Volume 16 Tower of Babel Chapter 887: Cognitive Distortion
Thirty-Three reached for his waist. There was only one bullet left in the magazine. He took a deep breath and slowly approached the armored SUV that was full of gasoline.
At some point, the whistling wind carried a faint fishy smell, and what made Sanshisan even more confused was that even though he was wearing a breathing mask, the fishy smell still penetrated into his nasal cavity... The smell was very faint, so faint that it almost made people suspect that there was something wrong with his olfactory organ... But even so, this fishy smell was hard to ignore.
This fishy smell was not unfamiliar. Sanshisan remembered that he should have smelled a similar smell somewhere... No, it should be said that it was exactly the same smell, but he just couldn't remember it.
Thirty-three suddenly felt dizzy and the whole world began to spin. The lead-gray clouds began to stir, as if they were stuck to the earth. Even the armored off-road vehicles beside him turned into abstract blocks of color, flowing into the gap between the sky and the ground.
There are no longer clear boundaries between all things in the world. Everything is like fruit thrown into a blender, crushed, stirred, and mixed... Thirty-three can't even perceive his own body. The only thing that remains independent and clear is his self-awareness.
A word suddenly popped into his mind - "chaos".
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The frustrated boy walked onto the overpass with the steps of an eighty-year-old man, leaned on the guardrail, and looked at the busy avenue below the bridge. The endless flow of traffic never stopped for a moment, and the shining headlights were pulled into one gorgeous light band after another as they moved at high speed.
The high-rise buildings in the distance are brightly lit. The bustling city does not sleep even in the middle of the night. Neon billboards and huge screens complement each other. Passenger planes cutting through the night sky are flashing red and green navigation lights. A huge advertising airship slowly passes over the sky above the office building.
But all this excitement has nothing to do with the boy who has grown up.
It was winter and it was very cold on the overpass. The biting wind made the boy's thin jacket rustle. He pulled up the hood of his jacket, but the next second, the hood was immediately filled with the oncoming wind and pulled behind his head.
The boy sighed softly into the wind, stopped pulling his hat, and reached into his pocket.
He touched a metal object with rounded edges.
He used to smoke because of stress when he was in college, but he quit smoking after starting his own business - for him who was short of money, the money for cigarettes was an expense that could not be ignored... But he didn't realize until a week ago that he couldn't bear to smoke cigarettes that cost five yuan a pack, while the "friend" who threw all his money into the Lisboa was smoking Cuban cigars that cost four thousand eight hundred yuan a pack in the casino.
After quitting smoking, he only kept a Zippo lighter as a souvenir. He had used this lighter for many years, and the old coating on the surface had been completely worn off, revealing the original metal color of the pure copper shell. The embossed pattern on it had almost been worn away... Although it had become very old, it felt much better than when he first bought it.
He took out a lighter, opened the lid skillfully, and rolled the grinding wheel - he seemed to want to use the tiny flame of the lighter to keep warm, but after the crisp "click" sound, the flame did not appear.
He hadn't used this lighter for so long that the kerosene stored inside had long since dried up.
A trace of anger finally appeared on the boy's originally calm face. He raised his hand and pretended to throw the lighter off the overpass, but just when the lighter was about to leave his hand, he once again grasped it tightly in his palm.
It was not because he was reluctant to do so, but because he was worried that the lighter would hit the car passing under the overpass - if he was caught, he would not be able to afford the money for compensation and repairs.
The boy lowered his head and buried it in his arms, whispering to himself, "Is life always this painful? Or is it just like this when I was a kid?"
"It has always been like this." He asked himself and answered.
This is a classic movie line from "Léon: The Professional". As a fan of old-age movies, Ke Lan has of course watched this movie, and more than once.
He was also deeply impressed by Matilda's line.
But then again, the entire illusion came from Ke Lan's memory. If he had not seen the movie, the lines from the movie would not appear in this illusion.
Even the boy's facial features were somewhat similar to Ke Lan's... Ke Lan even had a feeling that if he lived on Earth in the old era, if he was not an orphan "bioman", if the Earth had not been destroyed...
Maybe, this will be my life?
No... This boy's personality is somewhat different from his own. Compared to the boy who was cynical when he was young and passionate when he grew up, Ke Lan's attitude towards things is more casual - to put it nicely, it's casual, to put it bluntly, it's indifferent. Unless it's something he thinks is important, he won't care at all.
This attitude is not exactly the same as that of the boy's father - suppose an old man falls to the ground, and the boy's father is unwilling to help him, because he has seen too much "evil" in the real world and has been instilled with too many "selfish" concepts, whether these concepts come from himself or others... In short, the boy's father chooses to stand by and watch out of consideration for his own interests. If this matter does not harm his own interests, perhaps he will lend a helping hand if he is in a good mood...
But for Ke Lan, if he is walking on the street and an old man falls to the ground not far away, his brain may automatically filter out this information when it receives it - unless the bomb tied to his body is exposed under the open clothes of the fallen old man.
Looking at the boy on the overpass, Ke Lan suddenly realized that she seemed to be an extremely cold-blooded person...
No...that's not right...
I am not that kind of person... If I were so cold-blooded, I would not have chosen to team up with Lao Gou and others, and I would not have become angry after learning that a bomb was installed on Zofia's body, and I would not have any emotions towards the actions of the heretical sect...
I am a normal person, a person with flesh and blood...
