Cyber ​​Sword Immortal Iron Rain

Although the face was recognizable, the shop owner's head was almost terrifying.

The skull had lost its curvature, and the hairless scalp was covered with strange bumps and depressions, like a crushed soda can.

The shop owner pressed the burning cigarette butt into his palm and rubbed it, and a small bulge appeared on the burnt scar tissue: just by glancing at it, I felt the nausea and pain that I felt. It seemed that this was the cigarette extinguisher he used most often.

He looked at Fang Bailu and continued to utter unclear sentences:

“There are no gods or immortals in computing, only Laplace’s demon.”

Fang Bailu didn't like the look in his eyes - she had never seen such sad eyes in the mirror.

"Also, don't install the visualization machine in the store. The ceiling can't handle it."

The shop owner said nothing more. He sat back on the recliner, staring blankly at some joyous scene on his phone.

Fang Bailu took a few steps back. Then he turned around and fled away from the meditation.

Chapter 123 Destiny (I)

Fang Bailu pressed his ear against the wall behind the counter. The pungent smell of fresh paint made him feel a little dizzy. He clenched his fists and knocked them around.

The wall responded with a muffled sound: just like usual, it was filled with concrete and steel bars.

There is no empty space, nor the glass door seen in the visualization.

This store has gone through many ups and downs since its opening, but Fang Bailu is very sure that this wall has never been installed with built-in cabinets or the like.

When I took over, I cut a small secret compartment in the wall to store the memorial box of the previous owner; therefore, I am extremely sensitive to the presence or absence of construction traces.

Fang Bailu raised his hand and pointed upwards, imitating the movement he had seen during his visualization:

“When you are visualizing, the… the shop owner is standing in this position.”

He raised his head and pointed his index finger straight at the ceiling above his head.

Fang Bailu climbed onto the counter and stood on tiptoe. He stretched his body as far as possible and poked the aluminum ceiling with his fingers. It felt oily and sticky, with mildew and fluffy dust spreading from the edge of the ceiling all the way to the center.

flutter!

He finally managed to poke through the hard board above his head and peered inside in the dim light of the shop:

There was nothing there except for the pipes and ventilation devices, not even a passing mouse.

Same as usual.

“Remember to use it when you are in trouble.”

He recalled the words of the store owner in his visualization, pointing to the top of his head:

"What? There's not even a hair here. Sure enough, it was just an illusion..."

Fang Bailu wiped his face and sniffed: But apart from anything else, the strength of this cheap ceiling is indeed unable to bear the weight of the visualization machine.

This didn't prove anything; he already had doubts about the fragility of the ceiling.

"Boss! Don't move! I'll wash the dirt on top!"

Erni held the straw in her mouth, and with her remaining hand she filled the shriveled bag of nutrient solution, she staggered towards Fang Bailu.

There was obvious flattery in her voice: Although she hasn't had an interview yet and hasn't started working yet, the penniless Erni already owes Fang Bailu a sum of medical expenses.

For a former corporate employee, her flattery was crude.

If an ordinary person loses a major limb, it will take a long period of rehabilitation and adaptation before they can regain their balance in movement - this is true even if they have a prosthetic limb.

She had suffered internal injuries, severed limbs, broken ribs and bones the night before - and the next day she was able to walk alone without help, which was simply a freak.

"'Toujia' means 'boss' in Taiwanese."

When Fang Bailu finished his meditation and rushed back to the store, Erni and Xindu had already woken up.

They gathered around the mattress and used packaging boxes to make a simple dining table, just like playing house. Erni drank the nutrient solution more powerfully than a water pump, and she drank up all the nutrient solution she had taken down:

"Go back and sit down. If the wound breaks if you move a few times, we'll have to find another doctor for you."

My throat felt a little hoarse and burning, perhaps the aftereffect of staying up all night.

Fang Bailu felt cold all over and even felt like vomiting - his bad mood had affected his physiology.

Hearing his cold voice, Erni pursed her lips and stuck out her tongue, then tiptoed back to the makeshift "dining table".

Fang Bailu stood up and walked through the crowded shelves and into the corner of the store. Erni's long knife was neatly placed there, with several layers of plastic paper under it.

