novelraw Chapter 21 The White Box
Chapter 21 The White Box
The next morning, Lu Siye was woken up by Fei Fei stepping on him.
The little thing had somehow moved from beside his head to his chest; it was furry and incredibly itchy.
He reached out and moved Feifei to the side, then turned over, wanting to sleep a little longer.
Feifei has climbed back up.
This time, they squatted down directly on his face.
Lu Siye: "…………"
He sat up, took the pucker off his face, and placed it on the pillow.
Are you hungry?
"Chirp."
He glanced out the window.
It was just dawn, still hazy and gray, and there weren't many people on the streets yet.
He rummaged through his bag and pulled out the last compressed biscuit, breaking it in half and giving it to Fei Fei.
He put the other half in his mouth, chewed it, walked to the window, and pulled the curtain open a crack to look outside.
The streets were quiet.
He needs to find a place.
A deserted place.
I checked on my phone yesterday. There's a development zone east of Shiragake-cho. A few years ago, they had some kind of new town project, but the developer ran away, leaving behind a large area of unfinished buildings.
There was no one living for miles around, and not even a decent road.
Some people online say the area is haunted, some say there are stray dogs, and some say there's something unclean buried there.
In short, nobody wanted to go.
Just what he wanted.
He put on his coat, tucked Feifei into his arms, and went downstairs.
The receptionist was dozing off. She looked up when she heard footsteps and glanced at him groggily.
"So early?"
"Let's go for a walk."
"Aren't you going to eat breakfast?"
I'm not hungry.
The older sister didn't say anything more and went back to sleep.
Lu Siye walked out of the guesthouse and headed east.
After walking for about forty minutes, the road became narrower and narrower, and the houses on both sides became shorter and more dilapidated.
Asphalt roads turned into cement roads, cement roads turned into gravel roads, and gravel roads turned into dirt roads.
He scooped Feifei out of his arms and placed her on his shoulder.
Feifei looked around, shrank her neck, and buried her head in his collar.
After walking for about twenty more minutes, he saw the unfinished building complex.
It's called a building, but it's more like a skeleton.
A reinforced concrete skeleton, without walls, windows, or doors, only gray pillars, stacked one on top of another.
There was indeed no one around.
There wasn't even a dog, let alone a person.
Only a few sparrows hopped around on the steel frame, and when they saw him coming, they fluttered away.
He walked around the perimeter of the unfinished building and found a piece of barbed wire.
There was a hole in the barbed wire, just big enough for him to squeeze through sideways.
"Is anyone there?" he called out.
The sound bounced a few times between the buildings, then faded into the distance.
No one answered.
He waited a while longer.
nobody.
He sat down cross-legged.
The cement floor was hard, and cool air seeped up from the ground, through his pants, and clung to his skin.
He ignored all of that, closed his eyes, and began to regulate the primordial energy within the group.
There is still primordial qi in the dantian, not much, but enough.
He drew his primordial energy from his dantian, guiding it upwards along his meridians, through his chest, shoulders, and arms, finally converging in the palm of his right hand.
Something in his palm was responding to him.
It's neither hot nor cold.
It's a feeling... hard to describe.
He opened his eyes and spread out his right hand.
The mark on the palm of the hand appeared.
"The Sin Mark represents the power that binds evil. Although it looks no different from the Xia Lan Mark, its essence is completely different."
He remembered that night.
Yi Songjin said that when he arrived, he only saw him alone.
Everyone thought that Zero had been driven away or eliminated by someone, but now it seems...
That zero was not destroyed.
It might be locked up here.
In his palm.
He looked up and glanced at Fei Fei, who was squatting at his feet.
Feifei curled up into a ball.
It is afraid.
It's not that I'm afraid of him, it's that I'm afraid of the mark on his palm.
The mark of sin.
It has the power to control creatures in the extreme Yin realm.
Its fear of this thing is instinctive, ingrained, like a mouse's fear of a snake, or a rabbit's fear of an eagle.
"Don't be afraid," Lu Siye said, his voice very soft.
