Chapter 58 (Catching Bugs)
After all his subordinates petitioned unanimously, Shen Jian deleted this memory from his mind.
He stood at the place where the leader was imprisoned with a gentle, gritted smile on his face, paying the leader one last visit in a reluctant attempt to prove once again that his previous approach was still partially feasible.
Of course, this isn't the real deal.
The leader sat on the empty bed with a book in his hands. His pale, icy fingers tinged with an unhealthy pink as he pinched the corner of the book and turned a page.
The man who traveled through unknown time and space looked very calm, and ignored everything outside the prison mechanical warehouse.
He was still as indifferent and calm as if he was sitting in the leader's room, his long jet-black hair flowing down like water, attracted to one side by gravity, his body tense, as if he was holding a sword in the air.
Even though Shen Jian put him in a pure white mechanical warehouse that violated the POW convention, seemingly intending to kill his long-running mind, he still got a book, a piece of shredded paper that would appear once every twelve hours to help him calibrate the time, and a sheet that could be laid on the welded cube bed.
He didn't even have to face the overwhelming documents - yes, he really treated Shen Jian as his own child before, and he diligently approved all the piled up documents for him before he fell out.
The result, of course, was that he raised an unfilial son.
The leader sneered silently, carelessly ignoring the gentle light that shone through as the pure white wall in front of him turned into a transparent wall.
Shen Jian couldn't maintain his smile any longer, he restrained his expression and knocked on the transparent wall, "Shen Jian."
He said, "Tomorrow the machine will start. Don't you have anything to say? No last-ditch effort?"
The leader didn't even look up: "You will fail."
Shen Jian’s expression disappeared.
The leader could have expected this. He looked up and saw the boy looking at him with eyes that understood but definitely did not accept. After a while, he whispered, "Why are you so sure?"
The leader shook his head without saying anything, closed the book and put it beside him, slowly stood up, and stepped barefoot on the cold ground.
He took off his coat before being thrown in, and was only wearing a white undershirt and pants. He kicked off his military boots because they were in the way.
Then, the leader slowly stood in the position closest to Shen Jian, separated from him by a thin transparent wall.
"I know you really want to hear me say 'I have failed countless times, so I am sure you will fail' so that you can have another chance to torment me." The leader said calmly, "But in fact, it is impossible for anyone to succeed."
“I didn’t believe it before, I tried countless times, and now you don’t believe it either.” The leader looked at Shen Jian, whose expression remained unchanged, and suddenly raised his hand to touch the glass, and touched Shen Jian’s hair in the air.
His fingers thus absorbed some of the temperature and became warm, but Shen Jian obviously didn't care about these details. He turned his face indifferently to avoid the leader's hand.
“Because you are not me, Shen Jian.” The boy whispered.
"..." The leader looked at him silently, pursed his lips, and his inky hair fell slightly.
He didn't preach or stop me, but just talked about himself calmly, "I didn't believe it before. I also thought I would make it through, and I tried countless times. But as you can see... you see, I still ended up like this."
"What makes you think you'll make it through this?" He leaned forward slightly. "How can you prove that you won't be the next me?"
Shen Jian was silent for a while, his eyes did not fluctuate at all, almost making the leader believe that Shen Jian really got some help.
He ignited a little hope and looked at Shen Jian intently, as if he was looking at a shiny treasure that had been wiped clean of dust, and the light illuminated his dull and dead eyes.
But Shen Jian’s words were beyond the leader’s expectations: “I don’t know.”
The leader's gaze froze.
He slowly put away his expression: "Why?"
Obviously, he was the one who least believed that Shen Jian could succeed, but after hearing the answer, the leader pursed his lips and showed full dissatisfaction: “You are not ready yet, and you rushed over like a stupid dog?”
The leader withdrew his hand, took two steps back indifferently, and walked back and forth in the pure white prison: "You arranged everything, paid many costs that I know and I don't know, and now you tell me that you don't know whether you can succeed?"
Shen Jian calmly accepted the leader's ridicule, as if he was casually waving away the dust that accidentally stained the corner of his clothes.
He calmly sent back the leader's words intact, and said, "Isn't this what you wanted?"
The leader froze in his tracks.
"What you want will be granted one by one after I can no longer bear it. The world, the universe, and the dimension will collapse."
Shen Jian looked indifferently at the leader who was truly panicking for the first time. His tone was still very calm, and he could not see any sense of accomplishment from forcing people into a desperate situation bit by bit.
"Isn't this what you want?" Shen Jian lowered his voice and stared at the man who was nailed to the spot, "Why do you seem to want to deny that ending so much?"
The leader didn't move, didn't react at all, didn't respond, and didn't refute.
