Chapter 407 Price
Although Su Ming wanted to analyze it carefully and write something down, his brain would not allow him to do so.
Perhaps due to excessive fatigue, Su Ming felt that his brain had turned into a mess. He just wanted to daydream and didn't want to do anything. When he was daydreaming, he would think of Xia Xiaoyu. He also dreamed of Xia Xiaoyu last night. It was really a long-lost beautiful dream.
He dreamed that Xia Xiaoyu came to the Molten Iron City, and the gift she promised was to wrap herself up as a gift for him. Although this way of playing was a bit old-fashioned, he was still very happy in the dream... Unfortunately, happiness is always so short-lived, and he suddenly woke up before the climax began.
There may be some truth to the statement that the more difficult and harsh the environment humans are in, the more they will use fantasy to numb themselves.
The three people who had eaten the corpse parts had their minds completely controlled by the voices in their heads. Although they still looked somewhat normal now, Su Ming believed that as time went by, their thoughts would deviate more and more from those of ordinary people, and they would eventually become monsters like the previous man.
If we apply this theory, then as soon as we hear a sound and our thoughts follow the sound, at that moment we have actually turned into a "monster". Monsterization is not a sudden physical change, but a spiritual trend of change.
Assuming this idea is correct, then...
Then we can no longer delay the screening time and execute the monsterized people one after another to select the final survivors. It is very likely that the final survivors are those who have already begun or are halfway through mental monsterization. It is meaningless to take such people away from the devil's land.
Therefore, he wanted to kill not only those who showed physical symptoms of monsterization, but also those who began to become mentally abnormal as soon as possible.
The longer it drags on, the fewer people will be able to persevere, and in the end only a group of people with physical and mental mutations will be left... He must not let this happen.
"Haha, this is just your guess. If this trend of monsterization is not as irreversible as you think, then you will kill many people by mistake, right?"
"You're right. If I guessed wrong, then what I did was wrong."
Su Ming knew very well what he was going to do.
What he was about to do was actually equivalent to a police officer shooting a person who had thought about committing a crime but had not yet committed a crime.
If Su Ming's theory is correct, then the person who has thought about committing a crime will eventually commit a crime, and there is no problem with executing him by shooting.
But if his theory was wrong, then he might just have shot a person who committed a crime of sexual fantasy.
"So you've decided to do this? With your invincible intuition, why don't you help me come up with a solution now?"
"Since you can see into my heart, you should also know what I'm thinking, right?" Su Ming replied casually.
The voice in my head fell silent again.
Su Ming’s idea was very simple. In the end, only thirteen people could survive. So, everyone else except the last thirteen people must die, regardless of whether they turned into monsters or not.
The only difference between killing someone who has turned into a monster and killing someone who has not turned into a monster is whether it complies with moral ethics.
No matter what, Su Ming will not escape. He thinks that doing so is the best outcome, so he will do it. Even if it turns out to be wrong in the end, he will not regret it. At that time, he will bear the guilt.
But if, because he was afraid that what he was about to do might be wrong, he didn't do it, and it ended up leading to tragic consequences, then Su Ming would definitely regret it.
There is a trade-off between guilt and the possibility of survival of thirteen people, and this trade-off is too simple for Su Ming.
After the voice in Su Ming's head disappeared, he sat on the chair for a while, then got up and walked out of the house. When he reached the door, he happened to hear footsteps approaching. They happened to stop outside his study. He opened the door, and it was Zhou Xiaoxiao standing outside.
Zhou Xiaoxiao stood outside with an upright posture. She was slightly surprised to see Su Ming coming out, but then she smiled: "Are you going out?"
"Well... we are going out." Su Ming was stunned for a moment and looked at Zhou Xiaoxiao's face with some surprise. The other party's energetic look made Su Ming feel a little weird.
"Where are you going? Can I follow you?" Zhou Xiaoxiao asked.
"Okay, come over." Su Ming said.
Before, Su Ming chose Zhou Xiaoxiao to be the first person to share the secret, not on a whim, but because he knew people well and felt that Zhou Xiaoxiao was a person with a sense of justice and who was rational and realistic enough.
Su Ming felt at the time that if Zhou Xiaoxiao could help him find a solution and become his assistant, many things would be much easier to handle.
