Chapter 118: 116 Reality and Illusion

Li Nuowei looked at the two candies on the table. Intuition told him it was best not to eat either, but a seductive voice inside his heart was telling him, "Pick one and eat it," which left him hesitant for a time.

Red, blue...

Which one to choose?

"I choose red." After hesitating for a long while, Li Nuowei tremblingly picked up the so-called "strawberry-flavored" candy.

"It seems you still like strawberry flavor." Lin Ling smiled slightly. He then took away the so-called "blueberry-flavored" candy. This seemingly unintentional act completely cut off Li Nuowei's retreat, because invisibly, Li Nuowei felt he no longer had the right to make a change.

Li Nuowei took a deep breath, resigned to his fate, and shoved the strawberry-flavored red candy into his mouth.

Strawberry scent, hard fruit candy, sugary, with an aftertaste that lingered on the lips and teeth... A regular strawberry candy with a decent texture?

Li Nuowei first wrinkled his face in pain and squeezed his eyes shut, but the taste of the fruit candy made him unable to help but smack his lips and savor it. Upon careful tasting, he felt more and more that this candy could actually be so ordinary.

He opened his eyes and saw Lin Laoban watching him with a faint smile, appearing somewhat amused. Li Nuowei only felt that he must have been overthinking, imagining Lin Laoban to be too malicious... Perhaps the other party really just wanted to treat him to a candy.

"Is it good?" Lin Ling asked with a smile.

While trying to chew the candy and grind it into his stomach with his teeth, Li Nuowei nodded with a dry laugh: "It's good, not bad... It has the taste of childhood."

Lin Ling nodded, then suddenly asked Li Nuowei a strange question: "Do you think reality is cruel, or beautiful?"

Hearing this, Li Nuowei paused his chewing and thought for a moment. Countless memories of death flooded into his mind, and he couldn't help but smile bitterly: "Reality is perhaps cruel."

"Heh, then let's return to the beginning. Assuming that before you encountered those strange and bizarre things, what was your impression of reality?" Lin Ling chuckled, guiding the other party to follow his train of thought.

Li Nuowei had no intention of resisting Lin Ling to begin with; he would only think along the questions Lin Ling raised and would not make a rebellious answer against Lin Ling's line of reasoning.

Hearing Lin Ling's words, a look of confusion appeared on Li Nuowei's face. It was as if he were flipping through a thick stack of photo albums in his mind, struggling to find the version of himself that was still an ordinary person, who had never encountered any extraordinary things.

Recalling his past before the age of twenty-one, Li Nuowei felt a slight shimmer in his eyes from nostalgia. He chuckled and said: "If it were like that, I would feel that reality is neither good nor bad. Cruel things might happen, but one could always live on with hope."

"Oh, it seems you are in the majority, an optimistic pessimist." Lin Ling clapped his hands with a smile, then stated his own view: "I have met most people, and their views on reality are the same as yours. Only those unfortunate ones who have experienced all the suffering in the world would say reality is cruel, that reality is a hell of misery."

As he spoke, Lin Ling beckoned toward the dark corner of the small shop. With a "Meow," a large black cat that had been staying in the dark corner since who knows when jumped onto the counter and proactively rubbed its head against his extended fingers.

Lin Ling grabbed the cat's rear with both hands, the black soft fur and flesh between his fingers rippling with the massaging motion, looking completely soft. The black cat lay comfortably on the counter, swinging its long, slender tail contentedly.

While petting the cat, Lin Ling continued: "Humans are creatures that yearn for light and hope, yet feel close to darkness and despair. A tragic fate can more easily resonate with humans. So, when most people like you hear or see the miserable lives of others, people will recall their own painful experiences. Painful memories are always impressive, so in their hearts, they will unhesitatingly lean toward them slightly, and then sigh in their hearts, 'That is so damn real.'"

And when someone speaks of their beautiful life in front of others, people find it hard to resonate, only feeling that it is fake, that it is an act. Life is unsatisfactory eight or nine times out of ten; how could this person have taken all the good? They secretly envy or even feel jealous, comforting themselves that 'that is fake.'"

"Therefore, synthesizing human thoughts, I think so-called reality is composed of 'cruel truth' and 'beautiful illusion' together."

After hearing Lin Ling's view, Li Nuowei only felt that Lin Laoban's ideas were very unique. Although they carried a touch of sophistry, they unexpectedly coincided with human sentiment, and he felt they made some sense.

But immediately after, Li Nuowei felt as if the sky were about to collapse. He heard Lin Ling say: "So I was thinking, if we split truth and illusion in two and clearly define the boundary between reality and illusion, when people can only see the truth, or when people can only see the illusion, can they still distinguish the correct reality?"

Lin Ling looked at Li Nuowei and bared a mouthful of white teeth, "And it just so happens that you need to see the path of truth clearly right now."

Li Nuowei's expression shifted. He felt the sweetness in his mouth was the best-disguised poison in the world. His throat constricted, feeling dry and uncomfortable, and he said hoarsely: "So that candy..."

"A candy is just a candy." Lin Ling said with a smile, "Aren't you eating it right now? Isn't the taste real enough?"

Listening to Lin Ling's words, that was clearly a very simple method to distinguish reality, but to him, it seemed it was no longer applicable. He could no longer correctly determine in a short time whether the thing he was chewing in his mouth was really a candy. It might truly be a candy, but it could also be a pill of poison, or it could be nothing at all...

The so-called candy was Lin Laoban's definition of that thing from the start, and he had tasted the flavor, experienced the texture and taste of candy, which was why he considered it a candy.

But could there be a "poison" that is exactly the same as a candy?

No, no... The texture and taste could also be because Lin Laoban instilled the information that "this is a candy" into his subconscious, which was why he perceived such a sensation... No, no...

Li Nuowei fell into infinite self-doubt. His already somewhat chaotic mind went a few degrees crazier at this moment.

Following a chuckle from Lin Ling, Li Nuowei, who had been trapped in a loop of his own thoughts, woke up as if from a dream. Li Nuowei looked at Lin Ling with cold sweat: "Laoban, how long have I been here?"

"If it's just here, time has no meaning." Lin Ling said with a smile, "That will be fifty cents for one strawberry-flavored hard candy."

Li Nuowei paid the money in a daze. He did not know if, besides those fifty cents, he had paid anything else. With a bitter smile, he walked toward the shop door.

"Welcome again next time." Wei Jiang, who had finished tidying up the shop's clutter, returned from outside and thoughtfully opened the shop door for Li Nuowei, seeing him out.

"Brother Wei, thank—" Just as Li Nuowei wanted to offer a word of thanks, his vision blurred. The upper and lower parts of Wei Jiang's figure appeared to be significantly misaligned, as if they had been severed. At the same time, the other party's face was no longer the upright and kind one he had seen before, but a fierce, red-faced mask with angry, wide-open eyes and a pair of sharp fangs protruding from the mouth. Seeing this scene, Li Nuowei trembled all over, his heart in chaos, and he forgot his words.