"I……"

Tan Xing couldn't answer this question because he himself felt divided.

"Can't you answer? That's perfect—this way we can continue with Mr. Bai Jin's topic."

The Cheshire Cat chewed the spicy pudding and swallowed it gently.

"Although I know you definitely didn't get this information from your 'mother,' the Baby Home appears to adopt children indiscriminately, but in reality, it has a limited scope."

"Scope...? I've never heard of it. Although I've peeked at the information, I haven't seen any records about it." Tan Xing's expression twitched. "You don't mean orphans, do you?"

"Do you think I'm the kind of woman who would be interested in such boring jokes?"

The Cheshire Cat pouted.

The chili she squeezed onto the pudding was so hot it stained her lips.

"Actually, all orphans adopted by the Baby Home must have parents who were originally from the Baby Home—although this is considered a probabilistic event...because those who came from the Baby Home are more likely to be mentally disturbed than others, so the probability of abandoning the child again is also higher. But—if all the adopted children came from the same place, wouldn't that be a bit abnormal? If there was no screening at all and there had been no exceptions in decades, wouldn't this be completely surprising?"

While the Cheshire Cat was speaking, Bai Jin had already turned on the computer, and several sheets of paper filled with information popped out from the small printer.

"Thank you very much." The Cheshire Cat nodded to Bai Jin: "I really like the cautiousness in Mr. Bai Jin's character - you can prepare the work in advance without me saying anything -"

"Didn't you just say that? I have a strong say in the mental control and fear imprinted within my genes. Whether it's the good or the bad, when the gene pool isn't fully accessible, it can't be inherited the way I want. However, after the genetic code is deciphered, I can choose my preferred part at the fertilized egg stage... My name actually indicates which part of me was chosen."

"So, if you're telling the truth, does that mean your brother retained his madness?"

"..." Bai Jin looked confused.

"I don't remember having a brother, and I don't remember having any other family except my Wendy Dream and my daughter."

"Where are your parents?"

"It doesn't exist—"

"Did you spring from a stone?... Although few people in the Empire have read this book these days, if you look carefully in the library, you should still be able to find it. Although it appears to be a highly entertaining book on the surface, if you don't read it with an entertaining mindset, you'll find it's surprisingly an interesting satire of reality—"

It seems that eating the pudding one spoonful at a time will increase the time that the "spicy" taste stimulates the pain nerves. The Cheshire Cat simply stopped chewing slowly and poured the entire box of pudding into his mouth in one breath and swallowed it whole.

She licked her red lips and pulled the corners of her mouth to the sides with her fingers.

"It's really interesting to say the least—works labeled 'realistic' often have a strong sense of fabrication, while stories that truly attempt to record reality in some sense can have a fantastical quality. Is this what 'reality is often more interesting than literary works' means?"