Chapter 1539: Doing Good is Easy
"If you get a chance to see her again, tell her to contact the people of the Twelve Worlds and purchase a service called the [Great Deluge Jump]," Marcie said, her eyes fixed intently on Lily's, filled with concentration and curiosity. It was as if she wanted to see through Lily and look at the person who was really speaking, creating an illusion for Lin Sanjiu.
"The [Great Deluge Jump]? What's that?"
Marcie looked like a watercolor painting that had been submerged in water before drying. From the bottom up, she gradually became more transparent. Although she didn't look down, she seemed aware of her vanishing body.
"Do you know about the Great Deluge? In the Twelve Worlds, it's a common understanding among many posthumans," Marcie said quickly after receiving a confirmation. "Some want to stay in one place, while others want to leave a place early if they don't like it. The [Great Deluge Jump] allows people to use the principle of the Great Deluge to go to the next place whenever they want."
How was a service like that possible?
Lin Sanjiu was taken aback, knowing that there was no time to inquire further. As the void continued to erase Marcie's chest, she hurriedly asked, "Do you have anything you need me to tell her?"
"Tell her she must come to see me. It's a matter of life and death, and only she can help," Marcie said, her eyes twitching slightly as she looked at Lily.
"What's the matter? How can she help?"
"There's no time to explain," Marcie said, now just a floating head in the air. The closer to the end of the teleportation, the faster the disappearance. "Even if we meet, it will take at least—"
She didn't finish her sentence, vanishing without a trace. If not for the scattered footprints and blood drops on the ground, Lin Sanjiu would have found it hard to believe that she had just seen Marcie.
For a moment, both sides of the paper were silent. The rough wind was the only sound in the quiet land. Lily raised her hand, seemingly to touch her throat but let it fall silently.
Lin Sanjiu buried her face in her hands, then felt the grand prize gently touch her shoulder.
"Sis?" he tentatively called.
"I'm fine," she replied, taking a deep breath.
Every choice, or even the lack of one, comes with a price. Life is about weighing the answers to unanswerable questions. Lin Sanjiu wanted to save Lily, but she had treated her as a tool. Worse still, Lily retained full consciousness, feeling every moment of being used. Even though it was necessary, the result was the same.
Lin Sanjiu felt that she might understand Nüwa's point.
Doing good is easy; avoiding evil is hard.
She pushed her emotions aside, picked up the communicator, and returned to her normal voice. "Let me find Horst's game now. Give me some time. I just need a little time."
Lily responded with a hum, more like a subconscious reaction.
The man behind the iron door, even without a close inspection, looked visibly in dire straits. Lin Sanjiu accelerated her search through the historical games; what she was looking for was not just the content of the nine rooms, but everything that had ever occurred in those nine rooms over who knows how long. This meant that the content she had to sift through was even more extensive.
As she focused on her task, with Lily's silence, Lin Sanjiu lost track of how much time had passed and how much content she had gone through. There were multiple creators of video game machines, and several times she was momentarily excited, only to realize upon closer inspection that it was another game, unrelated to Horst. After a few false alarms, when she saw "claw crane" again, she hardly held out any hope—yet it was exactly this time that she found the game Horst had just participated in.
"I've found it," she told Lily hastily, "Before I reopen the game, I need to awaken Horst's consciousness first. Can you..."
Lin Sanjiu's voice trailed off, and she left the rest unsaid. Leaning closer to the screen, she carefully studied the image, taking a moment before asking, "Is he dead?"
Horst's chest seemed to have stopped moving some time ago.
Lily bent down and squatted, looking through the iron door bars too slowly as if she had aged. She raised her head and said, "Yes."
Lin Sanjiu's hands remained on the keyboard, suddenly seeming to have nowhere to go. They stayed there, motionless. The text of the claw crane game was still open before her; if it had been merely physical injuries, or simply being under siege, perhaps death could have been avoided. Horst had wailed, pleaded, and rallied his spirits, all to no avail.
"What do we do now?" Lily asked softly.
In Lin Sanjiu's momentary silence, Lily suddenly stood up and walked away from the iron door. She strolled along a straight line as if taking a leisurely walk, walking until she reached the end and could go no further. When she turned back, the iron door was still in sight, and she could still see it.
"It's such a short distance," Lily said to the communicator. "You see."
Lin Sanjiu did not dare to think about what it would be like to wander forever within such a confined range. She was very reluctant to delete Lily's text, but now it seemed that this might be the ultimate and best solution.
She clenched her fists tightly, unconsciously biting her inner cheek, staring at the text of the game in front of her, even suspecting that she was seeing blood in her vision. Perhaps it was the habit of scrolling through games earlier, she was still subconsciously moving through each one; the text before her eyes changed and flourished like summer night fireworks, seemingly leaving no impression, until she realized that the game she had just scrolled past seemed to be the Rescue Station Nüwa had mentioned.
Lin Sanjiu was stunned for a moment, and then finally spoke.
"I know that you want me to delete the text now," she said softly. "The decision is yours... but before that, can I pick some of these games, the people in and out of the games, and tell you about them? I have a proposal. If, after listening, you still disagree with my proposal and want to be deleted, then I will delete your text."