Once Meng Chao finished speaking …
The underground space was filled with dead silence.
After a long time, Bai Shan sighed airily and smiled wanly. "If only I hadn't attacked you. Then, you wouldn't have been able to use my weakness against me."
"That's impossible," Meng Chao said.
"If I had been completely unharmed, you would have weighed the pros and cons and chosen not to make a move. You would have continued holding back.
"But I carefully pretended to be on the verge of death, as if I could kill you with just one stab. How could you resist such a great temptation?
"You don't even know what Ms. Mulian told me, and if I ran into Wild Wolf, what would I say to him?
"In that sort of situation, the safest and most convenient choice was to silence me."
"Indeed, I could only silence you, but I shouldn't have acted smart and told Wild Wolf that I saw you kill Ms. Mulian with my own eyes."
Bai Shan thought about it. "If I had been more ambiguous, perhaps I wouldn't have exposed myself so quickly."
"That's impossible. If you hadn't seen me kill Ms. Mulian with your own eyes, why would you have chased after me and tried to kill me?"
Meng Chao said. "If you had accidentally seen me doing something shady underground, you would have captured me alive and interrogated me for a large amount of information, including Ms. Mulian's whereabouts. You wouldn't have tried to kill me with every move you made.
"Don't worry. I've considered every detail. No matter what, you won't be able to explain yourself."
"…"
Bai Shan sighed and smiled wanly. "Meng Chao, as expected of the superhuman who has been in the limelight for the past two years. It's no wonder why those people told me that Man-eating Shark Zhou Chong was the one with the highest cultivation realm in the hunting squad that went into Leprosy Village to destroy the Deification Capsule pharmacy. But the most difficult person to deal with might be you, since you've just entered Heaven Realm. They told me not to underestimate you and that if I saw you, I would do everything in my power to kill you.
"I did as I was told, but I didn't expect that I would still fall into your trap."
Meng Chao's eyes burned intensely. "Are you admitting that you colluded with the robbers from the outside world? The ones who created the Deification Capsules and pretended to be secret police?"
"Now that things have progressed to this point, is it important whether I admit it or not?" Bai Shan smiled sadly.
"Why?"
Wild Wolf's eyes practically turned into two burning crystals. He took a heavy step forward and gritted his teeth. "Bai Shan, why did you betray me, Wild Wolves, and Leprosy Village? Don't you know that there might be a monster hiding behind those robbers? "
"At first, I didn't know."
Bai Shan said faintly, "I guessed it later, but it doesn't matter anymore."
"Doesn't matter?"
Wild Wolf was so angry that he laughed. "Bai Shan, we've known each other for decades, but I feel like this is the first time I've seen you clearly. So, in your heart, being a monster's puppet is nothing?"
"Then tell me —"
Bai Shan asked calmly like a zombie. "Why can't we become the monsters' claws? Even if the monsters really occupy Dragon City, so what? "
Meng Chao could not help but shout, "Monsters eat people. Once the monsters completely occupy Dragon City, they'll eat all the humans. Is that really fine?"
He simply could not understand Bai Shan's train of thought.
Or could it be that the Vortex's mind control was already so advanced that it could completely twist and crush a person's logical thoughts while maintaining a calm and normal expression on the surface?
"That's right. Monsters eat people. Being devoured by a mouth full of fangs and having your flesh and bones grinded to powder isn't a good way to die."
Bai Shan smiled and looked at Wild Wolf with a profound gaze. Suddenly, she asked a seemingly unrelated question, "Wild Wolf, do you remember my mother?"
Wild Wolf, Zhang Tie, Meng Chao, A 'Ji, Ms. Mulian, and the Wild Wolves were all stunned.
Bai Shan looked confused. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she had traveled through time and was lost in a distant memory. "My mother was the same as most of the parents in Leprosy Village. She worked in an underground workshop that created special weapons. Every day, she worked in contact with monsters with high radiation, pollution, and poison, as well as crystals.
"Since we have a third eye at the center of our brows, we can see light and colors that normal people can't see. We can tell the subtle differences in the bodily fluids of different monsters with just one glance, and we can choose the strongest acid and poison.
"So, Mom was sent to work in the poison tempering workshop. Her task was to spread the poisonous bodily fluids of monsters into the runic symbol grooves carved on the ammunition. She had to ensure that they were spread evenly and refine them repeatedly to increase the power of the weapons to the maximum.
"This was a dangerous and painful job.
"The stronger the poison and acid, the more penetrative it was. No matter how many layers of protective clothing or gloves she wore, the poison would seep through the gaps between the molecules and invade my blood, muscles, nerves, and bones.
