Ideal Town

Ideal Town

Because Shen Jiyue's appearance was far too frightening, Mu Sichen had never been able to look straight at him, and he had never observed Shen Jiyue's demeanor or expressions.

This was not Mu Sichen's fault. Shen Jiyue's appearance really was too hard for anyone to accept. Mu Sichen was only an ordinary college student who had just arrived in this world. He might have a little cleverness, and he was working hard to stay calm, but in the end, he was still a normal person.

It was also for this reason that Mu Sichen had instinctively labeled Shen Jiyue as "pitiful," "struggling to survive," and "a normal person pushed to the brink of madness."

Thinking about it now, how could someone who could calmly face a body covered in blister-eyes without going mad possibly be an ordinary person?

Once he figured this out, Mu Sichen was in even less of a hurry to act.

This was not a game's starter village. There was no beginner's guide to help players adjust to a new world. If he acted rashly before understanding this world's underlying logic, there was absolutely no way it would end well.

Mu Sichen kept the fate of the four players purified by the Feather-Eyed Apostle firmly in mind and warned himself to be coolheaded and composed.

He needed to obtain more information.

So he forced himself to look at Shen Jiyue. He pushed aside the fear and revulsion in his heart, looked past that layer of blister-eyes, and focused intently on Shen Jiyue's face.

He would not avoid that disgust by forcing himself to imagine that "blister-eyes are kind of cute too," because the moment he had the thought that "blister-eyes are cute," it would mean he had mentally accepted Big Eye, and he would be contaminated without even realizing it.

He had to create an emotion of resistance.

He knew perfectly well that a body covered in blister-eyes was disgusting and would create an enormous visual impact, but he still had to endure it.

He was not accepting it. He was facing it directly.

After the diary owner learned the truth about Big Eye, he chose to shut himself indoors, refusing to listen or look, but in the end, he had still become a madman.

He had to face this world's strangeness and horror in the same way: not by running from it, but by thinking of ways to fight back.

Mu Sichen met Shen Jiyue's gaze. In those frog-like eyes, he saw a trace of composure and approval.

"Looks like you've found a way to stay rational inside the sanatorium." Shen Jiyue laid his hand over the back of Mu Sichen's blister-covered hand.

Mu Sichen only felt his hand go cool. He lifted it and saw that the blister-eyes on his palm and the back of his hand had already vanished.

Meanwhile, several more blister-eyes had grown from the ruptured, pus-oozing wounds on Shen Jiyue's arm.

Mu Sichen's contamination had not been treated. Instead, Shen Jiyue had absorbed the contamination from him.

Mu Sichen looked at his own hand in mild surprise.

"Pretty amazing, isn't it?" A hint of a smile flashed through Shen Jiyue's frog eyes. "Patients can actually treat contamination on family members. I've been hospitalized in this sanatorium for a week, waiting all this time for a family member like you to appear."

Mu Sichen understood.

He had entered the ward three times, and Shen Jiyue had behaved completely differently each time, as if he had been three different people. In reality, he had been testing Mu Sichen.

"So the terror and hostility I felt the first time I opened the ward door weren't my imagination. You deliberately scared me?" Mu Sichen asked.

Half an hour ago, Mu Sichen had abruptly opened the door to the patient he was responsible for and seen a monster. Not only was that monster terrifying in appearance, his body also radiated an indescribable malice.

The double impact on his vision and mind had made Mu Sichen close the door at once, and that action had happened to convey a piece of information to Shen Jiyue.

It told Shen Jiyue that Mu Sichen was an ordinary person entering the sanatorium for the first time. He knew nothing about the rules inside, and he was also the unpolluted person Shen Jiyue had been waiting for, someone who had not accepted the rules.

But that alone was not enough.

So the second time Mu Sichen opened the ward door, while Mu Sichen still did not understand the rules, Shen Jiyue displayed his kind and resilient side, stirring Mu Sichen's sympathy.

After Mu Sichen left the room, explored the sanatorium for a while, and returned to the ward for the third time, that became Shen Jiyue's final test of him.

At the time, Shen Jiyue had been lying on the bed, completely defenseless, which made it the perfect chance for Mu Sichen to strike and find a way to contaminate him.

If Mu Sichen, after learning the rules, had chosen to harm Shen Jiyue in exchange for an opportunity to become a doctor, then Shen Jiyue would never have explained the truth to him, nor would he have treated the blister-eyes on his hand.

Only after these three tests was Shen Jiyue willing to believe in Mu Sichen.

"You've been testing me all along?" Mu Sichen asked.

Shen Jiyue did not deny it. "I like working with smart people. In this place, if you're too stupid, you won't live long. If you're too cold-blooded, you won't live long. If you're too timid, you won't live long either."

