Fool

"Ah...sweet." Labriel licked the corner of his mouth with an unsatisfied look, and spoke in a dazed tone.

After being shaken for a moment, He Xian stood up again, completely dumbfounded. He pointed at Labriel and asked Shi Youchen tremblingly, "He, he ate it... What should we do?"

Shi Youchen stepped forward, grabbed Labriel's throat, and forced him to look into his eyes. Those eyes were filled with confusion, bewilderment, pain, and even a hint of resentment.

Labriel was forced to raise his head and look at Shi Youchen sadly: "Uh..." There was no murderous intent, no anger, and even the disgust that should have been there was not a trace.

Finally, Shi Youchen finally let go, his eyes dark as he said, "The power of the lion totem didn't reject his body; it has already merged with it."

He Xianru was struck by lightning: "What?!" It didn't matter that he failed to become the bearer of the lion totem. Compared to that, it was just a small matter. There were still other opportunities anyway.

But Labriel becoming one of the carriers was a fatal flaw.

After all, the other party is now intellectually impaired and has an awkward identity. He is neither a volunteer to be used by Shi Youchen, nor someone who took the initiative to join the Maintenance Bureau. He is even a family member with close ties to the association.

This accident undoubtedly caught them off guard.

After being released, Labriel coughed twice, then sat down on the spot, crossed his legs and began to sway from side to side while humming a song: "Birds are flying, fish are swimming quietly, people are standing under the moon, and their brows are full of joy~" It is a widely sung children's song.

He Xian frowned as he thought about what the bearer of the totem power was carrying. "He...what are you going to do with him?"

"..." Shi Youchen's eyes did not show any hesitation as he said, "Since it has come to this, we can only move on. I will not allow any unverified possible experiments." What he meant was that the power of the lion totem has been integrated with Labriel, and there is no means or method to guarantee a complete transfer, so Labriel must take on the task of the carrier.

"Then..." He Xian opened his mouth to ask something else, but then he heard Shi Youchen's firm decision: "From now on, he will be under my direct control. There's nothing to worry about."

Theoretically speaking, given Labriel's current condition and situation, it would not be difficult for Shi Youchen to control him, but for some reason He Xian was inexplicably confused.

"There are four more totems."

There were still four totems that needed to be carried, and no one could guarantee that no accidents would occur in the coming time. Moreover, there were huge stumbling blocks on the road they had to take.

It is inevitable that the supporters and carriers of the super evolution experiment will come to Ying Yungui to take over the association. As for when and in what form, no one can predict it for sure.

This is the biggest hidden danger for Shi Youchen and his team.

Shi Youchen interrupted He Xian's surging worries and said, "Next up is 'Crow'. You go meet up with them first. I'll go over after I deal with Yan Zhiyuan."

He Xian thought for a moment and said, "What about me?" He thought that since there was an accident this time, it would be his turn next, so he wanted to ask if there was anything he needed to prepare in advance.

Unexpectedly, Shi Youchen said, "I've already decided on the candidate for 'Crow'. You're not suitable. Wait a little longer."

He Xian exclaimed "Ah" and left with confusion.

It wasn't until he left the Mirage Abyss that he remembered, "Didn't they say before that Ying Yungui's condition hadn't stabilized yet, so the Crow Totem had to be put on the back burner? How did it get put next in line?"

...

Shi Youchen looked at Labriel who kept repeating the two lines for a while, then suddenly said, "There are only two of us here now, so there's no need to act."

"Fish quietly~" Labirel hummed this, then paused and looked up at Shi Youchen. There was still no trace of disgust or anger in his eyes. "Did you find out?"

Shi Youchen seemed tired, so he squatted down and slowly sat down cross-legged, facing Labrier.

"He Xian has little practical experience and doesn't know how much sacrifice really means, but I know it very well."

"If you are really like what you showed before, the life energy of those people will be nothing but castles in the air for you. You can't absorb it."

Labriel seemed to smile, but a hint of bitterness appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Tell me, what do you think?" Shi Youchen asked calmly, putting no pressure on the other party. Because he needed Labairiel's surrender.

"My grandfather once said, 'You only have one life, so you have to choose how to live it. People with special abilities are human too.'" Labriel's voice was tinged with tears, but he quickly hid them. "Initially, I chose to live a reckless and arrogant life, which ended up causing so much trouble. My family covered it up for me."

"Later, I finally learned to endure and live, but I didn't expect that in their eyes, my existence and I as a person were of no value at all."

The death of Frovitch, the rise of Lynch Filler, the change in the order of the association, and the compulsory spell order of Chief Ryan at the Orb selection... these scenes replayed in Labriel's mind.

He said, "I know I should have died there, but you saved me. Maybe you had other intentions, but you are the only one who regards my life as your own."

Shi Youchen said nothing and let him vent his emotions.

"Lynch Feller killed me, but my uncle was so close to his family." He said with a sad smile, "Yoling... Ha, Yoling Feller was the one who saw me die."

With each disappointment he encountered, he became more sober.

"So this time I have to choose my way of life again." He looked at Shi Youchen with burning eyes, "I want to choose you."

