Void Jigsaw Puzzle

"What? You said these two people don't exist in the system?" Zhong Chenmu yelled at the woman on the other end of the phone.

"Yes, our system says no, that's it." The woman spoke with an unquestionable tone.

Because she is the 110 police dispatcher and represents authority.

Her temper was good enough because before this conversation, the boy on the other end of the phone had already asked a lot of questions in a long-winded manner.

It was just that his parents left home in the morning and had not returned home until midnight. It had not even been 24 hours, but he was so anxious.

Theoretically, she should only officially intervene if the missing person is reported missing 72 hours after the person has been out of contact. However, she could not resist the boy's nagging and chatted with him for a few more words. Unexpectedly, the boy did not believe her and asked her to look up his parents' names and ID numbers in the public security system.

She didn't know until she checked that these two people were actually fictionalized by the teenager.

She was furious.

How can we tolerate such a joke that takes up precious police resources? Strictly speaking, this is already suspected of being illegal!

However, she was very experienced and knew that if the boy was really trying to play a prank on her, he must have a backup plan and might have even recorded it. If she lost her temper on the spot, although she wouldn't be able to find any evidence against him, it would still be very annoying if the other party used it to cause trouble.

Therefore, she still controlled her emotions, but the coldness in her tone that kept people at a distance was already extremely obvious.

A normal person would have hung up the phone tactfully.

But the boy opposite didn't seem to understand.

"How could they not exist? I saw them yesterday. They gave birth to me, registered me, and raised me. Now you're saying they don't exist in your system? If they don't exist, then how did I come into being? Could it be that your system wasn't updated in time..."

The woman finally interrupted him impatiently: "My dear student, the 110 hotline is a valuable police resource, and our system is the most authoritative. If you continue to make trouble unreasonably, we will investigate you according to the law, even though you are under 18..."

However, before she could finish, the person on the other end hung up the phone.

Zhong Chenmu threw his phone on the bed in frustration.

As a college freshman, he had just taken a basic legal course and had also curiously studied the operating mechanisms of the 110 police department. He knew that his phone and location were definitely in the hands of the police.

If they wanted to come find me, it would only take a few minutes.

He paced back and forth in his little bedroom, wishing the police would come.

But after more than half an hour, nothing happened.

At this time, he finally felt a little tired, and his eyelids began to twitch.

"How about...get some sleep first, maybe when you wake up tomorrow morning, they'll be home?"

......

The next morning, nothing happened.

The room was still very quiet, so quiet that he could hear his own breathing.

Zhong Chenmu dialed 110 again. This time, a different police officer answered the phone, but the answer was the same as it was a few hours ago.

With an uneasy heart, he still did not dare to delay and arrived at the library before 9 o'clock.

He was distracted and had no concentration on work for the whole day. Fortunately, there were not many readers coming to borrow books, and the older sister seemed to be in a good mood and did not make things difficult for him or assign him any work.

The days passed like this, and by midnight on the third day, 72 hours had passed. Zhong Chenmu couldn't stand it anymore and called 110 again.

The officer who responded this time was more patient and calmer than the previous two, but in the end, all he could say was, "We've received your missing person report and will organize a search. However, we can't look for someone who doesn't exist in our system."

After ending the call, Zhong Chenmu felt that he had lost all his strength and collapsed on the bed.

Two days ago, he took out his anger on the police officer who answered the call. Now the officer has accepted his missing report and said he would look for him, but the last sentence actually made the matter unworkable.

He felt like he had punched cotton.

But what should I do now?

He suddenly felt lucky that he could still earn some money by working. If his parents really disappeared from this world forever, he would not starve to death.

Zhong Chenmu spent the remaining half of the night in confusion, anxiety and distress.

In the dim light of dawn, he felt as if he had fallen asleep before, but also as if he had not slept for even a minute, and was very drowsy.

He made a decision to find his parents on his own, using any means he could think of.

On the way to the library, he kept thinking in the shaking bus how to carry out his search plan.

He believed that the 110 police officer would not lie to him, but he also thought that the huge population database within the public security system was always a closed collection, and his parents' information might just not be in it.

The probability of this happening may be very small, but it is not impossible.

Compared with databases, he trusts his intuitive feelings and memory more.

Although he always felt that his memory was not all.

But when he walked into the door of the reading room that he had entered and exited countless times, the green numbers in his mind changed.

From “100” that night it became “101”.

Zhong Chenmu was both excited and regretful.

What excited him was that he felt that the inferences he made and the ideas he had distilled from the questions and answers he asked himself that night in front of the mirror were undoubtedly in the right direction.

As long as he faces the challenge, the binary value in his mind will increase.

However, the rate of increase is a bit slow, and the binary "101" is only equivalent to the decimal "5" in daily life.

You can count them on one hand.

"Only five points, what can I do with it..."

Just as he was immersed in his own world, someone patted him hard on the back.

Zhong Chenmu looked back with a little annoyance, and the first thing he saw was a pair of light blue eyes, followed by dense stubble and fluffy blonde hair.

"Professor Pierce!" he blurted out, "You haven't been here for a few days."

Pierce smiled and nodded: "Xiao Zhong, you still remember me, very good, very good... Come, let's go in and talk."

"it is good."

There was no one in the reading room at the moment, and the noisy older sister had not arrived yet. The surroundings were very quiet, just like when they first met a few days ago.

At this moment, the feeling of being watched flashed through Zhong Chenmu's mind again.

He frowned involuntarily and looked around.

"What's wrong?" Pierce asked calmly.

"Nothing..." Zhong Chenmu shook his head quickly.

Pierce stared at Zhong Chenmu without moving his eyes, not saying a word. When Zhong Chenmu felt embarrassed, he asked in a very oppressive tone, "Have you found the answer to the question I asked you last time?"