Feifei peeked out from the fluff ball with one eye, glanced at him, and then withdrew it again.
Lu Siye ignored it.
He turned his attention back to the mark on his palm.
Since the Sin Mark can control creatures in the Extreme Yin Realm, then...
Could we use our primordial energy to control the Zero that is trapped inside?
Can we make it use the Zero Technique?
He closed his eyes and readjusted the primordial energy within his body.
This time, it's not simply about gathering energy in the palm of your hand, but about trying to get all the vital energy to gravitate towards that mark.
Drop by drop, slowly and continuously.
The moment his primordial energy touched the mark, he felt a very strange sensation.
It looked like there was something there.
It wasn't in his palm, nor under his skin, but in a place he couldn't describe.
It is not "inside" or "outside" in a spatial sense, but a more abstract "depth" that is closer to the level of consciousness.
He tried to probe his consciousness into it.
It was a white box.
It's not a real box, but a box in the sense of a box.
It's square and neat, with clear boundaries. The surface is white, but not a pure white; it's a... murky white.
It's like the color of milk mixed with ash, after it's been stirred.
The surface of the box has a textured surface, consisting of twisted lines that wrap around the box tightly.
He leaned closer, trying to see what was inside the box.
Something is wriggling inside the box.
I couldn't make out what it was; I could only see a blurry outline.
Its movements are slow, and each wriggle causes a small bulge on the surface of the box to rise slightly before shrinking back.
He continued to approach.
He wanted to see clearly what it was.
Then......
That thing suddenly turned around.
He saw it.
No, he didn't see the specific shape, but he "saw" the thing's reaction.
It found him.
Something flashed, and a purple light gathered inside the box, growing brighter and stronger.
He didn't have time to retreat.
A purple orb of light shot out of the box and struck his consciousness directly.
boom!
His consciousness was blasted away.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the ground.
The cement floor was pressing against my back, and it felt chilly.
The sky above was a bit brighter than before, and the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, its rays so bright that he squinted.
Feifei stood next to his head, brushing his face with the tip of her tail.
He lay on the ground, looking at the sky, and took a few breaths.
The Zero was indeed inside.
Moreover, it is aggressive.
He wanted to release it.
No, we can't let it go.
Releasing him won't solve the problem.
But if we don't release it, can we use other methods?
He sat up and crossed his legs again.
This time, he didn't probe his consciousness inside; instead, he left it outside the box.
He put his hands together, right hand on top, left hand on the bottom, palms facing up.
The primordial energy surged from the dantian, flowing down the arms into the hands, from the hands into the imprint in the palms, and from the imprint into the white box.
He controlled the primordial energy, not pouring it into the box, but applying pressure from the outside.
compression.
Compress the box.
Make sure that thing has no room to move inside.
The primordial energy was like countless hands, pressing down on the box from all directions, pushing it inwards, and pressing it inwards.
The surface of the box began to deform, changing from a square to an oval, and from an oval to a flattened circle.
It transformed from a flattened round shape into an irregular, squeezed shape that was almost about to break.
A sound came from inside the box.
Wailing.
The sound didn't go through his ears, but went directly into his brain, making his temples throb.
He didn't stop.
Continue compressing.
The wails grew louder and sharper.
His head started to hurt.
Stop.
The wailing gradually subsided, eventually turning into a sobbing sound.
He opened his eyes; his palms were sweaty.
Feifei had already run more than ten meters away, squatting behind a piece of broken brick, with only half of her head showing, her eyes wide open, staring in his direction.
"It's nothing," he said, his voice a little hoarse. "It's nothing."
Feifei didn't come over.
Lu Siye ignored it, lowered his head, and continued to look at the mark on his palm.
He probably understood.
That white box is the internal space of the Sin Seal.
Zero was sealed inside, bound by the power of the Sin Seal.
He can control this space through his primordial energy, compressing it, or...
in turn.
If compression is applying pressure inside, then the reverse is... extracting something from inside.
He put his consciousness back onto the surface of the box.
This time, instead of applying pressure, he tried to make a small opening on the surface of the box.
It's not about releasing what's inside, but rather, extracting it.
He condensed his primordial energy into the shape of a needle and poked a tiny hole in the surface of the box.
Then he tried to pull something out of it.
Something was seeping out of that little hole.
Black.
The black substance flowed from the box along his vital energy and into his arm.
Then he felt it.
It wasn't cold, it wasn't hot, it was a very strong sense of oppression.
It's not the kind of physical oppression, but the kind of oppression that comes from the very existence of things.
His chest began to feel tight.
It's not an emotional frustration, it's a physical one.
It felt like something was pressing on his chest, and he had to exert a lot of effort to take each breath.
Primordial Qi and Zero Force are mutually exclusive.
The thought exploded in my mind.
He immediately severed the connection of the primordial energy and sealed the small hole.
The blackness disappeared.
The feeling of oppression disappeared.
He was panting heavily, his forehead covered in sweat.
My heart was pounding wildly in my chest, thumping as if it were about to burst out of my ribs.
No.
Zero force cannot be extracted directly.
His body couldn't take it.
The primordial energy and zero force within his body repel each other. If zero force were truly drawn in, there would be only one outcome: his body would explode and he would die.
but.
He looked at his right hand.
What if we could make a small opening, instead of drawing in zero force, we could let the contents inside be released through that small opening?
It's like opening a valve.
Instead of emptying the entire tank, he simply turns on a tap, lets the water flow through his hand, and then shoots it out.
He went through his thoughts.
The box contains zero weight and zero force.
Zero force can be molded into zero exhaust and launched.
If he could make a hole in the surface of the box, guide the zero force inside through his hand, condense it into zero evil in his palm, and then launch it out.
That's equivalent to him using his own body as a converter.
It's not about absorbing zero force, but simply letting it pass through.
Just like water flowing through a pipe, the pipe won't dissolve in the water.
He took a deep breath and stood up.
Feifei was still squatting behind the broken bricks ten meters away, peeking at him.
He waved to Feifei, signaling it to move further away.
Feifei hesitated for a moment, then turned and ran, disappearing behind a wall further away, leaving only the tip of its tail visible.
Lu Siye turned around and faced an abandoned concrete pillar.
The pillar was about as thick as two people could hug.
He stretched out his right hand and opened his palm.
The mark on my palm gleamed with a dark purple light in the sunlight.
He closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink into the white box.
This time he neither compressed nor extracted.
He simply condensed his primordial energy into a thin needle and pierced a small hole on the surface of the box.
Not too big, not too small.
Just enough for the contents inside to seep out.
He felt it the instant the small hole was pierced.
Something was gushing out of the small hole; it wasn't water, it wasn't air, it was a kind of force.
Pure, untamed, and aggressive power.
Black mist seeped from his palms.
The fog was very thick.
He felt a coolness in his hand, and then he poured his primordial energy into the black mist.
The black fog began to change.
It begins to condense, shrink, and shape.
It then slowly turned into a sphere in my palm.
The spheres are getting smaller, denser, and darker.
Purple light emanated from inside the sphere.
It wasn't the color of the primordial energy he injected, but the color of zero force itself.
Purple, and somber.
The sphere vibrated in his palm.
He could sense the power contained within it.
He aimed his hand at the concrete pillar in front of him.
Then he released control of the small hole.
The ball shot out from his palm.
The purple light trailed an arc in the air, moving so fast that he could barely see it.
boom!
Concrete debris flew everywhere, and pieces hit the ground with a crackling sound. A few pieces bounced up and landed at his feet.
The dust slowly settled.
He saw the marks on the pillar.
A hole.
It's not a crack, it's not a dent, it's a hole.
It was about 30 centimeters in diameter, but he couldn't tell how deep it was because the hole was so deep and dark inside that he couldn't see the bottom.
He stood there, staring at the hole, for a long time.
Feifei peeked out from behind the wall, looked at the hole in the pillar, then at him, and then slowly walked over.
It walked to his feet and looked up at him.
