Chapter 21 Chapter 17 Sound and Light Qin

Ablin Meath's house is located in a relatively simple community in Endpoint City. All the intellectuals, scholars, and anyone who loves to read newspapers are no strangers to Meese's house.However, everyone's subjective impression is different, depending on where the reports they read come from. For one thoughtful journalist, it was "a symbol of a retreat from non-academic reality".A society columnist, with overly emotional fluency, once referred to the interior's "disorganized, terribly masculine atmosphere."A doctor once bluntly described it as "bookish, but very untidy".A friend who didn't have anything to do with college once said: "You can have a drink anytime, and you can put your feet on the sofa." A weekly newscaster with a lively personality and a penchant for showing off once mentioned: " Profane, radical, brutish Ablin Meath, whose rooms are stark and functional without being absurd."

Now, Beda herself is evaluating this house in her heart.According to her first impression, only one adjective can be used for this home, and that is "dirty". Apart from the first few days on the base, they were treated well in detention.She felt that the half hour of waiting in the psychologist's house seemed to be much more difficult than those days in the past—maybe she was being watched secretly?At least she had always been able to be with Durham in the past. If it wasn't for Judi Ma's long nose drooping down, revealing an expression of extreme tension, this oppressive atmosphere might have made her feel even more sad.

The giant horse stretched out its slender legs and pointed its flabby jaw, as if wishing it could curl up into a ball and disappear.Beda couldn't help stretching out her hand and made a gentle and natural gesture to cheer him up.Judi Ma flinched in fright, and then smiled. "Undoubtedly, my dear lady, it seems that till now my body refuses to trust my brain, and always imagines that another hand will be stretched out to beat me." "You don't have to worry, Big Horse, I won't let anyone hurt you if I'm with you." The clown's eyes turned to Beda quietly, and then quickly retracted: "But they didn't let me be with you—and your kind husband. Besides, I want to tell you, but you may would laugh at me, but losing your friendship makes me feel very lonely."

"I'm not going to laugh at you, I feel that way myself." The clown looked more cheerful, hugged his knees tighter, and asked cautiously: "This person who is coming to see us, you haven't seen him yet, have you?" "Yeah, but he's a celebrity, and I've seen him on the news screens and heard a lot about him. I think he's a good guy, Big Horse, and he wouldn't want to hurt us." "Really?" The clown still fidgeted: "My dear lady, maybe you are right, but he has questioned me before, and his rude attitude and loud voice made me tremble. He was full of Weird words, for the questions he asked me, I tried my best to utter a word from my mouth - once upon a time, there was a storyteller, he saw me in a daze, so he told me that in this kind of In tense moments, the heart will be stuffed into the windpipe, making people speechless—this time, I almost believed his words."

"But it's different now. Now we're two against him, and he can't scare us both, can he?" "That is true, my dear lady." At this time, there was a sound of closing the door from nowhere, followed by a roar from far and near.When the roaring sound reached the door, it condensed into a ferocious sentence, "Get out of here!" Immediately, two uniformed guards flashed past the door, and disappeared in a flash. Abelin Meese walked into the room frowning, first put a carefully wrapped thing on the floor, then walked over, and shook hands with Beda casually.Beda responded with a man's handshake, shaking each other's hand vigorously.

When Mies turned to the clown, he couldn't help but look back at Beda, his gaze stayed on her for a long time, and he showed her approval. He asked Beda: "Married?" "Yes, we have gone through legal procedures." Mistan paused, then asked again: "Are you satisfied?" "Very satisfied so far." Mies shrugged, then turned to face the giant horse again, then opened the package and asked, "Son, do you know what this is?" The giant horse jumped out of his seat almost immediately, grabbing the multi-keyed instrument.He stroked the countless round and convex buttons on it, and suddenly turned backwards somersault in excitement, almost smashing the furniture next to him.

He was so excited that he shouted: "A sound and light piano! And it is so exquisitely made, it can make the dead feel happy." His slender fingers caressed the instrument slowly and tenderly, and then glided briskly across the keyboard, fingers taking turns pressing one key after another.A soft rose-colored radiance appeared in the air, just filling everyone's vision. Ablin Meath said: "Well, boy, you said you could play this instrument, and now you have a chance to play it. But you'd better get the tone right first, and I borrowed it from a museum." Then Mies turned to Beda and said, "As far as I know, no one on the base will serve this thing."

