Brain-Burning Deduction

Ignoring the pop-up window on the computer, Chen Chen stared fixedly at the hat that had suddenly appeared beside it, his expression turning grave.

He could say for certain that there had absolutely not been a hat there before he turned on the computer.

And this hat...

It was far too familiar...

Chen Chen hesitantly reached out and picked up the hat.

The hat was made of canvas and felt slightly rough in his hand. It was khaki-colored, shaped like a baseball cap, and only the size of a palm.

No matter how he looked at it, it did not seem like a hat a human could wear.

Turning it over, Chen Chen saw a white polyester label sewn inside, with several lines of English written on it:

"IF LOST RETURN TO:"

"Harry Goodman;1722 Green St.Ryme Clty."

Translated, it meant:

"If lost, please return to: Harry Goodman, 1722 Green Street, Ryme City."

This was...

Chen Chen sucked in a sharp breath, shock filling his eyes.

He suddenly turned around and looked at the computer screen, only to discover that the movie had stopped playing automatically.

This was Pikachu's baseball cap from the movie!

In that instant, Chen Chen felt only absurdity and disbelief. He quickly bent down to look under the bed!

No one!

He quickly stood and looked at the top bunk!

No one!

He quickly pulled open the desk drawer!

Still no one...

Only after confirming that there was no one else in the dormitory did he have no choice but to believe that this was not a prank by his roommates.

Besides, even if it were a prank, how could they have known that he would definitely open the movie Detective Pikachu at this moment?

But if it was not a prank, then what was it?

Because he had opened the movie, the computer had extracted the hat from it?

What kind of joke was that!

Besides, this was not the first time he had watched this movie on his computer. Why had this only happened now?

Suddenly, Chen Chen seemed to think of something. His gaze snapped toward the black USB Drive!

Was it behind this?

Chen Chen narrowed his eyes.

Whether it was because of the lighting or merely his imagination, the USB Drive's casing now seemed far more mottled.

The USB Drive, originally pitch-black, now seemed to be covered in a dull film, like metal left in the air for too long and oxidized by it.

Had the USB Drive changed, or had his memory... made a mistake?

Unwilling to accept it, Chen Chen closed the "Program Error" pop-up and double-clicked the movie Detective Pikachu again.

However, the "Program Error" prompt appeared on the screen once more.

The file was corrupted again?

Chen Chen frowned. After thinking for a moment, he tried clicking delete. With a swoosh from the computer, the movie on the USB Drive was actually deleted...

Chen Chen froze. He remembered that whenever he had tried deleting other movies before, they had all displayed "Program Error." He had thought the movies on the USB Drive could not be deleted.

So he tried deleting several of the horror movies originally stored on the USB Drive.

But the result remained unchanged. Every time he tried to delete one, the computer popped up a "Program Error" window.

"Could it be that only movies that have been played can be deleted?"

Chen Chen fell into thought. He opened the local D drive again, dragged Detective Pikachu back onto the USB Drive, then tried deleting it once more.

Thud!

Sure enough, the newly copied movie file could not be deleted either.

So Chen Chen opened the movie again. This time, it played as usual, without any abnormalities.

As he sat before the screen, Chen Chen kept recalling what had happened. Earlier, he seemed to have been missing his dog, while projecting his emotions onto Pikachu, and then everything afterward had happened.

So Chen Chen fast-forwarded the video to the part where Pikachu appeared, while once again imagining extracting Pikachu from the movie.

After only a few seconds, the movie shut down again, and a "Program Error" window popped up.

At the same time, a hat identical to the previous one appeared to the right of the computer!

It was actually real!!!

Chen Chen's eyes widened. Though he had been prepared, no matter how closely he examined it, he could not figure out how the hat had appeared in that spot.

It had appeared out of thin air, hadn't it?!

Chen Chen picked up both hats and compared them, only to discover that every detail, even the writing on the labels, was exactly identical.

It was as if God had created two identical objects at the same time.

"Could it really be because of the USB Drive?"

Chen Chen said incredulously. He looked at the USB Drive again, only to find that it had become even dimmer than before, like some useless object abandoned in a corner.

"This thing is being depleted..."

Chen Chen immediately understood. Each time he extracted something from a movie, it consumed the USB Drive's energy.

So what kind of energy was it?

Electricity?

Solar energy?

Or some other form of energy beyond human technology?

More importantly, could this energy be replenished? Was this USB Drive single-use, or could it be recharged and used repeatedly?

And why, when he had clearly imagined Pikachu, could the USB Drive only generate its hat? Was there insufficient energy, or were there other factors at play?

Also, if he opened other movies, could he extract things from those movies as well?

All these questions raced through Chen Chen's mind. He took a deep breath and suppressed the excitement that had made his entire body tremble.

Calm down, calm down...

Chen Chen kept taking deep breaths. At the same time, he got up, walked to the dorm room door, and locked it before returning to the computer to think in silence.

There were too few clues. He needed to conduct more experiments.

But the USB Drive's energy clearly could not support multiple experiments. What should he do?

At that thought, Chen Chen took a blank notebook from the drawer. Controlling his slightly trembling hand, he wrote the two words "Principle" on the first page.

"Principle: Unknown."

How could existing scientific principles explain the phenomenon of this mysterious USB Drive?

Indeed, with the knowledge stored in Chen Chen's mind, he simply could not explain what had just happened.

How could a movie made up of nothing but code and frame-by-frame images create matter out of thin air?

"Hypothesis: aliens? People from the future? Brain in a vat?"

After writing the second passage, Chen Chen could not help but laugh at himself before writing the third line.

"Ability: Through the thoughts of the person watching the video, extracts/materializes the things displayed in the video into reality (apparently excluding living creatures)."

Chen Chen guessed that both times, he had been thinking of Pikachu, yet only its hat had been extracted. In other words, the USB Drive could not materialize living lifeforms.

Of course, it was also possible that there had simply not been enough energy.

Chen Chen clicked on the movie again. A program error window popped up on the screen, and then he tried deleting it.

With a swish, the movie was successfully deleted.

"Sure enough, once matter has been extracted, it can be deleted from the USB Drive."

In other words, any movie could be placed on the USB Drive, but it could not be deleted.

If he wanted to delete a movie, he could only extract an item from it and cause the movie file to become corrupted.

At that thought, Chen Chen wrote again:

"Rule 1: Videos can be transferred in, but cannot be freely deleted afterward. Must wait until the file is corrupted;"

"Rule 2: So far, only extracting an item from a video will corrupt the video;"

"Rule 3: The size, weight, and other objective properties of extractable items have not yet been tested."

Finally, Chen Chen looked at the USB Drive itself.

"Appearance: Its exterior has changed from brand-new to worn. It has not yet been determined whether this is related to its energy..."