This was not the first time he had seen Erni's weapon - she had used this knife to cut off Huang Wuye's dog head from the body-shaping foam for her before.

In the glass cabinet in his imagination, Fang Bailu saw two long swords:

One blade had been broken; the other was golden and red in color, and emitted a strange human hum.

But the long sword in front of him was as smooth and clean as new, and it was quiet, with no signs of breaking at all.

He picked up the long knife with both hands and walked to the counter - there was a treasure identification lamp used for identification, which was convenient for the next step of comparison. The long knife was much heavier than he had imagined, like holding a drunk child. The power of Erni's artificial meridians might be even greater than he had imagined, allowing her to wield this terrifying weapon freely.

“Is this the knife I saw in my visualization…?”

Fang Bailu picked up the light tube that looked like a shower head and carefully examined every part of the long sword.

The bright light reflected from the blade made his eyes sore, but Fang Bailu still tried his best to keep his eyelids open and search for fragments of memory.

"The style and length seem to be similar. What about the rest? No, I can't remember..."

Fang Bailu didn't have time to remember all the details in one glance and could only make a judgment based on the general impression.

"Um, boss..."

Erni staggered and dragged her injured body over again. She had an embarrassed and exaggerated smile on her face:

"What are you going to do with my knife? You can't sell it. If you sell it, I won't be able to kill people for you. You can use my salary to pay for the medical expenses first, ha."

Judging from the worried look she gave the long sword from time to time, this weapon was very precious to her, or she had deep feelings for it.

Fang Bailu rubbed his eyes which were beginning to shed tears due to the bright light:

"Let's talk about that later. Erni, you only have this one sword, right? No..."

He stood up, and Fang Bailu changed the question in an irritable way:

"Can you use two swords? Or... do you plan to learn how to use two swords?" Fang Bailu approached Erni and stared into her eyes. "You only use one sword, right? No courier would be stupid enough to carry two such heavy weapons, right?!"

Fang Bailu didn't expect that his voice would one day be so sharp and aggressive, but he couldn't help it.

He wanted to raise his hand, grab Erni's shoulders and shake her hard; but when he saw the severed limb and the hydrogel plaster wrapped around it, Fang Bailu retracted his trembling fingers.

"Ah? Ah, uh? So I always use two ring-handled swords, it's more fun to chop people that way..." She shrank back for a moment in fear of Fang Bailu's performance, but then puffed up her chest again; "If the boss has a request, I can use just one sword! A person has only one big head, one sword can chop one neck, no problem!"

"Two ring-handled swords? They are really twin swords..."

Fang Bailu felt the frozen popsicle poking his spine, and his whole body felt cold.

He shook his head and leaned over the counter:

"Hey! Xiaoxin, come here! Let's have a meeting."

Xin, who was tidying up the "dining table", stood up blankly and walked over.

Fang Bailu did not check the new respirator - it was an implant and could not be removed without surgery; and it would be too strange to put his eyes close to his face to look at it.

But it doesn't matter, the other examples are enough to foreshadow something ominous.

Fang Bailu put his thumb to his mouth and bit it with his front teeth. The effect of the smart drug had faded, and he felt anxious:

"Have you ever...had dreams? The kind that are particularly real."

Erni scratched her neck in confusion, seeming a little uneasy about this inexplicable topic:

"Yes, yes... If I haven't played the simulator for too long, I'll have some weird dreams, all very real. Boss, have you been holding back for too long? I bought a disc called "Handsome Young Man--"

Fang Bailu felt something was wrong the more she listened, so she waved her hand to interrupt her irrelevant answer:

"Stop! I'm not talking about that. How should I put it? Just some seemingly real things." He carefully chose his words to express the mysterious feeling; "Like... a bad omen that is about to happen?"

"The future is like seeing a certain future..."

But Fang Bailu did not choose this word. Just saying it out loud felt heavy.

He didn't understand why he was telling these two employees who couldn't understand the situation. Was it to vent his emotions? Or was it to sort out his thoughts through this communication and narration?

Perhaps it was both: this visualization was far more frightening to Fang Bailu than those life-and-death chases and fights.

But he also didn't want to reveal his visualization experience in full, as it wouldn't be of much benefit to the current situation.