He moved closer to Beda, and said hastily, "Without you; the clown won't say anything. Will you help me?" Betan nodded without any hesitation. "Great!" Meath said. "His state of fear is almost set, and I'm afraid his mental stamina won't be able to withstand the Psychic Probe. If I want to get any information from him, he must first feel absolutely at ease." .do you understand?" Beda nodded again. "The sound and light piano I brought is the first step in my plan. He said he would play this instrument. According to his current reaction, we can almost be sure that this thing once brought him great joy .So, whether he plays well or badly, you have to look interested and appreciate it. Then, you have to show me kindness and trust. And the most important point is that everything depends on the My wink works."

Mies quickly glanced at Judi Ma again, and saw that he was curled up in a corner of the sofa, skillfully and quickly adjusting the internal mechanism of the sound and light piano, with a look of concentration. Mies resumed his normal conversational tone, and said to Beda: "Have you ever heard the sound and light piano playing?" "Only once," Beda replied in a very natural tone: "It was at a concert of rare musical instruments, but I didn't particularly like it." "Well, I guess that's because the performers are not ideal, and there are almost no really first-class performers nowadays. Compared with other instruments, such as multi-keyboard pianos, this kind of sound and light piano does not require the coordination of the whole body, and it does not It doesn’t necessarily require a dexterous mind.” Then he lowered his voice and said, “That’s why that scrawny guy across the way might play better than you and I ever imagined. More than half of all good performers are otherwise simply Idiot. The reason why psychology is so interesting is because there are so many weird phenomena like this."

Then, he obviously wanted to create a relaxed atmosphere, and continued to say: "Do you know what principle this weird thing uses? I have studied it specially, and the conclusion I have so far is that it produces electromagnetic waves. Radiation, without touching the optic nerve, can directly stimulate the visual center of the brain. In fact, it creates a feeling that does not exist in the first place. When you think about it, it is really amazing. As for the music you hear , that's nothing special, it's just through the eardrum and cochlea, but—shh! He's ready, please kick that switch, it's better in the dark."

