The Curious Interrogation Process

On the way to the interrogation room, Yuan Zhu was in high spirits. In his mind, he called out to Little Elf, "Oi, did you hear that? That young man just said there were immortals in this world. That elf finger found in the food had received an immortal's blessing while its owner was alive."

Little Elf replied, "I know, but your memory fragments also make it very clear: the dimensional fragment of Duling where the Magic Universe crashed is called the Overseas Immortal Mountain. Aliens who wield magic are overseas qi cultivators. And the one that was eaten happened to be an elf. Immortals = Mages."

"That's the old version you had. I just read a memory fragment. This world has both Buddhism and Daoism in full bloom. A Buddha Head floats through space, and beside Mercury Province stands a Kunlun Divine Tree that reaches the heavens. The Daoist sects even have lightning arts. So the spiritual energy resources missing from the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture may not be impossible to find in this world. We're saved!"

Little Elf said, "Worth noting. I'll put it in the memo. But let me advise you: don't rashly seek immortals or pursue the Dao, and don't come into contact with so-called spiritual energy. If the spiritual energy we need truly exists, it may very well awaken the Immortal Scripture Old Geezer ahead of time. That would not be a good thing."

Yuan Zhu deeply agreed. "Ah, right! We need to find a way to kill it first and completely obtain the highest authority over the scripture. Only then can we awaken the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture again."

Just as he stood energetically outside the interrogation room, an unwilling shout came from within: "You have to believe me, I really am a Transmigrator! A person from another world! I'm not some Duling native—my soul doesn't belong here. Just give me 50,000 yuan now, help me buy enough sacrifices, and map out a spacetime teleportation array to send me home. Then I can immediately repay you with otherworldly treasures worth more than a million! Believe me!"

Then another, elderly voice spoke up. "All right, all right, of course I believe you. Go out and calm down for a while first. We'll consider it carefully. It's not that I don't want to help you, but this month's budget has really been used up. How about we talk again next month?"

"You're fobbing me off! You're clearly fobbing me off! You don't actually believe what I'm saying, do you? You're looking down on me! I am the prince of Ata Ao, the descendant of the God of Glare, the great general who commands billions of Ami!"

"Ahem, Old Wang, you can bring him in now." The elderly voice sounded again from inside, signaling that Yuan Zhu and the other man could enter.

At that moment, Little Elf warned him, "Be careful. That fatty is watching you in secret."

Yuan Zhu kept his expression unchanged and asked inwardly, "Hm?"

"Did you hear the conversation in there? That emotionally worked-up idiot calls himself a Transmigrator and is speaking so loudly on purpose, so he can test your reaction."

Yuan Zhu split his attention in two. While secretly observing Fatty Wang in return, he also put on a curious, gossip-hungry look and eavesdropped on the conversation inside. He appeared interested in Transmigrators, neither avoiding the subject nor looking guilty.

Knock, knock.

Fatty Wang tapped twice on the door with his knuckles, then pushed it open and led Yuan Zhu inside.

The interrogation room was tiny, only five or six square meters or so. A table stood in the middle, with several chairs on either side, nearly filling the entire room.

At that moment, a bearded man with an agitated expression was still desperately trying to persuade the old man across the table to send him 50,000 yuan and teleport him through time and space back to a country called "Ata Ao."

Perhaps because he was too emotional, his eyeballs, pupils, the areas around his eye sockets, and even the capillaries across his cheeks reflected a yellowish-green fluorescent glow, making him look especially bizarre. There was even the tiniest hint of coolness to it—though who knew how he had managed that?

Little Elf had not sensed the slightest trace of "pollution" or "danger" from him, so this change was most likely not caused by supernatural power.

Could it be some racial talent of those "Ababa aliens" or whatever?

The old man sighed wearily. "Old Wang, please take this prince out. Young man, sit across from me."

"No! You can't treat me like this! I'm a prince, I'm divine-blooded, I'm a great general! I—"

Bang! Fatty Wang kicked Prince Sir out the door, then slammed it shut behind him. Only three people remained, staring at one another in the cramped enclosed room.

Yuan Zhu did not dare speak. He sat obediently and quietly observed the atmosphere.

Old Wang said to the old man, "Another one who got wasted?"

The old man unhurriedly arranged the documents spread across the table and replied, "This one's a little different. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been sent here for me to examine. There is indeed something wrong with his soul, but he isn't a Transmigrator. He drank too much illegal, low-quality underground fluorescent soda and fried his brain, causing his brainwaves to sync up with an evil god in the Foam Layer. He was brainwashed over a long period, fed false information, and came to believe it without a doubt."

