novelraw Chapter 527: Because People Have Feelings
Chapter 527: Because People Have Feelings
This time, Lynn felt no pity at all.
With a ripping sound, he tore open the back of her clothes.
Hei Xianyue's body shuddered instantly, trying desperately to turn her head, but her body couldn’t move at all, and she couldn't see the expression on the face behind her.
"I'll start the operation right away. Prepare yourself. My passive ability might cause you some pain, but your injuries are urgent. We can't delay any longer."
Lynn recovered his composure as a healer, quickly put on the Night Doctor gloves, fitted his mask, and began taking tools out of his mechanical kit one by one.
"I refuse!" Hei Xianyue snapped angrily.
"Refusal is ineffective."
Lynn picked up a slender scalpel, adjusted the focus on his Monocle, and said,
"Don't you know how badly you're hurt? I'm not joking. Since I'm your Patient, I have to be responsible for your health. I don't care whether you really think of yourself as an object or whether you want this..."
"Today I'm treating you no matter what."Hei Xianyue bit her lip hard and hissed through her teeth,
"You're an asshole."
"Thank you for the compliment," Lynn said earnestly.
Almost at the same time, a System notification chimed in his ear.
[ Ding! Congratulations, you have triggered the quest: Miss Puppet's bodily injury. Quest objective: Complete treatment of Miss Puppet. Quest reward: Skeleton Coins x500, Base EXP x1000, Special Skill Reward x1 ]
As the System notification rang, Lynn adjusted his Monocle solemnly and said,
"In that case, I'm starting. Bear with it."
He pressed the scalpel gently into the pale skin on her back.
A sharp pain shot through her consciousness.
Hei Xianyue clenched her teeth instinctively, her whole body trembling as she forced herself to endure his cruel actions from behind.
Damn.
That damned guy.
She really wanted to know!
Why did he have to pick on her like this?
Why did he always provoke her emotions with those hateful actions? She didn't want to talk, yet he forced her to give him a reaction, and he wouldn’t stop until she got angry.
Was it just because she saved him this time?
But that was only because of the binding contract. If not for that contract, she definitely... definitely would not...
She clenched her teeth, closed her eyes tiredly and tightly.
Yes.
Only because of the contract.
Even inside Doll Manor, watching her sisters laugh and play together confused her. To her, such meaningless interactions were just a waste of time.
It was the same when he forced her to communicate with him every time.
So unless necessary, unless it was an order, she would never deliberately interact with others.
And she believed,
every battle required life-or-death effort.
Because those were the contracts and orders she had to fulfill.
Just like in her fight with Eldest Sister: the order told her to go all out for victory, so she did with no reservations.
She won, and she wounded Eldest Sister's eye, but all the sisters gathered around Eldest Sister and glared at her for winning.
She didn't know why.
She didn't want to think about it.
She thought it meaningless; she simply completed the orders she was told to carry out, and that was all.
Cost and reward were never things she considered.
So she truly couldn't understand why this guy had to act so concerned, even domineeringly trying to make decisions for her.
"Miss Puppet, you can't keep treating yourself like an object forever."
Lynn said through his mask as he concentrated on the operation.
"Although I know you have a Puppet Body, neither your Mother, your sisters, nor those Mechanical Units ever treated themselves with such disregard."
"You can think, you can get angry, you feel pain, and you react emotionally to my rudeness. Haven't you noticed?"
Lynn shook his head and kept his gaze down as he mechanically disassembled parts.
"You have never been a no-self program that only follows commands. You are not a stone. You can refuse. So why can't you view yourself as a living person?"
"Do you know why I care about you? Because in my eyes, you were always supposed to be a living person."
Hei Xianyue fell silent and turned her face slightly to look at his expression.
His eyes were focused and calm.
It felt like an ordinary heart-to-heart between friends, yet the words he said seemed to answer the question in her heart.
But could that really be the answer?
Merely being considered a living person.
Is that all?
What difference is there between a person and an object?
Sensing her silent gaze, Lynn stared at her for a long moment, then lowered his head to continue the surgery.
"The biggest difference between a person and an object is, of course, that people have feelings. Miss Puppet, that is the main reason I don't treat you as an object, because you have feelings."
Hei Xianyue stared at him blankly.
Feelings...
"So," Lynn picked up a screwdriver and worked methodically, moving one arm a little,
"From now on, before you make a decision, think it through. Don't assume you don't matter and can be placed in danger on the whim of a contract."
