Before the three of them set off for this valley, Qiu Ming had warned Zhang Heng and E-Goat more than once that they shouldn't continue investigating and should stop before it was too late.
Therefore, before E-Goat came in, he had already imagined many terrifying scenes inside.
For example, a heavily armed team was lying in ambush behind the gate, waiting to take them down, or Shengtang Morgan had hired a group of scientists to secretly conduct some bloody human experiments, or even locked up a group of alien creatures in the base without the public knowing.
But no matter what kind of conjecture he had seen with his own eyes, it was not as crazy and dark as what he had seen with his own eyes. What E-Goat had seen along the way was only the most common company structure and incomparably ordinary departments. But when all of this was pieced together and the final truth was gradually revealed, E-Goat felt the world spin.
He looked at the people who came down from the trucks. Every one of them looked healthy, but in the places where his eyes couldn't reach, their souls were already full of holes because of the patching.
E-Goat couldn't even see their faces clearly because each of them seemed to have the same face. And what terrified E-Goat the most was that he knew that he was once one of them.
Once he realized this, it was hard for E-Goat not to think about a question. If all his memories were written, what would his original appearance be like?
E-Goat tried his best to recall. His head was about to explode, but he still couldn't remember anything. What was even sadder was that E-Goat realized that even if he recalled a few words, he couldn't be sure if it was his real self or a distorted mark left behind by a memory encoding.
He didn't know where he came from, nor did he know where he should go. His past had been covered by countless upgrade patches, and he didn't know what kind of lie he would live in the future.
E-Goat didn't even know if his feelings for Xu Qian were real or fake. The latter was a woman he had once loved so much. But if even he himself was fake, how trustworthy could his feelings be?
E-Goat stood in the middle of the station square in a daze.
When Qiu Ming finished speaking, he was silently observing E-Goat and Zhang Heng. Among them, E-Goat's reaction was within his expectations. From E-Goat's eyes, Qiu Ming could see fear, pain, confusion, and disbelief mixed together.
This wasn't difficult to understand because E-Goat's worldview had completely collapsed at this moment. Qiu Ming knew that E-Goat's heart must be full of questions, but he didn't know who could answer them for him.
This was the normal reaction of most people.
However, Qiu Ming couldn't understand Zhang Heng. Although there was a look of surprise on Zhang Heng's face, this kind of surprise was like seeing a traffic accident on the road. No matter how tragic the scene was, it didn't affect the other car owners passing by much.
This made Qiu Ming feel a little incredulous. Anyone who realized that they had been living in a lie and had long lost themselves would not be as indifferent as Zhang Heng.
If possible, Qiu Ming really wished that he could open Zhang Heng's head now, read the latter's memories, and see what he was thinking.
"Xu Qian is just ahead."
After waiting for a while, Qiu Ming said again, "She's not far from the station, but I don't know if you still want to continue looking for her."
Qiu Ming's words made E-Goat even more confused. Other than the fact that he couldn't determine if his feelings for Xu Qian were pre-coded, if Xu Qian's identity was also fabricated, then did he save Xu Qian so that she could continue playing a role that she wasn't?
However, E-Goat didn't expect Zhang Heng to not hesitate at all. "Take me to see her."
This time, it was Qiu Ming's turn to be surprised. "Even after you understand everything, you're still going to take Xu Qian away?"
Zhang Heng nodded. "I don't care what this world is like. An agreement is an agreement. I've reached an agreement with her to help her investigate her matters. Now that I've more or less understood everything, it's time for me to report to her. As for whether she's willing to leave with us, it's her own choice."
"An admirable professional attitude," Qiu Ming said. Then, he looked at E-Goat. "What about you?"
E-Goat, on the other hand, was much more conflicted. He thought about it for a full minute before he gritted his teeth and said, "Reason tells me that I should turn around and leave this damn place, but I don't know which bastard wrote my memories, making me lose my rationality when it comes to Xu Qian. So, I still want to see her."
Qiu Ming praised, "I underestimated you before. You were still able to persevere after realizing that your personality and memories might have been coded."
"A bootlicker is a badass," E-Goat mocked himself.
"Actually, you don't have to be so pessimistic. The memory coding work we did was completed before you entered New Shanghai 0297. Except for a small number of residents who acted as clones, most people's memories won't be adjusted after that. Xu Qian came to New Shanghai 0297 after you, so all your memories and feelings about her weren't coded … You might have really fallen in love with her," Qiu Ming said.
"You mean to say that I became a bootlicker on my own initiative?" E-Goat's expression was complicated. "So, is this good news or bad news?"
"This means that even from the soil of lies, flowers of truth can bloom," Qiu Ming said.
"But I still don't understand. Since Xu Qian isn't a clone, why did you take her away?" E-Goat asked.
"You can think of this as an internal job transfer in the company. We monitor everyone's performance. For those whose performance continues to decline, the company will consider changing their positions. Of course, because Xu Qian is a public figure, it will be more troublesome to deal with her. This is also what I've been doing all this time. In order to facilitate management, under normal circumstances, we will set a goal in advance when we encode the employee's memory.
"This goal will be the employee's greatest desire. In order to achieve this goal, the employee can accept sacrifices such as giving up their career and moving away from their original place of residence. I'm good at dealing with female employees with love and marriage goals. In addition, there are also colleagues who are good at other types of goals. After minimizing the impact, we will hide it from the public and send them to other unconnected cities."
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