Although it was later proved that Zhou Xiaoxiao's spirit was not as strong as Su Ming had initially expected, the other party did help him do a lot of things. However, there were many things that Su Ming could not entrust to him for fear that he could not bear it.
But since Zhou Xiaoxiao now took the initiative to know some things, Su Ming didn't mind letting her know, and... Zhou Xiaoxiao's temperament has changed a little now.
"Did anything happen to you?" Su Ming asked.
"Well, nothing." Zhou Xiaoxiao replied cheerfully.
Su Ming, who was walking in front, stopped, turned around, stared into Zhou Xiaoxiao's eyes, and frowned: "You are lying."
This time, it was Zhou Xiaoxiao's turn to be surprised. His expression froze, and he laughed twice, saying openly, "You figured it out. Actually... I met a god."
"God?" Su Ming repeated with a frown.
Su Ming usually didn't like this word, and he disliked it even more in the devil's realm.
Su Ming's intuition told him that this god was definitely not a good person.
"What God?"
"Tyr, the god of steel, I have been redeemed by him."
"Is there a voice in your head?" Su Ming asked with a frown.
Zhou Xiaoxiao nodded: "Yes, it appeared before, but now it has disappeared."
Su Ming sighed and turned to walk towards the study. Zhou Xiaoxiao was stunned for a moment and asked, "What's wrong?"
"Let's talk about the God you mentioned first, and leave the rest for later."
Su Ming felt that Zhou Xiaoxiao's current situation might be more urgent. It was more important to find out the reason for Zhou Xiaoxiao's change in temperament than to observe the three corpse eaters.
…
Ten minutes later, Zhou Xiaoxiao recounted the entire story of how she had been tortured by the devil and how she had been redeemed by God.
After listening, Su Ming fell into deep thought.
There is no mistake, that god must be a guy, created by this weird world according to Zhou Xiaoxiao's imagination, and Zhou Xiaoxiao now looks... Su Ming looked up at him again. Zhou Xiaoxiao was squinting and looking at the purple moon outside the window behind him with a smile on his face. This guy was obviously not as normal as before.
But it is hard to say what is wrong specifically. If you want to know the answer, you need to do some specific tests.
In addition, according to the archival information of the Investigation Bureau, all the powers obtained here are conditional. The unknown existence here will not give you power for no reason. You always need to pay a price. Sometimes those prices are tangible, such as murder.
Sometimes, these costs are intangible or even a very strange condition.
According to this rule, Zhou Xiaoxiao should also have paid a price for that bird god.
"Old Zhou, when the god made the deal with you, did he ask you to follow any conditions?" Su Ming asked cautiously.
Zhou Xiaoxiao laughed when she heard this and shook her head helplessly: "How stubborn! Why don't you believe in the existence of God? God gave me the courage to face everything, but did not ask for the slightest condition from me. Isn't this enough to prove that God exists differently from the devil?"
Su Ming stared at Zhou Xiaoxiao's face and frowned even more tightly.
The other party did not lie, but the problem is that a transaction cannot be without conditions. You know, the devil will not give gifts to human beings.
"Can you repeat to me every word you said to God Tyr since you met him?" Su Ming asked.
He felt that things were not as simple as they seemed. Since Zhou Xiaoxiao had made a deal with "God", she must have paid something.
Zhou Xiaoxiao sighed, thinking that Su Ming was being too cautious, but he didn't mind. He also wanted Su Ming to believe in God - to be devout enough would mean fighting against the devil's power in the devil's territory.
"Then I will start from the beginning. I remember every word that God Tyr said to me. At that time, I was praying to the Book of Source Iron, and I was very desperate. It was at that time that a compassionate voice suddenly appeared in front of me. You may not understand it, but that voice gave me the feeling of-"
"I understand. You just need to tell me the content of the conversation." Su Ming interrupted Zhou Xiaoxiao. He nodded perfunctorily, indicating that he understood God's mercy very well, and signaled Zhou Xiaoxiao to get to the point.
Zhou Xiaoxiao sighed: "He said, 'Poor child, raise your head.' This was the first sentence God said to me..."
In Zhou Xiaoxiao's memory, time passed quickly. Although his description contained many subjective emotions, because that god didn't talk much nonsense to him, Zhou Xiaoxiao finally repeated his conversation with that god within five minutes.
