Chapter 13: National Brain Fitness Exercises and Rust Mysteries
[New fashion for all: Brain fitness exercises]
A notification quietly landed on the terminal of every Venus resident:
[Important Notice] To improve cognitive flexibility and empathy, we're launching the "Venus Brain Gym" daily check-in event starting today. Follow the instructions for 5 minutes of mindfulness training each day to earn points that can be redeemed for limited rewards, such as an anti-gravity cherry blossom bonsai and a custom AI assistant skin.
Then, a strange scene appeared:
In the park in the early morning, people doing morning exercises no longer just exercise their bodies, but also follow the holographic guide to do "logical thinking stretching", "imagination jumping" and "empathetic deep breathing".
At school, the kids played "mind ball" during recess (although the ball was still mostly thrown by hand, it occasionally did move).
The most popular video on Starnet has become "Brain Gym Extreme Challenge": some people try to make Dumpling levitate with their thoughts (the success rate is about 0.01%), and some people try to achieve "deep emotional synchronization" with Moomon (the result is usually that Moomon looks at them like they are stupid).
Lilith wrote in her journal:
"The nation's neural activity increased by 3.7%, and the empathy network bandwidth expanded by 12.4%. The expression of X-chromosome dominant genes showed positive fluctuations. Long-term benefits: paving the way for coping with possible future mental demands."
"Additional benefits: Citizen anxiety index decreased by 15%, and the number of dumplings consumed due to 'overthinking' increased by 8%."
[Rust Suspicion and the Girl's Intuition]
The Moomons at Xiaolin Farm have been feeling a bit restless lately. They're reluctant to go near the gleaming new automatic waterer installed in the pasture.
Student Youzi discovered that there seemed to be some very fine, abnormal reddish-brown spots on the metal joint of the water dispenser, which could not be wiped off.
She remembered the recently popular game "Give Moomo a Bath and Remove Rust," and subconsciously took out her personal terminal, scanned the spot, and uploaded it to the game community with the caption: "Found a hidden level in real life? Ask for a guide!"
This post was buried among countless game screenshots and almost no one noticed it.
Except Lilith.
Lilith locked onto it almost instantly after the post was published. A nanoscale detection robot quietly arrived within the hour, taking samples for analysis.
Confirmed: Unnatural rust. Composition is 92.7% similar to the "nano-catalytic oxidizer" documented in Martian archives.
Threat Assessment: Low (Current Concentration and Range). Intent: Probing? Warning?
Action: Covertly remove rust spots. Spray-coat all metal equipment on the farm with a nano-protective coating. Source Tracking: In progress (signal jumps several times, pointing to the asteroid belt).
The next day, Youzi found that the water dispenser was as clean as new, and the spots had disappeared. She scratched her head, thinking that she had played too much in the game and her eyes were blurry.
"It's indeed a hidden level, and it can be repaired automatically!" She happily continued to play the game.
【Epilogue: Undercurrent Beneath the Calm】
Lilith quietly increased the monitoring level and sent an encrypted message to Ryan and a few key department heads:
"Monitored are preliminary attempts to materialize the 'Red Rust' concept. Defense Protocol 'Spring Cherry' has been activated. Recommended continued promotion of 'Brain Fitness' and 'Asymmetric Defense' research. No need to overreact, maintain normalcy."
Ryan received the message, glanced at the box of new "Logic Bandage Dumplings" on the table, and then looked at his hands wearing cat claw gloves.
She replied, "Got it. Also, the efficiency of the seventh exercise in the 'Brain Gym' exercise, 'Cross-Hemisphere Thought Synchronization,' is low. I recommend optimizing it. Please refer to the attached mathematical model."
Lilith replied immediately: "Model received. Optimization solutions will be pushed in the next version. P.S.: There is a deliberately harmless calculation error in your model, which has been marked for you. (Is this an example of a 'defective' application?)"
Ryan: "..." (He silently took off his gloves and decided to eat the original dumplings today.)
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