Li Xin turned and walked forward. They came to the public bathroom at the end of the corridor. There was a row of toiletries with corresponding names written on them.
Zhu Ning picked up the toothbrush cup with her name on it. It was so detailed. She looked in the mirror. In the mottled mirror was a child wearing a black helmet, staring blankly at the toothbrush cup.
This place also looked familiar, as if she had brushed her teeth here countless times.
Li Xin was right next to her. When she was brushing her teeth, a lot of ants fell down. When she splashed water on her face, some more ants were splashed down. The long washbasin was connected. Zhu Ning watched helplessly as dozens of ants were washed over by the water, which was especially obvious on the white tiles, and then gathered in the drain.
Li Xin wiped her face with a towel, crushing the newly covered ants on her cheeks, and the mucus and ant corpses stuck to her face.
Coupled with Li Xin's childlike innocent expression, everything seemed very strange.
But Zhu Ning discovered that among so many children here, only Li Xin had ants on his face, while the others were normal.
Is Li Xin the source of pollution?
Zhu Ning wiped his helmet with a towel and followed the group to eat. There was a long dining table and the mechanical mother would serve food to each child.
There was a burst of aroma coming from the big pot, and the dishes were very strange. Each person had a plate of vegetables, and also had to wait for the mechanical mother to feed them meat and vegetables.
The sauce-colored paste fell onto Zhu Ning's plate.
Zhu Ning stared at the rice. The plate of green leafy vegetables looked like leaves, and the sauce-colored paste gave off a strange smell.
She waited until everyone else picked up the spoon before she started. She dug it out with the spoon and found a tiny bone inside.
It was like a child's little finger, which was boiled and then the skin and flesh were sucked off, leaving only a small white bone.
Zhu Ning seemed to understand what the strange residue he saw in the pot in the kitchen was.
What happened in the Red House? Something like abuse? Did they eat children?
Zhu Ning made random guesses in her mind. From some of the movies and TV shows she had seen, it was easy for caregivers or directors of orphanages to abuse children.
She was pushing a cart with a big pot on it, serving rice to each child with a smile.
The skin covering the mechanical skeleton is very expensive. Ordinary robots cannot be as natural as Fang Ying. The mechanical mother's skin is full of blood holes of various sizes, like a doll in urgent need of repair.
The wax skin on her face was crumbling, and with a snap, her nose finally couldn't bear the weight and fell into the big pot in front of her.
The mechanical mother cried out and reached out to rummage through the scalding food. The pot was too deep, and a human's arm would definitely get burned if it put it in, but the mechanical mother had no expression and didn't feel the heat or pain at all.
After searching for a while, the mechanical mother fished her nose out of the pot, wiped it on her apron, and then set it on her face.
After the nose was pressed, there was still some sauce on the face. No one thought this behavior was strange, and the next child was still waiting to eat.
The mechanical mother hummed a cheerful song and continued to prepare food.
Suddenly, she seemed to notice Zhu Ning's gaze and turned around to look in her direction.
The mechanical mother was a robot. She turned her head 360 degrees, using her back as her chest, and smiled at Zhu Ning.
Anyone who has been a child knows that sometimes an adult’s smile isn’t really a smile, but a silent warning.
Zhu Ning immediately lowered his head, just like when he was a kid and disrupted the class, he didn't dare to look the teacher in the eye.
Li Xin ate with such gusto that she even licked the plate clean. Zhu Ning tried to ignore the ants on her face and asked, "Are you full?"
Li Xin shook her head: "No."
Zhu Ning pushed his meal to Li Xin, her eyes brightening. "I'll give you some nutrition supplements for this afternoon."
Technology has developed a long time ago, so people should not be unable to afford food. They should reduce expenses and cannot afford to eat natural food for three meals a day, and take nutritional supplements for the rest of the meals.
But it seems that the Red House is pretty good. At least it will keep a meal. Zhu Ning learned the parenting experience from Song Zhizhang, which is to let children get used to chewing food so that they can be healthy both physically and mentally.
Zhu Ning didn't eat and looked around bored. There was a bulletin board hanging on the wall of the dining room. When Zhu Ning first came in, it was covered with dust and he couldn't see anything clearly. Now he could see clearly what was written on it.
This is the history of the Red House, and Zhu Ning read it through.
The Red House is not of the same nature as the orphanage of Zhu Ning's time. It is a federal welfare institution aimed at socialized upbringing.
Because except for first-class citizens and second-generation humans, most artificial humans and robots have no parents.
Institutions like the Red House sometimes take on business orders. For example, when the Federation hatches a new batch of androids, they entrust them to the Red House's mechanical mothers for breeding.
In some regions, the Red House organizations are extremely wealthy, earning more than ordinary companies. To use a more humanistic analogy, the Red House is like a professional incubator, raising qualified chicks until they are ready for someone to come and take them.
