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Chapter 760: Revolt And Align

“All the food is issued by Mayor Orlean?” she asked with a frown. “None of you farm or work in the agricultural sector?”

Smith looked like he was quite insulted at Lin Sanjiu’s words. He stared at her intently and denied flatly, “Of course not! We have to go and reflect on our thoughts and soul every day in front of the sacred mountain. And after we finish our reflections and get back to our house, it will be filled with all sorts of daily necessities distributed by the town hall. Those things may be bought from outside, but ask yourself this: where can you find a place like Peanut Town that will take care of your entire family, give you food, and provide you shelter for your whole life?”

“It is just like a sty,” Lin Sanjiu said, her tone cold, “Or other sorts of livestock farms.”

“How many times do I need to tell you that we are different from pigs! The town hall or Mayor Orlean is not going to kill us just to get our meat!” Smith refuted at the top of his lungs, filling the entire corridor with his fury-laden voice. “Besides, I have never heard of a farmer feeding his pig with an unlimited supply of feed! There ought to be a fixed amount of feed to be given to the pigs daily!”

‘Yeah. In your case, Mayor Orlean is the farmer and you are the pigs. He just gives you food and you consume as much as your stomach can hold,’ Lin Sanjiu thought inwardly. Even though she didn’t agree with Smith, she was not going to argue with him anymore. Raising her head, she examined the black box on the wall and said, “You said you have two kids? Where are they now?”

Smith shrugged. “I have no idea.”

‘He has no idea where his children are?’

Perhaps he saw the expression on her face, for Smith then explained fretfully, “They were collected by the town hall the moment they were born to be distributed to the other folks in Peanut Town to be raised. So how the hell am I supposed to know which one is my kid?”

“Why?” Lin Sanjiu suddenly remembered the one-year-old kid that was killed by the police officer and the unconcerned mother. “I have seen one before, so it isn’t a coincidence?”

“Huh? I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Smith threw a surreptitious glance at her and continued. “Although Mayor Orlean has crafted natalist policies to nudge us toward having more children, being a parent is a huge responsibility. Besides, even after we give birth to a child, there is a possibility that we will not be the ones to raise them. All of us have different duties, and only those who have passed the examination and have the qualification can adopt a kid from the town hall. Raising a kid will earn a lot of points, so it is a hot job around here.”

“So your wife passed the examination?”

Smith’s expression froze. Then he replied simply, “Yeah.”

“So why can’t she raise her own children?”

Smith looked a little bit flummoxed, and his eyes went blank. It appeared that he had never considered this question before.

After a few seconds, all light returned to his eyes and he waved his hand irritably. “Anyway, that is the law and that is all I can tell you. Kids are the wealth shared by the entire community in Peanut Town. None of us can raise our own kids... and that is what the law said, so, so, stop asking me any more questions!”

It seemed that he would follow every law obediently without asking any questions, and he would never allow people to say he was a bad citizen who could not abide by the law.

The people in Peanut Town could get their partner from the town hall to propagate. After that, the kid that was born would be taken away from their parent and became the common property of the community.

It now appeared to Lin Sanjiu that the concept of the family was nonexistent here in Peanut Town. After several generations, their bloodline would become untraceable, and nobody knew who their real parents or brothers and sisters were. Besides, all of them were not allowed to speak to each other, to say nothing of building friendship.

There was no connection between people, and all of them were dictated like a heap of loose sand by one person—Mayor Orlean. In the end, an uninterruptible triangular relationship was formed that consisted of only the town hall, the sacred mountain, and each individual in Peanut Town.

“I have one last question,” Lin Sanjiu said while she looked at the phrase on her wrist, “Though I already know your answer.”

“What do you want to know?” Smith asked, his eyes sparkling with hilarity. She knew that he wanted to stall her long enough until the police officers arrived and arrested her.

She looked at her wrist.

“Have you never thought about...” Her voice slid out of her throat slowly. She did not know why, but she suddenly felt a strange feeling when trying to say the word. “I mean... freedom?”

“We have a lot of freedom. What else do you want?” Smith answered instinctively. Then, he fell silent and paused for a second before continuing. “Besides, there is no such thing as absolute freedom. If absolute liberty really existed, then does that mean that I could kill whoever I dislike and rob whoever I want? The entire world would fall into chaos! Also, if the police came and captured me where a sentence would be passed upon me, would that be considered as an infringement on my right of freedom? At the end of the day, absolute freedom does not exist. Everyone has to be controlled by a leader, as, after all, this is for our own good.”

He licked his lips, probably feeling thirsty for talking so much. “I am telling you this because I think you are not hopeless and you can still change. As long as you are willing to leave the reactionary side and cross over to the side of progress, I am certain that...”

Lin Sanjiu did not hear what he said afterward, as she was mulling over Smith’s speech. She felt that something was wrong with his logic about freedom, but she couldn’t explain what. The dark fog in her chest was swelling and she had a sense of foreboding.

She let out a sigh and flipped the textbook in her hand as her gaze flitted through each page. Everything that greeted her eyes was about how everyone had to comply with the law and love the sacred mountain.

