Mother
"Mother……"
The morning sun moistened the cactus on the table. It was full of vitality and verdant. It grew to the length of a palm, and the thorns on its body became a little longer.
Lu Miao woke up and opened his eyes, having had a not-so-good dream.
She habitually took out the mobile phone from under the pillow and remembered the greeting card she saw when she came back in the early morning.
There is no doubt that the text on the card is purple with gold powder, and the font is a gentle round font.
The card reads:
Dear Miss Lu:
May you always shine brightly in the endless darkness.
May you be an eternal beacon in the endless sea of fog.
If you are lost, trust your compass.
(Burn after reading)
At first she thought that "compass" referred to belief or something like that. When she checked the team's group chat message, a system prompt popped up on her phone: the phone compass has been upgraded.
She was surprised and quickly turned on the compass on her phone.
The compass interface is divided into two pages. The first page is an ordinary compass that distinguishes the four directions of east, south, west and north.
She swiped her thumb to the left and turned to the second page. There was a compass that was completely stagnant. No matter which direction she pointed the phone, the needle didn't move at all.
She felt curious and planned to explore its use after waking up.
The clouds are thicker today, but the sun is still bright.
Lu Miao sat up and stretched, and while washing up, he thought about what to make for breakfast.
This time, the extra reward was not only rich, but also included three kinds of snacks: one was chocolate, one was fresh fruit, and one was a bottle of pure milk.
Nowadays, a box of ten chocolates costs more than fifty yuan, and a larger box costs several hundred yuan. Ordinary families cannot afford to buy chocolates.
Fruit is even worse. An organic, pollution-free apple can be sold for hundreds of dollars, which is something only rich people can afford.
Since she was born, she has never eaten dried or even fresh fruit.
"It's so sweet!" Her eyes lit up as she took a bite of the candy apple. The sweet flesh and juice moistened her poor taste buds.
With a cup of fragrant pure milk, she felt as if she was soaking in a hot spring of happiness.
It's good to be alive.
He Pingan and Yu Xiaowan kept a close eye on Wang Keke, while Lu Miao went out for a while.
The beginning of every month is the day she goes home.
She changed into a thin white sweatshirt, wore no earrings, and took the bus to the old town.
When I was a child, my mother moved from a distant countryside to a big city in order to have a better life in the future, and lived in a dilapidated old city area.
At that time, robot employees were not yet widely used. Her mother worked as a dishwasher in a hotel and lived frugally to send her to school. The mother and daughter depended on each other for survival.
When she was in her senior year of high school, she dreamed of finding a good job after graduating from college so that her mother wouldn't have to wash dishes. Unexpectedly, her mother was diagnosed with mid-stage cancer that year.
If she chooses to treat her mother, she must drop out of school.
The old city area is more dilapidated than the urban villages in the red blocks, with many unfinished buildings, all of which are waiting to be demolished.
The government plans to demolish the entire old city within two years and develop a new business district.
Lu Miao got off at a nearby stop and walked into the dilapidated old town.
Various demolition banners are hung on the exterior walls of unfinished buildings.
A breeze blew, rolling up the garbage bags on the roadside.
The trembling buildings wafted a smell of decay.
Her home is in one of the gray and dilapidated unfinished buildings.
The ragged uncle squatted in front of the unit door, looked into Lu Miao's eyes, and then watched her walk into the dark corridor.
The uncle shook his head and sighed.
"To be awake and numb, how painful..."
The dark corridor had long lost its street lights, and a broken light bulb hung above her head. Her lonely shadow blended into the darkness, but a faint light ignited in her eyes.
The sound of keys clashing echoed through the quiet floor.
Her house is not big, and the walls are covered with marks left by markers.
Black and densely packed.
The house is quiet, mom may not be at home.
Lu Miao came to the dining table in the living room, looked at the papers on the table, picked up the pen next to it and wrote a message to his mother.
——Mom, I’m back.
——Mom, I got this quarter’s bonus.
——Mom, Mr. Si and I have become friends.
She paused for a moment and continued writing:
How do you know Mr. Si?
She stared at the message she wrote to her mother for a moment, then lowered her eyes and put down the pen.
She left the house and locked the door.
Home is hidden in a dark corner, with a faint light flickering.
The dark corridor is like a road of despair leading to hell.
She didn't know whether she was heading towards the end of hell or the entrance to hell.
Lost Lu Miao left the old city, not knowing where to go. In the big city with the most abundant resources, she had nowhere to go except the department and dormitory.
But at this moment, she didn't want to go back to the department for physical training.
"If you are confused..." Lu Miao suddenly opened the compass on his phone and tested its function. "Where should I go now?"
She muttered to herself.
I didn’t expect the upgraded compass needle to move.
It points north.
Lu Miao went to the bus stop and checked the bus stop sign to find the route heading north. Coincidentally, one of the stops belonged to the financial district, commercial district and science city.
"You're not trying to remind me to buy funds, are you? I don't have the money."
It still points north.
She wondered if the compass could be so stupid as to be voice-controlled.
Forget it, just believe it this time.
