Dow and Carbon-Based Monkey Breeding Guidelines

Chapter 1020 The World is a Garden of Life and Death (Part )

"I particularly like their new stage," Chilabin said. "It's small but beautiful, and they use technology to make up for the lack of funds. The final effect is also very good. However, the small stage can be improved..."

"What small stage?" asked Jania.

"Oh, I mean a small platform next to the main stage, which can be raised or lowered by a lifting device. Usually only characters with magical powers will stand on it, such as gods, demons, wizards, elves..."

"You mean Deus Ex Machina?"

"It's a little different." Chilabin said, "As for the word you mentioned, as far as I remember it, the actors sent up by the agency are also participants in the plot, and very important participants. Because, you see, the gods in ancient Greek epics are not particularly difficult to touch, they just like to interfere with mortals. Not only do they issue oracles, but when necessary, they even dress up as mortals to cheer for their beloved heroes. They have to personally join the performance on the main stage, but the way they join and the impact they have violate the common sense of the mortal world. From the perspective of the rationality of the plot, it may not be convincing enough, but this is the so-called divine power! As for the small stage I just mentioned, it is located a little farther away from the main stage. The people standing on the small stage are responsible for supplementing and commenting on the story on the main stage..."

"You mean the commentator?" Jania asked. "Like the commentators at sports games?"

"Very close! But the commentators are completely standing outside the scene. They are essentially a kind of audience, just a more professional one. The actors on the small stage are actors first, but at that time they are allowed to temporarily leave the plot and make comments like an audience, but that is essentially reading lines. Sometimes it is to make it easier for the audience to understand, and sometimes to pave the way for the transition. This kind of role is often sarcastic and says the opposite of what is meant..."

His voice was not bad, nor was it particularly loud. He just spoke very quickly, as if he never needed to breathe, which made people unable to help but enter a state of distraction. This was the kind of radio voice that people longed to encounter when they were sleepless, but had to avoid when driving long distances. After listening to this voice chattering about trivial and boring theater experiences for half an hour, no one in the store, except Jania, paid serious attention to the actual content of his words. The young man sitting by the window was the first to show sleepiness, and then the yawning sound spread rapidly throughout the store like a flu virus.

The "reading girl" who had been guarding the door of the employee lounge - the person called "Parry" by their mysterious boss - glared at her accomplices as a warning. Through observing their words and expressions during this period, Jania has concluded that her position in this group is quite special. She may not be considered a leader, but more like a veteran or a senior, that is, the one who has been with the project the longest and knows how to deal with any unexpected events. In contrast, Maditao, who is sitting behind the counter, is obviously not that familiar with the others. She guessed that this "fake cousin" should be a seed player who is highly appreciated by the boss but has not had the opportunity to produce any actual results. However, this is not certain. After all, she is sixteen years old and has not participated in any business project that can be called "work", nor is she an expert in studying mysterious organizations.

Chilabin continued to talk about the stage design of the theater. "The chorus-style narration may be a bit too luxurious for a small theater troupe," he changed the subject before Jania was distracted, "It's impossible to support so many actors. For a small theater troupe, every salary must be spent wisely-"

Jania nodded perfunctorily. She was not even a fingernail more interested in Chilabin's theater experiences than anyone else present. The reason why she insisted on listening longer than others and even talked to him from time to time was just because she hoped that her former captain (Chilabin still called her "Liaotou" and seemed to think it was more intimate) would reveal some secrets to her in the seemingly ordinary topic.

Never mind what "Maggie Wall" said! She kept using her eyes to convey her meaning to the red-skinned man opposite: You are not really going to wait until after dark to speak? Hurry up and tell me what's going on! We can't just sit here and wait for death, we have to find a way to escape. Do you really want to have your head cut open? Do you know that she really won't hurt you when she comes back?

However, Chilabin completely ignored her frequent hints. Jania was becoming increasingly anxious to find that this strange playwright (probably not a serious writer, but who cares) seemed to really intend to fulfill his promise to the mysterious man in red (that is, "Maggie Wall") and not tell her anything until dark. She didn't know what they were waiting for, or whether Maggie Wall would be back before dark, but she instinctively knew that she couldn't just do nothing and let things go on.