Shi Youchen was silent for a moment and then said, "Okay, what do you want?" In return for surrendering, he could give anything as long as it did not affect the final plan.

"I want," Labriel gritted his teeth, "to make that man feel the pain I felt at that time."

"personal enmity?"

"Yes, a personal vendetta."

Shi Youchen secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Labriel's character saved him a lot of trouble and did not add any extra burden, because the person he wanted to take revenge on was undoubtedly Chief Ryan.

"Okay, but not so fast. You have to wait for a while." In Shi Youchen's latest plan, the snake totem of the Ryan clan is likely to be sealed for the last time. Before that, he has to deal with the other three first.

Labriel nodded: "I can wait." Anyway, he didn't want to go back to the home that no longer felt like home, nor did he have the ability to seek revenge alone, so he might as well pretend to be stupid and live here for the rest of his life.

Shi Youchen didn't tell Labriel in the end that being a "bearer" meant that he would have to stay in this old world forever. He thought that perhaps not knowing was the last time he could show mercy to the other party.

After Shi Youchen and La Bairiel left the altar space, tiny cracks appeared on the outer shell of the Bell of Judgment.

——

In simulation room No. 3, Yan Zhiyuan didn't have to wait long before Shi Youchen appeared.

"Is it over, over there?" He saw that Shi Youchen looked normal, and he had a rough idea of what was going on. Sure enough, he heard the other party's tone calmly: "It's going smoothly, don't worry."

Yan Zhiyuan was used to trusting him, so he didn't ask any more questions and just waited for him to speak up and continue.

"Fren is the modified experimental subject left behind." Shi Youchen opened a video and showed it to Yan Zhiyuan, saying, "He is Li Luo and Li Nuo's biological brother from the same father and mother."

Yan Zhiyuan doesn't have a vast memory like Shi Youchen, which covers thousands of world lines. For him, only the 37 years in this world line are his personal experience, so of course he still remembers who Li Luo and Li Nuo are.

The videotape, directed by Shi Youchen under Lan's control, recorded the supernatural events of the year 151 in the New Calendar. In this complete and detailed record, Yan Zhiyuan saw some previously unknown truths.

When the Li siblings were young, their family suffered a misfortune and both their parents died in a sudden supernatural event. Later, the two young siblings were brought back to the association branch for training and became workers of the "association supremacy" doctrine.

But the fact is, the supernatural event that took their parents away was basically just one of the means of "super evolution" to recruit basic experimental subjects.

In order to protect their children, the couple "voluntarily" went to a low-level experimental base at the time and gave birth to their third child there. As expected, the child eventually became one of the lowest-level transformation experimental subjects.

"Both of them died shortly after the experiment, and the child has no idea about his own life experience," said Shi Youchen.

Yan Zhiyuan nodded. "So he showed up in Area 5 because... he's no longer useful?"

Shi Youchen didn't deny it: "Maybe."

Finally, Yan Zhiyuan raised the question that had been lingering in his mind: "You kept him just because of his background? But is Li Luo so important to you that you are willing to make such a dangerous concession?"

"Youchen, what on earth do you know?"

Shi Youchen looked at him calmly: "You know that Li Luo was once a traitor to the association. You even helped him conceal it after the second explosion because he was a like-minded person to you at the time."

When he said this, Yan Zhiyuan's momentum dropped visibly, and he couldn't deny it.

"As for his reason for betraying the Association... it was, of course, the same as yours. He learned some truths that the Association had concealed. He knew his parents didn't die from a supernatural event," Shi Youchen continued. "But Li Nuo was too young at the time, so, just like his parents had protected them, he chose to bear the truth alone to protect his sister."

"Are you asking me how I know this?" Shi Youchen understood Yan Zhiyuan's expression and took the initiative to ask, "Because his suicide by jumping off the building wasn't an accident. Ultimately, it was because of me."

So Shi Youchen picked and chose, selecting the fragments that would not reveal his identity from his complete memory, and told Yan Zhiyuan -

07 once had a brief collaboration with Lu Ming, but later due to some reasons, their collaboration ended.

At that time, 07 had already set his sights on him, and Lu Ming also learned of this through 08, his nephew Ah Xian. In addition, he had almost touched the secret of their bloodline purification plan, so Lu Ming decided to get rid of him.

In order to stop him, 07 once issued an order to Li Luo to stir up some incidents in City A to attract the attention of the Supervisory Department and suppress Lu Ming's increasingly arrogant attitude.

However, unexpectedly, Li Luo was physically and mentally devastated at the time and was on the verge of mental collapse. He could not bear it after receiving such an order, so he chose to jump off the roof of the interrogation building. Then the first attack on the A City Joint Training Base took place.

"I didn't know these details back then, until 07 became my teacher." Shi Youchen's eyes were far away, as if he was recalling something through the image of Yan Zhiyuan before him. "Then I understood that Li Luo's death, Li Nuo's misfortune and pain, were all caused by me."

Yan Zhiyuan finally spoke, but he retorted: "No."

"The root of the problem isn't you, it's the association itself."