"Maybe you don't care, but if you died saving me, what do you think would happen to me?"
He set the charred components he removed aside, patted his hands, and said casually,
"I would be devastated, crushed with sorrow. I might feel guilty for the rest of my life, because from the moment you saved me, we've been best friends. Only true friends would, without hesitation, risk everything to save you in a crisis."
Hei Xianyue remained silent.
But Lynn knew.
She could hear his words and should understand their meaning.
He picked up his tools again, unusually earnest, and said offhandedly,
"So whether you saved me because of a contract or not, I don't want anything to happen to you. I want you to stay safe, because the greatest difference between people and puppets is that we remember others' kindness."
"Just as if you face danger again, I'll definitely fight to save you."
Hei Xianyue listened quietly to that sentence.
Although the tone was casual,
somehow, coming from his mouth, it sounded so weighty.
She lowered her head, fingers gripping the bedsheet, and turned to say,
"You don't have to save me. You don't have any contract forcing you to..."
Lynn was speechless for a moment, then gave a rueful shake of the wrench, hands on his hips, and said, "Sigh, what should I say, Miss Puppet, you have one. You just don't know about it."
Hei Xianyue blinked and glanced sideways at his face.
Lynn smiled at her, tapped his chest with the wrench, and said,
"Feelings are the biggest difference between people and puppets, because everyone carries a scale in their heart. If you weigh heavily in someone's heart, no contract is needed. In fact, that's the most important contract."
"Like I would save you, and if something happened to you, your Mother and your sisters would come to save you too. You know why? Because they're your family, and you share natural bonds, feelings cultivated through centuries of living side by side."
"And that's equivalent to the greatest contract."
Hei Xianyue stood there, stunned, unable to utter a single word for a while.
Those words had never been said to her before.
Or rather,
she had never understood what those words meant.
But in that moment, something in his words made her suddenly understand the things that had always puzzled her.
Bonds... are contracts...
She lowered her head.
Her mind flashed back to the duel years ago, to those sisters who had rushed to the wounded Eldest Sister whom she had defeated.
She remembered Eldest Sister, at the critical moment in their duel, retracting a finishing curse that would have gravely injured her to secure victory.
She remembered the post-battle Eldest Sister, who had lost an eye, smiling at her and saying,
"It's okay."
A thread of bewilderment crossed her eyes.
And now she suddenly understood, just a little...
"Is a bond a contract..." she asked softly.
Lynn exhaled and nodded, "Yes."
She hung her head, as if recalling the words he had shouted at her in anger during the explosion—calling her an idiot, a crazier fool than him.
He had said he would fire her and told her to get as far away as possible.
Which meant,
he didn't truly mean she was foolish, nor did he truly want her gone. It was just...
He wanted her alive.
Just like the sisters who had rushed to Eldest Sister after she was defeated, like Eldest Sister's smiling eyes afterward, like how he now absolutely did not want anything to happen to her...
Silver hair brushed her face in the breeze, glinting like water in her eyes.
In other words...
That was what she had never consciously realized...
She was momentarily dazed.
The breeze outside blew in, carrying the distant noises.
Lynn didn't say more. He shook his head slightly because he knew it would be very difficult to make a Puppet who basically had no awareness of such things instantly understand the connection between feelings and bonds.
He didn't expect Miss Puppet to grasp everything at once.
Because any truth is learned gradually, by subtle influence. He hoped Miss Puppet would understand...
He hoped.
Time passed slowly.
The only sound in the room was the precise clicking of dismantling parts from behind.
At some point, a low voice suddenly spoke.
"Thank you."
Lynn froze and stopped his movements.
He looked instinctively at the puppet in front of him, unable to see her expression clearly, merely catching the side of her face and the eyes closed beneath her hair.
In the breeze, that low voice sounded again, clear and distinct.
"I understand some things..."
"Thank you, Lynn."
Lynn stood stunned. He even dropped the wrench onto the bed, unable to believe that Miss Puppet could say those words.
At the same moment, the System chimed in his ear.
[ Ding! Hei Xianyue's Emotional Development has increased to 25.7%. Affinity toward you +10 ]
[ Ding! Hei Xianyue's Emotional Development has increased to 27.4%. Trust level toward you +5 ]
[ Ding! Hei Xianyue's Emotional Development has increased to 29%. Trust level toward you +5 ]
It was as if, in that instant, something rigid had cracked open a little.
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Ps: Romance lines are really hard to write. Salted Fish would rather write a hundred thousand words of battle...