Chapter 28 Prison and Guardian

Feng Bujue didn't care about the changes around him and continued, "When you claimed you voted not guilty for Billy and Alden, you showed your stance in my opinion." He sneered. "Those two guys were branded with the crime of 'spreading chaos,' and they deserved it. It would have been strange if they had been found not guilty." He shrugged. "Billy likes to 'imprison people and play_a_game,' and Alden is 'kill you if you don't tell me a ghost story.' As for Rabit and Bugs Bunny... hehe..."

The Prophet still didn't respond, but the Lego bricks around him trembled even more violently.

Feng Bujue speculated, "In my opinion... you weren't idle in court that day either, besides those two rabbits. As Rabit's old friend, you obviously stood on his side. Your attitude towards the Chaos camp is also consistent. So..." He flicked his arm and pointed at the rhombus, "There's only one truth!"

"He suddenly said a famous line without any sense of disharmony..." Xiao Tan's mouth twitched as he said.

Jue-Ge continued to the Prophet, "Like Rabit, you were also taken into custody for contempt of court... Hmph... It's just that your place and form of detention are different from his. Rabit, Billy, and Alden were imprisoned in the prison created by the Time Lord, while you were imprisoned here."

As soon as he finished speaking, the blocks on the walls and the ground suddenly stopped floating. The rhombus suddenly collapsed, and the Lego bricks scattered all over the ground, revealing a huge head inside (for Jue-Ge and Xiao Tan, who were toy-sized). Obviously, this was the Prophet's head; there was no projection at all. His main body was in this space.

"Whoa~" Xiao Tan exclaimed when he saw the Prophet's appearance, "Are you a Wookiee (wookiees, a fictional race in Star Wars, covered with long hair, mostly brown, and faces like long-haired Shih Tzus)?"

Judging from the only head, the Prophet did fit the image of a Wookiee, but he replied in a rather unhappy tone, "No."

"Indeed, your thoughts and actions are not like those of a Wookiee," Feng Bujue said. "But... after seeing your true face, I can't help but ask, are there really any 'people' in your so-called 'twelve-person jury'?" He asked this not without reason, because none of the three jury members he knew was human.

"Hmph..." the Prophet's head, floating in mid-air, replied with a sneer, "How many races do you think exist in the multiverse? You humans are only a small part of it."

"Okay, let's put that question aside for now. Now that you've given up the disguise, let's get straight to the point," Feng Bujue said.

Now that things had come to this point, the Prophet was too lazy to hide it; it didn't matter anyway. "Since you insist on getting to the bottom of things, you have to be mentally prepared for the truth."

"Don't worry, my mental endurance is beyond your imagination," Feng Bujue replied.

The Prophet was silent for a few seconds, sighed, and said, "I am both a prisoner here and a guard here."

"Oh... so, you are the one who adjusts the consciousness of the prisoners?" Feng Bujue continued.

"That's right," the Prophet replied. "Not only that, but I also turned them into toys." He paused. "The night watchmen are just unconscious puppets; they were also created and controlled by me."

"Huh? Why did you do this?" Xiao Tan asked.

"Let me... tell you a story," the Prophet took a long breath, as if adjusting his emotions. "Once upon a time, there was a prison. This prison looked like a large supermarket. It had all kinds of commodities, or rather... 'resources,' including food, clothing, fuel, luxury goods, tools, weapons, and so on...

"This prison held thousands of prisoners, men, women, old and young, all human prisoners from 42 main universes.

"Every day, everything in this prison would be reset. Things that were broken would be restored, empty shelves would be filled, bloodstains on the ground would disappear, and so would the corpses of the dead. Only things that recorded the date would change. For example, the calendar would automatically advance by one day, and the production date on all food packaging would also be delayed by one day.

"The doors and windows of the supermarket could be opened freely, but the city outside the supermarket was just a false illusion. If a prisoner walked out of this building, they would fall into the endless void and die directly.

"Of course, staying in this prison was not a problem for survival. No one would go hungry, and there were even many entertainment facilities available, after all, the resources were inexhaustible.

"At least that's what people thought in the first few days...

"But the problem soon appeared... After each reset, new prisoners would appear. They would be randomly placed in various parts of the supermarket, a few at least, dozens at most.

"After about a week, as the population increased, conflicts between prisoners became more and more frequent.

"At first, it was a small number of strong, belligerent prisoners who fought with each other for entertainment facilities, luxury goods, expensive food, beautiful women, and so on. During that period, the basic survival needs of the prisoners were not threatened, and food and drinking water were plentiful, so most people were relatively honest.

"In the following weeks, the population continued to increase imperceptibly. Until a month later, long queues formed in front of the few toilets. Two months later, one-third of the supermarket was filled with the stench of excrement, and in the remaining two-thirds, people were crowded together to eat. On the tenth day of the third month... those prisoners who formed gangs, occupied food, women, and entertainment areas were slaughtered by other prisoners, because the latter had reached the point where they could only eat one meal a day and had no privacy when defecating.