"How did you know that after I left the ward and came back the second time, I'd already learned the hospital's rules?" Mu Sichen asked.

Shen Jiyue shrugged. "From the looks of it, you didn't find the rule explanation yourself. Someone told you. If you were willing to search on your own, you would discover that rule information is hidden all over the hospital, and you could quickly summarize the regulations for identity transformation."

"Since the rules are that easy to find, why not simply post the identity transformation rules on the first floor?" Mu Sichen asked.

Shen Jiyue smiled. "To mislead all those self-styled clever people, of course. This sanatorium is so strange. Who would be stupid enough to directly believe rules posted on the first floor? Rules you painstakingly find clues for and rack your brains to deduce yourself are more trustworthy, aren't they?"

Mu Sichen found that deeply convincing, and with some lingering fear, nodded. "There really are traps everywhere."

"Of course. He isn't stupid in the slightest." Shen Jiyue raised a hand and pointed upward.

Mu Sichen uneasily straightened the "Sha Big-Eyes" name badge on his chest.

Only now did Mu Sichen correctly understand what made god-class monsters so frightening.

Their power was not only reflected in the "not to be looked at directly" trait, nor only in strength that surpassed ordinary humans. What was even more terrifying was a mode of thinking far beyond ordinary human imagination.

Mu Sichen deeply understood that the only thing capable of defeating a god-class monster was another god-class monster.

With his current strength, there was no way he could leave the Town of the Eye, which was shrouded in Big Eye's power. He could only rely on Qin Zhou.

But precisely because of this, he could not accept the favor of beings at that level, including Qin Zhou.

To Mu Sichen, the so-called feelings Great Beings held for humans were like a person walking by the roadside, suddenly finding a particular ant somewhat pleasing, and casually tossing it two bread crumbs to fill its stomach.

The ant would think it had encountered a god and kneel at the Great Being's feet in tearful gratitude. Who knew that in the very next second, the other party would lift a foot to leave and accidentally step on the ant that was still bowing.

From beginning to end, the Great Being would never remember what that ant looked like. Afterward, it would not even recall that it had once tossed out bread crumbs.

Great Beings did not intend to harm people, but people could die because the gap between the two was far too vast.

This was the chasm between gods and humans.

Of course, to Qin Zhou right now, he could just barely count as an ant worth observing. Mu Sichen rubbed his nose.

"I know Big Eye is very strong, so the only thing we can do is search for the Pillar. That's your goal too, isn't it?" Mu Sichen asked.

"Big Eye?" Shen Jiyue froze for a moment, then smiled. "That name is pretty vivid. But you'd better not dwell on that nickname too much. The more you think about it, the more you understand it. Contamination always works subtly and catches people off guard."

Although Shen Jiyue looked terrifying, his tone was calm. He seemed much more reliable than Yao Wangping.

Mu Sichen asked, "You mentioned Xiangping Town before. Are you also Qin Zhou's subordinate? Do you have his totem on you?"

"You address Him by name directly?" Rare surprise appeared in Shen Jiyue's frog eyes, and his eyeballs rotated 360 degrees, as if he were observing Mu Sichen from every angle.

"Is there a problem?" Mu Sichen felt his scalp prickle under that stare. "Isn't that the name the radio keeps playing on loop? Can't I say it?"

Hadn't the diary owner also repeatedly written Qin Zhou's name in the diary?

"I'm starting to wonder whether you've even lived through the Cataclysm. Are you someone who was asleep underground all this time and only just woke up?" Shen Jiyue asked. "Haven't you noticed that when people address those existences beyond humanity, they only dare to use 'Great Being,' titles, or other positions as substitutes? This is common sense after the Cataclysm."

This was the second time Mu Sichen had heard the word "Cataclysm." The previous time had been from the Feather-Eyed Apostle. He guessed that this world must have experienced an extremely terrifying Cataclysm, and that was why the world had become like this.

The Cataclysm was common sense to the people of this world, but it was foreign to Mu Sichen.

Even if he was going to cooperate with Shen Jiyue, Mu Sichen had no intention of exposing his identity as a player. It would be best if Shen Jiyue regarded him as an ordinary survivor from the Town of the Eye.

So he restrained his curiosity, avoided discussing the Cataclysm, and asked instead, "I've already said His name. What happens?"

"If it's Him, then nothing really will happen. Aside from titles like 'Guardian God of Humanity' and 'Hand That Covers the Sky,' He also has the title 'Absolute Rational One.' If you say His name, either He doesn't want to bother with you, or you receive the protection of rationality and calm.

"No wonder your mind is so clear. So you received the favor of 'absolute rationality.'"

Mu Sichen: "..."

He felt that he might not have received Qin Zhou's protection.

