ecstasy

He turned his head slightly, then turned it back again; the little man in his heart opened his mouth, as if he understood something:

"Oh, so you were the one who lured the assault team into the apartment. The four-man team that was taken care of by Doudou was originally here to capture you, right?"

"How did he do it? Give Corey a fake safe house address? Pretend to reveal his whereabouts? Never mind, it doesn't matter; the idea is pretty much the same."

"I said: The doctor's hiding place should not be exposed—"

"I understand what you mean. It's true that there are ways to exploit this. And you've already put it into practice."

Richard nodded vigorously, and a little vitality finally emerged from his body:

"Yes: you begin to understand."

"Isn't this also a success story? It's impossible for the two of us to break into the branch just by ourselves. Even if the branch's personnel and equipment aren't in place, it's still the same."

"After tonight, Doudou's existence will no longer be a secret. But even if companies try to contact him, they will have to pay a huge cost of trial and error."

"If this isn't handled properly, incidents like tonight's, which wiped out an entire branch, will likely happen several times, further increasing the difficulty of communication."

"Not to mention the execution efficiency of the company's top management. You know how slow they are."

"So I think this knowledge barrier can be maintained for at least a while, and with a little bit of disruption, it can be maintained for even longer. Long enough for us to come up with further development methods."

"My suggestion is: we can definitely build a private alliance. Exchange intelligence, share resources, and help each other for mutual benefit."

"You can take your package—whatever it is—and report back to the Cyber ​​Advancers. Once Doudou takes care of the Section Chief, I can find a way to get back to the Asia-Europe Post—or even further."

"Network promoters may continue to clash with the company. If we belong to two opposing camps but can still share information, wouldn't that help us maximize our benefits and minimize our losses?"

"For career advancement, personal safety, or whatever else you want to pursue. There's no disagreement or conflict regarding common interests."

"No matter what, you won't suffer any loss. You, the Doctor, and I have all lived and died together. Who else in this world has shared this kind of experience?"

The mathematician listened attentively, his face still sluggish; he seemed to be convinced by Richard's words. But after a moment, the villain in his heart finally shook his head, slowly and firmly:

"You're very rational and calculating, but what do you really want? If you don't know this, even if you become a so-called ally, it's still hard to trust you."

"And you have to remember that you're just a defected field officer from the Asia-Europe Post. Do you still want to hedge your bets?"

"Can you really control these resources you're talking about?"

"You forgot what happened before..." The mathematician raised his intact left hand and shook it. "How did you get your hand into this state?"

Richard followed the other person's gaze and looked at his own hand - the hand that was crushed by Doudou and turned into a small ball.

He stared blankly at the twisted thing, but continued speaking:

"I'm hedging my bets. No, I'm betting on myself."

"I--"

Richard took a deep breath, but his chest rose and fell more violently.

"What I am sure of is that I don't want to die for inexplicable reasons anymore - and I also want to be able to display my talents."

"Is there anything more important than this? My value is more than this, right? I don't need to be a sacrifice to prove it. Only by living can I prove my value, right?!"

Richard's voice became louder, his eyes widened, and his arms began to wave unconsciously:

"I really don't care whether there will be a global, instant-response network that makes communication easier for everyone. I'm also too lazy to think about how much performance I can get by cleaning up the company's mess."

"I don't even want to care if Doudou wants to destroy the world to entertain him!"

"I'm not John. I really want to live!"

"Have you read it? Have you read his file? He wanted to commit suicide because his wife died, and ended up accidentally shooting his own daughter. He's so scared that he doesn't even dare to die. He doesn't know how he'll face his family in the afterlife, and he's unwilling to live!"

"And what's the result? You can't stand seeing other people laugh, and you're a tool for others with a fanaticism that's only partially useful—"

"In the end, smoking a cigarette will make your brain go away!"

Richard suddenly spread his palms apart from the middle to the left and right. His eyes widened to the extreme, his limbs were waving wildly, and his whole body was full of madness:

"Bang! It exploded!"

"Did you see how he died? The medical examiner said someone stuffed a grenade into his head! Holy shit, what the hell is this thing called a Doudou?"

"The company doesn't care about me, my boss wants to get rid of me, and I ran into a monster—the monster could easily kill me, but wanted to keep me alive just for fun!"