The whole room was suddenly plunged into darkness. Juju Ma seemed to be just a small group of black shadows, while Aiblin Meath was a large group with heavy breathing.Beda's eyes widened expectantly, but at first she saw nothing.There are only subtle and delicate vibrations in the air, the scale climbs higher and higher irregularly, hovers at a very high place for a while, then descends, the volume also increases suddenly, and then swoops down and smashes to the floor, like a sound from outside the screen window. There was a loud thunder. With the melody of splashing and splashing in all directions, a small ball of changing colors gradually swells, bursting into many invisible clumps in mid-air, circling up together, and then falling quickly, like a fancy and intricate curved ribbon.Then the clumps condensed into countless small beads, each with a different color—it was only at this time that Beda finally saw something. She found that if the eyes were closed, the colored patterns became clearer.She couldn't name the colors, and every little movement of each colored bead had its own rhythm.Finally, she noticed that the colorful beads were not actually beads, but many small human shapes. The small human figures are also like small flames. Countless human figures are dancing and countless flames are shining, suddenly disappearing from sight, and reappearing for no reason after a while.They constantly shift positions with each other, and then gather together to transform into new colors. Beda couldn't help thinking that if she closed her eyes hard at night until they hurt, and then opened them to stare patiently, she would see similar small colored beads.She also thought of some familiar sights—color-changing floral cloth flitting in front of her, many concentric circles shrinking at the same time, and trembling amoebas and so on.It's just that the scene in front of me is larger in scale and more varied - each small colored bead is a small human figure. They rushed at her in pairs, and she gasped in terror, and raised her hands quickly.But one by one they rolled, and in a moment Beda was in the center of a blinding blizzard.The cold light jumped over her shoulders, came to her arms like skis, and then shot out from her frozen fingers, slowly gathering in mid-air to become the focal point of the crevice.In addition to these lights and shadows, there were hundreds of melodies of musical instruments flowing like a spring, until she couldn't tell which were lights and which were music. Beda wondered if Ablin Meath had seen the same sight, and if not, what had he seen?The question flashed by, and then—— She continued to stare, those small figures—are they really small figures?Among them, there are many red-haired girls, but the movements of turning and bending are too fast to be seen clearly.Grabbing one by one, they formed a star formation, and together they began to spin.The music changed to muffled laughter—girls' laughter—beginning in Beda's ears. The stars approach one by one, shine on each other, and then slowly gather together—from bottom to top, a palace is quickly formed, each brick is a special color, each color is shining, each flash They are constantly changing patterns.Her gaze was then directed upwards to the twenty jeweled pinnacles. At this time, a ray of flame shot out, swirled and fluttered in mid-air, weaving into an invisible giant net, enclosing all the space.From the net stretched out bright and delicate branches, and began to grow upwards, branching and scattering leaves in an instant, and each tree sang its own song. Beda was seated right in the center, and the music was splashing around her, scattered in all directions at a lyrical pace.She stretched out her hand, wanting to touch a small tree in front of her. The spikelets on the tree immediately floated down and disappeared without a trace, bringing a burst of crisp and pleasant bells. Twenty cymbals were suddenly added to the music, and at the same time, a large ball of flames spewed out in front of Beda, and then poured down step by step along the invisible ladder, all flowing to her skirt, where it splashed and quickly quickly flow away.Immediately, her waist was surrounded by fiery red light, and a rainbow bridge rose from the skirt, and there were many small human figures on the bridge. A palace, a garden, a rainbow bridge stretching as far as the eye can see, on which there are countless little men and women, all dancing to the majestic rhythm of the string music, and finally embrace Beda together... What followed seemed to be a startling pause, then a hesitation, and then a swift crash.All the colors immediately fled away and concentrated into a rotating sphere, gradually rising, shrinking and shrinking, and finally disappeared. Now, there is only darkness left. Mies stretched out his big foot to reach for the pedal, and then stepped on it, and the bright light shot into the room immediately, but it was just the dull sunlight.Beda kept blinking her eyes until tears flowed out, as if she had lost something she loved, and she seemed extremely reluctant to part. Ablin Meath's squat body remained motionless, but still maintained a wide-eyed, dumbfounded expression. Only Judi Ma was elated, humming a song excitedly, holding the sound and light piano, and couldn't put it down. "My dear ma'am," he gasped, "this instrument is really amazing. In terms of balance and response, its sensitivity and stability are almost beyond my imagination. Can work miracles, my dear lady, do you like my work?" "Did you do this?" Beda whispered, "You did it yourself?" Seeing her surprised appearance, Judi Ma's thin face couldn't help but flushed red all the way to the tip of his long nose.He hastened: "I did it all by myself, my dear lady. The mule didn't like it, but I often, always enjoyed it. It was when I was little, and once, I saw A palace--a huge palace, studded with gold and jewels--I saw it from afar, at a carnival, and the people in it were dressed in such splendor that I never dreamed clothes, and every one of them was noble and distinguished, and I never saw such a noble person again, not even when I was around the mule. The song I composed is actually a very poor imitation, but my brain It doesn't make me perform better and better. I named this song 'Memory of Heaven'." When the giant horse was eloquent, Mies finally came to his senses.When the horse giant finished speaking, Mies immediately asked him: "Come on, come on, horse giant, would you like to do the same show for others?" The clown froze for a moment, then took a step back, and said in a trembling voice, "For the others?" Mies said loudly: "In the large concert hall at the base, perform for thousands of people. Would you like to be your own master, be respected by everyone, and you can make a lot of money, and...and..." His imagination ran out, and he simply said, "And everything, huh? What do you say?" "But how can I do this? Great sir, I'm just a poor clown, and I'll never have my share of the good things in the world." The psychologist took a deep breath, wiped the sweat on his forehead with the back of his hand, and said: "But you are very good at playing the sound and light piano, brother. As long as you are willing to do a good job for the mayor and his joint venture Do a few shows and the world is yours. Do you like the idea?" The Clown cast a quick glance at Beda and asked again, "Will she come with me?" Beda smiled and said, "Of course I will, you little fool. You