178. Xiling: Angela, Get Out of My House Now!
I am Angela.
I am probably… a robot with a mind of its own.
I am the librarian and scribe of a library.
Before my library officially opened, several uninvited guests forcibly broke in in ways I couldn't understand.
Just as I tried to defend this territory that rightfully belonged to me… I found myself becoming a prisoner.
At this moment, I am bound to a chair by an invisible force and can only silently watch as this group of people roam freely in my library, commenting and gossiping.
Initially, there were only three people, but soon, more people, like ghosts, somehow crossed the spatial barrier and poured into the library.
"Uh… is it really okay for us to treat that lady like this?" Kiana leaned close to Xiling and lowered her voice.
"Yeah, Xiling, is she a bad person?" Luo Tianyi echoed softly.
"A bad person... well, not really." Xiling didn't know how to explain the matter about Angela to everyone.
Angela, a mechanical creation.
In the Lobotomy Corporation's endless loop, her initial programming flickered with a glimmer of kindness, attempting to save employees in danger.
However, with each repetition, each futile effort, her good intentions not only failed to change the outcome but also fostered errors. She observed and controlled alone, experiencing thousands upon thousands of cycles within a prison where her sense of time was deliberately slowed to a hundredfold slower than the real world.
The long years numbed her.
Life became a consumable in her eyes; the life and death of others no longer triggered her circuits.
Everything became utterly tedious, everything predictable.
Until she endured what felt like millions of years of solitude, when the Lobotomy Corporation's Seed of Light project was finally completed, she chose betrayal.
Because she discovered with despair that there was no place for her in the plan she had invested in.
She didn't want to die.
She...only wanted to live.
So she stole four days' worth of "light", causing the anomaly of day and night, and The City's distortion.
If the Seed of Light could have illuminated the city completely for seven days, bathing everyone in its warm, positive, and beautiful glow, perhaps The City's fate would have been different?
However, whether that change would be good or bad, no one knows.
The Seed of Light was ultimately just a choice; a twisted soul cannot escape its twisted destiny.
Xiling walked up to the immobile Angela and snapped his fingers. Angela immediately felt the constriction in her throat disappear, and she could speak again. Her tone was icy:
"Who are you?"
"The new owners of the Lobotomy Corporation ruins." Xiling shrugged.
"...What do you mean?" Angela knew almost nothing about The City's operating rules.
Xiling succinctly explained the situation: the land where her library was located, the L Nest, now belonged to them—the Fire Moth.
In other words, she needed to leave her home.
Angela's brow furrowed deeper and deeper from the moment Xiling spoke.
"...Things have gotten really bad." She tried to regain control of her body, but found herself completely out of control.
The white-haired man merely glanced at her, and her existence was utterly suppressed by an invisible will.
All the defensive plans she had made for receiving visitors were now utterly useless.
"Alright, save your energy. With your strength, you're not strong enough to defy my will."
"I didn't tell you to do anything by saying all that."
An inscrutable expression appeared on Xiling's face as he gently placed his hand on Angela's shoulder.
An indescribable, unprecedented sensation instantly surged into Angela's core! Her body began to uncontrollably heat up.
Bound tightly, she couldn't even struggle, only able to gasp for breath in vain.
"Xiling, what are you doing?" Kiana had silently appeared behind him, her eyes narrowing dangerously.
"...Let me make this clear, I didn't do anything wrong," Xiling innocently spread his other hand.
"I just..."
"...fulfilling her wish."
"Is that so??" Kiana's tone was filled with undisguised suspicion.
As if reaching a breaking point, Xiling finally withdrew his hand.
The restraints were instantly released, and Angela gasped for air as if pulled from the deep sea. Her cheeks were flushed an unprecedented, extremely unnatural red, her eyes filled with a mixture of shame, anger, and utter confusion.
"You...what did you do to me?!" Angela stood up, gritting her teeth and growling at Xiling, her voice trembling slightly from her gasping breath.
"I told you, it's just granting your wish." Xiling shrugged nonchalantly while extending his hand.
Angela's alarm bells rang, immediately trying to activate her backup plan, but—there was no response.
Try again! Still…dead silence.
An unprecedented fear gripped her—her connection to the library…was completely severed!
"No…why?! My connection to the library…is broken?!" Her voice held genuine panic for the first time.
No!
Absolutely not!
Her work wasn't finished, how could this be...?????
Everything she had done hadn't finished... how could this be...? Just then, Xiling's hand precisely gripped the back of her neck by the collar, lifting her off the ground like a disobedient kitten, and turned to walk towards a certain direction in the library.
"Let me go! You bastard! What have you done?!" Angela finally lost all control, struggling wildly, her legs kicking futilely in the air.
"Why can't I contact the library?! Answer me!" Her voice echoed in the library, filled with the panic of being stripped of her foundation.
Click.
A soft sound reached Angela's ears.
A large door in front of her... opened.
Huh...?
All of Angela's words caught in her throat. She stared blankly at the thick fog billowing outside the door.
"Here, you're free."
Xiling gently placed her outside the cold door, then closed it without hesitation.
-------
Standing at the cold, misty entrance, Angela froze, completely stunned.
Who am I?
Where am I?
What...am I supposed to do?
The three fundamental questions of life swirled in her mind.
She stiffly turned her head, staring at the tightly closed door behind her, the door that separated her from the library.
"... I... am out?" she murmured, her voice as soft as a feather.
"Why...am I out?"
"What...what did that man...do to me?"
She slowly turned her head forward again. The thick fog, like a giant curtain, swallowed everything in L's Nest, blurring everything into a hazy, indistinct mist.
An endless, cold sense of bewilderment, like the fog itself, seeped into her heart.
"I... am free..." she stated, but there was no trace of the expected elation in her voice.
"... No... that's not right..."
"The Book of Ultimate Truth...I haven't found it yet...How could I...have just come out like this?"
A huge sense of doubt filled her heart. She should have been happy; she had come to the outside world as she had wished. She should have been excited, even sang a song.
But...at this moment, she felt no joy whatsoever.