Chapter 230: Blue

After hearing this, Zhang Wenda took a deep breath and turned to Shuisheng. "I'm fine. You don't need to comfort me. I just want to be alone for a bit."

Wanli Shuisheng said no more, simply nodding in understanding. He then pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, expertly tapped one out, and offered it to Zhang Wenda.

"Thanks, but I don't smoke," Zhang Wenda refused in a low voice. At the same time, he rummaged in his own pocket, pulled out an orange-flavored lollipop, tore off the wrapper, and stuck it into his cleft lip. The familiar sweetness spread through his mouth, yet it couldn't wash away the bitterness in his heart.

He forced his gaze toward the endless rows of lifeless, gray cubicles before him. He began to breathe deeply, using the monster in his mind to slowly crush and digest the tumultuous wave of negative emotions.

Zhang Wenda had always known the Big Circle was inhuman, but he never imagined the bastards could be this depraved. To sink so low as to experiment on children was beyond anything he could have conceived.

He had been one of them once. He knew exactly how hopeless a child in that state felt being sent to this hellhole.

Children should be in Thought Wave One, a place full of childlike innocence and imagination. Even if they grew up to become the numb, pre-fab people of this Thought Wave Six, they absolutely should not be sent to this realm of despair ahead of time.

Before this, he had just thought that maybe the Big Circle and the Third Line simply had different philosophies, opposing factions. But now he saw that wasn't it at all. This wasn't a conflict of ideologies; it was the difference between humans and beasts.

The resentment he held for Old Tan had faded considerably. No matter what, Bureau 507 was indeed maintaining the basic rules of order and the bottom line of humanity, keeping the whole situation from sliding completely into the law of the jungle.

If there was truly no one setting the rules, especially in this bizarre, dangerous, chaotic world, it was hard to imagine how many more disgusting, darker things than what he was seeing now could happen.

Just as Zhang Wenda was using the lollipop's sweetness and his deep breaths to regulate his emotions, he suddenly caught a fleeting, utterly out-of-place flash of blue in the vast, endless plain of gray cubicles.

'Blue?' At first, he was baffled, but in the next second, he remembered he had another mission here. 'Blue! One of the three colors?!'

'I can see it already? What's going on? Isn't there supposed to be another step?'

He subconsciously reached out with his consciousness, touching the key between his brows to open the door. He looked at the Little Black Cats on the pink island; they were quizzically holding up the Inspiration Potions they had prepared for him.

'What's happening? I can see it without even drinking the potion?'

Just then, a crisp, rhythmic TAP-TAP-TAP sound rang out, completely out of sync with the sounds of the pre-fab people.

Zhang Wenda whipped his head toward the source of the sound. His gaze locked onto a cubicle almost on the horizon—there, a flash of blue quickly vanished behind the partition.

"You guys wait for me!" Zhang Wenda said, and without waiting for anyone to respond, he took off at a quick pace in that direction.

The cubicle was far away. Even though Zhang Wenda moved quickly, in this space that seemed to stretch on infinitely, it still took him nearly ten minutes to reach his destination.

Then, Zhang Wenda saw a rabbit in a worn-out blue plaid shirt. It sat with its back to him, lifeless, inside the cubicle, mechanically tapping at a keyboard.

The plaid shirt was so familiar, evoking countless memories of his past, of overtime, of code. It was the same one he himself used to wear to work.

Zhang Wenda looked at the rabbit's limp, lifeless ears, flopped askew. A complex emotion welled up inside him. Both hesitant and certain, he called out, "Zhang Wenda."

Hearing the voice, the blue rabbit with the dull, withered fur slowly turned around. Its expression was one of profound numbness, as if it had lost interest in everything. There was no light in its eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Zhang Wenda walked over and reached out to pull him up from the chair.

However, the blue rabbit's body felt as if it were saturated with heavy, cold seawater. It was dead weight. Zhang Wenda pulled with all his might, but the rabbit didn't budge an inch.

"No, I can't leave," the blue rabbit said in a tone of utter exhaustion. It easily shook off Zhang Wenda's hand and then, like a rusty machine, continued to tap away, one key at a time.

Zhang Wenda went right around to the front of the rabbit, grabbed its long, drooping ears with both hands, and yanked them upward, forcing it to look him in the eyes.

"Look at me! Do you remember what we have to do? Qianxi and Tang Xingxiong killed Uncle! We have to get revenge! Come back with me! I need your strength!"

"Revenge?" the blue rabbit asked, staring straight at Zhang Wenda with its vacant, dead-fish eyes. "Is there any point to revenge?"

"That was our uncle! Don't forget, he's the one who raised us! He was murdered! And you won't get revenge?! How can you say that?!"

"Can revenge bring the dead back to life?" The blue rabbit's logic was so cold it sent a chill down Zhang Wenda's spine.

"Other than putting us in more danger, consuming more resources, and making us take on greater risks, I see no practical use for revenge." No matter how hard Zhang Wenda pulled its ears upward, it was no use.

'Aren't I supposed to get a huge power boost for every one I find? What kind of ability is this piece of junk even supposed to give me?'

Zhang Wenda looked at the blue rabbit before him, this supposed representation of "rationality" that was so rational it bordered on ruthless, and practically ground his teeth in hatred.

'This is supposed to be a part of me? I have something like *this* inside me?'

Seeing that the hard approach wasn't working, Zhang Wenda could only try a softer one. "What do you want? What will it take to get you to come back with me?"

Hearing this, the blue rabbit finally lifted its head and looked at Zhang Wenda again. "You should understand. We aren't human; we're monsters. Even though we're wearing this seemingly harmless rabbit skin, we must never forget that we used to be monsters."

Seeing Zhang Wenda's body jolt at these words, freezing him in place, the blue rabbit spoke again. "If we don't want to become monsters completely dominated by instinct and emotion, we must suppress it. We must learn to suppress. Only through complete control and suppression can we grasp the power of true rationality."

"Then tell me, what am I supposed to do?" Zhang Wenda, growing anxious, immediately pressed.