Chapter 915: Principles of Resistance
"I... I had onsen eggs and fried noodles last night," Lin Sanjiu blurted out.
As soon as the words left her mouth, she suddenly felt a sense of relief. Speaking and confiding in it felt so natural and effortless that when she intentionally tried to slow down her pace of confession, she even felt uncomfortable all over.
She bit her tongue, forcing herself to stop, not pouring out all her thoughts at once.
First, buy some time, then figure out a plan...
"Very good. And then?" the voice behind the door encouraged with great interest.
Lin Sanjiu recalled.
Cracking open the onsen eggs, she remembered the rich, golden yolk sliding into the plate from the egg white—it was still vivid in her mind. The oily and fragrant soy sauce fried noodles, the memories of it were also vivid. Although she "confided" her dinner to the creature with the black holes for eyes, nothing unusual seemed to have happened.
Her memory remained intact in her mind.
What"s going on? Could it be that she was wrong?
"Um..." She chose to talk about trivial and inconsequential matters, keeping her words brief: "After that, I had a gla.s.s of fruit juice and took a stroll in the garden."
The person behind the door paused at her words.
"...I didn"t expect you to be rich," he sounded slightly jealous all of a sudden, "You have everything, from fruits and vegetables to eggs and a garden. What are you doing mixed up with a duoluozhong?"
Just as Lin Sanjiu was about to speak, she suddenly snapped back to her senses. Once again, she bit down on her tongue, tightly sealing her lips. This casual conversation that started unknowingly might reveal even more information than her confessions. She pretended to be lost in thought and discreetly glanced around.
The person behind the door was right—Naga-as.h.i.+ had been fighting with nothing but air for quite some time. The creature that had imitated Lin Sanjiu"s voice was hiding somewhere in the darkness, playing the role of both a writer and a director, orchestrating every move of Naga-as.h.i.+. "...Yes, dodge to the right, but little did you know that there was a big fellow waiting for you on the right! You almost walked right into its hands."
As expected, Naga-as.h.i.+ dodged to the right, but then it jerked up as if shocked, nearly tripping over itself. It made a sound like "Heh" and swung its right arm bone to the side, unaware that it was all in vain.
"Continue," urged the voice behind the door.
The countless dark, abyssal eyes seemed to possess a strange allure, drawing in a person"s emotions, feelings, and thoughts—pulling them into those deep, pitch-black but safe and warm holes.
It would be so much easier if she could just give up struggling like this.
Lin Sanjiu stared blankly at the holes in front of her, clenched her fists tightly, and still, in a low voice, began to speak, "I hope that I can leave here tonight unscathed..."
"Oh, yes, tell me more about your desires," the voice behind the door slightly raised.
"I just planned to borrow a path from the natural reserve. After all, it"s a route I"ve taken before, so it"s safer to take it again," she murmured. "I never expected the natural reserve to become so dangerous at night, with creatures that are neither human nor duoluozhong..."
The card remained silently on the ground by her feet. She never imagined that tonight she would be unable to even resist—now, she could only barely control the pace of her "confession" and try to buy some time.
Wait, let"s back up a bit.
Lin Sanjiu suddenly froze and retraced her thoughts for a moment.
In theory, she couldn"t resist now... but isn"t "controlling the pace and only mentioning useless information" a form of pa.s.sive resistance?
Why could she do this kind of resistance?
What determined that she "couldn"t pick up the card" but "could suppress the pace"?
She vaguely felt that once she found the key to this crucial answer, she might also find the key to escaping her current situation.
"Yes, our research has always been conducted underground," the voice behind the door chuckled, interrupting her thoughts. "After all, on the surface, we are just a base that produces duoluozhong."
Lin Sanjiu suddenly raised her head and glanced at Naga-as.h.i.+. It was still struggling and fighting the imagined enemy, accompanied by a statement like, "Your leg has been cut." As expected, it cried out in pain and splattered fabric and blood spattered from its calf.
"It... was produced here by all of you?" she asked, pointing at Naga-as.h.i.+.
"Of course, you can tell by its age," the voice behind the door replied patiently, probably trying to get Lin Sanjiu to speak more. "The duoluozhongs produced by Heaven Underworld at the beginning of the apocalypse have almost disappeared by now."
Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment, carefully selecting her words, and slowly opened her mouth, looking at the black creature with countless empty holes in front of her.
"Naga-as.h.i.+ is here for revenge. It will kill all of you."
She said this smoothly, without any obstacles—although it was also one of the forms of her "resistance consciousness."
When the person behind the door suddenly burst into laughter, Lin Sanjiu lowered her eyes.
"With that duoluozhong?" the person behind the door raised their voice. "My child takes that duoluozhong for a walk like walking a dog. Its life and death are all within a sentence!"
"I will help it stay alive," she tried to say softly. No problem, she said that too.
"Is that so?" the person laughed again. "But don"t you want to confess anymore?"
"I do," Lin Sanjiu turned her head to look at the iron door and replied, "I really want to. But—"
"But what?"
"I just want to say something to it and not let you hear."
The person scoffed, "Please, feel free. Little Hole, make sure she confesses to you."
The enormous creature named Little Hole once again lowered its face slowly towards Lin Sanjiu—on that pitch-black plane, even more empty holes gradually opened.
It was extremely difficult to keep silent in the presence of so many empty holes. However, at this moment, Lin Sanjiu had no intention of fighting her desire to confess. She looked at the densely packed empty holes in front of her and said in a very soft voice, "I understand."
Little Hole remained motionless, perhaps not understanding.
"I understand what kind of rules your influence over me entails," her voice was so low that only she could hear it. As soon as she spoke, it was drowned out by the noise coming from Naga-as.h.i.+ not far away. "It"s actually quite simple... If you are point A and I am point B, any direct confrontation between us is not allowed. If I can"t pick up the card to deal with you, it"s like drawing a straight line from point B to point A. But I can control the content and pace of my own confession because the ultimate object of that behavior is not you. So I can also help Naga-as.h.i.+ stay alive, in which case it becomes the ultimate object, and there is still no direct confrontation between point A and point B."
Lin Sanjiu paused and slowly formed a smile.
"I finally found it," she murmured to herself in a low voice. "That duoluozhong better thank me later."