Lu Miao boarded a bus heading north.
She rested her chin on her hand, bored, and looked out the window at the increasingly prosperous street scene.
"Cough cough..." The driver occasionally coughed, breaking the silence in the car.
The bus first came to a stop in the financial district.
Lu Miao studied the hour hand of the compass and found that it was not pointing towards the financial district, but straight to the northeast, so she did not get off the car.
Until we arrived at the Science City station, it pointed straight towards the entrance of Science City outside the car window.
She was secretly surprised and got out of the car immediately.
The Science City was huge, gathering top technology companies. It pointed stubbornly in a certain direction, directing her towards her destination.
Finally, she followed the guidance of the compass and arrived downstairs of a bioengineering technology company.
No way…
She looked up helplessly.
Ten minutes ago, in the large conference room on the eighth floor upstairs.
The man standing in front of the projector calmly presented the report, reporting the latest batch of user experience data in an objective and calm tone.
The faint blue light reflected in his deep and indifferent black eyes, and his beige casual suit was gentle and elegant.
"…After entering the market, the main user groups are 40% college students, 20% high school students, and the remaining 40% are office workers aged 25-35. According to the data in the report, the accuracy of implantable sports watches is 23% higher than that of external monitoring watches, and the speed of real-time monitoring is 1.2 times faster than that of external monitoring watches…"
Si Lan's cold tone was like that of a ruthless creator, calmly observing his creation.
“Have any users given negative feedback regarding body functions?” asked the CEO at the table.
"Less than 2% of users gave negative feedback."
The CEO's eyes lit up slightly, and he looked at the marketing manager. The two looked at each other, not knowing what to do.
"Manager, what stage has the bionic project reached?" the CEO asked again.
"Zero is currently doing a comparative brain wave test with the experimental subject."
"Brain waves?"
“Brain waves can reflect the quality of brain function. If the brain waves of the experimental subjects are synchronized or even surpassed, the bionic project will be considered a success.”
"What do you think the chances of success are?"
"Zero is making rapid progress, and his success rate will exceed 60%."
The CEO was overjoyed and immediately sent a message to someone.
Si Lan left the meeting room after reporting the interim results. He did not rush back to the R&D department, but stood in front of the window with a cold face, looking at the cold skyscrapers.
The world will become colder and colder.
He lowered his eyes indifferently and prepared to go back, when he suddenly saw a familiar figure downstairs.
The other person happened to look up, and their eyes suddenly met from a distance.
Si Lan's dark eyes were like a dark room that was lit up.
The name of this company...
Mom mentioned it.
Lu Miao was in mixed feelings.
How did the compass bring her here? Is it a half-finished product?
Just as she was hesitating whether to leave immediately, a beige figure walked out of the building with his right foot first and walked towards her with a smile.
"Little Deer, why are you here?"
Little Deer... She was stunned. Although the security captain had called her that when she was a security guard before, she felt it was weird coming from this guy's mouth.
"I'll tell you what happened. Do you believe me?"
"I believe everything you said." Si Lan said with a smile.
Lu Miao snorted coldly. "I was brought here by a mysterious compass, a reward from the field of ghost stories."
"Why did it bring you here?"
Hesitant to speak, Lu Miao looked at Si Lan's calm expression and smiled a rare smile. "Why did you come downstairs? Are you buying something?"
Si Lan was about to answer when she suddenly moved closer and gently twisted his suit collar between her fingers.
He didn't move, watching her movements as if she were caressing him.
Lu Miao curled his lips: "It's not because of me, right?"
"What if it is?"
"If you hadn't lied, I would have misunderstood."
"You don't have to misunderstand."
She looked directly into Si Lan's frank eyes and found the scalding warmth in them.
This guy made no secret of his thoughts, but she couldn't understand why.
She didn't believe that after a meal and two or three contacts, the other party would have such thoughts.
Or did they have more than two or three contacts?
Lu Miao cooled the temperature in her eyes, made up her mind, and without caring whether there were passers-by around, she lifted up his handsome chin and moved closer.
He didn't even dodge.
She suddenly let go of his chin and moved away from him. "The reward must be a half-finished thing. You must be very busy, so go upstairs quickly."
Si Lan did not take a step. "The most essential motivation of human beings is survival and desire, and my most essential motivation comes from you."
Lu Miao paused as he was leaving.
"You are not the night, you are the star."
——May you always shine brightly in the endless darkness.
She didn't stay any longer and left.
What a weird guy.
She took the bus back to the department and did some physical training, expelling all her worries like sweat.
"...According to the Observatory, it will rain in the next five hours. Citizens are requested to take precautions before going out, pay attention to the weather forecast at all times, and beware of acid rain..."
At night, the five of them gathered in Wang Keke's dormitory, and Lu Miao brought chocolates as a reward.
"I haven't eaten chocolate in a long time!" Wang Keke was so moved that she almost burst into tears. "Captain is so nice, sob... "
She hugged Lu Miao's arm and acted coquettishly.
She also ate a deer seedling. The rich and mellow taste reminded her of a certain guy's eyes, and the sweet taste touched her heart.
