radicalducati Chapter 51 How Should I Address You
Chapter 51 How Should I Address You
The cell wasn't big, but it wasn't small either.
When Lu Siye walked in, he made a rough estimate.
It is five steps long, four steps wide, and about three meters high.
The walls are made of titanium alloy, which can isolate the vital energy.
There is a hemispherical camera at each of the four corners of the ceiling.
He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the mark of sin.
The Sin Mark Space.
There is something in the center of the space.
No, it's not a thing.
is it.
It was a size smaller than the last time I saw it in the cage.
Last time it was about the size of a large adult dog, but now it has shrunk to the size of a medium-sized dog, about knee-high.
Its color changed.
It was purple last time, but now it's silver-white.
It lay there, its limbs curled up under its body.
Lu Siye squatted down to look at it at eye level.
"Tang Yuan?" he called out tentatively.
It didn't move.
"Tang Yuan?" he called again, his voice a little louder than before.
Its eyes finally opened a crack.
The eye peered at him through the slit of its eyelid, and there was resentment in it.
Its mouth opened.
Then it actually spoke human language.
"Don't call me by that name."
The voice was still strange; it was neither a man's nor a woman's voice, but a mixture of both.
Lu Siye looked at it and remained silent for two seconds.
"So what's your name?"
Its eyes widened slightly.
"Chaos," it said, "the Chaos that is one of the Four Fiends, alongside Taotie, Qiongqi, and Taowu."
Tang Yuan didn't turn into anything.
Tang Yuan was a mess from the very beginning.
He should feel disgusted.
He should feel angry.
He must feel that he has been deceived, used, and manipulated.
He spent nearly two months traveling from Japan to Siam, traversing war zones, crossing borders, and infiltrating enemy camps, almost getting killed, all to find a girl who was a complete fabrication from the start and had never truly existed.
He should feel angry.
But strangely, he didn't think so.
He squatted there, looking at the creature, with only one thought in his mind: So that's how it is.
No wonder he always felt that Tang Yuan was too good to be true.
Her smile was perfect, her voice was beautiful, her gentleness was just right, and her very presence was like a ray of light, illuminating all the dark corners of his life without leaving any shadows.
He thought it was because he liked her so much that he overlooked her flaws, and that in his memory she had become a perfect, flawless statue.
But now he knows.
It wasn't because he liked her too much, but because that's how she was designed.
She, or rather, it was a ferocious beast, but it spent nearly twenty years playing the role of a human girl.
From childhood to adulthood, from every smile to every tear, it's all a performance.
It's all fake.
But the images in his memory are real.
Even if that smile is the expression of a ferocious beast impersonating a human girl, the smile itself is real.
It did laugh.
It did smile at him.
That smile was both fake and real.
Like an actor on stage, the tears he shed on stage were real.
It's not a prop, not a special effect; it's real liquid secreted from the tear glands.
Even if the tears are because of a line in the script, rather than because of the actor's own sadness, the tears themselves are real.
Lu Siye stood up and took two steps in the space.
He took a few steps, stopped, turned around, and looked at the chaos.
"You saved me," he said.
The chaotic eyes blinked.
Which time are you referring to?
Lu Siye remained silent for a second.
"On the ship to Japan"
Chaos looked into his eyes for about two seconds.
"Thank you," Lu Siye said.
The tail of chaos stopped.
"You're welcome," its voice lowered, "It was just a favor anyway."
The space fell silent.
Lu Siye stood there, and Hun Dun lay there, one tall and one short, a human and a beast, their eyes meeting.
"Why?" Lu Siye asked.
"Why? Why?"
"Why help me? Why save me? Why play Tang Yuan for twenty years?"
His voice was calm, but questions kept popping out of his mouth.
"What exactly do you want from me? What are you plotting?"
"You are a ferocious beast; you should feed on human fear and chaos; you should destroy this world."
"But here you are, huddled up in my sinful space, like a homeless animal."
"What exactly do you want?"
Chaos did not answer.
It lay there, as if asleep, or perhaps deep in thought.
It remained silent for a long time, so long that Lu Siye thought it wouldn't answer.