"I know!" Su Ming tapped the table with his fingertips, raised his head and said with certainty, "It can't be wrong! The price you pay is fear! And the other party's condition is to let you live!"
"Haha, this, this doesn't count, right?" Zhou Xiaoxiao burst out laughing.
Su Ming said nothing. He tilted his head, touched his chin, and stared at him seriously.
"Hey, you don't think God is the devil, do you?"
Su Ming still didn't say anything. He felt that this was a very serious problem, but Zhou Xiaoxiao didn't notice the problem at all at this moment.
Staying alive and losing fear, these two things seem to have no negative effects at all, but in fact they are no different from ordinary people losing their sense of pain. Ordinary people will lose part of their ability to perceive danger when they lose their sense of pain, and they will also lose the ability to stay away from danger when they lose their fear.
As for staying alive... this condition is the same as the requirement "you must work hard to become the strongest in the world". Both seem to be inspiring words, but in fact they both deprive people of a kind of freedom. The former loses the freedom to choose death, and the latter loses the freedom to be content with mediocrity.
In an ordinary environment, perhaps losing these two freedoms would not be a big deal, but in the current extremely harsh environment, in order to achieve that condition, a lot of bottom lines have to be given up.
Zhou Xiaoxiao did not realize that he had been shackled by the so-called "God" he believed in, and that was the problem!
Although Su Ming wanted to tell him the problem, he couldn't do so... because perhaps Zhou Xiaoxiao had become an enemy.
Should I pretend to believe him so that he won't be wary of me?
This kind of thing should not be possible. Although Su Ming was able to disguise himself as Xia Ming and completely fool Zhou Xiaoxiao when they first met, that was because he had expected such a thing to happen, so he practiced Xia Ming's identity in his mind. His skilled acting skills combined with his super intuition fooled Zhou Xiaoxiao.
But there was no time for him to practice again. Perhaps from the beginning, Zhou Xiaoxiao had already realized that she no longer trusted him.
No, it's not maybe, it's the truth.
"Su Ming, you are so stubborn." Zhou Xiaoxiao's smile disappeared and a look of disappointment appeared on her face.
He sighed, stood up from the chair with his hands on the armrests, and walked towards the door without looking back.
Su Ming looked at Zhou Xiaoxiao's back. In the short few seconds from the time she stood up to the time she walked to the door, he experienced a fierce struggle between his conscience and his desires.
Finally, the sound of the door closing was heard and Su Ming let out a sigh.
For now, let's observe for a while. If the situation is really not right, then we will have to take action.
…
"Brother, that person is here to see you."
Bai Yufei rushed into the room and shouted at Bai Chifei who was lying on the ground with his eyes closed.
"Oh? It came so quickly. I thought it would be slower."
Bai Chifei slowly opened his eyes, yawned lazily, and sat up.
Zhou Xiaoxiao followed Bai Yufei into the house. He glanced at everyone in the room and finally his eyes fell on Bai Chifei.
"I'm willing to join you." Zhou Xiaoxiao said straight to the point.
Bai Chifei looked up and stared at Zhou Xiaoxiao in a daze. It was not until Bai Yufei reminded him that he reacted and asked hurriedly, "What made Mr. Zhou change his mind? He obviously didn't plan to cooperate with us before."
“I follow the right people.”
"Ha! Don't you think Su Ming is right?"
"My previous judgment may have been a bit wrong. Su Ming is indeed determined and has clear strategic thinking, but his judgment may have some problems. He is too stubborn. I can't continue to follow him." Zhou Xiaoxiao said with regret.
Bai Chifei nodded. He felt that Zhou Xiaoxiao seemed to have changed a lot. They had met half an hour ago. At that time, Zhou Xiaoxiao looked like he had a mental breakdown and was useless. But looking at him now, he didn't look like a useless person at all.
Compared to before, Zhou Xiaoxiao is now calmer, more composed, and more composed, which even makes Bai Chifei subconsciously become very nervous.
He felt that the other person's eyes were like a sharp scalpel that could cut open his skin and peek into his inner body.
He was no longer the same person as before... What on earth had he experienced in this short period of less than an hour?
