NFM Chapter 85

“Potential criminal?”

This unfamiliar term made him pause in his actions.

During his half-year of human life, Lin Huai had a keen interest in learning the legal knowledge necessary for survival in human society through moral observation programs like “Fuck the Law” and other legal education shows. He used these to plan effective cover-ups or escape routes for any potential future criminal behavior… or rather, to warn himself to control his emotions.

In those programs, he had seen the beautiful child bride of an arsonist who sought to seize family property, the former doctor turned Qigong master and later fraudster, and the pineapple-headed show-off who broke up with her boyfriend with a great ass and gave a speech in Paris… But the one thing he had never heard of was a “potential criminal.”

He was in a very strange room. However, calling it a room would be quite inappropriate. For a room, it was too small, too cramped. A bed and a few books already took up more space than Wang Feng’s talent… In terms of size, it was more like a tiny cage than a room. The ceiling, floor, and one wall were covered in soft, white padding, while the other three walls were floor-to-ceiling glass.

Lin Huai had seen rooms completely padded in movies. They were soft, elastic, and resilient, effectively reducing the impact of collisions, mostly used to detain mentally ill patients with strong tendencies for aggression or self-harm. The straitjacket he wore and the collar around his neck seemed to indicate that he was now a heavily monitored mental patient. However, these three glass walls… were truly baffling.

They didn’t seem to be there for ventilation or light. Instead, they resembled display cases on a shopping street, the beautiful shop windows on the Champs-Élysées, or the display case housing the Mona Lisa’s smile. Lin Huai, clad in a straitjacket, along with the pure white background, was the exquisite exhibit within.

Through the glass, Lin Huai could see many identical small rooms nearby, roughly ten in total. Each room held someone like him, standing or sitting, wearing the same white straitjacket. They were of various heights, builds, ages—some mature middle-aged men, others children with curly hair. Some were white men, others black women, all different.

These prisoners mostly had good looks, silver collars around their necks, and numbers marked on their bodies. In their small rooms, aside from a bed, they had either gym equipment, painting tools, or a computer. Their faces were blank, some leaning on treadmills, others sitting by easels, holding brushes smeared with ultramarine paint.

They didn’t seem like humans, nor animals, but rather…

Furniture, or artworks, soulless objects, all part of the same picture.

…For some reason, a chill ran down Lin Huai’s spine.

This chill was so intense. It surpassed meeting an evil spirit, the sight of blood, or the sound of screams.

The many rooms were neatly arranged along a corridor. The corridor walls were lined with cameras, their red lights blinking as they patrolled. The light was dim. A glowing clock at the top showed “8:00.” Besides that, a metal plaque hung beside a wooden door at the far end of the corridor. Lin Huai squinted but couldn’t make out what it said.

The other end was covered by a red curtain, obscuring what lay beyond.

It was too quiet, eerily quiet… He could even hear his own breathing.

He wasn’t in a hurry to speak but instead moved around the small room, searching for more clues about his situation.

Apart from himself, the room had a soft small bed and many books and magazines. Paper materials were scattered messily on the floor—if that wasn’t clear enough, one could use this metaphor: if a dung beetle had arranged this Game scene, it certainly wasn’t a Virgo beetle capable of rolling perfect dung balls.

He crouched down and picked up a red book from the pile.

“This one looks the most expensive…” he thought.

The hardcover was adorned with English calligraphy, gold-embossed, exuding capitalist luxury. Its content was equally capitalist, translating to four words: “God loves the world.”

“God created the world, teaching people to be good. Yet some are born with the genes of original sin… We use the law to punish evil, morality to restrain evil, but we’ve never thought of eliminating evil from human nature…”

“What kind of incoherent nonsense is this…” Lin Huai lost interest after flipping through a few pages. Unlike certain male leads with a surname Feng, he didn’t have the compulsion or curiosity to read an entire book. Instead, he openly flipped to the table of contents.

The book was divided into three parts. The first part discussed the importance of morality, the second the mind’s dominance over the body, and the third a perfect society constructed under high moral standards.

After flipping through the little red book, he started reading other miscellaneous magazines. One was titled “New Entertainment Weekly,” issued weekly, with the latest one boldly marked: New Year 501.

Apart from reports on daily life and current technology, the magazine extensively covered the heroic deeds of a man. The reporter called him the “Light of the Greenhouse,” claiming “he was like a lighthouse illuminating the dark greenhouse long plagued by crime and murder, making the absence of crime and war possible, and freeing the world of new humans from the grip of crime and evil.”

The man in the photo lived up to the title “Light of the Greenhouse.” He had emerald-green eyes, sparkling with wisdom. And on his wise head grew soft, medium-length brown hair…

“Doctor, glasses, medical company, giving speeches… He’s got all the elements of a typical villain in an American drama. Plus, he has such scarce hair, which proves his doctorate must be genuine, at least a mid-level boss who can finish five minutes of dialogue before dying…” Lin Huai crouched on the floor, showing unprecedented patience as he sifted through all the reports related to Dr. Luciel.

The first report was from a year ago. It mentioned that Dr. Luciel had invented a new treatment method, claiming to “cure” potential criminals—those identified as future criminals from the age of twelve through genetic testing, individuals with strong criminal tendencies.

Here, the newspaper carved out a section, detailing the origin of the term “potential criminal.”

It turned out that it was now New Year 501. A thousand years ago, a world war broke out. Under continuous nuclear strikes, the world became a cold wasteland, with countless survivors mutating and dying tragically due to radiation.

