Chapter 1005

"You only received your first memory enhancement this morning, so that thing can exist in your memory."

This is the anti-meme effect.

No matter how unreasonable that thing is, no matter how abrupt it is, the vast majority of people will turn a blind eye to it.

Even if someone glimpses a corner of it in a trance, or sees its blurry full picture, these memories will be cleared in the next moment.

For the parties involved, it's just a trance moment quite common in life; everyone has had such feelings more or less.

Hearing Ma Liang's statement, a trace of surprise flashed on Moreno's face, which had a considerable proportion of vigilance.

"Such a big thing has been standing there, and we have turned a blind eye to it?"

"Yes," Ma Liang nodded.

"Then what exactly is it?"

"What is it?" Ma Liang repeated Moreno's words, raised her finger and pointed to the corridor leading outside the site, "I'll take you to see it."

It was raining heavily outside the site, and there was only one kind of continuous white noise of falling rain between heaven and earth.

Ma Liang led Moreno, walking through the forest path, and walked into the shadow of the giant rock.

This is ancient basalt; it is huge and complete, weathered by the years, showing a deep black color.

It is by no means naturally formed; its almost perfect rectangular shape and the ninety-degree edges without any difference all indicate that it is an artifact carved by humans.

It leaned obliquely in the forest on the east side of Site-41, almost occupying the entire view outside the window of the main building of the site.

"There is a weak anti-meme effect around it," Ma Liang explained to Moreno while walking in front carefully.

"For most people, it doesn't exist, or rather, it's invisible."

"You have also climbed the nearby hills before and should have seen it completely and clearly, but you have no memory of it, is that so."

"Besides this performance, it has another more powerful anti-meme effect, enough to erase people's memories of everything about it, even Foundation memory drugs are of no avail."

That is enough to penetrate the defense line built by the Foundation with drugs.

"So we will forget all of this?" Moreno asked.

Is there no way to write it down... As soon as such a question arose in her mind, she saw the notebook and blue ballpoint pen in Ma Liang's hand.

The method is right in front of her.

The channels of the anti-meme effect are diverse and complex; sometimes only by taking notes can one avoid the blockade of memory, electronic data, radio signals, and even sound.

Agents of the Anti-Memetics Department know this well and have gradually developed their own countermeasures.

For example, using Foundation terminals, carrying fast shooting equipment, mechanical tape recorders, taking notes, or using walkie-talkies to let others write it down for themselves...

Moreno didn't expect that she could practice it herself today.

"Of course we will forget," Ma Liang replied.

"A side effect of the anti-meme effect is that I can't remember the route; we might be able to put some signs here, or set up road signs, but it's just not finished."

"I don't think this is because of the anti-meme effect, but the person in charge of this project is simply lazy... walk this way."

Ma Liang led Moreno toward a downward passage.

Called a passage, it is actually a deep trench; it leads directly from the top of the giant rock to its base, leaving only a narrow sky above the head, and steps leading up step by step under the feet.

The two climbed in silence for a few minutes, during which Moreno stopped several times, blocked the rain with her body, hurriedly wrote down one or two keywords, and then chased after Ma Liang who was always moving at a steady speed.

Ma Liang: "What content did you write down?"

Moreno asked: "For example... what is this place?"

Ma Liang: "Tell me."

"Hmm." Moreno hesitated for a moment, not sure where to start, so she checked the notes.

"Okay, first of all, from the geographical location, this rock doesn't belong here."

"At first I thought this was a mountain body carved by humans, but the nature of the stone itself has problems."

"Its material is completely different from the surrounding hills and mountains; you need to travel at least 500 kilometers to find a similar basalt texture."

"This means it may have been excavated from elsewhere, perhaps carved into shape there, and then transported here."

Ma Liang (bbda) didn't speak, but judging from her expression, Moreno's reasoning seemed to be close to the truth.

"However, this is almost impossible," Moreno turned.

"This is a whole giant rock; according to its volume and density calculation, its weight far exceeds 3 million tons."

"Even under current technical conditions, human civilization does not have the ability to move such a behemoth as a whole, let alone before?"

"Correct." Ma Liang nodded.

"Then how did it get here?" Moreno asked.

Ma Liang: "Good question."

Moreno waited for the answer; she had no idea about the origin of this giant rock and could not draw a conclusion, so she could only wait for Ma Liang to give more clues.

However, Ma Liang didn't respond; she continued to throw out questions: "Are there any other discoveries?"

This way of asking made Moreno think of a famous philosopher in history, Socrates.

This great philosopher called himself a "midwife of knowledge," and it seems he was also good at using this way of constantly asking questions to lead his students to think deeply.

"……And, it has some traces of carving on it."

Moreno said while pointing to the wall of the stair passage, where neat rectangular patterns were arranged.

█████

█████

█████

"This was chiseled out with tools; I noticed the outer wall is also like this, just like the rectangular cursor on an old computer display screen."

Ma Liang nodded, noncommittal, and under the curious gaze of the young doctor, she proposed another possibility that had not been considered.

"Or a tombstone for letterpress printing."

……

"Ah? Tombstone?"

"Under what circumstances would such a tombstone be built? Are the individuals of this civilization mollusks? Will they not leave any bones after death?"

"It is possible that it was erased by the anti-meme effect."

"That shouldn't be the case; people erased by the anti-meme effect do not exist from the beginning in other people's memories; for non-existent people, where does the tombstone come from?"

"No, no, no, what is always difficult to be noticed is the anti-meme hazard entity, not the people killed by Him; those killed by Him will leave vacancies in society, and there will always be people who can react and infer the existence of 3125."

"In other words, this is a tombstone erected by a civilization destroyed by 3125 for itself?"

"This is supreme divinity..."

……

Tombstone... Moreno leaned closer and looked at the dense rectangular matrix more carefully.

"……Indeed, their styles are unified, and the traces left are quite delicate."

"But if this is the truth, these squares are too small; there will be hundreds of millions of such patterns on the whole giant rock."

"Completely correct," Ma Liang affirmed again, "Anything else?"

Moreno looked up, stared at the iron-blue sky and the rain curtain falling from above, and pondered the atmosphere created by this rock or this sculpture project.

——Loneliness, quietness, independence, solemnity, and a trace of disturbing coercion and fear, although there is no actual danger or threat under that deterrence.

"We think we are very powerful..." she took a deep breath and said loudly.

Ma Liang heard it and didn't ask further; she seemed very satisfied; she turned and continued to climb up, and Moreno followed closely.

The passage turned a few more times; every corner was a regular square, and every corner was a ninety-degree right angle.

Moreno had no intention to record, only feeling that her knees were about to explode when they reached the top.

Finally, they arrived at an open area filled with moisture and steep wind.

Under their feet were more miniature tombstones, spreading toward the front until the edge of the giant rock.

Under their feet, more miniature tombstone grooves spread out until the edge of the stone block at the end of the line of sight.

Not far away were the Foundation's scientific research equipment, a table under the canopy, an old computer on it, and a diesel generator next to it.

Ma Liang ignored this equipment, walked straight in another direction, looked at the sky with her back to Moreno, and played with a lighter in her hand.

The lighter is actually a propane burner used to light the stove; it was passed to her by her mother before she passed away, but Ma Liang doesn't remember.

"This is a monument," Moreno said her thoughts.

Ma Liang turned off the lighter and put it in her pocket, slightly surprised, but only slightly.

"That's right, in fact, when I mentioned the tombstone before—"

"How many anti-meme wars have happened in the past?" Moreno grasped the key point.

Ma Liang was silent for a while, and suddenly laughed: