The Creatures That We Are
Chapter 1271: Red Pill and Blue Pill

Chapter 1271: Red Pill and Blue Pill

“What the hell is this?” Wang Zikai clicked without looking and ended up with the blue pill; that meant the red pill went to Gao Yang.

The game began.

The player characters entered the game world, presented from a bird's-eye view. Those watching started: the game world was the Realm of Detachment, where they currently were.

The red figure landed on a massive pillar built with all things in the world. At the bottom of the pillar was a giant blue monster with long limbs, a protruding abdomen, and a long snake tail. Its vortex-like maw disintegrated the pillar into countless particles gradually, about to devour the red figure with it.

“What the hell?!”

Wang Zikai didn’t understand. He clicked on the controller, but couldn’t stop the giant blue monster. The more he tried, the faster the blue monster rose and devoured more of the pillar.

Without delay, Gao Yang controlled the red player character to flee from the blue giant, climbing and jumping. It was self-evident that this was a game of survival where one ran away and the other gave pursuit.

Wang Zikai was disappointed. He clicked pause. “What a lame game. I’ll pick something else.”

Gao Yang lowered his controller. “That won’t be necessary.”

“Wait, there are other games.”

“It’s all the same.” Gao Yang rose to his feet. “I’ve gotten some ideas about this room now. I’ll tell you.”

Zhang Wei laughed happily. “Told you our Brother Yang is the best!”

“Of course!” Wang Zikai agreed proudly.

Gao Yang turned to Vermilion Bird. “Ever since we entered the Realm of Detachment, I’ve been finding it familiar. You?”

Vermilion Bird gasped. “You mean...Moon City?”

Gao Yang nodded. “Seems like you share the feeling.”

“Yeah.” Vermilion Bird smiled wistfully. “For some reason, this place reminds me of Qilin’s dream.”

“Wasn’t the dream set in a cyberpunk world?” Adept Horse asked. “What does that have to do with this place?”

“Is this a dream, too?” Liao Liao asked.

“The two aren’t connected, and this isn’t a dream. If there’s something both share...” Gao Yang trailed off.

Vermilion Bird finished his sentence: “Both are untethered.”

Gao Yang nodded. “Untethered.”

They waited for more explanation.

“In Qilin’s dream, I was without support, unable to grasp anything. I didn’t believe the world to be real, yet I could not find a flaw. I could only doubt everything until I started doubting myself, too. This world is similar. No matter how real the things filling it are, they will soon crumble, disintegrate, and disappear.”

Gao Yang stopped to give them time.

“Doubt!” Liao Liao caught the keyword first. “The question of this realm is doubt!”

Adept Horse nodded. “That is a reasonable conclusion.”

Catching on, Vermilion Bird followed the logic and said, “When we doubt one thing, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or false—in the end, it’ll always become unreliable and unstable, ending up dissolved...”

“Ah!” Gregor cried out. “Wait, I’m getting to something. Inspiration...inspiration is coming!”

They waited with bated breath.

Gregor clapped and shot to his feet. “Did you notice? Here, things are put into three categories: inanimate objects, flora and fauna, and humans.”

“What kind of unscientific categories are those?” Dr. Jia’s eyes twitched.

“Don’t interrupt me!” Gregor continued with his spiel. “Think back to it. The inanimate objects do not move. They wait to be disintegrated. The flora and fauna—mainly fauna—struggle out of survival instinct. And we humans keep going up in an attempt to avoid the fate of getting disintegrated. Isn’t that the case?”

“Yeah.” Zhang Wei blinked in confusion. “So?”

“Think about the question, mate!” Gregor said exasperatedly. “Doubt! Doubt!”

Vermilion Bird immediately put two and two together. “The inanimate objects do not have a mind, so they do not and cannot doubt the world around them. Animals are limited in self-awareness, so their doubt is negligible. Humans alone doubt incessantly, without stopping.”

“Bingo!”

Gregor popped a newly lit cigarette into his mouth. “So the inanimate items accept doom without a fight, the animals put up a struggle, while humans alone cannot accept their fate. Humans continue to doubt, but the more we doubt, the more we end up caught in the vicious cycle of the Realm of Detachment. We doubt and avoid everything just like we continue to climb up now, yet the limbo is always chasing us.”

“As expected of Mr. G, you’re a master in bullshitting!” Zhang Wei said from the bottom of his heart.

“Cool,” Heavenly Dog commented and added a thumbs-up for good measure.

“If you don’t know how to compliment people, Zhang Wei, just be concise like Heavenly Dog,” Gregor said with a snort.

“The question is doubt. Then what is the answer?” Qing Ling agreed with the deduction, so she moved the discussion along.

“Belief?” Hong Xiaoxiao suggested uncertainly.

“Belief...” Zhang Wei considered it for a moment. “It works. Ugh, whatever! Cerulean Dog! The answer is belief!”

With his head held up, Zhang Wei waited for a reaction that never came. Stubbornly, he kept shouting, “Believe in the miracle and light! Believe in the bran and the rice! Believe is the answer to this site!”

No response.

“Oh, must be a wrong answer.” Hong Xiaoxiao smiled with embarrassment.

“It may sound like hindsight, but yeah, it doesn’t seem like the answer when you think about it,” Liao Liao said. “We aren’t looking for the antonym of doubt. We’re looking for its answer—or cause. We should be thinking about why humans doubt everything.”

A growl rang through the screening room like a real thing. The game, put on pause, started once more. The blue monster went berserk and continued going up.

“Holy!” Wang Zikai hurriedly picked up Gao Yang’s controller and had the red figure climb up the pillar in a mad dash. “Wanna eat my brother? Eat shit!”

Rumble. A thunderous noise came from below. The entire screening room entered a violent swing like the pirate ship ride in an amusement park.

“Phantom!”

A dozen shadow strings emerged from under Hong Xiaoxiao’s feet to stabilize everyone. They all moved to the edge of the screening room to check what was happening—save for Wang Zikai.

He was still absorbed in the game. With his feet planted on the chair back before him, he smashed away on the controller. “Eat shit, eat shit, eat shit...”

The others didn’t have the same leisure to focus on the game. Their faces darkened by different degrees. The blue monster in the game had emerged in the real world. It quickly rose in a twisted, wild motion, its vortex-like maw devouring the collage of architectures, approaching them.

“Let’s go!” Vermilion Bird called out decisively.

“Hurry, hurry!” Dr. Jia panicked. He couldn’t die here.

Heavenly Dog picked Lovely Lamb up.

Nainai carried all of them with Gale.

“Gao Yang, let’s go.”

Qing Ling hopped onto her Tang Dao, yet Gao Yang remained seated by Wang Zikai’s side, quietly watching his friend play the game. He didn’t intend to run at all, it seemed.