Chapter 374 - The Forgotten Li Bo

“Where did I find out about the USB drive?”

The director chuckled. “Of course it’s from your friend…” the director stuttered as he said this. He stopped speaking and took the list of names from Chen Chen.

“The dorm leader Wang Wei is dead. He was killed by the One Missed Call memetic effect and broke his own neck in the canteen.”

Chen Chen explained, “Zhou Jie was killed by the Ju-on curse and is one of the first batches of students who disappeared. Mr. Director, do you remember this?”

“Yes, I remember this very clearly.”

The director pulled at his tie and used it to wipe the sweat off his forehead.

“That’s where the problem arises.”

Chen Chen fixed his iron eyes into the eyes of the director, paying attention to the director’s minute movements. “In that case, from which dorm mate of mine did you obtain the information of the USB drive before you found out about me?”

“This…”

The director took a deep breath, appalled by this piece of news. “You’re right, I somehow never realized this at all. All I remember is that the first time I found out about the USB drive was from one of your dorm mates, but I couldn’t recall the name of that person… Shen Qi?”

The director turned to the mirror. “Come in here for a bit.”

Shortly after that, the door of the interrogation room was opened. A delicate-looking lady in her mid-twenties stepped inside with her arms wrapped around a file.

She was still in her office attire but no longer wearing her gold-framed glasses this time. Her dark hair hung slightly above her shoulders, she was a standoffish beaut.

“Director, you called for me?”

Shen Qi asked.

“Do you remember anything about the person who told us about the USB drive?”

The director went straight to the point. “What was the person’s name and who was that person?”

“Wasn’t it Chen Chen’s dorm mate…”

Shen Qi answered the question as if she knew the answer all along. However, just as she was about to reveal the person’s name, she suddenly stuttered just like the director did previously.

Chen Chen squinted his eyes when he saw this.

“Go through our logs, I want to see all of our records, data, and footage!”

The director ordered cooly. He sensed that something was off now.

“Understood.”

Shen Qi quickly departed.

After issuing the order, the director turned back to Chen Chen and said gravely, “Chen Chen, you raised a very good point. Perhaps you do have another dorm mate. Otherwise, it wouldn’t make sense that we could find out about the USB drive after the other two dorm mates were killed.”

“It’s not perhaps, I still remember that person’s name. His name is Li Bo, there’s no mistaking it.”

Chen Chen felt a cold surge of air welling inside him when he heard what the director said. Li Bo had only left two days ago and was detained by the FBI, that was when he revealed what he knew about the USB drive. How was it that nobody remembered him now?

Could it be possible that regular logic did not apply in his dream dimension?

Chen Chen felt like that should not be the case. Everything he had encountered so far suggested that this place he was in was something beyond a mere dream dimension…

If that was the case, then what sort of place was this supposed to be?

Countless questions swarmed Chen Chen’s mind but he did not have an answer for any of them.

After hearing Chen Chen’s remark, the director became even more confused. Surely enough, he had never heard of the name Li Bo not once in his life.

Within five minutes, Shen Qi barged inside urgently again with a stack of folders in hand. “Director, these are all the relevant documents concerning our Ju-on meme investigation. Everything ranging from the interrogation logs to the action reports is compiled here!”

“Where’s the footage?”

The director asked. Compared to data put to pen and paper, video footage was more reliable evidence.

“I’ve instructed the office to send them over to the computer.”

Shen Qi hurried to the computer in front of the two men and bent down in front of the computer to log into the internal account.

The footage from the internal department was quickly extracted.

The director buried his head into the stack of documents. He flipped through the pages hurriedly, growing more wide-eyed as he did so.

“Can I take a look?”

Chen Chen asked.

“No!”

Shen Qi responded before the director could say anything, “These are classified documents, you think you have the right to go through them?”

“Shen Qi, stop this nonsense.”

