Chapter 45 4. Visit

On Monday afternoon, Feng Lun and I asked our homeroom teacher for leave for evening self-study.After school, we ate something at a Western fast food restaurant, then took a taxi to the Center of the Living Dead. When I arrived at the vice president's office, it was fifteen minutes to seven o'clock. "Well, you are very punctual." The vice president sat on the leather chair behind the desk and said with satisfaction.He pointed to the sofa, "Sit down for a while, the doctor who will test you will be here at seven o'clock." Feng Lun and I sat on the sofa yesterday, the copy was soft and comfortable, but I couldn't relax.

The deputy director seemed to see my uneasiness, and said with a smile: "Don't be nervous, the detection of solanum virus is not much different from a general physical examination." I suddenly felt that the deputy dean was a nice person, kind, understanding, and unassuming, which increased my goodwill and trust in him. "Oh, by the way, my surname is Wu, and I forgot to introduce myself before." He said, "The detection of solanum virus is mainly to detect virus antibodies and related immune indicators for human blood, body fluids, cell tissues and organs. The detection time is In four days, the results can be obtained on the fifth day. In addition, according to the new regulations of our institute, during these four days, all suspected infected persons will be given 'practical experience'."

Neither Feng Lun nor I understood, so we asked together, "What do you mean?" The deputy dean frowned: "You know, people now have very different views on becoming a living dead. Some people try their best to become a living dead, while another type of people have excessive fear of contracting the solanum virus , they found themselves infected with the solanum virus, and committed suicide before the onset of the disease. This attitude is too extreme. Therefore, we provide the opportunity to observe the living conditions of the living dead, and in this way to inform people, it has actually become The living dead are not that scary, it's just life transformed into another form."

The man in his thirties who brought us here yesterday came in from the door: "Dean Wu, the doctor in charge of testing is here." "I'll take them there right away." The vice president said, looking at us: "How about it, let's go." The two of us took the elevator down to the second floor with the deputy dean. I saw a sign on the wall of the lobby on this floor, which said "solanum virus testing point". The deputy dean helped us get two forms from an open window, asked us to fill in some relevant personal information, and then took us to a blood laboratory and told us that what we had to do today was a blood test.

Indeed, as he said, the process of drawing blood is no different from a normal physical examination, and Feng Lun and I quickly completed it in cooperation with the doctor. Next is the important point, the vice president is going to take us to the living area of ​​the living dead. Not to mention Feng Lun, even I was a little excited - after all, after so long, I was finally going to see the real living dead for the first time. Leaving this building, we walked towards the "B District" next to it.I asked, "Vice President, is there any difference between these 'Area' and 'B'...? What's the difference between the living dead living in it?"

"There is no essential difference, basically it is divided according to the time of stay. Area A is the first group of living dead who came here, about five years ago; Area B came here four years ago... By analogy, now we have a total of five undead living areas, with an average of 600 living dead in each living area." "That means there are more than 3,000 living dead in this place?" I was shocked, "So many?" "City B is a big city." The vice president said, "There are not so many smaller cities." When we were talking, we had already arrived downstairs in Area B.The vice president explained his purpose to the staff at the door, and one of them came out of the room and seemed to be walking with us.The vice-principal raised his head inward, motioning for us to go inward.

"Are we... just going in like this?" I hesitated. The vice president smiled and said, "What else? Do you want to wear an explosion-proof suit? Don't worry, they won't attack people." "Okay, Luo Chen, don't lose face." Feng Lun couldn't wait, "There is nothing to be afraid of." I didn't want to be laughed at by them, so I bravely walked in. Entering the interior of Area B, I found that it looked like the inpatient department of a certain hospital. The semicircular building surrounded the activity space in the middle of the ground floor.The building has a total of six floors, and each floor is a number of small rooms.It's only half past seven, but it feels like it's early midnight here.Every room is dark, without a single light, and the whole area can't hear a single sound, it's like an empty building.

Feng Lun asked in surprise, "Is there... are there really living dead people living here?" "Of course, there are in every room." The vice president said, "If you don't believe me, go to the door and have a look." Feng Lun walked to the door of the room closest to him, and looked in tentatively—the mountain door was the same as the door of the ward, with a piece of glass above it, and he could see the scene inside, but Feng Lun's expression showed that he didn't see anything. See. I stood with the vice president and that staff member, carefully watching Feng Lun's reaction.At this time, I saw the deputy dean whisper something to the staff member, and the staff member took out something like a remote control from his pocket and handed it to him.

Feng Lun stared wide-eyed at the room, but it was too dark to see clearly.Just when he was trying to find out what happened, the lights in the room suddenly turned on, and a face of a living dead appeared at the door. If it wasn't for the glass, it would have been close to Feng Lun's face . "Ah!" Feng Lun screamed in fright, and staggered back, "Oh...damn it!" He was so frightened that even I, who was two or three meters away, was shocked. The vice president couldn't help laughing, he came over and patted Feng Lun on the shoulder and said, "I'm sorry, every time I'm with young people who visit here for the first time, I can't help but want to open a Just a joke, I hope you don't mind."