She hurled the textbook away and went to Smith with the wooden chunk in her hand.

Smith raised his guard when he saw Lin Sanjiu walking toward him.

‘If I’m not mistaken, the next log-in should be within the next minute.’

“I heard something about you guys from Mayor Orlean. I wonder if it’s true or if he was just messing with me.” Lin Sanjiu stopped in front of him, her tall figure casting a long shadow on his body. “If he was telling me the truth, then you will survive. After all, I am much weaker now compared to last time.”

“What?” Although he did not know what Lin Sanjiu wanted to do, Smith became anxious. “What do you—”

He soon got his answer.

The tip of the wooden chunk pierced through his clothes and stabbed into his left chest. Since her strength was greatly affected when she was in the dream, she could not push the wooden chunk any deeper. Smith screamed out loud in pain, the intensity making her head buzz. As he held on tight to the weapon, trying to get it out of his body, Lin Sanjiu took the chance to dart out of the apartment.

Even though the wooden chunk did not entirely skewer through his body, she was certain that Smith did not have a heart.

Just as she stepped into the corridor, all of the shadows behind the holes became agitated. Suddenly, an ear-piercing alarm blared out across the corridor.

“Attention. Please log in to your check-in devices right now.” The same monotonous female voice rang out behind the door of each apartment. “Attention. Please log in to your check-in devices right now”

‘This is my chance to get out of here now!’

She found an opportunity and seized it. While the residents were busy logging in, she stormed down the stairs and ran as fast as she could towards the exit. Along the way, she looked left and right for any suitable weapons, but to her dismay, she did not even come across a bat.

Then, she remembered that all of the food in Smith’s house was cut into bite-size pieces so that they could swallow it easily without needing any assistance of a fork or knife.

In this prosperous and worry-free town where the people had an unlimited supply of food, they did not possess any knives or scissors as all food was preprocessed. Lin Sanjiu never dreamed that the brick and the wooden chunk were the most lethal weapons she could find.

“Warning, a rogue element has breached the town.”

A female voice blasted out from the speakers on the roadside. Her stony voice echoed through the sky. “We will now implement the highest level of martial law. All citizens are to remain in your own houses and to wait for the police investigation. Harboring the criminal is an offense of law and strict disciplinary action will be passed. If anything is found, please report immediately to the police. I repeat...”

She had just come out of the apartment a few minutes ago, yet the town hall had already begun to take action.

‘Could it be that something happened between Mayor Orlean and the tattooed man?’

Lin Sanjiu set her jaw tight as she took cover behind a huge dumpster. Not far away, a camera swiveled left and right as it scanned the area; however, that was not the worst yet, as the camera was not the only one moving around.

Along the street in the distance, a long string of cameras buzzed as they all rotated about. It sounded like a swarm of bees coming out for a hunt.

Without her evolving ability, she was just an ordinary person with heightened physical strength and good reflexes. There was no way she could go head-to-head with the machinery and firearms of Peanut Town.

She thought for a few seconds, and then a series of heavy footfalls fell into her ears. The air was cracking. With a raised brow, she looked into the distance. She saw countless police officers swarming into every street in Peanut Town.

Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath. The offensive stench took its chance and rammed into her nostrils.

If she did not do anything now, there would only be doom awaiting her. If she were to die in Reverie Libretto, her real body in the real world would die too.

However, the main problem was that she did not have any powers right now.

Even though Mrs. Manas could help her and boost her strength a little, that was all she could do. In the face of hundreds of firearms, there was nothing Lin Sanjiu could achieve by having a little more strength.

Lin Sanjiu lowered her head and looked at her wrist again. She had never felt freedom so close, yet so far from her.

“Psst! Hey, over here!”

Suddenly, a voice rang out and made Lin Sanjiu jump. Her hair on the nape of her neck all stood up as she couldn’t believe she did not realize somebody was behind her. She turned around and saw a person standing in the shadows, behind the corner of a wall.

“It’s you!” Lin Sanjiu was startled. She ran her eyes down from the man’s tattooed face to his shoulders, and then she realized that something was wrong. He had lost his left arm. There was nothing but a bloody hole there.

Even though his face was basically covered by his tattoos, Lin Sanjiu could see that his countenance was as pale as a sheet of paper. His lips were bloodless and his voice was weak, “I escaped when he was busy listening to the report. The criminal is you, right?”

“Yeah,” Lin Sanjiu gestured for him to lower himself down to avoid being captured by the camera, “Are you okay? Where is your arm?”

“That b*stard obliterated my arm when I was escaping,” the tattooed man growled lowly, his face clouded over with anger. “Losing my arm in my dream equal to losing my arm in real life. Nobody has ever committed such an atrocity in the Reverie Libretto before. Everyone just comes here to earn something, and it has been so many years since somebody’s been severely injured or has died because of this pocket dimension. Since he dared to break the rule, I swear I will get back at him once we get out of here.”

“So what should we do now?” Lin Sanjiu asked, as she knew the man was more experienced than her. “This is my first time coming into the Reverie Libretto, and I can’t use my abilities now. What do you suggest?”