The director quickly put this meaningless squabble to its end. “Chen Chen has done exemplary work for the Central Continent. He has already made a firm contribution to helping our FBI solve this spiritual abnormality. Who are you to say he doesn’t have the right?”

The director ignored Shen Qi and declared, “Chen Chen, go ahead.”

“Alright.”

Chen Chen smiled and nodded before picking up several files and flipped through them.

Shen Qi wanted to protest but when she saw the director glaring at her, she reluctantly remained silent.

Only after a brief moment, Chen Chen felt the chilling sensation growing stronger.

On the interrogation log, all of the inquiries and dialogue were chronicled in great detail. The contents described how Li Bo responded to the FBI’s inquiry and also contained a mention of the existence of a USB flash drive. What was off-putting about this was that where Li Bo’s name should be was substituted with a blank entry instead.

It was more than just his name. Even his identification number, phone number, and household registration were left blank. It was as if the officer in charge had intentionally left them out…

How would it be possible for a renowned department like the FBI to make such amateur mistakes?

Chen Chen handed the files to the director.

“Hm? Why are these blank as well?”

Just as the director was about to burst with rage, Shen Qi found the surveillance footage from that day.

The surveillance footage showed a room with an acoustic cushion panel installed. A FBI staff was seen seated in front of a computer, constantly typing entries into the computer. Right behind the computer was a chair with a murky shadow seated on top of it.

Chen Chen could see Li Bo’s silhouette on top of the chair…

“What’s going on?”

Even Shen Qi sensed that something was off. “Who is that black figure? How is it that even the high-definition cameras couldn’t capture this person’s image?”

“Hurry and investigate it!”

The director clapped his hands on the table. “I want to know what exactly is going on here!”

“Remember to send someone to Li Bo’s home for questioning.”

Chen Chen reminded. “I don’t believe this. If Li Bo was erased from people’s memories, would everything he left behind disappear without a trace as well?”

“That’s right!”

The director agreed and turned to Shen Qi. “Go to Li…”

When the director said this, he suddenly paused. He then turned to Chen Chen with a baffled look on his face. “Who is Li Bo?”

Chen Chen did not know how to react. He only stared at the director who was also caught in a daze just like him. He proceeded to explain, “Li Bo is my dorm mate, he’s also the student who told you about the USB drive.”

The director immediately turned to Shen Qi. “Was the person we questioned at the time named Li Bo…?”

Shen Qi looked up from the computer, flabbergasted by this sudden question. “Director, who is Li Bo?”

“It’s…”

The director tried to explain himself, “It’s that…” He stuttered again and turned to Chen Chen looking for an answer. “What was the question you asked again?”

“…”

This time Chen Chen only remained silent and stared at the two agents.

“Hm?”

The director suddenly looked at the table and exclaimed, “Shen Qi, how in the world did these files get here? Hurry and take them away!”

“Yes.”

Shen Qi got up and darted strange looks at the stack of folders before she started to clean them up. She turned off the computer on her way back to the office.

“Now, where were we just now?”

After Shen Qi had left, the director turned to Chen Chen and laughed heartily. “My age is showing. Looks like I lost my edge and didn’t even realize I got distracted, this is embarrassing.”

“It’s alright, we were talking about what tools we were going to instantiate with the USB drive to deal with this memetic problem.”

Chen Chen chuckled along with the director before asking.

“Didn’t I already tell you? It’s a secret!” The director laughed. The two men shared a hearty laugh after that.

What the director did not notice was that there was a thinly veiled layer of coldness under Chen Chen’s smile.

Half an hour later, the director left as well.

With the five soldiers supervising him, Chen Chen returned to his bed. Underneath his calm expression, a morbid glimmer flashed across.

Antimeme.

Chen Chen echoed the phrase in his mind.

That was it, Chen Chen finally remembered. The reason he had Little X hypnotize him and sent him here was that he wanted to find a dream.

A dream that he had two months ago when he was injected with the T-virus.