All of this had something to do with her brother. She tried to think as Chilabin's sleepy mumblings made her think. Zhou Wenxing had mentioned her brother, and Maggie Wall had claimed to be her brother's friend. At least Chilabin hadn't refuted this at the time. If this was true, the whole thing would be even more intriguing: Why did her brother's friends lock her up here? Did they not want her to run to No. 206 Dongyun Road? To protect her from certain dangers? Or did they not want her to hear certain news? But she had heard a lot of news now, and if she had understood some of the words correctly, the news could be described as completely horrifying. She really didn't understand how these things could be related to her brother - or, to that suspicious friend of her brother? She had also tried to contact that guy during this month, but it turned out that he was even harder to find than her brother. It was like she had burrowed into the ground.

"The scenes of punishment and execution should not be performed too detailed," Chilabin said, "to take into account children and audiences with more sensitive minds——"

Jania was even more upset. She tried to keep her breathing even and calm, and looked at the old acquaintance across the table with a probing eye. Hey, Captain, she said to herself, praying that she would suddenly learn to send brainwave signals with her eyes. Stop talking about your drama! Tell me what's going on? What the hell is going on between my brother and your psychiatrist?

There was no sign that Chilabin had received her telepathic signal. He remained calm and friendly, like an old gentleman sitting in someone's living room. Jania wanted to kick him under the table, but she was sitting in the middle of the store and couldn't expect so many eyes around her to be blind. She couldn't accuse Chilabin of playing dumb to her at this moment, after all, she also heard what Maggie Wall said to Chilabin. After all, she was not the one who had to take the risk of being shot and having his brain dug out.

"It is irresponsible to blindly show the audience stimulating scenes." Chilabin still expressed his views on cruel plots without being discouraged. "Young children are too easily attracted by gimmicks, and regard novelty and bloodiness as excitement. This will prevent them from developing a deeper appreciation ability..."

Jania glared at him fiercely, not sure if this guy was teasing her in a roundabout way. She temporarily gave up on telepathy with Chilabin and turned to pondering Maggie Wall. First of all, this person must exist - what she meant was that there must be a definite operator behind the strange doll that had come to the store - and she really knew her brother. She was also in a hostile position with Chilabin. The last point was actually very important, because it seemed to mean that the fake playwright might also be her brother's enemy. However, at least so far, she had to admit that Chilabin treated her quite well, at least he was very polite. He had the opportunity to kill her during the last adventure at sea, but he let her return to shore safely and gave her a commemorative bamboo pole. Compared with the playwright who was threatened to dig out his head, what was really disturbing was the missing psychiatrist...

An idea gradually formed in Jania's mind. Although many of the contents of the conversation in Guns N' Roses this morning were quite obscure, she could still hear that Maggie Wall was about to deal with something important. It sounded like a crisis or a very dangerous enemy. What kind of enemy could make the powerful Maggie Wall so difficult to deal with that Chilabin and herself thought that this operation might not be survivable?

There are all kinds of possibilities here. But, within the scope of what Jania knows, she happens to know only one name that might be able to do it - since the missing Zhou Wenxing and Chilabin had traveled together, he must be Maggie Wall's enemy. This makes perfect sense: if it was Zhou Wenxing who attacked her brother, kidnapped him or even killed him... no, it was just a kidnapping at most, it must be just a kidnapping; that monster took her brother away for some reason, and Maggie Wall captured Chilabin. Maybe Maggie wanted to use Chilabin to negotiate with him and do some hostage exchange (Maggie did mention "mediation", didn't she?), but Chilabin told her that this was impossible. So Maggie had to resort to more direct violent means and launch a surprise attack to save the hostages... or could they just kill the kidnappers? Maggie Wall obviously didn't have a 100% chance of rescuing the hostages safely, and Chilabin also advised her not to act rashly.

Could this be the truth that Maggie Wall forbade Chilabin to reveal to her in advance? Because if Maggie's action failed, her brother who fell into the hands of the enemy would also be doomed to die. That's why they had to keep an eye on her and refused to tell her the whole story before the results came out. The more Jania thought about it, the more she felt that it made sense. She once again looked at Chilabin anxiously, her eyes falling on the transparent straps that bound him. Chilabin noticed it, twisted his wrists with deep marks on them twice, and winked at her helplessly. He did not stop chanting in that hypnotic tone, but the originally drowsy guards immediately became suspicious and cast their vigilant eyes at them. Parry took two steps away from the door of the staff lounge and walked around to a position where he could see Jania's expression clearly. Well, it seems that these people are not such a mob.