"Today I realized that I'm the only one in the world who believes in my own talent: could anyone else from the board of directors survive like me?!"

"I'm really fed up with this crap. Doudou, ecstasy, section chiefs, all that messed up company, network, packages. I just know! I just know I don't want to be like an ant, easily crushed to death."

"Really, I... I don't want to be afraid anymore. I don't want to be terrified anymore. I want to climb up, I want to soar straight to the sky. There has to be something, some power that can protect me: protect me from this stupid, fucked-up world."

"Even if I have nothing, at least I won't give up on myself!"

He raised his hand again, waving his fingers wildly at the villain in the mathematician's chest; saliva flew, his eyes were bloodshot, and something wet was rolling in his eye sockets:

"You! You're saying me—aren't you almost the same? Your madness is like a second life; you've even devalued yourself to such a miniature size, less than the size of a palm, that you have to hide in someone else's body to prolong your life:"

"You must be terribly afraid of death, too! And you can't even believe in your own worth; otherwise, how could the representation take this form?"

"Don't tell me you didn't attend the orientation! Don't you know how ecstasy reflects desire and self-perception?!"

"You've been dumped into this kind of work. You're just a castaway for those network promoters. If you were truly valued, would you play this kind of role in this matter? A disposable one?"

"If I hadn't met Doudou, you'd be dead now! Or you'd have been interrogated by John and I in the safe house, and then eliminated by the cleanup team sent by the section chief. Of course, those who went to clean up the mess could also be killed!"

"After you die, whether you can call someone on the other side of the world is none of your business! People don't have to be sacrificed to be valuable!"

"Don't act stupid! If you want to see the end of a game, you have to play it well!"

The mathematician remained silent as he looked at Richard, who was trembling with excitement and even a little incoherent; the little man in his chest rose and fell with the rolling of body fluids, but he did not give the middle finger again.

The two men lowered their heads, staring at each other's shoes - Richard was panting and wiping his nose from time to time.

After a while, when Richard's body finally stopped shaking, the mathematician suddenly spoke:

"I understand. Okay, let's get on with exchanging information now."

The villain in his heart hesitated, and the mathematician suddenly added:

"You have strong analytical skills and are quite smart."

Richard put one hand on his waist, coughed twice, and blew his nose:

".Yeah, I know. Thanks."

Chapter 72 Demand

The awkward and chaotic atmosphere just now disappeared in an instant--

Richard leaned against the spiderweb-like window pane, his hands hidden in his pockets again.

"Then let's start exchanging information. I don't want to be caught up in this mess anymore."

"You know the assignment John and I received: to recover the special package you took with you when you defected. What exactly is that important thing? This is probably the core of the whole matter."

The mathematician stood up straight with a jerk, his fingers trembling strangely:

"You're asking me? I want to know too: I died once because of it."

"The package—it's a code, a code: one hundred and eighty-nine digits. But there's no time to crack it. God knows what it is."

"When I entered the doctor's body, he had just begun to decipher it; then he was interrupted by Doudou. Even if there were no outside interference, it would take at least a few days to process."

Richard used his good hand to scratch his chin nervously:

"A password? If it's something like that, then the range of possible contents is really too wide. This is really a bit difficult to deal with."

The mathematician remained motionless, while the villain nodded:

"You're trying to use the contents of the package to infer why the section chief wants to get rid of you? Well, there's nothing wrong with that line of thinking."

"Look, I have a little guess I can share with you. Tonight, I wasn't just hiding inside the Doctor's body doing renovations while hanging out and chatting with you and Doudou. I was also really thinking about this."

"You have to understand one thing: Don't think we are fools for linking up with the Renaissance Movement. Many people think we are just playing house; don't be ridiculous, the [cocoons] we have laid are everywhere."

"[Big Spiders] have been preparing for a long time. It is impossible for companies and political entities to suppress the direction of world development forever."

Faced with the two terms suddenly thrown out by the mathematician, Richard thought for a moment and figured it out:

"[Spider] and [Cocoon], can you please make your code names a little more simple? They're all about [web], right? That sounds a bit silly."

