The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

A lullaby is not a piece of music.

It is a kind of erosion; the invisible sound travels along the path of the eardrum, reaching the depths of the mind, stirring up the inherent, life-sustaining order of consciousness.

What Lin Zheng heard was not a single melody, but the cries of thousands of babies, the shouts of battle, the sounds of students reading in schools, and the groans of the dying...

The voices of hope and despair intertwined.

These sounds were forcibly distorted and crushed, then brought together in an anti-physical harmony.

Professor Finch stood in the center of the podium, his hands hanging down, his body trembling slightly; he was enjoying himself.

His expression had lost its previous ecstasy, replaced by a restrained, almost calm satisfaction.

The agents' figures froze, solidified between aiming, standing guard, and charging. They were not dead, but living beings whose lives had been paused.

The black liquid seeping from his seven orifices slid down his cheeks, thick and cold.

The rigorous training that "American Dream" company puts into its agents proves utterly ineffective in the face of a lullaby.

These elites, known as the "Reality Stabilization Department," are no different from any unarmed ordinary citizen when faced with a weapon that truly breaks the laws of reality.

They were once symbols of order and embodiments of the company's will, but now they have become "exhibits" in Professor Fincher's eyes of his "great works".

That is not death, but a deeper form of devouring, an obliteration of the individual's very existence.

Their pupils rolled upwards, exposing large areas of the whites of their eyes; they were empty shells from which all their souls had been ripped out.

Lin Zheng felt his spirit crumbling, not collapsing, but completely dissolving.

The absurd and distorted melody echoed in his ears, and with each loop, someone would coax him to sleep.

That sound was a comforting whisper from the baby in the womb, a lullaby in the mother's arms, a mother's murmur beside her...

He was about to give up; the temptation to completely abandon himself and embrace "Lullaby" was becoming irresistible.

Giving up resistance grants a kind of eternal, thoughtless peace, like those who "sleep" in place.

He saw his arm turning transparent, the texture of his flesh becoming blurred, and finally dissolving into wisps of grayish-white.

The hallucination invaded his optic nerve, but the lullaby itself was the source of the hallucination, and reality could no longer be distinguished.

The horror of this attack lies in its direct targeting of the core of intelligent life: "reason."

It does not aim to destroy the physical body, but rather to occupy consciousness, transforming vibrant individuals into walking "spiritual containers."

Lin Zheng knew that even if he fell into a deep sleep, his body would still exist and he would still be breathing.

But he will disappear and cease to exist.

His heartbeat began to slow down.

An ancient pendulum swings heavily and slowly.

His breathing began to slow.

The weak stream flows on and on, long and enduring.

His body began to relax.

Soft feathers, light and graceful, drifting away.

My vision gradually blurred, and colors faded from the world, leaving only blurry lines composed of black, white, and gray—a black and white Christmas card.

He realized that he was about to be devoured, becoming yet another unconscious sacrifice offered by Professor Finch to the "Great Dream".

This unconsciousness may be the ultimate art that Fincher pursued—a collective, painless "sublimation".

He clenched his teeth, a metallic taste filling his mouth.

The pain briefly dispelled some of the numbness, and the candlelight, flickering in the wind, shone faintly again.

He forced himself to think, trying to find an anchor point that would save him from sinking.

[Authentic Deconstruction]!

The thought exploded in his mind.

He needed an anchor, an anchor that could resist the grand, chaotic spiritual erosion of the lullaby.

He expanded his perception to the maximum, deconstructing everything around him in an extremely painful way.

The entire hall, including the dust in the air, the stiff bodies of the agents, even Professor Finch singing and the lullaby being played, was broken down into the most basic structural lines in his eyes.

In the past, he deconstructed entities with clear boundaries and components.

But now, he is trying to deconstruct an intangible weapon that has been embodied in the spirit.

These lines are not physical structures; they are distortions of information, emotions, and laws, intertwined in an illogical way.

Reason was slipping away at an alarming rate, and alarm bells were ringing sharply in his mind.

[Crazy Insight] Under extreme pressure, it was twisted to its highest point.

When his Sanity value decreases, his perception of the truth of the world becomes clearer, and he is able to gain key insights and clues to solve problems on the verge of madness.

What lay before him was no longer a blurry black and white line, but countless pieces of information that defied description, flashing wildly.

They are the most primitive "programming languages" at the bottom layer of the world.

He saw the true nature of the lullaby: it was not a simple sonic attack, but a "data stream" compiled from specific mental frequencies, which formatted consciousness by manipulating brainwaves.

It exploits the human brain's natural desire for "stability" and "soothing," using "forgetting" and "peace" as bait to forcibly rewrite the core code of life.

The power of "realistic deconstruction" is also backfiring on him.

His skull was swelling, his eyeballs were burning, and his blood vessels were being scalded.

