Chapter 623

Adam fainted.

"Regained memory again? There were no black slugs this time... Do black slugs only appear when encountering black rectangles?"

"The Foundation's memory erasure surgery doesn't seem to be worth that price. It's fine for Ma Ma Liang to remember part of the truth, but it's quite funny that Adam, as an ordinary person, can remember it continuously."

"If a D-class personnel remembered the days before becoming a lab rat during an experiment, would he collapse on the spot?"

"Adam and Ma Ma Liang should be special... or rather, this is not memory erasure at all, but some level of rewriting or overwriting. Under extreme emotional fluctuation, the forgotten neural circuits will re-establish connections, allowing them to remember what things were originally like."

"It's a pity that 343 only talked about the general idea when introducing the Foundation system and didn't involve these subsequent parts... However, the Garden of Recollection and the Family should have technology in this area of memory erasure, right?"

"Maybe the IPC has it too."

This is...

Eyes slowly opened, and the skin felt a hard and cold touch.

When Adam fully regained consciousness and his eyes became lively, he found himself in the front of a classroom.

How did this happen...

Then, he realized he was like a discarded puppet, lying under the blackboard, with one arm stretched out along the wall.

Why am I here?

Adam supported the floor with his other hand, intending to sit up, but then had a strange feeling, making him look at that hand again.

"My God!" he exclaimed.

Adam held his bad hand and checked the overly terrible finger stumps.

They were rough and irregular, covered with scar tissue and scabs, without any trace of sutures.

But he didn't feel much loss in his heart; it seemed that what was lost was not his own fingers, but someone else's.

As if before he woke up, he had already acquiesced to such a fact.

"What on earth happened?" he was puzzled.

Adam hurriedly raised his other hand; thank God, at least one hand was intact.

While rejoicing, Adam tried to bend and move it a few times.

Although there seemed to be signs of some nerve damage, at least he could still hold the bow.

Adam thought to himself: "It seems I can only change hands to play the violin in the future."

Thinking this, a bitterness couldn't help but well up in his heart.

How long would it take him to reach the same level of proficiency? I'm afraid it's far off.

After a brief frustration, Adam began to trace the past, trying to figure out what was going on with him that he had gotten himself into this state.

The last scene he could remember was him passionately performing Shostakovich's work.

That performance was quite high-level, he was in a good state, the violin sound had no stuttering, the notes had no deviation, all the beats were correct, and the emotions were equally full.

Everything was perfect until the moment memory suddenly broke, and the subsequent memory became a blank.

Only the unfinished movement fragment played back repeatedly in his mind, as if stuck in a loop, like an earworm that couldn't be driven away.

Like a repeating tape player.

So, Adam did what he had always done:

Hum a different tune to replace it.

At this moment, he felt a strange discomfort, like the thirst and weakness after a hangover.

And, his appearance was also terrible—his shirt was gone, and his arms and chest were stained with gray stains.

However, at the same time, a subtle sense of relief arose, as if he had just recovered from a long illness, and the worst stage had passed.

He stood up with difficulty, and his vision gradually cleared.

The inside of the classroom glowed with a warm orange-red light, and the light from the distant window made him unable to judge whether it was dusk or dawn.

The classroom walls were covered with posters and classroom photos, desks were placed askew, textbooks were scattered everywhere, schoolbags were discarded at will, and the front and back blackboards were empty.

Adam had taught temporary music classes in one or two schools before, but he didn't recognize this one.

"What on earth happened..."

While thinking, Adam walked out of the classroom, followed the corridor outside the classroom, and a half-hidden office door came into view.

Suddenly, a crisp telephone ringing sounded, which was particularly clear in this empty teaching building, with echoes.

The plot in the containment file made the audience start to suspect that this was a classic routine development in some movies and TV shows.

In this way, many places that had not been explained before suddenly became reasonable.

The reason why Adam came to an empty school and woke up from it was not a trap set by monsters or a conspiracy arranged by 3125.

The reason he appeared here was entirely out of his own will.

It was just that after he came to the school, he was awakened from his sealed memories time and time again, forgot what he had done before time and time again, and eventually became what he is now.

"He won't repeat this process here until he dies, right?"

"The last cycle was waking up in the corridor, this time it's in the classroom, where will it be next time? Will it be in some office, or outside?"

"Such a cycle always has an implicit limit—his physical strength. If he doesn't eat or drink for too long, he might find that he has no physical strength to move at all after waking up one time, and wait for death."

"For him, there is good news, because the end of the world has already begun, so he doesn't have to worry about not playing the violin."

"What's the difference between this and comforting an Evenk: 'You don't have to worry about your family suffering, because they are all dead'..."

"There is still a difference; Adam is the partner of a high-level Foundation official, while the Evenks were really wiped out."

The office was narrow and dim, piled with high documents, like a maze built of complex files, with only two simple small tables and a few broken office chairs.

Adam found the ringing phone and picked it up:

"Hello?"

And at this time, he found that there was another landline on the other table, with the receiver hung up.

Responding to him was a synthesized female voice, cold and mechanical:

"Mr. Adam?"

"Yes, who are you?"

With a tone of consideration, the machine voice replied:

"Before we officially talk, can I ask you a question?"

"What special meaning does the name Marion Hutchinson have for you?"

In an instant, a faint and ethereal ringing echoed in Adam's thoughts, but then dissipated instantly.

"No," Adam replied, and he followed up with another question, "Should I have?"

"No."

The synthesized voice made it impossible to judge its emotional color, neither disappointed nor happy, only cold as before:

"I am Ulrich, belonging to an organization called the Foundation. Our mission is to prevent the disaster that has already happened from repeating."

Disaster... A chill rose from under Adam's feet, rushing straight to his crown, as if there were countless malicious eyes behind him, opening in the black door.

Adam turned around suddenly, but only saw his own reflection on the empty wall.

He took a breath, calmed his mood, and continued to ask:

"Then, what on earth... happened?"

"The world has become purgatory, Mr. Adam."

"Heh, what bad luck."

Next was a long silence, long enough for Adam to question whether he already had signs of madness to deal with such a bizarre situation.

Finally, the voice on the other end of the phone broke the silence first:

"...Indeed, extremely unfortunate."

"Mr. Adam, we request your help. 'We' here actually refers to me alone."

"Because the Foundation has only one person left, and I can only rely on you at the moment. And, I am dying."

"I am sorry, Ms. Ulrich."

Adam spoke with some concern: "What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to find a person named Bartholomew Hughes. Please sit down, and I will explain everything in detail."

"Eh... the Foundation is dead? 'The Fugitive' is the third supreme divinity after 'The Missing Thing' and 'Black Moon' to destroy the Foundation."