Pain Immunity: Worried the Villains Aren’t Twisted Enough

Chapter 212: Don’t Get Trapped in the Box. Remember to Smile

Chiyo Eine looked up blankly, listening to what “Sin” was saying, staring into his eyes.

She seemed to be trying hard to see something from those eyes, but in the end, it was all in vain—she saw nothing.

Those teasing eyes held the murkiest and muddiest abyss of the world, impossible to see through, and yet his actions always led, through unimaginable means, to outcomes in his favor.

Chiyo Eine lowered her hand. The Black Water across the entire city was slowly calming down. She had no reason—or desire—to fight anymore.

“I’ll be watching.”

Chiyo Eine spoke softly, then couldn’t help glancing in Xie Antong’s direction.

Xie Antong was holding a book in her hand, swaying like a dying candle in the wind.

She seemed dead already, just still standing there, her eyes completely lifeless.

Chiyo Eine was about to say something but happened to see “Sin” stepping forward.

At this moment, “Sin” looked even more disturbing. His entire face was shaking as if it were about to fall off.“Sigh, seems like the good times are coming to an end...”

He staggered forward, holding his face with one hand to stop it from turning back into a mask.

“Reading?”

He stopped in front of Xie Antong, looked down at her dazed face, and asked.

Xie Antong didn’t know why this person suddenly spoke to her, but she didn’t have the energy to ponder his deeper meaning. She just dumbly shook her head.

Then, she handed the book in her hands to Lu Ce.

Lu Ce opened the book and took out a Beacon.

It was the Beacon he had previously hidden inside his body.

Seeing this, Chiyo Eine was momentarily shocked, then suddenly understood—she didn’t lose unjustly.

The Black Knight had been running all over the field with the Beacon, never engaging in prolonged trench warfare in any one spot.

Earlier, when the Black Knight charged at Chiyo Eine, he had slipped the Beacon into the book and handed it to Xie Antong.

This avoided any risk of mishaps for himself. At the same time, since it was the Confessions of the Disillusioned, it guaranteed Xie Antong wouldn’t open it...

From beginning to end, this master-and-servant pair had been using manic and erratic methods to do the most cautious and precise things.

“This thing’s useless now...”

He pinched the object between two fingers and handed it toward Xie Antong.

Xie Antong was stunned. She didn’t react in time. Was this something “Sin” was supposed to do?

What did this mean? Were they really cooperating? Was this a reward? Or comfort?

Instinctively, she reached out—but just as she was about to grab it, there was a sharp crack.

The Beacon was crushed to pieces in Lu Ce’s hand!

Xie Antong: ?

She was completely dumbfounded, staring at the scene in front of her, her mind going blank in an instant. Even the flood of negative emotions disappeared.

What... was that?

“Remember.” The Blue Mask slowly lifted his face and said with a smile, “Remember how you just felt.”

“What did I feel?” Xie Antong blurted out instinctively. Her mind had just been a total blank.

But what she didn’t expect was “Sin” to suddenly exclaim loudly, “Exactly! That’s the feeling I’m talking about.”

“You know what the most boring thing in the world is?”

“It’s that every single person in this world is so predictable—like a giant function. You input one thing, and it outputs another.”

Xie Antong narrowed her eyes, looking at the man in front of her directly for the first time.

She didn’t quite get what he meant, because as far as she was concerned, her ability was precisely to predict and analyze others.

But suddenly she didn’t feel like he was mocking her. It felt more like a metaphor, like he was trying to awaken something in her.

“Let me give you an example.” Lu Ce smiled and raised one finger at Xie Antong.

Then he turned and looked at Chiyo Eine.

“Hi there.”

Chiyo Eine gave a confused expression.

“Is your mom a prostitute?”

Chiyo Eine: ?

After a brief moment of shock, it seemed like she was questioning whether the game’s translator had glitched.

Then she instantly flew into a rage and snapped back, “What the hell are you saying? Your mom’s the prostitute!”

“See, that’s the reaction.” Lu Ce ignored her and turned back to Xie Antong.

“People are like they’ve got switches on their bodies. As long as you input the right thing, you’ll always get a predictable reaction.”

“Everyone is boxed into a framework. You think you’re making your own choices—but you’re not. Someone else is making you do it.”

“So you’ll find that people of higher ‘rank’ don’t necessarily need overwhelming power. High rank actually means absolute control.”

“Even you can predict Chiyo Eine and thus anticipate her actions, manipulating her to make choices that benefit you. So what makes you think the game can’t do that?”

“Like injecting yourself with a syringe, suddenly feeling all confident and powerful, and then crashing afterward, unable to handle your own negative emotions.”

Xie Antong: ......

He really wanted to say, this is totally different, okay? That drug clearly adjusts physiological capabilities.

“Don’t tell me ‘this is different.’ You need to become aware of the switches inside you—and change them, hide them.”

“This game stabs you with a knife. You bleed, get angry, and fight back. But really, the game never meant to make you bleed. It just wanted you angry.”

“You were being controlled.”

After saying that, he turned to Chiyo Eine again.

“Just like this game—you're a controlled piece too. Tokyo’s just another manipulated entity.”

Chiyo Eine’s face darkened a bit. She understood what he was saying, but felt she wasn’t yet strong enough to face it.

“What about you? Aren’t you being controlled too?”

The grinning face on the Greed Mask stayed fixed as he spoke:

“When you get cut, check if it’s a fruit knife.”

“If it is, then maybe, in front of that blade, I’m actually a watermelon?”

One sentence stunned everyone into silence—audience and Chiyo Eine alike. No one could make sense of what he meant by that line in this moment.

Xie Antong didn’t get it either—but she somehow grasped something. That feeling of total mental blankness struck again.

The Blue Mask leaned down, that twisted grin now squarely filling her vision.

The corner of his lips twitched and widened, like a slow-motion replay of a man shifting from joy to euphoria.

“Don’t be so easy to predict. Try something unexpected. Something that doesn’t make sense.”

“Sometimes, don’t rush to get angry. Pretend you’re the watermelon first. Give the all-controlling creator a little shock.”

“When things hurt the most—remember to smile.”