Zhang Jue's smile seems to have a magical power to put people at ease. I don't know if it's the same for others, but Yang Xue has always felt this way. Just by seeing that smile, it seemed that all problems could be solved. Zhang Shijia did not know what they were looking for and was confused.
"Mr. Zhang, may I ask what seems to be the problem?"
Zhang Jue didn't answer his words but asked, "Senior Zhang, I heard that you wrote this script?"
"Er... yeah, why?" Zhang Jue asked this, and Zhang Shijia stammered.
He was a doctor of literature, and the theatre club's scripts had always been written by himself, but this time it wasn't the case; he had found this script by chance on an old bookstore. The wonderful plot of the play made him fall in love with it, but unfortunately, he had never heard anything about the author or the script origin.
Although it was strange, he didn't think much of it because of the old packaging of the script. After a little bit of rewriting, it became his theatrical magnum opus. However, for Zhang Jue, born from an ancestor of liars, fooling people was his specialty. How could Zhang Shijia's little trick escape his eyes?
He pulled Zhang Shijia into a corner and whispered, "Shijia, I'm not going to lie, but I've actually read this play elsewhere. It was written by a French writer in the 17th century, and it's wonderful. But I lost it by accident. -I just want to see the play again to relieve the regret of losing it, that's all."
To say that Zhang Jue's acting was a step above serious dramatic actors. With his voice and emotion, this improvisation of his had fooled Zhang Shijia so much that he almost limped.
Zhang Shijia replied almost mechanically, "Well... the original script was in my office."
Zhang Jue put his arm around Zhang Shijia's shoulders, "Good, can you bring it for me to see? The raging fire in my body can't be restrained!" Yang Xue covered her mouth and almost laughed out loud. Zhang Jue finally gave her a blank look.
The three of them went to Zhang Shijia's office. Zhang Shijia took out the original yellowed script from his desk drawer. Zhang Jue took it in his hand, flipped through it a few times, then casually rolled it up and put it in his pocket. The action was so natural as if he owned it.
"Eh..."
Zhang Shijia's heart was reluctant, and his hand was already half outstretched. But remembering what his uncle had said, he gritted his teeth and turned his head away—no longer looking at him. Zhang Jue felt like a bully who was bullying people and robbing them by force - but it was a damn good feeling, hahaha!
Seeing that Zhang Jue had won, Yang Xue asked in a small voice, "What the hell was that?"
Zhang Jue glanced at Zhang Shijia to make sure his attention was not here and replied softly, "SCP-701."
Item No: SCP-701 (The Hanged King's Tragedy)
Object Class: Euclid
Description: SCP-701, The Hanged King's Tragedy, is a Caroline-era revenge tragedy in five acts. Performances of the play are associated with sudden psychotic and suicidal behavior among both observers and participants, and lead to the appearance of the enigmatic character designated as SCP-701-1 (The Hanged King).
Historical estimates place the number of lives claimed by the play at between █████ and █████ over the past three hundred years. In short, SCP-701 is a self-evolving memetic virus transmitted through unknown means through the text of the play.
Foundation agents are under standing orders to suppress any performance or publication of SCP-701 whenever found or detected. However, despite our best efforts to the contrary, the play remains freely available online, sometimes under different titles. All attempts to detect or isolate the origin of these copies have failed.
Suppression of the play's publication has generally been successful, with most copies of a 1971 scholarly edition destroyed before distribution. Nonetheless, copies of the 1965 trade paperback turn up with some regularity in both college and high school libraries. Agents are to obtain or otherwise destroy these items whenever possible.
Special Containment Procedures: All materials relating to SCP-701 are to be kept in a triple-locked archive at Storage Site-██.
These items currently consist of: the two (2) currently extant copies of the 1640 quarto; twenty-seven (27) copies of the 1965 trade paperback edition; ten (10) copies of a 1971 hardcover printing; twenty-one (21) floppy diskettes, consisting of data seized from raids on [EXPUNGED]; one (1) S-VHS video cassette tape (designated SCP-701-19██-A); and one (1) steel knife of unknown origin (designated SCP-701-19██-B).
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
At no time are any of these items to be removed from the room.
-----
Unlike all the anomalous items that Zhang Jue and Yang Xue had previously encountered within site, SCP-701 was a self-evolving memetic virus. So, the question arises, what is a memetic virus?
In the SCP world, memetic is a concept that is often mentioned, and you can easily retrieve a whole bunch of messy stuff by searching online. If you are just starting out and are not familiar with such concepts, you will definitely feel like:
What the hell is written here!
Oblivious!
It doesn't make any sense!
Even the most basic grammar was wrong, you will suspect that their language teacher's language skill was taught by the physical education teacher's physical education teacher.