To resist the cold weather and pervasive radiation, survivors later used new technology to build massive city-states underground, managed by thirteen governors, with power decreasing from the first to the thirteenth governor. It was called the “Greenhouse,” or, by ancient mythology enthusiasts, “Utopia.”

The day all “Greenhouses” were completed was designated as New Year 1. Since then, rapidly advancing technology greatly increased the Greenhouse’s productivity. They installed numerous solar panels on the Earth’s surface, and under new technology, the solar energy recovery rate reached as high as 90%. The immense abundance of resources and the continuous advancement of science and technology elevated the living standards of new humans to unprecedented heights.

However, human conflict didn’t decrease due to lack of resources or harsh environments, nor did it disappear with increased resources and improved conditions. Perhaps it was the lack of sunlight, or only seeing blue skies and white clouds on electronic screens, or maybe the inventors made humans too well-fed… They quickly went from unitedly building the underground world to becoming lazy, decadent, and “since we’re seeking stimulation, let’s go all the way.” As the threshold for excitement rose, movies, Games, books… traditional forms of entertainment became less stimulating, so people sought new thrills, increasingly losing control, using their wise and diligent hands to turn the underground Greenhouse into—

Mihua City, New York City, Gotham City.

The thirteen governors of the Greenhouse were deeply troubled by this phenomenon. They tried various methods to severely punish criminals, but the Greenhouse’s sparse population couldn’t withstand much turmoil. It was then that the thirteenth governor, while flipping through ancient Earth books, discovered the concept of the “born criminal.”

In ancient Earth times, an Italian criminologist named Lombroso proposed that there was a type of criminal who, in terms of physiology, psychology, or constitution, possessed innate traits or factors different from normal people, making their criminal behavior natural and inevitable—the born criminal. After repeatedly studying recent criminal incidents in the Greenhouse, they quickly and without evidence accepted this hypothesis, believing that genes and heredity indeed played a significant role in crime. Moreover, after implementing a policy of severe punishment for minor crimes, establishing a crime observation system that “makes people into tables” (*from the famous line in “POI,” “You are being watched,” Google-translated as: you are being made into a table), and a potential criminal identification system, the Greenhouse crime rate significantly dropped. Thus, these systems were bundled together and promoted throughout the Greenhouse…

After all, it was really effective!

“…Effective, my ass! Clearly, the Greenhouse-era governors didn’t conduct chemical experiments, not even designing control groups. What kind of independent variable experiment is this?!”

Initially, the classification of potential criminals only occurred after they turned eighteen. Later, this technology was further developed. Every child born in the Greenhouse would be screened at the age of twelve, including genes, behavior, and other aspects. Children who passed the screening would live as civilized people, while those who failed, with high criminal coefficients, would be labeled as potential criminals, confined to care centers, spending their lives as outcasts, lonely and discriminated against. Of course, the Greenhouse was still kind; they only locked these people in mental hospitals, providing them with food, smooth internet, and entertainment to give the illusion of good care.

But where there’s oppression, there’s resistance. Besides those who constantly questioned the theory of born criminals, there were the most severely oppressed potential criminals. After all, they were born without having done anything wrong, yet were forcibly locked up for unproven crimes, suffering a lifetime of pain, even more unjust than certain anti-heroine novels where the heroine, before doing anything, was robbed of her golden finger by a paranoid supporting character and sold into a brothel, dying of syphilis… Two hundred years ago, led by a potential criminal confined in a care center, all potential criminals staged a massive rebellion across the Greenhouse—they almost broke through to the surface, escaping to the outside world.

Unfortunately, their leader disappeared at the critical moment, and many potential criminals were arrested. This incident proved their inherent cruelty and led to even more severe purges. Facing this tragic scene, a reporter whose life mission was to attract attention ran out with his pen. He declared, “This tragedy isn’t a distortion of humanity or a loss of morality—because born criminals aren’t supposed to have human rights in the first place! We generously let them live, giving them food and clothing. They’re essentially wild beasts, livestock!”

Although his words were extreme, they gained considerable recognition. The so-called potential criminals thus lost their rights as humans. Before the age of twelve, they ran freely and lived happily like other children, with the most beautiful aspirations and brightest futures. After twelve, a flimsy test result decided their fate. They were taken from their families, locked in dark cells, labeled “potential criminals,” and from then on, became monsters that never saw the light of day…

But as years passed, the number of potential criminals increased dramatically, and the care centers and medical facilities for them were overwhelmed. Thus, some began to shout, “Why should these social dregs occupy social resources? Just kill them all!”

However, outright killing wasn’t an option. First, it contradicted the Greenhouse’s long-standing “humanitarian” principles. Second, such bloodshed would inevitably lead to severe backlash, causing past events to repeat… That’s when Dr. Luciel appeared.

He wasn’t a psychologist but rather held doctorates in media and biology. He claimed he could treat potential criminals, allowing them to integrate well into society and no longer commit violent acts. No one knew what this doctor, famous for studying Pavlov’s dogs, discussed with the Greenhouse governors. In any case, the governors agreed to provide the largest care center in the Greenhouse—Rama Care Center—as an experimental base for Dr. Luciel’s research, aiming to quickly transform potential criminals into normal humans with normal rights, alleviating the burden on care centers.

When Lin Huai saw “Pavlov’s dogs,” he tapped his forehead.

“Pavlov’s dogs… repeated conditioning to induce a reflex?” he pondered. “What does this mean?”

Thinking this, he touched his hair and flipped to the next page.

The second report was from half a year ago, with an unusually sensational headline—”He succeeded!”