Lu Xiao had long been growing impatient. Hearing the Doctor's words, he immediately leaned forward.
"Hey, friend! I've got several questions! Can you answer them?"
The face on the mirror smiled.
"Of course! I'd be happy to serve you!"
Lu Xiao rubbed his hands together.
"My first question!"
"Is this world the world I originally came from?"
"What price do I have to pay for the answer?"
The face hummed thoughtfully.
"One of your fingernails?"
Hearing this, Lu Xiao froze, then fell silent.
"Do you think the price is too high?"
The face asked tentatively.
Lu Xiao's face was expressionless, his dead-fish eyes fixed on the surface of the Omniscient Mirror.
The Doctor held his monocle, his thoughts unknown.
The atmosphere grew extraordinarily strange.
The face said hesitantly.
"How about..."
But before he could finish, Lu Xiao had already torn off his thumbnail and tossed it toward the mirror.
The face caught the nail, still bearing blood and flesh, in his mouth.
"The answer to your question is yes!"
Lu Xiao froze at the answer.
This was not quite what he had expected.
He had originally thought that the world he was in now should be a parallel version of his original world.
But the Omniscient Mirror's answer overturned all of Lu Xiao's previous conjectures.
For a moment, he fell silent.
The face continued.
"Do you have any other questions?"
The Doctor nudged Lu Xiao, bringing him back to his senses.
"Oh! Yes!"
"What is the Near-Ancient Era? What is the Medieval Era? What is the Ancient Era? And what's the price for this question?"
Lu Xiao rattled off a string of questions.
The face froze.
"That counts as three questions!"
No sooner had he said this than he corrected himself.
"But since they're all historical questions, they can also be answered as one!"
"The price is still one of your fingernails!"
Lu Xiao nodded and, without hesitation, tore off another fingernail and tossed it over.
Only after swallowing the nail did the face begin his account.
"Let's start with the Near-Ancient Era!"
"The Near-Ancient Era refers to the century before the calamity!"
Hearing this, Lu Xiao started to speak, then stopped.
Seeing this, the face hastily added.
"The Near-Ancient Era ended 1,300 years ago!"
"1,300 years?"
Lu Xiao exclaimed in surprise.
"Yes! The Calamity Era lasted 1,089 years. Add the time the Innovation Century has existed, and it comes to exactly 1,300 years!"
After saying this, the face hesitated for a moment before adding.
"Consider that answer a free gift!"
Hearing this, Lu Xiao muttered.
"Impossible! Impossible!"
At this point, the Doctor instructed another assistant.
"Take them for an F-Class Memory Erasure first!"
The assistant nodded, then led all the staff out of the containment chamber.
Then the Doctor took out a device resembling a remote control.
He pressed a button on the device, then turned his attention back to Lu Xiao and the Omniscient Mirror.
Now, only Lu Xiao, the Doctor, and the Omniscient Mirror remained in the room.
Even the surveillance system had been temporarily disconnected.
In other words, no third person would know anything that happened in this containment chamber during this time. Of course, the Omniscient Mirror did not count as a person.
Lu Xiao looked somewhat frantic.
The Doctor adjusted his monocle, seemingly lost in thought as well.
Only after a long time did Lu Xiao compose himself.
"Go on!"
The face in the mirror nodded.
"The Medieval Era refers to the period from over 3,300 years ago to over 1,800 years ago!"
"The Ancient Era is the age before the Medieval Era!"
Lu Xiao quickly calculated in his head.
Going by what it said, the Medieval Era refers to the Middle Ages!
Lu Xiao actually knew little about that period of history, only its approximate timeframe.
The face asked cautiously.
"Do you have any other questions?"
Lu Xiao nodded.
"I want to know how to remove the curse inside me!"
Hearing Lu Xiao's words, the face froze, then spoke in a somewhat shrill voice.
"You call that thing a curse?"
Its tone was filled with disbelief.
Lu Xiao nodded.
"My friend, the Prison Doctor, told me!"
The face's tone grew agitated.
"He doesn't understand what that thing is at all!"
Hearing this, Lu Xiao's expression darkened.
"Are you questioning my friend's medical skills?"
The face was startled, then pressed his lips together and said.
"Actually, it isn't wrong to call that thing a curse!"
Hearing this, Lu Xiao narrowed his eyes.
"So, what price do I have to pay for this answer?"
Instantly, a troubled look appeared on the face.
"This answer..."
He began to hem and haw.
Lu Xiao stared at him with his lifeless, dead-fish eyes.
"You don't know either?"
Hearing this, the face on the mirror shook his head frantically.
"It's not that I don't know... it's just that the price of this answer is far too steep!"
"To learn how to remove the curse inside you, the price is sacrificing the entire Present World!"
For a moment, even the Doctor, who was listening from the side, was dumbfounded.
Clatter.
His monocle fell to the floor, its lens shattering.
Lu Xiao frowned.
"Why would that be?"
"Why does removing my curse demand such a high price?"
The face hurriedly explained.
"Because however great the answer's impact on the world, the price paid must have an equal impact on the world!"
The Doctor adjusted the nonexistent monocle on his face.
"In other words, if Sequence 292 removes the curse inside him, the entire Present World will be destroyed along with it?"
The face in the mirror nodded.
"Why?"
Lu Xiao's voice rose.
The face shook his head frantically.
"I can't say!"
The Doctor patted Lu Xiao's shoulder and said calmly.
"Don't panic yet. Didn't Sequence 069 say there might be a way to remove the curse inside you in the Present World?"
"Don't you trust 069's medical skills?"
Only then did Lu Xiao begin to calm down.
"That's right! The Prison Doctor said there was a solution in the Present World!"
"That's right! There must be a way!"
Lu Xiao kept brainwashing himself. Those words were like a ray of dawn in the darkness, or his one remaining lifeline.
As for sacrificing the entire Present World in exchange for the answer, Lu Xiao rejected it outright without even considering it.
Watching Lu Xiao repeatedly give himself these mental suggestions, the Doctor let out a long sigh of relief.
If Lu Xiao chose to obtain the answer, the Containment Facility would have to reassess his containment level.
And once he was reassessed, given the nature of this matter, he would probably be eliminated outright.
The reason the Doctor wanted to keep Lu Xiao alive was that Lu Xiao held great research value.
"Do you have any other questions?"
Before you continue