"Besides, to ensure that the poison was of high quality, my mother had to ensure that her fingers were nimble. So, it was impossible for her to wear gloves that provided the best protection but were also the thickest and clumsiest gloves.
"Sometimes, when the workshop received huge orders that demanded high quality, my mother would not even wear gloves and work with her bare hands, as if she was doing embroidery.
"After years of hard work, the poison continued accumulating in my mother's body, and it was like billions of worms eating away at her.
"Mom is a person of few words, or rather, she has long been tortured by the matter of 'survival' to the point where she is on her last breath. She has no interest in talking and laughing at all.
"For as long as I can remember, there are only three kinds of sounds that I heard my mother most often — coughing, moaning, and the 'thump thump' sound of her fists hitting her joints. Oh, it's four kinds, and the 'kacha kacha' sound from her joints.
"My mother told me that a person's joints are like the gears of a machine. If they are rusty and can't move, I just need a hammer to hit them a few times, and they might be fine.
"When I was young, I didn't understand anything. I really thought that my mother was some sort of superhuman made of machines and could do everything.
"Unfortunately, I couldn't completely get rid of the rust with just a hammer, and it was impossible for me to make a rusty machine look as good as new.
"No matter how much my mother coughed, moaned, or hit her joints with her fists, her body couldn't be saved, and it deteriorated bit by bit.
"Gradually, all of my mother's teeth fell out, and her dental nerves were exposed. Even when she drank water, it hurt so much that she started crying.
"Later, my mother's spine couldn't take it anymore. Her back kept bending, and every day, she would bend a few more degrees. From a tall and beautiful woman, she turned into a monster who always had a hunched back and looked like a lobster.
"I was really afraid of this kind of mother, but she comforted me with a smile and told me that it was fine. She even said that her current appearance made it easier for her to work at her desk, so she could continue smearing more poison on more weapons.
"After some time, my mother's eyes couldn't take it anymore.
"Our third eye's visual function is more than 300% that of a normal person's. Our vision, visual range, and ability to distinguish colors are even better than that of superhumans.
"But after working in an environment filled with poison for a long period of time, my mother's third eye was badly corroded. It was as if there was a layer of white film covering her eyes, and her vision became blurry. Even when she walked at home, she often stumbled, and her eyes were covered in bruises.
"But her body was really weak, and she didn't have enough food and medicine. At that time, Ms. Mulian hadn't grown up yet, so she hadn't awakened to her amazing healing abilities. No one could help my mother relieve her pain, and the bruises didn't get better. They turned from green to purple, and from purple to black. Even if she was my mother, I still thought that she was really ugly.
"In the end, on the morning my mother went completely blind, she opened her eyes wide one last time and groped around aimlessly. Then, with great difficulty, she reached the underground workshop where she had worked all her life.
"What happened next was something that she could do without using her eyes.
"My mother found a can of monster poison used to smear swords and bullets. She opened the lid and drank it in one go.
"My mother died just like that. She was the same as countless villagers who couldn't withstand the torture. That year, there were six uncles and aunties who chose to die the same way she did in the underground workshop.
"This is really an ordinary story.
"The only thing that left a deep impression on me was that when we cremated my mother, we noticed that her bones shone with a fluorescent light, just like a crystal mine. They even crackled and released colorful sparks. My mother was ugly when she was alive, but when she died, she turned into a beautiful firework.
"So, the fatal elements contained in all sorts of monster fluids and crystal powder had long since filled my mother's bones. Using the terminology of superhumans, my mother's bones can be considered spirit bones, right? Ha! Haha! "
Bai Shan's lips curled up, and she let out a shrill, broken laugh.
"Bai Shan, I know that you've been in pain because of your auntie's death. Over the years, you've never walked out of it," Wild Wolf said.
"But what does this have to do with you turning into a monster's puppet?" Wild Wolf asked darkly.
"Ever since my mother turned into a firework and died, I've been thinking about two questions."
All three of Bai Shan's eyes were fixed on her. She said in a daze, "First, Wild Wolf, do you think it's more painful for my mother to be eaten by poison and acid in the underground workshop day after day and year after year? Her flesh, nerves, bones, and organs were gradually eaten away, and her flesh, nerves, bones, and organs rotted away in the end, or is it more painful for her to be eaten by a monster?"
"That's …"
Wild Wolf fell silent.
"If she rots to death in a few years or even decades, and she does not see the possibility that her children's fate can be changed before she dies, and they will follow her footsteps in a few years, which is more painful, then —"
Bai Shan smiled and said, "If a monster snuck into Leprosy Village from the very beginning and bit my mother to death, wouldn't it be helping her get rid of her pain?
"If that's the case, tell me, tell me, should I hate this monster, or should I thank it?"
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