Chapter 222 : Chapter 222
Chapter 222. Life’s Underlying Hue
Click.
The wire snapped, and the cage door sprang open.
The little blue bird shrank into the corner, trembling.
It had lived in that cramped space for four full years. Long ago, it had forgotten what color the sky was, forgotten what wings were meant for. All it knew was to wait for the little boy to feed it breadcrumbs. All it knew was that there was no wind or rain inside the cage.
It looked at the open door, looked at the violent storm outside, and human-like fear actually appeared in its eyes.
It shrank back, trying to retreat into that familiar corner.
“Fly.”
Logaris reached into the cage, forcibly grabbed the bird, and hurled it out into the rainstorm beyond the window.
The little bird struggled violently in the wind and rain, nearly falling to the ground several times, but in the end it still beat its wings and plunged headlong into the dark forest.
“Even if it falls to its death, that is still better than dying in a cage,” Logaris murmured softly as he looked at the empty cage.
At that moment, the confusion, stubbornness, and final trace of weakness in the boy’s eyes all vanished.
What replaced them was an almost ruthless clarity, a resolve so absolute that he could abandon everything for the sake of freedom.
He turned around and dragged out a ragged cloth bundle from beneath the bed.
Into it he stuffed a few changes of clothes, along with the notebook left behind by that mysterious soul, the one filled with strange formulas and theories.
Then he gave the corpse on the bed one last look.
There was no farewell, no bow.
He pushed open the door, stepped into the storm, and walked out of the village that had trapped him for twelve years without ever once looking back.
Crack.
The silver screens around them shattered apart.
The figure of the red-eyed Logaris began to fade. He looked at Logaris, and a meaningful smile curved across his lips.
“I have to admit, that bit of spirit is worthy of admiration. Even dying on the road in pursuit of truth would have been better than rotting away in mediocrity for an entire lifetime.”
“From the moment you stepped across that threshold, you should have understood that you had already embarked upon that pilgrimage road destined to be walked alone.”
“Mortal emotions are only burdens. Only by abandoning everything can one bear the weight of truth.”
The rain in the illusion was still falling.
Logaris looked at the boy in the scene, carrying that tattered cloth bundle and stumbling out of the village one step deep and one step shallow through the mud.
His “true self” sat on the bench in an easy posture. He did not speak again to sneer or mock. He merely watched the scene, his eyes carrying a kind of coldness that only the person involved could truly understand.
The images began to turn rapidly, as though someone had pressed a fast-forward key.
The young Logaris had no money, no mount, and not even a proper map. He had only once heard the village chief mention it while bragging idly—that in the center of the kingdom stood a sacred land where truth converged, a place called Saint Arcadia Academy.
And with only that vague place name to guide him, he set out.
When he was hungry, he gnawed on grass roots by the roadside. When he was thirsty, he caught a little rainwater. As he passed through an old forest, he was targeted by a wild dog driven mad by hunger.
He was an eleven-year-old child with nothing in his hand but a rusty paper knife. Curled inside a hollow tree, he confronted that wild dog for an entire night. The next morning, the dog was gone. He discovered that his hand had been slashed open by branches until it was a bloody mess, but he did not cry. He merely tore off a strip of his shirt expressionlessly and bound the wound tight.
“You nearly died by the roadside over nothing more than a vague rumor,” the red-eyed Logaris said at last, his tone steady. “Was it worth it?”
“The world is vast. I wanted to see it,” Logaris answered without hesitation. “If I stayed in that village, I could see my death at a glance. A life whose end you can see at a single glance is more terrifying than death.”
The scene shifted again and arrived at a bustling city.
That was the third month of his wandering.
He had already been hungry for three full days. His stomach felt as though it were on fire, gastric acid eating away at its lining. The twisting pain was so intense that his vision had started to double, and even the streetlamps blurred into overlapping shadows.
It was deep in the night, and the instinct to survive had overpowered morality.
He climbed over the wall into a wealthy merchant’s manor. He had not actually intended to steal money. He had only wanted to go into the kitchen and find a few leftover pieces of bread, or even some spoiled cheese.
But the moment he pried open the kitchen window—
Bang!
A loud explosion rang out, and a firelight flared.
It was the sound of a revolver, one of the magitech firearms that had only just begun to rise in this era.
The scorching lead bullet tore through his left shoulder, and the tremendous impact hurled him down from the beam and sent him crashing heavily onto the marble floor.
Logaris still remembered that feeling.
First came numbness, then agonizing pain, and finally cold—extreme, bone-deep cold.
Blood soaked through his clothes as though it cost nothing at all, blooming across the floor in a glaring flower. He lay on that freezing floor, staring at the magnificent crystal chandelier on the ceiling, and only one thought remained in his mind:
The light is beautiful. It looks just like the stars.
He had thought he was as good as dead.
“At the time, I thought the next part of the story would be getting tossed into a foul ditch, or thrown into prison to rot,” the red-eyed Logaris said as he watched the scene, curling his lip. “That is the sort of script this rotten world ought to have had.”
And yet the scene did not follow the script.
In the image, the wealthy merchant came out in his nightclothes, round-bellied and heavyset. He looked at the vagabond boy lying on the floor. He did not curse, nor did he call for a constable. He remained silent for a long time, and then finally waved a hand, telling the guard to lower the gun.
“Go fetch a doctor. Do not let him die here. It is bad luck.”
Logaris woke up on a warm bed.
The wound in his shoulder had already been bandaged. It hurt badly, but the fragrance of medicinal herbs left him in a daze. The wealthy merchant sat by the bedside and handed him a bag of provisions and several silver coins.
“Child, leave,” the wealthy merchant said, his voice deep and heavy. “Go. Go where you want to go, and do not come back again.”
Logaris stood at the manor gate for a very long time with that bag of provisions in his hands.
Inside the illusion, his “true self” watched this scene, and the vicious lines he had prepared caught in his throat. He knew Logaris’s memories. He knew this warmth was real.
“See?”
Logaris looked at his “true self” and smiled. The smile was faint, yet it carried the calm composure of a victor. “Perhaps this is what people call survivor bias, but it is enough to prove the point. The world truly is quite rotten, a gigantic ramshackle farce, but there are always people patching it up bit by bit.”
“Tch.”
His “true self” gave a cold snort and turned his head away. “You were just lucky.”
“The only reason you survived was that this man happened to be in a good mood today, or perhaps because he just so happened to believe in some deity that required good deeds. You were gambling—using your life to gamble on the good or evil in a stranger’s single passing thought.”
The red-eyed Logaris turned around and stared fixedly at Logaris, speaking one word at a time.
“You were lucky this time and met a good man. What about next time? What if the one standing behind that door had been a psychopathic murderer, or a trafficker? Would you still be standing here talking to me about people patching up the world?”
“To rely on the kindness of others is to bare your neck to another person’s blade and then pray that they do not bring it down. That is the most humble way for the weak to survive.”
“A truly strong person never entrusts fate to something as nebulous as ‘luck.’ They control only what is ‘inevitable.’” The red-eyed Logaris’s voice carried a kind of persuasive magic, subtle in its temptation.
“Only when you are strong enough that you no longer need anyone’s charity, only when you can dominate every rule, can you be said to be truly alive. Otherwise, you are nothing more than an insect begging for mercy in the middle of a storm.”