He had to find the lullaby's "weakness," the "loophole" that could cut off its spread, or at least interfere with its effect.

On the edge of extreme madness and rationality, Lin Zheng saw a subtle, almost negligible structural fluctuation.

It is not the main body of the lullaby, but rather clings to its edge, like a discordant note, insignificant in the grand symphony.

This is a "resonance point," a convergence center for the propagation of lullaby energy, and also an "unstable anchor point" of its structure.

This central hub is the megaphone next to Professor Finch, an ordinary device that can be physically destroyed.

It turns out that even such advanced spiritual weapons still require ordinary media to spread!

This discovery, like a bolt of lightning, briefly dispelled the fog in Lin Zheng's mind.

He wanted to take action, to use the most primal violence to destroy that fragile physical anchor, to smash the megaphone.

But his whole body was numb and he couldn't move.

Fear had never enveloped Lin Zheng so clearly.

That kind of despair—watching yourself being erased without being able to do anything about it.

Despair surged in like a tide, drowning out all his feeble resistance.

Sleepiness questions the meaning of wakefulness; wakefulness only leads to madness; peaceful sleep is true happiness.

Better to sleep peacefully in eternal happiness.

He said.

Just as he was about to completely succumb—

A sudden voice came through Lin Zheng's earpiece.

The voice had a slight electrical hum; it was a heavily encrypted and altered voice.

The unexpected noise pierced Lin Zheng's ear canal, penetrated the spiritual influence of the lullaby, and reached the depths of his soul.

The voice carried no emotion, no urgent command, and no caring warmth; it was simply a message.

"Lin Zheng, if you're still alive, listen to me."

It was a strange experience, as if someone was inside his skull, poking at his auditory nerve with a thin probe.

Lin Zheng wanted to respond, to make a sound, but all he could manage was a weak, hoarse utterance.

Consciousness is drowning in water, struggling in the abyss of despair.

The voice seemed not to need his response, or rather, it knew he couldn't respond.

"You're still alive, that's the first step."

"Your ability provides you with temporary resistance, but it cannot last."

"The effect of a lullaby is to format the mind, not to directly destroy the body. It won't kill you immediately, but it will leave you an empty shell."

Empty shell!

He didn't want to become yet another "perfect creation" by Professor Finch, nor did he want to become a "recoverable asset" of the "American Dream" company.

"Finch's spiritual broadcaster is on the podium, amplified through a loudspeaker," the voice continued.

"To stop the lullaby, you need to stop the physical source of transmission."

This is completely consistent with the conclusion Lin Zheng just reached through [Crazy Insight]!

This mysterious voice not only knew the characteristics of lullabies, but could even discern Lin Zheng's abilities and thoughts.

"You don't have time. His spiritual energy is spreading rapidly throughout the city through you."

Lin Zheng felt waves of sharp pain coming from inside his body.

That was his spiritual energy, which, in the process of fighting against the lullaby, was infected and was becoming the fuel for the lullaby's spread.

"If you can still hear me, follow my instructions."

"First command: Break the third ceiling panel to your right rear."

The instructions are clear, unambiguous, and leave no room for doubt.

To the right rear, the third ceiling panel.

Lin Zheng managed to focus his gaze, peering through his hazy consciousness towards the top of the ventilation duct.

He used almost all his strength, his muscles trembling and his bones groaning, as he suddenly stretched his arm out behind him.

"Bang!"

A dull thud seemed insignificant in the sea of ​​lullabies, but to Lin Zheng, it was like a thunderclap.

The sound had a rough metallic scraping noise, followed by a series of mechanical clicking sounds.

Lin Zheng looked up sharply and saw a gray, foldable roller ladder behind the ceiling he had smashed, which crashed down with a loud bang.

That's an emergency exit used for inspecting and repairing ventilation equipment.

"Climb up it, as soon as possible. Finch is looking for you." The voice sounded again, this time with a hint of urgency.

Lin Zheng did not hesitate; he forced himself to move.

The instinct for survival triumphed over mental collapse.

He clung tightly to the edge of the roll-up ladder, grasping at this lifeline.

Every inch of climbing was accompanied by intense muscle spasms and the recurring assault of lullabies in my mind.

But he climbed upwards, step by step.

He cannot turn back, nor can he stop.

Just as he was about to completely enter the upper part of the ventilation duct, he subconsciously turned around and glanced at the chaotic hall.

Professor Finch was slowly walking towards the agents who had lost their minds.

A sickly smile reappeared on his face, and he hummed the same distorted lullaby.

He reached out and gently stroked the helmet of an agent.

He's not redeeming; he's taking back.

He reclaimed those "experiments" that he had given "peace" and that would provide him with "materials".

He looked back, towards Lin Zheng's direction.