Tang Rou and Lucifer entered a hot pot restaurant.
The moment I pushed the door open, I smelled a strong stale smell.
This hot pot restaurant was full of people, but there was no sound. People did not really eat, but mechanically poured the dishes into the pot, took them out and put them in bowls, then mechanically rinsed another piece, and
Not stuffed into the mouth.
Tang Rou sat down in the outermost room, and Lucifer took the menu and flipped through it with great interest.
After a while, slow footsteps sounded from behind. Before seeing the person, I smelled an unspeakable moist smell.
Like the sea, and like fish and shrimps that have been exposed to the sun on the beach, with a strange fishy and salty smell.
It's a waiter, holding a tablet to record.
Tang Rou raised her eyes.
On the surface, they are no different from humans, except that they have a sense of moisture on their bodies.
The waiter was of Asian race, with a layer of crystal water on his yellowed skin, as if he was sweating.
Lucifer couldn't read human words, so he clicked around on the menu with his fingers, choosing pictures that looked good and had bright colors.
Tang Rou held her chin, thoughtfully.
These creatures from the deep sea seem to be interested in brightly colored things. Is it because the colors at the bottom of the water are so colorful that they have a natural affinity for colorful things?
However, when Sea Rabbit ordered roasted brains, Tang Rou still reached out and pulled her hand, and said seriously, "I think you might not be able to get used to this."
I reported the menu to the waiter, who slowly wrote something in the notebook.
Tang Rou reached across the table and held Hareto's hand, followed his gaze and looked down. She accidentally glanced at the waiter's notebook for taking notes, and was speechless for a moment.
It wrote so conscientiously and diligently that it wrote a bunch of ink bumps and coils on the notebook, which were like ghostly drawings. It was obviously just a formality.
Are all these mimics so formalistic?
So why bother playing a human?
Tang Rou was thoughtful.
The kitchen was preparing food, and when she pulled Sea Hare to get up, no one around noticed them, as if they were nothing.
However, as soon as she walked over, the mimic creatures that were mechanically eating all raised their heads and looked in the direction of her passing figure, with some strange colors in their empty eyes.
Across the cabinets where the tableware is placed, Tang Rou and Nudibranch lowered their figures and saw the chef entering the kitchen and opening the freezer.
Suddenly, there was an unpleasant smell in the air, and rotten vegetable leaves and zombie meat that had been refrigerated for who knows how long appeared in sight. The chef looked at the menu with ghostly symbols and rummaged through it with wet hands.
After a while, take out a whole piece of frozen food and put it into the meat grinder.
"..." Isn't that menu written blindly?
Can the chef understand it?
She didn't know how long those ingredients had been stored, but Tang Rou would definitely not put such strange things in her mouth.
She motioned for Lucifer to follow her and left. She didn't notice that an arm was exposed from the freezer, with five slender and soft fingers attached to it, which looked like a human female hand.
After the chef finished grinding the meat, he closed the freezer and stuffed the exposed arm back in, using it to prepare meals for the next diners who would order.
Most of the people in the restaurant had dull eyes and ate slowly, but the rice was not brought to their mouths at all. They were picked up with chopsticks, moved a little closer to their mouths, and then put down again. It was very mechanical.
Tang Rou looked around, and the strange feeling became more and more obvious.
There is no joy on every "person's" face, they are just doing meaningless things.
Why on earth should we repeat human behavior?
The hot pot looks inedible. The soup inside is grey-brown and very turbid. The bubbles rolling when heated make a gurgling sound, like sticky chewing gum bubbles. Just looking at it makes people feel sick.
Discomfort.
Tang Rou pulled Sea Bunny away without hesitation.
Outside the hot pot restaurant is a convenience store common in the city.
After all, the items in the convenience store had passed quality inspection and were packaged. Tang Rou walked in with her last glimmer of hope.
With a ding-dong sound, the automatic sensor door opened, and the clerk stood motionless.
She and Sea Hare walked straight to the shelves, took the products on them and turned them over to see the shelf life.
As expected, most of the production dates written on food packaging bags and daily chemical products were ten years ago or more, which is enough to prove that the city's supplies have not been replaced in the past ten years.
Even if these mimic creatures pretend to be human, they will not actually use these things, so the supplies in the convenience store have always been full and have not decreased.
Just like those foods in hot pot restaurants, they sit there and repeat themselves without eating.
Tang Rou picked up a pack of tissues, squeezed it, and walked out to the cashier.
When she turned around, she saw several people lying outside the glass, staring at her with blank eyes. The moment their eyes met, Tang Rou's hair almost stood on end.
But then she realized that her vision was not that clear, and what she saw now was Lucifer's perspective.
Those people were actually looking at Lucifer.
The moment their eyes met, the mimic humans left the glass window, turned around and walked away slowly.
"Why are they staring at you?" Tang Rou asked.
The young man looked back, hiding the fierceness in his eyes, and said softly, "I don't know, Rou, they look very annoying."
The oden is cooked behind a glass cabinet, and the contents inside have been cooked dry and rotten, and are mushy at the bottom.
It looked like there was nothing edible, so the clerk scanned the packaging bag symbolically and let Tang Rou go out without mentioning any money.
To be honest, it's a bit weird to feel like you can be upright and not pay even if there is a shop assistant around.
It's a little weird and refreshing.
Lucifer had always wanted to go to the movies. Before taking him to the movies, Tang Rou logged in her ID card at the bank, and then slowly continued to wander around the city.
She could feel that the alien creatures that mimicked humans had obviously noticed them, but they did not come close. Even the moment their eyes met, they pretended not to see them and left expressionlessly.
This is enough to prove that these alien creatures are actually intelligent, but Tang Rou still doesn't know what they are hiding.
Just as he was thinking this, the huge 3D surround screen in the mall lit up, and a news item was being broadcast on it.
Tang Rou looked up and was a little surprised, because this news was not from ten years ago, but real-time news, marked with the current date.
And the faces on the news are no strangers either.
There were very few pedestrians on the road. Some looked up at the screen with dull expressions. Others dismissed it as meaningless noise in the city and quickly walked past.
It's not much different from real human society.
On the screen was an awards ceremony, and it was a reporter from New World Media Group. The captions on the subtitles were "Light of Humanity", "Brave Warrior", Ms. Luo Xi.
She is giving a speech.
He bravely exposed the dark operations of a certain biopharmaceutical company and is receiving a commendation from the mayor of the city directly under the jurisdiction of the consortium.