Monster - Chapter 97
Chapter 97: Gentleness
"Are you two dating?" Xing Meilu glanced at Lou's retreating back as she and Lin Sandie walked toward a nearby low hill.
"I'm pursuing her." Lin Sandie hesitated for a moment, a little shy. "But please don't tell her that's how I described our relationship."
"...Are you easily attracted to dangerous people?" Xing Meilu asked after a long silence.
"Maybe." Lin Sandie smiled good-naturedly. When she liked Yan Ting in college, she had no idea the other woman was a dangerous control freak, but Lou had indeed seemed like a dangerous element from the very beginning.
Xing Meilu didn't know what to say for a moment. She silently found a flat spot on the low hill and sat down. Lin Sandie sat beside her, watching Lou and Carlo preparing dinner in the distance.
Lin Sandie didn't understand why she had just told Xing Meilu she was pursuing Lou, positioning herself as a suitor. Was it to express how deeply she had fallen for Lou? But that wasn't something she really needed to tell Xing Meilu. Besides, Lou never needed her to think that way.
"Forget it, you're fine just the way you are." Xing Meilu lowered her head and chuckled. Lin Sandie was an adult, after all, and a very smart woman at that; she knew what she was doing. "It seems you have the desire to confide in others now, Lin Sandie."
As if to answer the question in Lin Sandie's mind, Xing Meilu's smiling words pulled her back from her boundless introspection. "You look a little tired right now, but you're no longer as tense as before. And you have the desire to confide. You rarely spoke about such... personal topics before."
Lin Sandie wrapped her arms around her bent knees and smiled relaxedly at Xing Meilu. Her smile wasn't brilliant like Lou's, which was like the blazing sun. Instead, it was reserved and tender, like the evening glow of a summer sun about to sink behind the mountains.
"I came to Disorder Land to bring someone back to Center City to face judgment." Xing Meilu sighed, plucked a dry blade of grass by her feet, and picked off its yellowed leaflets one by one.
"Someone you know?" Seeing Xing Meilu's hesitant expression, Lin Sandie immediately guessed something. It seemed the person Xing Meilu had to arrest was not just an acquaintance, but someone she knew quite well.
"You've met her too. It's Saya McConaughey."
Hearing the name, the image of a tall, brown-haired beauty appeared in Lin Sandie's mind. Her deep blue eyes always seemed to hold a hint of jest and teasing. When Lin Sandie was hospitalized, she had come to visit with Xing Meilu. She seemed to be an external consultant pathologist for the Inspectorate.
"The tall lady?"
"Yes," Xing Meilu tossed away the stalk of grass, which she had stripped bare of its leaves. "She's the one who committed those serial murders."
"Why?" Lin Sandie blurted out, utterly astonished. It was because of that serial murder case that Lou had burst into her life. At the time, Lou had even been listed as a prime suspect by the Inspectorate.
"She did it..." Xing Meilu sighed deeply again. She covered her face wearily and repeated, "She's a monster, Sandie. The people of this world are turning into monsters."
"I know. After coming to Disorder Land, I can see that too. Are you okay?" In Lin Sandie's eyes, Xing Meilu was just like the high school girl Lou had mentioned, switching between human and monster. Xing Meilu's facial features would occasionally disappear—the initial stage of a Leviathan monster.
"No, I'm about to go crazy." Xing Meilu gave a bitter smile, trying hard to keep herself from losing control. "From the first time I saw a monster, I thought I was going crazy, that something was wrong with my brain or my eyes. I saw all sorts of doctors, but they all said I was fine. It was only after I confirmed it with Ms. Sui that I understood what was happening. But it's not easy to be around people who have turned into monsters. I never thought I could be so cowardly. I don't dare touch things those monsters have touched, don't dare stay in the same space as them. I lost almost eight pounds in the first week, couldn't sleep, and every time I closed my eyes, all I could see were those terrifying monster forms..."
Lin Sandie patted Xing Meilu's shoulder with understanding. Her symptoms were just like her own when she first saw the monsters.
"Ms. Sui gave me a brooch. With it, I can see the true forms of those monsters out in the open. I saw Saya... her... her terrifying form." As she spoke, the usually strong Xing Meilu's eyes filled with tears. "Later... later, I saw some videos left at the murder scenes... and I realized she was the killer. I just... I don't know if I'm the one who's crazy or... How could this happen? I always trusted her, considered her my best friend..."
Lin Sandie sighed softly. Xing Meilu's sense of justice was too strong, far exceeding that of a normal person, which was why she was in so much pain. Lin Sandie guessed that her worldview had probably collapsed after discovering her best friend was such a vicious serial killer, leading to her despair and the beginning of her own transformation into a monster.
"I look in the mirror and see that I'm... becoming strange too, for some reason. I'm so scared. I've never been this scared before..."
Lin Sandie pressed her lips together, lowered her head, and took a pack of tissues from her space bag to hand to Xing Meilu. "Do you know why she killed people?"