It was Yu Xiaowan's first time eating chocolate, and the strange sweet taste made her right eye widen. "It's delicious."
"Is it really delicious?" He Ping'an resisted the urge to open the wrapping paper, put it in his pocket, and planned to take it back for his mother to try.
Weekend seemed to have no interest in sweets and was concentrating on playing Minesweeper on He Ping'an's computer.
Wang Keke is in good mental state. It seems that mint candy can indeed resist mental pollution.
Everyone was secretly relieved.
He Pingan went over to watch Weekend playing Minesweeper.
He found that many landmines were set off on the weekend, and couldn't help but complain: "I have to suspect that Brother Zhou, your head is used to show height."
"It's impossible that none of them exploded."
"I didn't detonate it."
weekend:"……"
Weekend: "Newbies always have an adjustment period."
An advertisement window suddenly popped up in the lower right corner of the laptop.
The two of them looked at the annoying pop-up ad at the same time.
Under the red screen is a photo of a school, and the slogan reads: Do you want to play the most realistic game?
Move the mouse on the weekend and click X to close it.
"Wait!" He Pingan said hurriedly, "Don't click the X in the upper right corner of the picture. Click the X in the upper right corner outside the picture to close it."
Weekend quickly moved the mouse away and clicked the "X" to actually close the pop-up ad.
Ad pop-ups are closed.
“I remember this ad being the new popular urban legend.”
Weekend glared at him: Why didn’t you say so earlier?
"What if I click the wrong place, neither you nor I can escape?"
"Maybe... It's just a rumor on the Internet, I don't know if it's true or not."
After hearing the urban legend, Lu Miao and the other two came over curiously.
He Pingan minimized the interface of Minesweeper to help Weekend cover up the terrible game interface. "There are many posts on the Weird Talk Forum discussing this ad pop-up window."
He opened the latest post, live in text.
A poster clicked on a pop-up advertisement for the Red School and live-streamed the process of playing the game to netizens via text.
——Original poster: Long Aotian Reply time: 2149-4-3 20:23:16
It sounds so magical, but in fact it is just a web game with a very old-fashioned gameplay.
[Picture.JPG]
[Picture.JPG]
Use the mouse to click and direct the two-dimensional protagonist to walk or touch objects. The operation is very simple.
——Glasses complainer reply time: 2149-4-3 20:24:23
What a weird picture, all red. Please be patient, many live broadcasters have disappeared after updating, maybe they were dragged into the game.
——Dreaming of getting 100 million Reply time: 2149-4-3 20:26:03
If the OP and the game's protagonist have different names, they won't travel through time (fog)
Many netizens either kindly reminded or teased the poster to be careful.
When He Ping'an turned to the last page, they were surprised.
"The OP is not updating the post anymore?"
"Yes, many hosts disappear while playing."
"Is it the field of ghost stories?"
"I don't know. Even if it's a ghost story field, people who go in can't tell people outside what's going on inside."
Lu Miao asked: "When did this urban legend become popular?"
"About this week, before I entered the field of ghost stories on TV, I saw a lot of posts discussing it on the forum."
Weekend's mouth twitched: "The pop-up ads are spread through the Internet. Does it mean that netizens across the country have the opportunity to see the pop-up ads?"
They took a breath.
He Pingan nodded. "The IP addresses of the posters do show different regions. If it is in the field of ghost stories, it is most likely open or special."
Yu Xiaowan looked at Lu Miao. "Captain, do you want to report it?"
Lu Miao frowned. "I'll talk to Chief Lu about this."
After a while, Wang Keke's cell phone rang, and the caller was identified as "Mom".
Her face changed and she went to the balcony to answer the call.
Weekend, He Pingan and Yu Xiaowan continued to browse the ghost story forum.
One of the posts was labeled "Hot", and the title caught the attention of the three people.
《Don't click on the Red School ad pop-up! My boyfriend disappeared because of playing this game! 》
The three of them felt a chill down their spines.
He Pingan opened the post.
——Original poster: Angel Amelie Posting time: 2149-4-2 17:12:18
Everyone! Please don't click on the pop-up advertisement of the red school! It is really an urban legend or even a ghost story! My boyfriend clicked in to play out of curiosity, and now he has been missing for a whole day! Except for his mobile phone, his other belongings and slippers are still in the room, but he is gone!
I advise everyone not to be superstitious and not to click on that pop-up ad window out of curiosity!!!
After reading the contents of the main building, Yu Xiaowan felt a chill in her heart.
Weekend put his arm around He Ping'an's shoulder. "Fortunately you reminded us in time, otherwise we would have become missing persons."
After Lu Miao finished reporting to Lu Xingyang over the phone, she saw Wang Keke, who looked pale, coming back from the balcony. "What's wrong, Keke?"
Her eyes were red. "It's over. My sister disappeared in the room and her phone was left on the table."
"Have you reported it to the police?"
"We reported it to the police. The police found the browser history in her laptop, and one of the links contained the text 'Do you want to play the most realistic game?'"
The dormitory was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
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