Jania didn't want to give up. She risked having her old captain's head shot off (this old man is also responsible, right? He must have done a lot of bad things to be so wary of so many people), first quickly glanced at Chilabin's wrist, and then tried to speak naturally: "When I was a child, I also watched a very scary movie. It was about a rich kid who was kidnapped by bad guys. Because his family called the police, the kidnappers chopped off his head."

"Oh?" Chilabin asked with great interest, "Is this movie scary?"

"I thought it was okay, but they showed this movie to primary school students and many of my classmates were terrified. My mother said that the teacher who showed us this kind of movie should see a psychiatrist himself."

"Then the teacher was complained about in the end?"

"He was arrested by the police," said Jania. Although the reason for Lenny Cole's arrest had nothing to do with the film, "In fact, if there was a competent psychiatrist in the school, things wouldn't be like this. We wouldn't have to watch the kidnappers kill the hostages, and he wouldn't have to be arrested. All he needed was a slightly more normal psychiatrist."

"Psychologists are indeed very important," Chilabin agreed, "and children should not be shown scenes of kidnappers killing people."

Jania and he made eye contact. At that moment, their gazes were full of meaning, conveying the secret without leaving any trace... At least that's what Jania thought at the time. By throwing out key words obscurely and cleverly, coupled with the subtle and tacit greetings when the four windows of the soul reflected each other, she felt that what she conveyed to Chilabin at the time was this:

Captain, I think I have figured out what's going on. My brother is being held hostage by your missing psychiatrist and is probably going to be killed in a manhunt launched by Maggie Wall, is that right? Your psychiatrist friend must be doing something very, very dangerous, something that could destroy our entire planet, so Maggie Wall is talking to you about the Ark and the apocalypse... She wants to stop him? Will that stop her from trying to save my brother? That's why she's locked me up here too, and she's forbidding you to talk to me about it.

Chilabin looked at her encouragingly and approvingly. His attitude seemed to say: You guessed it right, boss! That's exactly what happened. I'm glad you figured it out on your own. Jania blinked slowly: It doesn't have to be this way. Your psychiatrist doesn't have to be arrested. As long as he is willing to release my brother, everything else can be discussed. I've dealt with him before, and he doesn't seem like an anti-human annihilation demon.

Chilabin sighed sympathetically. "Adults are always irresponsible, boss." He said apologetically, "They say they are doing this for you, but in reality they do whatever they want and don't consider the future of young people like you. We have made this world too chaotic."

"It's okay," Jania said. "Everyone screws up sometimes. Just stop lying to them."

"I hope I can be honest with you," Chilabin said, and then immediately bowed respectfully to the guards who were staring at him. "Of course, it has to be at the right time."

Jania said nothing more. She saw someone's hand in his pocket, and she had to worry about Chilabin's head. When Parry walked back to the door of the staff lounge to check if Anthony Kent, who was locked inside, had any signs of waking up, she risked another eye signal to Chilabin. This time, what she wanted to say to him was:

Captain, we have to act. I know you are not a good person, but I can't just sit and watch my brother get killed. If I can let you go later, you have to be loyal to me. You must know how to return the favor and tell me everything you know, or take me to save my brother. As long as my brother is fine (of course, this planet is also fine, which is also the premise of his being fine), we will still be a united sea monster team. What do you think?

It was indeed difficult to condense such a complex meaning into his eyes. Jania didn't know how much the fake playwright could understand, but at least he seemed to understand that she was trying to make a deal with him, and he also agreed to make this deal. His eyes dropped slightly, falling on his wrists with deep marks, and then he glanced around helplessly, with a smile on his face that seemed to ask: But how can we escape?

Janet looked out the window calmly, telling the other party that they had to wait for the opportunity, the opportunity she was looking forward to - although she was not really so sure.

Chilabin began to talk about drama again. His topics bounced around like marbles in a rubber box, first a few words about Hamlet, then about The Miranos, and then, somehow, on to The Wild Duck. "To live is to die," he said absently, "I'd rather leave my home and run to a garden in the wilderness..."

