IWOL Chapter 229: Interconnected

Dong Linhai covered the fist with his hand and evaded with a fearless sound. He looked at Wang Que’s red eyes flushed with tears and became aware of her obvious peculiarity. All he could think about was the indelible shadow Wang Que must have felt when he killed himself for her. In fact, Dong Linhai himself was very scared at the time. They were caught in a mortally critical moment. If he had another opportunity, he might have acted differently.

…But no, if they hadn’t done so, then two people would have died. When all was said and done, he would still choose the method with the least amount of loss and allow at least one person to survive.

“Okay, aren’t I standing here now?” Dong Linhai held onto Wang Que’s wrist. He looked at the downpour outside the window that had arrived at some unknown point in time and said, “Have you received a mission update?”

Wang Que shook her head. She wiped away her tears and suppressed the overwhelming emotions in her heart. Over Dong Linhai’s shoulders, she saw people walking towards their car from the other side.

Later, the four of them sat at the table.

The man with the top hat came from the third car, and the woman with heavy makeup was from the seventh car. According to what they said, Dong Linhai knew that there were seven cars in this train, and they were supposedly locked in by someone in the second car. There were a total of six people trapped in the train, but not too long ago, No. 1 killed No. 6, and they needed to somehow escape from the train.

The train passed through the heavy downpour, the rainwater like bullets hitting the glass.

“Perhaps the secret lies in No. 1’s behavior.”

The woman with thick makeup spit out the last puff of cigarette and pressed the cigarette butt on the cold windowpane. She turned toward Dong Linhai and Wang Que, who were both very quiet, and smiled at them.

“Come, let’s play a game.”

——

“That’s probably the situation,” Dong Linhai said garrulously. He swallowed his saliva and continued, “After killing the man, we got to the first car and opened the door to the front of the car. At this time, the train suddenly plunged into the sea.”

“When I opened my eyes again, I was in a laboratory. We were surrounded by many researchers congratulating us for passing the assessment and gaining the qualifications to join the Special Mobile Task Force. Then a staff took us to a car, the broken navigation system gave out some weird commands, and then there were some background sounds and it was over.”

Dong Zheng asked, “About fighting against the Insects from Shaggai?”

Dong Linhai said, “Yes. Brother, did you also experience the same things as us?”

Twenty hours had passed since they came out of the box. Everyone had rested, and now they were sitting around the table in the living room talking about their experience in the box.

Xia Qiongyun was also with them. Although she was still pale-faced due to the huge damage she’d received, her injured leg had already recovered somewhat. In the end, the stitched-heart bear could no longer spit out any more cloth, but fortunately, Dong Linhai came out in time. Victor immediately used the power of body to completely heal Xia Qiongyun’s leg.

Despite all of this, she still had to rest for a while. Even though Victor’s second seal was unlocked, he was still suppressed by the last seal. Because of this, he couldn’t use the power of body in large quantities at will.

Everyone was surprised to discover that although almost all of them had not encountered one another in the box, their choices had a huge impact on each other. At first, Dong Linhai needed to kill Lin Hangzhi, who was the National Teacher. As a shadow guard, Xia Qiongyun had to capture the other three, and Wang Que flew the dragon airship too soon, making Dong Zheng nearly miss it.

The gunshot that Dong Zheng heard downstairs was when Dong Linhai shot the tall man, and so the [murderer] that Dong Zheng’s mission task referred to was Dong Linhai. Then Wang Que reached the door of Dong Zheng’s room and picked up the key that Xia Qiongyun dropped. She opened the door and killed Dong Zheng. When Xia Qiongyun passed by the door where Lin Hangzhi was in, she was hit by the bell that fell due to his action.

Wang Que stole the sickle of the demon Godot and gave it to the girl in the red cloak, who ended up using it to kill Godot. As a result, Xia Qiongyun wasn’t able to wait for Godot because Godot never showed up. At the same time, Lin Hangzhi was tasked with performing a prefrontal lobotomy to a teenager with epilepsy.

In that time period, prefrontal lobotomy didn’t require craniotomy. The operation required the doctor to insert an “ice pick” through the patient’s eye socket into the cranial cavity and pivot outward and inward several times, cutting off the prefrontal nerves. The whole process usually took no longer than ten minutes.

This was a difficult task for Lin Hangzhi. The Hippocratic Oath he’d sworn when he entered medical school was to “do no harm.”

But due to the box mission, he had to give in.

Afterward, this teen was the pitiful boy that Cui Zuojing saw in the lunatic asylum.

Cui Zuojing was one of the personalities who had escaped from the mind of Bessie, who was the head nurse at the mental hospital, and he ended up “hiding” in Dong Zheng. Dong Zheng’s experience in the lunatic asylum occurred when he was sick, and the reason for Dong Zheng’s madness as Victor Campbell was due to what happened before and after the fire.

On the other hand, Wang Que and Dong Linhai were still in Bessie’s mind, trapped in the train by the master.

In the end, Dong Zheng, Wang Que, Dong Linhai, and Lin Hangzhi, all of whom had either only died once or had not died at all, managed to successfully break away from the virtual reality created by the experiment. As a result, they were able to become members of the Special Mobile Task Force and fight against the Insects from Shaggai. After leaving the box, their past injuries were reported in the form of spiritual pain, and so their bodies suffered no physical damages.

Xia Qiongyun, on the other hand, ended up dying twice and so she was judged to have failed the experiment. She could not enter the final space scene, and everything she had experienced became real. When the box ejected her, it forcibly removed the leg that a monster had bitten off in that foggy street, and in this way, the injury gained physicality.

After they finished sharing their experiences, everyone realized how complicated and interconnected it was, and for a moment, they all felt a lingering fear. Their individual choices ultimately impacted their teammates and turned everything upside down.