"After that incident, the resource problem was slightly alleviated, but fear remained in people's hearts. Thus, an institution similar to a government was born. They formulated a set of rules, stipulating that food should be distributed reasonably, luxury goods should be used in rotation for a limited time, and acts that harmed others, such as robbery, murder, and rape, should be punished. They even set up a population registration system..."

"This may be the most ironic thing I've ever heard," Feng Bujue interjected at this point. "A group of prisoners trying to implement laws and regulations in a prison."

"This is the contradiction of human nature..." Xiao Tan also muttered thoughtfully. "When living in a civilized society, people yearn for freedom and indulgence. But under the law of the jungle, people yearn for safety and order."

The Prophet sighed again, and then continued to narrate: "However, politics is ultimately a dirty thing. To implement the system, there must be enforcers. Those supervisors have put in labor, so naturally they will want to get more resources. And the problem of increasing numbers of prisoners has not been fundamentally solved.

"Therefore, after a period of time, specifically two months and three days after the first massacre... the resource crisis recurred severely. It was then that people realized that the management organization had become another hegemonic group that oppressed other prisoners, no different from the group of bullies who were slaughtered in the beginning.

"Unsurprisingly, the second large-scale massacre broke out. After a bloody storm, the survivors finally realized that there was only one way to maintain peace, and that was to keep the number of prisoners in this prison at a safe value forever.

"Thus, hundreds of survivors reached an agreement: to kill every new batch of prisoners who arrived after that day.

"Such days lasted for a long time. During that period, the first thing the old prisoners had to do after the midnight reset every day was to find the new prisoners who appeared in various parts of the supermarket and kill them all. Then, they could live a comfortable day.

"But the number of new prisoners thrown in every day was not fixed, and over time there would always be loopholes. Some people also secretly left some beautiful women behind and hid them, forcing them to be slaves on the condition of not killing them.

"In short... after a period of accumulation, the contradiction finally broke out. After that, a new pattern emerged. The prisoners were divided into several different forces, each occupying an area. Each faction had its own way of doing things, with its own principles and positions. They fought with each other for resources. Although there were casualties, they could be replenished with new prisoners."

"Eh?" Xiao Tan suddenly realized, "Isn't this the same as the current situation..."

"Yes, almost the same," the Prophet continued, "But it's not the same." He looked down at the two players. "If you were in my position, would you rather see a group of humans staging all kinds of dirty dramas in front of you every day, deceiving each other, with blood and flesh flying around... or would you rather watch a group of toys fight a bloodless war?"

"So... you used your ability to change this prison..." Feng Bujue continued.

"Yes, after consciousness adjustment, these prisoners will think that they are like the characters in *Toy Story*, living in a human-world supermarket. When the store closes every day, they will come to life and fight for honor. During the day, they will enter a state of unconscious hibernation under my ability," the Prophet continued. "After many experiments and corrections, I have blocked many areas in their thinking, and at this stage, this operation is almost perfect. The toys will still avoid the security guard puppets I send out, but their awareness of 'not being discovered by humans' is limited to this."

The Prophet took a deep breath and said again: "When I was imprisoned in this prison, the crime was not only contempt of court, but also my 'tendency towards chaos.' To punish me, the Court of Truth specially designed this prison, just to show me all kinds of sins, endless sins... as a kind of torment.

"And you humans are the best actors. You are selfish, stubborn, conceited, cunning, fragile, ignorant, arrogant, hypocritical, filthy, barbaric, jealous, greedy, lewd, irritable, stupid, and unrepentant!

"But I finally found a way to break free from it...

"I eliminated the physiological needs of the prisoners, effectively maintained the population, and limited their activity time, building a system that can continue forever. While retaining the personality of the soul, I transformed the complex desires and ugliness of human nature into pure, but not cruel, fighting will. I let you humans--this hopeless race--get controlled!"

The Prophet became more and more excited as he spoke: "Now, do you understand? There is nothing here that you need to 'end'!" He said in a gloomy tone, "I didn't want to say so much, but now that I've said it, you should be satisfied, right? Feng Bujue."

Jue-Ge wiped his sweat, "Uh... okay, you've worked hard..."

At this time, the fragments of Lego bricks on the ground floated into the air again, gathered around the Prophet's head, and re-wrapped it, forming that constantly changing rhombus.

"Very good, then..." the Prophet took a long breath and said, "Ten minutes ago, before you recklessly exposed my identity as a prisoner and relentlessly questioned me, I was trying to tell you this..." He paused, "Stay out of the war! Find the other two otherworldly travelers, and then get the hell out of here!"