Then it opened.
"you're right."
"I should feed on human fear and chaos."
"I should destroy this world."
"I used to think so too."
"I have believed this for thousands of years."
"Until I met that little girl."
Its tail curled up even tighter.
"A little girl?"
"This old man... never mind, I'll tell you."
Human fears are limited to just a few types, over and over again.
"I'm afraid of death, afraid of pain, afraid of loss, afraid of loneliness, afraid of not being loved, and afraid of being looked down upon."
"There has been no progress at all in thousands of years."
"Chaos is the same; war, betrayal, deception, exploitation—it's no different from thousands of years ago."
It raised its head between its two front legs and looked at Lu Siye.
Do you know what it feels like to eat the same dish for thousands of years?
"When you take your first bite, you think it's delicious, fresh, and exciting."
"When you take your hundredth bite, you think it's alright, although it's not as fresh anymore, it's still edible."
"When you've eaten your thousandth bite, you don't want to eat anymore, but you have nothing else to eat, so you keep eating."
"When you take your ten thousandth bite, you start to feel nauseous, you start to feel vomit, you start to question why you are eating this, but you can't stop because you will starve to death if you don't eat."
It paused.
Then you met someone.
"That person is unlike any fear you've ever experienced before."
"Her fear was minimal, almost negligible."
"But her will is so pure, so pure it makes your stomach churn."
"You can't eat her, you don't want to eat her, you even find her a bit annoying."
"Because she always does things you wouldn't expect when you're not paying attention."
"For the first time in thousands of years, it makes you feel that the world isn't so boring after all."
"That person... although she's gone, I see her shadow in you."
"You still haven't answered my question," Lu Siye finally spoke, "What exactly do you want from me?"
Chaos opened his eyes, looked at him, and had a speechless expression.
"There's nothing here," Chaos said. "I just want to stay here."
"Get lost, you weakling! I can't reason with you."
"Get out of here!"
It paused.
"Also, don't call me Tang Yuan."
"Tang Yuan is dead. She died the day Jia Ye caught me."
"Right now, there is only chaos."
Lu Siye stared at it for a long time.
"Okay," he said, "chaos."
It grunted and buried its head back between its two front legs.
From then on, Lu Siye would come to the Sin Seal Space every day.
He didn't come on purpose; Chaos pulled him in.
Every time, it's just when he's about to fall asleep that the feeling of being pulled down comes on.
He asked Chaos about the plan for False Leaf.
Chaos's answer was very simple, so simple that it seemed somewhat perfunctory to him.
"Jia Ye wants to use my power to corrupt the country's leaders, starting from the top and spreading downwards layer by layer, turning the entire country into a nest of zero."
Lu Siye remained silent for a moment.
"So you abandoned your body and ran into my Sin Seal Space?"
"It's not that I abandoned my body, but that I transferred a part of my body into your sin imprint space."
Chaos corrected itself.
"My true form is still outside."
It raised one of its front paws and slapped the ground with a loud thud.
Lu Siye looked at it.
"So what are you now? My prisoner? My pet? My... what?"
Chaos's lips twitched slightly.
"I am your creditor"
it says.
You owe me one life, no, many, many lives.
You still owe me twenty years of your youth. You still owe me an apology.
"Apologize? Why?"
"Because you let me play a kind and gentle childhood sweetheart for twenty years."
"Do you know how tiring that is? Do you know how tiring it is to maintain that smile?"
"Do you know how tiring it is to see your expressionless face every time, and to have to pretend that you are lovable and pitiful?"
Lu Siye opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but couldn't say anything.
Chaos waited for two seconds, but received no reply. It snorted and buried its head back between its front legs.
"Forget it, I won't say anything more, you wouldn't understand anyway."
"You're nowhere near as good as her!"
From that day on, Chaos never mentioned apologizing again.
But it still pulls Lu Siye in every day.
Lu Siye lived a very regular life in the prison cell.
Breakfast was brought in at seven o'clock in the morning.
The meal was served on a tray and included meat, vegetables, soup, rice, and even fruit and yogurt.
Lunch is at noon, and dinner is at 6 pm.