Feng Lun not only didn't mind, but felt that the vice president's temper was very to his liking.He rubbed his chest and laughed: "To be honest, I was really terrified, but it was so exciting!" "Don't these living dead need lights?" I asked from a distance. "No, lights don't mean anything to them." "You mean they don't have the ability to sense vision anymore?" "No, on the contrary." The vice president said, "The living dead have night vision, just like cats." I opened my mouth wide in surprise, "Really?"

"Yes, there is no definite research result on why this strange phenomenon occurs until now." The deputy director pointed to the living dead in the room and said to Feng Lun. "Now you know why he looked at you in front of the glass window? Just now, when you approached the door and looked in, although you couldn't see him, he had already noticed you." Feng Lun made an expression of disbelief. "The two living dead are men." The vice president introduced. "The one standing at the door and staring at us now may be because he 'receives' foreigners the most times, so he especially likes to stand at the door and look out. We gave him a nickname." "What's it called?" I asked. "The Vengeful Slayer," said the Deputy Headmaster. I swallowed hard.The vice president burst out laughing with a "puchi" and said, "I'm sorry, it's actually 'The Catcher in the Rye'." I hide my uneasiness: "It's really interesting." "Are you going to watch from a distance like this? Don't you plan to look closer? This is a rare opportunity. I believe you have only seen the living dead on TV before." He was right, this is indeed a rare opportunity.I approached that door together with Feng Lun. It was the first time I saw the real living dead standing at such a close distance. This feeling is indescribable. They wear uniforms, with pale skin and empty eyes.Those eyes lost their pupils and brilliance, and the overall appearance was gray and white.The two living dead in the room are standing at the door, we are watching them, and they are also watching us, the only difference is that we need to blink from time to time, but they don't at all. I can't look at the living dead for too long, I always feel a little creepy.I turned to the vice president and asked, "Why don't they blink?" "The neural sensory system of the living dead is dead, and of course the nerves that control the blinking of the eyes no longer exist." "It's pathetic," I sigh. "It depends on how you understand it." The vice president said, "For normal people, this is of course a lack. But for people suffering from illness, it is no different from a good medicine against pain. The nervous system Loss means not feeling any pain anymore, which is why so many people are now voluntarily becoming the living dead." "Besides not feeling pain, I'm afraid I don't have any other sense of touch, right?" I thought. "That's right." The vice president admitted. I was imagining what it would be like to hold a book in my hand without feeling weight or texture at all.But then it occurred to me right away that if I really became the living dead, it would be impossible for me to read any more, or do anything else.Because I noticed that the living dead's room was almost empty, not even a bed, just two chairs and a TV. "Do the living dead watch TV?" I asked the vice president. "How should I put it, I am afraid that only the living dead can guess and answer this question-if they can speak. I can only say that they react to the program that is being broadcast, and they will stare at the screen for a long time. Look inside and you won’t know.” I thought of a related question: "Do the living dead have intelligence?" "Yes." The deputy dean replied affirmatively, "but it's very low. Our experimental research shows that their intelligence level is close to that of some rodents." "Like a mouse or a rabbit?" I frowned. "Almost, but you know, this is already a big improvement. When the living dead first appeared, researchers generally believed that their intelligence was lower than that of insects." I found that I have encountered the most interesting topic so far: "You said 'progress'? Have the living dead been undergoing this change from the birth to the present?" "Yes, there are some subtle changes. We and foreign researchers have noticed this problem for a long time." He suddenly looked at us with great interest, "You have heard that the Americans did it when the living dead first appeared. that test?" Feng Lun and I shook our heads together. "It's like this." He began to narrate like a story, "The researcher led dozens of living dead people to a broken bridge. When he reached the edge, the man used the rope in the air to slide to the other side of the broken bridge. But the living dead fell over the edge one by one. The whole time, none of them realized what was happening, or tried to change the direction they were going." "It means that the living dead hardly have any thinking ability at the initial stage," I said. "That's right, but four years later, the same experiment was carried out again. This time, the living dead didn't foolishly fall off the broken bridge, but all stayed on the edge of the broken bridge! In just a few years, they That's how developed your intellect is!" I took a deep breath: "Can I understand this as a kind of 'evolution'? If the living dead are slowly evolving without knowing it, what a terrible thing it will be!" The deputy dean squeezed his chin and stroked his stubble lightly with his thumb, as if he was carefully considering what I said: "Your views are very arbitrary, but I think it is impossible. If it is true evolution, then this speed is only It can be described as horror. You know, it took millions of years for humans to evolve from apes to Homo sapiens, but if the living dead can do it in just a few years, it is against the theory of evolution. " "And how do you explain their intellectual progress?" I asked. "I can only say that this phenomenon is still a mystery at present." The vice president said, "However, no matter what, it is always good to have this kind of progress." "Really? You think it's a good thing?" "Isn't it? At least for the living dead, it is much better to have development and progress in the future than to remain unchanged forever." I was reminded of what my father had said about the presence of the living dead as a prelude to some kind of catastrophe, and I was disturbed by the philosophy he had taught and influenced me.Everything has two sides.A thing tends to develop in a good direction, so it is thought that it may bring some kind of bad result... At the same time, I thought of my mother's philosophy of life - there is no absolute definition of "good" and "bad".For example, losing money is a bad thing for the person who lost the money; but it is a good thing for the person who picked up the money. Is the appearance of the living dead and their "evolution" "good" or "bad" for human beings? It took me a long time to finally understand the answer to this question.