Toba carefully checked Ji Xun's condition. It pressed its hand to the other person's ear, and black bacteria penetrated into the ear canal like thin threads. Ji Xun's eyes quickly regained focus. He glanced at Toba clearly and calmly.
"Who is that person looking at me?" Toba asked. "Is it the thug who ended the House of Calamity? Is it the madman who waged war on the Immortal?"
Ji Xun said nothing.
"Has the robber who sneaked into the city woke up?" Toba asked again, "Or is he still a good doctor in our family?"
This time Ji Xun moved his eyelids slightly. He smiled and pushed Tuba away and closed the books on the table.
"The trigger needs a bit of a buffer to repair the memory," he said. "But it's a waste of time to set up that play."
"Isn't that a good show?" Toba asked, "otherwise, what else can I do in this damn place? Change the furniture and decoration of the room? Change the clothes of your good brother?"
It started pacing across the room, picked up an empty glass, found that there was no drop of water in it, and threw it out of the window. Ji Xun reached into the drawer and took out a new cup. He shook the cup, and a stream of sweet water emerged from the bottom of the cup, with ice cubes clanking inside.
He handed the drink to Toba and watched him drink it down in one gulp. "We also passed the question and answer today." He said, "Maybe we can pass the test at the computing center tomorrow."
"You said the same thing yesterday."
"We might find a way to crack it any day."
"I hope." Toba said slowly.
Its tone hinted at its dissatisfaction, and Ji Xun didn't miss it. But he calmly reached out and let a book from a high shelf fly into his palm. As he flipped through the pages he said, "I'm going to go out once more today."
"To find a new victim?"
"To be precise," Ji Xun replied, "I'm looking for a changemaker."
Toba lifted his blouse a little. Its head, which is composed of bacterial colonies, naturally shows a mocking and ferocious expression. The corrective surgery performed by outside thugs failed to completely restore it, but for a long time in the past, it could not even express such an expression.
"Come on, good doctor," it said, "we are both revolutionaries. Look what they did to me. The good things my dear mother did to me. They only tasted a ten thousandth of the sweetness. I would do anything for it. What do you expect the people who live in this city to do?"
"We've met a lot of interested people."
"Some people who are greedy for novelty." Toba sneered. "You also killed them all. For thousands of years, there has never been a disease more deadly than yours in this city."
Ji Xun ignored his words.
"Anyway," Toba continued, "it's good for our plan. You get them thinking about leaving, and you make them either lie or rebel during the Q&A. And then that thing—"
It pointed at the ceiling and continued to chirp and laugh.
"—That thing is down," it said, "and use the high-pressure water cannon to spray the floor clean. You call this a reset. Goodbye, old Lunla. Goodbye, old Abby. And poor Wei, I remember that you alone killed him more than three hundred times..."
"He has more tendencies." Ji Xun replied.
"Yes, yes." Toba said as if in admiration, "Every one of them has been deceived by you every time. You don't feel sorry at all? Good doctor, you devil who wanders around the holy city at night, you You're a bastard who doesn't deserve a good death. You die wherever you go. Even when a person dies, you don't let them go. As soon as they're remade, you sneak into their front room and steal the baby. You're the only one That's when you can get it. As you said - babies are extra mass that can pass the test, and they have no consciousness of escaping or leaking secrets. If you scatter them outside, what is this called? The one floating on the sea Thing. Yes, I think that word is a drift bottle. You disgusting butcher, you thought this would bring help. But where are we now? No progress. Good doctor, one day I will be in your ashes Pee hard on you.”
It coldly threw the empty glass out the window. As it panted angrily, the creep spread across the wooden floor. A foul smell soon spread.
Ji Xun opened the drawer calmly. He took out a tube of reagent from the small space and poured it into the place where the black fungus was growing. Toba let out a squeak of annoyance. The fungus carpet on the ground was corroded by acid, leaving only a white smokey residue.
"Patience." Ji Xun said. His voice became as steady and calm as when he lost his memory. Then he threw the test tube out of the window and sat at the table, thinking to himself. Toba stared balefully at his cold-blooded partner, but he took no action.
"I hope you're thinking of something useful to us," it whispered. "Otherwise, you may find yourself sleeping past midnight one day. When you walk into the front hall, the ceiling will fall down, and you'll be with the others. People, like those who were killed by you, were washed away by high-pressure water cannons. Wouldn't that be a good thing for other people? Or, I will arrange a separate way for you to die. You can be caught on the way to escape, Go into the House of Ethics and make something..."
"Your understanding is wrong." Ji Xun replied, "That is not how the House of Ethics operates. But I am indeed considering something closely related to us."
"Escape route?"
"The order of cause and effect."
There was a slightly different look on Ji Xun's face. To Toba, it almost looked like worry.
“We used a narrative to get through the questions and answers,” he explains. “I tried to make it as digestible as possible, but I still wonder if that affected the broader logic of reality.”
"Everything you say is changing this house."
"I mean outside the city."
"It doesn't matter," Toba said. "Everyone in this city is changing the layout of their houses. If this was going to end the world, it would have happened a long time ago."
"Yes. But only I have a clear understanding of the outside world in my mind." Ji Xun replied, "I have noticed some issues recently, regarding time and cause and effect..."
Toba didn't notice the second half of his whisper. All his attention was on the error in the first half of the sentence.
"You're not the only one," it corrected, "there's another one in this room."
It points out the window. The person mentioned in their conversation was already standing on the outer spiral steps of the black tower, slowly walking towards the door of the study. The heterogeneous space connecting the soul is showing an extremely active state. Starlight twinkled faintly in the depths of darkness, as dense as algae in the sea. The colors they emitted were distorted and blended together, causing Toba to throw his smock back in disgust.
Jing Huang walked into the room, and the air and light in the whole room seemed to be on fire. Tuoba slid silently and quickly to the corner, letting the visitor's eyes directly face Ji Xun. Rainbow flames danced in those black eyes.
"Let's sit down and talk." Ji Xun said.
The cupboard in the room opened automatically, and a chair slid from inside to opposite the desk. The visitor still stared at him sternly. Midnight has passed - now is the time.
The invisible fog that separated them began to burn. In Ji Xun's field of vision, it was as if a layer of transparent paper was swallowed up by flames, and Jing Huang's light gray hospital gown also turned into embers. The red color spread from the center of the flame until it covered his entire body.
A young man in red robe appeared opposite the owner of the house. Now Jing Huang's face was no longer sick at all, but instead glowed with a bright and terrifying fire. He tilted his head towards Ji Xun, and the owner's hands and feet began to twitch uncontrollably due to severe burning pain. It wasn't until white smoke started to rise from his body that Jing Huang turned to look out the window.
Ji Xun coughed several times, and blood poured out of his hot throat, giving off a burning smell. His optic nerve was also damaged and he could only see countless colorful and chaotic patches of color.
"0305," he heard the man say, "do you want to die?"