"[Cocoon] is the undercover agent of the Cyber ​​Propulsion Group, [Spider] is the leadership of the Cyber ​​Propulsion Group: I understand, continue—"

The little man in the chest raised his middle finger again and pressed it against the amniotic membrane:

"You don't think our [Cocoon] is only populated by nerdy people like PhDs, do you? Of course, we have people from all walks of life! So, of course, we have to make it simple and easy to understand so that it will be more attractive."

"Anyway, [network] and [NET] can use the same imagery in both Chinese and English contexts. How convenient and intuitive is that?"

"Tsk, you must be unpopular. Propaganda and recruitment are still very important. We have corresponding talents in the revival movement."

"Okay, I won't talk nonsense with you anymore."

Perhaps because he was not yet proficient in control, the mathematician showed a twisted and mischievous smile:

"Let me tell you, the section chief is no simple matter."

"The section chief knew I was an undercover agent—well, she knew what I was going to steal. Of course, she didn't say it out loud, but it was pretty easy for me to steal that package, too easy. She definitely helped me out by opening a backdoor."

"You know those [special packages] Corey keeps aren't that easy to get."

As he thought about it, Richard's vision became vague:

"The chief knew your background, and he let you go with the package? It could only be a setup, a way to lure them out. But confronting cyber pushers isn't part of the Special Package Handling Section's job description—"

"What are you implying? The section chief can't be a cyber-promoter. She's not the type to touch your weird fantasies."

The mathematician drooled and shook his head:

"Section Chief? Of course not. You don't need to tell me that the Section Chief is definitely not one of ours: she would rather go to the street and pick off the head of some unfortunate person, and then shit on that head."

"I mean there's some kind of exchange of interests involved."

The little man in his chest lay down in the bubbling fluid, as if there was an invisible sofa behind him. The mathematician continued:

“My speculation is simple:”

"The section chief's boss, or her backer at Asia-Europe Post, is actually a 'Big Spider.' The section chief was instructed to finish off this 'Big Spider'; so the section chief wants to silence you and John Dou, and kill everyone who was directly involved—"

"We need to clean up this whole thing properly so that this important person won't be implicated."

"My supervisor had instructed us to find a way to deliver it to Mong Cai and to find a suitable safe house in Mong Cai. As a result, I was exposed right after I ran away from the Special Package Handling Section."

"For some reason, I must have been captured, killed, or something in Mong Cai; otherwise, there must be a more convenient way to pass on this code. After all, it's just numbers."

"The Special Package Handling Division isn't under the control of the Southeast Asia branch; it's directly under the headquarters. So this [Big Spider] must be very high-ranking: we're just the hair on the giant's body, carelessly falling off as it moves. Do you understand?"

“But I don’t know why they decided to do this in Mong Cai. What’s so special about Mong Cai?”

Richard, who had been pondering carefully, suddenly spoke:

"Test area."

He raised his head, his eyes flashing with strange light:

"I see. It's the testing area."

The little man in his heart straightened up, and the mathematician said dully:

"Um, what did you say?"

Richard began to pace back and forth, making small circles:

“I said: The company needs to make Mong Cai a testing ground; that’s what makes it special in the eyes of those who promote it.”

The mathematician hesitated for a moment, then found the corresponding content:

"A pilot zone? Is it the kind used to screen for ecstasy, to identify specific ecstasy types who could open up new markets and businesses? They might even involve human intervention to get as many citizens into a trance as possible?"

"But aren't all the pilot areas located in Africa and Latin America? The company obviously didn't know about Doudou's existence, so why did they put Mong Cai—"

Richard shook his head. He was lost in his own thoughts, and his words became aloud thoughts:

"It has nothing to do with Dou Dou. The number of cases of ecstasy in Mong Cai has increased dramatically over the past three years. This could only be the reason why Mong Cai was designated as a pilot area. They even established a branch office to assist in the management of the pilot area."

"The higher-ups must have noticed the sharp rise in the mania index in Mong Cai and determined it was an unusual location; but they don't know the real cause of all this. Doudou."

"His actual reach should reach the entire city; it's just that the closer you are to him, the stronger the impact."

"Of course, Asia-Europe Post definitely doesn't know this yet. If they had already discovered Doudou's existence, they wouldn't have been able to move in as a branch."

"That would only create a protective circle; conducting preliminary investigations first would also prevent competitors from trying to grab a piece of the pie."