Every meal is hot, every meal includes meat, and every meal has a different type of fruit.
The first day was watermelon, the second day was dragon fruit, the third day was mango, and the fourth day was mangosteen.
They are all tropical fruits, very sweet and fresh.
Lu Siye knew why they were so good to him.
It wasn't because they were good people, it wasn't because they were his friends, it wasn't because they thought he was innocent.
It's not because they need him.
Charada needs him, the royal family needs him, and those who survived the coup, gained power, and are redistributing the spoils need him.
He is a weapon, a powerful weapon locked in a titanium alloy cell, ready to be released at any time.
Moreover, he is an excuse to launch an attack on the Eastern Continent.
A man from the Eastern Continent, accompanied by a ferocious beast, broke into the royal palace of the Kingdom of Siam, causing numerous casualties and property damage.
This is a diplomatic bargaining chip, a trump card at the negotiating table, an accusation that can be slammed on the table and shouted out loud at an international conference, a righteous indictment that no one can refute.
So they give him good food, good drinks, a soft mattress and clean sheets, dimmed lights, and a warm bed. Not because they love him, but because he has some use to them.
Lu Siye knew, but he didn't care.
He ate every meal clean.
We cannot waste it.
After finishing his meal, he would walk around the cell a few times.
He doesn't care.
When he got tired, he sat down and sank his consciousness into the space of sin imprint.
There are four boxes inside.
The first one is the Zero, it's not dead yet.
The second box belongs to the water leopard.
The third is chaos.
The fourth one is Kui Mulang.
This was left to him by Old Zhao after his death.
Kui Mulang is a metal-element constellation, and every time his consciousness gets close, one can feel a slight stinging sensation.
But the power is very small, so small that it can be almost ignored.
Old Zhao's body only contains about one-sixth of the Kui Mulang star's primordial energy.
One-sixth of Kui Mulang, plus the portion of Xingxiu Yuanqi given to him by Ji Shuibao, plus the chaotic power of Chaos, plus his own Yuanqi, plus zero power.
These chaotic energies coexisted within his body, each occupying a corner of the cage.
Chaos can see the outside world through his eyes, but he cannot control his body, influence his will, or escape from his sin imprint space.
It was trapped inside his body.
For at least the next few hundred years, it will be unable to transform into a human or leave the world.
A few hundred years may not be much to Chaos, but for Lu Siye, it was like several lifetimes.
Every time he entered the box of chaos, he could see it lying there, curled up in a ball.
"How was your day?" he asked.
Chaos did not answer.
"The food is good."
"We have braised pork for lunch today. It's a perfect balance of lean and fat, stewed until very tender, and melts in your mouth."
"There was also a hot and sour soup. The sourness and spiciness were well balanced. After drinking it, I broke out in a light sweat, which felt very refreshing."
"The fruit is mangosteen, it's very sweet and fresh."
The tail of chaos paused for a moment.
"Are you reciting a menu to me?"
"You're boring."
"You can't get out, you can't eat, let me tell you, let you imagine it."
Chaos raised its head from between its two front legs and looked at him.
"You're really annoying."
it says.
"I know."
Lu Siye said.
Then they both fell silent.
After a while, Chaos buried its head back between its front legs, and curled its tail into a circle.
"Next time, let's talk about something else."
I don't want to hear about what you're eating.
"I want to hear something else, something I don't know."
Lu Siye remained silent for a moment.
"it is good."
He sat down next to Chaos and began to tell his grandmother's story.
He talked about his grandmother's braised pork ribs and the stories she told him.
How did she come from the countryside to the city, and how did she meet her grandfather in the factory?
He talked about the gardenias his grandmother grew; they were white and very large.
Chaos did not respond.
But it didn't say it was annoying.
As Lu Siye spoke, his voice grew softer and slower until he finally stopped.
It wasn't because he finished speaking, but because he fell asleep.
He knew what he was saying was boring, and he also knew that Chaos was just trying to ease the tension.
Chaos remained still.
It lay there, its eyes half-closed, its tail resting on the back of Lu Siye's hand.
Then it closed its eyes.