soul stone

Seagulls circled noisily not far away, and the setting sun dyed the trestle golden.Under the lighthouse, among the reef piles, a hidden cave reveals fire.

"It's really nostalgic..." The nun stroked the smooth and wet reef, "The days when I hid here as a deserter."

The veteran with a chiseled face wiped his nose: "For the crabs and shells around here, it was a disaster day. You were dark and thin at the time. When I brought you water, I almost thought I saw a savage."

"Because of this, I haven't touched seafood so far. The smell makes me want to throw up... Listen, the curfew bell." The nun pressed her ear to the rock wall and closed her eyes to listen.The turbid and low-pitched agitation was like ocean waves, coming in waves from afar, arousing nervousness like a conditioned reflex.

"After decades, the situation in this ghost place is still not much better. After nightfall, another batch of unlucky children will be drawn, and the next morning will be sent to the ferry to die on the front line. I hope none of them are like You run away like that."

"There are also those who return in triumph, such as the one in front of you." Mo Ailei teased.

Veterans are indifferent to compliments.He picked up a branch and poked the fire.The shadow cast on the cave wall fluctuated accordingly.Moelle lifted her skirt and walked towards him.

"Where are your shoes?" The veteran stared at her slender ankle.

"Stayed on shore. Those shoes don't fit well." The nun sat down by the fire.

"Those rocks are not pebbles on the beach. Your feet will scratch." Ibrimer looked away.

"Ibrimer...every time you care about people, you will pretend to be indifferent." The nun tilted her head to look at him, her eyes showed more than tenderness.

The veteran who was hit by the aggressive method turned his head and looked at her: "You are too willful, Mo Aili."

The nun was not angry, but still smiled softly, looking directly into those weather-beaten brown eyes.

"I'm not a soldier anymore. You're no longer my instructor. I know what I'm doing, and I don't need you to tell me what to do."

"Yeah, you've become the leader who pretends to be a ghost, and you might be even more powerful than me."

"To be honest, I have always been curious about how you survived on the battlefield without religious belief."

Ibrimer did not answer.

"Tell me, in my name, you are recruiting war orphans all over the world, don't you want to drive the damn charity to the battlefield?"

"Those don't deserve death, nor are they charities, Ibrimer."

Moelle picked up a wet twig from the ground.The branches are black and thin, just like the deserter girl back then.

"See? Damp branches don't burn. It's like children who have just lost their parents and their homes. Damp in body and mind, stained with tears, musty bread and long absence. The smell of the bath. All I did was give them proper guidance, like this—”

She put the branches on the fire to bake.The tongue of fire licked the black and thin wooden stick, and bursts of black smoke wafted out.After a while, the sticks from which the moisture evaporated became part of the fire.

"They have the potential to shine. Only by dispelling the damp demons can they become the messengers of God and bring light and warmth to this dark world."

The veteran stood up, stamped his military boots on the ground twice, put his hands in his coat pockets, and turned to face the former students.

"'Dispel demons'? Are you trying to manipulate people's hearts?"

"That's the essence of religion."

"Those war orphans... are actually your experiments. How are they?"

The nun smiled slightly: "Why are you so excited? It's not your child."

"They're who we used to be, Moelle."

Moelle stood up too.Across the fire, the two looked at each other.The fire was beeping, and it changed in the eyes of the two, like the warmth of the world, and the temptation of hell.

"I know. That's why I did this... to raise them into good kids who are absolutely kind and completely insulated from violence."

"There can be no absolute goodness in the world. If there is, it is an extremely inhuman goodness, no different from evil!"

"There is absolute evil in the world. I know it better than anyone else. Since there is absolute evil, there must also be absolute good. Where there is light, there must be shadow, and vice versa."

"...you're insane, Moelle."

There was a sound of loading, and the bullet penetrated Ibrimer's coat and shot at the woman on the other side of the fire.The woman stood upright, showing no sign of avoiding it.Suddenly there was a muffled groan, and the thick liquid wet the right shoulder of the skirt.

The nun shook her head and looked up.Still a motherly, reassuring smile.

"You can't stop me, instructor. Mischievous, unruly... I always have been."

She staggered and ran, throwing herself into the arms of a veteran like a child on her parents' bed.

"Since you don't want to, I have no choice but to find the experimental product myself..."

"Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

Through the bulletproof glass, the subjects were tied to chairs, and the electric shocks made them miserable.

In front of you, twenty buttons are arranged in a line, and the marked voltage ranges from small to large.The bottom five buttons have reached deadly proportions.If possible, Bu Xia would never follow these murderous things.He is a world-renowned genius doctor. Doctors should save people, not kill them.

At the beginning of 1999, Bouchard was transferred to work in this underground laboratory.The location is hidden, and you need to tie your hands behind your back and blindfold your eyes when entering and exiting.The content of the work day after day-conducting experiments on "thug transformation".

The modification method is to let the subjects watch extremely bloody and violent films, and at the same time give punitive electric shocks.Associating "violence" with "pain" makes villains have a physiological aversion to violence, so as to achieve the purpose of abandoning evil and doing good.

At first, the subjects were recognizable villains.After several courses of electric shock and isolated observation, they became much more docile.However, the recent batch of test subjects are not typical villains.Many of them were about the same age as Bouchard, or even younger, and looked like ordinary children.For the electric shock experiment, they showed an excited attitude of eagerness to try and healed quickly, but they failed to pass the isolation observation.In an isolated environment where there was no drinking water or food for 24 hours, and the sunlight was so strong that they could not sleep, the rabbits in the room were brutally killed and eaten by these seemingly cured dangerous elements without exception.