Lu Siye looked down at Fei Fei.
What did he just do?
He smashed a pillar with zero force.
That's Zero Kill.
A move that can only be used by zero.
He used it.
He suddenly smiled.
He finally had a means to launch an attack.
Before this, he only had the skills of Moon Chase and Detection.
For escaping.
He never had a means to launch an attack, never a means to stand in front of the enemy instead of turning and running away.
There is now.
Although this method comes from a Zero sealed in his palm, a power called "Evil Binding," it is a mark completely different from the Xia Lan Seal.
He can fight now.
The smile slowly faded.
He looked down at the mark on his palm, another thought swirling in his mind.
The Mark of Sin can be used to control creatures in the Dark Realm.
What about the realm of extreme yang?
What about the human realm?
If he can control a Zero with the Sin Mark, can he control a person in the same way?
The moment the thought crossed his mind, his fingers involuntarily curled up.
No.
How could such a thought even arise?
This is against human ethics.
Controlling a person... what's the difference between that and zeros? What's the difference between that and something that tries to turn humanity into zeros?
He clenched his fist, his knuckles turning white.
Feifei called out softly at his feet, her voice carrying a hint of worry.
He loosened his fist, bent down, scooped up Feifei, and placed her on his shoulder.
"It's nothing," he said. "You're overthinking it."
He stood in the open space and glanced again at the hole in the pillar.
Then he sat down cross-legged again.
He needs to practice a few more times.
Although he managed to fire that Zero Kill shot, he could sense that there were still many areas for improvement.
The drilling speed is too slow, the time to condense zero-kill is too long, and the aiming accuracy is not enough.
In actual combat, the enemy wouldn't give him that much time to prepare.
Moreover, his understanding of the mark of sin remained at the most basic level.
He only knew how to open a small hole, how to guide the zero force out, and how to condense it into zero evil.
But how did the Sin Mark absorb that Zero? When did it absorb it?
Was it when that Zero-force was trying to infuse him with Zero Force? Or was it afterward?
Nobody taught me.
It's really hard to understand.
No one taught him how to use the mark of sin.
He had to try it himself.
If you succeed, you'll have another way to save your life.
Tried and failed...
He dared not think about what would happen if he made a mistake.
He took a deep breath and refocused his attention on the mark on his palm.
The second attempt was a little faster than the first.
It took about three seconds to open the hole, five seconds to guide the zero force, and four seconds to condense the zero evil.
A total of twelve seconds.
too slow.
He tried a third time.
Two seconds to open the hole, four seconds to guide the flow, and three seconds to condense the condensation.
A total of nine seconds.
It's still slow.
the fourth time.
Opening takes one and a half seconds, guiding takes three seconds, and condensation takes two and a half seconds.
A total of seven seconds.
the fifth time.
One second to open the hole.
Guide for two seconds.
Concentrate for two seconds.
A total of five seconds.
He opened his eyes and lowered his hand.
Five seconds.
It's still too slow.
In a real battle, five seconds is enough for a zero-killer to kill him ten times.
Moreover, this is under the condition of no interference, if he needs to simultaneously evade enemy attacks and assess the battlefield situation.
Five seconds later, it becomes an impossible task.
He needs to be faster.
So fast that it requires no thought, so fast that it becomes instinct, so fast...
He suddenly felt a tightness in his chest.
It's not the same kind of stifling feeling of zero force and primordial energy repelling each other that I experienced before; it's a different kind.
It is the suffocation caused by the depletion of one's primordial energy.
How many times did he practice?
The first attempt was successful, and the next four were successful, making a total of five attempts.
Five instances of Zero Killing almost completely depleted his vital energy.
He lifted Feifei off his shoulders and placed her on his lap.
"I can't go on," he said, his voice slightly out of breath. "I need to rest for a while."
He sat on the cement floor, leaning against a broken wall, looking up at the sky.
The sun was high in the sky, and its rays shone directly down onto his face.
He closed his eyes.
Those thoughts were still swirling in my mind.
He didn't want to use this kind of thing.
But he had no choice.