However, this red house in District 103 only houses defective products, has old facilities, and does not receive any business orders from large companies.
In short, they are poor and all the chicks they raise are defective.
The slogan on it reads: Children's dream home.
The billboard was wiped clean by the mechanical mother, waiting for someone to place a large order.
Zhu Ning glanced at the children present. According to social relations, everyone here was a brother or sister, but he didn't know which one was the one Xiaoyuan mentioned.
They all looked expressionless, as if nothing had happened, and no one even discussed the missing Xiaoyuan.
After breakfast, we have free time and everyone rushes to play the game consoles in the audio-visual room.
Li Xin sat quietly next to Zhu Ning, scratching herself all the time.
Zhu Ning couldn't help but stare at the ants on her face. He couldn't believe that he had made a good friend covered in ants in a polluted area.
She and Li Xin put the dishes into the kitchen, where the mechanical mother was busy.
Zhu Ning said a few nice words to the mechanical mother. The mechanical mother smiled and touched Zhu Ning's head, "Go play."
Zhu Ning's head sank as he looked at the face so close to him. After looking at it for a long time, he actually didn't feel scared anymore.
Was she assimilated into the contaminated area?
If he stayed there any longer, Zhu Ning would really think that he was a member of the Red House. Zhu Ning sent Li Xin away and quietly groped his way to Xiaoyuan's room.
Xiaoyuan's room is very conspicuous. Many children pray that Xiaoyuan will come back soon and place wishing bottles and some origami at the door.
Zhu Ning turned the doorknob and found it was locked. It was probably to protect the scene and prevent children from coming in. She used the system props to open it and walked into the house, bypassing the wishing bottles on the ground.
It's still a standard red house bedroom.
There was a strong stench in the room, and the quilt was bulging, as if there was someone lying on it, resting with their back to the door.
Zhu Ning carefully lifted the quilt, but there was no body inside.
She had to take advantage of the fact that the mechanical mother was in the kitchen and hurry up to look for it. There were notebooks scattered on Xiaoyuan's desk, with many black scratches on them, and it was no longer possible to see what was originally written on them.
Xiaoyuan said in the tombstone that the handwriting of his other self was more neat. Based on this idea, one can really distinguish the handwriting of the two people.
Xiaoyuan drew black lines on the words with such force that the lines went through the paper.
Zhu Ning could imagine Xiaoyuan's expression of dismay, probably because she wanted to completely erase the other person's traces, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't erase the other person's existence.
There were only two certificates in Xiaoyuan's room, both for Best Progress, and next to them was a countdown calendar.
Three years to go.
What does this mean? Three years for what? Lifespan?
Zhu Ning never knew when the accident happened to Xiaoyuan. The first time he saw the calendar, the time shown on it was eleven years ago, which was January of the 69th year in the Gregorian calendar.
If Zhu Ning really lived here, she would only be eight years old now.
There were two novels on the desk and an old handheld game console in the drawer. The Federation had equipped everyone with a sub-brain. Zhu Ning searched for a long time but couldn't find Xiaoyuan's sub-brain and chip. These two items that could store the most information did not exist at all.
Zhu Ning's attention was all on the wardrobe, and Xiaoyuan disappeared in the wardrobe.
They protected the crime scene. The closet had not been tidied, and the clothes inside were in a mess. Several pieces had fallen out. It was easy to imagine that a little girl had been hiding here.
Zhu Ning carefully followed the structure of the wardrobe. There was no mechanism there. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a very faint flash among the clothes scattered on the ground. It could only be seen from a specific angle.
The pitch-black wardrobe was like an abyss. Zhu Ning carefully used his index and middle fingers to pick something out. Was it a thin thread?
It is impossible to tell whether it is silk or spider silk, but it is definitely abnormal. It is very thin and shimmers with a unique light.
Why is there silk?
Xiaoyuan met a person who looked exactly like herself. At that time, the other self was standing outside the closet, and there was no movement after that.
There’s a warning circulating online that if you meet another you, never speak. Is this rule wrong?
Will you die if you don't speak?
But where did Xiaoyuan go? This was the most puzzling thing for her. Xiaoyuan disappeared after that day.
If this is a story about a substitute, another person should have continued living in Xiaoyuan's place.
Zhu Ning was thinking when he suddenly heard footsteps. The mechanical mother was already at the door.
When did she come? Why is there no movement every time?
The mechanical mother turned the key and was about to open the door.
Zhu Ning lay down and hid under Xiaoyuan's bed.
The door was pushed open with a creaky sound, and the mechanical mother walked into the room. Zhu Ning could see her two feet through the bed sheet.
The mechanical mother sat on Xiaoyuan's bed, gently stroking the bed, as if missing her deceased child.
