Stuck on One Point

In the Game Room, Lin Mo looked a little troubled. Joanna had not spoken to him for two whole hours.

Why was this kid taking it so hard? Her family must have hurt her badly.

At this rate, my time with Joanna will be up soon. Super Brain, think of something!

Joanna sat with her back to him in the farthest corner of the Game Room, a blue blanket wrapped around her shoulders, her face almost entirely buried in it.

Lin Mo hesitated, then walked over to her. He did not keep apologizing.

If he backed down on principle just because she had gone silent, Joanna would only learn another way to control him.

All she would have to do was show her displeasure, and he would take back what he had said.

So Lin Mo sat down beside Joanna.

He picked up the scattered toys and idly fiddled with them.

The only sound left in the room was the soft clicking of the toys in Lin Mo's hands.

Another ten minutes passed. Joanna never looked back.

But he did not leave either. What else could he do? He had tried his best. If he truly could not figure this out, he might change his plans and leave Vought's research bunker early to go have some fun.

Now and then, he turned a page of a picture book, took a sip of juice that was no longer cold, or pulled apart pieces he had fitted together wrong. He made no deliberate noise to attract her attention, nor did he pretend not to care.

He simply stayed beside her and went on with what he was doing.

Inside the Observation Room, a researcher quietly asked for instructions.

"Should we end this session early?"

Vogelbaum replied, "Of course not. This is one of the few conflicts we've seen between them. Naturally, we should see how they resolve it."

Edgar sat at the back of the Observation Room, leafing through recent newspapers on the American market. Suddenly, he spoke.

"Extend it."

He added, "Let's see which one speaks first."

Minute after minute passed. Near-total silence hung over the Game Room for almost an hour.

At last, Joanna stirred in her corner. She slowly lifted her head from the blue blanket and turned it just enough to glance behind her. Lin Mo was still where he had been.

He sat quietly in the same spot, relaxed, with no sign of getting up to leave. The isolation door stayed shut. No one intervened, and the researchers gave no order to end the session.

Once she was sure Lin Mo had not abandoned her, some of the panic faded from her eyes. She lowered her head again, tucked half her face back into the soft blanket, and resumed her silent standoff.

Another dozen or so minutes slipped by.

At last, a dry, quiet voice broke the stillness.

"Do you like him?"

Her long silence had left her voice tight and hoarse. She spoke tentatively, still facing away from Lin Mo, her shoulders slightly tense. She did not dare turn and meet his eyes.

Lin Mo froze. Where had she gotten that idea? Who was supposed to be the person he liked? For a moment, he had no idea whom she meant.

"Who?"

"That man."

Joanna's voice remained flat.

Only then did Lin Mo realize she meant the badly injured security guard who had fallen earlier.

How had this turned into him liking the guard? What a strange leap.

He let out a helpless sigh and explained gently.

"I don't know him."

Joanna finally turned around, though she remained seated on the floor in the corner. The icy sharpness in her pale eyes was gone, leaving only plain confusion and a trace of hurt as she looked straight at Lin Mo.

"Then why did you help him?"

"I just couldn't let you kill him."

Lin Mo leaned forward slightly and softened his voice, patiently trying to correct her rigid understanding of what had happened.

Joanna frowned, looking even more perplexed.

"You don't know him."

"Right."

"He doesn't know you either."

"Probably not."

"He was going to capture you."

She stared at Lin Mo, the hurt in her eyes growing clearer. Every word was her attempt to explain why she had protected him. In her world, anyone who hurt Lin Mo was unquestionably an enemy.

"Why did you still protect him?"

Lin Mo set down the toy plane pieces in his hands and looked at her seriously.

"Because doing something wrong doesn't mean a person deserves to die."

Joanna's brow furrowed further. She looked utterly lost, but there was a stubborn earnestness in her voice.

"If he did something wrong, I can't kill him?"

"Not every wrong needs to be answered with death."

"But he hurt you." Joanna clung to that point, refusing to yield.

"But he didn't succeed," Lin Mo replied steadily.

"I stopped him." Joanna raised her voice at once, earnest as though she wanted credit for it.

"You did." Lin Mo nodded, acknowledging how she had protected him.

"You stopped him, and that was enough."

Joanna was quiet for a moment, then softly went over what had happened.

"If I hadn't stopped him, he would have taken you away."

"And I never said you shouldn't have protected me." Lin Mo slowed down, carefully separating what she had done right from what she had done wrong. He was afraid she would keep confusing the two.

"Then why are you angry?"

Joanna looked straight at him, pure confusion in her eyes. She understood danger. She understood protecting someone. What she could not understand was why doing everything she could to save someone she treasured had upset him.

Lin Mo looked at her bewildered yet stubborn expression and sighed inwardly. He knew he had to separate the two things completely if he wanted to change the way she saw them.

"I'm not angry that you stood in front of me."

"I saw you step in to protect me, and I'm grateful."

At the word "grateful," Joanna's expression shifted. Her tense shoulders eased a little, and surprise flickered in her eyes.

"Grateful?"

"The moment you saw danger, your first thought was to protect me."

Lin Mo's gaze was gentle, and every word was sincere.

"You did nothing wrong there."

"What was wrong was that after he could no longer fight back and had fallen, you were still going to hurt him."

"He really would have died."

Joanna stared at him without blinking, stubbornly holding to her own reasoning.

"If he died, he couldn't come after you again."

"But there might be people who care about him."

Lin Mo paused, then spoke more softly, offering a thought she had never considered.

"Just as I care about you."

At those words, hesitation finally crossed Joanna's clear eyes. Her gaze wavered slightly. For the first time, a faint doubt crept into her judgment.

"Someone cares about him?" she asked softly, sounding incredulous.

"Of course."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

Joanna immediately shook her head. The hesitation vanished from her eyes, replaced by certainty.

"If you don't know, then there isn't anyone."

"Just because we can't see them and don't know who they are doesn't mean those feelings don't exist."

Lin Mo picked up an ordinary civilian figure and placed it gently between them, trying to explain it as plainly as he could.

"Look, you didn't know me before."

"If someone had hurt me back then, you wouldn't have known anyone cared about me."

Joanna looked up at him at once, speaking quickly and earnestly.

"But I know now."

"And to other people, there may be someone who cares about him now, too."

That was as simple as Lin Mo could make it, but Joanna still struggled to understand.