Especially Wang Que. She was already guilty of killing Dong Linhai, but when she also learned that the man she’d killed to save Dong Linhai was Dong Zheng and that, because she helped the girl in the red cloak, Xia Qiongyun was unable to wait for Godot, causing her to fail mission, she felt terribly guilty.

Dong Zheng and Xia Qiongyun both told her that it was okay. In any case, they were both out of the box, and it was Kether’s trick, so who wouldn’t be fooled? Even Cui Zuojing almost died in the room full of kill yous.

Fu Zhe caught a certain point. “The name of the box is [Bald Soprano], wasn’t it? The task Xiao Xia got on the street was [Wait for Godot?]”

Xia Qiongyun nodded.

“These two are both very famous absurd comedies. Although the Bald Soprano was the title of the play, this person never appeared in the play from beginning to end, just as the name of the box wasn’t related to the events in the box. Meanwhile, in Waiting for Godot, the Godot that the two protagonists waited for did not show up even to the end of the play.” Fu Zhe said, “Obviously your experience in the box was also absurd enough.”

Cui Zuojing said, “The last car scene was also quite weird. The navigation automatically came on. At that time, I didn’t even realize that it was SCP-3122-You Have Reached Your Destination.”

“There are so many SCP projects, it’s normal for you not to recognize them at first glance,” Fu Zhe comforted him. “Everyone except for Xiao Xia did well. Although Xiao Xia was injured, it was fortunate that the little bear and Victor were here so the problem wasn’t too substantial.”

This time they got a total of 237 points from the box, which wasn’t a small gain. Dong Linhai and Wang Que tacitly concealed the matter of Dong Linhai committing suicide so Wang Que could escape. They only said that in the end, Dong Linhai failed to hold on and died in the poisonous gas, thus allowing Wang Que to leave.

But Cui Zuojing and the others still noticed that Wang Que suddenly became very quiet. The last time Wang Que displayed this kind of silence was the days after Allen died in Snow Parasite Trail.

They guessed that Wang Que was concealing something, but Dong Linhai said the matter should be handed to him. He had a way to get Wang Que out of this state.

Dong Zheng glanced at him doubtfully. At this moment, they were on the roof of the apartment. Dong Zheng was teaching Linhai English. The Pure White Realm didn’t have a common language. Just like the real world, the most widespread languages were still English and Spanish, and Chinese also occupied a space due to the sheer size of its native speakers.

Dong Linhai was a high school student who had never scored beyond 90 in English, so his original English was naturally quite messy. This was barely sufficient for him to read and write, but his listening ability was terrible. His ability to speak the language was also relegated to sentences that only a three-year-old child could say.

But when communicating with people in the Pure White Realm, the two most important points were listening and speaking.

Allen had quietly taught Dong Linhai a lot before, but now that he was gone, Dong Linhai’s English sunk below standard. The task of teaching Dong Linhal thus fell to Dong Zheng.

When speaking about Wang Que, Dong Linhai’s comical expression as he tried to suppress the desire to grin attracted Dong Zheng’s attention.

He paused and said, “Are you in love?”

“Agh!” Dong Linhai choked on his saliva. “Eh…that’s…right! I confessed to her in the box. Ha ha.”

Dong Zheng was caught between laughter and tears. “You looked quite scared. If you want to fall in love, then fall in love. I won’t stop you.”

Dong Linhai instantly became elated. He scratched his head in embarrassment and said, “Then let’s continue to learn English and not talk about it anymore.”

Dong Zheng couldn’t help but laugh when he saw his shameless brother acting shy. Dong Linhai was still too young and wasn’t mature enough. But without Dong Linhai, Dong Zheng and Cui Zuojing would have never met, much less have a relationship.

“Dong Zheng!” Cui Zuojing shouted from the rooftop entrance. “Let’s go!”

“Coming!” Dong Zheng remembered that he’d made an appointment to go to the weaponsmith with Cui Zuojing. He stood up and patted Dong Linhai on the shoulder. Smiling, he said, “I still have something to do. Although I don’t mind the two of you, I still have to remind you to be careful.”

“Of course, I’m not a child.”

“Because you are not children anymore, I just want to remind you.”

Dong Linhai understood Dong Zheng’s meaning, and his face immediately turned red. Dong Zheng laughed and climbed down the roof. Cui Zuojing looked at him curiously and said, “What were you talking about?”

“Some adult topics.” Throwing his arm around the young man’s shoulders, he said, “Let’s go.”

From the castle, it took them two minutes to reach the weapons shop. Now that two weeks have already passed, Mr. Hades should have already completed Dong Zheng’s weapon design as scheduled. Before they could proceed to manufacturing the weapon, Dong Zheng needed to look at the drawing first to confirm whether he liked the weapon or not.

Before they came, they had made an appointment with Mr. Hades. When they entered the shop, the young people entertaining guests at the front desk saw them and said, “The two of you go straight ahead. Sir is waiting.”

The door to the design workshop was hidden. Dong Zheng knocked twice and pushed the door open when he received permission to enter. Hades was already waiting. When he saw guests enter, he put down the drawing blueprint in his hand and looked up at Dong Zheng with a smile. “Come here.”

“Ok.” Dong Zheng walked over. Hades made no extra, unnecessary greetings and directly handed him the drawing. “This is a preliminary sketch. See if you have any comments.”

Dong Zheng received the drawing with both hands. Cui Zuojing leaned in immediately. But when they saw the sketch on the blueprint paper, they were both stunned.

It was a top-notched crossbow.

Xixi: Link to SCP-3122.
Can you guess whose crossbow that was? XD