Chapter 866: Human Shackles

The next day, I went to find Bai Yang empty-handed and told him the Di She had turned the bookstore into a playground.

Since I couldn't afford to offend a "ground-level Sheng Xiao," I had no choice but to come without any leverage. I figured that matters at the higher levels should be handled by those at the higher levels—it wasn't something I needed to worry about.

I believed that my ability to survive for the past five years was mainly due to my caution and carefulness.

"A white Di She..." Bai Yang nodded after hearing me. "I understand, I'll take care of it. From now on, I'll have him give me the books directly on the Lie Che."

After listening, I fell into that familiar feeling again... I was incredibly curious about Bai Yang.

"Yang Ge..." I asked, "You're at the Ren Ji level now, so how can you make a 'ground-level' one listen to you?"

"'Ground-level' ones are still people, right?" Bai Yang didn't attack me this time and instead answered my question. "As long as they're people, you can communicate with them. Once you communicate, you can find their weak points. And if you grasp their weak points, you might be able to control them entirely."

After saying that, he looked at me and then humbly asked, "What do you think of that idea?"

I swallowed and said, "Yang Ge, where on earth do you learn all this from?"

"Most of it I figured out on my own in the past, but now some comes from books," Bai Yang said. "Thanks to the books you've brought me, but it's still far from enough."

Honestly, I've never been afraid of smart people. What scares me is when someone smarter than me is also more hardworking—it makes me feel inexplicably helpless.

"You've finished thirty books in a month... Is that still not enough?" I asked. "Originally, I could only finish two in a week..."

"It's definitely not enough—I'm still too idle," Bai Yang said, looking at me. "I can't just stand around like the other Sheng Xiao. I have to do something. I'm still racing against time."

"This..." I glanced at him awkwardly. "You're a proper Ren Ji Sheng Xiao now, right? What are you racing against time for?"

"I..." Bai Yang shook his head. "If I told you, it would put you in danger. But I am indeed racing against time—my time is limited."

"Limited...?"

"Yes, I have to do something."

"But now, no one's joining your game, and you don't have books to read. What do you plan to do?"

"Let's have a 'paper discussion'," Bai Yang said. "We can tackle some tough problems together—that's another way to get stronger."

Great, this was exactly why I was willing to get close to Bai Yang.

"No problem," I nodded in agreement. "I know a bit about all kinds of fields. What do you want to talk about?"

Bai Yang lowered his head, stroked his chin, and then said, "Yan Zhi Chun, what do you think of Qian Yi Shi?"

"Qian Yi Shi?" I thought for a moment. "That's a psychology term, right? It refers to the part of human psychological activity that's not consciously perceived."

"Exactly, it's a psychology term. Do you know the relationship between Qian Yi Shi and Hui Xiang?"

"Yes," I nodded. "After your hints and my own experiments, I discovered that the more my subconscious believes my Hui Xiang will succeed, the higher the success rate when I activate it. Not only have I mastered activating Hui Xiang myself, but I've also passed on that experience to those who joined Ji Dao."

"Very good," Bai Yang said. "That saves me a lot of explanation. In other words, the stronger the subconscious, the stronger the Hui Xiang user—you get that. So let me ask you... Besides Hui Xiang, what other effects does Qian Yi Shi have here?"

"What else...?" I lowered my head and seriously considered the question, feeling like this was another test.

If I didn't answer correctly, what Bai Yang said next would probably change.

But after thinking through various aspects, I couldn't come up with any other influences of Qian Yi Shi in this place. Was there really something besides Hui Xiang?

Seeming to sense my dilemma, Bai Yang continued, "The American psychologist Martin Galard conducted an experiment. He blindfolded a death row inmate, tied him to a bed, announced his execution, and told him it would be by bloodletting. Then he scratched the inmate's hand with a wooden stick and used a pre-prepared tube to slowly drip water onto the inmate's wrist. As the sound of the drops went from fast to slow, the inmate felt immense fear. In the end, the inmate died, with symptoms identical to those of excessive blood loss."

"I've heard of that experiment..." I said. "It's a specific example of the 'suggestion effect'—the main cause of death was fear and self-suggestion."

"Exactly. But what if the subject was a dog or a monkey instead... Would it die?"

I thought about it and said, "They wouldn't understand the suggestion, so they probably wouldn't die."

"Good, with that in mind, let me ask you another question..." Bai Yang's gaze suddenly shifted. "Can our Qian Yi Shi make us forget that we're human?"

"What...?" I was stunned—I had a feeling the conversation was heading in a direction I'd never considered.

"Yan Zhi Chun, you've been through the Shuo Huang Zhe game. Haven't you noticed something strange...?" Bai Yang looked at me and said, "We're all dead... We don't even need to breathe... Right?"

"Ah..."

I think I got it.

In that instant, I understood everything Bai Yang was saying.

"If we don't need to breathe," Bai Yang continued, "that means we don't need the basic conditions for survival—we don't need water or food. But have you noticed... We all feel hungry, and some even starve to death."

Bai Yang then covered the mouth and nose area of his mask and said, "We don't need to breathe, yet some die from suffocation. We don't need sleep, but we feel tired from lack of it. Theoretically, we're all in a soul state and shouldn't be affected by these things at all."

My eyes widened slowly as my thoughts became clearer than ever.

"I get it..." I blinked and said, "Even the Yuan Zhu Min can starve to death... That's because all that's left of them is their human subconscious, which believes that not eating will kill them."

"Yes," Bai Yang nodded. "We can never forget that we're 'people,' so we're always chained by it. That's why we can't become the strongest."

"But this is just too abstract," I shook my head and sighed deeply. "As long as we can speak and think, our subconscious will always see us as human."