It was a horrifying dream in which Chen Chen could not remember anything apart from the fresh memory of the fear it left in him. He knew that there was something in the dream that threatened to harm him.

It was Chen Chen’s instincts that continued to guide him and issued warnings along the way which helped him jog his memory.

This was how this hypnotization came to be.

One thing he never foresaw was that the effect of the hypnotization would be far more intricate than expected. Chen Chen was now trapped in a world somewhere between reality and illusion.

How did he conclude that this was not entirely an illusion?

This was because he could sense that everything he was feeling was more than a mere dream as it was all immediately vivid. The fine dust in the air, the ripples inside a glass of water, even each minuscule pixel on a computer display…

It was simply too real to be a dream.

In that case, how did he know this was not reality?

This was because this was not the world Chen Chen had remembered. To a certain extent, Chen Chen was not the Chen Chen he knew prior to regaining his memory. He felt like he had been in a deep slumber and remained in his shell as an observer as he watched the body act on its own accord and make its own decisions.

It was only until he obtained the USB drive when Chen Chen finally reclaimed this body for himself…

It was akin to taking over a character inside a video game and using the character to pass the intake missions. As for the reward for completing the missions, it was still largely unknown.

One thing that was clear to Chen Chen now was that his goal did not have anything to do with Ju-on or One Missed Call, it was something else.

Something that was known as an antimeme.

Li Bo’s disappearance was the final key to unlocking Chen Chen’s memories and helped him remember his motive for coming here. Li Bo’s disappearance must have been caused by the antimeme.

Unlike the disappearance caused by Ju-on, Li Bo’s disappearance seemed to extend to all traces of his existence as well. Not only was he erased from other people’s memories, but even digital data were erased as well. The reach of this strange power was unheard of.

According to Chen Chen’s evaluation of the nature of memes, if “memes” were responsible for spreading information, then “antimeme” would be responsible for erasing them.

Everything was erased efficiently. Not only limited to the memories associated with the person but even digital data that would otherwise be regarded as the most reliable source. Just like that, everything became erased, even the person’s parents and relatives would not realize anything amiss.

Despite all that, some things were difficult to erase entirely. For example, the belongings, living quarters, and clothes would all be left behind. What was disturbing about this was that even if people took note of these strange observations, they would only feel slightly confused at most. As soon as they tried to investigate the root of this confusion, they would quickly forget everything that made them feel that way in the first place.

Just like how Shen Qi and the director behaved just now.

This was the memetic element at play. This was what the civilization utilized to prevent E language from being acquired by other intelligent civilizations.

This was far more dangerous than some of the other lethal memes because nobody would realize when you have fallen victim to it. Even after ten thousand, a hundred thousand, even up to a million people died, everyone would still be none the wiser.

There was no way to recover from its effects either. Just like Ju-on and Final Destination, its very existence was an established law of the universe. Once forgotten, every trace became effectively extinguished.

In that case, why was it that Chen Chen was the only one who remembered Li Bo?

Chen Chen thought about this.

Could it be due to him belonging to the real world? Perhaps the reason he did not forget about Li Bo was that Li Bo had not been devoured by the antimeme in the real world?

It was only the Li Bo from this world who was devoured…

This was his current speculation.

Chen Chen let out a faint sigh. One thing that he knew for certain was that due to the USB drive malfunctioning, the situation had become far more complicated than it had ever been. Not only were there memes such as Ju-on, One Missed Call, and Final Destination unleashed, even the Earth Federation had joined the fray. It was an incredibly chaotic situation.

If the situation was portrayed as a pool of water, this pool would have congealed into a pile of mud.

For Chen Chen to find the antimeme inside this pool of mud and deal with it would be unbelievably difficult. One slip up and it would be Chen Chen himself that got taken out.

Chen Chen was unsure what the consequence of dying here would be.

It would not be an issue if he would just wake up in the real world. What he was concerned about was the prospect of himself being erased in the real world as well.