Chapter 31 He Is Both Prisoner and Guard

Feng Bujue paid no heed to the changing surroundings, continuing to speak as if to himself, "When you declared you voted not guilty for Billy and Olden, to my mind, that already revealed your position." He sneered. "Those two were accused of 'spreading chaos,' and they were certainly not wronged. It would have been strange if they were found innocent." He shrugged. "Billy liked 'to confine people and play a game,' and Olden was 'tell me a ghost story or I'll kill you.' As for Rabit and Bugs Bunny… hehe…"

The Prophet still did not respond, but the LEGO bricks around them trembled even more violently.

Feng Bujue speculated, "In my opinion… you weren't idle in court that day either, apart from the two rabbits. As Rabit's old friend, you obviously stood on his side. Your attitudes towards the chaos faction are also consistent. So…" He flicked his arm, pointing at the rhomboid with a finger, "There's only one truth!"

"Suddenly uttering that famous line without any sense of incongruity…" Xiao Tan said, his lips twitching.

Continuing from his previous statement, Jue-ge said to the Prophet, "You, like Rabit, were also detained for contempt of court… Hmph… it's just that your place and form of detention are different from his. Rabit, Billy, and Olden were imprisoned in the prison created by the Lord of Time, while you are imprisoned here."

As soon as he finished speaking, the bricks on the walls and floor of the room suddenly stopped floating. The rhomboid unexpectedly collapsed, the LEGO bricks scattering all over the ground, revealing a huge (for the toy-sized Jue-ge and Xiao Tan) head inside. Clearly, this was the Prophet's own 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. "So you're a Wookiee (wookiees, a fictional race in Star Wars, covered in long hair, mostly brown, with faces like long-haired Shih Tzus)?"

Judging from the head alone, the Prophet certainly fit the image of a Wookiee, but he replied in a rather displeased tone, "No."

"Indeed, your thoughts and actions aren't like a Wookiee," Feng Bujue said. "It's just… seeing your true face, I can't help but ask, are there really any 'humans' among your so-called 'twelve-person jury'?" It wasn't unreasonable for him to ask this, because none of the three jury members he knew were human.

"Hmph…" the Prophet's head, floating in mid-air, replied with a cold laugh, "Do you think there are that many races in the multiverse? You humans are just a small part of it."

"Alright, let's put that question aside for now. Since you've given up the pretense, we can speak frankly, right?" Feng Bujue said.

Now that things had come to this, the Prophet was too lazy to hide anything; it was something that wouldn't hurt to talk about anyway. "Since you insist on getting to the bottom of things, then you must be mentally prepared for the truth."

"Don't worry, my psychological 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're the one who does the consciousness adjustments to those prisoners?" Feng Bujue continued.

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

"Huh? Why did you do these things?" Xiao Tan asked.

"Let me… tell you a story," the Prophet took a deep breath, as if adjusting his emotions. "Once upon a time, there was a prison. This prison looked like a large supermarket. Inside, there were all kinds of goods, 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 of whom were 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 refilled, bloodstains on the ground would disappear, and so would the corpses of the dead. Only things that recorded dates would change, such as the calendar, which would automatically advance by one day each day, and the production dates on all food packaging would also be pushed back 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 left the building, they would fall into the endless void and die directly.

"Of course, staying in this prison, survival was not a problem; no one would go hungry, and there were even many recreational facilities to pass the time, after all, resources were inexhaustible.

"At least for the first few days, that's what people thought…

"But problems soon arose… after each daily reset, new prisoners would appear, randomly dropped throughout the supermarket. Sometimes a few, sometimes dozens.

"This went on for about a week. As the population increased, conflicts between prisoners became more and more frequent.

"Initially, it was a small number of strong, belligerent prisoners, vying for recreational facilities, luxury goods, expensive food, beautiful women, and so on. During that period, the prisoners' basic survival needs were not yet threatened; food and drinking water were abundant, so most people were relatively honest.