By any measure, the experiment was not a success.Bouchard investigated the difference between the two groups of subjects, trying to use this as a breakthrough.

The findings were astonishing.

The first "typical" villains were real criminals from prisons everywhere.In exchange for "participating in the experiment" for the opportunity to gain freedom, the prisoners will come one after another to be the experimental subjects.

But the second group is different, they are not "villains" at all, not even "bad boys".They are war orphans everywhere, participating in experiments just for a bite of bread and a piece of clothing.

But Shadow of War doesn't explain their incurable violent tendencies.

The confidentiality system of the underground laboratory is strict, and even for insiders, it is not easy to investigate.After a long period of observation and deduction, Buscha discovered an even more surprising fact——

Those children are the output of another experiment!

It was another experiment that turned them from ordinary children into extremely dangerous violent elements.

The experimental content is very extreme.Bouchard was unwilling to recall specific experimental projects.In a word, it is to completely shatter the cracked heart so that it will never heal.

"Absolute evil is too hard to find, and it's quicker to make it in the laboratory." The insider revealed, "This is also to prove that your transformation is really effective."

It turned out that the goal of his experiment was to completely baptize "absolute evil" from evil to good.

Bouchard felt unprecedented pressure.

"If people can go from the middle of the scale to one extreme, then there must be a way to make them go from one extreme to the other." Sister Moelle pointed out gently, "Maybe you need to change the method of 'punishment'..."

So Bouchard switched from electric shocks to hormone injections.When watching bloody and violent movies, the injected hormones will cause the subjects to have extreme physiological disgust, which is more disgusting than swallowing vomit.The intertwining of psychological pleasure and physical disgust will cause the subject's spirit to change.When the mental stress reaches a critical value, no matter who it is, it will collapse.Accompanied by it is a drastic change in personality.

Subsequent experiments supported Bouchard's theory.Even the "extreme evil" created in the laboratory, after his "thug transformation" experiment, was baptized without exception to be able to fight back when beaten, not to fight back when scolded, without sex/desire, and would never endanger social security "The New Good Citizen".Even if they stayed in the isolation room for three days and three nights, they would not harm a single hair of the little rabbit.

Buschart is proud of his achievements.Even Sister Mo Allie smiled and praised him as "the world's number one genius doctor".Until one day, the nun seemed to ask unintentionally:

"Your experiment, would you like to go through it yourself?"

The world's number one genius doctor was stunned.Seeing that he didn't answer, the nun didn't insist, as long as he "keep working hard."

Half a month later, Busha met someone he absolutely didn't want to see on the opposite side of the bulletproof glass——

The wheat-skinned boy who looked exactly like him, but taller by a head, sat on the experimental chair with his hands and feet bound, looking at himself in a white coat with a leisurely expression.

"Brother... why are you here?!"

"Are you stupid? You are an experimenter. Even the experimenter doesn't know what he is doing. I, the subject, are really out of luck."

Contrary to his brother's calmness, cold sweat broke out from Busha's forehead.He quickly looked at the nun beside him.

Mo Allie had suffered a gunshot wound not long ago, and her right shoulder was still tied with a bandage that Bouchard had personally wrapped.She was sitting with a cup of black tea in her hand, her voice, which was originally like a spring breeze, sounded like the temptation of a devil:

"I want to see if this experiment is equally effective for the children in the monastery. Your brother Luke seems to be very happy to replace you as a test subject."

Bu Xia immediately understood why the nun didn't insist before.

"Hey, haven't you started yet? I want to smoke." The boy on the other side of the glass urged.

The fingertip stopped less than one centimeter away from the button, and the "world's number one genius doctor" trembled slightly.

"what happened?"

"I...I want ketchup."

"Compared to that, don't you always mind your brother taking your 'leg'?"

"?!"

As if chatting at an afternoon tea, the nun said leisurely: "You and Luke, two people have three legs, and one of them will always be injured. It was you at the time, and it is only fair that it is his turn this time."

Like thunder on the ground, Bouchard opened his big gray-blue eyes, staring blankly at the peeling corner of the button panel.

Bouchard and Luke are rare three-legged conjoined twins.After a separation operation with a very low success rate, the elder brother Luke gained two complete legs, while the younger brother Bouchard became disabled and was rejected by his parents and thrown into the Holy Thirteen Monastery.

Who would have thought that a year later, my elder brother ran away from home and voluntarily joined a monastery—in order to protect his younger brother.The younger brother is weak and unsuitable for fighting, so the older brother specializes in fighting skills.When the younger brother was equipped with a toughened prosthetic leg and was able to stand on his own, the elder brother also grew into a cold-blooded and cruel underworld fighter.

No, it's not like that.

Brother Luke was originally a very gentle person.He wouldn't be what he is now if you hadn't kept him in the monastery.Nor is he sitting there in my place right now.

I don't hate him.It's you I hate - Sister Moelle.

Clenched fists, palms wet.The gray-haired boy looked up.Through the glass, the four eyes meet.

"I owe you this, Bouchard," said the brother.

"The choice is not as difficult as you think," said the nun. "Press the button and you will be reunited with your ketchup."

My heart beat like it was going to pop out of my throat.The psychic pressure in the room was suffocating.

Bouchard closed his eyes tightly, his expression contorted with pain.

His choice is...