Chapter 202: Split
“Lin, Boss Lin?” Facing the elusive Lin Ling, Yu Lianyun was somewhat flustered, after all, she had just been thinking some rude things related to him, feeling that the half-woman body seen underground earlier was another “fun” thing Boss Lin had created.
Lin Ling smiled and said, “I saw fireworks here and came closer to take a look. They’re quite pretty, just the colors are a bit monotonous.”
“Hehehe, Boss Lin, you really love to joke.” Yu Lianyun gave a dry laugh. That soaring green fire pillar was the flame produced by Green Oil exploding and burning, a kind of flame that even most anomaly creatures dared not touch.
Lin Ling blinked, somewhat puzzled. He was just telling the truth.
After a brief dry laugh, Yu Lianyun still mustered her courage to ask, “Boss Lin, what exactly is Dr. Clark’s current state?”
“State?” Lin Ling thought for a moment. He wasn’t unaware of the answer, just thinking of a way to express it that she could understand, and said, “He cracked open.”
Yu Lianyun was stunned for a moment. Of course she knew Dr. Clark had already cracked open, even his brain had been removed.
After thinking, Yu Lianyun changed the question: “Did Clark go to your small shop and buy anything?”
“Bought a pair of shoes.” Lin Ling stated frankly.
“Shoes?” Yu Lianyun knew well that the shop’s things could not be viewed with common sense, so she finally asked one more question, “Do those shoes have any special qualities?”
“Hmm… special qualities. Probably that the pair of shoes aren’t meant to be worn…” Lin Ling looked down at the shoes under his feet. New shoes, just bought, his toes moving inside the shoes like countless long worms wanting to drill out.
Lin Ling suddenly sighed, his brows and eyes clearly smiling, yet his expression somewhat sad. It was hard to imagine a person’s face could simultaneously show such conflicting emotions. “Do you think every thing in this world has a reason?”
Yu Lianyun didn’t know why Lin Ling suddenly asked this, but she thought it was about the matter of “buying shoes that can’t be worn” being unreasonable, and immediately shared her view: “Uh, I think there should be. Even if shoes are bought not to wear, they can have other uses, like for collection. As far as I know, some people’s hobby is collecting all kinds of shoes.”
“So, you agree that all things in the world have cause and effect?”
“……Pretty much.” Yu Lianyun felt her answer was a bit incautious.
Lin Ling smiled faintly: “If everything has cause and effect, then where does the universe’s initial cause come from?”
Yu Lianyun was speechless. She now felt Lin Ling’s question was indeed unreasonable, and she truly couldn’t think of an answer, after all, the “chicken or egg first” problem itself was a dead loop in pursuing “cause.”
“So cause and effect isn’t the entire logic of the universe’s operation. Unreasonable, without cause and effect, is also part of the world’s operation. Perhaps the initial cause comes from a baseless act.” What Lin Ling said left Yu Lianyun feeling it sounded profound but she tried not to dwell deeply on his views.
However, Yu Lianyun still gained some insight from Lin Ling’s words. “Is this the reason humans can never maintain reason? Because humans pursue logic, believing everything must have cause and effect, so when encountering anomaly events, unable to find explanations, unable to accept the unknown, they easily fall into the abyss of reason collapsing. Only by accepting the ‘reasonableness’ of unknown anomalies can people maintain rationality.”
Lin Ling grinned, “What I meant was, that pair of shoes’ existence is the same.” After saying that, he turned into the alley and left, disappearing after another corner.
Yu Lianyun fell into contemplation. “Could that pair of shoes be a ‘product’ without reason?”
Watching the green fire pillar in the sky gradually contract and dissipate, before everyone could cheer in joy, a high-pitched shrill screech suddenly surged from underground in XC District, conveying the voice owner’s despair and madness from every crevice and pore. Yu Lianyun and the other mystic investigators’ hearts grew heavy again.
……
As Hera’s human head, already unrecognizable in beauty, approached Dr. Clark’s eyes along her elongated neck, a dagger long hidden in Clark’s sleeve dropped out, fiercely stabbing into Hera’s right eye.
Hera, whose eye suffered piercing harm, immediately let out a miserable scream, her neck retracting like a spring. Clark seized the chance, grabbed Mireille’s wrist nearby, and ran, bypassing Butler Valente and Miss Hera, rushing toward the wooden bridge in front of the castle.
But halfway there, Clark blankly stopped, kneeling in place together with Mireille.
“The bridge… is gone?” Clark saw that the wooden bridge originally connecting the two cliffs had broken, with only two bare piers left at the bridgehead.
Valente turned back with a sinister smile, slowly walking toward the despair-filled Clark and Mireille, his low voice like a death talisman for the two. “Did you think I wouldn’t know what you were planning? The bridge, I destroyed it long ago.”
“Why do this? Don’t you even consider your own way out?” Clark asked in disbelief.
However, Clark’s questioning was met with loud mocking laughter from Valente and Hera.
“What’s so funny!?”
Hera, as if harboring no resentment at all, indifferently pulled out the dagger stuck in her eye socket. Her head rotated 180 degrees, looking at Valente, and said, “Valente, why not just tell them? Only after knowing the truth of despair will they behave a bit.”
Valente sneered and said, “Fair enough. Then I’ll tell you, the truth about this world.”
The Flesh Mountain Monster came before Clark, like blotting out the sky, its massive figure pressing on Clark’s face.
“This world isn’t real.” Valente gazed at Clark’s shocked expression, secretly satisfied, and said, “To be precise, this is a mind world, a world jointly created by the spirits of dozens of people!”
Clark felt as if struck by lightning, unable to speak as he continued listening to Valente.
“Yes, in this world, except for the people in the castle, everything else is imagination supplemented by our brains to satisfy the logic of this illusory world. Here, identity is falsehood, money is falsehood, all matter is falsehood, everything obtained here isn’t real.” As Valente spoke, he split out countless hands continuously caressing Hera’s face. Hera’s face showed alternating resentment and enjoyment.
“To get out of here, you must control this mind world, otherwise you can’t break through the mind barrier.” Valente said with a eerie grin, “Originally we might never realize the eeriness of this world in our lifetime, but unfortunately, Bluebeard and I are among the few in this world with the flaw of slaughter desire. It’s just that back then only Bluebeard knew how to use demon-subduing technique.
When Bluebeard and I teamed up to kill the first person in the castle, and Bluebeard used that person’s corpse as material for demon-subduing technique, we successfully connected to the great being beyond the mind barrier, the sage in the crevice, Shadow of All Things, Izckup!
Izckup’s eyes let us see the truth of the world. To leave this false world, all people must be killed, and after killing them, offering them to Izckup can exchange for wealth of knowledge and power. Once back to reality from here, I can become the entity closest to the abnormal god.”
“I don’t believe your claims!” Clark refuted, pointing at Hera and saying, “If everyone must be killed to return to reality, why is she still alive?”
Hearing this, Valente and Hera both burst into mad laughter instantly.
Their heads intertwined through elongated necks, then eerily fused into one. That face was half male half female, speaking in unison: “That’s because we were originally one complete individual. Not just us, but also that lust-heavy Bluebeard, and… the righteous little maid Mireille beside you! We all come from one individual named Eve, incarnations of her mind’s split!”