"She said it was to investigate the cause of her ex-girlfriend Xu Yao's death." Xing Meilu took the tissues. At the mention of "ex-girlfriend," her tears fell even harder.
What kind of heart-wrenching drama is this...
Lin Sandie thought to herself, unsure how to continue questioning her.
Lin Sandie knew of Xu Yao. She had heard from Lou that Xu Yao was a lawyer who had apparently been killed by Zhang Jun and his group. After her death, she had left an important notebook to an old woman named Xu Siqian. That notebook had eventually found its way into Lou's hands and was a very useful B-Class Remnant.
Without saying anything more, Lin Sandie just sat quietly beside Xing Meilu, waiting for her to gradually calm down.
The sun sank completely below the horizon, and darkness enveloped the surroundings. Lin Sandie saw that under Lou's direction, a campfire had been lit by their tent. Lou was sharing instant noodles with Carlo and showed no intention of disturbing her and Xing Meilu.
An unknown amount of time passed. The night wind howled, and the surrounding wild grass rustled. Xing Meilu's sobs gradually subsided. Lin Sandie looked up at the starry desert sky and felt that the stars here were so bright and dazzling it was almost overwhelming.
"I lost my composure." Xing Meilu's voice was a little low and hoarse. In the darkness, the corners of her eyes still glistened with tears.
"Everyone cries. I cry too," Lin Sandie comforted her in a gentle voice. "I heard from Lou that she cries too, but I've never seen it, so I don't know if it's true."
"Heh..."
"Regarding the monsters, I've learned a lot from Lou. What's clear now is that people turn into monsters because of despair." Lin Sandie's voice blended with the night. When she wasn't facing Lou, she was always calm and restrained, a demeanor that could, to a certain extent, bring a sense of security to those around her.
"But despair is a very broad concept. It could be something very small that triggers a kind of complication. For example, you hear news stories about middle school students who have a breakdown and commit suicide after being scolded by their parents. It's possible their parents had been putting a lot of pressure and expectations on them since they were very young, slowly accumulating to an unbearable breaking point. I've always felt that despair doesn't just happen suddenly; it's a collapse after many small details have built up. Any negative emotion, no matter how small, can become a trigger..." Lin Sandie shared the information she had organized about the monsters with Xing Meilu. She could deeply understand Xing Meilu's fear and pain, because she had been through it herself.
"We don't know if there's a cure yet, or if monsterization will spread like a virulent disease. Lou knew a girl who was at the same stage as you. Her condition seemed to improve after she opened up to the person she liked. It might look like she was depending on someone else to 'not despair,' but ultimately, it was a change that happened within the girl's own heart."
"We live in a relatively peaceful society, without the chaos of war, or the partings of life and death. All the turmoil and chaos actually comes from within our own hearts..."
How did I end up sounding like a philosopher... At this point, Lin Sandie paused, feeling like she'd been infected by Lou.
"Do you have other thoughts?" Xing Meilu had calmed down by now. Seeing Lin Sandie suddenly stop talking, she pressed on.
"This is just my own deduction, so it might not be correct. I think people fall into despair and collapse for two reasons: one is an internal blow, and the other is a sudden accident, like the death of a loved one. But according to a report Lou gave me, I found that these kinds of accidental blows causing people to turn into monsters are actually less common than the 'boiling a frog in warm water' type of small blows. When faced with the sudden death of a loved one, one might not be able to accept it at first, but slowly, as that blow is processed, cases of despair, collapse, and turning into a monster are actually not that common."
"Are you talking about Ms. Sui's report?"
"Yes."
Xing Meilu nodded. Sui Xi had actually given her a copy too, but she had been so distraught lately that she had only skimmed through the frustratingly long report, making it impossible for her to discover this kind of information that required personal sifting and analysis.
"In my current state, is there a way to stop it from getting worse?"
"As I was saying, internal blows are more likely to make people collapse. Most of the time, it's the last straw that breaks the camel's back. Of course, one must become strong to fight despair, but how to become strong is what we need to think about."
"Do you have any ideas?" Lin Sandie's words made Xing Meilu unable to resist confronting the feelings she had held for Saya all this time.
"It's not any grand idea, you could probably find it in some philosophy book," Lin Sandie said, connecting it to what Lou had told her before about living in one's own palace. "Recognize your own limitations, and accept the side of yourself that is powerless."
After saying this, Lin Sandie stood up and brushed the dust off her pants. "Alright, let's go back and eat. A lot of what I said is just my own opinion, and some of it is easy for me to say."
"I need to think about it some more. I might need to ask for your advice again later."
"Of course. Are you going to Thriller Paradise for Saya too?"
"Yes. I heard she has dealings with people from Bite Mark, and someone saw her heading this way."
When Lin Sandie returned to the camp, she saw Lou, who had already finished eating and cleaned up, glare fiercely at her. The glare left her feeling a bit baffled.
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