Experiment (2)

"Of course, you could also risk your life and run to tell those two Daoists, then have them observe it with you. But that was only if you weren't afraid of dying. Killing someone was easy for me. You were no different."

"Oh, right. A friend of my master's, named Meng E, was currently locked up in prison. No matter what method you used, that man had to be released with his name cleared. You could hesitate, be unsure, not know whether to let him go. That was fine. At the very least, make sure he stayed alive. You could release him after those two over there were dead."

"But for your own sake... you'd better pray he didn't die in prison. Otherwise, you were finished."

After Li Yunxin said this, Yin Pingzhi froze slightly. Then he shouted at a bailiff not far away, "Take those two from the Qiao Household to the back. I'll question them later!"

Then, without another word, he turned and ran—straight toward the prison.

Only then did Li Yunxin turn to Liu Laodao, whose face was full of shock. "Let's go. I'm hungry. I heard the main branch of Munan Residence is by the government office. Let's go take a look. Then I'll explain it all properly to you."

"Mm... it seemed I still wasn't used to keeping a low profile while showing off. After doing something like this, if I didn't tell anyone, I just couldn't feel at ease, hahaha..."

Half an hour later, the two were seated in Munan Residence on Willow Street.

It was a private room on the second floor, facing the street. The windows were open, and they could see the bright sunlight without feeling scorched by it. A two-story-tall old willow tree stood by the window, its green ribbons blocking the direct rays of the sun.

Looking out from the window, they could see the people on the street. This was probably one of Weicheng's busiest streets, packed with people coming and going. It could not compare to the pedestrian streets of later generations, but it was not far behind.

Li Yunxin poured the old Daoist a cup of wine. "Drink it. Settle your nerves. When we go home later, buy a string of firecrackers and set them off to drive away the bad luck. Let people know we're innocent too."

The old Daoist accepted the cup with a faintly trembling hand, drained it in one gulp, and let out a long breath. Only then did he shake his head and say, "Brother Xin, was it really you... who killed that prefectural governor?"

The old Daoist loved to drink, but his capacity was poor, and the cup was a medium-sized one. After this cup of Munan Spring went down his throat, he relaxed considerably and was no longer as frightened as before. He cautiously asked another question. "But you... how did you kill him?"

Li Yunxin held the wine cup by his lips, turning it as he stared blankly for a while. A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. "That... was actually an experiment."

"An experiment?"

"Yeah, an experiment." Li Yunxin took a sip of wine. "There was no need to make such a big fuss, really. There were plenty of ways to settle it. For example, it wasn't as though I couldn't get money. If they wanted money, I could put in some thought, get the money, give it to them, and have a proper talk with them."

"Or I could use some method on the Qiao Household and make them stop causing trouble. But first, that wouldn't make me happy—you had to know, living wasn't easy, and being happy was what mattered most. My greatest taboo was having a way to solve something yet still wronging myself. Second, it was for this experiment. I'd never killed someone like this before. Once the experiment succeeded... I had other matters to deal with..."

As he spoke, his voice gradually lowered, forcing Liu Laodao to listen with rapt attention.

Li Yunxin suddenly tilted back his head and drained his own cup, then slapped the table. "Fine. I'll tell you. First, you need to understand a concept. Old Liu, do you know what consciousness is?"

Liu Laodao immediately straightened himself and sat solemnly, shaking his head with grave seriousness. His expression became faintly excited.

Li Yunxin knew that he thought Li Yunxin was about to "expound the Dao" to him. He merely smiled and continued. "Consciousness is a person's thoughts. That was easy enough to understand. People of your time probably didn't just not know about consciousness—they also didn't know about the subconscious."

"Then listen while I explain it slowly."

"Consciousness—right now, you were thinking about what I was saying. Right now, you heard footsteps outside, and you knew it might be the waiter bringing our dishes. These thoughts, the thoughts you could notice yourself, were consciousness."

"But, Old Liu, why was it that when you heard footsteps, you thought it was the waiter bringing dishes?"

"If you thought carefully about it, it was because you knew this was Munan Residence, and knew we had ordered dishes earlier. We ordered dishes, enough time had passed, and someone arrived, so naturally it should be the dishes being served. But the process between 'hearing footsteps' and 'the waiter is bringing dishes' was skipped over by your consciousness. Those skipped thoughts could be regarded as your subconscious—consciousness hidden away."

"Take practicing calligraphy or swordsmanship, for example. When you first learned a character, you needed to think about where to place the next stroke. When you first practiced a sword technique, you needed to think about what movement came next. But after a long time, once you became skilled, you no longer thought about how to write when you put brush to paper, nor how to move when you made a strike—the subconscious completed the middle process for you. It existed; you just didn't notice it. Of course, what I'm saying are the most intuitive, simplest examples, and perhaps not entirely accurate. But they were enough for you to understand—did you understand?"

"Mm... put the dishes here. Bring another jug of wine. Hurry the rest of the dishes along."

It was the old Daoist's first encounter with these concepts, and he was somewhat astonished—very astonished that what Brother Xin was saying was this, rather than the Daoist arts of immortals. Yet as he thought deeply about these questions for the first time, he was equally astonished that Brother Xin had studied them so thoroughly.

He did not know why Li Yunxin was telling him these things, but he still listened earnestly and carefully. After pondering for quite a while, and after Li Yunxin drank another cup of wine and ate a few bites of food, he finally nodded. "Brother Xin, I think I understand."

"Then I'll continue."

"You surely had never seen an iceberg. I reckoned few people in Great Qing had ever seen one either. An iceberg was an enormous mass of ice, as huge as a mountain, floating in the sea. But in truth, the part exposed above the water was probably only one-tenth of the entire mass of ice. The rest, the greater part, was hidden beneath the surface, where you couldn't see it."

"A person's consciousness and subconscious were much the same. What you could notice was only a very small part. The overwhelming majority of things you heard, saw, and thought every day—those things you believed you had not paid attention to and had forgotten—were still in your subconscious."

"For instance, on some earlier day, you might have seen the waiter who had just come in to serve the dishes, only to forget him afterward. Then when you saw him again, you thought, 'Ah, this person looks somewhat familiar.' You thought and thought, but couldn't remember. Then I told you, 'Hey, wasn't this waiter the so-and-so who used to loiter around our home and keep watch on us some time ago?'"

"With that reminder from me, you would say, 'Ah, wasn't he indeed!' You remembered—the consciousness from before had risen up from beneath the water's surface and been accepted by you."

"Then that sentence of mine was a suggestion and a guide for you. Not only could a sentence become a suggestion and guide; a kind of light, an object, even the wind blowing the curtain of our private room could all become guides."