are about to gain fame and fortune, how can I leave you now?" "I want to dedicate it all to you." Ma Judi replied seriously: "Actually, even if I dedicate the wealth of the entire galaxy to you, it is still not enough to repay your kindness." "However," Mies said casually, "I hope you can do me a favor first..." "do what?" The psychologist paused for a moment, then smiled and said, "The small surface detector will not cause any harm to you. It will only lightly touch the surface of your brain, and it will touch everywhere else." Great fear immediately appeared in the eyes of the giant horse: "Don't use the detector, I have seen its power, it will suck up the brains, leaving only an empty head. Mules use that kind of thing to deal with traitors, As a result, those people all became walking corpses, wandering around in the streets and alleys until the mule showed mercy and killed them." After speaking, he raised his arms and pushed Mies away. "The kind you're talking about is a psychic detector," Mies explained patiently. "Even that kind of detector can cause damage only when misused. The one I'm using is a surface detector. Even babies can get hurt." "He's right, Big Horseman," Betan persuaded, "This is just to deal with the mule, so that he will never try to get close to us. After the mule is dealt with, you and I will be able to live in glory for the rest of our lives." rich days." Judi Ma stretched out his trembling right hand: "Then, can you hold my hand?" Beda took his right hand with both hands.The clown then widened his eyes, staring intently at the pair of shining electrode plates, and gradually approached his head. In the private sitting room of the Mayor of Indepur, Abrin Meese sat in an overly luxurious chair.He still behaved casually and didn't appreciate the mayor's courtesy at all.The mayor seemed restless today, but Mies just stared at the short mayor coldly, showing no sympathy for him at all. Mies threw the finished cigar on the ground, took out another one, bit off the tail, and spit out a cloud of shredded tobacco with a "poof". "By the way, Indeboll, if you're arranging the next concert at Marlowe Hall, all you have to do is get this little freak and ask him to play the violin for you. You can put those Those who play electronic instruments are all kicked back into the stinking ditch. I tell you, Indepur, it doesn't sound like music in the world." Indebull said unhappily: "I didn't ask you to give me music lessons. What is the background of the mule? What I want to hear is this. What is the background of the mule?" "Mule? Well, I'll tell you—I've used surface detectors, but only got a little information. I can't use mind detectors at all. That freak has a blind fear of mind detectors. If If you insist on using it, once the electrodes touch him, the repulsion may slow his fucking mental breakdown. Anyway, I have a little news-please stop tapping your nails and get down- "First, let's not overemphasize the Mule's physical prowess. He may be strong, but the myths about it told by the freak man are probably many times magnified by his own horrible memories. The Mule is said to wear a strange pair of spectacles. , his eyes can kill, which clearly shows that he has superhuman spiritual power." "We've known this for a long time," said the mayor impatiently. "Then the probe confirmed it. And from there, I started to deduce it mathematically." "So? How long will it take you? You're going to deafen me with your chatter." "According to my estimation, I will be able to tell you some results in about another month. Of course, I may not be able to do it. But what does it matter? If all this is outside of Seldon's plan, then our The chance is simply too small, really ××× is too small." Indebull turned to the psychologist and said viciously: "You liar: You traitor, now I have caught the fox's tail. How dare you say that you are not with those villains who made rumors? You have failed to spread Doctrine, made people panic in the base, and made my work more difficult." "Me? Me?" Mies' anger gradually rose. Indeble swore at him: "By Stardust Cloud, the base will win—the base will win!" "Even if we lost the battle at Houlige?" "That's not a defeat. Do you also believe those lies that are flying all over the sky? It's because of the disparity in our military strength, and there are people who rebelled inside..." "Who is instigating the mutiny?" Mies asked in a contemptuous tone. "It's the lice-covered democrats in the slums." Zandpur yelled back at him: "The cells of the democrats have infiltrated into the fleet. They are almost pervasive. I have known this for a long time. Although most of the All the cells were eradicated, but it is inevitable that some fish slipped through the net. This is enough to explain why there are twenty ships that suddenly surrendered at the climax of the battle. It is because of this that we will be defeated. "So, you foul-mouthed, rough-mannered, simple-minded so-called patriot, what have you got to do with those democrats?" Ablin Meath just shrugged his shoulders and said to himself: "You are talking nonsense, you know? Then what about the subsequent retreat? How could Sivina fall in half? Is it the work of democrats?" "No, not enough democrats." The mayor of Xiaobengzi laughed sharply: "We retreated on our own initiative—in the past, whenever the base was attacked, we would always retreat until history became irresistible. So far in our favor. In fact, I have seen the results. The so-called 'underground organization' composed of democrats has issued a statement, swearing to join forces with the government, with the same guns. This may be a conspiracy, It's a cover for another, better trick, but I'm up for it, and whatever those bastard traitors are up to, this joint operation can get a lot of hype. Better yet..." "What's better, Indebour?" "Think about it for yourself—just two days ago, the so-called 'Independent Merchant Association' had declared war on the mule, so the fleet at the base increased by a thousand starships in one go. You understand, this mule can do It's too much. He took advantage of our internal divisions and discord, and wanted to reap the benefits of the fisherman, but in the face of his attack, we united again and became extremely powerful again. He must lose in the end. Is irresistible - history always has been." Mies was still skeptical. "So you're saying that the unforeseen mutants of the Seldon cricket were also taken into account." "Mutant! I can't see any difference between him and a human, and you can't see it either. All we heard was a rebellious captain, two foreign youths, and a clumsy clown. These four It’s just nonsense. You’ve forgotten the strongest and most important piece of evidence — your own.” "My own?" Miston was taken aback. "Your own—" the mayor sneered. "You said that in nine weeks, Seldon would appear in the Vault. What does that mean? It means there will be a crisis. If the mule's attack is not counted as The real crisis, so what is the real crisis? Why did Seldon appear? Answer me, you big meatball." The psychologist shrugged again: "Well, if thinking like this can make you feel at ease. But, please do me a favor, just in case... In case old Seldon makes a speech, the result is beyond our expectations Besides—please allow me to attend this rally." "Well, now you can go. Don't let me see you again for nine weeks." "It's what I wish for, you big dry and shriveled reptile." Mies muttered to himself as he walked.