Trickster Hunter.

Chapter 467 The Story of Lin Lun

"What is it?" Sun Hang asked, following the other person's words.

"Before that, could you tell me a story?" Lin Lun asked sincerely.

"You want to stall for time?" Sun Hang tried to use mind reading on Lin Lun, but found that the other party's will was very firm, and the mind reading could only read very limited things. As for the other party's memories, they were sealed as if they were an iron block without any gaps.

Two people are very restrained in their ability to read minds: one is a madman whose thoughts are in complete chaos or a fool whose mind is blank; the other is someone like Lin Lun, who can "control" his own brain as precisely as he controls a computer's memory.

The definition of "control" is quite sophisticated. To ordinary people, being able to control their own brain is as simple as eating and drinking. But in fact, most of the "operational processes" of the human brain are not controlled by human consciousness.

This brings us back to the topic of "not imagining elephants".

The person in front of Sun Hang possessed such precise control over his brain that he could confine his thoughts to an extremely small area and use a form of "pseudo-forgetting" to seal away memories he didn't want others to see...

Sun Hang even suspected that he could commit suicide by forcibly shutting down his brain... This is something that is simply impossible for more than 99.99% of carbon-based life forms.

Suicide is not difficult, but to commit suicide simply by "thinking" about it is not just a matter of going against the biological survival instinct. Such a person has such strong control over their own brain that they can bypass all kinds of self-protection measures of the body and accurately pull the "switch" that is marked with a bunch of danger signs.

“I didn’t stall for time.” Lin Lun shrugged. “I can sense you’re reading my mind, so you should know that this is the truth.”

"A superhuman?" Sun Hang couldn't help but re-examine the dignified middle-aged man in front of him.

"Yes." Lin Lun nodded. "I am a superhuman."

"What are your abilities?"

Lin Lun pointed to his head with his finger, and then to his eyes.

"I can control my own brain and see things that others can't see with the naked eye," Lin Lun said.

"You can...see those tangible negative emotions?"

"It seems you can see it too." Lin Lun's smile deepened. "It seems we are the same kind of people... Then I think you will understand what I have done."

“Not necessarily. You should tell me your story,” Sun Hang said. “But I suggest you keep it short and don’t waste too much time.”

"it is good."

Lin Lun gestured to Sun Hang, "Please sit down."

A bench stood by the passageway at the building entrance. Sun Hang plopped down on it, crossed his legs, and stared at Lin Lun with great interest.

Before Lin Lun began to tell his story, Sun Hang couldn't glean any information about it. Without being spoiled, Sun Hang's anticipation for Lin Lun's story only grew stronger.

“Thirty-five years ago, in Cangshui City, Jizhou, a boy named Lin Lun was born in the delivery room of Cangshui Maternal and Child Health Hospital,” Lin Lun said. “Please allow me to tell this story, in the third person, about me.”

Sun Hang nodded: "Go on."

“He was different from other children from a young age. He didn’t like toys, he didn’t cry or fuss, and he could often sit quietly in a corner for a whole day. His parents thought he was born with intellectual disability, so they didn’t like him and had his younger brother when he was four years old.”

“In kindergarten, this child never played with others and never engaged in unnecessary communication. The kindergarten teachers had repeatedly suggested that his parents take him to see a doctor—but what the teachers didn’t know was that his parents had already consulted many doctors before he started kindergarten, and without exception, none of them could find any problems.”

"The child grew up to be eight years old, and apart from being taciturn and seemingly having little interest in anything, he did not show any intellectual disability."

"He entered primary school smoothly. His grades were not outstanding, but he always ranked between tenth and twentieth in the class. Therefore, he did not attract the attention of teachers and parents. In the eyes of his classmates, he was just a quiet, withdrawn eccentric."

"But what no one knew was that this child could see things that others couldn't... He could see shadows crawling on people's backs like monsters..."

“He could see these things before his understanding was formed, when he didn’t know what fear was… But as his mind matured and he learned that this was an ‘uncommon’ phenomenon, he became numb to it… Even if those shadows were baring their fangs and claws in front of him, he would not feel any fear.”

Sun Hang looked at Lin Lun seriously and said, "You have no shadow behind you."

“You don’t have it either,” Lin Lun said. “So I think we might be the same kind of people.”

“Go on with your story,” Sun Hang said. “It’s interesting.”

“When the boy was very young, he told his parents about this, but his superstitious parents thought that their child had been tainted by something ‘unclean’—instead of reporting it to the local police or the Bureau of Paranormal Investigation, they invited a group of Taoist priests in long robes to perform rituals around the boy for several days.”

"The demons in the boy's eyes were not dispelled. On the contrary, he saw more 'demons' of different shapes on his parents and the Taoist priests. They were like shadows peeled off the ground. With the Taoist priests' comical movements, they cast a series of frenzied dances on the walls and ceiling in the flickering candlelight."

“It wasn’t until he grew up that the boy learned that those shadows all had names,” Lin Lun continued. “The shadow attached to the Taoist priest was called greed and contempt, while the shadow attached to his parents was called fear and ignorance.”

"Do you feel like you don't belong in the world?" Sun Hang suddenly remembered a question that Chimera 17 had once asked him.

“Yes.” Lin Lun nodded. “Until I met her.” “The female lead in the story?” Sun Hang asked with a smile. “Is there a romance element in this story?”

