The Kid Is Ruined

Lin Mo came to his senses then, raising his gaze to look at her with a serious and heavy tone, enunciating clearly word by word, "You almost killed him."

Joanna's movements froze abruptly, a flash of obvious bewilderment crossing her eyes. She had never anticipated that her actions to protect Lin Mo would be met with such a tone and judgment.

"He was going to capture you," she bit her lower lip slightly, her tone carrying a hint of grievance as she instinctively defended herself.

"That still doesn't mean you can kill him," Lin Mo's tone remained firm.

Joanna's brows furrowed tightly, her eyes filled with incomprehension as she asked in confused retort, "Why?"

"Because he is no longer in a position to harm us."

"But he came to capture you first." She stubbornly clung to her own logic, refusing to agree with Lin Mo's statement.

"So you can stop him."

"I did stop him!" Joanna raised her gaze, her eyes open and frank.

"You wanted to hit his head afterward," Lin Mo pointed straight to the crucial point, refusing to back down.

Joanna turned her head to look at the indentation on the wall, remaining silent for a moment before her tone stayed flat as ever, "He's still alive."

"Precisely because he is still alive, you almost killed him," Lin Mo intensified his tone, trying to make her understand the boundaries and limits involved.

"Once killed, he won't capture you anymore."

Her tone was far too natural and calm, as though she were merely stating an ordinary, everyday matter.

This made Lin Mo's head ache a little; perhaps he was not a good teacher and guide.

In truth, if Joanna did not exist in this world and a scene directed against him were to happen right now, Lin Mo might just kill them all—which ran counter to what he wanted Joanna to know.

Because this was also his idealism, wanting Joanna to become the kind of person he wished to be, something he himself could not actually achieve.

In the past, he could use simple little stories to teach her gentleness bit by bit, to teach her to treat the weak with kindness, and to teach her to cherish life.

Yet when a real crisis and genuine conflict arrived, those gentle and simple principles almost entirely failed.

The instinct rooted in the marrow of Joanna's bones remained the most direct and extreme method of resolution: completely destroying the threat and eliminating future troubles once and for all.

"You can't be like this," Lin Mo let out a soft breath, his expression growing increasingly solemn.

Joanna looked up at him, her eyes filled with confusion, and once more asked softly, "Why?"

Lin Mo's words stalled, stopping abruptly.

Countless standard answers swirled in his mind: life is irreplaceable, harm must be proportional to the threat, the enforcer should not bear all the guilt for commands, the world has rules and laws to constrain the human heart...

Yet these abstract principles rooted in society, human nature, and rules were far too distant for Joanna, who had never stepped into normal human society, understood no laws, understood no human relations, and understood no bonds.

She did not know that the security guard who made a mistake might have been coerced, and that if he stripped off this protective suit, he was also someone else's family member, someone else's concern, possessing his own life and vulnerabilities.

The world she saw was extremely simple: anyone who wanted to take Lin Mo away was an enemy and ought to be completely eliminated.

From her most straightforward cause-and-effect logic, she had committed no fault at all.

"He was going to harm you."

Joanna spoke again, her tone sincere.

"I protected you."

She gazed quietly at Lin Mo, expectations hidden in the depths of her eyes, obediently awaiting his praise and affirmation just as she had countless times before after completing some small task.

She waited for Lin Mo to rub her head, waited for him to say she did well, and waited for him to praise her for learning to guard and controlling her power.

Yet Lin Mo offered not a single word of approval.

"You did nothing wrong by protecting me."

Lin Mo spoke slowly, first affirming her pure intentions before his tone shifted to solemnity.

"But you cannot kill someone casually just to protect me."

The expectation in the depths of Joanna's eyes vanished abruptly, the light dimming away slowly as the innocent anticipation on her face completely dissolved, stained with a hint of bewilderment and incomprehension.

"He isn't just someone."

"He's a bad person."

"You don't know him, and you don't know if he had a choice," Lin Mo explained patiently.