If you ask me to summarize memetics in the most simple way possible, I would say - memetics is a contagious idea. Of course, it is not that easy.
Simply put, think of it as a virus that doesn't cause disease and can spread quickly through the exchange of information between humans. All pop culture, slang, and even catchy poems and songs can be categorized as memetics. It is important to note that memetics is not directly equivalent to memetic class anomalies or memetic hazards.
One day, you and your companion are on a mission, and your companion recites a poem, and you get it right. This is a simple example of memetic in cultural transmission, and there is no need to worry about it. But then you suddenly realize that everyone around you is reciting those two verses, and the number is increasing exponentially.
For example, if I post a "dog" emoji here, the next thing you know, someone will start spamming the poem, and then they will be banned for a month. Then that person will come back and spam it again, and then they will be banned again, and so on until the whole novel is blocked - a typical memetic hazard.
It is also important to distinguish the difference between memetic-based anomalies, cognitohazard anomalies, and infohazard anomalies.
Infohazard SCP: SCPsthat exhibit harm when described or mentioned.
Cognitohazard SCP: SCPs that show hazardous effects when perceived by the five human senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch), such as SCP-053 (Shirley).
Memetic Hazard SCP: Memetic virus or SCPs that possess memetic transmission characteristics, which are usually contagious and work in conjunction with cognitohazards.
Well, to prevent you from saying that I said too much info dump, let's get back to the topic.
To sum up, SCP-701 is a typical memetic-like anomaly - the script called "The Hanged King's Tragedy" will spread through various ways, and people who saw its performance - whether watching it live or through video footage - will become insane, leading to the acts of suicide or homicide.
The Foundation gave a strict order that once SCP-701's script was found, it would be immediately retrieved and turned over to the Foundation. The performances about it were to be suppressed immediately.
Hearing Zhang Jue's words, Yang Xue took a breath of the cold air. If Zhang Jue hadn't been vigilant, then all the people who had attended the school ceremony today - including the live broadcast viewers on the online platform - would have all died. Once again, she was glad that trusting Zhang Jue and letting him join the Foundation had been the best choice she ever made.
"So, what should we do now?" Yang Xue asked.
"What else can we do." Zhang Jue spread his hands, "Cancel the afternoon performance and perform a memory deletion on everyone who read the script or saw the performance."
"What, you're canceling the show?!" Earlier, Zhang Jue and Yang Xue had muttered in whispers, and Zhang Shijia had not paid attention, but he had heard these words clearly.
The anger that had been buildup since the afternoon had finally exploded, and he looked at Zhang Jue with a full stridency.
"Mr. Zhang, I know you're an Advisor of a multinational company, a VIP guest, you are an important person, but Jiangzhou University is not a place that you can control at your own will! If you have any grievances, you can come at me. What kind of man is it to make things difficult for a group of students! The theatre club's performance has been advertised to the public for nearly a month. They rehearsed day and night. Their job was simple: to show their best performances in front of the leaders, alumni, and the audience. It's an excellent start for their career, and I disagree with what you had just said!"
Worthy of being a teacher. Although because of Yang Xue's relationship, Zhang Shijia made things difficult for Zhang Jue. He might be villainous, but in front of the matter regarding his theatre club, he stood firm on the bottom line.
He did not succumb to Zhang Jue's lasciviousness and stood up for the students, saying what he wanted to say.
According to the typical plot development, the protagonist should have some change of heart about him at this point and then start to shake his hands. Understanding him with emotion and justification. However, Zhang Jue was not an ordinary person. He moved on his own will to not abide by the rules.
He looked at Zhang Shijia and said with a grim face, "Why are you yelling so loudly? If you have the ability to do so, then please. Let's go to the principal, yeah? To see if your words are as good as mine!" The words just now had used up all of Zhang Shijia's energy, and he no longer had the courage to look directly at Zhang Jue.
"Cut it out." Zhang Jue coldly snorted, "You think you're a keyboard warrior when you don't know what's going on? How about I give a keyboard and then the world?"
"Think you're on the side of justice? Bullshit! Do you even know what's going on? Did you get any comprehensive information on the situation? Even if you're, you probably were too lazy to talk about it. You are only adding more chaos at critical moments like this - what are you looking at? I'm talking to you!"
Zhang Shijia was so disgusted by Zhang Jue that he was incoherent and didn't dare to say anything back. Yang Xue tugged on Zhang Jue's sleeve, signaling him to let him go.
Zhang Jue's face darkened, "You think I'm willing to educate him? Eating two rice bowls is more beneficial for me than just wasting time lecturing him here. I just want to prevent future problems. Zhang Shijia, I can tell you this. What we are going to do now is very important. If you dare to stab in the back just to stall me, believe it or not, I'm gonna fucking kill you!"
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