life copy game

Chapter 1613 Cognitive Concealment (Seeking Monthly Tickets at the Beginning of the Month)

He Ao turned his gaze to the bakery next door and walked straight over.

The bakery owner was an old woman, who was sitting behind the counter at that moment.

When she saw He Ao approaching, she paused for a moment, then stood up and said slowly, "Young man, I've paid my protection fee for this month. If you're hungry, there's bread in the shop; you can choose whichever you like to take away."

“Grandma, it’s me, Loren. Do you remember me?” Heo looked at her and said quickly, “I used to live in the orphanage next door. You used to give me little bread rolls all the time.”

"Loren?" The old man looked up at He Ao. "I seem to remember you. You've grown so much! What brings you back?"

He Ao could tell from her blank stare that she hadn't remembered him.

However, he didn't mind and asked directly, "Do you remember the orphanage next door? I can't find it when I come back this time."

“Oh dear,” the old man sighed, “don’t even mention it. A few years ago, a fire broke out at the orphanage and it was all burned down.”

"But after it burned down, wasn't anything left behind?" He Ao continued to ask, "Like ruins or something?"

"It's all burned clean," the old woman sighed. She turned around and took out a small box of bread from the counter behind her. "How have you been lately? Are you hungry? Take some bread home and eat."

"No need, no need," He Ao quickly waved his hand and laughed, "I've found a job, and the income is pretty good."

He steered the conversation back to the original point, asking, "Did the orphanage really leave nothing behind?"

“It’s all gone, nothing’s left, it’s all burned to ashes,” the old man said, his eyes lowered. “Don’t say anything more, the scene that day was horrible, it’s good that it’s gone now.”

“Okay, thank you, Grandma.” He Ao nodded.

He raised his head and left the bakery.

He had realized that the problem lay not in the old man's words, but in the old man's 'cognition'.

In normal understanding, once a building is burned down, it should leave behind 'ruins'.

However, in the elderly people's minds, once the orphanage was burned down, everything was "gone".

No matter how much He asked, he couldn't get an answer.

In the elderly person's mind, this situation is 'normal'.

He looked up and saw Reed and the other two gathered in front of the 'shared' wall between numbers 171 and 173, discussing something.

“We just asked around,” the man with the mustache said slowly as he looked at He Ao as he came out. “The orphanage was burned down in a fire six years ago, leaving nothing behind.”

“Our thinking might be a bit flawed,” Charn said, pulling out a cigarette case and instinctively taking out a cigarette, which he then put in his mouth. “They burned the orphanage down six years ago. It’s a bit late for us to investigate now.”

He Ao turned around, glanced at the shared wall, and said slowly, "Don't you think the architecture here is a bit strange?"

"What do you mean?" Charn turned his head, puzzled, looking at the scattered crowd on the street. "Is there nothing wrong?"

He turned his gaze to Reed, who was standing silently to the side, and said, "I think we should leave here before discussing this."

Reed glanced around, took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, and looked back at Heo beside him. "Let's leave here first."

Charn and the mustachioed man seemed a little confused, but they nodded nonetheless.

The group returned to the SUV, placed the rifle case back on the roof, and started the vehicle.

After driving two or three blocks, Reed finished his cigarette and asked slowly, "Did you just find something?"

“The orphanage has likely developed an anomaly, and a very strong one at that,” He Ao said directly, without beating around the bush.

"What do you mean?" Chase, sitting behind Heo, looked bewildered. "Wasn't the orphanage already burned down?"

The man with the mustache standing to the side also looked at He Ao blankly.

Hearing their questions, He Ao simply asked in a low voice, "Under normal circumstances, what's left after a building burns down?"

“Now that it’s all burned, there’s nothing left, right?” Chan rubbed his temples and lit the cigarette he’d been holding in his mouth. “No, my head hurts a little.”

“Ruins,” Reed, the pilot, said slowly. “Don’t think about anything related to the orphanage. Put the orphanage aside and think about purely common sense issues.”

The two people in the back row were slightly stunned when they heard this, then fell silent and narrowed their eyes.

"When did you realize it?" At that moment, Reed turned his gaze to Heo.

“I noticed it while we were still there. I sensed something was off about you guys,” He Ao said directly. “Is this the first time you’ve encountered something like this?”

“Cognitive concealment, this is the first time I’ve encountered it, but I’ve seen it in the association’s materials, and we receive relevant training,” Reed said hoarsely, pulling out his cigarette case again from his clothes and glancing at He Ao.
"You're the only child who escaped from that orphanage, and you might have some special connection to it, which might make you somewhat immune to this cover-up,"

He put a cigarette in his mouth and said, "Maybe that's why those people have to hunt you down."

“Five years ago, I went back to the orphanage, and I saw the ruins then,” Heo sighed, then looked at Reed and asked, “What about you? When did you realize about ‘cognitive masking’?”

"I realized something was wrong after you pointed it out, but it only just dawned on me,"

Reed glanced at the bracelet, quickly operated it, then took out a cigarette, lit it, and said hoarsely, "Once you're far enough away from the anomalous area, the effects of the anomalous will weaken. At that point, as long as you manage to forcibly discard any content related to the anomalous, normal common sense and cognition will not be affected."

"So, we'll still be affected even if we're near the anomaly?" the mustachioed man in the back row asked hoarsely.

It seems he has already realized what's happening.

“There are ways to avoid it,” Reed explained calmly. “This kind of cover-up can only affect those who are not yet aware of the anomaly. Once they are aware of the anomaly, they can skip the cognitive process and simply make themselves ‘believe’ that there is an anomaly there.”

“就像是数学原理？”何奥插话道，“不需要知道1+1为什么等于2，只需要记住1+1等于2就是了。”

Reed paused for a moment before slowly nodding and saying, "Yes, that's pretty much it."

"High school students really do have sharp minds," Chase said half-jokingly, a cigarette dangling from his lips, sitting behind Heo.

Clearly, he realized what was happening.

He turned his gaze to Reed and asked the question everyone in the car wanted to know, "What level of 'anomaly' did you see in the data that caused this situation?"

Reed took a deep drag on his cigarette, then removed the butt and placed it outside the window, watching the cold wind whip the embers, before slowly and hoarsely saying, "Level 1."

Only two chapters today, time for a break. Hoping for some votes at the beginning of the month.