Fatty Wang stroked his beard and pondered. "Now that you mention it, this sounds a little familiar."

The old man gave a helpless laugh. "Right, it's that useless evil god of Water of Pink from last year. It can only remotely brainwash victims through cheap fluorescent soda, instill Sacrifice Knowledge in them, and promise false rewards. Then it tricks them into pooling money for sacrifices to it. Once it has bled them dry, it stops responding and picks the next target."

"This evil god is fairly sensible too. It never causes major incidents, keeping the cases at the ordinary-person level, so the Security Bureau has never had the time to deal with it. But at the end of last year, there were too many similar evil-god fraud cases, and its scheme was exposed. Who would've thought it had switched to a new trick and started running Transmigrator scams? Since we'd never encountered one before, they thought it might really be a Transmigrator and sent him here for me to check."

Old Wang suddenly understood. "That's why the smell was so familiar. So it's still that useless thing."

Yuan Zhu pricked up his ears as he listened, once again revising the lower limit of his understanding of local evil gods. Were they really this low-rent? This was basically the otherworld version of 'I am Qin Shi Huang, send me 50 for Crazy Thursday'—such a brain-dead scam. And people actually fell for it.

The old man suddenly said to Yuan Zhu, "Young man, take this as a warning. Never casually drink illegally made, low-quality underground beverages in the future. Even in high-end bars, you need to be careful with drinks mixed by bartenders. Losing your virtue while drunk is a small matter; frying your brain and drawing the attention of evil spirits would be a disaster."

Yuan Zhu nodded obediently. "I'll remember that."

"Fine, then let's begin the test." The old man lifted a fully sealed metal box from a drawer beside him. He carefully opened it and took out a stack of papers?

Beep beep beep! A high-energy Pollution Source has been detected, radiating harmful energy outward. Soul Firewall operating. Attack successfully blocked 1 time, 2 times, 3 times...

Yuan Zhu's gaze sharpened as he curiously looked at the colorful paper items in the old man's hand, each with different colors and patterns. They looked like a booklet used to test color blindness.

The old man pushed the first sheet of densely packed, chaotic colors toward him. "Look here. Can you read the number?"

"A number?" Yuan Zhu stared hard, then shook his head. "I can't see one."

The old man asked again, "Then what can you make out?"

Not knowing what the correct answer was, Yuan Zhu could only tell the truth. "I can't make out anything. It's a complete mess—it makes my eyes dizzy. But they seem to be rotating. Are they three counterclockwise spirals in different directions?"

The old man nodded, took out the second image, and pushed it before him. "What about this one? Do you feel dizzy?"

Yuan Zhu said, "A little. It feels like I'm falling."

"In water? Or in the air?"

"Like air. I can hear the wind howling, and I seem to be able to smell grass. Purple grass." Yuan Zhu did not understand what nonsense he was saying either. He was only looking at a picture, so why were vivid scenes and sensations surfacing in his mind?

"Look at this one now. What does it smell like?"

"A metallic bitterness, with a faint hint of salt. My eyeballs hurt a little, like they're being pricked by needles? My tongue feels like it licked a blade and got sliced open—it's bleeding."

"What about this one? What do you feel?"

"I see the blurry outline of a Divine Statue."

"Try moving back. Look again—can you make out what it looks like?"

"Ah, I can see it clearly now. It's a Buddha. Every cranial bump keeps opening and closing, blinking. Its head is covered in eyeballs. The tears flowing out turn into juice. But it doesn't want to let me drink any!"

"Do you feel any discomfort?"

"No. I heard very rhythmic music, and my intestines started tying themselves into knots? What's going on?"

"You have no affinity with this Buddha. He is rejecting you."

"????"

The bizarre test continued. Since he had no idea how he was supposed to respond, Yuan Zhu could only tell the truth. Yet with nothing more than slips of paper, they made him undergo one distorted virtual experience after another, his five senses warped—it was practically like dreaming while fully awake.

Even as he underwent the test, the alarm from the Great Wilderness Immortal Scripture kept ringing in his mind. According to Little Elf's calculations, he had suffered attacks from more than a dozen different Pollution Sources.

None of these corruptive invasions were particularly intense; they were weak enough to be easily blocked. But the quality and purity of every single one was exceptionally refined. If the pollution he had encountered before had all been inferior ink, then what lingered on these paper slips was high-purity pigment refined over and over again.

Vote, recommend, leave a review... If you spot a typo, remember to click the correction button at the end of the paragraph.