Shen Jian glanced at his expression, which was as calm as the Arctic permafrost, and smiled slowly.
"All your self-control is spent on maintaining your expression, right?" Shen Jian said calmly, "Let yourself go, Shen Jian."
"You still refuse to give up the path where you have failed and you are sure that I will fail too. Denying me, what are you thinking?"
Shen Jian smiled, "...Look at me, Shen Jian."
He whispered temptingly: "The other possibility you hope for - what if I succeed? Don't you believe me?"
Shen Jian's voice became softer and softer, and seemed to be inaudible in the empty space below, without even an echo. But he knew that the leader would not miss a single word even if he missed anything.
He waited patiently for five minutes.
The leader maintained a cold and calm expression, which finally cracked a little. He turned his head like a machine and asked, "Why should I trust you?"
The leader needed a reason to convince him, so he went back to the question he asked at the beginning.
Shen Jian was very keenly aware of this.
The leader, who was imprisoned in a pure white prison, forced to maintain his thinking for a long time, and forced to bear long-term pain, did not collapse, but it seemed that an attempt long ago had caused him to collapse -
To the extent that now he would be cautious and hesitant to act if there was any clue about the matter, just like Shen An who would overreact when frightened before.
So much so that he chose to destroy the world in despair.
The attempt that made him collapse, the other self in front of him was planning to jump down again without knowing what was good for him, and seemed to be treating it as a gamble to save the world.
Shen Jian stared at the leader for a while.
He was thinking whether to continue talking, looking around absentmindedly, casually scanning the corners.
It was deserted, and the flowing light disappeared underground. This was one of the only places without any technological means. The Wuyan Tower would not put any [Chen Jian] in such a humiliating state.
So Shen Jian glanced at the tall man standing barefoot on the ground with his hands hanging down, and said, “You just want to get an answer from me: I will definitely succeed.”
"It's not that you don't want me to succeed, but rather that you can't accept my failure and have stopped fantasizing about this victory from the beginning."
Shen Jian gestured, signaling the leader to swallow his excuses: “But I don’t mind.”
He smiled slightly and looked at the leader with relief: “You know… Shen Jian will not make useless preparations.”
So he has a backup plan.
The leader’s pupils shrank, and he didn’t know whether he was shocked by his words or by Shen Jian’s courage to step into this place.
Shen Jian casually opened the mechanical compartment, brushed past him, and sat on the bed.
“…”
The leader turned around slowly, moved his pupils and looked at Shen Jian.
As long as he took two steps forward and grabbed the boy's neck, everything would be over.
The leader believed that the boy would not be able to resist.
But he froze in place, as if he had just woken up from his leadership position for the first time and seen the young man stepping into the darkness.
Shen Jian smiled and crossed his legs nonchalantly, “I’ll give you the answer.”
"..." The leader was silent for a while. After a moment, he pulled the corner of his mouth uncomfortably and made a gesture, "What are the conditions?"
Obviously, he was the one being wooed in this covert solicitation, but he lowered his head and asked the person who made the bid what price he could offer.
Shen Jian looked at the leader's face and smiled.
To be honest, although the upcoming "attempt" was very worrying, he was in a pretty good mood now.
He was ready to fulfill the promise he made when he first met the leader -
Shen Jian raised his eyes, smiled gently and elegantly, and said as if casually, “Kneel down.”
The air stagnated for a moment.
Shen Jian finally felt the joy of revenge. Although he didn't care about his previous affiliation, he felt very good when he saw his leader in pain, just like drinking a whole bottle of iced soda in summer.
For the sake of the chess game, Shen Jian had been submissive to the leader. He just thought it was a pretty good deal. But... maybe, a leader who has been in a high position for a long time and no longer knows what is beneath dignity is not used to this kind of thing?
Shen Jian waited expectantly for the scene where the leader would not lower his head, so that he could immediately hold down the leader and make a lot of ridicule.
The leader really stood there for a long time without moving. Shen Jian slowly straightened his back, his eyes bright as he brewed mocking words in his mind.
Then he saw the leader suddenly smile for the first time, and then kneeled down with an expressionless face.
My knees made loud noises as they hit the smooth surface without carpet.
Shen Jian: …
Shen Jian:?
This was not quite what he had expected.
He looked at the leader numbly, his lips curved as he asked, "Are you satisfied? What's your plan? Tell me."
There was a loading symbol visible on the top of Shen Jian's head. After a moment, he slowly came back to his senses and moved his lips for a long time without knowing what to say.
Finally, he held his forehead, knelt weakly on the ground with his back still straight, and said, "Okay. You're smart... Listen... I think, Solomon, the artificial intelligence you know-"
"…It is the consciousness that awakened from the time-space machine."
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