Chapter 325: The Memetic Effect

When Chen Chen heard Little X’s voice, he could not hold back a thin smile. “X, you shouldn’t install communication facilities in this room. It’s likely that mysterious phenomena will leak out and cause a worldwide disaster.”

“It doesn’t matter because I’ve analyzed that sound isn’t the infection condition of this mysterious phenomenon you’ve encountered.”

Little X’s childish voice replied, “According to the information brought back by my clone X-112, I think the infection condition should be related to the female corpse you saw.”

“It’s the action!”

At this moment, Yoru Kamidera had adapted to the environment here and he quickly brought up his previous guess. “When I was outside the spaceship I saw the movements of the white figure. It put an ear on the wall, exactly in the same manner as the oil stain you described!”

Chen Chen was startled when he heard this. He recalled that when he entered that room, he did imitate the woman’s previous actions by placing his ear against the wall based on the traces she left.

In other words, this action triggered the infection condition?

“This makes sense.”

Little X’s voice was approving. “So to prevent the mysterious phenomenon from spreading out, I ordered the industrial park to work overnight, manufacturing a Faraday cage made of special tungsten steel. The thickness of the walls is more than half a meter and there are buffer layers installed. Even a tank’s armor-piercing projectiles can forget about breaking through this metal lump.”

“I don’t know if a tank’s armor-piercing projectile can break through, but if it’s hit by a projectile, Yoru Kamidera and I will be shaken to death in here.”

Chen Chen spread his hands.

“It doesn’t matter. This is just the first layer of the isolation room.”

Little X quickly added. “Now our factory is still working overtime to manufacture the second protective wall of the isolation room. The thickness of the second protective wall will be up to one meter. Once completed, it can be directly placed over the isolation room. At that point, the thickness of the isolation room’s outer wall will be more than 1.5 meters.

“After that, they’re rushing to complete the third and fourth layers too. My ultimate goal is to create an isolation room that is more than ten meters thick and capable of resisting nuclear bombs. No matter what mysterious phenomenon it is, it can forget about breaking through this wall!”

“It sounds splendid indeed.”

Chen Chen could not help laughing. “But how about our air and food supply as well as our excretions?”

“Please rest assured, I’ll install a circulation device and a discharge device on each layer. There’s no problem with air circulation.”

Little X explained, “As for the food supply, don’t worry. I’ve set up a special energy bar dispenser. This dispenser is usually closed. Only when the energy bars and drinking water are placed inside, will the mechanism be triggered, and the food will enter, layer by layer. For example, when food is entering the second layer of protective wall, the first layer of protective wall will automatically close. In any case, the sealed state of the room will always be maintained.”

After hearing Little X’s explanation, Chen Chen did not know whether to laugh or cry. Still, on second thought, it seemed that there was no alternative.

It could even be said that this was a contest between modern technology and mysterious phenomena. They would find out whether the products of human technology was more secure or if the mysterious phenomenon would still win out.

“Not only that.”

Little X continued. “I’ve controlled the Black Knights to work overtime to come up with a T-virus that matches your DNA. We’re just one step away from success. I want to know — once you officially merge with the T-virus and become a new lifeform with different DNA from normal humans, will these mysterious phenomena still be effective?”

After listening to Little X’s words, Yoru Kamidera was also completely astounded. Although he did not know what T-virus was, he still understood that viruses could transform human DNA. This direct manipulation of DNA to evade mysterious phenomena — it was the first time he had heard of such a method. Still, when he thought about it, it was worth trying.

Even he was stunned by this little girl’s remarks.

In this manner, the pair stayed in this impenetrable room. Chen Chen did not shy away from the topic, constantly discussing the Basilisk patterns and the mysterious phenomena with Little X while Yoru Kamidera listened silently.

“I’ve carried out the relevant research based on the information you brought back, and it seems that the principle of the original Basilisk pattern isn’t that complicated.”

Little X said compliantly, “I should know. For example, there’s a computer virus called a ‘fork bomb’. This tiny character set can define a meaningless function, then ask the computer to execute it repeatedly. The computer has no common sense to rely on and will only obey. What it is given becomes what it will execute, finally causing the program to crash.

“The picture named ‘Eye’ is like a virus targeting the human brain. The moment the human brain receives, through vision, the information from this picture, it will suffer brain death due to a program crash.”

“I know this, it’s called ‘Gödel’s shock’.”

Chen Chen nodded. “But how do you explain the other Basilisk patterns?”

“Similarly, they are all a type of information.”

Little X then replied, “You can think of it as an information virus. Information can be transmitted and this picture is the carrier of information. Human vision is the channel for information transmission and the target of transmission is the human brain. There’s already an existing concept of information of this nature, we call it — memes.”

“Memes?”

Chen Chen’s expression flickered. His knowledge about memetics flashed in his mind automatically — that was a kind of information dissemination unit, evolved from the word “gene” from biology, meaning “the gene of information”.

According to this concept, it was an existence whose evolution did not depend on the specific chemical basis of genetics, but only depended on the self-replicating transmission unit. This was what they called a meme.

The dissemination of memes was the process of disseminating information. Unlike genes that could only be disseminated across generations, memes could spread from person to person at any time through communication and other media.

To give a simple example, in the cesspool of the Internet, someone might learn about the joke of using “Righteous Light”[1] and occasionally crack the joke themselves. Then, someone uninformed would ask: “What’s the joke?”

After the first person’s explanation, the second person understood the meaning of “Righteous Light”. Thus, when the latter encountered something that reeked a little of positivity, they would hum the tune subconsciously — this was the spread of memes.

In this case, the song “Righteous Light” was the carrier of the meme. It was transmitted through communication between people. Human beings were the infectors or hosts of the meme, and the transmission channel was the entire Internet.

After the host was infected, there would be an intense desire to spread the meme around. This desire could also be seen as a form of “bragging”. In short, driven by this desire, the meme would be spread through the Internet to an increasingly larger audience, eventually forming a kind of network trend.

“However, this is different from jokes. Generally speaking, jokes have no influence on human beings. Even globally banned music such as “Gloomy Sunday”[2] uses psychological suggestions and other methods to impact people’s spirits. They contain no inherent influence on humans and will not interfere with the state of human life.”

Little X explained, “But the memetic is different. This is a special kind of information that has the ability to directly interfere. Its impact on humans is on both physical and mental levels. I think this impact and interference can be called —

“The memetic effect!”

[1] A lyric from a Chinese song that later became used to satirize superficially “positive” sentiments.

[2] A song purported in urban legend to have caused many suicides.