"Anyone who captures you is a bad person," Joanna's logic was simple and stubborn, not shifting in the slightest.

"It's also possible someone ordered him to do it."

Joanna's gaze sank, her tone decisive, "Then the person who ordered him is a bad person too."

Lin Mo was at a loss for words, unable to refute.

This sudden conflict was a conspiracy plotted entirely by Vought, and the security guards were merely pawns acting on orders.

Yet he could not follow Joanna's logic to its conclusion. Once conceded, she would classify the entire Bunker, along with all researchers and security guards participating in the testing, as "bad people" and view them as threats that needed to be eliminated.

"Even if he did a bad thing, it doesn't mean he has to die right now," Lin Mo kept his patience and continued to guide her.

Joanna's face was full of confusion as she tilted her head slightly, stubbornly asking again, "Why?"

It was still just those two simple words, the exact same question, yet it left Lin Mo utterly speechless, unable to find a single straightforward, plain answer that would let her instantly and lucidly understand.

"Because people aren't like broken toys."

He finally said.

"You can't just replace them when you want, nor can you break them just because you don't like them."

Joanna pursed her small mouth, offering a blunt retort.

"I don't like him."

"So what?" Lin Mo raised his eyes to look at her, his brow ridges furrowing slightly.

Joanna lifted her head slightly, her pupils locked firmly onto Lin Mo, her tone growing harsh bit by bit, carrying a hint of grievance at not being understood.

"And he hurt you."

She took a small step forward, her gaze glued firmly to Lin Mo's face, speaking word by word with solemnity and stubbornness.

"I'm protecting you."

Having said these words, she watched Lin Mo quietly, the light in the depths of her eyes slowly fading, concealing an unhideable confusion and loss.

"And you're still upset."

This was her sole and greatest incomprehension at that moment.

From beginning to end, she felt no perplexity for injuring the security guard, nor did she feel a shred of fear for nearly taking a life. In her cognition, eliminating a threat was simply a matter of course.

The only thing she could not figure out was that she had given everything to protect Lin Mo, yet what she got in return was not his recognition, but silence and a stern reprimand.

"I'm not angry because you protected me."

Lin Mo let out a soft breath, slowing his pace to explain earnestly.

"I'm upset because you kept attacking even after you'd already stopped him."

Joanna was extremely stubborn, instinctively defending herself.

"I was afraid he'd come back."

"You can watch him, you can pin him down, or you can wait for others to come inside."

Lin Mo raised a hand, gesturing gently to define the limits, his tone solemn yet gentle.

"But you cannot kill him outright."

Joanna pressed her lips tightly together, falling into a prolonged silence.

A tug-of-war raged back and forth in her mind between Lin Mo's words and her own understanding before she finally raised her eyes after a long moment.

"You're helping him."

"I'm stopping you from making a mistake," Lin Mo corrected her helplessly.

He finally understood; the original Homelander must have been just this paranoid, stubbornly drilling down a dead end.

"You're helping him."

She repeated word by word, her tone turning completely cold as all softness faded away, saturated with clear dissatisfaction and grievance.

Lin Mo gazed quietly at her abruptly chilled brows and eyes, and he finally understood completely: in Joanna's world, this dispute was never a question of right and wrong regarding whether one should kill someone who had lost the ability to resist.

This was an absolute stance-based choice regarding which side Lin Mo was actually on.

She had stood in front of him no matter the cost, beaten down the assailant with her bare hands, confirmed immediately that he was safe and sound, and risked every ounce of her strength to keep him safe.

Yet looking at Lin Mo in return, he did not soothe her taut emotions, did not feel distressed for the alertness and tension she had just displayed, and did not affirm her pure guardianship.

Instead, the very first thing he did was to speak up and defend the stranger who had tried to harm them.

In Joanna's simple, pure, black-and-white, and extremely exclusionary emotional world, this was no different from the most direct betrayal.