Some truths become contamination the moment they are seen.
Some knowledge is a crime simply to know.
Chen Mo, an ordinary convenience store clerk, encounters an “unrememberable customer” one eerie morning. A receipt bearing words that rewrite themselves drags him into the world’s hidden side. Here, reality is full of flaws and common sense twists into something strange. They are collectively known as “simulacra.”
Maintaining the stability of appearances is the mysterious, cold Cognition Security Bureau, with its supreme Cognition Security Regulations. The first ironclad rule is: Knowledge is contamination.
Faced with “cognitive cleansing,” the erasure of his memories and even his personality, Chen Mo is forced to sign a contract and become a cog in the System: an investigator who makes a living fighting contamination, at the cost of being contaminated himself.
But he soon discovers that the Regulations may not protect humanity at all. The “suppressants” he takes, the “memories” he erases, the “simulacra” he investigates: they all seem to point to a buried source of terror. It is not somewhere far away. It is right beside everyone, breathing in the hollow spaces inside every wall.
When obeying the Regulations means abetting evil, and pursuing the truth means destroying yourself, Chen Mo must choose: become the silent foundation of the System, or kindle a dangerous flame of cognition that can burn through the lies?
Please obey the Cognition Security Regulations. If you feel the walls watching you, take a blue suppressant immediately and forget this notice.
