Chapter 230 - 229: Asher and I Are Both Pawns in the Game

Chapter 230: Chapter 229: Asher and I Are Both Pawns in the Game

"When I told you about my revenge plan, you told me... to always leave a way out for others, because it also leaves a way out for yourself." Blake Young turned his wheelchair to look at me. "When I was pushed off that roller coaster, all I could think was, ’If only someone... someone would come and save me.’"

But no one did. No one could save him. All that awaited him was fear, pain, and... a lifelong disability.

"To be selfish, Cece... why should I leave a way out for them?" Blake Young smiled, an eerie smile. "Did they ever leave one for me?"

My back suddenly tensed. I spun around, wanting to shout to the others.

’That’s not the exit to the fourteenth floor! It’s Blake Young’s final trap!’

CLICK! The control room door suddenly shut, trapping me inside.

My heart pounded in my chest. I stared at Blake Young furiously. "Let them out!"

Blake Young laughed, a triumphant sound. "Hahahaha... Cece, you can’t save them."

I looked at the security monitor in a panic. After Asher and the others went down the stairs, the exit sealed shut automatically. They were all trapped in that cramped space.

"What did you do in there..." I felt like I was suffocating, a heavy weight crushing my chest. For a moment, I felt myself losing control.

I turned back to Blake Young, dragged him to the floor, and plunged a dagger through his palm. "Let them out..."

By the time I came to my senses, Blake Young was on the verge of death, blood and a faint smile on his lips. "When I was three, I was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. My parents worked tirelessly, from dawn till dusk, saving up for five years to pay for my surgery. I thought... I thought they wouldn’t abandon me. They were my own parents, after all."

"But what happened? On my eighth birthday, they left me at a market and disappeared without a trace."

Blake Young laughed, a sarcastic, bitter sound.

"Later, I was sent to an orphanage. I naively thought that all the kids there were just like me, abandoned, and that if we just huddled together and supported one another, we could have a new family... But the brothers and sisters I believed in pushed me into a bottomless abyss... all for an egg, a piece of bread, a glass of milk, a spot on a roller coaster."

"I struggled. I fought. I wanted to escape. I know that people aren’t purely good or evil. It’s all decided in a single thought—a thought that can make you a demon, or a Buddha..."

Blake Young laughed maniacally, blood pouring from the corner of his mouth.

He pushed my hand away and dragged his mangled legs, struggling to crawl to the wall and lean against it. "In that pitch-black little room, there’s someone... the principal of the special school... I told him that if he wants to live, he has to kill anyone who comes in..."

Blake Young pointed at the monitor, forcing me to watch.

I scrambled to my feet in despair, staring at the pitch-black room on the screen. I frantically looked around for some way to communicate, to warn Asher that someone was in there...

But I couldn’t see anything on the screen, only hear the sounds coming from inside.

"Ugh..."

Someone was screaming in agony.

"Let them out! Open the door!" I couldn’t find the control switch, which meant I couldn’t let Blake Young die yet.

I grabbed him by the collar, my eyes bloodshot. "Asher is still in there! There are so many innocent people! You’re insane!"

Blake Young looked at me and suddenly smiled. But... this time it wasn’t a crazed smile. It was more like one of relief.

His trembling, blood-stained hand gently wiped the tears from my face. "Cece... you’re crying. You’ve learned to be afraid, haven’t you?"

My body went stiff. I abruptly let go of Blake Young.

He just stared at me, as if he could see right through me.

A sudden fear and trepidation washed over me. ’What kind of connection do I have with him?’

’And what does it have to do with this death trap?’

"Let them out... I’m begging you." I couldn’t find the switch to open the secret room. I knew Blake Young had designed this so-called ’escape exit’ to be a death trap.

He hadn’t left any way out, no mechanism to release them.

"Cece, it’s a dead end," Blake Young said, his voice hoarse as he stared at the monitor. "Every ten minutes, the lights in the room will turn on for three seconds. Whether they can survive... that’s up to fate."

I kicked Blake Young in a fit of rage, then turned and stared frantically at the monitor.

Just as he’d said, ten minutes later, the lights in the room flashed on... and in those three short seconds, I saw the floor covered in blood... and a body.

One of the masked men was dead. Howard Finch seemed to be injured too, with a stab wound in his thigh.

But the lights went out so fast that they couldn’t even remember the killer’s position.

Once the lights were out, the room was plunged back into darkness. They had to feel their way around, afraid to move too rashly for fear of hurting one of their own.

"Hands on shoulders! Sound off with your names!" In the darkness, I heard Asher’s voice. He was having his people put their hands on the shoulder of the person in front of them and state their names.

"Zeke Shaw."

"Madeline Quinn." Madeline Quinn’s voice was laced with fear.

Madeline Quinn placed her hand on the shoulder of the person in front of her, who spoke up. "Julian Fletcher."

"Erin Whittaker."

"Lucas Grant..."

"Howard Finch..." Howard Finch must have been injured; his voice was strained with pain.

In the darkness, Howard Finch’s voice came again as he put his hand on the next person’s shoulder. "Your name! Say something!"

In that instant, another sound cut through the darkness. "Ugh!"

Howard Finch was unlucky. He’d found the killer. Or rather... during the three seconds the lights were on, the killer had been watching Howard Finch specifically.

The person he wanted to kill was Howard Finch.

I was sure that by now, Howard Finch was dead.

With Howard Finch dead, the killer’s position was exposed. Zeke Shaw and Asher could take the opportunity to subdue him.

But it was too dark inside. The room was like Schrödinger’s cat; until the lights came on again, I had no way of knowing what would happen next.

I was losing control. I threw the mouse in my hand with a crazed cry and turned back to Blake Young. "What do you want?! The people who hurt you were from the orphanage, and they’re almost all dead! What more do you want?! Asher is innocent! That cop and Madeline Quinn are innocent!"

Blake Young looked at me, his voice hoarse. "Cece... to enter the game is to enter a death trap. You, me... and him... we’re all just players."

He gazed at me with profound depth, his eyes turning red.

It seemed he was certain Howard Finch was dead.

The man he wanted to kill was dead.

"Some people say... that we have future lives, that our souls are caught in a giant net, forever trapped on Earth... I hope my soul is extinguished completely. This world... is Hell itself. Everyone is just playing a different role, all of us tormenting each other..." In Blake Young’s view, what made Hell so terrifying wasn’t some frightening creature or some horrific form of punishment.

It was the people.

Different people tormenting one another.

Most of humanity’s greatest pain and torment comes from its own kind.

Abandonment by family, betrayal by friends, separation from a lover, a stab in the back from a partner...

Members of the gene-crime syndicate discover that after their research reaches a certain point, the more a highly intelligent human’s genes are artificially modified, the more apathetic, ruthless, and devoid of emotion they become.

This is because an upgrade in intelligence means a deficit in emotion. In other words, only those who lack emotion can allow their intellect to ascend to a higher level.

Apathy is like armor for a highly intelligent being. To be ruthless is to be invincible.

"My life... has been so hard. Truly, so hard."

"My suffering isn’t because I lost my legs. It’s because I’ve lost all hope in humanity."

"The mechanism to open the secret room is inside the room itself. With Asher’s intelligence, he’ll get out..."

"What are you doing..." I watched Blake Young, my eyes burning. I wanted to rush him, but it was too late. He fumbled for a pistol at the base of the wall and pressed it to his temple.

BANG!

The small control room fell deathly silent.

The last words he said to me before killing himself were, "Cece... live."

He told me to live.

And yet, he himself chose death so resolutely, without a hint of hesitation.