Although Neto stopped talking, it seemed to be constantly using some kind of power in this illusion to change Ke Lan's cognition and thinking. Although this power would not cause direct harm, it was actually more terrifying than swords and bullets... As the saying goes, "It is easy to dodge a spear, but difficult to guard against an arrow from the dark." Ke Lan had to keep his brain clear at all times, and he had to emphasize it again and again in his self-consciousness so as not to be misled by the illusion...
Moreover, in the illusion, thinking has become a very dangerous thing.
The more you think about it, the more confused your mind becomes, and the easier it will be for Neto to find an opportunity to take advantage of you.
This is like a computer program. The longer the program, the more likely it is to have vulnerabilities. However, the simplest program that outputs "hello world" after running is unlikely to make mistakes even if it is written by a novice who has just started programming.
Maybe I should empty my mind... Facing a consciousness that refuses to think, no matter how many tricks Neto has, they will be useless.
But the question is, if Ke Lan doesn't think, how can he get out of this illusion?
The absence of danger in the illusion does not mean that it is safe in the real world - he and Sanshisan are now in the jungle hunting ground, and not long ago, an extremely abrupt gunshot was heard deep in the hunting ground.
Ke Lan couldn't guarantee that the gun would be pointed at his head while he was struggling in the illusion.
We must break the impasse, but how?
The boy in the illusion was in a very depressed mood. Although he didn't cry, the expression on his face made Ke Lan wonder for a moment whether he would suddenly jump off the overpass and end it all.
If the boy "dies", will it switch to the next illusion?
Ke Lan's consciousness has always been with the boy. He cannot switch to his father, mother or anyone else in this illusion except the boy - this is a third-person perspective with the boy as the protagonist. If the protagonist dies, then the story should end there, right?
This illusion was not good for Ke Lan. He had no entity, and his perspective was tied to the boy. He could not move freely, nor could he have any influence on this illusion. He could not even communicate with the "characters" in the illusion...
Wait? Communicate with the characters?
Ke Lan's gaze fell on the boy... He seemed to have never tried to communicate.
Although Ke Lan had decided to wait until the next illusion to find a way to break it, he still decided to make some attempts before this illusion ended.
"It's not always like this." Ke Lan tried to speak.
No sound was heard - he didn't even have a physical body, which meant he had no vocal organs, so naturally he wouldn't make any sound. And the communication between him and Neto just now was entirely completed through consciousness communication.
But the boy heard it.
He was startled, raised his head and looked around: "Who? Who is talking?"
"That's not important." Ke Lan continued, "Are you planning to jump off the overpass?"
The boy widened his eyes, rubbed his nose, blinked hard, and then looked up into the sky - the airship with a giant advertising screen was slowly flying over the overpass. The popular actress on the screen was dancing hotly, and the sound waves coming from the loudspeaker traveled hundreds of meters and hit the ground in waves.
"Is it my illusion?"
“It’s not an illusion.”
Ke Lan's voice rang directly in the boy's mind. Although his auditory center had been occupied by the music played by the airship, he could still clearly hear what Ke Lan said to him.
"Why is your voice in my head? Who are you...what are you? Why...why do you know I want to jump off the overpass?" the boy asked, calming down a little.
A few minutes ago he was still considering whether to end his life. Now, even if someone told him that the earth would explode in five minutes, he would not find it difficult to accept.
On the contrary, I would feel secretly happy that so many people could end up with the same fate as me.
As for the surprise and panic just now, it was just a human instinctive reaction.
"I said, it doesn't matter who I am." Ke Lan thought about it and decided to be a psychological counselor for the boy. Although his attainments in psychology were not as good as those of professional doctors like Ivan, he had at least read several books on the subject. Using this method to counsel a person who was depressed and wanted to commit suicide... maybe he would succeed?
Although doing so went against Ke Lan's original purpose, he didn't actually care whether it would succeed or not - if it succeeded, maybe it would cause some changes to the illusion, and if it failed, it would be a good time to start over and directly enter the next illusion.
Although these three illusions are different, Neto's purpose is the same, which is to show Ke Lan the disappointing side of the human race - from a modern perspective, the three illusions are full of negative emotions, and will spread this negative emotion to the "audience".
As for Ke Lan, while he was experiencing these illusions, he was constantly suffering from the psychological hints from Neto - in the first illusion, facing those ignorant and fanatical people, facing those people who had to sell out their friends for survival, facing the church that held the right to speak but wanted to burn the "truth" to ashes for its own benefit... Neto told Ke Lan that such human beings would never be able to obtain the truth of the universe.
Although the heliocentric theory was later proved to be wrong, like the geocentric theory, it was an erroneous conclusion reached by humans due to limited cognitive and technological conditions...but the history of human scientific and technological development is a process of constantly proposing theories and then overturning them.
Many things that are considered to be true may be proven to be wrong after hundreds or even decades. Human beings’ understanding of the world is also gradually improved in this process of constant overthrow and reconstruction.
Just like those things that are now regarded as "theorems" by humans, they are so fragile that they can't even withstand a single blow in the face of the technology of the Alpha civilization, let alone when facing that "great god".
Chemistry, physics, mathematics... those ironclad laws could all be wrong...
As for the truth of the universe, it is so far away from the current level of human cognition... so far that even after tens of thousands or even hundreds of millions of years, humans will never be able to touch it.
If the truth really came into the world, perhaps there would not be a case like Bruno being sentenced as a heretic and burned to death, but it would definitely completely subvert human cognition.
Ke Lan suddenly understood why "forbidden knowledge" would turn people into monsters...
It’s not that those people turned into "monsters", but that they came into contact with existence beyond cognition and became something that their former peers could not "understand".
In the eyes of humans, creatures that are incomprehensible, aren’t they monsters?