The bed sank a bit. Zhu Ning held his breath. Through the thin layer of bed board, he could hear the sobbing of the mechanical mother.
Is she crying?
Because you love the child you are taking care of so much that you can't bear the child disappearing?
The mechanical mother placed both hands on the edge of the bed. Zhu Ning thought she was going to stand up by holding the bed, but suddenly, she bent down without warning and looked under the bed from between her legs.
Zhu Ning was caught off guard and saw her eyes.
The author has something to say:
Thank you to the little angels who voted for me or provided me with nutrient solution between 2023-01-14 21:00:21 and 2023-01-16 21:00:12~
Thanks to the little angels who cast mines: 28071257 (2); Daydreamer, 62838298, Did you update today?, 52785515, Cyber Clay 1006, Happy Little Hamster, Manman, Sanlv, Shishi, Fengchuihe, Hulihutu, 50915037, 58248125, Cecilia (1);
Thanks to the little angels who poured the nutrient solution: Lian Mu (511 bottles); Feng Er Hu Mu with Tears, Reluctantly Doing the Top (497 bottles); Eating (346 bottles); Don't Like Apples (201 bottles); My Wife is a Spirit (200 bottles); A Ginger Candy (188 bottles); 30467726 (143 bottles); Mango House (142 bottles); Lemon (132 bottles); Flowery Coconut (130 bottles); Wind (103 bottles); Chen Li, Orange Cat, 047 (100 bottles); Guaguagua (91 bottles); Dongfeng (86 bottles); Shining Ginger (85 bottles); 9797 (77 bottles); Dead Fish (75 bottles); Kirimi Hoshino (67 bottles); Roy (66 bottles); Miren Bu Mi (60 bottles); Calabash Brothers (55 bottles); Picky King, Diet Soda). Should I read or study today? 50 bottles; Xiao Jia 45 bottles; Shuangseqiu, Fugitive 43 bottles; Moqi 42 bottles; Maowu, Hamster Who Loves to Eat Melon Seeds, AXXXIAN, A Cup of Sweet Iced Tea 40 bottles; Just Soil 36 bottles; 48388905 34 bottles; Knife and Paper Ball, RRRRRunnning 33 bottles; Xinhan 31 bottles; Xu Letan, Ordinary Player, Fallen, Midnight Flight, Sans, Xi Shiyong's Talisman 30 bottles; Horse Hoof Sounds Along the Way 29 bottles; Mushroom Cat 28 bottles; Mountain Dove, You Ruo Fangyuan, Different Species of Humans and Gods 25 bottles; szzyy, Adameve 22 bottles; chestnut, oo, Xiaowu is addicted to lychees, mint orange flavor, department, get one for one, sell everything, I'll just take a look, iswjsxh, Li Baobao, 86-Aelita, cool, joyce, food molecule, baba, Lele 12138, Xiaomi and sniper 20 bottles; warmth @ 19 bottles; don't love me without results, 47235751 15 bottles; 29562997, Mo Xin little angel 13 bottles; you are a little world, it's Hu Huahua 11 bottles; mountain and wind, road Chang'an, durian grandma drinks milk, say to roses, run happily, run ... , qio, clattering Sky, that book, alluring little lion, pressure mountain king, black in the world, three ah three, daydreamer, a cup of tea, cool rain, meow, Tss, Tian Junguo's neck mole, summer in summer, Fuyfuy, and Er, Ha An, l, durian milk durian, did you update today, buy oranges, emotionDD, order 10 bottles; dark Shennong's people 9 bottles; w, dot, Lycoris radiata 8 bottles; 50686326, ask is salted fish 7 bottles; Sociopathy 6 bottles; Yu Ge, Ai, the most awesome salted fish in the Federation Star, Vioe, Happiness is on the night shift, 27158766, Mao Tian, No pain, no injury, no desire, then drink boiled water, 41889817, Mian Dong Er, Nan Mu, It's your Xiao Qi 5 bottles; Tian Tian Tian Tian Tian Tian Da, Mu Buyu, Jiuzhou 4 bottles; Black Cat, Zhi Jian, Chloe, Daytime Wine, Hot Pot Flavor Ju Ju 3 bottles; 39213149, Xue Xue Xue, Blue and White Snow, 61779228, Shan Xia Roast Duck, Man Man, Sean 2 bottles; Estrella, 38060603, Study Hard and Make Progress Every Day, I Hate Spring, Kinomoto Sakura, Collapse, Zero, Xixi, Xiaoran, 968943, 60515751, 41808738, Lunapapa4, 32525186, Little Garbage, Lengsuanning Outsmarts Wang Shichang, Zhou Baobei, Wang Niji, Ah Xue, zzzyyy, Mangshi, Manman-sama, I Want to Graduate 1 bottle;
Thank you very much for your support. I will continue to work hard!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
