Cyber ​​Ghost Record

Chapter 79, Section 78: Loneliness/Anger

The venue was so quiet that you could hear the steam rising and falling.

The atmosphere, however, was heating up, a strange, unspoken understanding connecting all the participants. They had been tormented by suffering, but now they understood that they were suffering because they were seeking insight into the truth, and because they were about to gain freedom.

Some people started speaking along with the blue figure, and then others followed suit.

The vocal cords and diaphragm emitted various murmurs and growls, shouting for freedom, truth, and reality, one after another.

The suppressed yet surging emotions in those words even gave Suger goosebumps.

Dopamine was coursing through his bloodstream.

Some fragments of thought were swept up by the tide, drifting between the organization and the spiritual society, like beacons, arranging a vague direction.

In that instant, Suger almost believed that the Spirit Society was the organization he had been searching for.

But when the excitement subsided and reason prevailed, he realized that these fragments of thought were merely products of desire and fantasy, and could not constitute a complete logical path.

The hall was noisy. Socrates remained silent, glancing around at the pervasive, morbid fanaticism. Of course, they were all indeed patients. Even Socrates, with his "impure motives," was a genuine sufferer of fuzzy vision syndrome.

These diseased cells clustered together, forming a lesion. However, this lesion did not receive surgery. It remained in the all-knowing eyes of the gods and Buddhas. Perhaps this lesion was just a papule, a normal accumulation of metabolic waste, painless and insignificant. Or perhaps, they allowed this trivial ailment to exist in order to regulate the immune balance.

He stood in the crowd, gradually regaining the calm composure of an outsider.

People began sharing their experiences and suffering. Beside him, Shan Jun recounted how he had his nucleus accumbens removed to overcome his addiction to digital drugs, and how he now needed long-term dopamine to suppress suicidal impulses. When someone asked Sug about his past, Sug shook his head and didn't answer. He didn't attract suspicious glances; there are always people ashamed to speak of their secrets.

"We are all suffering."

After ten minutes of discussion, the rally organizer spoke again.

“Look at ourselves, and then look at our companions; suffering is so common. It's happening all around us, so why do people turn a blind eye?”

"Because we've always been alone."

His tone of voice changed simultaneously with the temperature of the venue, making everyone feel as if they were in the dead of winter.

"The present era is an era of loneliness. We are isolated islands of information, with no communication and no interaction. In the past, people were closely connected by various ties, but today's society has severed those ties."

"In the past, there was cooperation; people worked together towards a common goal. Now, that bond has disappeared, and people fight alone. In the past, men and women would form couples; now that bond has disappeared, families have perished, and love has been buried with them. Most of us were born in nursing homes, and many young people in modern times no longer give themselves names or choose surnames; even if they do, it's merely following cultural inertia. Names have lost their meaning. In the past, people inherited surnames, and they also inherited the genetic history that created them. They were themselves, and also the continuation of their ancestors' lives. They were born with the past, so they could move into the future. But now we have lost the past, and therefore the future no longer exists."

The host spoke with a somber tone.

"We are born alone."

How lonely are we?

"We are so lonely that we think our fate is independent."

"Look around you, you have companions, you are not alone."

The lights brightened slightly, just enough to make out the people around us. They were dressed similarly, and apart from their different silhouettes, all other distinguishing details were eliminated.

"We suffer together."

"We are not favored."

This statement was somewhat subtle, and Suger felt that the hidden subject alluded to the gods and Buddhas. "We have been abandoned."

Similar semantics, repetitive emphasis. Socrates was almost certain that the ideas of the Spiritual Society were truly opposed to the gods and Buddhas of this era, and a surge of emotion welled up in his chest.

"Why do we suffer? Because we are awake."

"We cannot ignore the facts!"

"We pursue authenticity!"

"We crave the truth!"

"We just want freedom."

People looked up, some trembling, some weeping. Their deep-seated anger, their sense of humiliation ignored for self-protection, were awakened at this moment.

Those who pursue freedom will always suffer.

The blue figure questioned, "But is this normal? Is this right?"

"wrong!"

Immediately, someone answered loudly, followed by more responses, the boiling sound making the cabinets on the dining table tremble.

Suddenly, someone shouted "Resistance!" The word surged like a torrent, quickly engulfing the crowd. A few scattered voices cried out for "Freedom," "Truth," and so on, but these were merely fleeting ripples on the tide, soon swallowed up.

The crowd vented their anger with shouts and screams.

Under the dome, the blue figure guiding people moved like a skilled and elegant orchestra conductor.

The crowd around him made Sug feel somewhat unreal; their movements were so synchronized, their anger so uniform. Whenever the host clenched his fist, they became increasingly agitated, and when the host slowly lowered his hand, the roar in the hall immediately subsided. It was hard not to suspect that some kind of secret switch controlling their emotions had been implanted within them. Or perhaps, they weren't real people at all, but rather holographic projections or robots?

But Suger did smell the body odor emanating from under the fabric and felt the faint air currents created by their movements.

The vibrations from them pounding the dining table were real.

Their emotions also infected Socrates; he was not spared. He felt their anger deeply and saw hope in them—that people in this era still had a spirit of resistance.

But soon, he found that his anger was beginning to shift.

The element that caused this transformation was fear. Initially, their anger stemmed from a desire to rebel. This audacious act of defiance inevitably triggered a deep-seated fear—

Raise your head three feet and there is a god.

The only thing that can overcome fear is an even stronger anger. And the even greater fear it triggers can only be countered with an even more frenzied anger!
In less than a minute, the crowd’s anger reached its peak; the anger was so pure that even its origins were diluted.

At this moment, it's entirely certain that with just a word from the organizer, they would dare to use hovercars loaded with bombs to attack those temples high in the sky and topple those statues. Even if they couldn't do it, they would still do it. Because their purpose in doing so is no longer about the outcome.

What's terrifying is that, driven by this rage, they dare to kill an innocent person without hesitation, and even torture them.

No trial is needed; just tell them they are the enemy.

(End of this chapter)