"It's similar to reality, but also a little different." Fang Bailu covered his face with his palms and scratched his eyebrows with his fingertips; "It's not now, nor in the past--"

"machine."

Ben, who was standing at the side in a daze, suddenly interrupted: "Boss, are you dreaming with a machine?"

He turned around and lifted his half-long hair. On the back of his neck was a special type of spiritual orifice. The upright rectangle reminded Fang Bailu of the coin slot of a vending machine in his previous life:

"Connect the machine to the spiritual orifice, and then--"

"You know...wait a minute!" Fang Bailu opened the shopping catalog in "Mo Family Disciple" and searched for his target. He was so excited that his shaking hands almost knocked over the tablet computer; "Is this the machine you are talking about?"

He grabbed the tablet and thrust it hard in front of Xin:

On the screen was a hideous, gigantic visualization machine, with neural tubes entangled everywhere like some kind of artistically processed spider web.

"Not so clean, older. Atala would use it to listen and dream—"

Fang Bailu grabbed Xin's shoulders, and his palms and fingers squeezed the "Mo School disciple" so hard that he made a squeaking sound. He wanted to roar loudly, but he could only squeeze out a low hiss:

"What does it mean to dream?! What am I seeing!"

Fang Bailu's understanding, which he had honed over the years, enabled him to comprehend the complex emotions expressed in Xin's eyes.

"Have you dreamed with the machine..."

Xin shook his head. There was some envy, some emotion, and an indescribable compassion and sympathy in his eyes; it was hard to imagine that this came from a boy of such a young age:

"Congratulations, Boss. No matter what you saw in your dream, that is the destiny you have to follow..."

Chapter 124 Destiny (II)

Destiny?

This was not the first time Fang Bailu heard him mention this word - but at this moment, the sinister meaning contained in it was quietly gripping his heart.

Erni turned her head furtively and glanced at the other two people, her face full of confusion. She suddenly put her only remaining arm on her waist, her eyes widened:

"Hey! Kid! Aren't you in a meeting? What are you and your boss doing in encrypted communication? Look how angry he is!"

Fang Bailu was brought back to reality by Erni's vicious tone:

"Er Ni, shut up first - don't interrupt me. Xiao Xin, can you give me a detailed definition of 'destiny'? Don't be as vague as last time. Just think of it as a product that can be put on the shelf in our store. Use this idea to describe what it is."

He gestured with his hands as gently as possible, using body movements to signal himself to calm down - he needed to be able to think calmly, not a fool who was overwhelmed by strange hallucinations.

The dark yellow halo of the arc lamp shone on the three people, and the shadows cast by them scattered into a blurred mass on the wall.

At this point, Fang Bailu's agitated heart suddenly became quiet: having an outlet for thinking and being anxious like a headless fly are two different things.

Before, I thought that Shin was just confused by some kind of barbaric fatalistic concept, but now...

Xin pointed to a dried jellyfish-like artificial meridian on a crooked shelf in the store:

"Boss, you collected these scraps, right? They were picked up by the garbage man and sold to you. But before they were picked up, they were used to pieces by the previous owner. These are inevitable. Before they were produced, they were destined to be scrapped and picked up, and finally come here - this is fate."

Seeing Xiao Xin giving examples seriously, Fang Bailu suddenly breathed a sigh of relief:

"So it's just crude causal determinism?"

"You're talking about causality? The last moment determines the development of the next moment, so everything is already predetermined? Nonsense! Let's not talk about whether the example you cited has a real causal relationship. You haven't been to school, and you may not have heard of a subject called 'quantum mechanics'. Let me tell you-"

Xin stared at Fang Bailu intently and continued:

"Someone once told me: Those who planted trees will enjoy the shade... Those who cut down trees will get sunburned. Destiny is not the 'cause and effect' that those practitioners input into the underlying logic, but 'responsibility' - not a line, but a network. When insects in the wilderness flap their wings, they will stir up a storm in the city; when stones are thrown into the water, ripples will be created. Everyone's destiny is intertwined to form the energy of all things, which is a whole. The so-called uncertainty is just that the seeds of those pseudo-random numbers have not been found."

The vague description made Fang Bailu's anger, which had just been suppressed, rise again in an instant:

"You're role-playing Riddler with me?! Didn't I tell you to speak nicely?"