"In the weeks that followed, the population unknowingly continued to increase. Until a month later, long lines formed outside the few toilets. Two months later, a third of the supermarket was filled with the stench of excrement, and in the remaining two-thirds, people crowded together to eat. On the tenth day of the third month… those who formed gangs, occupying the gourmet 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 established a set of rules, stipulating that food should be distributed reasonably, luxury goods should be used on a rotational, limited-time basis, and acts of infringing on others, such as robbery, murder, and rape, should be punished. They even created a population registration system…"

"This might 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."

"That's the contradiction of human nature…" Xiao Tan also muttered thoughtfully, "When living in a civilized society, people crave freedom and indulgence. But under the law of the jungle, people yearn for security and order."

The Prophet sighed again, then continued to narrate, "However, politics is ultimately a dirty thing. With the implementation of the system, there had to be enforcers, and those supervisors, having put in the work, naturally wanted to share more resources. And the problem of the increasing number of prisoners was not fundamentally solved.

"Therefore, after a period of time, two months and three days after the first massacre to be exact… resources once again fell into a serious crisis. It was then that people realized that the management institution had become another hegemonic group oppressing other prisoners, no different from the original group of bullies who had been slaughtered.

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

"Thus, hundreds of survivors reached a consensus – to kill every batch of new prisoners that arrived from that day forward.

"This went on for a long time. During that period, after each midnight reset, the first thing the old prisoners had to do was to find the new prisoners appearing throughout the supermarket and kill them all. Then, they could live in peace for the day.

"But the number of new prisoners thrown in each day was not fixed, and over time, some would inevitably slip through the net. And some, out of selfishness, secretly kept some beautiful women and hid them, forcing them to be slaves on the condition that they would not be killed.

"In short… after a period of accumulation, the contradictions finally erupted. After that, a new landscape emerged; the prisoners were divided into several different factions, each occupying an area. Each faction had its own way of doing things, its own principles and positions. They fought each other for resources, and although there were casualties on both sides, they could be replenished by new prisoners."

"Eh?" Xiao Tan suddenly realized. "Isn't this just like the current situation…"

"Yes, almost the same," the Prophet continued. "But not quite." 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 everywhere… or would you rather watch a group of toys fighting a bloodless war?"

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

"Yes, after consciousness adjustment, these prisoners would think of themselves as characters like those in *Toy Story*, living in a supermarket in the human world. When the business day ends, they will come to life and fight for honor. And during the day, they will enter a state of unconscious hibernation under my power," the Prophet continued. "After many experiments and corrections, I have blocked many areas in their thinking. At this stage, the operation is almost perfect. The toys will still avoid the security puppet I send out, but their awareness of 'not being discovered by humans' is limited to this."

The Prophet took a deep breath and said, "When I was imprisoned in this prison, the charges were not only contempt of court, but more importantly, my 'inclination towards chaos.' To punish me, the Court of Truth specially designed this prison, just to show me all kinds of evil in front of me, endless evil… as a form of torture.

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

"But I finally found a way to escape from it…

"I eliminated the prisoners' physiological needs, effectively maintained the population, and limited their activity time, building a system that can be continued indefinitely. While retaining the individuality of the soul, I transformed the complex desires and ugliness of human nature into pure, yet not cruel, fighting will. I have brought you humans – this hopeless race – under control!"

The Prophet became more and more agitated as he spoke. "Now, do you understand? There is nothing for you to 'end' here!" 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 moment, the brick fragments on the ground floated into the air once more, gathering around the Prophet's head, re-encasing it, and forming the constantly changing rhomboid.

"Very well, then…" The Prophet took a deep breath and said, "Ten minutes ago, before you recklessly exposed my prisoner status and pried into everything, I was trying to say this to you…" He paused. "Stop meddling in the war! Find the other two otherworldly travelers, and then get the hell out of here!"