Chapter 866: The Shackles of Humanity
The next day, I went to find White Sheep empty-handed and told him that Earth Snake had turned the bookstore into his personal playground.
Since I couldn't defy a Di-level "Zodiac," I had no choice but to come empty-handed. I believed that matters of the upper echelons should be handled by those above me—it wasn't something I needed to worry about.
I felt that the main reason I had survived these five years was my caution.
"A white Earth Snake..." White Sheep nodded after hearing this. "I understand. I'll handle it. From now on, I'll have him deliver the books directly to me on the 'train.'"
Upon hearing this, I fell back into that feeling again... I was far too curious about White Sheep.
"Brother Sheep..." I began to ask, "You're currently at 'Ren-level.' How are you going to make a 'Di-level' obey you?"
"'Di-level' are still human, aren't they?" White Sheep didn't attack me this time; instead, he answered my question. "As long as they're human, they can be communicated with. If you can communicate, you can find their weak points. If you can seize their weak points, you might be able to control the entire person."
After saying this, he looked at me, then asked with a hint of modesty, "What do you think of this explanation?"
I swallowed hard and said, "Brother Sheep, where did you learn all this?"
"Before, I figured most of it out on my own. Now, I've learned some from books," White Sheep said. "Thanks to the books you brought me, but it's still far from enough."
To be honest, I've never been afraid of smart people. What I fear is people smarter than me working even harder than I do. It fills me with a sense of helplessness for no reason.
"You finished thirty books in a month... and it's still not enough?" I asked. "I used to take a whole week to finish two..."
"It really isn't enough. I still have too much free time," White Sheep said, looking at me. "I can't just stand dumbly at the door like the other 'Zodiacs.' I have to do something. I'm still racing against time."
"This..." I looked at him with some hesitation. "You're already a proper 'Ren-level Zodiac,' aren't you? What are you racing against?"
"I..." White Sheep shook his head. "Telling you this would only harm you. But I am indeed racing against time. My time is limited."
"Limited...?"
"Yes. I have to do something."
"But right now, no one is coming to participate in your game, and you have no books to read. What are you planning to do?"
"Let's do some 'armchair strategy,'" White Sheep said. "Let's find a few difficult problems to discuss. That's also a way to make ourselves stronger."
Excellent. This was exactly why I was willing to get close to White Sheep.
"No problem." I nodded in agreement. "I know a little about every field. What do you want to talk about?"
Upon hearing this, White Sheep lowered his head and stroked his chin, then said, "Yan Zhichun, what are your thoughts on the 'subconscious'?"
"'Subconscious'?" I thought about it too. "That's a psychological term, isn't it? It refers to the part of human mental activity that goes unnoticed."
"That's right. It's a psychological term. Do you know the relationship between the 'subconscious' and 'Echo'?"
"Yes." I nodded. "After your guidance and my own experiments, I discovered that the more my subconscious believes my 'Echo' will succeed, the higher my success rate becomes. Not only have I mastered the method of activating 'Echo,' but I've also passed on this experience to those who joined the 'Extreme Path.'"
"Good," White Sheep said. "That saves me a lot of trouble explaining. In other words, the stronger one's subconscious, the stronger the 'Echoer.' You understand that principle. So let me ask you this... aside from 'Echo,' what other influence does the 'subconscious' have here?"
"What other influence...?" I lowered my head and seriously pondered the question, feeling that this was another test.
If I couldn't answer correctly, what White Sheep said next would also change.
But no matter how many angles I considered, I couldn't think of any other influence the 'subconscious' might have here. Could it be affecting something other than 'Echo'?
As if sensing my predicament, White Sheep continued, "An American psychologist, Martin Garard, once conducted an experiment. He blindfolded a death row inmate, tied him to a bed, announced his death sentence, and told him the execution would be carried out by bloodletting. Then he scratched the prisoner's hand with a piece of wood and slowly dripped water onto the prisoner's wrist using a pre-prepared hose. As the sound of dripping water went from fast to slow, the prisoner was filled with extreme terror. In the end, the prisoner died, and the symptoms of death were identical to those of excessive blood loss."
"I've heard of this experiment..." I said. "It's a concrete manifestation of the 'suggestion effect.' The main cause of the prisoner's death was still fear and self-suggestion."
"Right. So if the target were changed to a dog or a monkey... would the subject die?" White Sheep asked again.
I considered this scenario and said, "They wouldn't understand the suggestion, so most likely, they wouldn't die."
"Good. Now that we've established that condition, let me ask you again..." White Sheep's eyes suddenly changed. "Can our 'subconscious' forget that we are human?"
"What...?" I was stunned. I had a vague premonition that the following topic would head in a direction I had never imagined.
"Yan Zhichun. You've also experienced the 'Liars' game. Have you noticed a strange phenomenon...?" White Sheep looked at me and said, "We're all clearly dead... We don't need to breathe... right?"
"Ah..."
I think I understood.
All the issues White Sheep was talking about suddenly became clear to me in an instant.
"If we don't need to breathe... that means we don't need the basic conditions for survival. We don't need to drink water or eat food either," White Sheep continued. "But have you noticed... every one of us not only feels hungry, but some have even starved to death."
After saying this, White Sheep reached up and covered his own mouth and nose on his mask, then said, "We don't need to breathe, yet some people die from suffocation. We don't need sleep, yet we feel tired from lack of sleep. Theoretically, we are all in a state of spirits; none of these things should affect us."
My eyes slowly widened as I felt my thinking become unprecedentedly clear.
"I understand..." I blinked and said, "Even 'natives' can starve to death... That's because they only have the subconscious of being human, believing that if they don't eat, they'll die..."
"Yes," White Sheep nodded. "We can never forget that we are 'human,' so we have always been shackled. This is why we can never become the strongest."
"But this is far too abstract." I shook my head, then let out a deep sigh. "As long as we can speak and think, our subconscious will inevitably believe that we are human."