“I’m not sure if it was love…” Lin Lun shook his head. “That day, there was a car accident on the road the boy usually took home from school, and it was blocked off by the sheriffs. He had to take a detour, but he accidentally found her covered in bruises on the riverbank.”

"That was the most solid black shadow the boy had ever seen. The shadow was almost like a black curtain covering her battered body... But to the boy's surprise, this black curtain not only did not make him feel any danger, but also gave him an urge to gently lift it."

The boy sat down next to her. He didn't say anything, but simply handed her the small half-bag of bread that was left over from the morning.

“She didn’t accept the boy’s bread, nor did she speak to him. The boy sat next to her for a few minutes, then got up and went home.”

"From that day on, the boy would take that long detour from time to time, and occasionally he would run into her sitting on the riverbank."

“Her old wounds had healed, but some new ones had appeared. She was about the same age as the boy, but she didn’t look like she was in school—because the boy had never seen her with a schoolbag or anything like that.”

"Her clothes were clearly made from old adult clothes, and her disheveled hair made her look like a beggar, but her eyes were dark and bright, like those of a newborn fawn."

"The boy remembers very clearly that it was during their eleventh 'chance encounter' that she finally spoke her first words."

"Later, they started talking more and more...or rather, she started talking more, while the boy mostly just listened."

"She was born into a family that was extremely sexist. She was the fourth girl in the family. Her mother died in childbirth after giving birth to her, and her father blamed all the misfortune on her."

“She often went hungry, so the boy would often bring her food, and occasionally he would bring her some books and old stationery, and teach her to read and do arithmetic… The boy noticed that whenever she was with him, the shadow that shrouded her would gradually fade, but often the next day, the shadow on her would become darker than the day before… accompanied by new injuries on her body.”

“The boy could barely see her face anymore. He felt that something terrible was going to happen if things continued like this, but he was powerless to do anything about it—it was all he could do.”

"Finally, on a Saturday afternoon, the pencil stub, shorter than her little finger, silently slipped from her fingertip. The boy watched helplessly as her body withered, and thorny vines sprouted from her remains, eventually forming a small ball full of thorns."

"The boy vaguely heard her last words."

"'Put me at my doorstep.'"

“The boy knew where she lived, not far from the riverbank. Instead of reporting it to the police, he placed the thorn ball at her doorstep as she requested.”

"The next day, the boy saw a news report about a monster attack—an adult man was strangled to death in his own home by a thorn-like monster, and the thorn-like monster that strangled the man had completely lost its meme by the time investigators and hunters arrived at the scene and was deemed to have been completely extinct."

At this point, Lin Lun stopped talking and looked directly into Sun Hang's eyes, as if trying to discern his emotional changes from them.

"And then?" Sun Hang tilted his head and asked.

“After that, I started collecting information through various channels… It took me nine whole years to confirm one thing,” Lin Lun said. “Negative human emotions can catalyze the birth of monsters… and even turn humans themselves into monsters.”

"Where did you collect this information from?" Sun Hang asked. "The Tian Shu Tower keeps all this information strictly under wraps. Even if you're lucky enough to find something of value, the Tian Shu Tower will still be watching you."

“I don’t need to pry into those secrets. I just need to collect news about monster attacks that have occurred all over the Federation,” Lin Lun said. “Especially those humanoid monsters that appear in human society without any warning… The Celestial Tower and the federal government will not tell the public the origin of the monsters, but they will not hide the life stories of the monsters and their victims. As long as you have a certain amount of reasoning ability, you can deduce the reason for the appearance of these monsters.”

“You’re shooting the arrow first and then drawing the target… Most people wouldn’t think in this direction. But as someone with the ability to see materialized negative emotions, and having witnessed firsthand how a living person becomes monstrous due to the accumulation of negative emotions, you would assume that those humans who turn into monsters are all caused by negative emotions. And then, in order to verify this conjecture, you would search for all sorts of clues,” Sun Hang said. “This method of reasoning is very flawed.”

“I don’t need 100% accuracy. I just need to be sure that this kind of thing can actually happen,” Lin Lun said. “With that, the first half of the story ends.”

What about the second half?

“Before I tell you the second half of the story, I want to show you something,” Lin Lun said.

"What are you researching?" Sun Hang asked, "or that 'very special thing' you discovered because of 'another accident'?"

“It’s the same one,” Lin Lun said. “I’ve kept it in the underground laboratory of the company building. Please follow me.”

Lin Lun led Sun Hang into the building. It seemed that Lin Lun had given all the employees in the company an order not to leave their rooms. The entire corridor was empty. The employees only looked at the three people walking towards the elevator through the cracks in the doors and windows in their rooms. No one made a sound, and no one stepped out of their rooms.

Lin Lun stopped in front of a freight elevator with a sign that read "Mechanical Failure, Out of Service". He brought his eyes close and saw a thin laser beam emanating from the old control panel of the freight elevator, slowly scanning across his iris.

"Authentication complete, unlocked."

Lin Lun pressed the buttons on the freight elevator from the top floor (seventh floor) all the way down to the bottom floor (third basement level). Accompanied by the sound of gears meshing, the slightly rusty freight elevator door slowly rose.

Lin Lun went in first.

"please."

(End of this chapter)