Because after he left the room and looked directly at Big Eye, his SAN had gone clattering down, and he had not received any protection at all.

After Qin Zhou tattooed the totem on him, he had felt his mind become much clearer, and his SAN should have recovered somewhat. But he had not become especially rational either, at least not to Yao Wangping's degree.

Mu Sichen did not answer that question directly, and instead asked in return, "So you were also able to stay clearheaded because you received Qin Zhou's protection?"

"How are you still addressing Him by name directly?" Shen Jiyue froze, then answered, "I also have His totem on me."

"Where?" Mu Sichen needed to confirm.

Shen Jiyue wanted to find a collaborator and had tested him repeatedly. Mu Sichen could not possibly let the other party examine him from every angle, then naively and defenselessly trust him just like that.

Shen Jiyue flipped aside the only intact part of him, his hair, pointed to the back of his head, and said, "You can look here."

The ruptured blister-eyes on his body were giving off a fishy stench, but his hair was fresh and clean. He must have paid great attention to personal hygiene, insisting on washing his hair every day even after becoming like this.

Mu Sichen walked around behind him and lifted Shen Jiyue's hair. Sure enough, he saw a totem tattooed on his scalp, countless hands guarding the Earth.

No wonder only Shen Jiyue's hair was normal from head to toe. Could Qin Zhou's totem only protect one location?

So after Yao Wangping was contaminated, he would eventually become a monster with only his left arm remaining normal.

The protection of the "Absolute Rational One" seemed somewhat localized and extremely stingy.

Mu Sichen felt a little differently about Qin Zhou.

Although Qin Zhou and Big Eye were beings of the same level, after sensing Qin Zhou through sight several times, Mu Sichen had very clearly detected Qin Zhou's emotions.

Big Eye was already a monster. In that one spying glance, Mu Sichen had seen no emotion from Big Eye at all. Yet from Qin Zhou, who was called the "Absolute Rational One," Mu Sichen had sensed emotions that belonged to a human.

For example, when Mu Sichen called his name too many times, He would get so annoyed that He was too lazy to look at him.

And when Mu Sichen's tone changed slightly, Qin Zhou, despite being very irritated, still could not help taking a look at him.

This was very human, and it made Mu Sichen treat Qin Zhou more lightly than he did Big Eye.

Given his current strength, if he had to choose a Great Being to side with, then between Big Eye and Qin Zhou, Mu Sichen would definitely choose Qin Zhou.

After confirming Shen Jiyue's identity, Mu Sichen felt he could trust him for now.

Mu Sichen asked, "You've been looking for a family member who won't be contaminated. Is it because in this sanatorium, one person's strength alone isn't enough? How should I cooperate with you?"

"You really make things easy as a teammate," Shen Jiyue sighed. "I'll tell you the intelligence I've gathered over the past few days."

Shen Jiyue began speaking at an unhurried pace. "Xiangping Town is currently the largest town in the entire world, and the Guardian God of Humanity is extremely powerful even among beings of the same level.

"At the very beginning, Xiangping Town was even smaller than the Town of the Eye, probably only the size of a single street. After that, Xiangping Town continuously expanded its domain and annexed the surrounding towns, and Xiangping Town grew larger and larger.

"He continually sends people to other towns to destroy the Pillars and open those towns' domains. I was sent to the Town of the Eye for that reason.

"A Pillar needs enormous soul energy and mental energy to sustain it. Wherever a Pillar exists, that place is certain to be filled with massive amounts of contamination, pain, struggle, and despair.

"Followers cannot possess these emotions. The location of a Pillar must be where normal people are most numerous.

"Following this characteristic, I found this sanatorium."

These words explained Mu Sichen's doubts all at once.

Through the comparison of numbers in the plaza, Mu Sichen had discovered that the number of ordinary townspeople far exceeded the number of Followers.

He had always found this strange. Since Big Eye was so powerful, why hadn't it turned every normal person in the Town of the Eye into its Follower all at once?

Mu Sichen had faced Big Eye directly. He believed Big Eye had that power, but it had not done so.

Now the answer was obvious.

It was precisely because the town needed normal people's soul energy to function that Big Eye had left behind so many survivors and allowed them to move during the Night.

In Big Eye's eyes, normal people were like toys. This was the ideal town Big Eye had built for the survivors.

Mu Sichen, who came from a peaceful world, was filled with anger.

The world was already this insane. People, at the very least, should not call that insanity "ideal."

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Author's Note:

Mu Sichen: Compared with other monsters, Qin Zhou at least has humanity.

Qin Zhou (waving his tentacles and nodding frantically): Exactly, exactly.

Mu Sichen: He's just a little useless. He can only protect one arm.

Qin Zhou (with huge, shimmering, aggrieved eyes): I'll work hard to show you just how useful I am!