Behind the counter, Maditao, who had been staring at the surveillance camera in front of the door, covered her mouth in a trance and began to yawn for the third time today (she was definitely not the one who yawned the most in the store at the moment). Jania was secretly observing her movements and found that her limbs, which had just been stretched halfway, suddenly froze; there was no special expression on her face, but she reached out to touch the headphones under her hair.

It was as if many invisible ghosts had slipped into the store, whispering softly by the wall. In fact, no one was really talking. At most, they just made some quick or disordered breathing, showed surprised or suspicious expressions, and then looked at each other. No one spoke to expose the situation, but a subtle atmosphere leaked out, as if the brain waves of these people were shooting everywhere in the narrow space, asking each other similar questions: Did you find it? Did you find it too? Is there something wrong?

"What happened?" It was Chilabin who actually asked this question. He tried his best to be kind and harmless, but he was still met with Parry's cold warning: "Don't ask what you shouldn't ask."

Jania looked around quietly. She saw that these people were a little anxious. Two of them were reaching for their headphones, and one took out his phone to check for a moment. Something must have happened. She was wondering if she should take the opportunity to do something, when Mati Tao suddenly walked out from the counter and sat down opposite Jania. She took off her headphones and put them in her pocket, staring at Jania.

"What do you want to do?" Jania asked bluntly.

Matitao put her hands in her pockets, leaned back and leaned her back against the chair. "Go on," she said in a relaxed tone, "Don't worry about me, just chat about your own things." Her eyes did not look at Chilabin, but stared straight at Janiya, as if she was sure that the latter was doing something bad.

Jania's nerves began to tense up. She pretended to be angry, and looked out the window from time to time, as if wondering how long it would take for the sky to get dark. In her heart, she hoped that it would get dark more slowly. She prayed that it would not be closing time for the shops nearby, and that all the people in the shops nearby would not leave...

"Sometimes I feel that one of my friends must be dead," Chilabin said. "If she doesn't contact me for a long time, I will start to wonder if she died of illness. This is how the Internet age is. It dissolves real existence into fragmented words. All you are exposed to are some instant streams of thoughts. You can never imagine what is happening in places you haven't seen..."

Maditao's thick eyebrows twitched slightly, making her expression a little murderous in an instant. She pulled one hand out of her pocket and slowly turned her face to Chilabin, as if she was about to say something. Suddenly, someone in the store coughed softly.

Everyone looked towards the window. On the street opposite the window, a middle-aged man in a snow-white baking suit was crossing the road. He was holding a birthday cake box in his arms, and he was looking both ways as he walked, as if he was afraid that he would be in trouble by a car turning in from an intersection. When he crossed the street smoothly, he refused to take even a single step and pressed his face against the window of "Guns N' Roses" to look at every face inside. He saw Jenny sitting in the middle, and immediately knocked hard on the glass window, then raised the cake box in his hand. He shouted through the window, his voice so ethereal that it seemed to come from another world: "Girl! Your cake!"

Jania crossed her arms and looked back at everyone who looked at her defiantly. "Today is my birthday," she said, "You guys made my brother disappear. I can only celebrate for myself, what's wrong?"

"Happy birthday, Laotou." Chilabin said tactfully. The others didn't know what to say.

Parry stared at the man outside the window for a while. "He's the owner of a nearby bakery," she said. "He has no problem with his identity."

"Should we let him in?" one of them asked.

Parry did not answer immediately. For a moment she seemed determined to stand her ground, but the baker seemed stubborn and his service attitude was poor. He saw that the people inside were delaying his return to the store, and soon he was banging on the window impatiently and urging Mattita - he obviously also knew the fake acting store manager.

Realizing that further delay would do no good, Parry waved his hand at Matitao. "You go out and deal with him."

Matitao stood up from her chair. Before leaving, she looked at Jania very carefully, and then walked to the porch. Everyone in the store saw her walk out of the store and step by step towards the bakery manager standing in front of the window. She had put on her usual casual and innocent smile on her face, said a few flattering words to the impatient delivery man, and then reached out to take the plastic foam cake box tied with a pink ribbon. She lifted the box in the air and weighed it twice gently, and her expression suddenly changed.

This reaction was not in Jania's plan, but she had no choice at the moment. She took a deep breath and let out the loudest and most urgent cry. "Miffy!" She jumped up from the table and rashly used her body to block Chilabin, "Come and save me!"

The plastic foam cake box cracked open, and a dark shadow flashed out from inside.

(End of this chapter)