Chapter 6: Heartbreak
Episode 06 My heart is breaking
After the incident of falling off the platform, what I admire most about myself is that I still had the strength to buy gifts.
Not only did I buy products from Fu Lin and Shang Hexing, I also carefully selected gifts for my parents.
When I go to bed at night, I am still upset about this matter, mainly about the former.
There were too many reasons to buy gifts for my parents: first, I thought I was going to die, and I should be nicer to the people around me for the rest of my life; second, I felt that if I didn’t have the purpose of buying gifts for my parents, I might kick Shang Hexing off the stairs at any time.
Shang Hexing and I had previously made an appointment to meet "Shang Hexing" together. Regarding this matter, I have given up the decision to act alone with Shang Hexing, so I gathered a group of people to go and see it. As expected, the "Shanghe Star" dragon is nowhere to be found and its whereabouts are unknown.
Shanghexing's Fu Lin also said apologetically: "He may have something urgent to do. If I can make an appointment with him later, I will bring him over to meet you."
This incident made me certain that Shang Hexing had been planning to kill me alone.
Naturally, I will no longer get along with him and don't want to care about him.
All in all, Tuesday ended on a thrilling note. Wednesday also ended in a flurry of activity. Thursday--
It rained heavily.
Spring usually brings on a continuous rainy season due to ocean currents, latitude, and more recently, urban industrialization. This is normal, but in the past two years, spring rainstorms have become more frequent and the probability of extreme weather is higher than usual.
When I turned on the news in the morning, Anubis Emergency Management Minister Denise Magallanes said in an interview with a radio station that a series of severe weather conditions may occur in the summer and residents should be prepared, such as forest fires, strong storms, and even floods.
Someone on an online forum commented, "Minister Magellan's words were too mild. He should have added a tsunami."
Although the comics set Anubis as a kind of world center and everything happens only in this city, in fact, from the geography knowledge I have learned, Anubis is not a country, but an island city. There are many archipelagos around it, which belong to a unified administrative region.
As one of the port cities, the entire city connects trade from all over the world. As a test city for new technologies and economies, it has partial autonomy. In fact, it is not suitable for the development of agriculture or animal husbandry due to factors such as water scarcity. Therefore, for the government, the city of Anubis is easier to control than imagined: for example, by blocking connecting bridges and tunnels, controlling maritime trade, and cutting off fresh water resources and food supply, the city can be isolated.
However, this setting is not the focus of the comics.
The comics do not rise to the political level, but simply expand on many independent systems or institutions. For readers, as long as they know that the players in the comics need to complete various detective tasks and find the truth about the city, they can successfully exit the game.
It is similar to some kind of jungle game, where players are trapped in the Anubis society and have to cooperate as well as compete.
…
It was really quiet on this rainy day until my dad came to see me.
"It's raining today. Do you want me to ask for leave for you?" My father saw that I didn't go out, so he leaned over and asked me a question with concern.
"I asked for leave from Director Zhan two days ago. I said I needed to write a paper."
Before my dad knocked on the door, I had already secretly hidden the little dinosaur parkour game on the web.
It was a small pixel game. On a straight line, the little dinosaur would encounter obstacles, but all it had to do was keep running forward. I'm not very good at this game. It will get stuck after about five or six minutes and I have to start over. But I really like this feeling.
Because for me, failure gives closure and allows me to achieve a delicate balance.
I continued, "I saw the weather forecast and it said it would rain in the next few days, so I asked for leave."
This is called just in case.
I'm not going out for the next few days, what can the comic plot do to me?
My dad would have no problem with a good student like me asking for leave. "We'll bring some food from the cafeteria tonight. Tell me what you want to eat in advance."
"Okay, thanks Dad."
Soon after I accepted the invitation, my mother, Ms. Zheng, also started to wash up. When she was about to leave, she came to see me and asked, "What project are you working on?"
"Study on accurate identification of diatom species based on multidimensional methods." I replied, "I want to more accurately infer the place where the drowned body fell into the water based on the distribution of diatom species and quantity. I hope this classification method can improve accuracy."
As mentioned before, Anubis is an island city. The surrounding water environment is complex, and citizens have compulsory swimming lessons since childhood. In addition, the government policy is open. Nowadays, citizens and tourists have many opportunities to come into contact with water. In the past, Anubis was a popular place for marine activities. Now, with the opening of sea fishing, water activities are frequent. So there are more drowning cases than we imagined.
After hearing this, my mother didn't react much and continued to ask as a matter of course: "How is the data collection going?"
Thanks to the various player cases throughout last year, people like me who only travel between two points and never leave the house can also independently collect samples from waters all over the island city.
I'm just polishing it now, or rather, I'm just slacking off.
Finished it early.
“The classified images and molecular data are all in the computer.”
Ms. Zheng nodded, as if she were my mentor. "What analytical methods did you use?"
There are only a few types of image analysis. I still use microscopic image analysis more often. Of course, convolutional neural network (CNN) is also useful, but it is a black box model, and it relies on existing data collection, so it is not as helpful to me as I imagined.
What my mother is mainly asking about here is molecular data analysis methods, such as biological DNA barcoding analysis (DNA Barcoding) or high-throughput measurement (HTS).
"After comparing Sanger, HTS and qPCR, high-throughput measurement will be more suitable for my research, which can analyze the diversity and relative abundance of diatoms."
At this point, I have to say that I originally wanted to use Sanger sequencing, which can accurately classify a small number of samples, but - it's too expensive!
Although this research certainly had some funding and equipment support, there was not much more. Because from a business perspective, this is research that does not have much economic value. So, I also put in all the scholarships I’ve received in recent years.
That thing was so expensive that I wished I could get rich right away so I wouldn't have to spend 10 An coins just for a small sample of diatoms. It was so painful.
10 An coins are equivalent to 50-70 Chinese yuan in my current world.
"Yes, sure." After listening to my explanation, my mother felt more assured about my plan. "If you need anything, please let us know. We will try our best to help you."
My mother then asked, "But where do you want to use it?"
"At least it can be used to prevent high-risk areas of falling into the water and for reconnaissance," I said, "to artificially reduce the number of drowning incidents."
Ms. Zheng didn’t know why, but she felt a little regretful, so she said, “It would be great if everyone could see your dedication.”
This is how all social screws are.
While supporting the operation of the entire social system, their existence is often not easily noticed, as silent as air - only in an emergency will people realize their indispensability. But generally speaking, it’s best not to get into that kind of bad situation.
I believe that silent and stable screws are the most reliable screws.
"This is my thesis, how could the school and my supervisor not see it?" I patted the computer and said seriously.
Ms. Zheng rolled her eyes at my frivolous answer.
So fierce!
Hahaha.
I urged, "Hurry up and get to work, Ms. Zheng."
*
After they go to work, I clean the house.
As I was doing this, I suddenly remembered that Shang Hexing insisted that he would leave Anubis.
But now according to the new plot content, he probably can't leave. I guess he was just tired of being constrained on the university campus, so he dropped out and went to some corner of the city to live freely.
I don't want to care about this matter anymore.
The comic has ended, and the "world collapse caused by the murderer player leaving the world" has not appeared, so I don't need to care about what the players are doing. Not to mention, I have a comic book notification similar to prediction, so I just shouldn’t go out on rainy days. Anyway, it’s not strange that I don’t go out.
The more I think about it, the more I feel that I must have been scared by the comic trailer before and was in a panic. Now I should just relax and enjoy life.
What Fu Lin?
What Shanghe Star?
It’s none of my business.
Turn on the TV, take out the card drawing system, and eat snacks.
The movements are smooth and flowing.
Today's N-level card is "Cream of Mushroom Soup Flavored Popcorn".
“…”
I prefer the caramel flavor.
After taking a bite, the hot popcorn is wrapped in a rich aroma, and the light taste quickly melts on the tip of the tongue like a cloud. The salty taste of the soup, with the soft sweetness of the cream, makes the taste of the popcorn even better.
I looked at the card drawing system in surprise. Don’t you have anything unpalatable?
After eating popcorn on the sofa, listening to the sound of rain outside, I watched the movie series on TV, and a feeling of lazy tiredness came over me. So, I hugged the pillow to my stomach and fell asleep in a daze.
When I woke up again, it was around three in the afternoon. I ate an apple and a box of yogurt in a daze. Afterwards, I sent a text message to my dad, "I'm in the mood for spicy crayfish today." Without waiting for a reply, I went back to bed.
I don’t know how long I slept, but I heard the doorbell ring. I sat on the edge of the bed and thought: Who is coming?
Our area is full of government employees’ apartments, so security is very high and we hardly need to use peepholes. Because visitors must have permission to enter and exit, and must have the consent of the householder.
I checked my phone and the top of the screen was pinned to my dad’s words: “Open the door.”
The time is also approaching dinner time, 6:23.
This immediately made me understand that my dad must have been carrying too many things and couldn't open the door. I was so excited that I didn't even bother to put on my slippers and jumped directly to open the door.
However, just like that, something more unfortunate than being assassinated at home happened.
Shang Hexing, who was standing at the door, was wearing a well-ironed suit and looked very elegant, but I had an apple-shaped haircut and was wearing a pair of plump pajamas, staring at him blankly.
“…”
“…………”
Quickly, I reached for my hair tie and took it off my head without changing my expression.
While I was doing this, my heart was falling apart.
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